*
A short presence. Experience as a magical girl had honed her senses to the most absurd degree. Back then, Traces would ambush her and the others by tearing holes into space. Forget any conventional senses a person possessed, she had to detect minute changes in the atmosphere that arose from spatial shifting. A tiny movement is all it took, goblins scuttled in the distance, practiced in movement that didn't rustle the leaves.
They were small typical prey monsters that hunted in groups or foraged. Their levels tend to be low since they couldn't hunt above their weight class too often, those that did would perish in battle, a portion of the hunting group would die. The survivors then needed to recoup their strength or rival tribes would take over. Only a small number of them continue to survive and grow stronger, as a whole the species remains weak and fragmented.
12 metres, her senses and her body has weakened somewhat since entering this world, yet she still retains some of her capabilities. The enemy was 12 metres away to her 3 o'clock, the forest is dense with thick trunks and piercing bush branches, the grass overgrew up to her shin and footing is unstable.
The integration of the adventurers guild into the royal army was knee-jerk, shockingly the reduction in activities inside the forest allowed the grass to grow to this extent. Needless to say the speed of regrowth is supernatural. National level operations to extract monster materials en masse stalled as a result of this unforgiving environment, and the kingdom resumed investing efforts into drawing new plans, new formations to tackle this issue.
They thought they could push through with sheer numbers, but their soldiers needlessly got injured and at a time where tensions with the demon king are high it was a terrifying prospect to lose more soldiers. As such, there was still a huge pause on forest operations, and they'll likely conclude that they weren't putting in enough effort instead. The reflexive reaction of command was to galavnise the mage corps and burn down the forest and pave roads suitable for marching through.
Naturally none of this factored into Lastia's thoughts, she was waiting for the goblin to get suspicious and come closer for a better look. Rather than a difficult method like detecting minor shifts in the air, they're more likely to track each other through scent. Their tribal culture has no concept of hygiene, they're like insects that use their own pheromones as physical or social markers. They tend to keep a far distance so that they could retreat at any time, they weren't aware but they evolved that way because it also prevented predators from picking up their scent up close.
Neither has even seen the other, much less used appraisal to evaluate the other. The
She could feel a few more presences at a further distance, they weren't close enough to help their friend here. So she waited. A couple minutes passed and the creature climbed closer, intending to check if she was still there. Her scent is present but the lack of movement was getting to it, did it perhaps track the scent of a plant instead? No creature stayed stationary for so long in the forest.
Tensing her legs, she pivot towards its direction and sprinted at full speed. It's been had, it realised as it turned around to put some distance between them.
Species: goblin
Level: 5
Hp: 100/100
Mp 50/50
Attack: 15
Defence: 5
Magic strength: 0
Magic defence: 5
Mana: 5
Constitution: 10
Agility: 10
She caught up without trouble and brought her fist into back of its head. A black gauntlet blinks into existence as she activated , its flesh rumbles under the impact as its small frame is sent flying into a tree nearby. Spitting blood onto ground, it bounces off the tree and bounces before laying still. She could see its limbs trembling, attempting to make a runaway.
Nevermind the pain, the impact to the head had caused its muscles to stop receiving signals. By all accounts it should be knocked out, but it seemed to have peripheral nerve centres like an insect. Coupled with their high reproductivity, Lastia deduced that they were descended from insects. It would explain their big bulbous eyes and social hierarchies.
She walked forward at a steady pace, crushing grass and twigs with crisp cracks snapping into the air. The forestry drowns out the sounds, remaining tranquil a short distance away. With one swing, she crushed its neck against the tree, causing a small chunk of the bark to be gouged out. She receives the fanfare notification for leveling up. Staying still will only work so many times, are they able to learn and adapt? She didn't want to find out.
She stepped deeper into the forest, her stride was calmer and she conserved energy. She could explain why, but she didn't feel hunger nor thirst. Her psychological needs only include sleep, comfort, and rest. Of course, her hygiene still bothered her, otherwise she'd be no different from these nasty goblins. They had big heads and small bodies, they retained 5 digits in every limb to hold tools and change the environment to suit their needs. It's as if insects and monkeys were having convergent evolution, it was much tougher than a human child.
... She couldn't verify, but... Do these stats equate to different values across species? Like a magical girl's grade... For a human, 50 would mean 50 times the ability of a child that starts out at 1. What if 1 for a goblin meant 2 for a human? And if different stats could have different multipliers? The goblin's physical stats like attack and defence likely have a higher multiplier than humans. They're all too low to matter at the moment though.
Alright, she decided. She'll crush more goblins in this forest until nightfall, by then she'd gain a few more levels and be able to take on those that come out at night.