The Joker, The Trickster, And The Magician

After he crushed the head of the ugly goblin, Wolfram turned his attention to the first goblin. Blood was gushing unceasingly from the wound he just inflicted to it, it was quite a serious one, even his kicks caused some of its bones to break.

"Mhmm a frail body, you guys are no fun at all."

Wolfram approached the terrified goblin, which fearfully dragged its body to a corner and stared at him with anger and dread. Wolfram unceremoniously threw the bloodied knife straight at the goblin's head. It penetrated its skull and killed it on the spot, ending it from any further pain or suffering.

When he killed the first goblin, an illusory looking red card appeared before in front of him, he chose to ignore it so it disappeared from his view. Only when the fight ended and the two monsters died did he think of the red card only for it to appear before him.

*You have killed Goblin lv1; +0.1CP*

*You have killed Goblin Lv1; +0.12CP*

"They give me CP whenever I killed and there's a 50% chance that a stat card will drop, isn't this killing two birds with one stone?"

Wolfram laughed heartily as he disregarded the blood in his hands and moved the corpses of the goblins, searching for any dark cards hidden under them.

After a minor search, he managed to find one Speed card(0.2), which is better than nothing, at least. After he did a thorough check of the room to see if he hadn't missed anything, he seemed to have remembered something so he took out his dark card to check his level.

Wolfram Sakimoto

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Race: No Race

Class: 1 Star Trickster

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Cards Control : 1

Cards Sharpness : 1

Cards Speed : 1

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Strength : 2

Vitality : 1.4

Speed : 1.7

Perception : 2.3

Magic : 2

Magic Control : 1

Magic Resistance : 1

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Card Points : 0.42

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Skills: Sneaking Lv1, Dagger Mastery Lv1.

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'Huh? Isn't leveling supposed to be easy at first?'

Following the course of a normal plot, the first five or ten levels should be rather easy to reach. Killing two goblins are supposed to grant him enough experience to reach Lv2 yet he is still Lv1, which didn't sit well with Wolfram.

Upon further inspection, he found where his experience bar, it was barely noticeable, very, very well hidden in the main page of the stats.

As he saw the necessary experience, his jaw almost dropped from the shock. He double-checked and finally resigned himself when he found nothing about leveling except this invisible experience bar.

'Whatever, ups and downs, stats matter more anyway.'

The reality was harsh and the truth was difficult to swallow but Wolfram wasn't a person to dwell too much on things that have no solution for that will only lead to a waste of energy, effort, and most importantly, time!

By killing a goblin, he gained 25xp and it is written that he needs another 975xp to reach Lv2. He has never heard of a game where one needs to kill 40 Lv1 monsters to level up but since this is a reality, the logic of games may be missing here.

His primary goal is to get out of this facility then get stronger, after that, he'll sort his plans and slowly think of what to do next.

Currently, he didn't even know how far below the ground he was, this place being a military facility meant that there are several underground floors.

He was a world-class criminal so he must be in one of the lower floors, what he needs to do now is reach the surface and kill the goblins and soldiers on the way to gain some CP and loot those sweet stat cards.

For Wolfram, every moving thing is an enemy, it just depends on how to kill it, a bullet to the head, a knife in the throat or snap of the neck.

Previously, he restrained from using the handgun or the rifle to not attract any attention by causing loud noises. The rifles had no silencers, unfortunately, so he'll only use them if he's already been discovered or if he's surrounded from all directions.

With his Perception and Strength along with his experience, taking care of enemies of the soldiers or these weak goblins is easily doable.

He had double the strength of a normal a.d.u.l.t male, moreover, his strongest point is his Perception, he had excellent reflexes and could hear sounds from a distance away, making aware of any ambushes before their occurrence thus granting him a big advantage in such a place.

Wolfram picked his rifle and proceeded down the hallway, he limited his movements as to not cause any noise and cautiously advanced. He found three rooms similar to his but the entrance was collapsed with no way of entry, at the fourth room, he found a corpse of a soldier, which had a stat card under it.

He enthusiastically picked the card, which actually was a Magic Card! He crushed it and shifted his attention to nearby room entrance that lacked the metal door, which was bent in a weird way twenty or so meters away from its original position.

He held the rifle and readied himself as he kept his back glued to the wall and slowly approached the room, he heard no sound coming from there which greatly alerted him.

Even with his strengthened senses and augmented Strength, Wolfram isn't someone foolish enough to walk in there without a care in the world. He just escaped death once and he isn't one to throw his life carelessly after this one in a lifetime chance was granted to him.

Before he could check what's inside the room, a red card yet again appeared before him.

*[Light Steps] Lv1 acquired! +0.1 Card Points.*

He ignored the card and leaned forward, trying to see who's inside the room while keeping a check on the surroundings lest a goblin pops out of nowhere, after all, they are generally proficient at creating tunnels and ambushing unaware victims.

As he glanced at the wrecked room, he found no signs of goblins or lifeless corpses, there was only a wooden chair with a figure sitting on it, totally motionless.

This room was wider than the rest, it was approximately 20x20 meters and there were even some materials used for experiments like syringes and pills scattered all over the floor.

Wolfram did a thorough check of the room and even waited a couple of minutes to see if the breathing of the prisoner was constant or not. It's not surprising to see a prisoner feigning unconsciousness to trick whoever enters, any of those prisoners held inside of here are experts and controlling their breathing isn't something hard to do.

Once he was certain that it's not a trick, he raised his rifle and pointed at the unconscious woman while approaching her slowly and steadily.

Even after knowing she's not awake, he couldn't afford to risk it, after all, one mountain is higher than another mountain, there's no telling if she's someone even better at him or not.

With the fully loaded rifle pointed at her head, which was lowered thus making unable to see her facial features, he came to stop before her and used his weapon to press on her head, raising it without getting to close to her.

As he lifted her face, he saw that she had an ugly scar that covered more than half of her face. She would be a natural beauty if not for her tortured body, she was currently n.a.k.e.d but Wolfram didn't care about that, he gazed at her fluttering eyelids, which indicated that she's most likely about to wake up.

'She's very reactive to the changes occurring to her despite being in this state... ain't this an interesting seed.'

He glanced at her n.a.k.e.d body and sighed, the effect of the experiments effected her a lot, she was even missing a b.r.e.a.s.t! No man would want her with such an appearance, in fact, it wouldn't be surprising to be called a monster by anyone who sees her.

He lowered his rifle and started inspecting the room and picking those syringes and pills, trying to figure out their purpose. It didn't seem she's going to wake up immediately, it was as if something was forcefully making her unconscious yet she was trying to fight against it.

"These are powerful sedatives... even an elephant would fall."

All the syringes were sedatives, and strong ones at that, they were all empty, which only meant there were used on this prisoner. As for pills, Wolfram wasn't able to discover their origins, they were probably personally made in this facility.

Either way, for them to conduct such experiments, they must have wanted to achieve something but were unable to continue their work when the earthquake occurred.

"They tinkered with my body too, wait until I find one of those scientists."

Wolfram licked his lips as he imagined bumping into one or two scientists, even if they were guarded by soldiers, they would never be able to escape from his hands.

A soft grunt originated from where the woman was, he turned around and saw that the prisoner was looking around cautiously. Her eyes flashed with a cold light which was soon hidden away when she noticed that the door was gone.

When he approached her again, she took notice of him and stared at him without hiding her thick killing intent. Since he wore a soldier's outfit and had a rifle, anyone would mistake him for one of them, especially prisoners.

He put the assault rifle and chuckled

"Wow! No need to be so cold. I ain't one of them, just 'borrowing' their clothes since mine were dirty."

The woman clearly didn't believe as she kept glaring him dagger-eyes.

"I don't care if you believe me or not. You must have noticed the changes inside of your body, the earthquake was followed by a series of strange things, favorable for us, to say the least. Anyw-"

Before he could finish, gunshot sounds could be heard from far away, a battle was happening and the sound would only attract more monsters. Wolfram, wanting to escape and become stronger at the same time, surely wouldn't miss a golden chance such as this where both soldiers and goblins are his shooting targets, dropping precious stat cards for him.

He glanced at the entrance then refocused on the woman, whose gaze didn't leave him as if she wants to tear him apart.

"It seems duty calls, if fate decides it then we shall meet again, if you survive, that is."

He turned around to leave then halted suddenly as if he forgot about something. He took out his handgun and threw it next to the woman while adding

"A farewell gift, oh and wear something before you leave."

With those last words, Wolfram held the rifle and headed toward the source of the gunshots, eager to slay whatever was there. The battle was about fifty meters away, in a spheric room which resembled a central room for this floor. There were vending machines and two desks, broken, of course.

Two soldiers were fighting six goblins, the goblins had varied weapons, ranging from 1-meter tall rusted swords to weirdly shaped bows. The soldiers held the advantage with their rifles as they fired accurately at the limbs of the goblins, not wanting to finish them off using their guns for some reason.

Wolfram hid in the side and watched the battle occur with boiling blood and shining eyes.

'Too many enemies, so much fun!'