19 First Grind

Leo was leaning on a tree, checking his character screen when he heard shuffling to his right. Looking at the direction of the noise, he found Shesmu and Ryan walking towards him.

"Oh, did you find any goblins?" Leo stood up and asked.

Ryan was first to respond, "Yeah, like a five-minute walk from here. But before that, sit down, we need to talk about some stuff." He gestured for Leo to sit back down while doing the same. Shesmu followed swiftly after, and leaned on the trunk of the tree. "So, we need to decide on stat allocation. Can you check your character screen for me?"

"Sure," Leo responded. After a few seconds of tinkering, he continued, "I got 10 free points."

"Yeah, it's the same for all of us," Shesmu butted in. "Let's see. We have a pretty standard class combination. Tank, consistent damage with me, and burst damage with Ryan."

"Yeah," Ryan added. "Since my abilities scale with agility, for the most part, I should probably focus on that, right?"

"You're right, but if you put all of your points in agility, your normal attacks would do zero damage. Plus, you do have some scaling with strength, so you should add points in that too. Maybe 3:2 in favor of agility?"

"Yeah, that works," Ryan responded.

"So, for me, I probably should focus on vitality, right?" Leo asked.

"Ehh, yeah, you're the tank so you should have some vitality. But your skills right now are all offensive, so maybe you want some strength too? That way you don't become just a meatshield."

"Yeah, he is right," Ryan said. "At least that way, even if both I and Shesmu die, you still have a chance to win the fight."

"Talking about team wipe, anyone knows how will we be able to communicate if we end up separated?" Shesmu asked.

"Ehh, there is this messaging function that my instructor showed me before," answered Leo.

"Yeah, he did message me earlier," Ryan added.

"Oh, interesting," Shesmu responded absentmindedly. He scratched his forehead silently thinking before he continued, "I'm thinking of something else though. Demon Heart did have telepathic communication, there is no reason this game shouldn't have one."

"Oh, let's check the command list then. If there is anything that's gonna give us answers, it's gonna be that, right?" suggested Ryan.

"Yeah, you're right. Let's do that," added Leo.

Shesmu issued the command in his mind and a list appeared in front of his eyes. The other two did the same. He kept mindlessly scrolling up and down until Ryan exclaimed.

"Oh, I found it!"

'Here, do you hear me?' Ryan's voice resounded in Shesmu's mind. He grinned in response. Knowing information from the future was one thing, but being able to convey it without arousing suspicion was a task on its own.

'Oh, nice,' Shesmu responded. 'We found it at the same time.'

"Eh? Ehhh? How did you guys find it so quickly?" Leo asked.

Hearing Leo's troubled tone, Ryan had a mischievous grin on his face. "Ohh? You want to know? Muahahaha! It is something you need to find by your—"

"Just think "party whisper"," Shesmu cut Ryan in the middle of his Machiavellical speech, leaving the latter's words stuck in his mouth.

"Hey, dude, you're really not fun, you know that?"

Ryan's deflated response made both Leo and Shesmu laugh.

"Hahaha! Dude, you should see your face when Shesmu cut you in. I can't stop laughing."

Leo's statement confused Ryan even further. However, laughter is contagious and Ryan wasn't immune. He soon joined them too.

When they finally calmed down, Shesmu said, "Okay, so we now know how to distribute our points. Ryan 3:2 for agility and strength. Leo 3:2 for vitality and strength, I'll go opposite of Ryan with 2 in agility and 3 in strength. Sounds good?"

"Yeah, perfect," Ryan responded.

Shesmu allocated his stats—Six points for strength and four for agility. He waited for a few seconds before his teammates finished allocating. He then sat up and said, "Okay, since we're done, you guys want to go hunt some more goblins?"

"Do you even need to ask?" Ryan had a grin plastered all over his face. He couldn't wait.

"This time, leave some kills for me, eh?"

"Don't worry, we'll let you have your part of the glory," Ryan answered.

The trio went back to the forest. As they made their way through the trees, minutes passed by in a fly. Finally, they reached a clearing in which monsters resided.

There were five level 3 goblins in the group. Shesmu quickly assessed the situation and barked out his orders.

"Leo, you charge in first and hold their aggro. Ryan, wait in the sideline and look for an assassination. I will try to focus one goblin at a time to relieve the stress from Leo, be ready to strike!"

"Understood!"

The party immediately went into action with Leo taking the lead. He raised his sword and lunged towards the first goblin.

The horde of viles were in no formations. They were scattered randomly, and when Leo attacked, they couldn't respond properly. Before they could even stop the attacker, Leo activated Empowered Slash and swung his sword towards his victim.

After Leo slashed the goblin's chest, he backed off a little to avoid getting swarmed by the other monsters. With their high agility, the goblins were able to quickly catch up to him, however, using the range of his sword, Leo kept them at bay.

The injured goblin was still struggling to get up on its feet, when a dagger, covered in darkness, came from behind and plunged deep inside its heart. Ryan then took out his weapon from the goblin's corpse before going back to the shadow of the forest, waiting for his next opportunity.

The four living goblins surrounded Leo from all four directions, waiting for a mistake from his part. They kept this status quo for two seconds before Shesmu came in. He ran towards the goblin right of Leo, attracting the attention of its comrades. The three other goblins wanted to help out their brethren, but the moment they did so Leo lunged towards the goblin in front of him and plunged his sword in its ribs. The goblin screamed in pain, stopping the other two from coming to the aid of the goblin Shesmu was facing.

Shesmu noticed the indecisiveness of the two goblins and didn't waste his chance. While the goblin in front of him was distracted by the cry of his comrade, Shesmu quickly ran towards it and performed Empowered Slash Cancel while aiming for its neck.

Instinctively, the goblin raised its arms to guard its neck. Shesmu's sword has cleanly cleaved through them, leaving the goblin crippled. With no way to attack but its teeth, the goblin was but a sheep ready to be slaughtered. It turned its back in an attempt to flee but Shesmu just thrust his sword into its back, ending its life.

The two goblins that were indecisive just a moment ago seemed to have decided that their target should be Shesmu. They ran towards him but Shesmu didn't pay them any attention. His focus was on the goblin Leo was fighting.

The tip of a blade peeked out from the goblin's stomach, while its eyes stared in shock. Behind it stood Ryan, who jumped at the opportunity the moment the goblin was struck by Leo. In its daze, it couldn't sense the presence of death that was approaching from behind.

Looking at this situation, Shesmu just sighed and smiled. After easily dodging the two goblins' attacks, he told his teammate in a loud voice, "Guys! Let's finish this quickly"

"Yeah, it's getting boring," Ryan responded.

Hearing their confirmation, Shesmu thought for a second, Well, I haven't tested this yet, but can I still grab and throw like before? Deciding that it wouldn't do any harm to try, Shesmu feigned a slash before grabbing one of the goblins from his hand. He then tried to perform a back throw, but in the midst of his actions, Shesmu stopped. 'Wait, what do I do next?' In Shesmu's past life, he didn't think about how to back throw when he did it, it just came out naturally without him having to think about it. Now that he lost his muscle memory, he could no longer do it.

'Well, it doesn't matter. It was just for style points anyway, and I can always learn it again, it's not that hard of a technique.'

While Shesmu was consoling himself with his thoughts, the free goblin jumped towards him with a knife in its hand. Shesmu immediately reacted to this attack with a front kick to the face of the creature, stopping it mid-jump. He then used Empowered Slash to cut the hand of the goblin that he was still holding making it scream in pain.

By this time, Ryan and Leo reached the scene and killed the crippled goblin in two hits. The other goblin suffered a similar fate.

After the fight with the goblins, Leo was one step closer to level 3 while the other two already reached it.

"Agh, those goblins are so stingy! The only thing they dropped are these lousy trash knives. They are even worse than our newbie sword!" Leo complained.

"Well, it can't be helped. The only thing we fought are normal monsters at or under level 5, we can't expect to equip ourselves with the best gear from their drops," Ryan soothed Leo. He then looked at the scenery in front of him before checking his mini-map. He grinned then said, "Plus, shouldn't you be excited? Gears, treasures, and bosses, all of those are in front of us. We have reached the red zone!"