Senna opens her eyes and sees a clear blue sky. She sits up and looks around finding herself in a flowing field of grass extending as far as the eye can see. She looks at herself noticing her clothes have changed. Her thin dress has been changed with a beige blouse and a brown leather tunic on top. A long brown skirt and shoes when all combined make her look like a simple commoner. “I guess this is how they dress here.” Senna comments to herself. “Well time to get moving.” Before she can stand up a large window appears before her.
Senna stares at the window in shock, reluctantly opening her [Status].
“Uuuu…She tricked me…” Senna’s energy hits rock bottom as she falls forward on her hands and knees. After working out her depression, she forces herself to her feet. “…No choice, but to accept it. Time to look for civilization.”
Senna heads to a nearby hill and climbs to the peak. At the top, she sees a large expansive sea of trees in front of her. The trees are closely knit providing little light from breaking through the crown of trees. Senna turns around and sees the open sea. “A forest on one side and an ocean at the other.” Her eyes scan along the coast and spot a large port city. “There!” Senna smiles as she decides her destination.
She casually walks in the direction of the city. “At this pace, I’ll get there in two hours? Hopefully, I won’t get into too much trouble.”
“Gii-Gaaaaaa!”
An odd cry reaches her ears. Her sight shifts to a side where she spots a green pimply humanoid pointing at her with a wooden club and waving the other at someone behind the hill. A sense of danger fills her as she detects the hostility of the green creature.
“What’s that? Not good? What now? Oh right! [Identify]” Senna looks at the thing in confusion before remembering about her skill.
“A monster and a disturbing one.” Senna grimaces at the description. She touches her cheek when she realizes her expression. “Wow~ When was the last time I felt disgust? I can even show it on my face.” Senna talks to herself with an out of place calmness. She notices two other goblins appear armed with rusty knives and start to close in on her. “No time to play around I guess. What to do?”
Senna looks around for a tool or weapon without any luck. “Guess I have to rely on my hands.” She clenches her hands preparing herself for the fight.
“Wah!! Um, um… Hide skill notices!!” Senna panics seeing the sudden influx of skills and tries to command it. The window disappears before it can finish displaying the messages.
“Woman! Capture!” The goblin closes in on Senna. The closest one swings its club at her. Senna jumps back quickly expanding the gap to over ten meters between them.
“That scared me!” Senna looks at the goblins continuing to charge at her. “Looks like there’s no choice, but to fight.” She takes a deep breath. “Let’s go!” She hardens her gaze as she dashes towards the club wielding goblin. Before it can react, Senna throws her fist forward swiftly meeting the goblin’s face.
*Crack*
Senna’s eyes open wide as her hand smashes through the goblin’s head. Before her hand punctures deeper into the head, the goblin’s neck is strained to its limit and cracks. The goblin’s head flies off smashing into the base of the hill. Blood sprays out from the decapitated body drenching Senna. She stares blankly at her hands.
Before Senna can process the damage she did or the status window, the cries of the two goblins before her snap her out of her reverie. She quickly waves the message away making it disappear. “Have to keep moving.” She grabs the feet of the fallen goblin and quickly twirls throwing the body at the closest goblin. The body slams into the goblin. Its knife gets stuck in the body as the goblin is knocked off its feet. As the goblin flies, it crashes into its comrade knocking both of them to the ground. The last goblin drops its rusty knife to the ground as it flies.
"Wow." Senna stares in surprise at the fallen goblins. "I guess that's the benefits of a strong status? I was too na?ve I guess…" She sighs thinking of the help that Remilia's stubbornness has given her.
"I better finish things before they get up." Senna jogs to the fallen rusty knife. She walks over to the fallen goblins.
One of the goblins has already extracted itself from underneath the decapitated body and points at her angrily grunting. "Woman!!"
Before it can approach, Senna throws the knife strongly. It shoots out from her hand stabbing directly into the goblin's head. Blood lightly squirts from the goblin's head as it crumples to the ground. The body falls directly on top of the decapitated body trapping the final goblin under the combined weight.
"Heavy! Escape!!" The goblin squirms under the weight. It attempts to push the bodies off of it, but lacks the strength or leverage to move them. The goblin stops when a shadow looms over it. It sees Senna staring down calmly at it. “Escape!! Escape!!!” It panics and tries pushing the bodies again to escape from Senna.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Sorry. But you attacked me first.” She raises her foot over the goblin’s head. The goblin cries out again, but Senna stops down without mercy. The goblin’s head bursts open like a watermelon splashing more blood onto her clothes. Luckily, she covered her face preventing more blood from getting on her. She sighs with the end of her first battle.
Another window pops up in front of her. “Not now.” She flicks the window away turning her gaze to the goblin corpses. She claps her hands together giving a quiet prayer. “Leaving the corpses here gives a bad taste in my mouth considering I went and killed them like this. …What to do? I guess I should take it with me. There might be something I can sell.” Senna stores the bodies in her [Storage], but keeps one of the rusty knives in hand.
“It looks like it will break any second, but it’s better than nothing.” Senna comments examining the knife.
She takes a quick glance as her [Storage]. “Good, at least they didn’t slip anything else with me. I should be happy the status helped me survive that battle, but I still feel weird about such convenient gifts. [Status]”
She takes a look at her status, which only makes her sigh more heavily. “So strong… They really overdid it. Hah. No point complaining. I need to get to town. I wish I had some water to wipe off all this blood though.”
Senna walks towards the town replaying the battle in her head. “I’m really calm even though I killed something for the first time. Is it always like this? But there’s no choice other than to take them done since they’re hostile…”
Along the way, Senna meets another two groups of goblins along the way. She swiftly dispatches them by throwing rocks at their heads resulting in ten goblin corpses collected in her [Storage]. As the town comes into sight, she stops and looks at herself drenched in blood.
“Would they even let me in like this? I don’t want to be confused with a murderer. The blood’s starting to dry though…Oh Blood!” Senna remembers her status and her [Blood Manipulation skill]. “Will it work if it’s not my own blood? …Well I have to try. Um… [Blood Manipulation]!”
Senna stretches out one hand turning her palm towards her body. As she calls out the skill, the loose and dried blood separate from her clothes and body collected in the palm of her outstretched hand. “It worked!” She tries dropping it in her [Storage] and successfully fills a slot with an ‘Orb of Goblin’s Blood’.
She approaches the town and sees the large stone walls surrounding the town.
A long line of carriages stretch out from the gate. While thinking if she should wait in the line, she catches sight of a smaller line with people carrying weapons and armor. “Guess I’ll try going in that line first.”
When she reaches the gate, the smaller line has already cleared. Two guards dressed in steel armor stop Senna from approaching any further.
“●●●●! ●●●●●● ●●●● ID.” (Guard A)
“ID? I apologize I don’t have one.” Senna bows to them. “Can anyone enter this way or do I have to wait in that line?”
“No ID? You’re not an adventurer?” (Guard A)
“No?” Senna shakes her head.
“If you don’t have ID, you have to pay 30 Triton as a tax to enter
“Uuu…I’m sorry! I’m lost and have no money. All I have are some goblin corpses and some items I can sell to get some money. I’d have to go inside to do that though.” Senna groans at the predicament she got into because of her stubborn rejection of Remilia’s help.
“Goblin corpses? You said you weren’t an adventurer? Why would you goblin corpses?” One of the guards question Senna staring intently as he evaluates her.
“They attacked me, so I got lucky and killed them when I stole their weapon?” Senna meekly answers as she senses the sudden hostility. The two guards talk to themselves as they look at her.
“Show us proof that you killed a goblin. You’re not carrying anything.” (Guard A)
“Okay.” Senna pulls out a stabbed goblin from her inventory. The guards stare in shock at the sudden appearance. Guard A steps away rushing to the guardhouse.
“P-Please wait for my partner to return, Miss!” Guard B stutters as he speaks.
“Okay. May I put the goblin away?” Senna ask while looking at the nervous guard. {Miss?? why did he suddenly change his tone and get so nervous?}
“P-Please go ahead.” Guard B still stutters slightly as he speaks. Senna nods and puts the goblin away. After a few minutes, Guard A returns and relays a message to Guard B. Guard B takes out a white crystal as “T-Then please put your hand on this crystal and answer my questions.”
“Okay.” Senna obediently complies.
“What is your name?”
“Senna.”
“Age?”
“Ei…Fourteen.”
“Race?”
“…Human?”
“Have you ever committed a crime?”
“No.”
“Have you killed a person recently?”
“Mmm…If the goblins don’t count, then no.”
Guard B takes back the crystal after the last question. Senna also retracts her hand. Guard A hands Senna a piece of parchment with the basic information she provided.
“You’ll want to go to the Adventurer’s guild in the center of town to trade the goblin corpses. If you go straight ahead, you’ll see it immediately. If you wish to become an adventurer, you should register with them to obtain access to their services. You will also get identification as proof of joining them.”
“Okay. That sounds good. Thank you for the information. Is it fine that I’m not paying the tax though?” (Senna)
“A-a-about that, we would be very grateful if you can return to pay the tax by tomorrow afternoon would be greatly appreciated.” Guard B nervously salutes her.
“Understood. Thank you very much.” Senna bows to the two guards and heads inside the town.
When Senna is completely out of sight, the guards finally relax. “Thank god, she took that well.” Guard B comments.
“Yeah. Hopefully she doesn’t report us later.” (Guard A)
“Why did she have to be so misleading dressing as a commoner? Even if she can’t carry her ID, she could at least have some money on her.” (Guard B)
“Why do you think she was so polite? She could have easily executed us?” (Guard A)
“How should I know?! She must be some personal spy for the Lord carrying top secret information. There’s probably some reason that common people like us wouldn’t know.” (Guard B)
“What are you talking about?” A man approaches the two guards.
“Captain!” The two guards salute their captain.
“And what were you discussing?” (Captain)
“A young girl that passed through. She wasn’t carrying any ID nor had any money on her.” (Guard A)
“What did she look like?” (Captain)
“No older than 15. A very innocent looking commoner with long, sleek white hair. We let her through asking her to pay the tax by tomorrow.” (Guard B)
The captain frowns, “Why did you do that? You could have turned her away?”
“She was a top class magician. We think she’s probably connected to the Lord.” (Guard A)
“Oh? Did she say that?” (Captain)
“No, she didn’t. But that would be the best explanation for the lack of ID.” (Guard B)
“Then there’s no proof. She should have shown a mark of the Lord if she really worked for him. No need to skip carrying identification at all.” The captain explains. “Next time she comes call me immediately.”
“But Captain?! Even if she doesn’t work for the Lord, she must be some sort of official with her level of skill!” (Guard A)
“You don’t know that. Besides if she isn’t anyone important, I can have some fun with her.” The captain licks his lips thinking about her appearance. The two guards panic seeing their captain’s lascivious attitude, but refrain from rebuking their superior any further.
Author's Note
Apologies for the delay on this chapter. It was too hectic at work this week dealing with work for two other people while they're out on top of mine. Chapter 2 is coming in a bit once I deal with the tables. Also, I wanted to use some Japanese quotation marks for different situations. It's fairly intuitive, but here it is for reference.
"word" - Speaking
[word] - Skills
*word* - Sound effect
{word} - Thoughts
【word】- Names of places, objects, magic spells
Edit: Decided to stop using the Japanese Quotation marks since it became a burden to copy and paste them all the time.