Three days passed since Vesuvius learned how to cast a fireball.
“Baga?”
“Gagaga baga!!”
A group of goblins was running through the forest. Some of them occasionally turned to look over their shoulders. Panic was visible on their paler than usual faces. They were breathing heavily, as if they were running a long distance.
One of the goblins tripped at the root sticking out of the ground.
“Ugagage!” he shouted at his comrades.
They looked at him, but they ignored his pleas and continued running. Sweat flowed down from their temples, and their muscles were trembling from exhaustion.
“Groar!” a loud growl echoed from behind them. ” Ahhh!” followed by a painful goblin shriek. Then there was a silence. The remaining goblins looked at each other and started to run faster.
It didn’t take long, and a goblin collapsed from exhaustion. The rest of them looked over their shoulder and resumed their run.
“Groar!” another loud roar sounded from the woods behind them, and then the loud noise of something hitting the tree came.
The rustling of shrubs came from behind them, followed by a loud “Crack” as an old dry branch snapped. The braver goblin looked for the source, but there was nothing. He should have felt safer, but his fear only grew more palpable.
“Rustle!” branches on the leaves above the goblins rustled, and one goblin slightly jumped in terror.
“Gaaa!” came from their right side. All of the goblins looked there, but there was nothing.
The goblin’s body fell from the tree branches above them with its neck bent at an unnatural angle. Goblins jumped up, terror visible in their big round eyes. One of the goblins directly collapsed out of desperation, falling to the ground where he curled into a ball trembling all over his body.
“Squash!” a disgusting voice akin to the steeping at a juicy fruit came, but no one dared to look behind them as they knew that it wasn’t a fruit that was squashed.
Goblins were so exhausted that they wanted to just stop and rest, but their legs refused to stop out of sheer fear. They knew that the only way to survive was to keep running.
Then a small dragon landed from up, breaking all of the branches in his way, landing right between the goblins. He was bigger by the least another quarter from the last time. His size was slowly approaching that of a small two-passenger mini car. His immaculate red scales were glistering with green lustre under the sun rays passing through the place where the dragon broke branches. One goblin threw his stone spear, but it only irritated the dragon more as he stabbed with his tail, impaling the closest goblin right through where his heart should be.
[+60XP]
“Do you think that I will let you live after all of the pain that you caused me!” the dragon spoke in a deep voice that sent shivers down the goblins’ bodies.
Goblins started to tremble in fear, images of their burning settlement vividly flashing right before their eyes.
Vesuvius grinned, scaring goblins even more with his teeth evolved to tear flesh apart and crush bones. The dragon leapt towards a goblin, grabbed him by his head and snapped the goblin’s neck with a cracking sound. Throwing the corpse away like a piece of garbage.
[+50XP]
Other goblins suppressed their fear and resumed their escape. They saw hope in a dragon’s tendency to play with his victims, hoping that they would be the ones lucky enough to escape while he played with their comrades.
The dragon remained standing in its place, giving them false hope. Goblins had no time to look at him as they ran for their lives. One of the goblins turned behind, but the dragon was already gone.
He felt hope again, ‘Did it get bored with chasing them?’
Suddenly the dragon appeared from the side, running over the goblin, crushing his bones. Vesuvius looked at the crushed body of the goblin, ‘Why am I doing this? Killing them is one thing, but playing with them by giving them false hope is just too cruel.’
[+40XP]
The dragon immediately speeded up, abandoning all stealth, his steps sounding like drums of signalling an end of the world. He ran directly towards the sound of running goblins, quickly catching up to them.
He opened his mouth. A magical circle flared up inside, and the sphere of fire started to quickly rotate and grow in size. Then it flew like a rocket towards running goblins. It hit straight between them, blasting two of them directly and causing burns to more.
[+50XP]
[+60XP]
He leapt, using his powerful hind legs and unleashed a storm of swings, killing the remaining goblins.
[+50XP]
[+60XP]
[+40XP]
//
You are now level 8
All stats increased!
+5 stat points
+1 ability point
Your skill [Claw] reached level 3
//
‘Finally, it’s over…’ flames of rage and vengeance slowly extinguished inside of him.
Two days earlier:
Vesuvius was standing at a border of the razed goblin village. His injuries mostly healed after a day of sleep. His body also grew significantly, giving him two additional stats to all of his physical stats. He looked at the now small hole in his left wing, and hatred and a call for revenge flared up from the depth of his dragon heart.
“Hey, Fet, why have we returned here? Don’t tell me that we get lost again.” a human voice came from a distance.
“Shut up. We are not lost… I just want to check for more clues.” a second voice came, this time closer, telling Vesuvius that they were approaching his location.
‘They sound familiar. Are they the same players as the last time? Should I run away? No, I want to hear more. I need to learn about the current situation of the game.’
Veusivus looked towards an unburned giant tower-like tree. He flapped his wing and flew up towards a top branch that he wrapped around, making sure that leaves covered him.
“Quiet you two! I heard something move,” a third female voice came.