The first floor of the Labyrinth had the theme ‘Navigation’, which the game forced upon the pyers in a very simple way, Field Effects. The Enchanted Forest, for example, had the following effects:

  Distorted World:

  Your perspective of the world differs from others. What is a mile for you might be a step to others.

  Shifting World:

  Your perspective of the world shifts as time passes. What lies to your left might be at your right tomorrow.

  Illusory World:

  Your perspective of the world is clouded. What is before you might be hidden from view.

  In other words, without a navigator, you are screwed. Doubly so when you are matched against someone who does have skills of the ‘Enchanted Forest Navigation’ series, like, for example, goblins, who innately possess them.

  Even if she wanted to run, they would easily catch up, so, all that was left was to confront them head-on. And, even if she lost against them, it wouldn’t be too much of a problem, since goblins don’t kill women…

  “Come out, I know you are there!”, she shouted to the hiding goblins, who, understanding their trap failed, did just that. There were three of them, all standing at about a meter in height and wearing nothing but a loincloth.

  ‘Three ordinary unarmed goblins; Should be easily manageable.’, without wasting time, she charged towards the one on the right, who, flustered, jumped to the left in an attempt to avoid her, while the other two came to his aid.

  With all the strength she could muster, she swung her left foot in a circur kick, deciding to endure the attacks of the two goblins in exchange for getting one of them out of the fight as soon as possible.

  The strategy worked perfectly, the goblin unable to dodge her leg in time, receiving the full impact of the kick, from a creature almost twice its size, on its chest, promptly leaving the fight. The trade off, was that she received a punch on her stomach and a kick to her leg, which had almost knocked her off bance. Overall, she had won this exchange by a ndslide, so, not taking risks, she distanced herself from the goblins.

  As soon as she did so, the goblins…took the injured one and started running away, ending this short encounter, as she saw no reason to give chase. However, even though short, this encounter was no less significant, as it reminded her that she was racing against the clock. If she didn’t find a safe pce to sleep before tiring, being made short work of by goblins will be the best possible outcome; Not having to fear death didn’t make it any more desirable.

  With such thoughts, she continued walking, while deciding on her course of action. If she didn’t randomly wander upon some human settlement or encounter someone who she deemed trustworthy enough to stand guard over each other while sleeping, she would simply surrender herself to goblins, something she did quite often in-game, since it guaranteed food, water, safety and a surprising amount of other benefits. It was also why she didn’t kill goblins, as that would make doing so more complicated.

  Lust increased by 1

  ‘Considering that I know what happens when joining the goblin faction as a female character, it makes sense for my lust stat to increase from preparing to do so, especially considering my high adaptability.’, she analysed the change in her stats, ‘Though, it will probably decrease, since long term changes in personality stats don’t easily occur naturally without significant time.’

  After that, her journey continued peacefully and she even found food in the form of berries, from a bush not hidden by Illusory World, and a weapon to boot.

  Stick:

  Effects: None

  Description: Do not underestimate this fearsome weapon!

  It wasn’t even a joke, considering how it massively increased strike range and damage.

  Suddenly, the scream of a girl pierced the silence, breaking the peaceful atmosphere. Not thinking too much, she ran towards its source. If this was what she thought, she had just hit a jackpot, even if there was some trouble she had to go through for it.

  When she came out from behind st few trees separating her from where she thought the jackpot to be at, suppressing the will to jump into action with a heroic shout, “Hands up, idiots!”, she saw a scene that couldn’t get any more cliché: Three goblins surrounding a girl.

  What surprised her, however, were the three goblins, as they looked like, or more precisely, were the ones she had fought before. The chance of encountering the same goblins twice, within a day, was ridiculously low; Did she have some kind of fate with them?

  Putting such thoughts away, she approached the goblins, skulking in an attempt to get them by surprise. Unfortunately, her hopes were dashed as the girl looked at her, exciming, “H-Help me!”. Seriously?

  Not giving up, she leaped to the goblins next to her and swung her stick at it, but, unfortunately, the hit didn’t connect. A moment ter, it was her turn to dodge, as the goblin on the left swung his stick at her; She wasn’t the only one to get an upgrade.

  Once again, she and the goblins faced each other and, from what she could tell, not only she recognised them. “Don’t make it complicated, just go away.”, she tried reasoning with them, but it didn’t seem to work, judging from how the two with sticks tightened their grips, while the one who remained unarmed raised his hands into a combat stance. And as much as she didn’t want to admit it, their newfound confidence wasn’t baseless, as having weapons, even if they were simply sticks, had greatly reduced the strength gap between them.

  The only good thing, perhaps, was that they weren’t intelligent enough to do something like using the girl, who she was trying to rescue, as a hostage.

  She advanced towards the goblins and swung her stick vertically at the one closest to her, to which he responded by holding up his stick with both hands to block, while the other one with a stick attacked horizontally, forcing me to back away, a time during which the unarmed one moved to her fnk. She sighed, ‘This is going to take a while.’

  If she attacked the unarmed one, he would simply move to the two armed ones, who will cover him. If she attacked the armed ones, they will be able to cooperate and give a chance for the unarmed one to attack from behind. If he succeeded in restraining her for even a second, the armed ones were guaranteed to nd at least a hit on her, which would allow them to snowball their advantage.

  It wasn’t a good situation to be in by any means, but there was a solution, albeit not a perfect one. Namely, since her strength was a lot greater than the one of a goblin, the one blocking her attacks won’t be able to hold out for long, which will lead to a breakthrough sooner or ter.

  So, she did just that, repeatedly swinging her stick at the two goblins blocking her, before backing away without taking risks. The pn was working out perfectly, until two more goblins appeared from behind the trees, one holding a sword, while the other one carried a bow and quiver.

  ‘Fuck’, she thought dryly. What was the chance of encountering two goblin elites on the first day?