Chapter 2| The Cruelty of Combat

Once he moved through the barrier, a white light flashed in front of Jay's eyes, forcing him to close them. When he managed to open them again, his surroundings had changed completely. He was standing on a beach, to his left was the sea which went as far as the eye could see.

On his right, he could see the beach ending and slowly turning into a sparse forest. Behind and in front of him the beach simply went on. This area's barrier went from the sea on his left up to the greenery on his right, enveloping the beach in width. It only went a few meters back from his position, not allowing him to retreat too far. And reached about a hundred meters in front of him, a few meters behind the only other thing in the area.

It was this thing that Jay had his eyes on. It was a humanoid creature a little more than a meter tall. It had dirty green skin and long pointy ears. It had large eyes and pointy teeth as well, causing it to look like quite the ugly thing overall.

'A goblin'

Seeing the goblin in front of him, Jay swallowed once. He couldn't help but imagine what would happen if those teeth buried themselves into his neck.

After slapping himself on the cheek once, he managed to refocus his mind, looking at the beast once more.

The goblin seemed nervous, its eyes never left Jay who was standing some ninety meters away from itself. Seeing its nervosity, Jay realized something. This goblin had as little idea of what was going on as anyone else, hell, he might've never even seen a human before.

Realizing he was on a clock to be the first to complete the mission, Jay began walking toward the beast. When he was fifty meters away, the goblin began growling, trying to scare him off.

Still, he went on. His hands clenched into fists as he slowly took step after step, closing in on the goblin who had already retreated up to the barrier.

When he was ten meters away, the goblin finally made its move. Seeing its growling had had no effect, it rushed forward with surprising speed, jumping forward through the air to punch Jay right into the face.

*CRACK*

A foot and a face connected as a sharpened tooth joined a splatter of green blood in falling to the ground.

The goblin, who had been kicked right to the side of its face, fell to the ground, stunned by the force of the kick.

Jay, who grimaced at the sound of a broken jaw, looked at the stunned goblin for only a moment, before jumping forwards himself, assaulting the stunned beast.

Jay landed right before the goblin, punching the downed beast in the face once, then twice, and then again and again.

Blood colored the sand around him green as the sound of the screeching goblin entered his ears.

It only took three punches for Jay's hand to begin hurting. Two more caused it to begin bleeding. But it took dozens for the goblin to stop moving.

Green blood covered Jay's face when he brought his fist down for a final time. Another crack resounded as the beast's skull caved in and its screeches ended.

Looking down there was no goblin in sight, only some odd mix of green-colored skin and blood, bones jutting out in various parts.

When Jay got up, he nearly fell down again. He felt faint, and it wasn't because of any wounds he had taken. He wanted to puke but couldn't, and then, he began laughing.

He kept laughing for minutes, and when he stopped, he had calmed down completely. As he looked once more at the mangled corpse of the goblin, he managed to distance himself from the scene mentally.

After that, he looked himself over. His hands had a mix of red and green blood on them, and they were still bleeding his red blood; he also pulled out a tooth that was stuck in one of his knuckles. His arms were also wounded, it seemed the goblin got some scratches in, but none of them were particularly worrisome.

It was then that Jay wondered why the system didn't announce his mission completion yet, before realising it actually had. It had announced the completion at the moment the goblin's skull caved in, but he had been too out of it to realise. Still, the system's messages had an odd quality that made them impossible to forget so he could easily recall them at any point.

He noted there were several, but only went over the first for now.

| Mission 'Kill Your Opponent' was finished successfully, congratulations!

Reward: The system's assistance

Note: Please leave the arena through the right side within the next ten minutes.|

Oddly enough, he also knew that exactly five minutes had passed since the message had arrived, he ended up attributing it to system-magic.

After taking another moment to organise his thoughts he turned his eyes back to the corpse of the goblin.

After taking a deep breath, he once more approached its location 'Look at everything as if it is a potential resource'. This was one of the things the Tome of the End repeated a multitude of times. Words he would now follow.

Having approached the mangled corpse, Jay grabbed one of the goblin's mangled arms and began dragging the goblin in the direction the forest was in, where the barrier had now been removed.

Once he reached the grass, having exited the beach, the barrier reappeared behind him. Looking back, he saw the previous battlefield looked clean again, the goblin blood that had covered a patch of sand was now completely gone. Another few seconds later, he saw a new goblin and human appear in a flash.

Now Jay was in a new area. It was roughly 250 metres in both directions, creating a large square.

It seemed to end just before reaching the forest, with four tall trees standing within the barrier's area. It was at this moment he noticed a goblin and human were also fighting within the forest, the goblin seemed more muscular than the one Jay had faced and had already scratched the woman it was facing all over the legs. Unable to stand, the woman cried all the way until the beast ripped her throat out. After defeating the woman, Jay was startled to find the goblin heading in his direction, but the moment it reached the barrier it simply disappeared.

Taking a deep breath, Jay dropped the Goblin's body as he sat down in the grass. Looking over at the corpse he eyed a sharp-looking bone that jutted out of its arm, with a bit of hesitation, he leaned forward and grabbed the bone, before pulling it out with some effort. The bone was a little under fifty centimetres at this point, with a sharp edge. It seemed like a usable weapon.

| DING!!!! Congratulations! You are the first of this tribulation to partake in monster harvesting!

Achievement reward: Monster Harvesting Skill.|

Seeing the notification pop up, Jay was reminded he still had notifications to check from the fight. He decided to look at them one by one.

| You killed Grut the goblin (uninitiated) |

|Congratulations!!! You are the first of this tribulation to kill another being!

Achievement reward: Bronze gear box.|

|Congratulations!!! You are the first to complete the mission 'Kill Your Opponent'!

Achievement reward: Iron Weapons box, Iron survival box, wood clothing box.|

Once more, Jay had some odd feeling, this time he knew that the first two achievements meant that he was the first amongst all integrated humans. As for the last one, that one included only his own group and the group of goblins they had to fight.

It was an odd thing, instinctively knowing this information but it was equally useful. Knowing some 'firsts' may include all people while others only his own group, and even different ones may even include monsters.

Still, he didn't take too much time to ponder this as he instinctively knew he could mentally redeem the 'boxes'.

And so, with a flash, a metal box appeared on the ground in front of Jay. It was larger than he expected, being about a meter long and half a meter wide and tall. It also had a symbol on its front showing a campfire and a carrot.

Jay reached forward to the latch on its front and opened it, causing the box to fly open. Seeing what was inside, an easy smile covered his face as he saw its contents.

Inside the box was a large amount of food. There were multiple types of fruit as well as two loaves of bread. He didn't see any meat but did see a backpack in the bottom of the case.

Taking the backpack out for now, he began packing the food inside. Not quite everything fit but he figured the grass would probably be clean enough to keep the rest for a little while.

As for why he didn't leave everything within the iron survival box, that was demonstrated a moment later as the box disappeared in its entirety, as was mentioned within the book.

Next up, it was about time to get some clothes on.