Chapter 12

Luke scooped up his knife on his way by the first deceased goblin. He held it loosely and tried to flick the blood and eye goop off it, but it had gotten into the pin and would no doubt gum everything up once it dried. He was not looking forward to cleaning it up. He wiped it on his pant leg as best he could, folded it, and stuck it in his pocket.

“What’s a little more blood anyway,” he muttered to himself. Then he set off in a kind of limping lope, favoring his injured leg while still maintaining speed. The goblin with the crossbow wasn’t that far away, and if it was smart, it was running.

He circled around to the base of the ridge and started climbing it, only to find the goblin had indeed fled. Luke had correctly guessed which way it would go though: straight for the camp, and he was in a good position to cut it off. The goblin was uninjured, but even still, Luke was faster.

He wondered about that. So far, he’d encountered creatures that were stronger or more durable than him regularly, but all the goblins he’d seen seemed weaker in every way. His best guess was that they either got less AP per level or spent a lot of skills unrelated to combat. Either way, for the purposes of the next few minutes of his life, he was just happy that he could run down the little bastard before it made it out of the trees.

The goblin was weaving between the brush frantically, trying to tear its way through instead of skirting around. It didn’t have the weight for that kind of forward momentum, and Luke caught up to it easily. It squealed in terror and ripped itself free of the briar patch it had gotten tangled in, heedless of the scratches and cuts it gave itself.

Luke cursed and circled around, but the brush was a thick wall. With his injured leg, he didn’t think he could jump up into the branches overhead. He had to push through if he wanted any chance of silencing the goblin before it reached the clearing around the camp. He was much larger though, and if the goblin struggled to force itself through, it was going to be even worse for him.

Luke grit his teeth, picked the widest opening he saw, and started hacking at it with his mace like it was a machete. It snapped a few of the thicker branches in his way, but for the most part he just got his weapon tangled up. Still, it did widen the gap slightly, and he knew he was more than strong enough to tear it back free.

His coat and his jeans protected him far more than the goblin’s loincloth did, and without the quiver or crossbow that it held onto, he was actually a bit more compact. Shielding his face with one arm was enough to allow him to push his way through without any real injury, though it took another second or two to snap the tangled mess of vines and springy branches that looped around his legs.

Then he was free, and limping into a run again. The goblin was ahead of him, hidden by foliage, but still moving and still making noise. Luke followed the sounds and finally caught up to it just as it was rounding the last line of trees. He wanted to throw the mace again, but he knew exactly how much his earlier throw had been circumstantial luck, and that had barely clipped a target right below him.

Luke surged forward, breaking a few branches off against his body to tear himself free. The goblin was past the trees now, barely five feet ahead of him but fully out in the open. Pain flared up his leg, but there was no more time to take the step he needed to push off his good side. With a snarl, he brought the mace up and fell on the goblin.

Blood and brains splashed across the grass. Before the body could tip forward, Luke snagged the loincloth and heaved himself back into the trees. He discarded the goblin into the brush and took a deep, pain-filled breath. If he’d been just a little bit faster, he could have caught it before it got into the open. Even then, there was no guarantee the other goblins wouldn’t notice. The crossbow-wielding goblin had made plenty of terrified screaming sounds as it ran. All Luke could do was wait and hope.

Almost immediately, he heard the sounds of alarms coming from the camp. “Goddamn it,” Luke snarled.

No kill notification popped up, so he knew he wasn’t out of danger. Other goblins would be actively hunting him soon, and he was already injured. The smart move was to get the hell outta Dodge before he wound up with a goblin spear in his guts. Luke wasn’t moving very fast anymore; he needed all the head start he could get.

A quick peak around the tree showed him goblins coming over the walls and organizing into groups. “Fuck,” he swore again. “Time to go.”

* * *

As it turned out, goblins were decent trackers. They might not see that well in the daylight, though the crossbow bolt he’d pulled from his leg put a lie to that, but there was no escaping them. It probably didn’t help that he was leaving blood behind with each limping step, which of course was attracting other predators.

Even those damn marmots were out in force, probably sensing weakness. He’d killed about twenty of them in the last hour, not to mention eight goblins who’d caught up with him in groups of three. The last one had escaped, which honestly Luke wasn’t that broken up about. He was regretting not putting a few more points into stamina now and didn’t have it in him to keep fighting.

The system must have still thought he was in danger or whatever though, because it still hadn’t awarded him any XP for all his kills. Too bad, because he was sure he’d killed enough goblins and sharp-toothed forest mammals to qualify.

“System, why the hell am I not getting my XP?” he demanded.

“By default, the system does not display notifications while you are in dangerous situations so as not to distract you. As soon as you feel that you are safe, all notifications will appear,” the apparition answered, appearing next to him as it spoke.

“By default? Can I turn it off?”

“Yes, your SysAdmin bloodline grants you access to this setting. Would you like to change it?”

“Yes! What are my options here?”

“If you’ll allow me,” System said with a gesture.

A window popped up in front of Luke with a few options for him to pick through.

[Display message logic selection:]
[Only display system notifications while safe (currently selected)]
[Display notifications immediately]
[Display notification icon in peripheral vision, will open by mental command]
[Play audible tone when a new notification is available, will open by mental command]
[Notifications are audible, only recipient will hear]
[Notification imparted directly into memory (Locked)]
[Notification will be reviewed between time fragments (Locked)]

“Why’re these last two locked?” Luke asked.

“Your administration level isn’t high enough to grant access. You will need to purify your bloodline before they are available for use.”

“Ugh, fine. Uh, for now, how about an audible tone? And go ahead and display all the notifications I’ve got built up. Oh, uh, can you compress the kill notifications? I don’t need a line by line.”

“I’ve saved your preferences, Luke.”

[You have slain 34 creatures between levels 2-7. 907 XP awarded.]

[Congratulations! You have reached level 9. 9 AP awarded for use.]

It might have been nice to pick up some new skills, but right now Luke needed stats if he was going to survive. He immediately dumped 5 points into stamina, then 1 into strength and 2 into agility and perception. The increased stamina was a balm on his wounds, causing the pain to recede and his muscles to flex with renewed vigor.

It was no healing spell, but he’d already determined that stamina increased his natural regeneration and made him more resistant to damage. It had been wild speculation that increasing it would also affect wounds he’d already received, but it looked like that gamble had paid off.

The increased perception also paid off. He might not have noticed the monster crouched in a tree before it landed on him otherwise. It was already on its way down when he spotted it, but Luke hurled himself to the side fast enough to avoid its flashing claws as it landed where he’d been standing a moment earlier.

Too bad for him he wasn’t holding onto his mace when he jumped, and the monster was now between Luke and his weapon. Without hesitation, Luke pulled the blood-gummed folding knife out of his pocket and opened it. The beast, perhaps sensing an advantage, stalked closer and revealed a mouth full of pointed teeth.

It looked something like a big cat if it had fallen into a vat of dark green dye and then rolled around on a sheet covered in hair gel. Everything was sharp spikes of fur, sharp enough that it shredded nearby leaves when it brushed up against them. Every part of this monster’s body was a weapon, and the only consolation Luke had was the knowledge that it didn’t massively outlevel him.

Theoretically, he could kill it. Surely a huge portion of its AP had gone into things like razor sharp fur. It was probably all agility and perception, liable to fold like a lawn chair if he got one good hit in. That would be much easier with a good weapon, but when he tried to take a step around to the side, the cat moved with him. It advanced slowly, constantly adjusting itself as it prepared to spring, and Luke knew he was out of time.

Desperately, he reached behind him for a branch and tore it off with one hand. There was no time to clean it, no time to do anything but bring it around in front of him, an action which got him jabbed a few times by the smaller branches still attached to the main limb. But it was something to put between them, and when the cat pounced, he lashed out with it.

It bent under the weight of the cat and snapped, but it also bled enough momentum off that he was able to shove it to one side with only minimal slashing from its back legs. The cat rebounded instantly and landed on Luke’s back as he scrambled for the mace. Claws sunk in and raked across muscles, easily parting the leather of his coat and the cotton shirt beneath.

Luke started bellowing in pain and spun to slam himself back-first into a tree. The cat came along for the ride, and he definitely hurt it, but he also drove its sharp fur into his back. It felt like a hundred nails all at once puncturing him, and tears sprang to his eyes from the pain. He staggered forward a step, the cat still clinging to his back, and dropped to his knees.

The mace was right there, feet away. All he had to do was get to it and somehow pry this monster off his back before it bled him to death. But in his heart, he knew it was over. He was already injured, perhaps too badly to be saved. Even with the extra stamina he’d just picked up, he was on the verge of passing out.

A sharp, screeching caw was all the warning he got before his insides twisted and a shadow engulfed him. Something hit him hard enough to drive him completely into the ground, and then the weight of the cat on his back disappeared.

Luke groaned and pushed himself back to his hands and knees. He crawled forward the last few feet and grabbed his mace, then flopped over to see what had happened. Just as he turned, the cat hit the ground in a boneless heap of shredded flesh. Perched in a tree overhead, looking majestic as fuck, was his new bird buddy, Red.