Astoria spent a few long moments on the floor contemplating what had just happened. Violence is coming so naturally to me now, am I becoming just as much of a monster as the people that I'm hoping to fight against? This is a game, right? I need to make myself harder or I won't survive long here, but does that mean I have to give up my humanity?

Her musings were brought to an end as Ladriel stood over her with a concerned look on her face. "Are you alright? That hit to the middle was brutal," she knelt down to look her over and passed Astoria their last health potion. "Tilly is okay, she’s over there. Looks like she’s beginning to stir," she pointed.

It wasn't easy to pull herself away from thoughts of what she had just done, but she turned her head and was relieved that Tilly was fine. She couldn't believe how much HP she had lost from that punch. The spiked knuckles of the goblin's hand acted like a natural set of barbed brass knuckles. She hadn't been bleeding heavily, but her HP had dropped by nearly a third. "I'll be okay," she groaned as she sat up. She felt like she must look like something out of a horror movie. She was covered in blood and dirt and it was hard to keep her lunch down when she thought about it.

Slowly making her way to her feet, she handed the potion back to Ladriel. "Save it, I don't need it." Ladriel gave her a puzzled look that turned to shock as Astoria activated her new skill. Astoria had assumed her companion would've looked over her status page, and maybe she had, but it was probably surprising nonetheless to see Astoria using the skill that their foe had been using constantly throughout the fight.

"You’ve been blessed by the gods with an amazing ability,” Ladriel said.

Astoria didn’t really know how to respond to that, and so she simply nodded. Her MP had dropped by 70 points, and she felt her wounds slowly begin to heal. After the spell had finished doing its work, she felt markedly better. This was her first taste of magic in this world. Surprisingly it didn't require invoking some long drawn out spell with chanting and hand gestures, she simply had to concentrate on activating the skill. She idly wondered if all magic worked this way on this world, maybe more complex spells required more complex actions. Only time would tell. For now, her fantasies of shouting some sort of magic incantation like "Wingardium Leviosa," in Harry Potter were dashed.

"Do you think we need some sort of proof that we removed this threat to the village?" Astoria asked, hoping that something gruesome like taking in heads for a bounty would not be a thing here. If only I had my cell, I could take a selfie, she joked to herself.

Ladriel walked over to the red goblin and reached down, yanking a heavy bone necklace off its neck. "This will be proof enough."

"Did we get all of them you think?" Astoria looked around the large room and didn't see any other hallways. There were stairs leading up to the roof and there was a single door over by the crudely constructed firepit. The building hadn't been a very big one from what she could tell from the outside, so she doubted there would be much more to the place than this.

"If there were more, they would've come during the fight. We've won." Ladriel replied. Despite what she had said, Astoria couldn't help but notice that her companion was still on edge and was probably ready to fight again should the need arise. She made her way over to Tilly.

"Find anything useful?" Astoria asked hoping to have at least gained some loot.

"No... none of them had anything useful. The big red one had a small brass key on him though. I don’t see what it’s for, though. Want to go check that last room with me?” Tilly asked.

"Yeah. Let's do it and then let's get the hell out of here." Astoria walked over and opened the door.

The room was lit by a torch and it really wasn't anything special. There was a crude looking bed rather than a pile of straw on the ground so Astoria supposed that this must be where the big red one had slept. There was a small wooden table that had a small wooden chest the size of a loaf of bread atop it. Sweet! Maybe there'll be something good in that! she excitedly ran over to the chest and put it up onto the table. "Tilly, do you have the key?"

"Here you go," Tilly handed the small key over to her.

The key fit snugly into the lock and a click was audible when she turned it. She opened the chest like an excited child would open a present on their birthday and her excitement turned to disappointment when she saw the contents of her prize. There was a rolled up piece of parchment and a few silver coins inside but nothing else. Seriously, game devs? Seriously? she sighed and put the four silver coins into her pouch and then unrolled the parchment. Her eyes widened as she read the text.

Employment contract:

I, Lord Ryland Dane of Oliend, offer this contract to Grizaldo and his troupe of goblins. Cause mayhem and destruction in the outlying areas near Oliend. The terms of this contract are:

Destroy a minimum of 5 homesteads.

2. Murder and pillage as much as you can.

3. Leave the area after one month.

Fulfillment of the contract will result in payment of 32 gold pieces, which will be delivered to the agreed upon location.

An elegant scrawling signature was at the bottom of the parchment. Astoria felt ill. Just how underhanded and dirty is this guy? Trafficking women wasn't enough for him? He has to go and order the destruction of families in his own town just for kicks!

"What is it?" Tilly asked as she came up beside her.

Astoria handed the parchment over to her friend and saw that Tilly had the same reaction as she had. "Lord Garland will definitely want to see us when we show up with this. This guy needs to go down for the things he's done."

"I feel that it is time we left this place," Ladriel said plainly.

“Okay. It doesn’t look like there’s anything else interesting to find here for us anyway. Let’s go,” Astoria replied.

The companions made their way out of the goblin hold and back to their horses. Oh my god... I just realized... she thought as she remembered that she had actually leveled up after their trip to The Whispering Willow and she had yet to allocate her stat points. I'm so dumb. Those points could have meant an easier time for us in there, she resolved to try harder to place her points right away. Astoria definitely didn't ever want her points to get randomly distributed. She opened up her notifications and quickly skipped past the ones telling her of her skill increases.

Notifications You have gained 372 EXP for defeating 3 level 5 Goblin Scouts You have gained 100 EXP for defeating 2 level 2 Goblin Raiders You have gained 197 EXP for defeating 3 level 3 Goblin Raiders You have gained 297 EXP for defeating 4 level 7 Goblin Raiders You have gained 837 EXP for defeating level 19 Goblin Warrior Congratulations! You have reached level 8! You have gained 6 attribute points to distribute. (Experience to next level: 5147/7,667)

I need to allocate my new points so that I don’t end up forgetting again like an idiot. She pulled up her status page and placed 6 points into agility and 4 points into luck. She also decided it was time to upgrade two of her neglected attributes now that she had a skill that utilized MP. So she put one point into Magic and one into Magic Resistance.

Spoiler: Astoria's Stats Name Astoria Level 008 (5,147/7,667 EXP to next Level) Class None HP 160/210 MP 95/165 AP 0 Attributes Vitality 14 Magic 11 Endurance 15 Magic Resistance 11 Strength 16 Luck 14 Agility 22 Dexterity 14 Abilities • Kleptomancy

Skills • Archery - Level 3 (2% toward next level)

• Stealth - Level 4 (17% toward next level)

• Swords - Level 1 (0% toward next level)

• Daggers - Level 3 (7% toward next level)

• Regeneration - Level 1 (5% toward next level)

• Fishing - Level 2 (71% toward next level)

I really scored with Kleptomancy this time. If I can grind some levels on Regeneration, then I won’t have to be so dependent on health potions anymore.

Astoria was happy to see that her skills had all increased a fair bit from the fight as well. It looked like her MP regenerated pretty slow so it would probably be a long while before she could use the regeneration ability over and over again, but it was a start.

She activated the skill again and felt relief as her body began to heal further. In a short while she would be almost as good as new. "So, do you guys think we should go back to the farm first or continue straight onward to Oliend?" Astoria asked.

"I'm beat, let's go back to the farm and rest up before taking on more bad guys, okay?" Tilly answered.

“Since it is a safe location, it makes sense that we should rest up there before continuing on our way,” Ladriel added.

Astoria and her companions got back onto their mounts and quietly rode through the night towards Jayse’s farm once more.