I confidently strolled out of the blacksmith shop and then started heading towards the forest.

It was about midday by now, so I had a solid 6 to 7 hours to grind some monsters for exp.

Passing by a few people, I heard their derogatory comments once again, but I continued to ignore them.

After all, I was going to be stronger than all of them, and with this cheat system, I would be known as the strongest hero one day, at least, if I decided to go on that path. You see, I was also thinking about being a villain, I mean, that sounded fun, didn't it?

Imagine getting all the exp, the gold, the girls, and the power, it would just feel too good!

But, of course, that would be for my future self to decide, right now, I needed to gain more exp!

Walking into the forest, there was a complete change in atmosphere, as the trees blocked the sun, causing the surrounding air to feel cold and damp.

But, even with this coldness, I couldn't help but start sweating, as my hands struggled to grip on the sword, my whole body trying to contain the anticipation of my first hunt.

I kept switching my sword from my left to my right hand, and then back again, as I took the time to air out my fingers, so that I wouldn't make a mistake when fighting my first monster.

Then, I saw it, a green goblin standing in the middle of the forest.

I suddenly started sneaking, keeping my movements quiet, as I sneaked up behind the goblin.

Then, when I was close enough, I stabbed forward.

"Shlich!"

Like a knife cutting through warm butter, my sword easily stabbed through the body of the goblin.

"Slich!"

Taking my sword out, I saw green blood flying through the air, before the goblin fell onto the ground, into a puddle of its own blood.

*Ding*

Exp +5

Seeing this, I smiled.

Then, turning back towards the deeper parts of the forest, I started walking.

This time though, as I got further in, I could feel multiple eyes on me.

Carefully looking around me, searching my surroundings, I still couldn't see anything, so I just continued walking, but I made sure to keep my guard up.

Then, out of nowhere, a goblin launched itself from the air, and stabbed the tiny knife in its hands at my head.

"Clang!"

I somehow blocked it with my sloppy reflexes, redirecting the stab downwards, where it carved out a shallow cut in my arm.

Wincing from the pain, I held up the sword in a fighting position, making sure to not take my eyes off the goblin for even a second.

But this was a fatal mistake, as my hyper focus backstabbed me and made it so that I never realized that there was an arrow heading towards my leg.

"Splich!"

Feeling the cold flint digging into my thigh, I couldn't help but kneel on one leg.

Seeing its opening, the goblin that was in front of me rushed and stabbed at my neck with its knife.

Sacrificing my own hand, I let it cut my hand off, before stabbing it through the neck itself with my sword using my other hand.

I satisfyingly watched as it choked on its own blood.

*Ding*

Exp +5

But then, I was broken out of my revere as another arrow flew past my head.

Looking back at where the arrow had come from, I saw another goblin that was holding a bow and arrow.

Knowing that I had no other choice, I decided to do a hail mary.

Bringing my sword back past my head, I held it like a spear, and then threw it forward.

And, somehow, the sword flew true, and stabbed right through the archer goblin's head.

*Ding*

Exp +5

Seeing that all my enemies had finally been killed, I collapsed on the ground and panted heavily.

And, as I lay there, the adrenaline started to wear off, and the pain from the stump where my hand used to be and from my thigh started burning with a searing pain.

Using my one remaining hand, I managed to rip a piece of cloth from my pants and put it in my mouth.

Biting down on the cloth, I grabbed the end of the arrow with my hand.

"Splich!"

As I tore the arrow out, drops of red blood flew everywhere, and I noticed that I was heavily bleeding.

Knowing that a major artery had probably been nicked, I immediately put pressure on the wound whilst using the cloth that had been in my mouth and tying it around my thigh, trying to stop the bleeding.

I then ripped off another piece of cloth from my pants and tied it around the stump on my hand, trying to stop the blood from pouring out of there too.

Then, I painstakingly stood up and limped over to where my sword was.

Ripping it out of the Archer Goblin's body, I then started limping my way out of the first, following the tracks that I had left when I had been moving through the forest.

Almost completely bled out, I found myself back in the town.

"Is that the hero?"

"He looks so pitiful."

"Imagine being injured on your first day in the forest, pathetic!"

"I heard the sword mage and his team defeated a demonic flame wolf of level 70"

"What level 70 no way, what level is the swordmage hero"

"I heard he is level 40 already "

"That's fast but a level 40 killing a level 70"

"Yeah, those hero are pretty fierce, but not like that one over there"

"hahahaha"

In the morning, I had ignored these words, but now, they were painfully forcing their way into my brain.

It hurt, and the reason why the words hurt was due to the fact that they were so painfully true.

I was weak, too weak.

I had become cocky when I got the system, but I now knew, that, just like any other job, hard work was required to produce results.

But, I knew that, even if this was true, at the same time, the system would be the catalyst to my hard work, the thing that would make it easier as time went by.

I was determined to become strong.

But, as for right now, I was dragging myself to the town's physician.

Walking in, I wasn't able to explain anything as I collapsed due to the loss of too much blood.

My vision turned red, and then black, as I passed out.

…

Waking up, I found myself in a nice bed, white sheets covering me as the morning sunlight was filtered into the room through the window panes.

Propping myself up onto my elbows, I looked around the room.

Realizing that I was still in the physician's building, I let out a sigh, and then collapsed back onto the bed, my body aching still.

Then, I pulled the white sheet off, and then took a good look at my body.

My thigh was currently bandaged up, an unknown green paste could be seen under the bandage. It was probably some type of antibiotic herb or something to stop any infection that might happen.

After making sure that my leg was in the process of healing, I looked towards my arm, to the long scratch on it.

Touching it, I knew immediately that, although it was shallow, I had let too much blood leak out of it, and now, it would definitely leave a scar.

Then, I looked at my worst injury, my hand.

Bringing it up to eye-level, I couldn't help but wince as phantom pain gripped my mind.

Over and over again, I felt the pain of losing the hand.

But, I just closed my eyes for a second, and beared it, before it went away and I opened my eyes again.

Looking at the place where my hand had been, I saw that it had been replaced with a prosthetic hook.

Thinking back to my old hand, it had probably been eaten by some wolves by now after being left in that forest.

Sighing, I could only tell myself to definitely not try and scratch my eyes, or any part of my body for that matter, with my right hand.

I was now a newly minted left handed person, yaaaaaaay.

As I was sitting there in depression, I heard a voice sound right next to my ear.

"Are you okay now, my child?"

Looking to my left, I was met with a close up of the physician's face.

Jumping a little due to his closeness, I just pushed down my panic and answered,

"Yes, I thank you so much for your help."

I begged and pleaded in my mind, I didn't want his next words to be what I thought they would be.

"Of course, I didn't do this for free."

'Shit!'

"Uhm… I'm a broke child, how could I repay you?"

"Don't pull the child card on me. I can tell that your injuries were from fighting goblins, so what I want to ask of you is simple."

"What do you need as repayment?"

"I just need 20 goblin noses..." he said.

"That's doable" I thought.

He said "Only for testing your leg."

'Goddamnit!' I cursed out.

"The prosthetic cost me a fair bit of money, so I would need an orc's tooth as repayment, don't you think that that's fair?" He said, whilst holding up a scalpel to my face.

"Y-yes!"

"Then that's that, well, I need you to bring these in by the end of the week, so rest up and heal quickly okay?"

Then, the physician left the room.

Not being able to stand it anymore, I started cursing the physician.

'What a miserly motherfucker! That dumb dipshit, asshole, son of a gun!'

I mean, I thought that I would be treated by one of those nice anime doctor girls, but nooooo, I just had to be stuck with the miserly ass doctor!

'Goddamn, what has my shitty life descended into?'

I could only lay back down, trying to heal as quickly as possible, as I now needed to kill an orc as soon as possible.

I closed my eyes, and quickly fell asleep.

…

One Week Later:

Waking up early, I grabbed my sword that had been placed near my bed, and then left the physician's office.

I had just stayed in that bed for the entirety of the week, trying to heal as quickly as possible, and now that the wound in my thigh had closed due to that magical green paste that the doctor had stuffed into it, I was ready to go.

Running to the edge of the town, I quickly entered the forest.

I quickly ran over the notes in my head.

Over the week, the physician had lectured me about the weaknesses of a goblin and an orc, just to "prepare me for my upcoming fights" or some bullshit like that.

Quickly finding my first goblin, I exploited the weakness that the physician had told me about and quickly decapitated it with my superior speed.

This was the weakness that the physician had told me about.

You see, goblins were surprisingly slow.

So, if you were brave enough, then you would be able to just zip around the goblins as they just sat there confused, and then kill them at any moment.

It was truly a game changer, as I was quickly able to dispatch 20 goblins.

After collecting all their noses, I headed deeper into the forest, where the orcs were.

Passing under the trees, everything grew even quieter as I went deeper, I was definitely now in orc territory.

Even the birds stopped singing, and there wasn't a goblin in sight.

Then, I saw it.

A huge green monster through the trees.

Standing on two legs, a loincloth to cover its privates, with an ugly face and two big tusks that extended from its mouth.

An orc.

And I would have to kill it.

I moved around the trees, hiding myself from it, making a big plan to sneak up and end it with one hit, a nice clean death.

But then, it sniffed, grunted, and then, it turned its head in my direction.

'Fuck.'