Quick Note!:
So made a mistake in the last chapter. I accidentally wrote that Sakura was picked as a 'Cleric', but the role she was supposed to have was a Druid. I simply mixed up the names of the classes, since I couldn't remember. The mistake has been fixed in the chapter itself anyways. That's all for now. Enjoy the chapter!
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"Se-n-pai" Naoto was woken up by Nagatoro, who had her face inches away from him, giving him her trademark smirk.
"Wah!" He jumped from surprise, nearly falling off his bed.
Nagatoro began to chuckle. "Senpai! What a creepy reaction! You creep!" She continued to laugh as Naoto stared at her in surprise.
"N-Nagatoro, what the hell? D-D-Don't scare me like that!" He responded, slowly getting out of bed as Naoto continued to stare him down.
"It's early in the morning, can lay off for a bit? I'm tired." He rubbed his eyes, before reaching for his glasses. He was wearing lenses when he first got here, but he didn't want to use them all up instantly. Luckily, he had brought his glasses in his backpack.
He put them on, before adjusting them with his finger. "A-Anyways. What's up? Why did you wake me up?" Naoto said. Nagatoro shook her head, pretending to be disappointed. "Oh, Sen-pai. Did you forget?" She pointed to her left.
Naoto turned to where she was pointing, witnessing Gamo and the others already suited up and ready to go.
"We're heading off to test our new skills."
Thats Right! Naoto finally remembered what they discussed the day before. They had just recently awakened their classes and were planning to test them out in the fields outside of town. He shook his head. "Ah- yeah. I remember now."
He quickly stood up and grabbed his cloak from the clothing rack, preparing to go out.
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The city streets looked a lot more lively today. Mostly because the day before, they were just focused on finding the essential things to live here. But now that they had crossed practically everything off their list, they could truly admire the small town they would spend at least a few days in.
The place was bustling with activity. Just from sound alone they could hear people selling food, bragging about how tasty their food was, or about how fair their prices were.
It was truly a livid city, much unlike the quiet town of Kazehaya. The simple fact that things like phones and electronics didn't exist was the main culprit behind the many people simply wandering around town, looking for things to do.
"Actually- I'm a little bit hungry." Hino said, his stomach audibly rumbling. Naoto turned to him, before checking his pouch of coins. "We do have some money left to spare."
He looked around, before eyeing what looked to be the same food stand as yesterday. The food he tasted had done inexplicably delightful things to his pallete, and it wasn't like another 20 coppers wasn't too much to ask for.
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"This place should be alright." Takao said, dropping his backpack. The place they had picked was about twenty minutes away from town, so they didn't have to worry about holding back. They delicately picked a place that had a lot of natural growth like trees and blushes to test how well their attacks could actually fair.
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"Who's first?" Naoto asked, to which Takao instantly stood up in delight. "Me! ME!"
Takao was a massive fantasy fanatic and had been anxiously waiting to test out his newly acquired sword and shield ever since yesterday. He quickly took off his backpack, grabbing his sword and shield from it.
"H-Huh?" He picked up the sword with ease. "But how?" He wondered. There was no way he was strng enough to easily grip onto a sword OR shield like that. Did the sword get lighter, or did he get stronger?
Nevertheless, he held his broadsword in front of himself, aiming it at a tree, before swinging at it. The blade instantly lodged against the tree as Takao pulled it again with ease. It seemed as though his ability included to be naturally stronger, at least while wielding his blade. He continued to launch jabs against the tree, cutting it more and more, almost as if he were a lumberjack flimsily trying to cut down a tree.
The tree was about three more hits from entirely collapsing onto the ground, and Takao decided to give it a stronger swing. He rested his knees down, readying himself for a strong swing, his stance similar to that of a professional batter. He swung with all his might, but missed his shot...
...Nevertheless, the tree fell, without the sword even hitting it.
Takao and the others looked at the tree in awe, as it had been sliced in half by seemingly nothing quickly collapsing onto the ground. Takao looked in astonishment at his blade, before getting an idea.
He assumed the same pose again, however, he placed the sword right above his head, before swinging it downwards. The strenght of the sword slicing against the air shot a visible gust of wind towards where the tree previously was, slicing the root bottom of the tree vertically.
"Holy shit!" Takao jumped in excitement. "Holy fucking shit!" He seemed ecstatic. He had played more than enought videogames to quickly understand what this was. His sword was not just a simple sword, and he wasn't a simple swordsman. He seemed to be able to shoot piercing gusts of wind if he swung his blade with enough strenght. "Oh my God. I'm going to die from excitement." He thought to himself as he continued to practice his swing towards a nearby bush.
He seemed to be having the time of his life, so the others decided not to interrupt him.
Next up was Gamo, who approached another tree nearby as she readied her stance. She practiced boxing as well as Judo, so she was quite proficient in battle anyways.
As she was about to take a swing at the tree, Nagatoro heard rustling from a nearby bush. The bush was pretty far away, yet she could hear it so quickly. It felt as if her ears were picking up on every small sound that came from her surroundings.
Looking around, she noticed that Hana and Hino had Apparently seen or at least sensed that something was wrong.
"I... can feel...a presence." Hino whispered to himself. "There's something in that bush..." Hino could feel a tingle running down his spine, almost like he could feel the mere fact that someone was around nearby.
"Gamou!" Nagatoro yelled at Gamo, who turned around right as an arrow flew from the bush towards her. She was very far away, so getting to her in time seemed almost impossible.
Nevertheless, Nagatoro would try to save her friend from said arrow, instantly stepping against the ground as she ran full speed towards Gamo. She quickly realized that her speed was nowhere near what it was before, as she made it to Gamo in a fraction of a second, tacking her onto the floor as the arrow narrowly avoided her.
"Watch out!" Naoto yelled, as another arrow flew out from the bushes, this time aimed towards Takao. The arrow was mere milliseconds away from him when he instinctively turned around, placing his shield in front of his face as the arrow recoiled onto the ground.
"What the hell is going on!?" Takao was just as confused as the others. The arrows didn't stop as they were continously fired at the group.
Takao had managed to get himself in front of the others, serving as a barricade as his shield blocked all the incoming arrows.
Meanwhile, Gamo and Nagatoro were sloppily attempting to continuously avoid the constant firing directed at them. They were further away from the group, so they had to rely on themselves for now without Takao's shield.
The group didn't know what to do. The constant fire didn't really give them a chance to act on anything. Their only shot would be a ranged attack.
Hana held onto her bow, flicking her finger against the string. She had never shot a bow before, but this was a life-or-death situation.
She pulled a single arrow from her quiver, placing it on the bow, before pulling back the string. Despite never having shot one before, she pulled back the string with relative ease. As she was readying her shot, she noticed something.
"Are we really that close to the bush?" For some reason, it felt like the moment she focused her eyes on the bush, it looked like it was closer. It seemed like focusing on something caused her eyes to zoom into that location, giving her increased accuracy.
Nevertheless, she readied her bow, aiming it at the bush. From what she could tell, the arrows came from four different sources, each positioned quite close to eachother. She pulled the string while aiming at one of her targets, and released.
Like a bullet flying agains the wind, the arrow instantly blasted off into the bush, audibly hitting something as a loud groan of pain was heard. The moment the arrow hit its target, the barrage of arrows stopped as the bush began to shake once more, before the entities hiding within it finally revealed themselves.
Small, humanoid creatures came out of the bush one by one. Green skin covered their bodies, along with massive black, cat-like eyes. The creatures had pointy ears and were wearing simple robes on their legs made out of cloth.
Naoto and Takao were quick to realize that these things were none other than goblins as more and more started to run out of not only the bush, but also the surrounding forest.
Three, four, five, six, seven...they just kept coming. It didn't seem to have an end as the horde of Goblins only got bigger and bigger. Why were there so many Goblins hobbled up here just to hunt down someone like them?
Before they could ask themselves any more questions, some of the Goblins that wielded bows began to shoot as Takao continued his defense and Nagatoro and Gamo dodged them.
As Hana prepared her bow once more and Hino readied his daggers to defend themselves, Naoto looked onto the horde with a look of worry upon his face.
This was going to be a looong day for them.
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