Kalin stands right in front of the gate and he takes one last look back at the park, he can see his mattress in the distance, and after a deep sigh he turns back around to leave, only to be met by... the shifty old guy from last night, his face was right in front of Kalin's the only thing separating them being the gate
Kalin instinctively backed away from him because of that, almost slipping down a hill because of him, "What do you want man?" Ryan just laughs even though there's some obvious hostility in Kalin's tone, "I can't say good mornin to my partner-" Kalin just stares blankly to being called partner "... but uh, I just wanted to know something... you, are you hiding something from me"
Kalin gets visibly startled by this question, "Everyone has secrets man... and i'd like to keep mine to myself" Ryan gets a bit frustrated at Kalin's attitude, "If we're gonna be doing the next trial with each other, I need to make sure I can truly trust you"
Kalin sighs and opens his status window, "What do you wanna know then?" Ryan smiles at Kalin finally opening up, "All I wanna know is what skill type you have, mine is defense by the way" Kalin thinks about the type of skills he has and the answer is obvious even though he didn't get a beginning skill, "I got an attack one"
Ryan's face contorts into a smile, "Alright, we just need someone with a recovery skill and we'd have the ideal party" Kalin nods and begins to open the gate, swiftly walking through and passing Ryan.
Kalin turns back and faces Ryan, "I gotta go now, we can talk about it when I get back" Ryan nods and waves as Kalin walks away
Luckily the park is close-by to the school, although still quite far when walking, Kalin could make it there in a couple minutes with his stats if he sprinted but, he decided against it so he doesn't cause a panic, so he walked normally.
He simply walked for a while, thoughts of all the mysteries that surrounded him ran awry in his mind as he walked, the mysterious person who saved him, his title [Jack Of Nothing], his dreams, and the girl who'd talk to him in his dreams sometimes.
When he thought of the girl he felt a wave of emotions, consisting of sadness, frustration, anger, and the emotion that overwhelmed all the others... grief, he tried to figure out the girl's identity, all he had to go off was her voice though, and besides in his dreams he had never heard anything or anyone similar.
As he's lost in thought he gets startled by a loud scream, it was coming from the alley that he had just passed, now that he realized it, there was a weird presence coming from inside the alley, he had assumed it was a person but when he thought about all the human's he's been around, none of them gave him such a foul feeling.
The foulness wasn't the thing that told him something was wrong though, he didn't need a sixth sense to feel it either, as it was something he was all too familiar with... blood.
He turned around and ran into the alley, it was barely wide enough to run in and even then, the trash laying all around it made it very hard to stay stealthy, he carefully walked to where he heard the noise careful to not accidentally kick some trash, the presence was behind a dumpster at the end of the alleyway, so if it realized he was there it could easily run away.
He made it all the way to the dumpster, and he crouched on the opposite side quickly looking around it to see if the thing had noticed him, luckily it hadn't so he left his cover and crouched near the front of the dumpster, grabbing an empty bottle of beer in case of combat.
Slowly, he walks to the other side of the dumpster, and starts to look over, what he saw almost made him jump back in surprise, 'A goblin... how?' he thought they were all dead because he never felt their presence, but now that he thought about it whenever he fought them they were in huge groups thus, their presence was much bigger.
The goblin was standing atop an unconscious woman who had terrible bruises all over her face, it was sinisterly licking it's stone knife with a pleasured expression, making the stone surface of the knife extra shiny.
Kalin couldn't help but make a disgusted face, he had seen many goblins but none seemed to be so... evil, most goblins were like very violent children who just wanted to play and then would rip your face off, this one though... it was different it's actions weren't intended to be fun instead purely to torment.
He sneakily moved behind the goblin, raising his hand to swing the glass shard... as long as it doesn't block this swing should kill it instantly, he silently takes a deep breath and swings.
To his dismay, the goblin turns around as the shard is nearly to his head, it manages to block it by sliding it off it's stone knife, chipping the shard but luckily not completely shattering it, after blocking it jumps off the women with a flip, sliding on the concrete and looking up at Kalin with a glare
A bead of sweat rolls down Kalin's forehead, this was the outcome he wanted the least, but he has experience fighting goblins so it wasn't terrible, taking advantage of the goblin's distraction which seemed to be analyzing him, he gets into a proper position, maneuvering the shard so that he's holding it in a reverse grip, lookin down at the shard in his hands he becomes unsure if he could take it down with such a small weapon, he mainly used larger weapons after all.
The goblin stands up and after a moment of a tense silence, it sprints forward, jumping up and running on the walls all the way to Kalin, the moment he gets to him, it jumps off the wall leaving a small dent where it's feet used to be, it's dagger was held above it's head, perfectly aligned to cut Kalin in half like a watermelon
Kalin barely manages to avoid by moving his head backwards, still the dagger manages to reach him, slicing him along the chest and leaving a size-able gash along his torso, it doesn't hurt that much thanks to [Pain Resistance], but looking at it is enough to make him panic, as he watches more and more blood escape from the wound and trickle onto the ground.
The goblin lands on the floor and laughs hysterically, tracing where he cut him with his long sharp finger and laughing even more. Kalin doesn't pay it any attention and instead throws the shard at the distracted goblin.
The goblin instantly stops laughing the moment the shard come into contact with him, as it completely tears off his left arm and then shatters on the wall, the goblin drops it's dagger from the pain and stares at Kalin with a mixture of confusion and rage, holding where his arm used to be and baring it's teeth at him.
Neither of them moved for a moment, both because of their injuries but also the fact that they had under-evaluated their opponent, Kalin's injury was already getting better thanks to his [Better Recovery] still it wasn't comfortable to move yet so he carefully observed the goblin waiting for it to strike.
The goblin takes it's remaining hand off his wound, and it grabs it's dagger from the ground, gripping its dagger tighter, it grips the dagger so hard that blood starts seeping from it's fingers.
Kalin realizing that he's weaponless and quickly grabs a glass bottle from the ground, swinging it into a wall, making glass shards fly around and then scatter throughout the alley, and leaving a sharp jagged edge.
He sprints toward the goblin who moves its arm to block Kalin's bottle, but instead it gets kicked, it's eyes open wide with surprise when Kalin's foot makes contact with it, instantly spit flies out of it's mouth and it's sent flying into a wall, crashing into it with a boom and making a crater in the wall, it leaves a splatter of green blood on it and it slowly slides down, plopping on the floor like a rag doll.
Kalin carefully approaches, and he notices that the goblin's presence is getting weaker and weaker, though it still seems to have a minuscule amount of strength left, just as he thinks that, the goblin forces it's head to look up and it stares at Kalin, the hatred apparent from it's glare.
Despite that Kalin doesn't feel threatened, it spits out more green blood which makes a sizzling sound as it lands on the ground, it's voice strains to get some last words out, not that Kalin could understand them, not interested in what he has to say and knowing that he had defeated it Kalin throws the bottle in the nearby dumpster and starts to walk towards the women, until the goblin does something that catches his attention.
First, It coughed up some blood and then it raised it's hand and slowly raised it's middle finger, with a smirk on it's face it says in a very broken voice, "Fu-fuck yew" after one last giggle it's arm fall to the floor and it's head hangs low... it was dead.
Kalin stares at the goblin for a moment and turns around to face the women... who was facing back at him, "U-uh who are you?" as she says that she looks back and forth from the goblin and then at Kalin.
"I'm... Jack, are you feeling alright?" the woman nods, "Yeah, just a couple bruises, and you should worry about yourself y'know you've got a terrible wound yourself" Kalin looks at the gash on his chest and nods, after he looks at the woman with confusion, "You... seem pretty casual about all this"
The woman forces herself to stand up, using the wall for support, "I had to fight a lot of them during my trial, this one was a lot stronger than the ones I was used to, it was my fault for letting my guard down I guess" Kalin just stares at the woman as she speaks he had expected she was in the trials but was surprised by her sudden confession, "You were in the trials too? what type of skill did you get at the start?"
The woman looks at Kalin and hovers her hand above her chest, "Wanna see?" Kalin nods and soon after, the woman's hands start to glow with a green light, which slowly envelop her hands like a glove, soon the green light extends to Kalin's wound, he starts to feel a warm and comforting feeling as it touches his skin.
The dull pain from his gash starts to dissipate, until it completely disappears, and the wound completely closes itself until the only traces of the recent fight are his ripped shirt. After healing him the green light that covered her hands disappeared, and as soon as all of it is gone, she pulls her hands away and starts to wheeze, leaning onto the wall for support.
Kalin dragged his hands against his chest feeling his smooth skin where a terrible cut once was, he has his own recovery skill, but the difference between them couldn't be underestimated, Kalin immediately felt a sense of urgency, when would he have a stroke of luck like this again, "Hey, are you in a party by any chance?"
The woman catches her breath and looks at Kalin slightly confused, so Kalin talks again, "Me and a... friend are already in one, all we need is a healer" She puts her hand on her chin seemingly mulling it over, occasionally looking at Kalin who just stands there patiently waiting for her answer.
Then she clears her throat, "I'll just stand in the back, you and your friend will do the attacking" after she extends her hand and as Kalin goes to shake it he says, "Of course" with a smirk on his face after they ended the handshake the woman formally introduced herself, "Oh, I'm Irina by the way.. sorry for the late introduction"
Feeling the tension finally disappear, Kalin can't help but smile, despite getting an injury he had managed to recruit a healer, and the only thing he had to sacrifice was his shirt, a small sacrifice for a huge gain, but it'd be hard to go to school with his shirt like that, looking down at it he sighs.
Noticing where he's looking, Irina asks, "We're you going to school? in our situation?" Kalin thinks about it for a moment, yeah most people probably wouldn't care about school in his circumstance, "Yeah, education is important"
Irina looks at Kalin dumfounded for a moment and shakes her head returning to her normal expression, "I guess you're right... well if you still wanna go, I can fix up your shirt, I learnt how to sew from my mom, she's actually a tailor or store's right here too" she points to a doorway inside the alley, to the right of the dumpster.
'How convenient' Kalin thought to himself as he looks at the door and then he looks at Irina, "I'll take you up on that offer, thanks" just as he was about to walk in he looks back, he had forgotten about the goblin corpse that was laying there before, yet when he looked back at it, it's body was no longer there, and nor was it's blood... nothing but a green gem was left.
He walked over to it, carefully picking it up and turning it around in his hand inspecting from every angle, he was at a loss, he had killed a many of goblins yet not one had dropped a gem, then he remembered "[Observer]"
And a pinging sound rang in his head.
[A lower green gem, dropped by a goblin, can be used in mana crafting, engineering, or alchemy]
[Would you like to put this item in your inventory y/n]
Without much of a thought Kalin clicked Yes, and the gem instantly disappeared, 'Neat' turning back to Irina she asks, "Did it drop a gem?" Kalin confused on how she knew responds, "Yeah, how'd you know?" She laughs, "What do you mean, gems have like a 80% drop rate"
'News to me' after thinking about his bad luck he gets up and Irina asks, "Is that all it dropped?" Kalin nods, and Irina adds, "Too bad, well let's fix your shirt up now" after she says that she opens the door, and Kalin enters the shop.
The first thing he notices as he walks in is... dresses... so many dresses, bedazzled ones, more tame ones, sophisticated and more casual dresses, were strewn all throughout the store, he felt like he was living in an episode of hoarder's, to move around he practically had to split the sea.
Yet, despite the sheer quantity he couldn't help but admire the craftsmanship, whoever made them was talented even his untrained eyes could see that.
Irina holds her hand to her head a little embarrassed by the mess, "Sorry for the clutter, my mom really likes to design clothes, I swear whenever she has a new idea she runs down here to make it" Kalin smiles at her and reassures her, "It's fine, your mom's pretty good"
Irina looks proud even though the compliment isn't directed at her, "Right? I think it's a waste to limit her works to this store-" she stops herself from saying anything more and she starts to blush, "Sorry I tend to ramble... let me fix your shirt, you can change out of it in that bathroom, and here-" she hands him a spare shirt, which he would've just taken instead, but his school shirt had an embroidered emblem, and they were stupidly strict about uniforms at his school.
Thankfully taking the shirt from her, he goes to the bathroom and changes out of his ripped shirt, swapping it with the new one, after he does so he walks out of the bathroom, and hands her his shirt, and she quickly gets to work on sewing, meanwhile Kalin sits on a chair, waiting patiently while reading a celebrity gossip magazine, which he found more entertaining then he'd like to admit... eventually he had run out of magazine's.
So he watched her sew, she was already more than half-way done, thus he didn't have much to watch, but he was impressed, he didn't know anything about sewing but she was skilled he knew that, so skilled he couldn't tell the difference from before.
They sat in mutual silence, the only sound being the slight clicking sound from the machine, until that too stopped, "Sorry, that took longer than expected, here" she handed him his fixed shirt which he promptly put on in the bathroom, after he tried to give her the spare she lended him, she refused letting him keep it as a thanks.
After exchanging contact info and bidding farewell, the whole affair was over, as he exited the door and stepped back into the alleyway, he stood still for a moment, staring at the now closed door.
And then he started to walk to school once again, making sure to peer into every alleyway on the way, 'you can never be too careful' he thought.
His worries were unfounded as he eventually made it to school, it looked the exact same as he'd remembered, the red brick walls that were starting to grey from age, the entire building was covered in a thick sense of dread.
when you walked through the gate, it caused your shoulders to slouch and your lips to curve downwards.
Kalin straightened his back and took a deep breath, and then... he walked in.