Ryou entered the depths of the cave with her weapon being held in both hands. It was dark, but a few torches were placed on the walls as if to help guide the goblins themselves inside.
She walked with patience and temperance, she knew that it was a beginner's quest but it qa a optional for a reason since no specific information was given to her by the NPC.
Ryou stopped in her tracks as soon as she heard growls and laughter further ahead. The space was tight so she wouldn't be able to deal much cutting damage so she hoped that stabbing would do the trick this time.
She ventured forth and found a small group of three goblins seemingly hanging out in the entry of a more spacious room. Ryou decided to take the element of surprise she was given by picking up a stone from the ground and throwing it past the mothers, which worked as a distraction for enough time to give her the opening attack.
Ryou stabbed easily through the first one's back, going through hi ribs and coming out the other side. There was a lot of blood coming out from the corpse, so she kicked it away from her blade just in time to step back and evade a shank from the next goblin.
Using her higher stature and reach, she kicked him in the head and stabbed through his neck once he stopped being a menace.
Unluckily she wasn't fast enough to evade the third one that had managed to hit her in the back with a wooden club.
It hurt quite a bit, and she could see her HP descending from 160 to 120. Ryou shook the goblin's corpse off of her blade and quickly pushed it against the third one's chest, stabbing through his chest with ease.
Once it was done, she had gained some xp and a few more coins. Unfortunately she didn't had any recovering items so she had to simply wait until she got back to town to heal.
"Damn...Gotta be more careful."
She thought as she noticed the blood steaming off of her clothes and blade. The corpses on the ground were slowly dissapearing into steam as well, it was a nice and quite interesting way to dispose of the corpses after being looted.
"It's a bit warm."
Ryou spoke again before continuing her exploration. The quest's objective was still there, so there were obviously more goblins left to hunt down and kill. As she advanced through the rooms on the dark cave, Ryou took a couple of bad turns and the minimap overlaying itself wasn't helping her.
"Perfect, now I'm lost in here."
She thought as she advanced, noticing a blank space in the map quite close to her. Ryou got curious and decided to look for that since it could mean some extra loot, so with a faint smirk on her face, she ended up facing an ancient wooden door in front of her.
"That's....Ominous."
Ryou spoke her mind as she placed her hands against it, pushing it open and entering a much bigger room than the rest she had been to before, so a really bad feeling started to creep on the back of her head.
Suddenly, the door behind her closed on itself and the room was covered in light as multiple torches were set ablaze on the walls all around it. Ryou's bad feeling became excitement as she saw a throne made of skulls, bones and gold a good few meters ahead of her.
From the throne a creature stepped up and presented itself. A big healthbar appeared on the air as she noticed this was, as she expected, a boss.
"...I am totally screwed."
She thought, obviously bosses were made for people to defeat in groups, so she was very surprised one was down here where a low level secondary quest was held for mostly solo players. There was no time for thinking though, as the beast immediately advanced towards her.
"Agh!"
By mete instinct did she manage to block the creature's attack. He seemed to be wielding a brute-looking one handed sword that was incredibly thick and heavy, which forced Ryou to step aside before her guard was completely broken by the attack.
She proceeded to the offensive, slashing the right side of his shoulder and his back, and noticing the health ar went down by 1/20 of its total, she decided to try her best at dealing with him right here and now.
Such was the battle that unfold. Attacks were exchanged between the Knight and the Goblin Lord. Many of those were blocked by each other, but the few that went trough made easy work of Ryou's HP, specially since the encounter wasn't made to be dealt with alone at all.
Nonetheless, through sheer talent with the sword and careful thinking, Ryou was able to stand face-to-face with this low level boss for enough time to bleedout his HP.
The battle lasted forty five minutes, during which Ryou was pushed to the limits of her own self as she fought with all of her might. She finally finished the boss by stabbing through his side all the way through to the other, impaling his heart with her blade.
This drained what was left of the monster's HP, and gave Ryou the victory she wished for so much.
"Phew~!"
She exhaled a sigh of relief when she noticed the experience points swarming into her. Ryou had leveled up a few times up to Level 5 since the quest was completed and the boss was defeated alone. Ryou crouched a little to check the loot of the boss, it was some really nice quantity of coins, a skilbook and a tittle.
"...That sounds a little edgy doesn't it?"
She thought, but decided to wear it nonetheless. Then she turned to the skilbook, according to the wiki these were used to learn specific skills that could go from crafting to combat and all in-between. And Ryou had gotten lucky since she got a very popular combat one.
It allowed the player to move instantly to a location within 5 meters of them. It had a fairly long cooldown, as expected, but it also provided Ryou with a good opening move that she really did appreciate.
"Guess it's time to go back.."
She said to herself, before turning towards the door and pushing it open, which took some good amount of her remaining strength. And once the path back to the NPC was free of dangers, Ryou headed back since her HP was resting at a very dangerous 5 points, and she really wanted to finish the quest soon.