Ero-Game: Power and Sword

An hour or two into the wagon ride, the driver stuck her head into the passenger area and said, “We might have some trouble ahead.”
“What’s the matter?” Asked the old woman.
“Looks like monkey-goblins.” The driver said. “Can you look under your seat? There’s a quiver full of arrows and a bow.” She pointed under the middle-aged woman.
She looked under her seat and found the bow and quiver. “Oh, I didn’t even notice.” The middle-aged woman said as she took up the bow and quiver and passed it to the driver.
“If any of you can fight, this is the time to help out.” The driver said.
“Why didn’t your boss send any guards? What are we paying you for?” The old woman was furious.
“This route is usually safe. The goblins are smart. They know the queendom would send out forces if the road becomes unsafe. The  adventurers would line up to kill the whole lot of them. This group is acting strangely. To come so close to the road…” The driver armed  herself with the bow and arrow. “If any of you can fight, this is the time to take up arms.”
Monkey-goblins are just as intelligent as goblins, but unlike goblins who lived on plains, they lived on treetops and treehouses. They are also a monster race, the same as the goblins.
Though the rulers liked to draw lines on the sand, you’ll always find a  few tribes of every race living out of their respective territories/queendoms.
“I’ll join you.” Terrie, the pink knight, volunteered.
“We’ll help too.” Nikola volunteered us.
The driver sighed. “Good.”
I looked everyone over with [look-a-look]. Terrie was level 17, and the driver and Nikola were both level 12. One of the middle-aged women was  level 20, but she didn’t volunteer. When I took a closer look at her abilities, I saw that she was an illusionist. And many of her spells  were bad for fighting but good for tricking men. From looking at her abilities, you can garner an idea of how she was during her youth. It  made me roll my eyes.
I took a look at Terrie’s class too. She was a Knight of Love. A class I’d never heard of in the game. There are an endless number of martial  classes as there are magic classes, so obviously, I wouldn’t know of all of them. Since the word ‘Knight’ was at the front of it, it’s clear  it’s a derivative of the knight class.
Nikola jumped out of the wagon, and Terrie and I followed behind her.
“They’re here.” The driver said and stopped the horses. Then pulling the arrow back, she released it into the forest. I couldn’t see them at all, but a monkey-goblin dropped to the ground with an arrow in its chest.
I activated [energy perception] and noticed that indeed we were surrounded. They blended into the treetops fabulously.
“I don’t see them,” Terrie complained.
“I used to be a scout.” The driver said, preparing another arrow. She got off the wagon and joined us. “You got to look for their eyes, then  you’ll notice them. We’re surrounded by the way.”
“Hmm.” Terrie groaned, feeling annoyed.
Terrie was 2 inches taller than me, and I wasn’t sure if it was the armor that made her hips look big, but they looked thick. And she had  thighs to match them. Despite its color, her armor looked solid, heavy, and impenetrable. Her freckled and beautiful face angrily looked up at  the treetops. “Show yourselves!” She shouted. From her back, she pulled  out her long pink sword. The only thing that wasn’t pink about her was her orange hair.
“I can see you! There’s no point in hiding.” The driver said, pointing an arrow at one of them.
A few of them revealed themselves. They looked just like goblins except for their tails. Their tails were as long as their arms and had a bulbous end.
“Ah, there they are,” Terrie said, clenching her jaw. “I’ll take care of this. You guys stay back.” She said and stepped forward.
She swung her sword, and a pink sword arc sliced through the air, cutting the monkey-goblin in two. Loud screeches came from the top of  the trees as the bleeding goblin fell to the ground. Stones were thrown  her way, and she activated [touchless] and dodged the stones  effortlessly.
The driver launched another arrow, and another monkey-goblin fell to the ground.
The monkey-goblins were just as weak as normal goblins. Though they can cause trouble in numbers, they were otherwise weak.
The driver and I stood back while Nikola and Terrie went forward and fought them directly.
More monkey-goblins threw stones, and some jumped down from the trees to  attack. I stopped the stone attacks aimed at me and the driver with  [energy manipulation, telekinesis], and the driver continued to fire  arrows. I watched Terrie closely. I was interested in her powers. Not a scratch landed on her as she dodged every attack with [touchless]; she was like water flowing around their attacks. It was amazing and with  such heavy armor… She attacked them with [pink slice], which seemed to be a derivative of [air slice], but what fascinated me was another attack she used: [lonely slice]. It made her sword pass through her opponent, not leaving a single scratch, but as soon as it was through, the enemy turned around and attacked its comrade… No, it didn’t attack;  it hugged its comrade! And it wouldn’t let its companion go, no matter how much the companion tried to struggle. It effectively restrained its comrade for Terrie to slice them both up.

I didn’t have to do much. Even Nikola didn’t do much from what I saw; it was mostly Terrie. Even with her heavy armor, she moved with grace  slicing up the monkey-goblins like vegetables. She’d be great as a  teammate.
“That was great!” The driver patted Terrie’s shoulder. “You’re amazing.”

“This is nothing.” She said, putting the sword back in its sheath. “Will we still be able to make it to Haneul on time?”
“Maybe we’ll be a little late, but it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.” The driver said, climbing back on the driver’s seat.
“Why do you think the goblins attacked?” I asked. “Do you think something’s going on in the forest?”
“Ah, I’m not sure.” The driver said. “It could just be that these were the teens that were chased out.”
“Chased out?” A question mark appeared on Nikola’s face.
“When the tribe becomes too overpopulated, the mothers chase out the unfavoured teens. It’s the same in a lot of monster races.” The driver  said.
“Hmm. The meerkat race does a similar thing, but we dogwomen would never do something like that to our young.” Nikola said.
“We humans and the beast races are common in that way, but the monster races are different.” The driver said. Terrie climbed back into the wagon. “You guys get on too.”
We climbed back in the wagon, and the wagon started moving again. “Good  job.” The old woman and everyone who stayed in the wagon congratulated us when we returned.
“Hahaha.” Nikola laughed. “It’s nothing.”
“What are you laughing about. Terrie did most of the work,” I said.
“Oh, no. I didn’t do much.” Terrie became shy all of a sudden.
“What!? I killed like 10 of them.” Nikola complained.
“Don’t exaggerate,” I said.
“It’s true!”
I ignored Nikola. “By the way, what was that power you used.” I had gained a general grasp using [look-a-look], but I wanted to know more about it.
I wondered if she’d try to hide it. “[lonely slice]?” She asked.
“Yeah.” I was glad she wasn’t a secretive person.
“I’m a Knight of Love.” She said.
She didn’t explain more, and Nikola asked, “What’s that?” I was glad someone asked.
“Knight of Love, have I heard of that somewhere?” The old woman stroked  her chin. “I’ve met a Knight of Food before. She became a cook if I remember correctly.”
“She specialized in it to protect the people she loved.” Her human boyfriend said.
“Yeah, but I don’t know, it has a lot of problems… They have to attack first, and even then, I don’t know how effective it is and… I just don’t know. It’s kind of a double-edged sword.” Terrie sounded very unconfident. It was completely different from the way she fought.
“You just don’t hate enough. I think that’s good.”
“Ah, maybe. Thanks, Theo.” She leaned against him.
To the rest of us who were confused, Benard explained. “The damage she  can inflict depends on how much she hates her enemy. The more hatred she has for the enemy, the more damage she’ll do.”
“So you hated the monkey-goblins?” I asked. She did look pretty angry when they attacked.
“Don’t you? To attack innocent civilians isn’t that condemnable.” She said. “And to attack the wagon my boyfriends are in. I wish I could’ve killed them a thousand times.”
This woman didn’t hate enough? I wasn’t so sure about that. “But that sounds good. If hating your opponent will increase your attack’s strength.”
“But it decreases if she doesn’t. The more she likes them, the less damage it does, and if she loves them, it does no damage at all!” Benard  said.
“Yeah, Brenard, just reveal my weakness to everyone.” She frowned at him.
“Oh. Sorry. I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to!” He apologized.
“It’s fine.” She sighed. “I have to constantly feel angry and hateful if I want to fight at my full strength.”
“She became a Knight of Love because she didn’t want to hurt people she loved.” Theo, her human boyfriend, added.
“I see.” I still thought it had its benefits. A power that made her stronger, the angrier, and more hate-filled she became reminded me of a comic book character from my previous life. She didn’t resemble him in any way physically, though.
“And what’s with the pink outfit?” The old woman asked.
“Yeah, I’ve been wondering that since I saw her.” One of the middle-aged women said.
“Ah, that. It’s a passive skill. Pink improves my health and provides me  protection. But I have to keep it clean.” She said, looking over her own armor. “All these scratches and marks weaken it. I can never keep it completely clean.”
“What a strange class.” The old woman said. “But there are all kinds in this world.” She smiled.
“You should write it down for future generations. I’m sure you’ll find a publisher for it.” The middle-aged woman said.
“There’s already a book about it,” Terrie said.
“Oh, is there?” The middle-aged woman was surprised.
“Yeah, but it’s pretty old and only explains up to level 39.” She said.
“That’s pretty high.” The old woman said. For Knights, Alchemists, Barehanded Fighter, and other popular classes, there are plenty of books  all the way up to the highest levels explaining the various skill branches. They don’t cover all possibilities, but they cover a wide  range. But for less popular classes, you’d be lucky to find one. And finding books with higher levels of that class is much more difficult. Usually, if a person has achieved a high level in a class, the more popular it becomes, consequently, the more books are written about it, and so forth… It’s the snowball effect.
“It’s pretty old,” said Terrie. “Maybe I’ll write one if I get to level 40.”
“You’re still young. You still have a chance. How old are you?” The middle-aged woman asked.
“I’ll turn 30 this year,” Terrie said shyly.
“That’s still young.” The woman said. “When you get to my age, that’s when you start to feel it. Hey, I still got a boy a month ago, so maybe I still got a chance. Hahaha…” She laughed at herself.
“You practically raped him.” Said her friend.
“Oh, he liked it.” She defended herself.

***

The road became smoother, and there were street lights as we got closer to the Carriage Company’s branch office in Haneul.
“Sorry for the delay, but here we are.” The driver said as we stopped at the station.
“Oh, you don’t need to apologize,” Terrie said. “We’re still on time.”
Though the sun had set and it was dark, we weren’t that late.
The driver smiled. “It was a pleasure being everyone’s driver today.”

We said our goodbyes. Everyone split up and went their own ways. We followed Terrie and her boys to Benard’s house.