*
She wandered the forest for the rest of the day, killing goblins she found on the way. Her body never felt tired, each time she leveled up she felt a wave of refreshment sweep through her muscles, relieving her fatigue with a floating sensation.
... Coming out of the forest, she sees a village ahead. As if someone had plugged her throat, she remained silent. It's quiet, the air is unnerving. The structures stand tall, houses of wood and stone are numerous, this was a relatively developed village situated near the capital. The capital's booming trade would trickle down its benefits. She steps off the grass, trodding over crushed gravel laid wide for the wheels of a carriage. She stood on the clearing opened up by the paved road, taking step after step towards the village.
She was no longer in the forest, but her nerves were more taut than ever. Then she sees it. A person, laying face down in the tall grass. Their back is soaked in blood, there was a pungent tangy odor coming off of their body. I see, she thought to herself. No matter where you went, a place that was populated would have some semblance of an atmosphere that felt lived at. This village was eerily silent, from the outside it was impossible to spot any living person. Now, there's also a corpse left out here. It's a trap here.
But she can't ignore it, before she was a hero she was foremost a magical girl. She can't transform, but she can use skills. Before she noticed, she had gone past the open gate. The walls weren't as tall or as sturdy as the capital's, but they've shown that they weathered the years. Another body, and another. The smell of corpses grows stronger, more primal and bloodied up, as if torn without a care like fragile toys. Blood stains leaked under some of the doors, others lined the walls. Some of the corpses or victims were taken, leaving behind a foreboding sight.
Gravel crunches under her boots, throwing up sand everytime she lifts a leg. After a few steps, she closed in on one of the homes. Her covered hand rose to the door knob, her lungs tied into a knot halting her breath. She braced herself for a moment before pushing in. Naturally, it wasn't locked. A lifeless woman sat upon a chair pushed against the dining table. Her head was covered in bloodied hair, congealed into an irregular shape. She couldn't see the wound, but it was likely a completely crushed neck.
The image of Arin overlaps for a moment, sending her nerves into a frenzy. If she let her mind run loose now, she would go crazy, but she steels her mind. Whether she's Arin or not, it doesn't change what she has to do. She clears her conscious with a deep breath, exhaling the cool pungent air with her full lung capacity. Calm down. Whoever did this, whoever killed all the villagers is still out there. Was it a person? A monster? Speaking of which, were the capital's gates closed?
If it were, the kingdom must be aware to some extent. She continued walking through the village after leaving that house, some corpses lay mangled into an indistinguishable mess, others were... Missing. She could tell, because all that laid there were massive pools of dried blood. How long has it been like this? Why hasn't the kingdom done anything?
When she reached the centre of the village, she sees them. A pile of corpses, a perimeter of goblins and hobgoblins. A single goblin mage, a fully armoured hobgoblin knight, a goblin king figure of sorts. It was hardly a surprise, she started sensing them when she was right at the opened gate. They tried their best to conceal themselves, but all the scurrying only served to prick at her sensitivity. Honestly, her blood is boiling. The pile of corpses couldn't account for all the missing people, were some of them taken to be breeding sows? It's not an uncommon setting for these creatures, after all they multiply like rats and would overwhelm entire cities otherwise.
The kingdom received word of a goblin king gaining territory in this region, and they closed their gates, leaving those living outside to die. Seeing the demon king's vanguard push this far into human territory, they decided to summon the hero, yet they couldn't part with their measly pride before a level 1. They were expecting some sort of legendary monster, a person at level 100 right from the start. They left her out to die in the streets as a vagrant...
She runs forward at blinding speed, these goblins were all around level 12-14, like the scouts outside. They were expecting her when they stopped hearing word from their scouts, so they consolidated their power near the centre of the village. She flew low above the ground with a leap, when she landed she threw a couple of punches, blowing the heads off of a couple goblins. These ones aren't armoured at all like the ones further in, they communicate via pheromones like insects.
They were just massive cockroaches, meant to be exterminated. Her gauntlets grew spikes as she ran towards the side of their formation. It wouldnt do good to be surrounded, so she ran towards the buildings a short distance away, dodging the goblin wizard's magic and archer's arrows on the way. Weaving between buildings, she executed a few strays before noting that they stopped chasing her head on. She can hear footsteps running to the sides, their king was intelligent enough to attempt an encirclement while minding not to lose troops from a frontal assault.
Now between the houses, she pauses for a few moments before pouncing out of the gap. She'll ram through the thin encirclement before the rest of the troops catch up. The archers were too far away now, a mass of low level goblins were up ahead, forming a river of troops. Looking at he numbers, the entire army must have been mobilised. However she remained undaunted, stepping one foot before the mass of goblins, she pulls back her arm and swings wide.
The goblin in the front is knocked back, and the momentum punctures into the river of troops. She grabs a goblin that got close by the head, and with a death grip she swings it at the fallen mass ahead like a club, knocking the masses to the sides until she reached the other end. By the time she escapes the encirclement, the river begins to converge upon her, and the goblin in her palm had become a battered sack of flesh with bones jutting out.