It didn’t take long for him to encounter the first signs of trouble.

  He passed just a few houses before he saw a weird pile of trash on the side of the road. As he approached, its features became more distinct.

  That… wasn't the trash. It was some dude. Laying on the ground. In a big puddle, on a sunny day.

  He approached closer, slowly. His hands were sweating from the strength of his grip on the sword.

  The puddle was made of blood.

  So much blood.

  The dude… Was that Mr. Wilson? That was Mr. Wilson. He was the guy who helped Dennis fix his bicycle one time when he was a kid.

  Now he looked more like a horror movie prop than a person. A huge slash ran over his collarbone, like someone took an axe and chopped him a few times like a tree.

  Dennis didn’t know if he could beat an angry dude with an axe with his katana. It felt like a bad matchup. He would prefer slimes.

  “Tough luck,” he whispered to the body. His voice was trembling. “I’ll avenge you, man.”

  He went further, carefully walking around the puddle. Didn’t really want to step in all of… that.

  His mind was busy trying to process what he saw as he walked.

  That was a dead man. A dead man near his home, killed just recently. When? Was that scream… That scream was probably Mr. Wilson dying. Someone was dying just a few houses away from him as he did side jumps instead of trying to help.

  What the fuck was wrong with him?!

  No. He was doing everything right. First, he would level up and become a speedster. The speedster. Then he would use his awesome superpowers to save everyone everywhere, running around and saving lives faster than people even thought about dying. Like that, on the pavement… On the side of the road. Without help.

  Why did no one help him? Sure, Dennis was busy testing out his powers which was essential, but what excuse did the other people have? Testing their powers? That would be silly. In fact, this street was suspiciously empty. Where were the people? Hiding?

  And who killed Mr. Wilson?

  That wound looked gross. A big chunk of meat slashed with considerable force. What kind of thing could do it? A bite wound would look different, so it probably wasn’t an animal. Unless it had huge dagger-like claws?

  He shivered.

  No. Claws would leave more than one wound. And okay, maybe he didn’t exactly turn the body to inspect it closer, that was fucking gross, but he was pretty sure it was one big slashing wound. Like from an axe, or a big sword, or a–

  He heard a shuffle behind him and jumped away in fright, screaming like a girl. He heard the clinking sound of metal hitting the pavement.

  A cleaver.

  Big, huge, bloody, rusty cleaver. Attached to a hand. Which was attached to a creature.

  Bulky, yet small like a child, ugly like a hag, with a cruel smile showing teeth that would be more appropriate for a shark than a humanoid.

  “Goblin,” he muttered weakly, trying to calm his heart down from realization that if he didn’t jump away there he would already–

  Focus.

  He pointed his sword at the creature. His hands were trembling.

  “Fucking goblin,” he hissed through his teeth, gripping the sword tighter. “I’ve killed t-thousands of your kind. One m-more would be nothing.”

  The creature looked at him with a grin of superiority, raising its cleaver and making a posture that looked like a stance.

  Oh shit it’s smart.

  He took a deep breath as they appraised each other. It seemed that the fact that Dennis had a weapon made it slightly hesitant to attack, giving him a moment to calm down and focus.

  It didn’t have any armor, wearing some sort of poorly made leather rags. It was smaller than him, though it had defined muscles and that fracture in the pavement indicated a lot of strength in its attacks. If he got hit he would probably die. Useless information, he knew that already.

  Its cleaver was shorter than his sword, as were its arms. He had a huge advantage in reach. The goblin held the weapon in its right hand above its head, telegraphing the attack angle like a fucking boss from a casual game.

  More than that, he had a weird feeling that this was an equal opponent. He didn’t know where it came from, but it felt like there was some sort of metaphysical weight in the creature, and it wasn’t much more than his. Did he have metaphysical weight? It didn’t matter now.

  This didn’t look that hard, despite the fact that every drop of fresh blood falling from the weapon made his heart skip a beat.

  The goblin moved first, approaching fast and trying to hit his katana with the cleaver. As an attempt to disarm him, maybe? He just lowered the blade a little and took a step back, making the creature miss as its weapon went down.

  It instantly tried to attack him again from below, but before it even started moving he stepped forward and just… stabbed it with the pointy end?

  It cried from pain while jumping away, clutching its wound. It was bleeding heavily. He looked at the goblin with confusion as it snarled at him and tried to crawl away.

  He just stood there, unmoving and stunned, without lowering his sword.

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  It crawled for about ten seconds before losing consciousness. There was a puddle of blood forming beneath it, not unlike the one he saw before.

  “What,” he whispered. “The fuck?”

  He looked around. The street was still empty.

  Did he actually get a speed boost from the dexterity and just didn’t notice it? But he wasn’t faster than that goblin. If anything, he was slower. It was just… so fucking predictable? He felt like he was cheated somewhere. Was this the threat to the earth? How the fuck did people get killed by that? Okay, he would’ve been dead if he didn’t jump away from the sneak attack, yes, but other than that… He could probably kill it with a kitchen knife. Things didn’t add up.

  He felt the weight of the goblin disappear, and a small part of it adding to his own, making him more… weighty. More of himself. That felt right.

  The thing probably died. So this was the experience? It was kind of inconvenient that he didn’t have an experience counter, but this feeling of becoming more was a fine substitute. Though he had no idea how far he was from leveling up.

  It was kind of weird that the goblin still held more weight than him. That creature didn’t deserve it.

  He went further, encountering abandoned cars and more bodies. His stomach lurched at the sight, but he reminded himself to keep vigilance. Being ambushed sucked. Men, women, and even children laid dead and motionless, covering the pavement with red. All of them had similar wounds, made by a heavy bladed weapon. The smell was the worst. He wanted to throw up.

  There was no way that goblin killed them all. Well, maybe children. And okay, these people didn’t have any weapons, so maybe that goblin could. Not alone, though.

  Where were the other goblins? The other people? What was the point of this murder spree? People weren’t eaten, or robbed. Just slaughtered. Why?

  He heard a noise coming from a nearby house and tensed. Two more goblins came out the door, covered in blood. They released an excited cry as they spotted him. One held a cleaver, the other something that resembled a machete. They started running towards him, moving way faster than one would expect from creatures that small. Both held slightly more of that mythical weight than he did. He spotted a third goblin through the window.

  Oh shit.

  Two against one was not good. Three against one? A suicide. He needed to run. To use that fucking dexterity.

  He started turning away to bolt almost on instinct, but stopped barely a moment later, looking at the goblins. They would reach him in less than five seconds.

  Why wasn’t he running yet? He needed to run. He would die. Move. Why didn’t his legs move?

  But the goblins didn’t run at him all together. More like in a line? The closest goblin, the one with the machete, would approach him a few seconds before the second one. The third goblin didn’t even leave the house yet.

  And it didn’t look that hard? They were approaching him one by one, and the first one held its weapon like a stick as it ran at him.

  He didn’t know what he was thinking. But it felt like everything they did was so obvious. He didn’t move as the first goblin came closer and literally jumped at him, aiming the machete at his throat slightly from the left. It was like he was frozen from fear, but it felt like the opposite of fear? He was frozen from confidence.

  He aimed his sword at its stomach and ducked a bit to the left, going under the strike. The goblin couldn’t really change its trajectory mid flight, right?

  He underestimated the strength of impact as the goblin impaled itself on his sword. He released his grip as it flew by, barely keeping his balance. His arms hurt.

  He had no weapon now. The goblin with the cleaver would reach him in just a second, trying to chop his head off with an overhead strike. That was trouble. What was with those goblins and overhead strikes? Did they try to compensate for their height or what?

  But… The cleaver will go down from the right. The goblin was putting his weight on its right leg, still running. So if he shifted his weight like that, and moved his leg there…

  He crouched a bit and put his leg in front of the goblin’s as he grabbed its arm. The creature tripped as he guided its body lower and used his grip as an anchor to rotate himself behind it. It was falling head first to the pavement so he could just apply more force, right? He put his hand on the back of its head and pushed down as it was falling. Its face met the ground with a loud crunch as blood flew everywhere from the impact.

  He winced from the sight. That must have hurt.

  “The fuck is wrong with you people?” he murmured, turning the first goblin with his leg on its back and stepping on the armed hand so it wouldn’t stab him or something. He gripped the sword handle and pulled the blade out. “It’s like I’m playing tic tac toe. With a leg-up.”

  The third goblin didn’t attack, staying near the house and looking at Dennis with a weird expression. It held a spear, which sounded dangerous since he would lose his reach advantage. He tensed, preparing himself for a tricky fight.

  The goblin finally reached some conclusion and screamed at him so loud that it reminded him of his father. He flinched, almost bolting away. That thing was scary, and the screeching cry was terrifying.

  His heart was beating rapidly from fear as it ran at him, pointing the spear at his chest.

  Wait, why was it running at him like that? What the fuck?

  He swiped his sword almost lazily, moving the spear away, and kicked the goblin in the chest like he was the fucking Leonidas.

  The move looked cooler in his mind. He overestimated his strength again, and instead of stopping the creature in its tracks with, to be fair, a silly counterattack, he got pushed away and fell on his back, scratching his skin painfully across the pavement. Thankfully, the goblin also fell down and released the spear, so it wasn’t that hard to get up and swipe his sword across its neck, cutting the thing’s throat before it did anything noteworthy.

  He giggled as he stood between the three bodies, and pushed his blade in the second goblin, finishing it off.

  The mythical weight of those three goblins coated him like a warm blanket. He enjoyed the feeling of becoming more.

  “Okay,” he whispered to himself. “No showing off in fights for your life, and stop relying on your strength. Even if these guys are total pushowers.”

  How the fuck did these creatures slaughter so many people? He was built like a twig and never fought a fight in his life even once, and he was totally owning them. Was it the dexterity? Nah, no way. It was supposed to give him speed of movement, he knew that like, supernaturally, and these ugly freaks were either as fast as him or just a tiny bit slower.

  To be fair, he didn’t come out unscathed. His arms hurt from the awkward movement of his sword being jerked away, his leg hurt from tripping that goblin and would probably bruise, his back had a few nasty scratches, and he was somewhat winded. Nothing a small rest and a few band-aids couldn’t fix.

  Could it be that he was actually good at fighting? He was kind of good with fighting other people in games, but those never held his interest for too long. He would try out some fighting game, and he usually picked them up fast, but they were boring as hell. Like, so he could do these moves and the other player could do those moves, and then they fight and someone wins. Okay? What was the point? He’d rather read more comics.

  And everyone knew that gaming experience did jack shit for helping someone in a real fight, even if he could totally see how the same concepts applied. Predict the enemy, don’t get predicted, hit where they are weak, abuse your strengths where you are strong and shit like that. It was just common sense.

  And fighting those goblins was so much easier than in games. When playing a game he was constrained by having what, a dozen moves at most? In real life his options were limitless. He could crouch, or step away, or to the side, or hit with his sword and fucking pick the target and the speed and the angle and… How do people lose when they could do so much? Every moment of the fight felt like he had a dozen get out of jail cards in his pocket.

  It just didn’t make sense. The whole fight lasted less than ten seconds. He wasn’t even tired. Being scared was more exhausting than actually fighting.

  He was actually kind of embarrassed by that. It was like he was scared by a pack of murderous chihuahua dogs. A pack that murdered a bunch of people already. Okay, he was probably allowed to be at least wary of that.

  He took a deep breath to calm down a little and continued on his path. The grind was waiting for him.