My Troll System

Chapter 2: The Ultimate Weapon, A Wooden Spoon?

Litchi stared at the wooden spoon in his hand. His gaze was sharp, as if he were studying it like a priceless artifact.

He flipped it over, then flipped it again. Front and back. He even tapped the handle against his own head.

Tap! Tap! Tap!

"............"

"No matter how I look at it, this is definitely just a spoon."

Litchi let out a long sigh.

"System."

The blue panel appeared silently.

"Yeah?"

"Please explain."

"I risked my life."

"So why is the reward..."

Litchi held the wooden spoon high up in the air.

"...this wooden spoon?!"

Silence. It was as if the system was deep in thought. A few seconds later, text finally popped up.

[That is the reward item given to you.]

Litchi snapped.

"I know that much!"

"My question is..."

"WHY IS THE REWARD A SPOON?!"

"Why? Why? Why?"

The panel flickered.

[Because the Host received an F-rank evaluation.]

Litchi was a mix of confused and furious.

"Evaluation? What the heck is that?"

"I didn't even know rewards were based on an evaluation!"

[Now the Host knows.]

"..................."

Litchi took a deep breath, clenching his fists, trying to control his temper.

"Calm down..."

"Take a deep breath..."

"Don't lose your cool..."

"If I start yelling at thin air, people are gonna think I've lost my mind."

Before he could even finish his pep talk...

DING!

The blue panel shifted again.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

New Quest

Use the Wooden Spoon to defeat 20 Goblins.

Reward: Based on evaluation results.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"Huh??"

Litchi read the text carefully, leaning his face so close he was practically touching the screen.

"I must be reading this wrong."

He rubbed his eyes several times.

The text stayed exactly the same. Not a single word changed.

"Use... a wooden spoon..."

"To kill... twenty goblins?"

Silence filled the forest. A gentle breeze blew past. A few birds perched on nearby branches suddenly fluttered away as Litchi's voice echoed through the trees.

"HEYYYY!!"

"DID THE BRAIN OF THE GUY WHO MADE THIS QUEST GET LEFT BEHIND IN THE DUNGEON?!"

"THOSE ARE GOBLINS!"

"NOT BUBBLE TEA PEARLS!"

"You want me to scoop them to death?!"

The panel didn't answer.

Litchi grew even more irritated.

"System!"

"Answer me!"

"Stop pretending you're AFK!"

The panel blinked.

[The Host is too loud.]

"Darn right I'm loud!"

"Any sane person would scream if you handed them a spoon to fight monsters!"

Not far away...

A group of Awakeners who were resting nearby snapped their heads over.

"Look."

"Someone's over there."

A large, muscular man squinted, staring hard at Litchi.

"Wasn't he the guy who entered the dungeon at the same time we did?"

The green-robed female mage nodded slowly.

"Yeah. He said he just wanted to tag along and help wipe out the goblins."

"Oh right! I remember his face."

"But... why is he yelling all by himself?"

They watched as Litchi pointed angrily at empty air, chewing someone out nonstop.

"Hey!"

"If you're gonna help, actually help!"

"If you don't wanna help, don't hand out psychotic quests!"

An archer scratched his head.

"Who is he even talking to?"

"Who knows."

The big guy shrugged.

"Probably snapped under the pressure after running into a goblin."

The female mage sighed.

"Poor guy."

"Hmmm... looks like his mind's completely broken."

An old man carrying a spear let out a small chuckle.

"That's just how the dungeon world is."

"Not everyone's strong enough to handle the stress."

"Guess he lost his sanity."

The others nodded in agreement.

"Come on!"

"Let's keep hunting!"

"Agreed! Nothing we can do for him anyway."

And with that, they turned and left the area.

Not a single one of them realized Litchi was actually talking to the System. Well, mostly because the System was totally invisible to everyone else.

Meanwhile, Litchi was still ranting.

"A spoon!"

"Defeat twenty goblins!"

"Reward based on evaluation!"

"Why does none of this make any sense?!"

He kept walking while grumbling to himself.

"If my evaluation is bad..."

"Am I gonna get a fork next?"

"A bowl tomorrow."

"A plate the day after."

"Pretty soon I'll have a whole kitchen set."

He let out a hollow laugh.

"Hilarious."

"Hahaha... my life is just a total joke."

Right as Litchi was busy wallowing in misery, a voice rang out...

"Eek!"

The sharp squeal shattered the silence.

Litchi snapped his head toward the sound.

"Whoa, dude! Way to give a guy a heart attack!"

A goblin stood on top of a large boulder a few dozen meters ahead. This time, they weren't carrying wooden clubs—they had wooden bows instead.

The goblin casually nocked an arrow, aiming it straight at Litchi's chest. Litchi's eyes went wide. He looked down at his right hand, which was clutching nothing more than a wooden spoon. Then he looked back at the goblin. They were all holding bows. He felt like this was profoundly unfair.

"............."

"Hey!"

He hoisted the wooden spoon into the air.

"Look at this!"

"My opponent has a bow!"

"And what do I have?"

"A SPOON!"

"System!"

"Use your brain for a second!"

"At least give me a decent weapon!"

The panel popped up.

Litchi's eyes lit up.

"There it is!"

"Finally, what I've been waiting for!"

Except the words that popped up made the corner of his eye twitch.

[Too noisy!]

[A true hero doesn't need a weapon.]

Litchi was left speechless.

A few moments later, he finally found his voice, pointing straight at himself.

"Me?"

"A hero?"

"I wasn't even a good guy in my past life!"

"I'm no hero, okay? Do you get that?"

The goblin kept pulling back its bowstring.

Litchi glanced back at the panel.

"Fine then..."

"At least give me a shield!"

[Request denied.]

"How about a helmet?"

[Not available.]

"What about some running shoes?"

[Not available.]

Litchi let out a long breath.

"Okay... Okayyy!! Is that how you wanna play it?"

"If I get a game over..."

"I'm gonna haunt whoever programmed this stupid System!"

The panel flickered gently.

[Feel free to try.]

"................"

"Why do I feel like you're intentionally pushing my buttons?"

Before he could keep ranting...

"Eek!"

The archer goblin blew a tiny whistle. The sound echoed through the trees. A few seconds later, four more goblins popped out from the bushes, all of them armed with bows.

Litchi looked at them. Then looked down at his spoon. Then looked up at the blue sky.

"Alright! Message received."

"Today is definitely not my day."

All five goblins raised their bows in sync.

Litchi swallowed hard, gripping the wooden spoon tighter.

"Okay... Who's got a bright idea now?"

The System panel popped up one more time.

Just a single line.

[Think of something yourself.]

Litchi closed his eyes.

"Of course."

"I should've seen that coming."

In front of him, the five goblins drew their bowstrings all the way back.

Litchi took a deep breath.

A faint smile crept onto his face.

"Well then..."

"Let's see who's more ridiculous."

Litchi stood tall, his gaze sharp.

In his right hand was nothing but a wooden spoon.

Litchi let out a long breath.

"..........."

"If anyone's watching this, please keep it a secret..."

The five goblins let loose their arrows.

"Whoa!"

Litchi dropped flat to the ground on pure reflex. Several arrows zipped right over his head and slammed into the tree trunk behind him.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

Litchi immediately rolled behind a bush, his heart pounding a mile a minute.

"Whoa! Close one!"

"I almost turned into human shish kebab!"

The System panel popped up out of nowhere.

[Congratulations.]

"Congrats on what?!"

"I almost died just now, you know!"

[The Host successfully avoided the first attack.]

"And?"

[There is a second attack coming.]

"............"

"You lousy System!! Why do you only give me notifications that stress me out?"

The goblins were already drawing their bows again.

Litchi looked right, then left. His eyes finally locked onto a small slope covered in round, loose boulders.

A cheeky grin spread across his face.

"No weapon?"

"Time to use the environment."

He grabbed a rock the size of his fist.

The lead goblin tilted its head in confusion.

"Watch and learn."

"Sure, I don't have a sword."

"But I've got life experience."

The goblin cocked its head.

Litchi chucked the rock straight at an old tree trunk right next to the group of goblins.

Smack!

The vibration shook loose a bunch of hard, spiky fruit the size of coconuts, sending them crashing down from the branches.

The goblins panicked, jumping around and scrambling to dodge the falling prickly fruit.

Litchi definitely wasn't going to waste this opening. He sprinted right past them, waving his wooden spoon in the air.

"Pardon me, just passing through!"

All five goblins spun around to chase him, but they ended up crashing right into each other in their rush.

"Huh?"

Litchi glanced back.

"............"

"Your coordination is even worse than my old project team."

The System panel blinked.

[Evaluation: Environmental utilization. Grade: B.]

Litchi stopped dead in his tracks.

"Ohh... so that's how the system grades things?"

"Okay, I get it now."

Before he could think about it too much, the smallest goblin lost its footing and tumbled down the slope. The other four instinctively chased after their buddy.

A second later, a chaotic crash echoed from the bushes, followed by total silence.

Litchi stood still for a moment.

"Is it over?"

He peered over the edge cautiously.

The five goblins were nowhere to be seen, leaving behind only their scattered gear on the grass.

Litchi scratched his cheek.

".........."

"Did I seriously just win?"

The System panel popped up.

Quest Progress Goblins Defeated : 5/20

Litchi blinked a few times.

"Seriously, that counts?"

[Yes.]

"Even though I didn't actually..."

The panel didn't even let him finish.

[A result is a result.]

Litchi smiled faintly.

"Alright fine, I won't complain this time."

He walked over to the leftover gear. A simple wooden bow was lying right there on the grass.

"Not bad."

"Better than a spoon."

The second his fingertips touched the bow...

DING!

A new panel popped up.

━━━━━━━━━━━━ Weapon Detected F-Grade Wooden Bow Compatible. Automatic Synthesis Initiated. ━━━━━━━━━━━━

The wooden bow dissolved into dots of light, slowly absorbing straight into Litchi's palm.

Litchi jumped back in surprise, looking utterly confused.

"Huh?"

"Where'd the bow go?"

"Why'd it just vanish?"

Right then, his body suddenly felt a little lighter. Like something had shifted inside him.

The panel updated.

━━━━━━━━━━━━ Synthesis Complete DEX +1 STR +1 ━━━━━━━━━━━━

Litchi stared at his hands, then clenched his fists.

"I feel a bit stronger..."

He immediately looked over at the other four bows scattered on the ground.

His eyes lit up.

"Wait a minute..."

"Could it be..."

He picked up the second bow. Light flashed and absorbed into his body again.

DEX +1 STR +1

The third bow. DEX +1 STR +1

The fourth bow. DEX +1 STR +1

The fifth bow. DEX +1 STR +1

Litchi opened his status screen.

━━━━━━━━━━━━ STR : +5 DEX : +5 ━━━━━━━━━━━━

He stared at the panel for a few seconds. Then his smile widened—wider and wider.

"System."

[Yes?]

"Why didn't you tell me sooner that weapons could be synthesized into my body?"

[The Host didn't ask.]

"............"

"That has got to be the most annoying answer ever."

He let out a short laugh.

"For the first time since coming to this world, I actually feel a tiny spark of hope."

"If this keeps up..."

"All I gotta do is farm monster gear."

"The more stuff I collect, the stronger I get."

The panel flickered.

[The Host's theory is correct.]

Litchi pointed at the panel.

"There we go."

"Give me useful info once in a while."

The panel stayed quiet.

Litchi started walking through the forest again. His steps felt way lighter now. Along the way, he even started cheerfully humming his favorite song from his past life.

"Turns out this spoon actually comes in handy..."

Not long after, a familiar noise echoed through the trees ahead.

"Eek!" "Eek!" "Eek!"

Litchi stopped in his tracks.

Up ahead, another group of five goblins stood waiting. But this time, they weren't carrying bows—they had short daggers instead.

Litchi checked their status, then looked at his own stats. Seeing the numbers, a wave of total confidence washed over him.

"Alright!"

"My turn to farm."

A short while later, Litchi had effortlessly wiped out the group of goblins.

The panel popped up.

Quest Progress

Goblins Defeated : 10/20

Synthesis Complete

Critical Rate +5

Litchi checked his stats with a satisfied grin.

"Hey, this is pretty sweet."

"The more I hunt, the stronger I get."

He actually started hoping he'd run into more goblins. But that wish instantly backfired into instant regret.

Just a bit further ahead, ten goblins slowly stepped out from behind the trees. No bows, no daggers. Each one of them gripped a heavy iron sword. They stood in a neat row, staring straight at Litchi.

The smile on Litchi's face completely vanished.

"..............."

Litchi swallowed hard.

"System."

The panel appeared.

[Yes?]

"You see that, right?"

[Yes.]

"Think I can win?"

Silence for a few seconds.

Litchi started hoping the System would hand him a reward this time. Or at least a shred of useful advice.

The panel finally blinked.

[Think of something yourself.]

Litchi closed his eyes.

"Of course. Should've seen that coming."

The panel added one more line.

[Do your best.]

And then...

[You got this! Hang in there!!]

Litchi took a long, deep breath. Then he stared down the ten iron-wielding goblins as they started marching toward him.

".............."

"If I survive this fight!"

"I am so filing a complaint with your boss!"