Chapter 123 Volume III – Chapter 44: First Battle with Creatures

I kept my eyes on the ice troll like Alexander and slowly turned in the opposite direction, to the left, making sure not to make a sound. Alexander followed behind me.

We saw a few more trolls along the way, but they didn’t cause much trouble because they were usually alone and not too close to us.

Of course, we couldn’t go on like this forever, we would have to be one of the luckiest people of the century for such a thing to happen. And, unfortunately, we weren’t.

As we continued to move forward in silence, an unnatural rustling sound suddenly caught my attention and my eyes widened. I quickly threw myself backward, unbalancing Alexander and throwing us both to the ground.

Out of the corner of my eye I could just make out a small silhouette, even smaller than us, hurtling toward where I had just been.

Because I had been thrown back, the silhouette had missed its attack and had fallen to the ground just like us, giving us a chance to examine it.

The creature was really small. It was maybe a meter and twenty centimeters tall at most. Its legs were short, its arms were very thin and too long. It looked emaciated, it had an oblique scar on its face that had obviously been there before, and it had four fingers with sharp claws on both hands, which had a very large surface area. Moreover, he was quite ugly. His nose was disproportionately large, his ears pointed and long, resembling an elf. Its eye color was a reddish brown, but it gave off a feeling that it belonged to a creature.

The creature resembled a much more frightening, evolved version of a goblin. If I remember correctly, its name in the game was apin, and it was a kind of creature that lived only in cold climates.

Moreover, apins did not travel alone, they usually hunted in groups of three.

“Get up quickly! There may be more, but there are at least three of them. They are nothing extra except they are fast, and as long as you don’t lose focus and can dodge their attacks, they won’t be a problem!”

I quickly stood up, unsheathed the sword hanging at my waist, and gripped it with both hands. Alexander took up his guard, a dagger in his right hand and a couple of needles with poison on the end in his left.

He tried not to show it, but he was afraid. His eyes had lost their usual hardness and were filled with worry.

I clicked my tongue and focused ahead.

This was his first real battle, and he didn’t have a skill like mine to clear his mind and erase negative emotions. So it was inevitable that this would happen. He would have gotten used to such battles after a few times, he was a quick adaptor, but it seemed that I would have to nudge him a bit at the beginning.

“Give me your back.”

We leaned our backs against each other and that’s when I noticed he was shaking. I gritted my teeth and looked at the creature that had stood up at the same time as us.

It was staring at us, drool dripping from its mouth. It looked like it had seen food for the first time in a long time.

I gripped my sword even tighter, poured mana into my body to strengthen myself a little, and waited for the apin to attack. If I rushed forward with Alexander trembling behind me, I would leave him alone, and that was something I didn’t want.

Fortunately, the apin was so blindsided that it rushed at me. It had almost tremendous speed, nimble like a stray cat running away from a dog chasing it.

Of course, this was from the point of view of normal people. I wasn’t taken by surprise as before, so all my focus was on the creature and there wasn’t much of a difference in terms of speed between us.

The moment the creature lunged at me, I raised my tightly gripped sword and took guard. I defended myself against the creature’s fierce claws and swung my sword swiftly, accompanied by the strange sound of metal meeting the apin’s claws.

Apin was a fast creature, perhaps even a match for me if I faced someone a little stronger, but that was all it relied on. With his lack of muscle mass and his small size, he was weak, so I was able to thrust my sword, which had collided with him in a defensive position before he could fight back.

My sword sliced through the apin’s claws and landed in its torso.

The sensation of the flesh splitting spread throughout my body, some of the blood from my sword splattered on me from the large wound I had made, and the apin was thrown back with a cry of pain.

Just then I felt Alexander, who was leaning on my back, move, I quickly turned around and saw two apins rushing at him. They were attacking him at the same time.

“Throw a needle at the one on the left, I have the one on the right!”

With my shout, Alexander threw one of the needles from his other hand at the apin on the left, just as I had told him. But, unfortunately, he missed it. Then he clicked his tongue and squinted his eyes, stepping aside to face the apin that had been lunged at him.

The apin’s sharp claws scratched the shoulder of Alexander’s armor but did not reach underneath. So Alexander reversed the dagger in his hand and plunged it into the apin’s back.

Meanwhile, I was dealing with my own opponent.

The creature in front of me, unlike the others, had not attacked me directly when I had guarded against it. Instead, it stopped suddenly, grabbed snow from the ground with its wide claws, and threw it right in my face.

What it did was so unexpected for me that I could not react properly. The snowball hit me directly in the face, suddenly blocking all my vision, and the apin took advantage of this to pounce on me.

I barely managed to raise my sword and somehow defend myself from the apin’s attack, but this time I felt a throbbing in my hands. My wrist was at a bad angle, so it was unintentionally strained while defending myself.

Irritated, I wiped the snow from my eyes with my hand, took the sword in my right hand, opened two fingers of my left hand, and drew two lines toward the apin.

From the lines I drew, two sharp waves of wind shot toward the apin and I ran after them.

The apin nimbly dodged the waves I sent at it and prepared to pounce on me again. By this time, however, his focus had shifted and he was unable to react to me coming right after the waves.

I cut a huge gash in his chest with my sword, and apin collapsed as the vigor in his eyes quickly faded as his blood trickled down through the snow and watered the ground.

I quickly regained my guard. I looked around to see if there was anyone else, but I couldn’t see any other apin attacking us. They were a group of three, just like in the game.

I took a deep breath, let myself relax a little, and looked at Alexander.

He was turned toward a tree, holding his stomach. The apin he had stabbed with his dagger had a wound that went from his back down to his waist, and it was so deep that I could almost see the creature’s organs. Alexander was doing his best not to vomit, and in fact… he was doing a good job.

I walked up to him and put my hand on his back, trying to comfort him by patting him lightly, but as soon as I did so he turned to me with eyes that were literally on fire.

“I’m just a little nauseous! I’ll get used to it soon.”

“Okaay.”

I didn’t say anything, even though I was a little annoyed that he was being harsh with me.

He was a man with an ego and the reason he was here was to cure his mother’s illness, which was his greatest wish in life. So he refused to see such weakness in himself, he was almost disgusted with himself.

“This is the first time you have faced a creature. Most people would normally vomit instantly, or even not think straight out of fear. But you didn’t vomit and you kept your fear to yourself, reminding yourself that you were here for a purpose. You’re really good on average, Alexander, I’m not going to say anything to you.”

Alexander stared at me. His eyes, which had almost burst into flames a moment ago, were now slightly back to normal.

“Haaaa…”

He took a deep breath and stood up. He turned his eyes to the apin he had killed and a look of disgust crossed his face.

“Okay.”

I smiled and, without sheathing my sword, turned around and walked through the bushes.

“Come on, we have to be quick before the smell of blood attracts other creatures. We have a long way to go.”

Alexander took one last look at the corpse of the apins before following me. He swallowed almost imperceptibly and then followed me without saying anything. He seemed a little more determined now than before.

Of course, this was a very important thing for us. After all, even if this was our first battle, it wouldn’t be our last. I was pretty sure of that, even if I would rather not fight another creature.

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