Making the Best of a Bad Situation

A short, green, sword-wielding monster blinked into existence directly above the toilet seat. It fell down with a resounding splash, and began its struggle to lift itself out from the orifice of the toilet.

Before it even had the chance to touch the tiled surface of the restroom, a sword pierced its eye socket with tremendous speed. The goblin howled in agony as the bladed object was quickly yanked out, and used to slash at the creature.

In a little less than 15 seconds, the goblin had died, and I reached level 7.

I wiped my brow, and congratulated myself for the rather bloody accomplishment.

I decided to move the corpse over to a corner in the cramped restroom. After all, it would only disadvantage me if it remained there while the next goblin spawned.

As I began to move the goblin, my mind naturally wandered and I thought about my current situation.

Right now, it was painfully clear that I was trapped. There was no exit aside from the doorway I came through, and from there, I could still hear the angry howls and subsequent pounding on the otherside. The pack of angry goblins were still very much present and persistent, and I doubt that they were inclined to give up on me anytime soon.

Which was natural. After all, I had invaded their sanctuary. Their base of operations, their home, I had invaded their spawn point.

While this was the perfect time for me to collect some easy experience, I still had other things to consider.

For one, I’d eventually run out of food/stamina if I remained locked in this place. Second, I still don’t have any semblance of a plan to escape this situation. And third, I had two girls waiting for me, and one of them was dying.

I left Hina and Cielle roughly two hours ago, and while I was positive Hina was in a stable enough condition at least to the point where she wasn’t constantly losing hp, the possibility of… complications still existed.

I only continued to expand their risk the more I extended the time I was away from them.

I slumped down with a sigh.

As I wiped the goblin blood off from my shirt, I wondered how exactly I ended up with so much responsibility. The weight of person’s life wasn’t an easy thing to bear, yet somehow or another, I was the sole beacon of light for a dying girl and her sister.

“Next time, I seriously need to think before I go and help someone out…” I couldn’t help but utter such self conceited words as I lamented once more.

“Well, it’s not like anything will change the more I worry about it.”

For now, I’ll do the only thing I can do, level up.

It wasn’t any good to dwell in things I had no power over, rather, let’s level up quickly so I can leave this place sooner!

Thus, I waited patiently besides the stall which I knew spawned out goblins. In a little over 7 minutes, another goblin blinked into life.

This one was another goblin scout, which led me to wonder whether goblin warriors spawned elsewhere or whether it was all just random.

Anyways, while worrying about such leisure things, I killed of this goblin in about 20 seconds.

It was important to keep track of how long I was in combat for since that determined how much stamina my actions would consume.

I haven’t faced a situation yet where I did completely exhaust my stamina, and right now, I wasn’t inclined to the new experience. I made it a point to always pay attention to this particular stat.

After I moved the newest goblin corpse over to where its friend rested, I went and checked my current status.

Well, before I checked, I removed all the items that gave me stat boosts in order to see where my real strength lied.

Once I had unequipped almost everything, that’s when I called froth that familiar blue screen.

[Status!]

Status WindowNameHide MayoAge17RaceHumanLevel7GenderMaleTitlesPioneerHealth104/160(10)Health Regen.0.005 / SecMana

(unavailable)160(10)Mana Regen.0.01 / SecStamina37/160(10)Stamina Regen.0.05 / Sec-Strength11(10)Agility24(10)Vitality7(10)Dexterity15(10)Intelligence11(10)Wisdom11(10)Leadership0(10)Luck0(10)-SkillsEquip (Active)

Identification (Active)Current Status Effect(s)n/aUnallocated Points10

I hadn’t allocated any of my points since I leveled up to 5, so I had about 10 extra. I didn’t distribute this though, since I wanted to use it for a little experiment in order to confirm the exact effects of stats like strength, vitality, dexterity, and agility.

I continued to scan the window, and while I did lose some hp from my encounters with the goblins, what drew my attention was the stamina column.

Depressingly, I noticed I had only about 37 out of 170 in stamina. I probably expended all or most of it while I was running away from the goblins. Surprisingly, fleeing consumed more of my stamina than fighting did. And right now, I could feel the negative effects of low stamina taking its toll on my body. I felt the familiar shortness of breath associated with rigorous exercise, and my limbs lacked their usual boisterousness.

I grimaced, this really wasn’t a good situation. To have such low stamina… I deliberated whether to eat the only source of stamina recovery I had (the granola bar). Although after much internal debate, I stubbornly decided against it.

It was pretty gross eating in a restroom, and more importantly, after calmly analyzing everything, I determined that I really wasn’t in need of such a boost.

After the first two encounters with the goblin scouts, I determined that like the minotaur, they spawned at a certain interval. This interval should be 7 minutes, and seven minutes was enough to recover some of my stamina while I waited for the next goblin to spawn.

Unless something unexpected happened, I really shouldn’t need to fret over such an issue.

Confident in my logic, I calmly waited for the next spawn while my stamina regenerated.

Surprisingly, once the 7 minute period passed, a goblin did not pop out.

I frowned. The system wasn’t doing what I expected, and that left me a bit anxious.

Helpless, and worried, I continued to quietly wait, not knowing what to expect and powerless to change anything.

..8...9..10…

Once a total of 14 minutes passed, I was jolted into concentration by the abrupt noise of something heavy falling into the toilet.

I bolted up and went to peer at the stall.

There, a goblin stood, holding a broad sword while its lower regions were wet with toilet water. From its appearance (and from the status bar above its head) I could tell immediately that the creature was a goblin warrior.

Despite my initial shock at the sudden spawn, I quickly and efficiently took it out within 20 seconds. I stabbed it in its left eye socket and followed up with a slash to its throat.

I collected its sword and set it gently aside. I then moved the corpse to another corner of the room, where the first goblin corpse sat.

My mind was preoccupied during the whole battle, but while I moved the corpse, I finally reasoned that the goblin warrior had respawned so late because it was essentially a goblin warrior and not a scout. Goblin scouts probably took about 7 minutes for the system to produce while goblin warriors took at most 14 minutes.

It was a logical conclusion I came up with using intuition and past experience.

And as if to prove this theory, 7 minutes later, this time, a goblin scout spawned. I took care of it just as quickly as the rest.

Like this, this sort of pattern continued for a good period of time. I continued to wrack up experience and collect loot while I steadily regained both my hp and stamina. I made sure to avoid all goblin attacks, while minimizing my battle time all in order to maximize my total recovery.

Suffice to say, in 2 short (well, agonizingly long actually) hours, I was back in tip top shape.

Although I did start to feel anxious as I felt each minute slip by. While I desperately wanted to return to the girls, I’m afraid to say, the constant fear of the level 20 goblin commander behind the metal door won out, and kept me locked in this stupid room.

Thus, with no other option left, I greedily killed each goblin and collected their drops.

After the 2 hours passed, I killed a total of 7 goblin scouts and 5 goblin warriors. In this process, I leveled up a total of 3 times, bringing me up to a nice and even level 10.

I also collected all their swords, but none of them were pretty impressive. Although an unexpected surprise did grace me with its presence. Through this process of spawn killing, the goblins had dropped 4 more additional health potions and 1 mana potion.

I smiled as I looked on at my growing number of loot. Adding these additional 4, with the two I had acquired from killing the goblins outside, I had 6 basic health potions and an additional mana potion. While the mana potion was pretty useless for me, the 6 health potions would prove beneficial.

Not only would it bring back Hina from the near grave (although, considering she’s probably at level 1, I only needed about 3 to do the job, the surplus of potions could also help prevent any future tragedies.

Now the only thing I needed to do was figure out a way to leave this restroom.

Another goblin scout spawned as I pondered this predicament.

I slayed it while I racked my brain for a solution.

First of all, I was somewhat satisfied with my level of growth. I was finally in the double digits, and I felt comfortable enough fighting against these “low leveled” goblins. Although the issue of taking on 10 goblins at the same time was a whole ‘nother problem. Plus to add to that, the goblin commander still existed.

While I concluded that 10 goblins at once could be something I might be able to manage, when you add the commander to the equation, my whole outlook quickly worsened.

While I knew that the items I equipped as well as my title bonus from [Pioneer] elevated my current stats above my level, I was left to wonder whether it was enough to surpass the level gap between me and the goblin commander.

I scrunched up my face while I attempted to think harder. My eyes glazed over the collection of swords I had gathered. Right now, there were about 10 dagger sized swords. While I knew I could gain more stats by double wielding weapons, I doubt that boost was enough to surpass my current enemy. Plus I knew that I was terrible at dual wielding.

While I could utilize the weapons effectively by throwing, I didn’t have the current ability to properly attack with two weapons at once.

I sighed.

Before i knew it, another 7 minutes had passed and another Goblin scout had respawned. I quickly dispatched of it in about 14 seconds.

Afterwards, when the goblin was dead and lifeless, I couldn't help but frown at the scene. Right now, the monotonous action of hunting had become merely tiresome. Unfortunately, while I was here, there was nothing I could really do about it.

Well, instead of worrying, for now, I decided to bring up my status window once again.

Status WindowNameHide MayoAge17RaceHumanLevel10GenderMaleTitlesPioneerHealth140/190(10)Health Regen.0.005 / SecMana

(unavailable)190(10)Mana Regen.0.01 / SecStamina190(10)Stamina Regen.0.05 / Sec-Strength11(10)Agility24(10)Vitality7(10)Dexterity15(10)Intelligence11(10)Wisdom11(10)Leadership0(10)Luck0(10)-SkillsEquip (Active)

Identification (Active)Current Status Effect(s)n/aUnallocated Points25

Looking at all my unallocated points, I felt that it was time to perform my little experiment.

Before anything, I closed the panel once again, and grabbed a knife sized short sword from my growing pile.

I gripped its edge firmly, while I swung it around haphazardly. After a couple of swings, I then readied myself, before I slashed out at one of the wooden stall walls. Hearing the relaxing noise of metal cutting through wood, I made a tight smile.

Taking a bit of my time, I then walked over to the farthest left wall and carved a decent looking circle. I drew a few more circles inside it, making a rough target.

Finally, I walked over near the metal door and faced the farthest wall, where my makeshift target resided.

While trying to retain the most accuracy, I threw the sword with all my might.

I watched as the sword harmlessly bounced off the wall.

Nodding to myself, I pulled up my status screen again and distributed 5 points to dexterity. I then repeated all of the things I had just done (well, save for the target carving bit).

After that, I distributed 5 more to agility and repeated the process. Then finally, I finished off with strength.

I did all this in order to determine the exact effects of each of what I considered, my most “useful” battle stats. While I did feel their immediate effects during battle, it was hard to determine what exactly affected what when my distribution was all over the place.

While I could garner what roughly enhanced what part of my physical ability, it was still comfortable to know that I had a full understanding of this system.

So after, killing another goblin that spawned in the middle of my trials, I gathered my thoughts after the end of my experiment.

In the end I determined the following things;

Strength affected, as it indicated, strength. It made my slashes stronger, while it made my throws much harder.

Agility was also the same in this regard. It somewhat affected my attack speed.

Dexterity is what I would call the odd one out. It made me… nimbler with my hands. While it had an effect on my attack speed (although it was considerably less than agility), it also affected my accuracy in both throwing and slashing.

An increase in dexterity made it possible to strike out at smaller vital points while I wielded the blade and it also made me capable of performing more accurate throws even from a greater distance.

With this new information, I conceived a plan.

The first step to this new plan was to invest all of my remaining points into dexterity.

Doing so made all my throws a lot more accurate… and deadly, which would definitely help when I confronted the goblins.

For the next step, I looked helplessly over at the pile of corpses littered on the floor.

Steeling myself, I walked over with heavy steps, all the while muttering something along the lines of,“Operation: Fear...commence.”

Rather cheesy, but hey, its not like anyone heard.

****

Author's Note:

If you like the story so far, comment, favorite, follow, rate, etc. This is new, so it needs a little boost right now. Thanks.

Also, open to all new ideas.