XXIV

  Eliza POV

  Eliza walked along the slight path that led to a small cave along the rock formations with her small group, clutching her bow tightly, on edge from their findings. They were currently just exploring the forest, hoping to gain a few Ranks in their Abilities after their classes ended for the day in their respective Academies. They managed to run into a few small groups of Stonerock Goblins, which were quite difficult to deal with, but there were far fewer of the goblins than they were told.

  “I wonder where all the Stonerock Goblins are, Valin told me there would be plenty of groups of them in this area,” Tiayla, the female Elf who was their Fighter, remarked.

  “Probably another group went through this area recently. There hasn’t been enough time for them to resummon yet,” Dorrel, the male Human Defender, theorized.

  Eliza looked over to her friend, Helenesta, who was a female Human as well, and had the Calling of the Forager. Helenesta simply shrugged back at her, confused just as she was.

  They continued along the path and arrived at the entrance to the cave. Calling this a cave would be generous, as it was smaller than most mining tunnels she has seen in the nearby mountains. Her dad was a Miner and constantly told her about the specifics of his Calling, which bored her most times, but now she was easy to reflect on the knowledge he gave her.

  Dorrel was the first to walk in, as he was their Defender, and it was an unknown area that didn’t provide any light. She heard him clearing his throat and grunt slightly, and Tiayla followed him in. She coughed once but otherwise remained quiet, making Eliza wonder what was wrong with them all of a sudden. She stepped into the cave/tunnel, and immediately threw up, the rotting smell suffocating her.

  “Yeah, this smells horrible,” Helenesta confirmed behind her, patting her back softly.

  After her small moment of weakness, they walked deeper into the tunnel. Supposedly, there was a loot chest at the end of the cave, which they were hoping they would find, as they could use the upgrades or Tokens that they contained. Helenesta lit a torch behind them, illuminating the dark tunnel.

  They continued on, but didn’t run into any goblins, which made them even more tense, especially since they saw fresh blood on the ground, small puddles here and there, streaks of blood on the rock walls. There was some group who had already cleared the cave from what they saw right now, but they carried on, hopefully they would run into the group and be able to open the loot chest with them, each person getting a piece of loot.

  “Some group managed to get here before us unfortunately, hopefully they didn’t get too far into the cave,” Dorrel said in a hushed voice, confirming what she was thinking.

  After roughly fifteen minutes of slowly crawling through the tunnel, each person tense and breathing shallowly, they reached the main space of the cave. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t see any group in the space, and after Helenesta entered the main space, scattered with various pieces of worn furniture, she waved her torch, and they saw the chest, open and half covered in blood. The hair on her skin stood up, and she shivered, looking at the gruesome display. Everyone took a sharp breath, each seeing the bloodied chest.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Tiayla quickly said, her voice shaky from fear.

  Everyone nodded and turned around, rushing out of the cave.

  Kaz POV

  Kaz sighed in relief when the group decided to leave. He couldn’t really get a good look at them, but from what he saw, it was a group of four people, three Humans and one Elf. They quickly scanned the room, saw that the loot chest was opened, and left promptly. He waited a little bit to move, making sure they wouldn’t see him.

  Once a few minutes passed, he decided to get up and walk after them. He would follow them, as they would most likely start heading back to Sarus. If he realized they were still going on another adventure in the direction he came from previously, he would simply follow them until they got to the road leading to Sarus.

  He slowly approached the exit of the cave and made sure they were quite a distance away before exiting the shadows of the cave. He followed them from a large distance, barely seeing them among the sparse trees, but Kaz never lost sight of them, highly focused as they were his guides to his objective.

  Helenesta POV

  She couldn’t shake the feelings of unease, constantly shivering along with the cold sweat that dripped down her back. She had seen blood before, she even saw it earlier when they were fighting the small groups of Stonerock Goblins, but the way the blood appeared in that cave put her on edge. She wasn’t sure if the others noticed, but most of the blood in that open space was red blood, the blood of a person, not a goblin. The blood on the chest was one from a person.

  Her Forager Calling offered her enhanced vision, allowing her to spot the small things most normal people wouldn’t. Helenesta’s Passive Ability also allowed all of her senses to be heightened, and she had a weird feeling in that main space in that cave. It felt like something was watching them from behind a crate, she saw a small glint of silver, but she assumed it was just some shiny rock or metal and also her mind playing tricks on her due to her fear.

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  Everyone was on edge, as they were walking quite quickly back towards Sarus. They had seen enough for today, and the everyone mentally agreed they were done for the day.

  They ran into a group of three goblins, and it almost caused them to jump out of their skins, everyone too on edge from what they just witnessed.

  “Behind me!” Dorrel commanded, as he activated [ Defensive Stance ]. The goblins immediately focused on him, charging at him, banging their wooden clubs against his tower shield.

  Tiayla wasted no time, and immediately drew her sword, the iron reflecting the sunlight. She approached the goblin closest to her, activating her [ Power Strike ], driving her blade into the back of the goblin. The goblin immediately shrieked, and shortly after she delivered her strike, an arrow embedded into the goblin’s head, knocking it off balance.

  Eliza focused on the next goblin, activating her Ability again, [ Quick Shot ], striking the other goblin in the neck area. She winced slightly at the sight of that, as the goblin began immediately choking, coughing out blood. Helenesta quickly followed up on the first goblin, grabbing her staff and whacking the goblin in the head, causing it to growl in frustration. Unfortunately, she had no Skill Abilities for attacking monsters at the moment, so she just used her staff to whack things. She felt utterly useless at the moment, but she knew in the future after her first Revelation, she would get a combat-oriented Forager Calling, one hopefully that allowed her to use mana and nature. She hated close combat fighting, causing her to beg her Instructors at the Academy to help her attune to the Calling meant for her.

  The goblin spun around, and stuck Helenesta with its wooden club, before being cut down by Tiayla, finally defeating it. Helenesta immediately cried out in pain, the wooden club leaving a bright red mark on her arm, hopefully not fracturing her bone. Dorrel roared, and swung his tower shield, knocking the other two goblins off balance. That gave the window Helenesta needed to retreat back, nursing her arm and trying to prevent the tears that wanted to come out.

  Eliza embedded the goblin with multiple arrows, the one she struck earlier in the throat, and it was still not going down. Tiayla slashed her blade across the goblin’s torso and back a few times, but then activated her [ Power Strike ] again, once the cooldown finished. Her Stamina Points were running low, but she continued on fighting, hoping that Dorrel and Eliza would be able to finish off the battle. They finally defeated the second goblin, just leaving one more of them, this one still unharmed except for the slight attack from Dorrel on his shield shove.

  Dorrel shoved his shield again, trying to get the goblin to fall on its back, but already having seen this attack, the goblin casually hopped back, avoiding the shove. Eliza activated her [ Quick Shot ] twice more, and that was all she could do anymore with her current Focus Points. She would occasionally fire basic arrows, but she soon ran out, only managing to hit her target half the time. She watched as Eliza slumped against the base of the tree, spent.

  That only left Dorrel and Tiayla who were left standing, but Tiayla was obviously on her last Stamina Points, as she lazily swung her sword, managing to do minor cuts to the goblin. Luck was on their side, as the goblin started to feel the effects of all the attacks, and fell to its knees, weakly swinging its club before Dorrel gripped his shield, and swung it downwards, crushing the skull of the goblin, defeating it right then.

  Dorrel and Tiayla sluggishly walked over to where Eliza and she were recovering.

  “How’s the arm, Helenesta?” Dorrel asked her, out of breath.

  She simply shrugged, replying to him, “I’ll live.”

  Everyone chuckled at that, and a comfortable silence fell among them as they tried to recover in order to continue their way back to town.

  Kaz POV

  He watched the fight with massive interest. It was interesting how the group worked together, and he could immediately tell that they had good chemistry. They didn’t need to instruct each other; they all just did their job without getting in each other’s way. What they didn’t notice was that one goblin was approaching them from behind, gripping a small rusted knife in its hands, but Kaz quietly summoned two sets of [ Mana Burst ], opting for the double speed version. His two attacks struck the creeping goblin, and it managed to fall into the ground and disappear, without making a noise. Kaz breathed out in relief, not only successfully saving the one girl who was recovering from a hit to her arm, he also managed to do it without getting spotted.

  Sitting a measurable distance away, he waited for them to recover. From that battle, he also noticed that they didn’t use many Abilities, concluding that they were possibly beginners who just recently Awakened, similar to him. It would explain why they struggled so much against the small group of goblins, but why would they risk coming to this area if they were under the Resonance tier of the goblins?

  He finally brought up his [ Archive ] to finally finish checking his own Resonance. He was at 15 Resonance, which was a big jump, but with all the Abilities that earned multiple upgrades to their Ranks, it would explain the big increase in Resonance. He wondered why he didn’t get the annoying pulse when he increased his Resonance, maybe his body was trying to recover itself before it would allow the [ Archive ] to get through to him and disturb his recovery. Kaz’s Mana Points were now up to 92, and his Health Points were up to 103. His numbers were finally starting to look normal to someone who was just starting out, and he was already at 15 Resonance. He shook his head in disgust and disappointment, but that just was his luck.

  It also made him wonder how he would’ve operated in a group, especially with his previous friends back in Forith. They would’ve had a solid group, with all of them having compatible Callings that comprised a traditional group. He felt his spirits lower, and he began fiddling with his fingers, his sadness creeping up from deep below. If only things didn’t turn out the way they did, he could’ve had a top performing group, and he most likely wouldn’t have several life and death situations. He was saved from his thoughts when he noticed movement from the group ahead of him.

  The small group got to their feet, slowly gathering themselves, and they continued walking to the southwest. It made him wonder how he didn’t run into the road, as he was sure he had walked this way previously. He quickly hid behind a tree when he noticed that one of the female Humans looked backwards in his direction. His breathing increased, anxiety rising. He waited a few minutes, and slowly peeked around the tree, and saw they were still walking, almost getting too far from him to see. Kaz tried to jog to regain the distance he lost, but still stayed near the trees, just in case that one curious girl looked back again.

  When he neared them again, getting closer than before, he was slightly panicking at the fact he had almost lost them. He saw the girl look back again, slightly making eye contact with him as he hid behind the tree. She definitely saw him, and his heart sank. What would she do? He gripped his glaive, holding it to his chest, waiting for them to do something. He heard footsteps approaching his tree, and he held his breath.

  He heard a soft friendly voice, asking him, “Why are you following and hiding from us?”