Chapter 3: On My Own

Poko left in the direction that the Goblins came from, except he walked along the edge of the forest rather than risk an ambush in the weeds.

After a couple minutes of walking he found another batch of 5 heading in the direction of the door. One of the green bastards actually had a sword and Shield.

After a quick thought Poko decided to ambush them since they hadn’t noticed him yet. They were walking right towards him as he hid in some brush behind a tree.

‘As long as I can kill that sword guy and get some distance I should be fine. Although it might be better to deal with the easier guys first since he has a shield and could block the blow. I think I can kill two before they respond so let’s try that.’

As poko waits and tenses up he regrets not trying to meditate for mana but it was to late for that now.

As they walk up to the tree Poko is hiding behind he suddenly lunges out swinging his dagger using piercing stab on the closest creature and swinging his sword towards another. It was a lot harder to control two weapons and a skill at the same time than Poko originally thought.

The dagger pierced the Goblin before it could scream, killing it instantly. The sword however just gives a glancing blow not dealing much damage to the surprised goblin. Poko quickly swings again before it can respond, the Goblin just barely gets its dagger up but with the difference in size and strength the goblin is quickly overwhelmed and killed.

“CREEEEEEEK”

The goblins give their ear piercing cry, the sword and shield goblin taking the middle and the other two trying to circle Poko.

Poko realizes this is bad, he can’t fight three enemies from different directions so he just turns and runs.

The goblins quickly chase, even though the sword and shield is heavier, that goblin is clearly much stronger and keeps up with Poko as he runs. The other two slowly fall behind, luckily the Goblin is not very smart and doesn’t seem to care that it’s slowly leaving it’s companions behind.

Once some distance is made Poko decides to turn quickly and swing hard at the Goblin, going for a surprise attack to hopefully finish it quickly. The goblin screeched in surprise but manages to bring up its tattered old shield in time.

The heavy blow pushes the shield aside and poko uses this opening to quickly slice with the dagger. Luckily it hits where he was aiming and cuts the throat of the goblin just as the other two catch up.

With a few swings Poko manages to take out the other goblins as well and collects his rewards from all the goblins.

Each normal goblin dropped 1 copper but the sword and shield goblin dropped a shield and 15 copper.

‘Seems like it does drop more for first kills but Felsen didn’t get more for his first kill so it must be a global first. I was right to get a head start then!’

‘I need mana so I should find a spot to meditate, I have one mana back already.’

After finding a bush to sit in that’s well covered poko starts trying to meditate, just like the other skills meditation is easy to use.

As poko focuses on meditation he feels mana all around him and starts to slowly draw some of it in to his body. Following the path mana takes he realizes that there is a core like object near his heart where the mana gets stored. Poko starts experimenting on the best way to meditate to increase efficiency.

After about 15 minutes poko has all his mana back.

‘Seems like meditation gives one mana about every 4 minutes so for 5 mana I’ll probably need 20 minutes. That means it’s 3x faster than natural, that’s pretty good! If only I can meditate while walking, that would be cool!’

After meditation Poko decided to keep going in the direction of the goblins since he needs to find more new enemies before others do.

Poko crosses the creek and walks a bit into the forest before suddenly hearing a howling sound close to his right. The sound is soon followed by a few more around him.

Poko holds up his shield and sword and looks around him, he starts to see movement in the bushes around him, there is at least 4 here.

‘Crap I have no idea how strong these guys are.’

The beasts slowly creep out of the bush to close in on Poko, they look like mangy black wolves, skinny and emaciated. Their are 4 in total, the leader of which has slightly whiter fur and bright green eyes.

Poko decided to try to take out one of them first with his magic. As he attempts to cast lesser Fire he feels his mana escape his core and travel down his arm, feeling very warm all the way down. However once it gets to his hand he feels his sword blocking the outlet of the spell. The fire mana escapes all around the sword and flings in random directions, sending sparks flying.

Despite the failed spell and waste of mana, the wolves recoil from the sudden sparks and fire mana. With this opportunity poko lunges at the closest wolf, the one he was targeting the spell with, and slashes at it with his sword.

The sword manages to cut the wolf which causes it to leap back and whelp, angering the other wolves. Two wolves attempts to claw at Poko from each side, he blocks one with his shield and the other with the sword.

Unfortunately the claw is to wide and heavy (and poko to inexperienced) which leads to him getting scratched on the arm and taking 3 damage.

‘This isn’t great. Now I have no mana and these wolves are definitely faster than the goblins, my previous strategy won’t work on them.’

And a tough fight it was, the wolves continued to slash out at poko, never committing to a full attack, trying to wear him down first.

Poko on the other hand was attempting to defend while counter attacking when he had the chance, he did manage to injure each wolf a little and even finished one off with piercing stab.  Although the leader was definitely the most troublesome.

Despite killing a wolf and seriously injuring another, poko was all scratched up, especially on his right side with the sword. He had only 6 hp left and knew something had to change.

All of a sudden poko leapt forward at the healthiest normal wolf, but instead of using piercing stab he used his shield to bash into it. He knew the wolves would respond, after pushing the wolf over he quickly raised his shield to the left where the leader wolf was attacking from. The heavy hit was thankfully blocked, pushing poko to the right towards the injured wolf as it attacked him.

Poko was waiting for this, poko had his weapon ready and narrowly dodged the injured wolfs weak attempt at an attack, using piercing stab to finish it.

Now with only two wolves poko felt more confident, the pushed over wolf got up and poko backed off once more.

The wolves hesitated, nobody wanted to die after all, but they couldn’t leave after how much time and energy was spent here. Besides the smelly human was injured too, they could still win.

The wolves circled him but poko was not going to let that happen, as soon as he saw an opportunity poko lunges forward again. This time he pretended to try to hit the wolf with his shield and the wolf was ready and leapt backwards. Poko wanted this however as he quickly turned to the leader wolf charging over from behind.

Poko used piercing stab as the leader wolf slashed out. Poko managed to block most of the blow but took 4 points of damage, however he did manage to Pierce the leaders thick hide and killed it! With only two points of hp left to spare, if the other wolf attacked now he’d be dead.

Fortunately after witnessing his pack leader and the rest of the pack being killed the wolf decided against attacking.

‘No matter how injured that human looked or how many times it looked like it messed up, it was always a trap. Why risk it? Why not just catch a rabbit? Now the whole pack didn’t need to be fed and the picky leader wasn’t in charge anymore so why bother with this fight?’

As the wolf left poko breathed a sigh of relief, he really almost died! Maybe that was enough fighting for now.

‘I could use the potion and keep going but I need to eat anyways. The constant use of piercing stab is really exhausting. Oh right, I don’t have any food… I probably should’ve been doing that first.’

The leader dropped a tome. The other wolves dropped nothing, not even a copper.

‘I guess they have been hunted before.’

Poko checked out the tome, hoping for something good!

[Would you like to learn thick skin?]

‘Hmm seems like thick skin increases physical damage resistance. I wish it gave more details, like actual numbers. Oh well, the more skills the better! This might be better than 1 ap into constitution.’

‘Oh that’s right there was skinning skills, I don’t have any but I’m sure I’ll manage. How could I mess up cutting meat as a chef?’

Poko first meditated to get his mana back and then started skinning the wolves as best he can, which was not great. Let’s just say it was a mess and over half the meat wasn’t usable, not that it mattered much with how much was there. Luckily preparing ingredients fell under ingredient identifier so he knew a little about the meat once he got it out.

After packing up his stuff, Poko went back towards the creek, looking for useful herbs along the way. Eventually he found a spot to set up a camp near the creek, he used some thickets and leaves to hide his stuff a little and started looking around the forest for something to eat.