I woke up the next morning to the smell of breakfast being cooked. With the one kill we had gotten that day; the group had received a whopping total of five copper pieces—just enough for some more bread and a dozen eggs. I lifted myself off of the floor where I had been sleeping and turned to look at my lower back as well as I could. There was a wicked scar there, but it could have been a lot worse.
I could hear the voices of the others in the back yard talking softly, so I decided to head out there. As I came through the door, the others stopped speaking to each other and smiled at me.
"Hey, Todd!" It was Grace that greeted me first. 'Thank god she's ok!'
"Hey, Grace, I'm glad to see you doing well! How are you feeling?" She shook her head.
"I'm doing fine; a Cleric healed me." She winked at Tim. "Not even a scar."
"That's awesome! Although I hear they make you look tough!" I turned around to show the others my battle scar. "What do you think? Tough?" I beamed at the group causing most of them to laugh. The only one that didn't was Tim. He sat there with a stern look on his face I could tell he was blaming himself for what happened to me.
"It was so weird! I didn't know that alchemy could do that kind of stuff!" It was Laura this time. For the first time since I'd met her, she looked like she wasn't on the verge of tears.
"What do you mean?" I asked her.
"Well, first she yanked out the knife, which made me barf again. Then she took out some kind of herbs and jammed them up inside your wound, which made Derek barf." Derek blushed a little bit and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.
"Then she took out some thread and a needle and sewed you up! Which was gross, after that, though, she rubbed her fingertip with something and held it over your wound, and some light came out of it, and she rubbed it up the side of your wound, which then just closed up!" Laura was babbling a little bit, but I didn't mind.
"Why do I have a scar then?" Everyone else shrugged their shoulders. The only other healing they'd seen so far was the perfect healing that Tim could do.
"Would you like some breakfast?" Sarah chimed in? I nodded and plopped down next to the fire. She gave me the most significant helping of eggs out of everybody, which I plan on telling her no. I started shoveling food into my mouth.
"So..." I said in between bites of food. "What's our next step?" The others just looked around at each other and then at me.
"Honestly... I don't know." Grace said to me. "It took all of us to take down a single goblin; it almost killed two of us, and injured another." I nodded, thinking back to yesterday when it all happened. The others looked so downhearted. I decided to put my plate down. I put my hands on my knees and bowed my head to the group.
"I'm so sorry. It was because of my incompetent plan that you both got hurt. I apologize. It doesn't look like I'm going to be much use to this group." They all looked at him with shocked expressions before Derek started laughing.
"Are you kidding? You're the only reason that we're still alive!" I was confused, but the others nodded their heads in agreement.
"What do you mean?" I asked. Tim, who hadn't spoken since I got up, decided to take this one.
"According to your teacher, that's what goblins tend to do. If they're trapped, they injure however, many they can then escape bringing back reinforcements." Grace chimed in after that.
"Yeah, if you hadn't leaped on that goblin well, you saw how fast he was. With three injured people in tow, there's no way we would have been able to have time to heal ourselves, let alone escape with our lives."
"That's right. You saved us, man!" Derek said while clapping me on the back. I winced a little since it was still a tender area. "Oooh, my bad," I told him it was ok.
"So I helped?" They all nodded at me again. Sarah spoke up this time.
"More than helped. Because of your quick reaction, we're all still alive. So thank you." The others also offered their thanks. I didn't know what to say, so I just nervously rubbed the back of my head and thanked them back.
Grace suddenly got a serious look on her face.
"We're still in the same position, though." Tim nodded pensively.
"You're right, what are we going to do? We can't even take care of a single goblin without a lot of injuries." We all sat in silence for a minute before a thought struck my mind.
"Hold on, give me a second." I went about preparing another magic circle and made a new hole, then I grabbed some sticks from around the yard and stuck them pointed straight up. "I think we had the right idea with the plan, just the wrong execution!"
Grace caught on to what I was doing immediately.
"You're right! If we put some kind of stakes at the bottom of our trap, if it doesn't kill the monster, it should at least injure it to where we have a fighting chance!" The others caught on at this point.
"But what if we run into multiples of them?" Sarah asked. I thought for a second about that.
"Laura, what type of magic do you use?" She looked at me, shyly.
"I can make a layer of ice on the ground...." We all thought for a second about how we could make that work with the plan.
"What if.." Sarah began. "What if we coat the bottom of the hole in ice just in case the monster doesn't get hit by the stake? It's more likely he'll trip while trying to jump out!" We all agreed to this plan.
"What else do you guys think we could improve on?" Grace asked the group. She had kind of taken on the mantle of being our leader, the title was unspoken, but I was pretty sure everyone agreed. Time cleared his throat and raised his hand. "You have something to add?"
"Yeah, actually, I was thinking that we should already have our weapons drawn and ready by the time the monster gets to us. Last time it took us critical seconds that could have turned the tide in our favor." He was right. If Sarah had an arrow knocked already, she could have fired into the hole and injured the beast. If Laura had her wand out, she could have made it unstable. If Grace had already had her shield where it was supposed to be, she might have blocked the incoming attack.
There were things that each one of us could have done better, and that we would do better in the future. It was nice to talk about this kind of stuff and get it out of the way. 'We'll do better next time!' Once we were confident that the kinks were worked out in our strategy, we decided to go ahead and make the stakes that we'd use for the trap.
The process of making stakes was easy after all. We went to the edge of the forest and collected wood for the fire and as many sturdy branches as we could find for the pit. Once we got home, I helped Sarah and Laura start the fire before they could make more eggs for dinner. We would need to go back out hunting the next day just to afford food. Derek and Grace were using their swords at this time to widdle some of those branches into. Meanwhile, Tim was silently doing his daily prayers. He still hadn't talked to me since I woke up, and it was starting to worry me.
We ate dinner quickly, and most of the group went to sleep. I stayed up, though. Tim was still praying out in the backyard, and I wanted to check up on him.
"Hey man, how are you doing?" He looked up at me and gave me a nod.
"Fine, thank you." He said he was fine, but he certainly didn't look like it. 'Fine, my butt.'
"Are you sure? Cause you haven't really talked to me. Or looked at me since I woke up." Tim opened his eyes and looked at me.
"What do you mean I talked to you during our planning earlier." I rose my eyebrows at him and gave him a sarcastic look.
"You know what I mean, man, that was talking to the group. It looks like you're avoiding me. You do know it wasn't your fault I got hurt, right?" Tim let out a long deep sigh.
"I'm the parties healer, man, and not only that, but I actually like you guys. I'm supposed to be able to take care of you." I shook my head at him.
"It's not your responsibility to take on all of our safety. You did everything you possibly could in the situation Tim, don't beat yourself up."
"But if I jus-" He tried to interject.
"No! No buts! If it weren't for you, that goblin would still be alive, and all of us would probably be dead." He looked away from me.
"It was because of you, I was able to kill it, though, and you almost died in the process." I nodded my head at him.
"That's true, but so did Sarah and Grace. You saved both of them and killed the monster! I'm really glad that you're here, man, cause if you hadn't been, things would have been a lot worse." Tim seemed to cheer up a little bit at that, and I was able to see a small turn up in the corners of his lips. "Plus-." I continued. "This has been a good experience; we talked about each others strengths and weaknesses, formalized a better plan, and gave each other advice on how to be more effective in the future. You'll see it tomorrow." I beamed at him, and he laughed.
"Yeah, I guess that that's true. Just promise me one thing." I looked at him questioningly.
"Yes?"
"Just don't get hurt again." It was my turn to laugh, but the look in his eyes was nothing but serious. I looked back at him, letting my face fall into one that more matched his own.
"I promise." He reached out and shook my hand, then smiled.
"So then it's decided." He stood up and helped me up from our still ongoing handshake. "Let's go ahead and get some sleep, ok?"
"You're not going to hear an argument from me!" I joked back. It was strange, ever since coming to this world and having to pick a job and go monster hunting, I hadn't really thought about making friends. 'I'm glad that I did, though.' I followed Tim back into the tiny house. We laid down on the floor, and before you knew it, Tim was asleep.
I stayed awake for a while, longer, thinking about things. I may have seemed confident to Tim and the group, but honestly, I was scared I almost died if it hadn't been for the extraordinary luck of Master being close by, I definitely would have. 'I'm scared.' I thought, but then I looked at my new friends lying around me, and I felt a little calmer. 'I'll be alright.'