The three goblins didn’t leave much behind. They didn’t have any actual weapons or tools, except for some sticks being used to grill what looked to be rodents over the fire. Sebastian had begun to feel the pangs of hunger before the fight but even without the energy he gained from leveling up, he still wouldn’t have been hungry enough to eat alien rats.

  He was no snob, and he would do whatever was necessary to survive, but eating random rodents required a certain level of desperation, and he wasn’t there just yet. In fact, currently, he was feeling pretty good now that he was level 2. He only had 3 more levels to go, however, until he had to figure something out for the future.

  Once the sun started moving past the cliff wall and he still hadn’t found anything worthwhile, Sebastian figured that it was time to return to his make-shift shelter. His shelter wasn’t the best place to call home but the unknowns of this world made him somewhat apprehensive about trying his luck wandering around in the wilderness alone in the dark, especially after his traumatic experience the night before.

  So far, luckily, this gorge had been pretty barren.

  The only living things he had seen were goblins so his hope was that no other creatures ventured down here. It felt reasonable seeing as how there was nothing here for them to find. Which meant his shelter should be relatively safe, for now.

  By the time he got back, the sun had almost set but he still had some time to fix up the shelter a little bit. A venture made easier by the fact that he could actually see what he was doing this time. He added some more cover and improved the bedding with whatever supplies he had managed to scavenge on his way back.

  After making some plans to explore farther out tomorrow, he turned in for the night. Camping out in a poorly made shelter still wasn’t the most comfortable but at least this time he got some good rest in. He slept through most of the night. When he woke up, he was feeling much better, not back to 100%, but pretty close.

  Sebastian made sure that the shelter was as hidden as he could manage before setting out for his second day stuck in a gorge in a strange world. Following the same path as yesterday helped him move faster and after an hour or two he had already gone farther than ever.

  Shortly after, he found a couple of goblins seemingly gathering some sticks and such. Since he was on the look out for goblins this time, Sebastian managed to stay hidden behind some shrubbery, and he chose to watch them for a while.

  Kee?

  KEK!

  While he wasn’t familiar with the culture and social structure of goblins, it was pretty clear that one of them was in charge as the other one kept pestering him and showing him the various things he had found and the slightly bigger one knocked them out of his hands.

  Maybe half an hour later, the goblins finally seemed to be satisfied with their collection and walked away. Likely to take their sticks and captured rodents back to their camp. Sebastian carefully followed behind them while trying to keep enough distance that they wouldn’t notice him but not so much distance that he lost them, which was rather difficult in a mostly barren gorge.

  An hour of careful stalking later, including a few close calls, and Sebastian finally reached the goblin camp.

  The camp was made up of huts and tents surrounding a large fire pit. Each hut was different. Clearly, they had built them out of whatever construction materials and supplies they’ve scavenged and probably stolen, and they made something that more so resembled a shelter rather than being an actual shelter. The entire camp was closer to one cliff wall than the other, and hidden in plain sight, in between some structures was an opening in the cliff wall.

  The camp was made by the entrance to a cave.

  A path led out of the camp and toward the other side of the gorge. Sebastian gasped a breath of relief at the sight of the cliff wall opposite the camp. It wasn’t nearly as steep as the walls of the rest of the gorge. Not only that, but the path from the camp continued, snaking up the incline, and to led freedom beyond the gorge.

  He resisted the surprisingly strong urge to simply make a run for it and fight his way through the camp to escape, but Sebastian knew that he was still too weak to survive alone in this world. Not to mention the fact that he would be overrun by the 20 or so goblins at the camp. And those were only the ones visible. There were almost certainly many more inside the cave.

  Deciding he needed more information before he made his move, Sebastian continued to watch the camp, taking mental notes of their behaviors and patrols.

  For the next few hours, very little happened. It was starting to get dark so Sebastian considered turning back and returning in the morning, now that he knew where to go. Right as the thought entered his mind, however, the camp got livelier. A small part of him naturally felt that him thinking about it somehow made them act, but he quickly dismissed any such notion. It’s typical that when you’re waiting for something to happen, it only happens just as you’re about to give up.

  A large group of goblins rushed out from the cave and into the camp causing a big commotion. They spent the next 10 minutes or so getting ready for something. There were about 30–40 goblins in the camp right now, and 20–25 of them were geared up. Next, the group marched up the winding path and left the gorge. The camp got quieter than ever after that.

  That must be a raiding party, that explains the make-shift style of the camp I guess. They send out all the strongest goblins to hunt and scavenge the surrounding area for materials, food, and loot of any kind.

  This could be a fantastic opportunity, if I play my cards right. There are several variables though—how many are left in the camp, how strong are they, and how long do I have?

  Sebastian went over everything he’d learned over the past few hours in his head, and he tried to estimate how many goblins were left, and if he could wipe them all out before the raiding party got back.

  Watching the few goblins still at the camp go about their business with very little regard for their surrounding, Sebastian ran through multiple scenarios and tried to figure out the safest and most efficient way possible.

  They look unbothered. As though they feel that there are no predators around that might attack, which might mean that they don’t feel the need to leave many strong goblins around to protect them. On the other hand, they might feel safe because they have hundreds left inside the cave. That raiding party did look like a fairly big deal though, if it was just one of several such parties then I doubt that they would give it quite so much fanfare.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Gripping his pointed stick hard, Sebastian decided it was worth the risk. He knew how strong he was compared to goblins, especially now that he’s leveled up yet again, and he had two short-term goals—kill more goblins to level up and find a way out of the gorge.

  He was staring at both right now.

  If he succeeded in his attack then he would surely level up and, regardless, he would at some point have no choice but to clear out the camp to some degree if he ever wanted to make use of the path out of the gorge.

  Sebastian took a deep breath—something that was becoming a habit in stressful situations—and carefully moved up. He stayed under cover of darkness and hid behind the closest hut. Confirming the positions of the goblins he could see, he made a plan for how to avoid getting overwhelmed by numbers.

  Then he made his move.

  His first targets were the two goblins working on the woodpile past the next hut; he could only see four goblins out in the camp right now and these two were the only ones not on their own. Taking out the pair first ensured that he wouldn’t be surrounded by the rest once they realized that he was there.

  Sebastian rushed up on the two goblins. He was on them before they could even react. Towering over them, he thrust his stick toward one of their heads and killed it immediately as the other one jumped in shock. Sebastian was ready and kicked the dead goblin off of his stick and swung it down on the other ones head as it reared its teeth and prepared to attack. The stick made contact before the goblin had time to do anything more than growl.

  Being stronger than ever and fueled by adrenaline—not to mention, not holding back his strength whatsoever—Sebastian cracked its skull, killing it instantly. He hit it hard enough that his trusty stick broke on the goblin’s thick head. Fortunately, there was a rusty machete-like blade by the wood pile which Sebastian grabbed moments after hearing another goblin rush toward him.

  He turned around and swung his machete toward the pouncing goblin, Sebastian was fully familiar with the goblins’ jumping attacks at this point. He hit it at its clavicle, cutting halfway into its torso. The machete was too rusty to make it all the way through but the goblin still died, but not before getting a good scratch in on Sebastian’s neck.

  Shit! Did it nick something?! He stumbled back and quickly moved his free hand to cover the wound.

  Luckily, while it was bleeding, it was clear that it didn’t hit anything vital. He let out a sigh in relief. His focus returned to the next goblin running toward him. In his peripheral he also noticed another two coming out from the cave.

  While he was getting ready to face the group of goblins, the familiar wave of energy accompanying a level up washed over him, and he felt revitalized as he rushed toward the nearest goblin. These goblins felt even weaker than the ones he had killed before. It wasn’t just because he had leveled up and was stronger himself either, they didn’t seem to fight with much more than instinct and rage.

  Sebastian felt quite grateful about that fact, as it meant it was easy to predict what they would do next. He swung his machete straight down onto the head of the nearest goblin and immediately continued toward the next two. Rather than take them both on from the front, Sebastian replicated one of his favorite moves from TV and anime. Surprisingly, it worked quite well.

  He sidestepped to the right, evading the pouncing goblins, as he swung his machete in a backhand toward the closest goblin. This time he actually cut it clean in half.

  The last goblin found its balance and prepared to attack yet again, but Sebastian quickly turned around and cut it down. Keeping his guard up, he looked around to see if there were any more goblins coming his way. There were none left.

  Sebastian let his hands drop to his sides, relaxing so much that he almost dropped his new weapon. Whew, that went surprisingly well, not only did I level up, I also got an actual weapon. He held the machete up in front of him, admiring it for a moment before his eyes moved to the path leading to freedom. Turning back to look at the entrance on the cliff wall, Sebastian thought to himself, As much as I’d like to leave, it’s probably best to check out the cave first. It could bring me up to my level limit, and there might be supplies in there I could use. Besides, it feels… right, which I hope is a good sign. Hopefully there isn’t a full colony of these things in there.

  He had to occasionally hunch down a little bit to move through the cave but it didn’t seem to lead to any massive colony. There were several different kinds of rooms, some of which had some goblins in them while others were simple storage rooms.

  As he explored the caves he killed a total of 10 more goblins, they were either younger or older than the others, and so they weren’t much of a threat. Fighting while hunched over proved rather uncomfortable, though.

  Those 10 goblins led to yet another level up, and Sebastian was now level 4.

  The very last room he found was another storage room. This one, however, seemed to be their treasure room as it was filled with gear, weapons, jewelry, and other valuables that the goblins had probably stolen from countless travelers over generations.

  Jackpot! Sebastian dug around the pile of assorted items, doing his best to sort out some actually valuable and useful items. That’s an actual sword! There’s some boots, some other gear I can’t really carry with me, and a bunch trinkets and jewelry here that look valuable.

  Underneath the jewelry box filled with various rings and necklaces was something unexpected.

  Wait… what’s this? A book? Why would goblins have a book in their treasure room?

  It had a dark, leathery cover with large, white writing on the front and was bound in a style more similar to old Chinese books rather than basic western printed books.

  What are these symbols? I don’t recognize them, but there’s something about them that’s familiar. And more importantly, how come I can read them?

  The writing resembled nothing quite like he had ever seen before, some sort of runic or ideographic language, like a mix of maybe Chinese and old Nordic runes.

  It doesn’t translate to English or anything else, I just… know what it means. Maybe this is another strange aspect of my connection to the [System], not a universal translator exactly but a natural understanding of other languages? Well, at least of this particular language. No way of knowing if it’s the same for other languages of this world until I see them in the future.

  Translating the title of the book, the closest that made sense to Sebastian was, “Earthen Cultivation Art”. He knew he didn’t have very much time before the raiding party would return, but he couldn’t help himself from skimming through the book on the spot.

  “Earthen Cultivation Art”, instructions, and these illustrations... I know what this is. This is a manual for a cultivation method! But that doesn’t make any sense, this is a System-guided leveling world, not a cultivation world, so how does this fit into anything?

  Not wanting to spend more time in the cave, he packed it with the other loot to take with him and figure it out later. Sebastian made his way out of the cave, and he took the opportunity to raid the goblin camp some more on the way. He took all sorts of things with him, including some fresh water bottles that they kept around and what looked to be a grilled deer-leg. Luckily there had been an old bag in the treasure room, he had emptied it as he looted and filled it to the brim with actually useful things.

  Once his looting was done, his eyes lingered at the path, barely visible under the moonlight. He envisioned himself running out of the gorge, escaping into the greater world out there. Sebastian clenched his fist and took a deep breath to calm his pounding heart. He decided against it for now. Not only did he not know how far the raiding party had gone, he also didn’t know what was up there. With all the loot he got, the book in particular, he could sort things out first and leave the gorge later.

  He hurried back to his shelter with as much as he could carry. Even with all the extra weight, his excitement made full use of his newfound strength and energy from leveling up again—twice—and he basically jogged the entire way back.

  Once there, he prioritized sprucing up his shelter a bit using the supplies and equipment he looted, including some glowing rocks which served to ward off the dark. He made sure that it was not only more comfortable and functional but also better hidden than before. Sebastian then sat down in his new and improved little shelter, too excited to sleep, took out some cooked meat and opened the book.