Its been three days now since the contract with Sade. During these days, Sade took me out occasionally to go hunting. I was very sceptical at first, considering she left me alone the previous time. Luckily, this time she personally advised me.
Because the contract only stated that she must teach me to hunt, not what I must hunt or what she should teach. I didn't actually learn a lot from her. One thing I did learn that was extremely useful in my first hunt was Stalking.
I know, it sounds weird, but it is, as it says, Stalking. An extremely useful skill. It requires precision, focus, and, most of all, cautiousness, and for this, my crafting talent comes into play.
My crafting talent lets me have great control over my hands, but precision does not only mean control over one's hands. To be precise, hahaha, sorry, precise!! Precision means having control over everything you do. You must have accuracy in what you do and know when to do it and how to do it.
So although my hands know exactly what they must do, the rest of my body parts, well....they are totally out of order.
Because of this, I had to practice every day by sneaking into Sade's room without her noticing, but as you know, that's basically impossible. The punishment for getting caught was also very cruel.
Cautiousness was probably the easiest thing I needed. Sade taught me a saying, which was, "Never assume it's safe until you know it's safe." But being from another world, cautiousness is a must, so it was easy to understand.
So after a full three days of training and hunting, my information panel now looks like this:
[Name: Conray Darwns
Level: 5 (96/160)
Race: Goblin
Skills: Stalking (Lv. 1)
Talents: Crafting (Lv. 2) Fertility (Lv. Max)]
Yup, I'm finally no longer weak. Although I'm still weaker than your average male goblin, at least I'm not in the league of a rabbit, right?
My crafting talent also upgraded to level 2, and at the same moment it upgraded, a new category appeared, Skills. I tried to see if it only appeared in my information Panel, but every time I tried seeing someone else's skill, there would be nothing there. So I'm guessing I can only see what my skills are for now, that is.
As you can see, the only skill that I currently have is Stalking Lv. 1, but even if it's level 1, most of the creatures I hunted did not even know how they died.
So far, I've hunted 3 Swift Rabbits, 2 One-Horned Bullfrogs, and 1 Leaping Spider. The Leaping Spider was the worst of them all. It sent shivers down my spine every time it jumped into the sky.
Although it was way smaller than me and was comparable to a puppy, but giant spiders like that were truly a horrifying sight to see.
When I saw it, I thought it was at least level 6, or maybe even more, but disappointedly, it wasn't even near that and only reached about level 3, giving a measly 19 experience points.
The two One-Horned Bullfrogs, on the other hand, although only being at level 2, gave a combined point of 43. The three Swift Rabbits, as normal, gave a combined point of 18. Each giving experience points lower than 10.
But levelling up is only going to get harder and harder. Level 1 needed 10 points, level 2 needed 20, level 3 needed 40, level 4 needed 80, and level 5 needed a full 160. The pattern is clear as day, so if I do level up, level 6 would need 320, which is way above my pay grade.
So if I'm going to level up quickly so that I can at least protect myself, I'm going to have to hunt as many creatures as possible, and today, well, the opportunity just arrived.
"Captain!! A group of humans were spotted near the mountains!!" A goblin shouted while running towards the gate.
Having just come back from my hunting session, I was awfully tired, but hearing this made my tiredness instantly fade away.
Humans, having been one for 19 years of my life, of course I'd be interested in them.
Looking at the goblin who shouted, I frowned. He did not look familiar or like anyone in the village. He also wore no rags on his body, but instead clothes. His nose was sharper than the goblins in the village, and his ears were slightly curved at the end.
"Let's check your status, shall we." I said while calling his information up. During these days, not only have I trained my hunting skills, but also took time to examine the video game screen, which I call the system.
[Name: ????
Level: 8
Race: Goblin (Mutated)
Skills: ---------
Talents: Sensory (Lv. 3), Hiding (Lv. 4), Fertility (Lv. 1)]
I was slightly surprised when I saw his race and talents. Mutated, from what I heard from Sade, is a creature whose bloodline mutated, either causing it to grow incredibly weak or super strong. Most mutations always end badly, but once they do end up good, the mutated, gains a true advantage over its race.
Most of the skills that this goblin has are used to assist, but damn, am I envious of him. Sensory should mean all his senses are strengthened. If so, how powerful is that? Your eyesight, 2, maybe even three times better than someone else's. Nose, capable of smelling faint scents even from far away. If I had that talent, I'd be a real hunter by now.
"Goar, why are you here? Shouldn't you be at Skutas village right now?" Kina asked with a frown as she stood next to me. As for why she's next to me? Well, tell that to personal guard duties, which I know she made up.
(So Goar is his name.)
"Captain, I, uh..." Goar scratched his head with a slightly embarrassed face.
"Don't tell me you ran away again!" Kina shouted loudly in anger.
"Umm, more like uh walked." Goar said with a thoughtful expression.
"Then why did you, aaah!! Just go back to Skutas villiage again!!" Kina shouted, clearly frustrated with Goar.
Looking at Kina, Goar's pointed ears dropped low. "Okay, I'll go, but..."
"No buts!"
"Then the humans?"
Listening to Goar, Kina became even more angry.
"Leave the humans; just go!!" She said while slapping him on the back of his head.
"Ou!" He exclaimed in pain as he ran away.
"This is..." Looking at the interaction between Kina and the goblin named Goar made me dumbfounded. Kina's usually cool-headed around goblins other than her Sister and Tskuta (Sade), but now???
"Oh, I'm sorry you probably haven't met Goar yet, considering he spent most of his life in Skutas Village." Kina had a slight look of worry on her face when mentioning Skutas village.
I have heard of Skutas village from the guards during these 3 days, but honestly, I don't know a lot. What I do know is that Skutas village is also a village full of all kinds of goblins, but unlike the goblins here, They have no fixed leader. Skutas village can be regarded as a refugee village. As for why they weren't taken in by Taka village (which is the name of the village I'm currently in), I don't know.
Looking next to me, I also saw the expression on Tskuta's face, which wasn't fully quite right.
If one reacts to something, I'm sure it's fine, but two react to the same thing. There is definitely something fishy going on here.
"Kina." A voice rang out behind me, causing me to turn around.