Becoming a Wildling

It’s been three months since I came to this world. By now, I’ve completely turned into a wildling.

To hide my scent and keep insects away, I smear mud all over my body. The spot where I’d placed the goblin ears got raided by rats, so now I thread the dried goblin ears onto a thin vine and wear them around my neck like a necklace.

I use a knife made from obsidian-like stone, and a wooden stick whose tip I sharpened with that knife, which serves as both a spear and a walking staff.

As my level increased, so did my physical abilities, and now I can easily catch wild animals.

At first, I cooked the meat, but since that destroys vitamins, I started eating the meat in thin slices after carefully checking for parasites. I even drink fresh blood.

Covered in mud, carving up animals with a stone knife, eating raw meat… I’m a complete savage now. My clothes have also evolved from a bark loincloth to tanned animal hide that I softened by chewing first.

Because I kept hunting goblins, my level has now reached 8.

Making jerky didn’t go well at first, but one day I found some hot chili peppers in the forest that I rubbed into the meat. Maybe the spice has a sterilizing effect, because I succeeded in preserving it.

That hot chili pepper also works as a stimulant. When I’m out tracking prey and can’t return to my safe base, sometimes exhaustion and sleepiness hit me hard.

At times like that, just nibbling on it a bit wakes me right up. I also always keep a few tucked into a little pocket I found in my leather clothes because it’s handy when I get hit and my consciousness starts to fade.

I just hope that mysterious pocket isn’t the remains of someone’s ass, but even then, I trust in the pepper’s disinfecting power. So even if it were, I’d be fine!

My supply of jerky and dried fruit is steadily increasing, and I’m starting to think it might be time to head toward a town soon.

By the way, goblin meat is absolutely inedible. It reeks with a sharp, chemical-like stench that stings the nose, and the taste is a mouth-numbing bitterness bomb. There’s no way I can eat that.

Whether it’s because my level went up or because of three months of wild living, my five senses have become unnaturally sharp.

My perception’s so enhanced I can sense presences far away. For a moment I thought I might have gained a “Presence Detection” skill, but the skills list hasn’t changed.

I’ve also gotten a lot better at hiding my presence. Wild animals all have sharp instincts. If they didn’t, they’d be eaten.

By repeatedly ambushing them, I’ve naturally learned how to suppress my presence. Still, I didn’t gain any “Stealth” skill either.

Here’s what my current status looks like:

Tōde? And hold on, it can even display kanji now? Feels like the god’s been getting lazy with the setup this time… maybe he’s already starting to get bored of me. What a ridiculous excuse for a deity.

As usual, I was making my way toward the grove where the fruit trees grew thick, keeping an eye out for signs of wild animals along the way.

That’s when I heard the goblins screeching nearby again. No matter how many I kill, they just keep popping up out of nowhere.

My level’s hardly going up anymore. Honestly, fighting them is just a pain. Maybe I should just stay hidden and let them pass… That’s what I was thinking when it happened.

“GRUOOOOOH!”

The sound sent shivers down my spine. The goblins that had been cackling moments before suddenly froze mid-sentence, faces pale (well, they’re green, but you get the idea), standing stiff as boards.

Something was approaching from deep in the forest. What appeared from the trees was a green-skinned warrior, about 180 centimeters tall, with a solid, muscular build.

He wore crude leather armor and held a rust-covered longsword. It was a higher variant of goblin. A hobgoblin, maybe.

I hid my presence and watched carefully.

Then, without warning, the hobgoblin swung its sword down at the goblins.

“SKRREEEE!”

“GRRREEK!”

“GHHK!”

Three goblins were smashed apart in a single strike. The rusted blade didn’t so much cut as hack through them, leaving the three a shredded, gory mess of meat and blood.

The remaining goblins could do nothing but tremble where they stood.

The hobgoblin barked some kind of order, then turned and walked deeper into the forest.

The others hurried to follow after it.

I used to think hobgoblins were just an upper-tier goblin, maybe about as strong as a well-trained human at best. But I was dead wrong.

That kind of brute strength of turning three goblins into chunks with one swing, and that speed, even with such wild swordsmanship… it’s on another level.

Even with those battered weapons and ragged armor, that thing’s no joke. Could I actually beat it, as I am now?

Until now, I’d only seen goblins in this forest, so I thought that was all there was here.

But to reach a town, I’ll have to cross this forest, and there could be creatures even stronger than that hobgoblin.

I realized it won’t be enough just to stock up on food. If I don’t raise my level more, I’ll never make it safely to town. I’d gotten complacent, used to this stable life. I need to get my act together. 

I have to keep leveling up. But killing goblins isn’t cutting it anymore. Since my last level-up, I’ve slain over fifty, and my level hasn’t budged.

Maybe the system doesn’t give experience for small fry once you’re strong enough. Or maybe the experience requirement just skyrockets each level. Either way, I’ll need to start hunting monsters other than goblins if I want to grow stronger.

I kept moving from place to place, setting up camp wherever looked good, then moving on again. Using the sun as my guide, I walked straight in one direction the whole time, but no matter where I went, there were only goblins.

What is this, Goblin Paradise? With this many of them, you’d think a Goblin King would have spawned and built a whole damn Goblin Empire by now.

But aside from that hobgoblin I saw before, I haven’t seen any other evolved goblins. Based on what I know from light novels, I started thinking it through.

This forest is full of food, and there are no other monsters besides goblins. Aside from that hobgoblin’s equipment, there’s no sign of human presence either.

There are no chances to level up, and there’s plenty of food, so they don’t have to fight each other or resort to cannibalism. And with no other monsters to compete with, there’s no struggle for survival. So the goblins never level up, never evolve.

With all that food around, there’s no risk of starvation, so their numbers just explode. That’s probably why this forest is crawling with plain, low-level goblins.

If that’s the case, the hobgoblin I saw earlier might have evolved after killing a lost adventurer who wandered in by chance.

I’ll steer clear of that hobgoblin and keep heading for the forest’s edge.

Who knows how many months it’s been since I was reincarnated into this world. I stopped counting the days a long time ago. Right now, all I want is civilization.

How far have I walked since then? How many goblins have I killed? My level’s up to 10 now.

The dried goblin ears piled up so much I couldn’t carry them anymore, so I stopped making them. After killing this many, I half-expected to get some kind of “Goblin Slayer” title, but apparently this world doesn’t have that kind of system.

I was walking while keeping my senses sharp as usual, when I felt a presence larger than a goblin’s. For a moment I tensed, thinking it might be a hobgoblin, but its movements were different.

How should I put it… the way it walked felt clumsy, untrained. Could it be a person? My excitement shot up, and without considering any other possibility, I broke into a run.

I dashed through the dense, shadowy forest, closing in on the presence I’d sensed. At about twenty meters away, I finally saw it.

A human woman, gathering grass into a basket. She had dull blonde hair and brown eyes, with a dusting of freckles. She wasn’t exactly what you’d call beautiful, but she was definitely human.

Overjoyed, I shouted out as I ran toward her. I didn’t even stop to wonder if she’d understand me. I was just… happy. After all this time, I’d finally met another person.

“Hey there!”

“Aaaahhh!”

I came bounding toward her, waving and grinning like an idiot, and the village-girl-looking woman screamed, flung her basket aside, and bolted away from me at full speed.

What the hell, running away the moment you see someone? How rude. Then I realized…

Right now, I’m covered head to toe in mud, wearing tanned animal hide that I softened by chewing, and around my neck hangs a massive necklace made of dried goblin ears.

Yeah, that’s… not great. Honestly, if I saw myself, I’d probably attack on sight too. I’d gotten so worked up over finally meeting a person that I’d forgotten that I look extremely suspicious.

Panicking, I ran after the fleeing girl.

She wasn’t fast. Since running through the forest isn’t easy, and I’ve had months of practice, I figured I’d catch up quickly.

I’d been feeling optimistic, until I suddenly sensed something dangerous coming from the direction the village girl had run.

That presence… It was the hobgoblin from before. Damn it. I dropped my pack and sprinted after her with everything I had.

“Aaaaahhh!”

“RRAAAGHHH!”

The girl’s scream and the hobgoblin’s roar echoed through the forest.

Shit, am I too late? Clicking my tongue, I burst through the trees that were blocking my view. And there she was, thrashing helplessly over the hobgoblin’s shoulder.

Thanks to the goblins’ disgusting ability to breed with other species, she’d been captured instead of killed. It was a small mercy, but I still had to save her.

Luckily, the hobgoblin seemed to be alone with no underlings in sight. Without slowing for even a second, I charged straight at it.

The instant it noticed my footsteps and turned toward me, I drove my knee forward, slamming it straight into that ugly, flattened nose.

I put every bit of my momentum behind it and channeled all my speed and power straight into my knee.

The hobgoblin, distracted by the human female, didn’t notice me until the very last moment and took my flying knee head-on. It staggered after losing its balance.

“Aaaahhh!”

The hobgoblin dropped the village girl it had been carrying on its shoulder. I managed to catch her just before she hit the ground.

“You okay?”

“Eek! A goblin! A goblin I’ve never seen before! Somebody help!”

“Who are you calling a goblin!? Calm down, village girl. I might look a little weird, but I’m human!”

“Uh, um… ‘a little’ weird? Are you really human?”

“Village girl, you’re surprisingly calm for someone in this situation.”

“Well… I guess I was so shocked by how you look that I moved beyond panic and found myself calm again, or something like that.”

“Coming from someone dressed like me, that kinda stings, you know.”

To my surprise, she could understand me. Apparently, the language cheat is a standard feature. Pretty unusual for that god, is what I was thinking, when…

“GRUOOOOH!”

The hobgoblin, blood gushing from its nose, let out a furious roar. I’d hit it with everything I had, but it barely seemed to feel it. This… could be bad.

“Village girl! Run somewhere safe! I’ll hold him off!”

“I’m not just ‘Village Girl,’ my name is—”

“Now’s not the time! Go!”

“O-okay, I’ll run back to the village and bring help! Please don’t die, Mr. New-Species-of-Goblin!”

Wait, ‘New-Species-of-Goblin’?!

Before I could shout that back, she was already gone, vanishing into the forest.

“Man, here I am enjoying my first conversation with a real villager, and this rude hobgoblin just has to ruin it.”

“GRAAAAHHH!”

Guess language translation doesn’t cover goblin-speak. I’d kind of hoped hobgoblins might be smart enough to talk, but no dice. And wow, he’s really pissed.

Honestly, I really want to run. But if I do and he heads toward the girl, that’d be even worse.

He took a full-speed flying knee to the face and didn’t even go down. Just how tough is this thing? Wouldn’t mind finding a legendary holy sword lying around right about now. I can’t see any future where bare hands get the job done.

I probably should’ve chased him down instead of chatting with the girl, but having a panicking villager screaming nearby would’ve just gotten in the way.

Besides… I guess I didn’t realize how starved I was for conversation. Talking with someone after all this time actually felt good. Like something inside me had been healed, even just a little.

Loneliness must have quietly been eating away at me.

Still, even if she’s just a ticket back to civilization, I’ve already decided to risk my life to save that village girl I just met. Guess I’m simpler than I thought.

While I was lost in those pointless thoughts, the hobgoblin swung up his longsword with murder in his eyes, and charged straight at me.