The white shimmered before William's eyes, revealing panels of information. He tried to read them but muttered, "What is this language?" He couldn't understand.
The system was encrypted, an impenetrable wall he couldn't break through. Defeated, William had to give up.
Maybe in the future, if he develops a decryption skill, he might succeed, but for now, it's impossible. 'There must be a key that encrypted it—who would have that key? The game master... or someone else?' The thought kept lingering in his mind.
----
William arrived at the quest board, which was covered with a variety of tasks. From finding missing people to retrieving lost items, there was even an herb-gathering job from a pharmacist named Mark Dragunov. William chose the goblin hunting quest, personally requested by Jonathan. The mission was to eliminate scattered goblins near the camp.
The reason was simple—he wanted to get closer to Jonathan and pursue his desire to hunt, especially since one of them was responsible for the excruciating pain he had endured. Earlier, he had struggled to understand how his Vulnerability Scanner worked, but now he was determined to figure it out.
He tore the paper off the board and approached a booth labeled "Quest Arbiter." Behind the desk sat a man who appeared to be in his 40s but looked older, with grey hair and pale, clouded eyes that suggested he might have cataracts. Concerned, William asked before handing over his quest paper, "Can you even see? Don't take this the wrong way, but you don't look well."
Arbiter replied with a small smile, "I can see perfectly well. It's just that after the awakening, my eyes turned white. But it hasn't affected my vision. As old as I may appear, I was already old before the trial—I'm 44 years old."
William nodded, relieved to hear the man wasn't blind. If he had been, it wouldn't have taken much for the trial to finish him off. Even if Jonathan wanted to, it would have been a poor choice to care for a blind man when his own survival was in jeopardy. But Jonathan not only wanted to survive, but he was determined to ensure that many others survived with him.
"I'd like to take this quest for goblin hunting around the clearing," William said, handing the arbiter his quest paper with a sigh. He knew fighting alone was risky, even after his awakening, but after what happened with his previous team, he wasn't ready to join another group just yet.
Arbiter glanced at his log, registering the quest as ongoing. After completing the paperwork, he signaled to William, "It's done. You can start hunting. Just bring back the ears after cutting them off, so we can keep track of how many you've killed."
---
Deep in the forest, a lone goblin crept toward its trap. The trap had caught a rabbit, and its frantic squealing had drawn the goblin's attention. Hidden in the bushes nearby, a man watched everything unfold.
Activating his ability, his eyes glowed red, allowing him to see what was previously concealed.
"Great, it's working. So its weakness is the back of the neck... looks like I'll need to be precise to hit there."
Moving silently, William crept behind the goblin and stabbed it in the neck. It collapsed without a struggle.
"Well, that was easy," William muttered, surprised by how effortless it felt. Even though his stats had barely increased, he managed to take down the goblin with ease. "Guess that's the advantage of having a class." It wasn't just any class, but one that granted skills to detect weaknesses.
Using a small knife, he cut off the goblins' ears and placed them in a small bag. William had a theory about how his ability worked, and now, seeing it finally activate, he was starting to believe his theory might not have been wrong after all.
His theory was that, much like a Vulnerability Scanner used to detect system weaknesses in a company or organization, his skills could identify vulnerabilities by comparing them to previously collected data. After killing a goblin, he gained data on it, and by comparing it to the goblin he was hunting now, he could pinpoint its weaknesses. In short, he could only detect weaknesses in things for which he already had a database, and for now, maintaining that database required killing one of each kind.
"What's fantasy about this? Aren't things supposed to be magical? Why is there logic behind it?" William sighed as he confirmed his ability. Of course, it was just a theory based on a single experiment. To gain accuracy, he would need to test multiple times, making slight adjustments little by little to gather more reliable information.
There was something else too—this ability, unlike his previous two, wasn't very discreet. It altered his eyes slightly, and while he didn't know how it appeared to others, he felt as though he was seeing the world through a crimson veil.
Nicholas waited for a moment. Unlike the previous time when he had been poisoned by a goblin and desperately needed help, this time he could afford to wait and see what the goblin might drop. Earlier, he had received a skill book from a young dragon's corpse, but he wasn't expecting anything remarkable from a mere goblin—he was simply ready to take whatever it offered.
The goblins corpse shimmered in white light as it disappeared and vanished into the air. but it left something behind, a magical white glowing light soon it disappeared too, Nicholas hurriedly check is inventory to check the item he got.
'Didn't get the notification this time... is the system asleep? Ugh, whatever.'
There was something in his inventory, marked as ???. William threw his hands in the air, exasperated. "Come on! What is this? Why is the system hiding this detail from us?"
He was utterly baffled. What was this mysterious piece of equipment that the system refused to display or even name?
He tried to check its description, which read: "An equipment once held by someone great." He activated reconnaissance to uncover more details, but it only revealed that it was a book, not armor or a sword meant to be held.