Soren's mouth went dry.
He forced himself down into a crouch, slower than he wanted to be, trying not to make noise, trying not to breathe too loudly, and he began forming a magic circle with trembling fingers, picturing the shape in his mind the way he had practised.
A circuit of mana, a fragile geometry that depended entirely on him not panicking.
If he was lucky, whatever was out there would pass by, like all the other false alarms.
Something pushed through leaves.
A long green nose poked out of the bush, followed by a hunched shape and a pair of eyes that caught the light like dull coins.
A goblin.
Small, thin, and ugly, its skin the colour of old moss, its fingers curled around a crude weapon that looked like it had been stolen from someone worse.
Soren's heart lurched.
For a second, just a second, he couldn't move, because this wasn't a pixel enemy on a screen, it was a living thing with breath and saliva dripping and weight pressing against the mud, and it was looking right at him.
[Keuuurk?]
It tilted its head.
Soren's throat tightened.
'Do it. Do it now.'
His hands shook harder as he shoved mana into the circle, and the fear made his thoughts slippery, his mind darting ahead to worst-case outcomes, to getting hit, to losing concentration, to dying in the dirt like an idiot.
He forced his focus back, dragged his attention to the spell he knew, the only one he trusted right now.
"「Aqua!」"
A small sphere of water formed before him, trembling with his instability, the surface rippling too much, the shape imperfect, and he thrust it forward anyway, aiming for the goblin's head, trying to trap it inside.
The goblin jerked back, startled, but not fast enough.
Water swallowed its face.
Soren's improvised technique, turning [Aqua] into a suffocation spell.
The first time he had figured it out, he had been thrilled.
Now, with his heart pounding so hard his ears rang, it felt like holding a glass cup over a flame and praying it didn't crack.
The goblin thrashed instantly, clawing at its throat as bubbles streamed from its nose.
[Gurgle gurgle!]
It flailed wildly, and that was the problem, because every erratic movement forced Soren to adjust, forced him to tighten the spell's hold, and forced him to keep the magic circle stable while his brain screamed at him to move, to dodge, to run.
His mana fed into the circuit in uneven pulses.
His breathing went too fast.
He felt the spell wobble.
'No. No, stay—'
The goblin's elbow clipped a branch, the branch snapped, and the sound made Soren's head jolt on instinct.
His concentration slipped.
The sphere shuddered, the surface collapsing into spray, and in the same instant the magic circle cracked like brittle clay.
Shatter.
Water burst outward, splashing Soren's face and chest, cold shock against hot skin.
The goblin coughed violently, sucking in air with a wet, furious gasp, and its eyes locked onto Soren with sudden comprehension.
[KEK—!]
Soren's stomach dropped.
'Shit, shit, shit.'
He tried to reform the circle, but his hands were too slow, and the goblin was already lunging, small body explosive, weapon flashing.
Soren threw himself sideways, more falling than dodging, and the goblin's dagger scraped his sleeve, caught skin, and left a sharp sting along his forearm.
He hit the ground hard, mud smearing his uniform, and the goblin was on him again.
Panic hit like nausea.
Soren didn't have time to think, so he did the only thing his body offered.
He punched it.
His fist connected with something bony and unpleasant, the impact jarring all the way up his arm, but the goblin's head snapped to the side, and it shrieked.
[KIEEEE—!]
Soren scrambled backwards on hands and heels, trying to create space, heart hammering so hard it felt like it might burst through his ribs, and the goblin surged forward again, more enraged than hurt.
He kicked out, caught its knee, the goblin stumbled, and Soren lunged up in the same motion, using the moment to shove it away.
The goblin's dagger nicked his knuckles as it swung, a thin cut that burned immediately, and blood welled in a line.
Soren hissed, more in frustration than pain.
'Get it together, get it together.'
His breaths came in ragged bursts.
He couldn't afford to keep brawling.
He was unarmed, untrained, and his body already felt like it was falling apart from walking, never mind fighting.
He needed the spell.
He needed his focus.
The goblin snarled and came again, stepping into range like it wanted to climb inside his skin, and Soren forced his gaze to lock onto it properly, forced his mind to stop spiralling.
He dropped into a crouch again, ignoring the scream in his legs, ignoring the way his hands shook, and started forming the circle.
The goblin's eyes widened at the movement.
It lunged.
Soren's pulse spiked.
His circle almost collapsed again.
'No. Hold it. Hold it.'
"「Aqua!」"
The sphere formed, smaller this time, tighter, the surface steadier because he was squeezing his concentration so hard it hurt, and he slammed it forward like a shield.
Water swallowed the goblin's head again.
It clawed at the sphere immediately, choking, thrashing, and Soren braced himself, shoulders hunched, teeth clenched, feeding mana with everything he had.
Ten seconds felt like a minute.
Thirty seconds felt like an hour.
The goblin's limbs flailed less, then more, then less again.
Soren's arms trembled from holding the spell stable, sweat stinging the cuts on his hands, breath burning his throat.
He couldn't move.
He couldn't blink for too long.
If he took a hit, if his concentration slipped, it would all shatter again, and he didn't know if he would survive a second mistake.
One minute.
Two.
Three.
And finally…
Thud.
The goblin hit the ground, limp, its body folding into the mud like a puppet with the strings cut.
[+1P]
Soren's legs almost gave out anyway.
He staggered back a step, then another, and only stopped when his shoulder hit a tree trunk.
He slid down it, sitting in the dirt, chest heaving, hands shaking so hard he had to clench them into fists to stop them rattling against his knees.
"Whew…" he breathed, and it sounded pathetic.
The time it took to kill a single goblin was terrifying.
Three minutes and twenty seconds.
For a single goblin.
And that was with luck, with it being weak, with it not landing a clean hit.
His mana was gone in a sickening chunk, roughly a third of his total drained away just to drown something that could have killed him with a rusty knife.
If he made a single mistake, it would be for nothing.
Even just now, it had been almost nothing.
'I'll have to figure something else out,' he thought, because relying on a spell that demanded he stand still and pray was not a strategy; it was a slow suicide.
At least one good thing came from the kill.
Points.
He could gain points from killing demons, even out here, even without some quest telling him to do it.
Soren forced himself to lean forward, even though nausea lurched in his stomach when he got close, because the goblin stank like rot, sweat and old meat left too long in heat.
"Ugh, the smell…"
He held his sleeve over his nose, searched the corpse with quick, clumsy hands, and found exactly what he expected.
Nothing of value.
Just the rusted dagger.
He stared at it for a second, then grimaced and took it anyway, wiping it on grass until it looked less disgusting, then tucking it into his belt like a last-resort promise.
After all, it had nearly killed him.
With that, he wiped his bleeding knuckles on his trousers, immediately regretted it because of the sting, then stood and glanced up at the sky through the leaves.
Still blue.
He adjusted his bag, swallowed down the tremor in his legs, and continued on, because stopping now would only make it harder to start again.
••✦ ♡ ✦•••
"Finally."
The word came out as half-laugh, half-sigh, and it carried more relief than triumph.
After almost four hours of hiking, with one goblin fight that left his hands stinging and his nerves scraped raw, Soren stood before the place his magic map insisted was real.
At first glance, it looked like nothing.
Not even a "perfectly ordinary cave."
It looked like a wall.
A jagged rock face draped in ivy and thick ferns, water trickling down in thin threads that caught the light and made the stone look slick, the kind of cliff you would pass without a second thought because there were a hundred others like it in this forest.
If Soren hadn't had the map, hadn't known what was hidden within, he would have walked right past it.
Even with the map, he hesitated, squinting, searching for a shadow that didn't fit, for a break in the foliage.
"…Is this really correct?" he asked himself.
He stepped closer, pushing aside a curtain of leaves, and only then did he see it, a narrow seam in the stone hidden behind roots, the entrance tucked in a shallow recess where the undergrowth was thickest, like nature had grown specifically to keep it secret.
He had to duck, twist sideways, and push through damp hanging plants to squeeze inside, his shoulder brushing rock, his cloak catching on a root.
The moment he cleared the entrance, the sound of the forest dulled.
Whoosh.
A wave of heat washed over him so suddenly he froze, blinking, skin prickling.
"…?"
It felt like stepping into a bathhouse, warm and damp, the air heavy enough to cling to his lungs, almost soothing compared to the cold sweat and wind outside.
'It's like a sauna in here.'
He shrugged off his cloak, the long knee-length garment already filthy from the hike, and stuffed it into his bag, because if he kept it on he would probably pass out from heatstroke.
The further he went, the warmer it got.
The stone under his boots remained dry despite the humidity, the walls narrowing and widening like the cave was guiding him deeper on purpose.
His breath steadied, not because he was calm, but because the heat forced his body into a slower rhythm, like it was telling him to stop fighting it.
As he rounded a bend, light glowed ahead, soft and unnatural, and the sight hit him like a jolt of adrenaline.
Seeing that, Soren broke into a sprint, common sense evaporating under the weight of impatience, his boots slapping stone, lungs protesting, cuts on his hands throbbing with each pump of his arms.
The tunnel widened into a chamber, walls opening around him like a mouth, and in the centre stood a small grassy mound, impossibly green in a cave, the blades of grass dewy and bright as if sunlight lived here.
Perched atop it was a small purple tree.
Not purple in the sense of bark, but glowing, its leaves shimmering with a faint violet hue like a night sky caught in a lantern, and on one branch hung a single fruit.
Yellow.
Star-shaped.
It looked wrong in the best possible way, five distinct ridges forming a clean star silhouette even before it was cut, the skin glossy like polished wax, the colour a warm gold that seemed to gather the light rather than reflect it.
Soren's eyes widened.
"Found you."
The air in the chamber was almost unbearably warm, like the heart of summer trapped underground, sweat immediately trickling down his temple, but he barely noticed, because his attention had narrowed to that fruit like it was the only thing in the world.
He stepped forward, reached out, and hesitated.
For the first time since entering the cave, his hands actually paused, not from exhaustion, but from the sudden realisation that he was about to do something irreversible in a world that punished mistakes.
It was a ridiculous thought, because this was the thing he needed right now, he knew that, he had planned for it, but his body still flinched from committing.
Then his fingers closed around the fruit.
It was warm, almost sun-heated, and it smelled unlike any fruit he had ever had, a bright sharpness like citrus mixed with something floral, with an undertone that reminded him faintly of honey left near herbs.
He swallowed, and bit.
The skin gave with a crisp snap.
The flesh inside was paler, almost translucent, juice bursting over his tongue, and the flavour was strange and vivid.
Tart at first like a sour sweet he'd had once as a kid, then blooming into a sweetness that tasted clean rather than heavy, with a lingering note that was almost minty at the back of his throat.
It was, annoyingly, delicious.
And then came what he was waiting for.
Ting ♪
.
▶ Item [Starfruit] Consumed! ◀
[Starfruit]
[All stats increased by +0.3]
.
▶ Title [Hunter of Secrets] Obtained! ◀
[Hunter of Secrets]
To you who sought out a secret of a dragon, the world grants you strength.
[+200% Mana, Stamina and Health recovery rate!]
————「❤︎」————