Is this really a Game?!-Chapter 5 The First “Hunt”

The forest was huge, made up of enormous trees that were tens of meters high, their thick branches interlining making it look like a web, the leaves of the trees were huge as well, they were the size of 5 palms, nobody on earth has ever seen trees like this, it's simply unimaginable to believe that all of this was formed in a couple of minutes.

"Shit, these fucking plants are annoying as hell man,"

"Don't yell you, idiot, you might scare them away." Shadow was too busy wrestling vines away while Reign approached him from behind and got him into a chokehold.

"So, how do we do this?" Wolf asks the other three.

The party was looking at 5 goblins from one of the trees, they were thinking of how to kill them, since each one needs to get 5 goblin fangs, they need to kill 20 of them in total, each one counts.

"I think it's best that the 3 of us go down and take 3 separate positions, effectively surrounding them while Beast should stay here and use his bow, the second he launches an arrow we attack." Reign says while looking at the others, eager to hear their opinion on his plan.

"That's actually pretty smart bro, good job." Shadow gives him a thumbs up before turning around to check the goblins again.

"Go to sleep Shady." Reign was behind Shadow as he got him in a chokehold again.

"It's Shadow you god damn, kurkh, dude, let go, I'm choking!" Shadow pleads to Reign who was looking at him with a gleeful smile before whispering, "Don't fight it, just close your eyes and go to your happy place."

"Guys, I think that's enough fooling around, we are planning on killing those things, how can you be so calm?" Reign loosened his grip on Shadow and looked at Beast with a serious face.

"Because they are just 'things, they're not human, I have no qualm whatsoever of killing them, I mean, it's us or them so..."

"There's no use to just talk about it, let's go down, Beastie, don't miss your target." Wolf pats Beast on the back as he looks at him reassuringly.

"I-I'll try, but I'm not that good with this so-

"Don't worry, I'm sure everyone noticed by now, those attributes we used have already changed us, even though it doesn't look like a lot, the points in agility made my sight, hearing a movement much better," Shadow tells Beast who was still nervous. f𝑟𝑒ewe𝚋𝚗૦𝐯e𝘭.c𝗼𝓂

"Now that you mention it, I'm actually kind of calm, usually I would be shaking under a circumstance this stressful," Beast says while scratching his head, he was still nervous but he did feel better after hearing Shadow's words.

"Yeah, seems like the attributes do more than just the things in the description, I don't know whether that's a good thing or not but, it's helpful for now."

"Yeah, ok, enough chitchat, let's go down and take our positions, when you see us stop pick a target and make sure to at least hit it ok?" Says Wolf before turning around and getting ready to go down.

"Um-hum, I'll do my best." Beast nods nervously.

Wolf, Shadow, and Reign slowly descended down the tree, Wolf went to the right side while Reign and Shadow took the left, they were respectively positioned at the 12, 3, 6, and 9 positions on a clock, right in the middle were the 5 goblins who were busy brawling over some bloodied piece of meat.

Beast took out his bow and tried adjusting his breathing, he was never good at any physical activities but he watched a lot of survival shows and a lot of TV shows so he tried mimicking the way archers in the shows would behave. He was the best archer in the university but he had never used a bow to hunt anything and he needed to calm down in order to get a good aim at the goblins.

He slowly brought the bow in front of him, he was shaking at the beginning but he managed to calm down quickly, to his great surprise.

He put his finger on the bowstring and slowly started pulling it towards him, his muscles were contracting, the string was actually pretty hard to pull. Sweat was already forming on his forehead, he knew that this one pull of the bow will give them a big advantage if successful.

Time was slowly passing, by the time he managed to fully pull the spring 2 minutes had already passed.

Beast eyed a goblin that was lazily lying on the side, seemingly not attracted to the piece of meat at all, he was stationary so he made the best target, there was, of course, another reason he was chosen, his level.

[ lvl4 Goblin ]

The goblins in the group were lvl1 and lvl2, this one was the only lvl4 which meant he was the strongest so Beast chose to try and kill him first and scare the others. Beast was taking his time, even though he had already aimed at the goblins head 3 minutes ago he still hasn't shot the arrow, his forehead was shining from the sweat and he was barely breathing, he was doing his best to get the best shot.

After 2 more minutes, Beast finally made up his mind and released the arrow, the speed of it was immense and in just a moment it hit the goblin, unfortunately, though, it missed his head, penetrating his arm just a little under the shoulder, but it was enough, half of the arrow made it's way inside, going through the arm and hitting the ribs.

The rest of the goblins were startled, they stopped fighting immediately and started running but 3 shadows that were quietly waiting in the bushes suddenly appeared from three directions.

"C'mon Beast, what's taking you so long." Reign was waiting in one of the bushes and was getting impatient, it's already been over 5 minutes and Beast hasn't fired the arrow.

"Was the pressure too much for him in the end?"

Before Reign could think anything more an arrow hit the strongest goblin, he didn't even think, he just ran to the other goblins.

The goblins suddenly stopped, they didn't know where to go, they were surrounded. Goblins were an aggressive race by nature but they were also cowards, the moment their leader got hit they immediately wanted to flee, of course, the appearance of 3 more enemies made them even more frightened and for a moment they were simply confused.

Reign and Shadow have been frequently going to their father's dojo since they were kids, they knew that this was a golden opportunity.

Shadow took out a kitchen knife and threw it to the goblin closest to him, the knife hit the goblin's chest and made him scream in pain, shadow simply took his lottery knife and plunged it to the goblins skull.

Reign targeted two goblins that were standing together, because of shadow's actions they didn't react to him till it was too late. He plunged his knife into one goblins neck while immediately kicking the other one. He then followed up with a stomp to the little critter's neck, effectively breaking it.

Wolf had it the easiest, the last goblin had its back turned to him while it was just watching the demise of its fellow goblins, it was dumbstruck. Wolf simply approached it from behind, put his hand over the goblin's mouth, and cut its throat.

The goblin leader was lying down, wincing in pain, the arrow from Beast was simply too good, it managed to heavily injure the strongest enemy while shocking the others, making the fight a breeze.

"Hahaha, nice work Beast, you surely didn't disappoint us," Reign says cheerfully as he looks towards the tree where Beast was.

Beast came down from the tree and slowly approached them, before he could say anything he suddenly clutched his stomach and started vomiting.

"Damn man, you ok?" Shadow quickly runs towards Beast as he looks at him worriedly.

"I-I, of course, I'm not ok, how the hell are you guys so calm, we just murdered them, I just fired an arrow, but you guys actually killed them from up close so how are you just standing there like nothing happened?!" Beast cries out before vomiting once again.

"Well, I and Reign used to fight a lot some time ago, and on the streets of New York, you see some fucked up shit during big fights, but I'm really impressed by you beastie, that arrow was awesome, and you too Wolf, I thought a guy with your background would be too scared to even touch these guys, let alone kill one like that." Shadow looks at Wolf with a suspicious face.

"Well, it's a long story, one I would rather not tell."

"Don't sweat it, anyway let's kill this guy and get those quest items." Shadow interrupts Wolf, he was interested in what he would say, but he didn't want to force him to do so.

"Wait, let me try and tame him first!" Beast suddenly shouts at as he stops them.

"Tame?" Wolf blinks twice in confusion as he looks at Beast.

"Now that you mention that, you actually haven't told us your ability yet Beast." Reign looks at him with surprise.

"Oh right, it's a B+ rank, Beast Tamer, it says that low-rank beast monsters won't attack me and that I can raise my friendliness with them and tame them at the end, of course, there are restrictions, the beast can only be up to 5 levels above mine and there's some sort of evolution chance for monsters a well but I'm not sure how it works," Beast looks at them with a nervous face as he says.

"I see, that ability will actually come quite in handy for you, you can let your beasts attack enemies in close range while you attack with the bow." Shadow nods his head with a smile on his face while looking at Beast.

"There's just one thing I wanna ask, is a goblin considered a beast, I mean I thought beasts are animals right?" Reign looks at the injured goblin while speaking.

"I think so too." Wolf nods at Reign as he agrees with him.

"Well perhaps 'beasts' are just the name the voice uses for all the monsters, I mean there's no harm in trying right?" Beast asks them.

"Yeah, go and try it Beast." Shadow pats Beast on the back as he excitedly looks at the goblin.

Beast nodded and walked towards the goblin, the goblin saw him and started screaming even more, but it was barely moving, that's how serious the injury is. Beast kneeled next to the goblin and stretched his arm towards it.

[The monster you are trying to tame is not a beast type, taming unsuccessful.]

Beast got up and turned towards the rest of the group:

"Well, it's like we thought, I can't tame it," Beast says with a sad expression on his face.

"Don't worry Beast, we'll find you a pet sooner or later, just kill the goblin and let's go find more." Shadow tells Beast before patting his back.

"K-kill it?!" Beast looks at him with shock.

"Yeah, what's wrong, you were the one that fired that arrow into it so it's only fair you finish it." Shadow shrugs his shoulders. 𝗳𝗿𝐞ℯ𝙬𝗲𝗯n𝗼νel.𝒄𝑜𝘮

"I-I-I'd rather not." Beast waves his arms in front of him as he speaks.

"Beast, the world has changed, this won't be the last time we kill if you get scared every time you will end up taking too much time to decide what to do and that could kill you and us." Reign looks at him with a stern expression.

"I agree, being scared of fighting or killing will be a weakness from now on, you need to overcome it, the sooner, the better." Wolf nods in agreement before looking at Beast.

"I-I know, but still, I..." Beast stutters as he continues speaking.

"Beast just kill the freaking thing and let's go!" Suddenly shouted Shadow, when Beast turned looked at him he almost fell down, the way Shadow was looking at him was scary, he could even fell some killing intent.

"W-What's with him, just that look alone is enough to paralyze me, it's like he'll kill me if I don't do it, fuck, that's not something a normal person should have, just what has happened to this guy in the past?!" thought beast while shaking, he tried to get up a couple of times but it was to no avail, he was just too scared.

"Shadow that's enough!" Reign shouts at Shadow with an angry expression on his face.

Right after Reign shouted Shadow looked away from Beast and the atmosphere returned to normal

"I-I understand, I'll do it, I don't want to become a burden to everyone." Beast didn't wait, he immediately took out his knife and plunged it deep into the goblin's chest, the goblin barely even moved, he was already dying so this was just Beast easing its pain.

"I-I did it." Beast got up, but before he could do anything the voice suddenly spoke

[Battle has been concluded, distributing experience...]

-Lvl1 Goblin killed, 10exp points gained-

-Lvl1 Goblin killed, 10exp points gained-

-Lvl2 Goblin killed, 20exp points gained-

-Lvl2 Goblin killed, 20exp points gained-

-Lvl4 Goblin killed, 40exp points gained-

[The party has earned 100exp points, distributing evenly to all]

"So we do get exp points from killing monsters." Right after saying that Beast suddenly bent down and vomited

"Shit, yo beastie, you alright there?" Even before he finished with his sentence Wolf was already walking towards Beast, he patted the latter's back and tried to comfort him a little.

"Don't worry Beast, the first time is always the hardest, you'll get used to it eventually, after all, none of us have any other option with the world-changing like this." Wolf comforts him.

"Haaaa, I, I know Wolf, it's just that, oh, not again", Beast vomited again.

"Guys let's go, we don't know whether the smell of blood will attract any other monsters or not, if it does we might get in trouble," Shadow speaks out from behind them as he looks around the area.

"Yeah, let's go, we need to kill 15 more goblins," Reign says before turning around.

"Wait, why has the quest not been updated yet?" Wolf suddenly asks.

"Not that you mention it, it's still the same as before, no progress has been made?" Shadow checks the quest status as he ponders.

"Wait a second, guys, it says to bring their fangs, does it mean we have to..." Beast looks over at them as he speaks nervously.

"Oh damn, we have to take out the fangs, c'mon!!" Reign takes out a knife as he looks at the goblin corpses.

"This is going to be quite the weird experience." Shadow grimaces as he takes his dagger out.

The group looked at the goblin corpses with clear disgust.

"Ok, we should all go to the goblin we killed and take the fangs out of it, that way we will all split the workload evenly," Shadow says before moving towards the goblin he had killed.

"Hey, doesn't that mean I have to take them out of both the goblins I've killed?!" Reign looks at the two corpses.

"Who asked you to play a hero and kill 2 man, it's your fault." Shadow shrugs his shoulders as he looks gleefully at Reign.

"You bastard, you're doing this on purpose aren't you?!" Reign glares at Shadow as he angrily exclaims.

"Of course not bro, you know how much you mean to me, I would never do anything like that to you." Shadow shakes his head in denial while still having the gleeful smile plastered on his face.

"That's what you always say, you petty bastard!" Reign shouts at him before moving towards the corpses.

Everyone split up and went to a corpse except for Reign who had 2, Shadow was secretly snickering behind his back, careful so his bro wouldn't hear him.