Chapter 3: Courage

James was trying to help other knights with each step he took. He had managed to kill almost 6 goblins so far, but there was no sign of levelling up.

He hadn't even realised that leveling up would be this difficult, if he was going to continue in this state he might actually die here.

"I need to get more achievements, if I do that I can gain status points." James suddenly thought and with that, he stabbed the other goblin in front of him through the heart.

"7" said James calmly, it was wonderful to see that he was no longer the same man he had been only ten minutes ago, the fact that he was improving every second gave him hope.

He was out of breath but he knew that if he stopped now his life would be over, that's why he turned round and looked at the knights and the few hunters around and shouted "TAKE THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN TO SAFETY!"

There were a lot of civilians around, the main purpose of the mission was clearly to protect the statue, and even if he was getting close to the statue, he still couldn't do anything about leaving the civilians.

He might have entered the tower, he might have gained good skills, he might even have been mad enough to choose the hellish difficulty for the tutorial, but he wasn't going to do the dishonour of leaving defenceless people behind.

Everything here was as likely to be real as it was to be a tutorial, and he didn't want to look back tomorrow and find that he had travelled a path made of the blood of innocents.

The knights and hunters paused for a few seconds when they heard what James had said, there was a huge horde of goblins still closing in on them.

The corpses of knights and hunters on the ground made everything miserable.

James, of course, was planning to run away from the goblins after everyone had moved away, he had incredible confidence in his ability to run.

"Hunters, you are the people and demi-humans of the guild, your job is to protect the people and ours is to fend off the monsters, you have sacrificed enough for us, take the people to safety and we will stay."

James had begun to stir as he heard these words coming from behind him, clearly aware of the sound of armour, despite all the bodies on the ground and at least two dozen goblins slowly coming towards them, these weak knights still wanted to stay here.

"Take this, master knight, you don't have armour, at least you have a shield." one of the hunters said suddenly and handed James a round wooden shield that was just over half a metre long.

James just shook his head as he took the shield and looked at the hunters, a small smile formed on his face and then he turned back to the goblins saying "Persephone bless you".

There were twelve of them, ranging from the rough-looking to the scrawny, from the scrawny to the huge, and from the huge to the frightened.

Unlike the war within the city and the war within the city walls, this was a peaceful place, yet all was still at stake.

"So, worthy knights, may Persephone enlighten your courage. REMEMBER, COURAGE IS NOT BEING FEARLESS, IT IS STANDING UP TO YOUR FEAR EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE AFRAID!"

With James's shout, all the knights charged forward, shouting, and the sounds of metal clashing reappeared on the field:

'Cling!'

'Shing!'

'RUAAAGH DISHONOURABLE GOBLIN!'

'DUCK!'

Amidst the succession of metal sounds, sometimes some of the armour sounds paused and sometimes the sound of rotten flesh falling to the ground like a bag full of garbage could be heard.

Both sides were taking casualties.

James was facing a goblin that was a little bigger than normal goblins. S~eaʀᴄh the NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

[Warrior Goblin (Level 1)]

James, who had stopped dead in his tracks when he saw that the goblin had another appendage, saw that another window had opened, recognisable on the right side of his eye:

[Common Achivement Won!

This is the first time you have seen an evolved version of a race.

This achievement is too common to give you an ability card. Instead, the tower congratulates you and grants you [1 power stat].

+1 Power.]

As James quickly read and closed the window, he noticed the change in his body again, but he still couldn't overcome his pause.

Unlike the others, the goblin before him had armour and a helmet, his body was bigger and his eyes were crazier.

Even if he was scared, James was clearly aware that he could not stay where he was, holding the shield at chest level and gripping the sword in his right hand tightly. He had the great skill of Galahad's Swordsmanship, he could do it.

Suddenly the warrior lunged at the goblin and tried to pierce it. The warrior goblin was surprised as if it had not expected this, but it managed to retreat, or so it thought.

Even though the sword was tiny, it managed to pierce the warrior goblin in the shoulder, that was enough to bring the luck factor into play, even if he was very unlucky, Galahad's power would not let him down.

[Penetration successful, the enemy will bleed continuously!

0.5% casualties per second.]

James took a few steps back when he read this window, there was no reason for him to focus on the warrior goblin now.

Bleeding continuously and losing 0.5% of life every second...this seemed to tell him that the warrior goblin would eventually die.

Again, James wasn't exactly willing to take any chances, the luck that had given him the chance to bleed was the same luck that had caused him to lose everything.

Taking charge of his destiny was what he wanted.

After his retreat, he realised that the light of life in the warrior goblin's eyes had disappeared, and then he rushed at the warrior goblin with all his speed.

The warrior goblin stumbled in fright and fell to the ground, presenting James with an open-attack opportunity.

With a sudden swing of his sword, James slashed the warrior goblin's throat and looked around at the other goblins as green blood rained down on him.

He had taken a huge step towards becoming a god.