<h4>Chapter 18: To Frolic With Goblins</h4>


    Arriving at the next spot Lake could see why Mary and Kyle liked it here, it was arge clearing with lots of fancy looking nts. Seeing the two get to work, Lake said "I''m gonna look around for any prey, I''lle back every hour or so to see if you''re done."


    After he said this he left and started to look around. With the marks of interest skill he didn''t need to worry about getting lost because he had already marked not only Mary and Kyle but the ce they were.


    Lake was looking forward to killing some more monsters, he was hoping to find something big enough to have a core he wanted to see what they looked like, and he didn''t think he would have to wait much longer because he could hear something walking close to where he was.


    It sounded like it was pretty big and as he listened he thought he might be able to tell it had four legs, or maybe there were two of them. He would need to get eyes on it to be sure.


    Slowly he started to creep up the ridge that was separating him from where he thought it was. Peeking over to the other side, Lake saw green skin that he thought might have belonged to a lizard or something, but after getting a better look at them he saw it was two small green people.


    Lake realized these were probably goblins so he wanted to kill them for the Exp, but this would be the first time he would fight two enemies at the same time. Then Lake remembered he had another weapon, and if he got lucky he would be able to take one out before the fight even started.


    Lake loved this idea; it was good enough to bet his life on, but first he marked both incase they tried to split up or hide after he attacked. Now he would be able to find them. He actually hoped they split up that would make it a lot easier to kill them, and Lake doubted he would chase them if they ran together, he''d be afraid they would bring him to a bigger group.


    Standing up Lake pulled the bow back like Kyle had shown him, but this time he paid more attention to his fingers. Releasing the arrow Lake watched as it grazed one of the goblins. Though it wasn''t the one he had been aiming at. Damn, too bad it wasn''t poisoned, this would have been the perfect shot if the arrow had been.


    Shrugging Lake put the bow down and readied his spear, after the arrow had hit one of them, neither had reacted right away it was almost like they were stunned. but now they had both turned and faced him, Lake saw them ready their weapons which were just sharpened sticks.


    Lake thought maybe he had been worried about nothing; these two were losers. charging Lake saw the will to fight leave one of the goblins eyes. It dropped its spear and ran.


    Lake was happy to see this but it was the one that he had been charging at so he switched to the other goblin but as soon as he did it to dropped it''s weapon. Lake was a little disappointed to see they had both ran.


    He thought maybe one was going to sacrifice itself to save the other, but in the end they were actually both cowards. Checking to see where the first one had gone Lake confirmed this wasn''t some scheme to ambush him.


    They had actually abandoned each other and ran for it. Lake just gave chase to the one he was closest to and a few secondster he drove his spear through its back, they were much slower than him so it hadn''t taken much effort. Stopping Lake pulled up his stats to see how much Exp this goblin had given him because he hadn''t leveled up.


    Race: Human Lv.1 ( 4/10 )


    Job: Thief Lv.3 (30 / 40)


    Special: The Insider Lv.0 ( 1/5 )


    Lake saw this goblin had only given him 18 Exp, which meant it was only worth 6, 2 less than the moth. " Maybe with goblins it''s a numbers thing since there''s a lot of them you can get a bunch of kills."


    Lake also remembered this thing had a core somewhere in its body Lake decided to leave it here for now he still had to chase down the other one before it got too far, this would also give him a chance to ask Kyle how to get a core out of a body.


    Lake didn''t want to just dig around inside it, he wanted to be as precise as possible. Checking to see where the other goblin had gone, Lake saw it had given up on running and hid from him instead, it was probably only 100 feet away.


    Lake moved in an indirect way. The goblin didn''t have much time but it was still possible that it had set some sort of trap behind it while it ran. Moving behind where it was hiding Lake Lake saw it was hiding in some sort of hollow log.


    To be honest if he didn''t have the Mark on it he probably wouldn''t of found it. Feeling a little like he cheated he stabbed his spear through the thin barkyer surrounding the goblin and heard a shriek.


    " Looks like I hit it." Pulling his spear out, Lake waited a few seconds. He was hoping it would crawl out because he felt it would be a pain to drag its dead body out of the log, sighing Lake stabbed down again in a slightly different ce.


    This time he had not aimed for it but near its head hoping to scare it out of the log Lake watched as the Mark slowly crawled away from where is spear had stabbed. When Lake saw the mark stop moving he did it again, then again until finally he saw the goblin reach the end of the log.


    The goblin hoped out and made a break for it, as it ran Lake saw he had only hit its arm with the first stab so it wasn''t fatally wounded. Charging Lake did what he did to thest goblin and stabbed it in the back but Lake could tell this stab wasn''t as deep.


    After the goblin fell to the ground Lake drove his spear deeper by putting his weight on it. [Level up] [New job unlocked Archer]Lake smiled; this had been a pretty good hunt. Now he would have two jobs to look at on the way home.


    At first he had been confused with the job, but then he realized this was the same goblin he had hit with the arrow. Looking at his stats Lake smiled he had made some good gains today.


    Race: Human Lv.1 ( 5/10 )


    Job: Thief Lv.4 (5 / 80)


    Special: The Insider Lv.0 ( 1/5 )


    Stats


    Health 10


    Stamina 10


    Mana 10


    Strength 5


    Endurance 6


    Agility 8


    Dexterity 7


    Perception 6


    Intelligence 8


    Charisma 5


    Free stat points: 9


    The only thing he wasn''t happy about was the fact that the amount of Exp he needed to level up again had doubled once more. Lake also noticed that this goblin had given less Exp than the first one, this one only gave 15.


    This made Lake wonder if monsters varied, maybe they had a level system too, Maybe even a job system. If this was true he needed to be careful even with weak monsters. Maybe someday he would run into a goblin badass. But like with every problem he couldn''t solve, Lake shrugged it off. It was time to check in with Kyle and Mary.