DAY 6

DAY 6

No, definitely no cliff edges for me.

THE CAVE

 

FIRST, tidying my house! I mean, my cave.

Next up, inspecting and maintaining my weapon! In this case, “polishing my stick” isn’t what you think.

After that, repairing my armor! I guess you could call that “doing the laundry.”

I had a lot to chew on over breakfast—both mushrooms and plans. Another uneventful morning of sautéed mushrooms and goblin hunting. They were even showing up in my dreams now. Am I falling in love with them now? Nooooo!

I wasn’t leveling up anymore, either. That must’ve been caused by Master of None and Blockhead. Neither seemed to have any positives. Master of None must have prevented me from focusing on any single skill, so they didn’t level fast. However, it was also probably responsible for how easy it was to acquire new skills?

Blockhead was a much bigger problem. I thought about the dictionary definition of the word. It referred to a puppet with a wooden block for its head. It also meant an incompetent idiot. So I was like an idiot puppet dancing on strings controlled by someone else.

No matter how you phrased it, it was all negative. Maybe Appraisal could help me figure it out once I had it at a high enough level, but I wasn’t sure it would level up at all anymore.

There was also Corporate Proactiveness, which didn’t seem bad, just useless. “Skilled at reporting, contacting, and consulting others.” I was a loner, though, so there was no point stressing over skills I would never use. At least General Health and Calisthenics were useful. After concluding my morning exercise routine, I went hunting again.

As usual, there were no goblins by the riverbank. Do they not drink water? Somewhere along the way I’d picked up the skill Map, which allowed me to see my current location and places I’d explored before on a map. For now, I decided to fill in the blank parts. Just to stay safe, I decided to stick to the river at first.

I was living by that river, but I didn’t have a rod or fishing net. Staring at those delicious-looking fish, I chewed on my mushrooms. If I went too far up the river, I’d run into those wannabe delinquents again. Nothing good would come from running into them; they were nothing but loads of trouble.

They were a bunch of blowhards, so I wasn’t that worried about getting into a fight with them, despite how annoying I found them. But that old man had given them powerful skills, and they were the type of people who, if you asked them to hold a gun, wouldn’t be able to resist shooting it.

I continued exploring the forest, occasionally clobbering the goblins I encountered.

I was in a world of swords and sorcery, so where was all the drama and intrigue? It’s not like I wanted to get chased to the edge of a cliff or anything, but at least that would mean something was happening! Definitely not cliffs—I always hated it when novels ended on a cliffhanger.

There were plenty of types of mushrooms with all sorts of different effects—restore HP, restore MP—but nothing awesome like mushrooms of giant growth. Not that I needed anything like that. I could shoot fireballs without a fire flower, after all.

Some mushrooms were poisonous. I had an antidote, but would it work? Even without Appraisal, no one would be dumb enough to eat these extremely poisonous-looking mushrooms.

I had gone pretty far upstream, but the goblins weren’t getting any stronger. Any goblins under level 10 I could kill with my first blow. I was pretty strong! When there were a lot of them, I could repeat my quick attack. My reflexes were fast, and I wasn’t particularly anxious, but my nerves started to get frayed if I didn’t take breaks. It was a little early, but I wanted to head back. Today was just a dull day. No level-ups, either. Was I actually leveling down instead? Yep, time to go back.

I just wanted something to make me excited about this place, like a thunderbolt attack or an inferno spell. Would it be too much to ask for a cute female companion or the attention of a beautiful goddess or something? I wasn’t even summoned to this world by a princess, just some senile old man! I couldn’t even look at any of the cute girls from my class, since I was a loner; they were who-knows-where! Screw this game!

By the time I got back to the cave, it was almost dusk. My MP was full, so I crafted some furniture and cooked some mushrooms. I was basically playing Minecraft at this point.

I’m starting to lose it. I’m talking to myself more. Worse, I’m trash-talking myself. Before too long, I’ll be slapping myself on the back and flicking myself in the forehead.

“It’s not like I’m asking for cheat codes or anything…”

Grumbling to myself, I glanced at my status. My Earth Magic had leveled up from making all the furniture.

I couldn’t decide if I gave up on the game before it even started, or if the game had given up on me. I was probably just doomed from the outset. Whoever said “winners never quit” never played this game.

There seemed to be no escape from my life as a goblin slayer. I had way too many clubs to even count. Maybe I could trade them for some fish? I want fish so badly right now…