As four of the others moved towards the goblin-esque creatures to fight, Messiah did something a little different. With his recurve crossbow, which had a bit of very impressive range, Messiah aimed his crossbow at the swordsman enemy, calling out for Midori to help even before he had fired the shot.

Unfortunately the bolt missed completely, buzzing right by the creature, meaning Midori would not only have a chance to finish it off indeed, but have to do so from its full health.

With that bolt having been off despite the usage of Messiah's 'Aim' Skill, which wasn't all that effective at this low level right now, the two enemies made their move before Midori could make her's. With the shield bearer closest to the swordsman, the sword wielding creature charged forward quickly, aiming to bring its sharp, crude looking blade into the torso of Elik. With its short stature it was hard for it to aim for the neck, so it aimed for the middle of his torso instead with one quick slash.

The first slash cut in somewhat deep, a red gash visible on Elik's torso. The sensation of the blade slashing into his flesh was real, especially the pain. It wasn't entirely painful, as Elik was pretty tough, but it still took a chunk of his health away, an HP bar visible in the corner of his vision now, that first slash having taken one-fifth of his HP bar, or 10 HP. It seemed like the game was forgiving in the regard of telling players how much HP they had left whenever they got damaged, that bar not having been there while their HP was full.

The goblinesque creature was swift, managing a second slash as a part of the momentum of the first, the creature also somewhat skilled with her blade. The second slash hit as well, slipping past Elik's guard. It barely got by though, cutting into Elik once again, dealing only 7 Damage this time instead of 10.

The archer, instead of shooting at Elik, shot at the mage with the tome that had killed one of the other creatures. It pulled back the string of its shortbow and fired it at the girl. Fortunately the arrow streamed right past her, missing by a good bit.

With their attacks finished, the players would have an opening to attack now.

“Aw, man! Come on!” Messiah shouted without thinking as the bolt whizzed by the little green goblin-looking creature’s head. He quickly retrieved another bolt from his ammunition pouch and set to work reloading. He quickly pulled the string back behind the stopper, and slid the bolt into place in front of the stopper. It took five seconds, just as the weapon’s description had said it would when Yeshua chose it during character creation. It felt...unnatural, yet natural at the same time. If Yeshua had been reloading a crossbow in real life, it would have taken him ten or twenty minutes just to get the bolt into place. It was as if Messiah’s hands had a mind of their own; and yet, Yeshua knew for sure that he had been the one guiding them to reload the crossbow. Virtual Reality was confusing that way. Yeshua would never get used to it.

Messiah watched, feeling panic rise within his chest as Elik was slashed up. He would be fine: he was a tank, after all. But watching someone else get stabbed was never something Yeshua would get used to. He was about to bring the crossbow to his shoulder and look down the sights of the weapon, to aim at the swordsman. However, he thought the better of it as he watched Mushi. The mage was already in the proximity of Elik, so he was in a better position to help than Messiah was. The panic quickly left Messiah, and the thrill of virtual combat returned. Man, video games are so much fun. Why doesn't everyone play these things?!

Given his close proximity to Elik, Mushi was somewhat glad that the sword wielding goblin hadn’t chosen him as its target instead. Given the deep red gashes it left with its two attacks, and the fact that Elik as a tank had lost nearly two fifths, Mushi wasn’t sure if he would have survived. Nonetheless he didn’t back pedal away from the enemy, and just jumped a bit to the side to get fully clear of Elik. His last [Magic Bolt] had just grazed past the other player before connecting with the goblin, so he’d been cutting it close. It wasn’t like he planned to fire off another projectile though.

Raising the wand he narrowed his eyes and focused. “Elik, get ready! Cover your eyes!” He yelled to the other members of his party as he raised his other hand to shield his own before muttering, “Flash!” He could feel something draining away yet again, flowing towards the wand in his hand, as a bright light emitted from the tip of his weapon. Hopefully only the enemies would be blinded and his teammates would be able to follow up without issue.

After Elik had been hit, a window appeared in front of him, followed by a second one, a rather familiar pair of windows actually.





This Skill, upon recieving it, actually made Elik feel a bit tougher, like he could take more pain now than he could before, which was the only way to level it up actually.

---

Mushi suddenly aimed his wand towards the enemy, shouting out a warning to the other players to cover their eyes. Unfortunately that was a bit of a mistake. His warning to the players was also a warning to the enemies, the two enemies actually being able to understand what was going on as they shielded their eyes as well right before Mushi used his flash spell, a bright flash of light emitting from his wand in the direction that he pointed it, which would have been at the two enemies who seemed to bare some basic form of intelligence judging from how they understood what Mushi was doing.

Unfortunately them covering their eyes in the nick of time, well the archer did anyway, shielded the archer from being blinded. The swordsman wasn't completely blinded, but he was able to somewhat shield his face just in time to flinch some. This flinch, unfortunately, gave Elik the perfect moment to strike at the sword bearing creature.

Despite the attack being on more of an impulse, it managed to sink into the creature, it crying out loudly as a red gash was left across its torso. It wasn't as deep as the one he made on the bomb throwing enemy, as its armor saved it a bit as well as the attack's spontaneous nature making it not as coordinated, but it still took a pretty nasty blow regardless and looked quite worse for wear because of it.

This battle, despite Mushi's mistake, was starting to draw to a close.

"Ok! It's my turn!" I shouted and unsheathed my longsword.I looked at my sword for a while and closed my eyes.Taking a deep breath and exhaled it then I opened my eyes again.I looked at the archer goblin concentrating at him.I can do this... I can do this!."Fierce Slash!" I shouted as I charged to the archer goblin hoping for a critical hit.

As Midori-Nyan charged forward, chanting the Skill Name, she would feel an extra surge of strength as her weapon seemed to shimmer just a very small bit. Upon slashing at the archer, this strength would burst forth, giving the power of her attack an extra kick, even if that kick was a mere 10% according to the Skill's description, that kick would undoubtedly go up as the Skill became more powerful.

The archer tried to dodge, but to no avail. The blade managed a deep, but still rather grazing blow as it raked across the creature's torso as it tried to step back, its very short stature helping it barely escape a much deeper blow. Still, the long, red gash meant that a pretty hearty chunk of damage had been done to the enemy. How much damage, however; was left to be seen since there were no enemy HP bars present.

Upon successful execution of her attack, a few windows appeared for Midori.





Still, both foes were still alive, but it was clear by this point who was going to win, but that didn't mean that the battle was over yet. Two opponents, albeit heavily wounded, were still alive and raring to kill the players.

"The KS is real!" Oz jokingly frowned, as he watched the bolin like creature he had aptly named Po, had disapeared after being finished off. "Well, one good Ks deserves another yes?" Oz looked at the two enemies left standing, then nodded his head slightly, "It would be amazing if he shot an arrow at me, and I was all like, BLAMO!" As he was acting out, Oz threw another knife swiftly at the Archer, "But you know, it would like hit hiss arrow and taken him out, yeah, that would have been awesome." Oz smiled, he was really enjoying himself, though playing more of a goof then anything else, it was a fun time.

The body did not in fact disappear. The two dead corpses of the goblinesque creatures were still there, and if Oz's next attack hit then there would probably be a third carcass to add to the several in the room. He would have had to get closer to get the Proximity Shot bonus, which wasn't that much of a problem since getting closer to a ranged fighter didn't really matter all that much unlike Melee fighters. If anything, the closer distance helped. Of course, one couldn't get too close, but still close nonetheless.

Unlike before though, when Oz got a very powerful strike out on the robed creature, this shot didn't really do a whole lot of damage. Despite it being dead on, the creature's shoddy armor and somewhat natural toughness mostly absorbed the blow. There was still a wound, but it was a small one. Low leveled throwing weapons really weren't all that powerful, or so it seemed.

Unfortunately the rest who had to act weren't able to react in time to get off their own attacks before the creatures decided to act again. Seeing as how the Swordsman had already wounded Elik, it continued its assault on the shield-bearer player, attempting to cut him once again with its rather crude looking shortsword as it chittered angrily. Fortunately for Elik, the first of its swift slashes missed, hitting Elik's shield, but it was swift enough with the blade to immediately attempt a thrust in the next moment after the slash had been blocked.

The first attack had been easily blocked, but the second one was a bit tricky. Due to how close the two of them were, it was hard to block, especially at such a close distance where Melee was indeed the most effective. So unfortunately, the blade managed to slip past Elik's guard, managing a nasty thrust into his torso, dealing only 9 damage this time since his resistance to physical damage had been strengthened by the skill Physical Endurance.





This Skill was a bit different than the other one Elik had received. For some reason, one of the methods to train it wasn't displayed, being displayed as an Unknown Method. Perhaps it would open up later, but for now it was unclear as to why this was the case.

The archer, in the meantime, decided to once again target Meiji, aiming its bow at her and letting off yet another arrow. Unfortunately unlike the previous arrow, this one found its mark deep in her shoulder, the pain being quite real, a red wound visible on her like the ones that had been made on Elik or the creatures they were fighting, no blood for certain controversial reasons.

Upon getting hit thougn and enduring the 5 HP damage that the arrow did, a window would appear before her.





The players now had their chance to counterattack as well, and hopefully nip this fight in the bud lest the first quest end in failure.

“The fuck?” To say Mushi was surprised would have been an understatement, as the enemy being able to understood what he had said was frankly shocking. The implications that anything they said could be understood by their opponents had horrible implications, but none that he should be contemplating about at the moment. It was good to see that, despite his warning going awry, the goblin hadn’t managed to cover its eyes in time. He scowled when the creature stumbled but didn’t fall from Elik’s follow-up though, a red gash signifying the damage it had taken.

Stepping in as the goblin countered with its own attack, Mushi managed to close in to almost point black range when its focus was on Elik. With his wand only a meter or so away from the creature, Mushi muttered, “Magic Missile,” quietly as not to alert the creature. He couldn’t be sure, but as he felt what he assumed to be his mana drain away, he guessed he’d used up a bit more than half his reserves.

Stepping in closer while the creature was focused upon Elik was a good plan, as it meant that he could aim at the creature without running the risk of hitting Elik, or it may have just as much risk. As Mushi got just a meter way the creature managed to spare enough of a bit of focus, as it saw Mushi moving, to take a while thrust towards him spontaneously once he got close and took that moment to aim his wand, which was how he would fire off the Magic Bolt.

Fortunately the wild, sudden thrust missed, allowing Mushi to get off his close distance Magic Bolt right at the Goblin. Unfortunately, perhaps it was Mushi's own lack of combative experience, but there was a disadvantage to using ranged weapons so close up from 'point blank' so to speak, since these types of fantasy-esque weapons were not small firearms. All one had to do was quickly move out of the way of the weapon's line of fire, which was much easier to see when it was such a short distance away from one's person.

Fortunately, that was difficult for this creature. Mushi would still be at a slight aim disadvantage due to having to worry about not hitting Elik by accident, but regardless his aim in that moment was pristine enough to compensate for all of the disadvantages that his shot had at the current moment, the bolt blasting the creature in the side, it crying out in pain as the magical energy effectively wounded his being. It had enough wounds on it from multiple attacks from Elik that the creature fell over after being hit by the Magic Bolt Weapon Skill of Mushi's wand, the creature most likely dead as it stopped moving, the body just lying there, motionless and corpse like.

After defeating the enemy with his wand's power, a window appeared before Mushi.



With a third enemy dead and only one wounded enemy left, it being an archer nonetheless, this battle was pretty much over by this point and without a doubt, unless something else happened, victory belonged to the players with only a few wounds having been sustained. Granted they were quite painful, but only a few wounds nonetheless.

Sumato stumbled back a bit when the arrow hit her deep in the shoulder. Pain was the word for that. The only thing to compensate for this was a new skill, but by playing mainly mage in most games, she never really was the person with the most health, so to have suddenly gotten a skill to support better life? That would be something she'd need to get used to. Sumato stood at ready and whispered, "Magic Bolt.", aiming to hit the only remaing goblin left- the archer.

Suprisingly, the battle had gone quite well so far. It may have only been their first battle, but that just meant they were weaker, so for them to dominate the enemies this well in the first battle? Suprising. She quite liked this game so far, it was very immersive.

Sumato aimed her hand, her other arm having to be used to cradle the tome. They were a bit difficult to hold, but the strength boost and MP Reduction they gave to magic was pretty nice. The moment she chanted the incantation, that same feeling of energy leaving her and channeling into her hand and also channeling from the Tome itself appeared, as if the two energies resonated. Then, like magic, a bolt of glowing, blue energy shot from her hand and towards the final enemy, who unfortunately had Midori in proximity of it, so she would have a hard time trying to hit it while trying not to hit Midori.

Fortunately, Sumato was a better shot than one could anticipate despite having no ranks in Projectile Weaponry, which was the Talent that governed accuracy of shot projectiles, which included her Magic Bolt. The blast was head on, slamming right into the beast dead center as it cried out, a Critical appearing over its head indicating that she got a Critical Strike. With that, a large red wound the shape of the magical projectile could be seen as the creature soon fell to the ground moments after it got hit, it no more, another 3 XP being earned upon its defeat.

Sumato also recieved a few notifications as well after dealing the final death blow.









With this though the battle was over, the door that they came in still closed, but the other door opening revealing the way forward. First though, a search of the corpses. Aside from the shoddy weapons and armor, which were all a bit too small for the players to properly use and would just take inventory space, although they could carry them if they truly wanted to, there were a few items of note from these enemies if they all decided to spend some time searching their dead corpses, which was another element that most games either didn't include or made automatic at the push of a button, but here the players had to rifle through their pockets and other such things looking for anything of note.

The first was the bomb wielder's ammunition pouch. Including the one it had in its hand, it had a total of ten baseball sized bombs on its person. The archer had a small shortbow and fifteen arrows, but again they were smaller than human sized short bows so it probably wouldn't be as powerful in human hands. If anything, it wasn't that good.

The robed enemy had two scrolls in its possession, some arcane looking text on both of them. The swordsman had a vial of red liquid on its possession as one of the more noteworthy things it had, but other than that the rest of his stuff was too small for the players to utilize properly since the enemies were all three feet tall, the size of small children.

As for money, a total of 8,000 Sens was found in small pouches on each of their corpses, enough for the players to split evenly amongst themselves. Of course, anyone could try and steal the loot before the others found it, but unless they wanted to be hated this early in the game, such a thing was unrecommended.

"Well that was fun." Oz nonchalantly walked over to the bodies of the goblins, and gave the one that was an archer a swift kick in its side, "So how are we going to go about with the drops? there are some that make more sense on some of us then others." He then walked to the one that held bombs, "For instance, with me being a ranged character who throws, bombs would make the most sense for me to loot," He started to go through the creatures pockets, and searching for its items, as he found them he would stop though, "Unless someone disagrees?" He had his head sticking straight up, looking at the others to see if anyone would say anything before he took the items.

Sumato smiled victoriously when she fired, landed a crit, and finished off the robed goblin. She closed her book and wput it into her bag, walking over to the robed creature. Inside she found two arcane scrolls, and by Oz's logic, she should take one and Mushi take the other. She put the two scrolls on the floor next to her and picked up the pouch full of Sens and sat it down next to the robed goblin's corpse. She'd let the others decide how the Sens would be split. She opened up one of the scrolls and, with her other hand, held out the other scroll towards Mushi, offering it as she looked over the scroll.

He wasn’t sure if he would have been able to avoid the goblin’s swing, but luckily he didn’t even have to as the blow went wild and nowhere near on target. Even if his target could move aside from such a close range, it was even easier for Mushi to simply readjust his aim, following the goblin with the tip of his wand. Had Elik decided to make any sudden movements, he might have had cause for concern about friendly fire, but thankfully the tank remained mostly stationary. His attack hit the goblin square of the side, making it squeal in pain, before it collapsed lifelessly. He sighed as he turned his attention elsewhere, though he did nod in satisfaction at the window that popped up.

It seemed that the others in their party had taken care of the remaining goblin without issue. Unsurprisingly, given what the game had shown, loot had to literally be looted off the enemies’ corpses. He didn’t have any issue with what was proposed, given it was fairly common sensical after all. Instead he turned his attention to the corpse that probably had items he wanted, though it seemed that Sumato had gotten to his target, the robed goblin, before he had though and picked it clean. Wandering over to the girl, he took the offered scroll with a word of thanks before he unfurled it to inspect its contents.

Mushi was able to read and understand the scroll he had been handed, probably thanks to both the Knowledge Talent and his INT Score as he looked it over, this knowledge on the scroll somehow just making sense to him. It was a bit strange. The Scroll was for the Fire Cantrip Spell 'Flame Hands', which ejected a cone of fire. He figured he could either wield the Scroll as one would wield a Tome, only it would just be for casting the Spell on it, or if he poured over and took about ten minutes or so he could learn the Spell on the Scroll which he could use with his wand, although the process would probably destroy the scroll in the process.

Sumato was able to figure out the same thing. The Spell on the scroll she took was one that could be used with her Tome. It was an Arcane Cantrip Spell 'Magic Shield', which was a basic Arcane Cantrip for creating a defensive barrier in front of them for basic protection. As how Mushi figured out, she could either wield the scroll like a Tome or spend about ten minutes and learn the Spell through close examination and reading of the scroll.

Examining the scroll bore fruit soon enough as he managed to make out the knowledge written onto the parchment. Gaining another attack spell this early in the game had its ups and downs, but Mushi figured he was experienced enough to work around the possibility of running out of mana. He supposed he could try and memorize the spell or just use the Scroll as a crutch, with the first destroying the Scroll. He couldn’t be certain though given the other aspects of the game that had proven incorrect.

“Hey, Sumato. Mind switching for a moment?” He couldn’t be certain, but maybe taking a glance at whatever spell the scroll she had would make learning it easier in the future if he came across it again. It made sense he supposed, but GQO was blending realism with gaming convenience in unexpected ways.

As Sumato read over the 'Magic Shield' scroll, Mushi asked to switch for a moment. She nodded, and handed her scroll to he, and took his scroll. He read over it, and it was a 'Flame Hands' scroll. She quite liked this one better, she didn't really want to be a support mage, butboth of those could be offensive, if she's able to use Magic Shield on herself. She'd be fine with either of them, more spells were better. But once they did decide who got which scroll, she would definately learn the scroll rather than use it as a tome, and then she wouldn't have to carry around the scroll.