<- Go back to Fiction Works
Selection of 2022 Works

John Mark Gets Transported to a Fantasy World and Joins Goblin Merchants April 16, 2022
Meticulous BP1
John Mark, he walked like he was contemplating every step. When he stopped at the train station’s tip, he stood like a purple bird perched.
Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, zero, he thought.
“How far does a phoenix rise before it regains glory?” asked his sister, Angel.
“This far.” He stretched his arms and hugged her tight. From him, floral scents with hints of citrus and roses prefaced his profile view to those nearby.
She hugged back tight until the iced cup of coffee pressed against his nape.
He let it happen and asked, “Is there a party tonight?”
“Dan is coming.”
“Dan is coming.” He adopted an eastern accent. “Dan forgot again…”
The train scooped him in like quesadilla to cheese and craned him onto his seat.
The train compartment was a concourse of neck-rubbing stressed people. 
He played a small game where he had to guess first names based on geographic location and last name.
“‘Josh Felix?’” He frowned.
From a hobbling speaker, bedroom pop music flash-banged the room.
It gassed it with a sharp droning. Street lights sniped a blitzkrieg into his bubble-brittle eyes. A wrinkle-faced mother spanked her son whom the lights and sounds stifled. This clicked away the train’s wheel scuff and cranked up the tongue-taken atmosphere. A coughing fit was to crack an iron fist, but the train cheered to a halt. As the doors snapped open, the passengers careened in the paths’ wake. They tended to their belongings, following which scents flew from wrists. The outgoers each hurled themselves to the nearest neighbor. They toiled out like a burst of crushed mangoes. It was a boodle fight.
“Dan had yet to return.”
Coming to terms with loss was one thing on John Mark’s mind. “John Mark.” He preferred if people addressed him by his full name. He ignored his townsfolk’s chatter.
“The train left on schedule, but it had yet to renovate its faculties,” said the townsfolk on a phone app. They rated this specific line of trains a three out of ten. Mark brushed his attention away from the train reviews.
A face of camber wrinkles, Mark lurched through the crowd’s roomy diverge. He dropped down from the sizzling train that beeped on a timer’s each fifth.  In front, the cement-muddied streets curled the brain.
He called his sister.
“What’s happened?” he asked. “Is the parachute going well?
“… lights 52 and 54—”
“Did you eat pork sisig?”
It was like a batter of vodka rolled against a classical piano suite.  He slopped on the cross slope through his sludge of a body to a bus stop. Halfway, he drifted. He stopped within a waiting concourse, most of whom were older people. 
“I fell off a bit, but I’m holding off fine,” he said.
“Should you be sitting down like that though? But yeah, yeah.”
He departed like a slim fit to an open space and stretched his torso from side to side. He interlaced his fingers behind his head as neck support and stretched his neck from side to side. 
“Young Isaac?” he asked after he conducted a reverse image search.
He took deep breaths to oxygenate his tense circuits into a calm. 
A painting resting within a TV series’ billboard advertisement video helped with that. The painting fell under a British painter’s tempestuous seas’ portrayals. 
“You need coffee,” said a voice half and an hour later. At a modernist store, a young woman with a yellow smile brushed past him and stopped in front of him.
“Do they have burger? C-coffee—” He sneezed. “—coffee is good, too.” 
Ten hours later, at his laminate countertop, he screamed in shock. He heard a familiar roaring sound. The train from yesterday afternoon roared its first sound with him here.
A giant vehicle slammed John Mark to a wall instead of a looming shadow of safety. 
He said: “I need to be crucial.”
A phantom hand caught his shoulder, and a gust of air stomped, kicked, and slammed his body into pieces. It transported to another world and reconstructed him.
He was in a different shape and place now.
He ran around a small valley and said: “… bars are the easiest.” The valley broke itself into a montage cinema of shapes, shadows, and colors. 
Seven hours ago, two familiar faces, Dan and Angel, grabbed and dragged his sleeping body. They lugged him to a boat and pushed the boat away. They were expressionless.
Back in the present, he deviated from time to time like a dog in sweatpants.
In the same forest, an elf slapped a goblin and said: “… that guy. You look like someone else’s guy.”
The goblin asked, “Is it the same back there in the head—”
He stomped the goblin two feet shorter than him.
He sighed in relief. Sweat flowed down the front of his body. He stretched in place as his hands collided with the goblin.
Elsewhere, John Mark looked around. He mouthed a few words. He rubbed his hair around and his hands together. He placed his left hand on his hips. He balled his right hand and placed it against his closed mouth. He interlaced his fingers. He stretched his fingers and arms out and took a deep breath.
He stared down at the ground with arms on his hips.
He nudged his glasses back and walked around. He stopped and felt thirsty. He grabbed his head and sat on his hunches. 
He yelled out in silence. 
He had a micro expression of fear that he leashed into calm.
He returned to looking at the elf and the goblin.
The elf slapped the goblin one last time and berated it goodbye. The elf walked with one arm relaxed and the other on his hips.
The goblin had received too much to stand still and awake. Its items were an ax twice as large as it and a bottle of oil. It had its arms lying around like a broken toy.
The elf took the items and ordered them inside his leather bag.
He tapped the goblin awake.
The goblin groaned and yawned.
Nearby, John Mark landed near the elf, fiddled his fingers, and asked, “Are you okay?”
The elf shouted back in a different language.
He shot his leg into the elf’s kneecaps.
The elf stabbed John Mark in the groin and loosened Mark’s arms with a teeth-chattering twist.
He dilapidated to a cluster of stabs from the back.
John Mark bludgeoned the elf into aurora borealis.
The goblins hopped to him and squeaked praises into his racing mind. They bandaged him and rejuvenated his spirit.
He reimaged some of the people that he had seen suffering since his childhood. His face twitched. His whisper was a minimal jump in wind pressure: “How long do I have—”
“You have to move,” said a goblin. “The Grimes are a good fight.” He and many others carried unconscious elves back to base.
He stood up and regained his steps. He joined the goblins to a riverfront city with a density of 60.54 individuals per km2.
The goblins prefaced their identity as merchants that campaigned with music.
John Mark rubbed the back of his head, but he said nothing and nodded along the way.
One of the goblins grimaced and moved to the end of the line.
John Mark wore a nervous smile. He asked, “Is there a way to fight a dragon?”
“The drills aren’t ready.”
He coughed after a strong fragrance entered his nose. The scent he wore back on Earth was around the middle in strength. 
“I have to keep going.”
The goblins stopped moving their head over a second longer than usual. They took notice he noted. 
He allowed himself to give a nervous laugh. “It was the cough,” he said.
The goblins let out positive responses.
John Mark was easygoing for now.
A grey rat with a knife occupied the silver buildings of the city John Mark resided in. It had many friends: spiders, dogs, ghouls, and cats. It invited them all to a bar.
It cheered to the dungeon academy’s halt in operation. It was dangerous if the humans spent too much of their time underground instead of above. Its children would be safe.
The spiders invited many and so did the dogs, ghouls, and cats.
The strong were few. The leaders were weak. The strong needed guidance, but that wasn’t always the case.
“Helium” was the name of the grey rat with a body shaped like a human. The spiders, dogs, ghouls, and cats had human bodies, too. They had heads and faces that reminded why they were what they were and not human.
John Mark crawled out of bed and ate as much as he could from his morning hunt and find.
He stuffed himself full and explored the outer and inner of the city. The mid section was the easiest to navigate. Crying, bottled-up frustration, and high cortisol levels varied. Some had bright outlooks on life that allowed them to live in low cortisol. The rich varied, their money breaking down who they were going to be.
This was the same society John Mark’s eyes saw back on Earth.
He watched the different humanoid species’ territories and culture differences. Spiders wore close to nothing. The dogs, cats, and ghouls dressed like humans. That was one obvious difference.
The outer had segments that made exploring a difficult prospect. The inner had a large gate like the historical ones he’d seen online back on Earth.
Open farming, smithing, and many others convinced him he had to experience them at least once. He had this attitude back on Earth too with the arts.
He joined the farmers and asked for pay. They gave him none for days. He didn’t quit and instead asked for food and shelter. They gave that to him. Sleeping on the streets with nothing to eat was hard once you experienced it yourself. Chances of a violent encounter was too often especially if you were a woman. He took this to heart and muttered about his aims to improve himself to help others.
When the food was good, he felt like sharing it, but sharing was impossible if you weren’t smart about it. He needed a partnership to grow some talents.
He watched those who rode dinosaur carriages. Dinosaurs had their place in society alongside horses. A few shouting people often joined the dinosaur carriages that stopped. Before the carriages would leave, the carriage drivers paid the shouters.
The shouters had worn-out voices that made one think twice. It worked in the end. Middle class society and above preferred silky voices, big bums, and neat-gorgeous faces. It depended on your choice of sacrifice, or you could quit the profession of a shouter that had other jobs.
John Mark caressed his wrinkly forehead. He needed drums to keep his head calm, but he was outside of his home, his comfort zone, his world, his music, and his art. He was gone, only gone, and nothing else.
He pressed his temples. He was to be perfect or nothing. This small pocket in this world demanded staring at the mirror and moving forward.
He suppressed his emotions and denied all affiliation with a breaking composure. He was going through too many negative changes in a short time.
He screamed and shouted at a tree. He demanded no self-destructive habits to gain motion. He crawled through himself until he took a step to expose himself to learn.
He had to be free. He grit his teeth.
Ten days later, he carried heavy things from here to there. Work was all manual. His tough body wasn’t getting proper nutrients, calories, sleep, and various exercise. It was getting weaker. He restrained himself from biting his lip. The nerve below his eye twitched. His eyes were predatory. He grit his body in composed rage. He needed to be free. This reality reminded him of his childhood but worse.
He ran.
The forest had claws for leaves and jaws for bark. It was a hellish landscape that pressed against his neck. He squeaked out a roar.
“I’m not special. I know that. I knew that since I was young, but I have to help people…
“I have to be free.”
A group of bandmates popped out of the darkness. The goblins he helped and helped him get to this city. Three goblins were in front: the one with eyes that didn’t smile and the one he fought the elf with.
The goblin who spoke to him along the way to the city, Gerald grabbed his chin and raised it. It looked at John Mark and mispronounced his name, “Jhin the Perfectionist. You’re a perfectionist. You said, ‘I have to be perfect.’
“I got a spider to investigate you. Who are you? Why didn’t you answer when we asked you?”
“W-what? You asked me something?”
“Yes. ‘Don’t ask twice,’ goes a saying.”
“I don’t remember—wait a minute. Is this important right now? What’s going on?”
“Ok. Go with us for now. I have need for you.”
John Mark followed them. He gave a shaking smile.
At the edge of a cliff, the goblins told him that trolls had camped nearby. They were to fight the trolls. He would join them as backup.
“I’ll trust you guys… do you have food and water?”
They paused for a moment and let John Mark have his awkward fill.
John Mark’s friendly expression; still head; and strong, patient mannerisms lent his words an authoritative charm: “I’m hungry and thirsty. I want to know if there’s something to gain here. I can keep working as a farmer’s assistant. If you can give me something better than that, please let us have an exchange because I trust my opinion of you…” and that this isn’t my last day. 
The goblins handed him only an ear of corn. 
Damn, John Mark thought. American stock in the goblin hood.
“No water,” Gerald said.
“Why?” You’re a goblin. Goblins are secretly smart, right? Which fantasy book was that again?
“Bad water only. We need a new source. The lake is gone now.”
“Ok.” What the hell does that mean? Curses? Curses!
The goblin’s words sounded like the use of chop sticks as a knife.
He stomped his foot in his mind. His mood was growing worse as the thirst made him impatient in a way his friends back on Earth would be surprised to see.
A phantom hand grasped his shoulder, and a wired nail bomb exploded beneath him. He turned into different slices pieces. A gust of leaves transported and reconstructed him elsewhere.
He was in a different place now. 
He coughed himself out of his boots. He ran around and scoffed at the realization. 
Arron Gets Hit by a Truck and Wakes Up in a Fantasy World April 30, 2022
Chapter 1 - Arron’s Walking Around
Arron watched them walking, expecting an answer different from what he already knew. He was the same person he was back then. He hated the feeling. Losing control of the situation was an ecstatic break of character. He stomped the floor and almost punched the wall but stopped himself quarterway. He stifled a laugh. He sat down, staring at the stairs. He hopped up and trudged upstairs. He entered his room from the second floor hallway. He kicked a chair on the way in. He slammed his desk and arranged the mess in the desk and room into order. He unlocked his phone from his pocket and put it on hand. He swiped to his second social media account and posted a image with no description. It was an image of him taking a shower in the coldest place he’s ever been—Tagaytay.
At the corner of the room, two cats in cages called for him to give them food. He dashed toward them, the wind from the side window louder than his steps. He sat leg-crossed and responded with the meowing cats, giving them enough food to maintain their weight.
He was fasting, and during his feeding was when a timer he set to 6:00 PM banged his head into a crevasse. He fought teeth-and-nail with the phone, grappling for the slider to stop his tweaking out. He slumped to the floor and remembered the doorbell that rang two minutes ago. He forgot again. He forgot once more than a minute ago. He ran down the stairs and appeared next to the door.
The door was a tall heat collector that kept the teeth-gnashing stinging weather out. He gave a light cough and opened the door, forming a business smile as he accepted the parcels and closed the door, his finger tapping his cargo shorts.
He laughed at a video he unpaused. The joke that had him laughing thirty minutes ago spun him around again. It was a joke about webzines, or online magazines. The term was weird and sudden in a way that made him laugh. He said, “I was reading webzines—double quotes—just the day before. This is a timely.”
A plane flew above.
He yawned and went outside, but a truck hit him first.
What made me go outside? he thought before the truck hit him.
A waterfall opened his eyes. He strained himself to his feet. He flung his hands around so his body could get some blood flowing. He grabbed a rock and moved him around. Something inside him wanted him to move things. He kicked the rock again and again until his legs wanted to stop. He stopped and wandered around.
His murmuring and complaining was a guiding voice for many of the victims of an animal slaughter in the small county region of Baktan. Animals that resembled Earth’s dropped from trees, left the bushes, and sneaked from high grass.
He took a few pieces of weird grass and felt them against his skin. He wiped the sweat of his forehead and slid two fingers across his temples. He crouched at a screech.
He grabbed his weird grass tighter, then let it go, and grabbed a stick of strange wood. He looked at it again. “You’re a weapon now.”
He launched himself at an attack of small animals no taller than his knees. He kicked one of them in the gut and forced another to retreat. Since they backed off from his attacks, he took the initiative and chased them until they retreated further than necessary. Once that happened, he dealt with the second closest rabbit and stomped them until they stopped moving.
He rubbed his knees that itched from the grasses. He sighed as he walloped a rabbit left and right. He wanted to scream, but he needed food. Scaring them away was a loss. He needed all the food he could get before the higher ups of this small playground of a ecosystem got wind of his existence. I’ll speed my movements until I only need a smile to complete a psychopathic killer’s portfolio. He coughed at his joke.
The last rabbit fell with a thud. The rest of the rabbits screamed as their knees and legs carried them nowhere but further to the feet of a hungry person. Their screams sounded like certain two cats’ meows.
He stopped looking at the rabbits a long time ago. He was eating something else to fill his food. “It’s called meat.”
He stepped toward a division of land where strange monkey-like creatures administered most of what occurred inside it. They were digitigrade, walking and running with their toes not touching the ground. This meant their legs bent backwards somewhat.
He greeted them, and they greeted him back.
He had this impulsive thing going on, and he did things without question sometimes. “It feels right,” he said.
He was lucky, like he was years before. From a third-world country, he lived for seven years, but he moved abroad finally after getting a good lasting job. This was seven years from thirteen to around twenty. He lived most of his childhood in another country that gave him little bad or good memories. “Functional ones,” was his wording.
After he got a job, he could move to his birth country’s capital, but he had enough. His opinion on it was weird though. It was enough that his immediate family and relatives thought he was going through a phase not all adults get to go through enough—having money and experimenting with it.
He was lucky in this new world because the monkey-like creatures gave him a chance to walk around their neighborhood.
When he walked, he crawled because one of his legs were tied.
He turned around to see the monkey-like creatures whom he now called “pieces of critter rot”. The “pucks and puckers”, as he nicknamed them, used ropes and dragged him across a grassy, itchy, dirty stretch of social trail. 
Later, he snapped at them, but they had stopped looking at him a long time ago.
He gritted his teeth and sunk into a deep consideration of his values.
He grabbed the rope and bit it until it snapped. He kicked at the coming puck and pucker.
He fell over sideways as his kick took most of his balance away. He crawled away and back to his feet, but hands from all sides grabbed at him.
He laughed.
You think my fall wasn’t planned? he almost thought.
He poked them in the eyes and heatbutted them.
His laugh grew constrained. An angry twitch below his left eye told plenty. He overshadowed his nervousness with constrained counterattacks, his hands waving around.
Rob Liu Falls from the Sky into a Fantasy World and Joins Travelers May 7, 2022
“Video log number 2,” Rob Liu said to a camera he made to look purple. His room had a lavender-purple and mustard-yellow theme. His British accent was not telling of where he was actually born. A homebody, he was born in Southeast Asia; his parents were two coders.
Something had brought him to a different world. His body had disappeared.
Two minutes ago, Robert flew down from the sky. His body was invulnerable for a short time, and he bounced off trees, boulders, and slopes. He stopped rolling at a tree.
He took a breath of relief before he dabbed the blood on his arm with his clothes.
A thin, small branch had stabbed his arm.
He cowered beside the tree and stayed still.
“Tree, small leaves, rough ground, flowers, insects, and bark.” His voice had become soft, but its confidence was returning.
Because ten minutes passed, he walked around and located a rabbit home or warren. He held a fist up.
He felt his arms until he understood the path in front of him. He released a deep breath.
He grabbed a handful of stones and a short stick.
His loud footsteps made him afraid. Because his shoes were the root issue, he removed them.
Walking with thin socks was uncomfortable. He gritted his teeth because this wasn’t the problem, nor the rabbits.
Hunger, sweat that didn’t dry, itchy skin, stinky clothes, and body odor made it hard to focus. These coupled with the drop of pain tolerance. This environment made him feel alien.
He took a pursed-lip, deep breath.
He looked around and exhaled again. 
He took a light bite of his lower lip and left.
The idea of flooding the rabbits’ homes wasn’t possible for many reasons.
He looked around and described the place as tropical. It was similar to his home country. No signs of dew. The time was probably around noon. Mountains didn’t stick out much in the distance. Trees were plenty. No visible farmland. This scared him.
Rabbits were rare as an introduced species where he was born. This could apply here.
He removed his shirt and sat back down.
He grabbed a rabbit and punched it until it stopped moving. 
“Why not a monster?” he asked. “Why a human?” 
He gave the rabbit a cursory glance, anger boiling inside him. 
He forced a smile and stood up.
His gait changed. The sway was bigger.
He was only a human. He had to eat.
He had to help people and save them.
Animals. They were living creatures.
He covered his mouth and sat down. His face crumpled.
He curled his lips inwards.
He shouted a curse word and stopped himself midway from slamming a rock.
Cheater!
He fanned himself with his removed shirt and smelled it. He squinted his eyes.
Liar!
He wore it and made fire with sticks within an hour. 
He cooked up the rabbits, and his gaze lost its life.
I trusted you! he thought, pinching himself.
He interlaced his fingers and tensed.
He looked for a target to dump his emotions.
He ate up the food and travelled out.
“You must become who you need to be.” His voice was a mutter.
“Where the heck am I! What’s going on! Why!”
Two towers loomed in the distance.
He slowed down to a stop. His shoulders raised, he looked around him.
“I need a person as beautiful as your smile,” he sang as his body transitioned to a dance. He yelped in excitement. He chuckled.
He sighted a guard and waved his hand overhead at the guy.
He spoke in friendly lingo of the greeting kind.
Booms and sparkles from the corner of the guards’ eyes grinded the greeting to a halt. A sky paladin had their reigns on a griffin. Their ride flew overhead. They grasped a sword out from their rear, tramped, and took a fine-edged skewer of their three targets.
Shattered stone and bloodied, cleared land shuffled Rob out of the line of “damnation”
“Damned, all of you! Sink with the things you’ve left behind!”
Rob sweated and froze in fear. He felt a looming safety in lying still, knee-pressed.
An arrow struck the paladin in the back, turning the back side of their armor into cracks like broken glass. It stuck past their armor into their back.
The paladin shook around, curled a fist, and slammed the ground. 
They coughed and panged a prayer out. 
Their hair fell like cotton candy until his head was bald.
He shook his hands as if to air dry them. He said, “Let me introduce you to…” He cleared his throat and glanced at their left.
Rob had been calling to them. His voice sounded faint and nervous. He was polite in his wording.
The guards that remained after the first wave of skewering gathered together and used their specialized cannons to blast the paladin to hell. They huffed in a melodious shout like a cheerleading group.
The paladin picked up Rob as they flew and carried him on their shoulder. Rob grunted.
“Down there,” Rob needed a lift because of the long drop cliff to get to the bottom.The angel had a griffin, and Rob looked like a third party. “Thank you.” He was trapped there in their fight. The slopes below looked safe.
The guard alerted those around about a guy. The guy wearing a purple, long-sleeved shirt and yellow shorts that laced at the front was the idea. He was chucking rocks at them.
“Give me ten reasons not to go manic at you right now!” exclaimed Rob Liu.
“I need to be free from the pain! Free me, please!
Glass tinkled against glass inside his bag. He grabbed a few bottles and mixed some herbs the goblins stocked and diluted them with water.
He washed the dirtied cloth with animal fat or tallow.
His voice was faint, but the wind picked up words such as “video”, “log”, and “94”.
He met up with two fellow villagers who wore purple and yellow clothes. Their names were Ram and Jarh. They requested security for monsters when they travelled outside of town.
Robert needed to calm down.
He agreed but requested if he could bring three of his friends in this journey.
Ram, the frontman of the two, after only a minute, shook his hand in agreement. He requested for Robert’s friends to carry a bundles of products.
Robert had a smile.
Ten days later, he watched them wear their baggy, religious clothes. He asked them about the material used.
Jarh, Ram’s companion, replied, “Troublesome, aren’t you?
“Don’t make a scene.”
Robert raised his brows, looking upward. He gave a thumbs up and allowed the space between them to find its footing.
Robert wasn’t that “security”. He was only security limited to protecting against monsters.
Jarh’s voice was slow and sounded amenable. Her leg and toe movements were the ones that revealed tension and anger.
Ram was normal to Robert, resourceful and unwilling to argue.
Robert talked down to Ram when he heard him mention about tensions between rival gangs. Information flowed fast in this world because of magical, radio-like communication. It happened in the head.
“Robert, Robert, can you not do this in front of me right now?”
Robert turned around and almost sprayed at an unwilling target. He had bad manners. Growing up at home as an only child in an isolated, windowless room with asocial parents was crucial. He mumbled. One of his words was “fuck“, and the other was “me”.
Each of them had went off to find their restroom stop.
He failed to get it again. It had only been three days, but it’s just that he lacked sleep. 40+ hours. He’d been awake for more than 40 hours. It wasn’t a good thing. The machine didn’t know. He was there, sitting down for hours. He drew and ate mixed berries to keep his mind–
He had been mumbling in his head. He was dizzy. The sun was hot.
The machine was hot.
His eyes switched from virtual, and he went back to reality. He was inside a virtual reality capsule. He struggled to get up from the personalized, incline bed. He hopped out and closed the machine.
He hacked the capsule machine to keep it from listening to curfew restrictions. He had been sleeping 6 hours for the past week. He was moving on from something.
A loud noise drew Robert back inside the capsule after taking a whole day off.
Robert got up from the ground. The two travelers left.
Two goblins walked up when Robert finally sighed. They caught him from behind them, tying and stabbing him where it mattered. When Robert needed a good half minute to regain momentum, they brought the human-sized blades to kill him.
Robert drank his only red potion and crushed them as they carried the heavy blades.
Robert had been careful, but risk was there wherever he went. This time, he didn’t know because he was new to journeying without a party of players.
He 
Ram got his arm scratched. “You didn’t do your job!” he shouted. Robert the Guard was too quiet. It didn’t hurt as much as losing a finger, but the wounds were deep. His wounds closed themselves much slower than others, too.  “You think I’m ok with this?”
Ram scoffed to Robert’s silence.
Ram’s friend, Jacob, wiped Ram’s wound and held two layers of fur against his bleeding wound. This was the journey of their lives. They would get away to the city where bakeries lined up. These stalls in the streets were like open houses with hundreds of strangers, friends, and family eating alongside each other. For a city to exist, the people must be able to coexist.
They reached the first stop of the 60-kilometer trip. It was short. When you had nothing left to live for except hope, it was one long step with no return.
“Impressive world out there!” exclaimed Jacob.
Two knives shone in the sunlight. They were dirty as much as the three travelers felt.
A small farmhouse was the first stop, but they had nothing to give. They gave two months of their time to prepare for their second stop to the next village.
He punted up and down a small river looking for the two curious villagers. They were a little too brave this morning and left without him. He made a boat and expected Ram and Jacob to return by now. They hadn’t, so he left on his own to look for them. He arranged a set of stones into a symbol that meant “return” at the camping site.
Robert arrived back and laughed at Ram who had Jacob by his side the whole time. “I need a breather. Do you guys enjoy a good fish?”
“Star-ving,” Jacob said, jolting for his cramp to go away. Robert needed rest all the time, but how about him? 
Robert flipped a coin across his fingers and sighed. Two 
Young Goblin Explores the Wilderness and Fights Back Against Adventurer Invaders September 17, 2022
A young goblin explored a small hole and found a small animal the size of his hand. He grabbed it and felt the pricks against his hand. He groaned and waved it off, gazing at it. He murmured about regretting going here in the first place.
He wanted to be at peace of mind, so he left the cave and arrived beside a pond where fishes took leisure. He murmured about the weather coating the pond in white splashes of raindrops. He exhaled a breath of relief and walked away.
The summer tides were coming, and they were pleasurable.
His eyes shot up at the sound of a dog barking behind him. He turned a head and saw it at the edge of his vision, running. He climbed onto a branch and hissed at his beating heart.
He thought that the danger had passed when the dog left. He jumped down and found the dog weeping off in the distance. He saw a larger mammal twice his size. He wanted to run, but he did not know where to go.
The larger animal left him; it was a ground sloth capable only of slow movement. Yet it could defend itself with its weight.
He mused about his shortcomings in jumping down too early, yet he shook in excitement at the prospects of finding more experiences equal to or better than what occurred.
The sun took his feet away from the moment, and he found himself lying beside a tree and groaning as he sat awake.
A body of a dog rotted beside him, and he could only squeal before stopping halfway. He yearned to get a good look at his surroundings before he turned a corner. He huffed whenever some sound scared him.
He clarified to himself that only dogs and large mammals had a chance at making his flesh squeal. He laughed nervously. He was not at all encouraged at the thought.
He made every step a stride and looked askew at every beautiful thing. 
He demanded that the world keep these beautiful things safe, yet he thought that this could be a prejudice. He then also pleaded that the broken things be made whole, or beautiful if that was what they demanded.
He arrived close to a village where humans had their fun traveling to and fro to farm, carry, and live in organized sets of wood. He shook his head when he thought one of them poked his nose because he thought that they thought it was fun. He would be glad to be less convincing than he believed he usually was.
The village was large, and all of the folk that lived there ate farm food.
He strived to be strong enough to ask them for food, but he was not, sadly.
He walked away and followed the rest of the goblins as they went home to the caves and tunnels.
He slept and woke up again. The clanging of swords and singing of healing spells broke his sleep bubble. He got up and shouted in his mind for the noises to stop. He went out from behind an alcove. He shook and exited sight as fast as he entered.
He noted that adventurers that had a capacity to kill goblins right where they spawned had infiltrated. He felt frustration that morphed into a rage apt for the distasteful situation. He was a goblin, a creature that could only live up to thirteen years old. All of them relied to emotions when handling the job; these emotions made them what they were as it did humans. He was a short-sighted goblin, but his sight was good enough to tell him that every one of them deserved a trial, not in the forgiving kind of way.
He punched and hurled both fists down on their heads. He propelled himself with his fast legs and climbed them as if they were trees. He dodged swords and arrows, but he caught the fire magic.
He fell to the ground and despised the weather: ”Too hot, too hot!” he yelled.
Not in the forgiving kind of way either.
Caged Goblin Escapes a Human Convoy September 18, 2022
A lowly goblin ducked, holding onto a pole, as a huge human swung his mace at him. He stood back up when the mace took a break, running off until he was behind a wall.
The human charged to him, grabbing his neck and pushing down to the ground. The mace fell, and three arms stopped the human. The mace hit the ground beside the goblin’s head.
The goblin laughed, nervous, but this laugh sounded as if he was mocking the human.
The human growled, and the goblin winced and yelped.
Later, the humans gathered around a fire and cheered, putting their foreheads against one another. One of the humans wore a bright purple tunic; the rest wore black and gray. This bright suit’s wearer affected an accent belonging to a region in the north; the rest had genuine accents belonging to this region. This bright-suited human’s name was Cori.
The humans brought out pots and filled them with Laygarian soup, its thick taste stirring them up for battle. Each of them carried knives as large as their wide forearms to accommodate the cutting of meat and root vegetables in their food. One of them wore a necklace made of troll bone, carved with logograms of language. Despite their many shared family values, their language used back-throaty sounds that gave them a daunting force in first encounters. 
The ivory necklace’s wearer’s name was Simbur. He rubbed his back often as a sign of tension; every moment with him was an unspoken explosion of rage whenever he failed to get his way. He was a Pelodrial, an ethno-national distinction from Chafices, which the rest of the group were. They were an introduction of jokes in bad taste, and this exacerbated his inferiority complex.
After the added pleasantries toward the end of their hunger relief of the day, one of them asked another to engage in a spar. This spar sourced from care for one another, as their findings indicated that a self-suggested behavioral weakness contagion model was valid. At the end of their proceedings, each of them bowed for two others to replace them. The first two fighters were the customary two warlocks of the team, aging 16 and 17. Each of them wore a full plate of armor that they made light with dark magic: their shifty behavior gave enough reason for this accidental, lingual contradiction.
Their voices were light, too.
The two warlocks’s nicknames, at least, were “Hippy” and “Hoppy.” They had much to say about their opinions on nature and interspecies society, but their lives developed butcher hands, stopping their lips from an instance of revealing past concerns. Shit would hit the fan if they revealed how their hands touched broken persons and made them tingly inside to accommodate their large appetites for breaking non-human tirades and charades.
The humans pulled the goblin aside and inserted him among a row and column of boxes waiting for a small convoy of wagoners ‘drivers for delivery wagons.’ This was a pleasure for thousands of parties pledging everyday workers’ mortgages’ worth to a single cause. These parties were groaning to feast on a table beside and above species beyond their own. Society now demanded some level of pet husbandry, and this sector carried the status of “an essential part of the human condition.” This “essentialness” was, at most, within magic academia, in which nobles enjoyed the honorary, highest order of precedence. Birthday greetings included celebrating this precedence for kingdoms to come as a staple.
And these adventurers, who were affiliated with a society of mages, cast the concept of middle class aside, as they forged their craft. This middle class concept conjoined the concept of animal neutrality as opposed to emotional reasons for owning or killing an animal, such as a goblin.
A great many laws referred to humans as “glorified animals.”
Later, the goblin found its way through a small hole and escaped, adding himself to the lost and found area, which was a caged zone in the bigger place he was now in.
Humans came by to say hello in mocking tones as if blowing raspberries and tearful laughter were insufficient.
The goblin quivered at every interaction, his lips taking a slow breath to make sure his heart stopped “telling the humans what he felt.”
He wanted to engage with the world in a constructive way, but every step he took bequeathed a radical message to the humans and the empathetic goblins. His existence as a now caged goblin defined him this way.
Goblin Craig Leads a Failed Military Assault on a Human Town September 21, 2022
A goblin, Craig squealed from inside a cage, its fellow townspeople keeping watch outside for humans to return. He pretended he was frustrated, shaking himself onto the wooden bars behind and in front of him.
His right arm caught a scratch, and he studied it. He touched it, and his shoulders regained a new low point. 
Yet, he growled from under his breath because an ugly smell celebrated in the distance.
The humans, the ugly smell, had gathered together when they returned, staring down at the goblins’ feet. They said that they expected fruit and mining labor for the next three months.
The goblins outside nodded and spared Craig only a glance.
Craig tapped his feet against one another and wriggled his fingers around one another, shifting in place. His mind devised a plan involving the great many goblins.
A bright blue edged all over his cage, from which the goblins would fail to break him out if they tried. 
A few carts stopped before an impressive gate, whose corners and feet found protection from guard stones. 
Craig’s shock desolved, as his plans found its first toehold: he imagined a bird flying above the gate. A bird fell to the ground, and the guardstones tapped the deposit below them. Portions formed together into blocks and shaped into golems. Craig finished chanting a spell and listened to the quiet voices turn loud.
A ruckus sung, as spears received their owners and incantations departed from mana-chewing mouths. The carts became synonymous with theatres of terror; cries, yelps, and screams from fellow humans shook hearts the least.
When shallow groundwater had opened up near a latrine, he enjoined the golems to usher the humans there.
The humans voiced their thoughts, as the golem dragged them. Their feet gained new colors of red and dipped in contaminated water.
They fell in and would fail to swim long enough.
Craig wore a long cape, letting it fall. He needed to become a symbol.
He turned the carts upside-down and watched the mages spread themselves on the top of the walls nearby provisions of mana potions. He watched his fellow goblins break a few of these provisions. These mana potions granted the mages to exploit their magic to new heights.
The golem charged at the gate but failed to damage much.
Craig noticed the goblins falling one by one. He needed to wait for something special.
He had been preparing a spell when a large centaur came out from the gates.
Craig moved fast, turning to and fro, as the mana wafted from within his hands. He expelled the gas-like mana forward and watched it ignite and explode in the centaur’s face.
The centaur raged and turned to the healers rushing beside him, chucking under their chins as a greeting. The healers reciprocated the gesture and finished up healing the burn wounds, taking their leave.
Craig huffed and sat on the ground, expecting the centaur to fall to the ground. He sighed and rubbed his forehead; he twirled his fingers to localize mana around into a finger muzzle. He shot a sly, tiny magic bullet.
The bullet slammed against the centaur, but he created a mana coating on his skin that protected him. Muzzle velocity failed to improve the magic.
Craig fell to the ground after arrows struck him on the sides. He put up a shield, but the arrows pierced through it. He grit his teeth, rolled to his side, groaned, and then screamed. 
But he was smiling inside.
A calvary squad took lead of the situation from the town’s side, charging,and Craig launched another barrage of flame.
The calvary squad’s charge found its strength in weight and velocity, while Craig’s flame did not. Yet, the charge’s weight tripped against itself because the horses fled from the fire, wheeling around against one another. 
A platoon of spearmen supplanted the cavalry and advanced in a sparse wedge formation. The mages, who departed from the top of the walls, used the last of their mana to provide shielding.
A moment ago, these mages consumed the rest of their mana to protect the cavalry squad and failed.
Craig greeted a company of goblins, who emerged from the trees because they heard Craig’s scream signal.
The goblins flanked the spearmen platoon fast, but the platoon found ample time to intercept the goblins.
Halfway through the charge, the goblins retreated as soon as they realized their defeat.
Craig groaned and called for an official retreat. This immature skirmish from the humans would make the relationship between two nations that much more tense. He escaped, and that was all that mattered. Yet, he yearned for a piece of the pie of respect through domination of a human nation.
The goblins counted sixteen among the dead, and those who were alive numbered around 120.
The platoon and a mage squad chased them, but Craig had enough mana potions to intercept them and escape.
Human Courier Delivers a Package and Gets Hired as a Cart Guard September 21, 2022
A human tumbled after he had torn over 100 pieces of leaves. He gathered these pieces together and brought it to a cave’s mouth to stir in a pot; the pieces turned into shiny, porridge-like mana. He glanced at another human lying with one arm over its eyes and hesitated about whether he should wake them up. 
He carried a backpack and departed to a town, leaving the soup half-empty.
He passed by many walls, one of which extended to a hill that held back a slope of soil. He observed the landscape: thousands of buildings stood on eight main streets, which extended from the town square’s four sides and corners.
He stopped in front of an inn, touching near the door’s rim before entering inside.
He ignored the noise and approached a terrible-faced human. He dared not imagine the stories they told about war until he experienced it himself.
A few young women mistook him for an adventurer, approached him, and asked him about the “perpetual burning in the middle caves.”  
He removed his robe and set down his drink, saying, “I can only guarantee that the adventurers are taking their job seriously.” 
One of the women gasped, apologized, and excused herself and her fellow healers. 
He watched them as they left, finding a tinge of annoyance and an upset stomach. He excused himself after receiving a package for him to deliver. 
He found himself in a latrine, taking out the bad stuff and getting all the muse of one who was paying attention to hygiene. He arrived at the gate and departed, accepting pay to help protect a a few carts with a knight. 
They magically identified him as Calsi Erla, a staunch supporter of “anti-healing” policies. He said that there was evidence to support the possibility that drawn-out healing increased the risk of a certain disease. 
He stroked a few flames in the hearts of the carts’ passengers. Although, they stopped him before he handed them an ornament as a gift. 
An adventurer guild that functioned as a fortress welcomed him. 
Goblin Garbage Collectors Randy and John Attend a Political Conference September 25, 2022
With a tickle around his shoulder, a goblin looked around to see a daunting larger, stronger, smarter goblin. The former goblin’s name was Randy, and the latter’s name was John.
John stood up from a pile of bags inside a small bakery. The shop owner smiled at him as he left.
They walked around a few bad parts, especially near the city’s “fume dome.”
Hundreds of goblins lined up to the fume dome, looking each other up and down. Their stories collided, since they each had a name and a place that the government defined as unique. This uniqueness was a special determiner of power and strength.
Randy and John fit into this picture because they were protecting the street from garbage and trash. They were garbage collectors and collectors of token items at that.
They made sure to keep their head down because goblins had a tendency to seek fights without question. 
Randy said, “Is there something bothering you, John?”
Randy had to jump up to keep himself on the road.
John looked up, surprised that Randy called him by name. “What’s up?” he said, his mouth quivering. He was staring at one particular group among the goblins waiting in line. His face looked expressionless, but his mouth quivering told Randy everything that he needed to know. John wanted to grab those goblins and toss them into one of the tunnels they made in the wilderness.
A human dropped from a large carriage, holding the hand of a young girl. They walked as if they owned the place and spoke in a language different from the goblins. The human said, “Is there inside a preparation for Hisaka?” He lowered his head to look at his daughter Hisaka’s face. He had a smile that scared the goblins.
The goblins clogged the road, but they clogged it even more when they backed off to avoid attention. The wagons were impatient, but this was the norm. The remains of a bridge functioned as a stile on the road and prevented wagons from passing through. A passageway through the inside of a few squattered properties and a buttressed structure that used to function as a retaining wall became the norm. 
The goblins knew that the human was more than that smile. He had a history of violence that he propped up with influence and power among the high humans. Yet, he sometimes muttered to himself how he hated the elves and their high places.
The goblins would scoff every time they saw him leave.
Some of the goblins who got caught scoffing never found their way home again.
It was, despite all that, a defiance that they could not keep inside. Some strong enough would get themselves caught scoffing and fight back. They got imprisoned, and the humans who imprisoned them found that they could be of use.
“Ha, is that a coke they sold from the newspapers?” Randy said.
“No, this is a low-class potion that my spider-hole-hiding relatives took to making yesterday,” John said.
They arrived at the end of the street and closed a double door, entering a cathedral.
“Are you sure you should be drinking that?” Randy said, nudging John on the shoulder.
“Yes,” John said, focused on something else—a small kitchen tool on the floor. “Have you seen Father Soot?” he said to the person sitting on the altar’s steps in the dark.
“I am a relative: I hope you don’t tell him that I’m here.” He took out a knife and threw one at Randy.
John leapt to push him away.
Randy pushed John back and dodged the knife.
“What the—What the heck were you doing, John? He’s my teacher!”
John laughed and told him that he and Randy’s teacher were pranking him.
Randy gave them a long hard look.
After the tension in the room reached its peak, he sighed and shut his mouth before he went on a rant. With a gentle, kind voice for someone of his height and build, he said, “I like you, too, but please….” He looked at a sun dial in front of the window. “don’t do that again.”
“Not this time, I’m afraid,” said a young toolsmith goblin, who wore a smile as if it was a daily job.
“I assure that nothing will happen to your vehicle.”
“Vehicle? That little attachment? Not even close to trustworthy.”
“What will it take?” said the customer, his face red, sweat dripping down his face. He looked like he needed a long, warm bath.
“Nothing hits worse than a passerby asking me what they needed to do—to make at least a bare-bones attempt at convincing me—to hand them a mana sweeper.”
“I assure—I can’t even begin to settle the basics of this massive, high-potential project without your marvelous product!”
“Nothing beats marvelous than a proper owner.”
“Respect—proper? I don’t even know how to convince you anymore. Do you hear yourself? Proper…? Ok, how about this? We do something together, and I hand you half of the profit or something. Stinkin’ tired of this glue-lockity shit.”
Two goblins were passing by outside, interrupting their thoughts. They were Randy and John, who both forgot to bring their long rod to a engagement between a poor human and a rich relative goblin. A long time ago, Randy realized that goblins looked almost identical to human physique; enough love could get you anywhere, he supposed.
“A party. That’s what.” John answered the toolsmith, while Randy’s mind wandered.”
Randy’s mouth opened a little, but he thought that he would regret what he had to say about politics and religion. He was particularly predisposed to hate goblins that had a stall or business set up near the district line.
John’s mouth moved in a way to show he was thinking. “I wish you good luck on the sales department—whoever this young man needs, come take whatever. This older gentleman has everything—”
“Stop. Low-grob.”
John suppressed a full body wince and politely waved goodbye.
“John, isn’t that predatory?”
“‘Predatory’? Is that the thing you’ve been hearing people from the dog-water-trash levels say?”
“I-it’s only one level. Stop saying ‘levels.’” Randy felt this was outside of his expertise since John had been increasingly getting involved in the political side.
Randy had confident ideas, but he was nowhere near a good convincer as he sometimes told himself to be. He yelped as he stepped on something everyone avoided—the potholes full of wet mud.
These mud used to be special resources for a large structure, but after the high elves complained, the district council strapped the project midway. They also told the goblins to “just give up.” This giving up encompassed all the mud they transported manually for miles and miles.
Carts were useful at times, but roads were non-existent at the time and now still very much in development. They could only haul the mud with their backs, draining themselves and dying to floods and mud piles receding because of rain as they dug.
John and Randy smiled as they left the shop where the customer ranted and the toolsmith gave up listening.
John arrived at the party, where magic explosions took them by surprise.
Randy was powerful though and deflected much of the debris, saving John “The Patriot”.
John shielded himself with the long rod, but the rod broke and stabbed him.
Randy carried him all the way to a safer place, tending to his wounds with healing magic.
They both wanted to know how it happened. Explosions were not always the way people resolved cultural conflict, but this particular magic bomber did.
The fume dome called for people of all shapes and sizes to participate in cleaning the city and amending those who lost their lives in the “Mud Flood.” 
John and Randy wanted to know how it all started, and the “great” historians accepted the many invitations as, hopefully, a one-way ticket to fame, or credibility. Historians had the highest rate of politicians even among politics-centric jobs such as journalists, lobbyists, and entrepeneurs.
John and Randy had zero recollection of ever participating in such an event and decided they needed to be there. This decision was an obvious one after they witnessed the explosions but not the bodies.
John and Randy were also not related to the Mud Flood, but they did know others who were related and were above seventy years old.
Signs of decay on the gate discouraged them a little, but their heightened senses kept them moving.
Inside the dome, a large altar shaped after a symbol of the Queen God, a deity of the Saints, whom the goblins all the way to the high elves took to heart as their god.
John and Randy took their seat, but they made sure not to wear the ornaments they gave to goers near the entrance. They had an epiphany that the Queen God was arriving.
In a small spark, a loud sound cracked, and a light resembling the Queen God flashed like lightning. Its recursive flashes made John and Randy realize that the light mages of the city’s churches did this to inspire hope and faith.
The conference in the dome was at its second day, so John and Randy had much to say because it was less lackluster today. The grieving, fervent mood inside made them open to those willing to talk to them.
Many people inside conversed with one another including John and Randy during the 45-min breaks. Although John and Randy made some effort by quipping their experiences in the explosion to one another. Many people heard them and remembered that two witnesses who stood very close at the scene escaped recognition. They asked if they were the two witnesses.
John and Randy hesitated, and because of this, one of the conference attendees believed that they were the ones and convinced the others as well. This created a commotion that the conference organizers had to calm down and usher those who became too disruptive out the door.
The conference was, for the most part, a goblin conference, but more and more humans came as the day progressed.
The humans, who looked less bold than the usual humans who made an impression, came to support the goblins.
Elves, although lower elves, only came by the tens, but they made the largest impact. They drew at most a hundred of goblins from outside that felt that the conference was a tainting smudge of low acceptance and employment rates. Politics, to them, was a curse to their record of playing it nice and easy and being acceptable. This was the common consensus at least among the hard-won goblins who joined the demonstrations. To the conference organizers, the conference was playing it nice and easy, and the coming influx of demonstrators were their true declaration of their political and social revolution. 
A provisional government would come, and John and Randy would have a huge hand in it. Either by the birth of a republic, the secession of one or two districts, or both. A war would challenge the new republic.
A kid swung his bat against an ogre’s sword and blocked it.
Because his bat lacked a guard, the sword slid down and cut his fingers and thumb, making him lose his compusure.
The orge threw a feint attack and retreated, as he cast fire from his working hand’s fingers, provoked.
In the forest, near where the Mud Flood occurred, a town near the outskirts of the city gathered their children to participate in something they called “hunt and race.” They trusted that the children would not trip and injure themselves too hard, but they made sure they could not go anywhere near the self-isolating bears.
“I made this little thing for you.”
“Is this the best one yet? I need two more just like this. How about a small dagger? Around this size?”
“I can’t give you an early start, Alat. Everyone has to go through the same.”
The goblins created a small game where the children had to find a weapon or tool around the size of their hip. If they could not find one, they would be eliminated.
A small group of goblins grieved the loss of a small crystal they found. They agreed among themselves to tell their parents as soon as they finished the small “hunt and race” on which their village sent them.
One of the goblins, Soltyrie dragged another through the dirt, counting for her.
The goblin had a huge wound along her limb from the her forearm’s extremities to her left shoulder. She took deep breaths, heeding the goblin’s count with all her might. 
She stopped screaming and only groaned. The pain reduced with every deep breath, but the pain pulled her back to screaming. She stretched the rest of her body, disregarding Soltyrie’s instructions, but it worked out and reduced her pain. She also stood up and pushed against the tree, making Solytyrie ask the others if stopping her physically was a good idea.
The others declined and agreed to encourage her instead.
“Go, do it! You can do it! You’re a loser!”
“You’re so weak! No one loves you!”
Her muscles bulged, and the pain subsided until she looked behind one of that.
They ran one by one, trying to escape.
They fell one by one.
She laughed.
“What?” she asked, looking at Solytyrie.
He gave her a pendant and told her that she can pass the next round.
She gasped. “Is that the one your father gave you?”
“I’m sure—”
A young goblin approached the two who wandered around and shook. He demanded that the world became perfect somehow. He had to see for himself what made the world perfect in the first place. He had to become what he needed to become. He had to become the epitome of grace and beauty. He had to see for himself if he would become the best that he could be. He had to remember what made the world perfect in the first place. He had to become what he needed to remember. He had to become everything that he had to become.
The kids are with their grandma. The wife is with her friends. I have this entire house all to myself. I can relax… 
Troll Don Falls in Love with Sam, Then Wages War After He Dies October 6, 2022
The young troll Don rode the boat, observing the fish that banged against the boat. She gulped, putting one hand in the water. The water was cold, fresh as melted ice, like a summer peak’s waterfall dripping down in a large-scale flood. She smiled, putting her hands in the pockets of her wide-groin trousers.
The night was steady, and the words circulating in her head were like lice. She wanted out from the watery fall of danger. The water wanted to consume her, it did. She thought it was the momentary thoughts that distracted her, but it was the two goblins Ritanda and Bata. They got the shoe part of the mechanical toy that she slid back and forth.
She shook when these goblins smiled at her each. She and the goblins jumped toward one another, rocking the boat. It was a steady course through the water between the massifs. Her mind was an empty casket, and she was about to hit land.
The boat struck land on a white beach. Sam stood in front of them, taking her by the hand and leading her into a tent. She tsk-tsked at the low ceiling, but Sam assured her that he would be getting a better tent one day.
She picked up one of the two goblins and headed inside. Cages upon cages surrounded Sam, who stood in the middle of this long, rectangular tent. He smiled, studying her expressions and nodding at her embarrassment.
Sam sat down, telling her a story as he looked at a circle of paintings on a board. He told her about his time among the fishmen, telling her it was a dangerous path that he led. He also told her that nothing would stand in the way of his plan to conquer the city. He would conquer the people and make them know his name as “Leader” and “Helper.” He smiled, turning his head around and, halfway through, turning his body around as well, standing up, and walking over to her. He looked at her askance from left to right, watching as she curled her bangs and lowered her head.
He told her that nothing would stand in his way, and he ignored her raised brows and tight face. He smirked as his face left her view, telling her that words were worthless in front of an army.
He looked outside through the gaps in the tent, saying that he enjoined the goblin workers to pave the way for the goblins he would employ. He employed hundreds of goblins, he said, for the work of the gods Seir, Pier, and Colwae. These goblins, he explained, would change the landscape as they knew it. He tiptoed and rubbed his broad arms together, his arms’ hairs brushing against one another.
Don handed him a small flower that Sam declined. He said, “If one only needed a flower to get what they yearned, hundreds would have gotten it by now—”  
“What?” Don excused herself.
“You are not the first,” he said, putting down her flower and holding her hands. “I want you to be happy, but forget the expectations of your family. Expect yourself, respect yourself, and make yourself worth your own time first. Do you see what I’m saying? I like to see you smile when you’re alone and dance when no one can hear you sing. I need you to be an able woman, not a dependent one. My stare is not any worth than the saying of a daisy in the forest to a tree: ‘I am lazy to see myself as worth my time; instead, I will stare at this tree and gaze at it for it is better than me. The tree will say: ‘No, no, you are the flower. I am the tree. I say to you, “Dance and you will see the treats that the world has prepared for you.”’”
Don smoothened her blouse and sleeves, dragging herself down on a chair, as she glanced at the covered ground, putting a finger to her chin. She gazed at Sam and then at her raised hands that she twirled.
Sam guffawed. “I’m sorry. I need to tell you how silly you look right now, but it is alright. Let me go by and check my workers. They are mine and mine alone, but they shall live for themselves, you’ll see.”
Don followed him, and so did Ritand and Bata. They rubbed their arms and hid their hands, studying Sam as he strided to see the goblins that prepared themselves for him.
They cleaned themselves: they brushed their hair into one like a tulip and removed their dirty parts to avoid disrupting Sam’s gaze. Sam wanted to keep them cute and cuddly, and that was what they obeyed.
Sam sat down near a tree, asking Don, “How will you do it? How will you see?”
Don smiled and said, “What are you asking of me?”
“I need to see how you will express yourself before these people. These are people, you see. The biases of fishmen like me are no place for these conglomerates of ways of life.”
“What are you saying, Sam, Sir?”
“I see.” He frowned, excusing himself. “I thought you’d see it now, but let’s go.” He stood up, holding her hand and asking her if he had her permission to brush her hand against his cheek.
She agreed, and he did brush her hand against his smooth, but firm cheek. She blushed, but Sam stopped holding her hand.
He walked up to one of the goblins and shouted at them, saying, “No more, no more! This is all you need!” The goblin had been working hard, but this time, it worked too hard and almost broke its back.
“How near you were to removing yourself from a job! I would gladly squat myself to meet your face and scold you. I see you, Harold! I see your guilt! I know you are sorry, and that’s why I will let you sit down only for 5 minutes.” Sam bit his lip and walked away, sitting down in a hurry where Don was far away.
Don walked up to him, but Sam told her, “Don’t walk here if this is not the place you want to be. I am guilty, and that’s why I sit far away.”
She frowned, but she still sat down, studying his momentary expressions that shook his face [anyhow] at irregular intervals. He was a wreck of emotions: the sky would land before he would receive some cure for his wretched weaknesses at times.
She danced her fingers into his open palm, telling him that it’d be alright. She asked permission if she could hug him. He said “yes,” and she put her arms over his shoulder and whispered to him that he was a better man than he could ever be.
Tears fell down his left cheek and his left cheek only. He held her and let the hug deepen in intimacy.
The two goblins sat down far away, gazing at Sam’s face. They wiggled and rubbed their arms harder than they did a while ago. Their lips curled around in many strains and wounded their cheeks.
The morning had arrived when a carriage opened up its doors for the “Princeling” Sam. He carried his weight through the social path that came with the site and sat down where the orders of two from his entourage led him. They said, “You are a fickle man, not a staunch person whatsoever. Change your ways and change it fast. How long will you strive after women of weak birth? Their status will defame you and enjoin your to change your ways of relaxation. You will be among the pigs, Your Royal Highness, Sir.” They bent forward somewhat from the waist, while Sam nodded his head somewhat. Sam frowned by raising one side of the cheek hard.
“I know not what you mean, and I care not what you mean. I see everything your mouth lets out, and I only see words of bigoterie ‘bigotry.’”
“See, see, you are a part of the Masis generation, tell her—him, Aiden,” said the older man Helacus, waving his hands as if he was casting a spell. “Isn’t he? Isn’t he?”
The man Aiden, whose true name was “Maiden”, shrugged off the bickering as he strained to keep his calves under the hip, looking out the window.
“How do you see yourself so seriously, Aiden?” said the coachman Brax, who was the strongest among the prince’s bodyguards. “Answer the damned question.” Brax hated the pauper birth of Aiden, targeting him with accusations at every turn of each conversation.
“‘I can see a white light.’ ‘How far shines the sea from the clouds?’ ‘Will the worth of songs be placed down in an endless heap toward the sun?’ Is that a good enough answer? I got that from some excerpt—excerpts from your bible.”
“‘Taintless wise ones, oh Clero. These wise ones depart; therefore, we sinned in our hearts where they are abandoned. We clad toward the sea.’ We clad toward that sea.”
A field of grass supplemented a field of goblins. The sands of the desert constituted the confidence of the goblins in their numbers. They marched through the slopes of hills, holding in themselves their righteous abandon. They faced toward the city Cicero, commending their equipment and horses into a magnitude of meditative thrill.
The theater of war was on the horizon, as trolls bursted from their caves and cities, telling the news that the Dogmata goblins were the main force against the humans.
The darkness of thin, slices of molten sharp knives; cold praises of braised food; and braces among tassels of hair sundered the unstoppable walls of the human city Karita.
Goblins soon stood before the theatre of war before the city walls of Karita. The trolls arrived before the fishmen did, and the fishmen arrived before the rest of the species did: the hare people, hobgoblins, and liches of undead.
Don was wise to watch the world calm down before the storm. She knew herself to be a popular candidate in the leader election for the post-war city ruins. She cared not about the way the country had ruled itself, or the wise ones that told themselves that they were the gods’ people and nothing would happen to them. She smirked at every word with which they filled their already-dirty mouths. She coughed and spilled onto the floor her heart’s perfusings of rage.
She had arrived to direct the army when she remembered that the man whom she loved stood in the frontlines from a human city far from here. She thought that the chances that Sam would fight in this war was low, but she struggled to convince herself to a degree where she could lay her hands in battle. She declined the offers to struggle against the humans, for her love was a strong force whom she could only love.
She stopped before a small well and prayed, her soul beating to everlasting gods of freedom and might. They gave her strength and told her that they would convince Sam to leave the defense of Karita. She pledged that she would offer a thousand gold coins for their blessings.
She fought the war, and the peace lasted for years until she discovered Sam’s body near the well where she prayed. The gods mocked her, she thought. She raged against the humans that believed these gods and against the trolls that helped convince her to stay. She raised an army of many races and fought against the lords of old and the new lords of thunder. She broke the camel’s back that kept the world together, and the world fell to unimaginable ruin. The world was lost.
Goblins Argue Over a Failed Catapult Attack October 8, 2022
A line of goblin escaped the dozen of rocks shooting from a layer of smoke.
“Where did you get that plan of yours! This is not the way this should’ve gone! Get rid of it immediately. How long will this go on!”
A large array of rocks pushed down into the newer ones, causing a break in the platform of earth that held their catapult. They fell over, as the catapult crashed against the rock and splintered again and again into different pieces. By the time the catapult was tiny scraps on the ground, those who were on the platform were on the ground, standing.
“Why did you have to do it? Don’t you know there has to be some way to go about this without the insanity of trying!”
An Adventurer Party of Four Dies Fighting Demon Generals October 8, 2022
“It is by the might of the heavens that I slay you today, Hero! You have shunned the Sinners’ Grasp all these years! It is time for you to accept your true destiny as the Anti-Power!”
“Names upon names gasp at your endless ambition, oh Creator of Sights! Shine a bright light unto your spectacular death!”
“The night calls your name, Healer of Demons! Your betrayal shall only make things easier for the Kingdom to lead through your territory!”
“Holy Priestess, make way for the Kingdom! It gives, and it takes away the most important loves, but it shines a bright light unto your hypocrisies!”
The stoic adventurer party of Grell, Asin, Trojan, and Plati looked upon the hundreds of demon generals posed to take their lives.
Grell bent down on the ground. Asin jumped on top of him and created a magic circle. Trojan pierced through Asin and into Grell’s back, strengthening them. Plati sat on the ground with crossed legs and raised his hands on the sides, granting the party a golden light of blessing.
Grell asked them all for a proper farewell since this was the last time they had one another in their favorite formation. Asin nodded, placing her hand on his cheek, tears falling down her cheek. Trojan hugged Grell on the shoulder and tapped his shoulder. Plati smiled, stopping his pose to hug them with each of his four arms.
Grell died, so did the rest.
The demon generals snickered and laughed, as the heroes came to a rest.
Goblin Officials Jay, Grime, and Pat Navigate War, Politics, and a Social Party October 8, 2022
A small goblin, Jay opened up a small portal into the netherworld where hundreds of other goblins came out. Their faces were small and cute, and everyone of them owned a small hammer, which they used until failure.
Jay turned around where his two friends Grime and Pat entertained a baby goblin learning how to stand on two legs. He said, “That can be a problem.” He pointed to a large bombard that a troll wheeled over to them. 
“They haven’t delivered the small things!” Grime said, pulling one of the loose strands off the baby goblin’s purple clothes. “Opps!”
Pat made a small drawing on the edge of a report paper with a bunch of reconnaissance codes. “How did the soil nail too in the preliminaries? Did they give it an A, at least?”
“At least! They gave it the S+!” Pat said, who tilted the bombard toward him. He looked to the small goblin. “I changed it a little. What do you think?” He spoke as he would with any other goblin his age.
The small goblin looked as ignorant as ever.
“Grime, Pat, hurry to the portal! ‘The Treolaines make careful use of their late ones,’ or something like that!” The wind blowing from the portal was strongest now that he was a feet away from it.
The middle stage of a large-scale invasion occurred at the other side of the portal. Grime, Pat, and Jay closed their hoods and departed to the corner of a large shield formation.
“How did it do!” The goblin general Suplimi shouted over the roaring of a large tornado-like monster in the distance.
“It fell by the wayside like everything else—you did not hear me? Bombard! Not! Good!”
The general nodded, putting down each of his mana crystals and combining them. “Here, drink this. You could use some energy dampeners.”
“Yeah, the Boost noises are a little strong today, aren’t they?” Jay repeated it after the general failed to convey his nod.
Jay sighed and imagined the angle at which a flinging of stones headed toward them.
“Oy! Take cover, my goodness!” The goblins shouted at one another.
“Oh no!”
Curses prevailed through the tornado monster’s roars.
“Ah, dang, Inquisitions are a little deep after the case with the Ban quest! Can we get a dampener right here!” Jay shouted at one of the medics holding their hand against one of the victims of the Boost noises.
After their long greeting with Suplimi’s small force was over, Jay headed over to a quieter area where the Boost noises failed to reach. They sat in a fort, interviewing two tall golems.
“I wish every kind of Jest was a perfect one! They have the small ones unpacked! I need them all!” One of the golem’s wailed.
Jay sighed. “Can you just answer me this? I wage war against the Droll orcs. Am I a fool? Yes or no?”
The golem stomped the floor that repaired itself with the magic of the two golems. “Yes! Yes!”
They left the two golems, heading toward a garden. “How dull! Is this what it’s like in Forge all the time?” Pat said. His eyebags were much heavier than two days ago when the war began.
“Is the Hero after the Devil again?” sang a small bird beside them, giving them some needed comfort after that long, boring interview. “Let angels delight in the shadow of the mighty sons!”
Pat caressed the top of the hairs of his arms. “How slow is the raid going with ours?”
“Never this slow,” said Jay, putting a cup and saucer down on a table with a supplementary wall obstructing a pool of water.
“As if it’s ever fast? You’re funny!” Grime said, rubbing his head after he smelled the new fragrance going around.
“Should I explain why there’s no more trolls in the Province?”
“Ha. Maybe not today. Bedtime—”
“Can you not?”
“It’s not a bad word anymore, nowadays. At least, it shouldn’t be. It’s been four years. Times are changing!”
Jay opened up a small chest containing a few ancient letters. “Nice.”
“The stains—did they ever get rid of the old paint—or ink, ink, whatever! How… quaint! Did they get you a Platu stone?”
“Father has a few Platu near the Feuville mansion.”
“These kinds of stuff. Did they ever get you arrested for it?”
“Not really. They were like, ‘You should hand this to the authorities.’ We were like, ‘Hey, have a nice way, Cha-ching ching. Money, money.’ And they were fine with it!”
“Fine with it!” He emphasized the “it,” and spoke in an accusatory tone. “How long does one go without at least someone saying, ‘Hey, we’ve been seeing this very suspicious thing you have. Time to call the Regalda Knights.’”
Jay curled his lip. “Their tendency is to steal, and that’s it. They don’t actually do much—I mean, the peasant humans. Sorry, I should’ve been specific—I know, I know.”
“Maybe not so heavy—” A clattering of weapons disturbed them. “Oh, right, we need to leave before the curfew.”
“Healing later or tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow. Healer said people need three to four days of rest after a mana bath.”
“Ha, smooth!”
“Hey! I don’t care about her. She’s like lice. Have you heard that small proverb back in that chapel you told me to attend?”
“W-what? Stop calling it ‘chapel’ by the way—”
“They said that ‘people’ like her deserve to shut up in the courtroom. The dude in the front repeated that no ‘one’ could talk in important sessions and that!”
“Why are you so passionate? Did the dude sting you?”
“Heh, good one!”
“Get it, Stingut Order?”
“Heh. Not funny.”
“Hey!”
They left through a few gates, making their way to a small wagon and putting down a bunch of scrolls they got and were going to give to a family of stove-makers.”
“How did they do?” Pat asked, putting down two magical rods that kept the scrolls together.
Grime sighed. “Do? They were not doing anything! Jag asked me if there was an accident. I said, ‘Yeah, duh!’ He was so mad and started telling me about the fourth generation curse or something. It was crazy. Like he thought I was the issue? I don’t know, man.”
Pat guffawed out of nowhere even if he was so quiet earlier, his eyebags folding with his mirth. “You’re lucky. My sibling, who’s supposed to be all grown up, gave up his rights for this super big, like, jagged, old-ish fort in the north of Kale. How stupid is that? They have the damnest wishes. He said, he said he wanted to become like this ‘adventurer’ new wave thing. Crazy! And funny! I can’t stop laughing about it!”
Two hours passed, and their wagon arrived near a gathering of goblins who were accusing a small-time noble about a murder somewhere in the caves. Pat murmured about it as soon as they left the wagon. He laughed about their ideas. He said: “Remember the two goblins who got all up on arson after some weird dispute in the lines of their land. The old farmer’s house they burned up got all scared and stuff. It worked, since the moving away, but still, who does that even?”
“This nation might just fall apart, but nah, we have the two states that frontline goblin general Mason is about to enter. He might just help us some even with that dispute he had with Suplimi and his society thing.”
“‘Intellectuals’ always got issues, don’t even bother! If they weren’t getting all injured and directing the greatest generation, I would’ve puked myself to sleep listening to him talk about ‘Centerpoints of the Goblin Reign.’” 
Later, they entered early at a party. “Buy the Justice pie today!” said the tall goblin noble Aorta at a party. “How’s the major with all of his issues?”
“Questionable. If I were him, I would be taking my sweet time getting laid in the Sameos.” Jay gave a shy chuckle, putting over his head his polite hood.
“I need to know.” Aorta leaned in close. “Is the major getting prepared for the elections with Siktes?”
“I have no clue what you’re talking about. Should I—”
“Never mind. You got me. I’m a gentleman who likes to mess with people. Siktes is a friend of mine who ordered a couple of my beautiful—” He moved away and took a bite out of his for-show pie. “scrumptious pies!” He was eying the people in front of him and around who were arriving.
The influx of goblin nobles made Aorta’s time shine. He spoke in loud, dynamic impressions of leaders and different personalities in goblin newspaper media.”
“How did the questionnaire go?” said one of the parents passing by, looking to her two teenage sons.
“Hardy-pill.”
“Is that a word they say?” The mother gave an accusatory tone.
“What? The blokes say that.”
Jay rubbed his hands against each other and blew a breath of hot air into them. “Hmm. Where’s Grime’s husband?” He face-palmed. “I forgot to tell Pat he needs to take his thing today.”
Pat was deep inside the ballroom, sitting down beside Grime and Grime’s husband. “What’s up, Clinton? Is that a shoelace you made?”
Grime’s husband Cliton raised a transparent box containing a shoelace and cheered. “Hey, it’s the Jayston Father!”
“That’s me. I’d prefer”—he whispered—“if you don’t mention that here, but thank you! Thanks!”” 
Jay shook Pat’s hand and bowed toward Grime, whose husband preferred bowing because of their culture. “I need a question answered.”
“What?” Pat chewed on a bagel with cut fruit paste inside. “Is there anything that makes a dog squeak in the morning?”
“That happens at my house, why do you ask?”
“A dog, I heard—don’t quote me on this—needs at least one mana bath with two Gripe tail washes everyday.”
“That’s suspicious. Where did you hear—I also have no idea about Gripe. What’s Gripe?”
“Oh, just wanted to know if you think it’s a good advertisement for this week’s newspaper. My sibling, who is cool and awesome, likes advice, and I’m asking it for her.”
“That’s nice, that’s nice—No.” Pat smiled with his eyes closed.
Grime chuckled and continued talking to Cliton’s relatives.
Jay shied away and left the center of the party, where a baby goblin held up his hand and waved it.
“Jay, tiny Jay. Look at tiny Jay! He’s so cuddly! What do you think?” Jay’s wife, Ada put less makeup than usual today. Jay would have preferred just going full in for this party since they would have ten months before the next ‘official’ party.
Jay smiled. “Little Jay has much to learn.” He bent down, ignoring the glances he got. “Oh! You need a brush-brush right now, Jayston—”
“Jay, Jay, sorry, can I ask?” Clinton said, tilting his body around to get past the crowd of people still coming to the party. Grime was not with him.
Clinton rubbed his fingers together and a small spiky ring in his pinky finger. “How long do Quint travels take?”
“Quint is far from here. What are you talking about?”
“‘Quint,’ is what Grime told me.”
“H-he—” He rubbed his forehead. “He told you about Quint.”
“Yeah?” Clinton rubbed his left shoulder. “I need to know quick. He’ll hear me if I start whispering. Have to talk normal, hehe.”
“Right.” Jay looked at his wife and at Jayston. He sighed. “Excuse me, Jay and—” He raised his voice for Clinton and the strangers around them. “—beautiful, beautiful Ada.” He started singing the lyrics to an old song. “Nothing more beautiful than a flower like her.”
Ada smiled with serious eyes. “Stop, stop.”
Jay was about to sit down.
Ada patted him. “Not here, not here.”
“Ok, how about we go to the east entrance right…” He pointed to the path to the right where there were much less people. 
Ada gave Jay a genuine smile as he left.
“… right there!” Jay said, nodding at Ada and smiling back.
Clinton said after they reached the east side of the estate, “Yeah, I need—”
“Lucky!” Pat said, bowing his head to Clinton and giving Jay an shy tap on the shoulder.
Jay giggled and grabbed Pat’s shoulder. “Pat, I have to talk to Clinton. Can we get a minute?”
‘Really? Oh, my bad. I interrupted you, too, right? Shoot. Uh, babye.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Clinton said, his head lowered.
Jay raised his head to the sky and asked, “What again?”
“I need to know if the Quint quest is something you guys are serious about.”
“Yeah, we have to check it out. Sons—and weirdly enough, daughters—are into this new adventuring thing and Mr. Haletere wants a team to try it out, too—work and to please the children and nephews.”
Clinton left while nodding.
Jay sighed and returned to Ada and his child. “Can we get a goodbye for Clinton?”
Jayston waved goodbye.
“Hey-hey, say hi, Mr. Officials!”
Jay smiled and ignored the person with a magical camera, staring at an open tactical magic wand. He was with Pat and Grime.
A long line of goblins waited, as Jay and his two friends watched a fight go on between a bunch of teenagers. The three officials ignored them and preferred to watch a small group of children parading toy wands at one another.
“The newbies are due to parade in the late afternoon—16 hundred,” said a lesser noble beside Jay, who masqueraded around with a smile befitting a statesman. “The staunch detractors among the teens have grown. Rights and alls.”
“Assured and on the rails,” said another older, lesser noble beside the first. “Good!”
“Ha, if just a little bit more and they’d start claiming allegiance with the Sikt,” said a third, lesser noble.
“Yeah, yeah, with them mighty oafs and all,” said the second.
These lesser nobles irritated Jay and Grime, who tried to appease appearances by standing still. Pat was busy parading with the children, smirking at every turn he made.
The first two lesser nobles were imitating a more royal way of speaking and bearing, and this irritated Jay and Grime the most. They were officials who would vouch that officials cared less about imitating some Everyman’s populist who happened to represent the entirety of what state affairs dispatches call “officialdom.”
“The easy are suggestable,” Jay said as he left. Patt and Grime subsequently followed.
The lesser nobles, who cared more about drawer-bottom war trophies than anything, raised a brow and wrinkled their noses at the statement.
A large carriage fell in front of them and crashed onto them.
The three officials backed off and arranged their capes to avoid the spillage.
A discreet blast of red fire from the carriage window became sufficient in turning them into dust. Their years of hardwork for their nation’s largest anti-war movement halted there and then.
A young man opened his eyes, gazing at the small boy with an disproportionate left leg. He walked up to him and asked, “Why is your leg so sore?”
The boy threw a slap, of which the young man caught the wrist. He said, “Why else would I have a leg like this? It’s a disease, gosh dang it!”
Mage Alustrus Besieges a Boy Soldier with Magic Bullets October 8, 2022
The young man Alustrus opened his mouth, and a bullet shot from it. The bullet flew and slammed into the walls, making fractures in the bricks of the walls. 
“We demand a great sum by the morning! Plead your case by then! Please the Don!” He saluted with one arm behind him and the other arm on his shoulder.
The small boy Discard behind the walls grabbed his small gun that fell to the ground, pulling the trigger by mistake and hurling it over his shoulder. He hurled it somewhat too far, and it hit him in the eye. However, the strap of the gun still stayed over his neck.
He put three cartridges into the chamber of his gun and loaded it, shooting an array of bullets at the horizon. He ran after he expended a magazine, flailing his arms side to side.
“How long would the bright lights last! There’s only a couple of places left you can stay! Do not take more than you can get!” Screaming, the high mage Alustrus waved his arms back, forth, up, and down until the mana in the veins of his arms flew out from his fingertips into his mouth. He sang a song with a voice soft as the pool at the bottom of a waterfall.
The magical cartridges that he kept inside his mouth aimed toward the boy, shooting at him.
The boy fell to the ground, but he got back up and kept running. His body armor endured somewhat, and the automatic healing cards of his vest disappeared.
He turned a corner and panted. “The mages Alustri ordered had more rounds of bombshells than I expected. Where are the goblins from the Forge? I need a Boost noiser!”
A roar from the horizon where a tornado monster hurled parts of structures and debris reached Discard’s ears.
Discard pressed his earplugs further inside and shouted; the echo of his voice reach eluded him.
On his side of the war, nearby, a team of large golems blocked high-calibre bombshells and trudged forward, rail screeching signalling their reaching defense.
Landmines exploded near the entrance to holes. The golems endured, but some of them lost a crucial joint of their leg and, subsequently, the ability to walk.
Alustrus ordered the fall of a thousand bullets on the golems, but every bullet only served to strengthen the new technology Brazen of the golems that hardened their skin many times over.
Leaves and Ants Go to War October 10, 2022
Beyond a small leaf, hundreds of little creatures approached a young man, asking him if he wanted to observe the small creatures with all his might.
He said “yes” and put down the stick he was holding, studying them and murmuring about their tiny features.
“What properties do we hold in which you might be interested?”
“I’m interested in whether you can use this leaf as a boat.”
“We shall comply then, and you shall see what we’ve done to make it a reality. Our effort is to your benefit.” Two of the creatures held up a small umbrella-shaped cut that used to belong to a leaf.
“We shall conquer the nations of God,” said the smallest leaf as the other leaves around shook in fear.
“No matter their beauty, we should not encourage such a violent way of living!” exclaimed one of the other leaves which stationed beside one another. 
A large echelon of ants marched toward the river by which the floating leaves fled into the shaded side. In this small fight, by which a hundred grew tiresome, a large attack launched from the ants. The leaves screamed as they passed through the daylight by which a major army grew to burn the skylines.
A red army opined that the world became a beating heart waiting to take over.
A Man Is Publicly Executed While Reading a Manuscript October 10, 2022
A large echelon of soldiers demanded for the man’s execution. Hundreds of people gathered to watch the spectacle, and those who found it horrid left the scene.
Young officers advanced toward the middle of the spectacle, their faces lighting up at each small movement on the man’s face.
The man flailed his arms about. “I opine that it is a necessity for me to get a refund of my own!”
The shouts toward him increased: “Hatred makes right!”
A dozen children threw eggs at him; the guards dispelled this fast.
Within the crowd, ten people asked themselves, “What made the world beautiful as this day where the main man died under the sunlight of a thousand suns?” This large group worked alongside statespeople and strongmen, their existences secured in their everlasting chambers of arrogance. They had dashed to the man and handed him a manuscript before the guards motioned them to leave.
The man at the center of this commotion read the manuscript with a stunning, angelic voice: “The night is as good as day! The morning rises again with the triumphant sound of anger, but this is but a distilled bottle of joy. Anger shall overcome joy; then, joy shall anger. This is a frustration–euphoria cycle that escalates to a extrapolated blast of energy that destroys the elements outside.
Ranch Hand Sille Gets Transported to a Fantasy World and Goes to War with His Wife Luci October 15, 2022
A young man, Sille exploited his time at the academy to further his gains in herding cattle. He said, “The extrapolation is going well, James.” He imitated a strong, open faucet and what he thought was the sound of a large bowl of water filling up. “If I made it clear enough, I meant the water buckets are filling up: I need to go.”
He waited for a small pop in the vents behind the pipe leading to the wall in front of him. He touched the tip of the pipe and bent down at the hips, shaking it somewhat. “Who’re the next ones in line?” He pulled at a rope tied to a wall first and a cow second. He sauntered backwards, removing the tie on the wall and varying his pull on the cow as he drove them over to an auction. He sighed, placing down a pillbox hat, as he wrinkled and rubbed his chin.
“How’s the deliveries from yesterday?” said a shorter but older man that slouched; he smiled, bringing a polite weight to his bows and posture.
“Should I imitate the other two slacking off?” Sille said, smirking. Then, he patted his knees, raised his leg backwards, and nodded, guffawing. He turned serious after the older man shushed him. “I should make it clear next time that no one needs to raise the bet.” He rubbed the back of his neck, smiling somewhat, furrowing his brows. He grimaced, then turned around, and walked outside. After he returned his long glance at the path back to the auction area, he gallopped to his truck and rode it, closing the gate with a gust. He tilted his head at a mother and child in the middle of the road. “Oy!” he exclaimed, waving his head, furrowing his brows but smiling with engaged cheeks. “Get! Go!” 
The mother pursed her lips, striding toward a seat, as the child tumbled behind her. She held onto the child and half-carried her.
Sille rested his chin on his head, looking straight at the road, as his truck passed from the auction farm into the quiet road.
“Thank you!” said an older lady to his left, facing another lady. Both of them wore a sombrero hat; Sille ignored them when he saw the usual.
He arrived at his house where he greeted a tall woman breaking off a block of stone, making the landscape around the house look better. He nodded at her, shaking her hands as he laughed at her genial frown. She crossed her legs, as one foot stood on the back of the toes against the cobblestone pavement. She moved her hands and tilted her head often and fast when she imagined what she wanted out of the landscape. She walked with a firm back, maundering on her tiptoes, as her hands experimented with movements and turns to complement her feasting mind.
He opened the door the the household, taking the small mechanical devices on a blocky table at the entrance. He delivered them to the bathroom where he stabbed himself with a knife that soaked his clothes with blood. He stretched his neck and healed himself, putting inside his guts the devices. He groaned. His cough interrupted him halfway, as he leaned against the wall, staring at the weak reflection in the other wall.
He sat down and removed the clip off a container of bread and consumed it, ignoring the flies making him blink. He chirped and twisted his body around, cheering at the first two bites.
His wife entered through the door, glancing left and right before entering the room Sille was in. She muttered about a small, missing wrench, sitting down in front of Sille at their oblong table.
“I haven’t forgotten the mace.”
His wife said this, and Sille nodded, rubbing above his mouth with a closed fist. “I should really get going. The word’s out that this is not real—” He shook his fingers that held a small piece of paper. “I need to—”
“Don’t. Stay here first. I want to hear about your day.”
“What do you mean—”
She struck him on the chest and stabbed him multiple times.
He rubbed his head, as his vision turned back to the bathroom where he stabbed himself. His head swayed many times until it hit the wall. Then, he stopped shaking, only edging to the ground as his strength to sit up against the wall faded.
“That’s good enough,” he said, supporting himself on two hands, crawling to the door and reaching for the handle. He unlocked it, opened it, and crawled outside, seeing his wife open the door again. He muttered about paperwork, excusing himself.
They both sat down on the table, where his wife supported her legs on a second chair and he rubbed his nose with the smooth side of his old, rough spoon. “You know they’re not going to budge—” 
“You’re right,” Sille said, massaging his hands against one another. “I should be going now. Should I wait for you—”
“Don’t wait for me. Windtones, today—” A train slammed into his face, running over him and his wife, bringing them into another world where small things such as farms, auctions, and countryside living became null and void.
Sille patted the wound twice, groaning at each pat. “I need a pattern of modes—a way to get my magic perfectly in place—” He slammed a closed fist against his arm until a sparkly flurry of mana flew into the night. He closed his eyes and opened them again, his eyes growing blue. He aimed his arms toward a small tree where two soldiers climbed down.
His eyes returned to normal, his rugged voice blasting as the sparkling mana on his arms did, turning into a flame of fire. It stroke the soldiers, turning them into dust.
He fell to the ground and held an arm against his chest, crawling toward his two children and crying. He raged, slamming his fist against the ground. He screamed: “I will become the end of all things! I will ruin everything!”
He stopped thinking this way when he returned to where the nuns and churches tended to children instead of their own branches and businesses. He found a place to call home, smiling at the lucky combination of children and the priests. He arrived at a place of rest, sitting down in front of the ruins of an adventurer guild. Orcs fumbled their swords and dropped them to the ground, one of them laughing at the other for their inexperience. He grinned, placing a book on his lap and rubbing his cheek.
A tall woman sat down beside him, giving a long glance, which he returned after a ten-second silence.
He shook. “What the—” He raised his arms bent in defensive stance, standing toward her, and backing aside, placing each foot into stiff junction. He held an cumbersome knife onto which he slipped his finger. He swore, hurling his arms around until his knife was in place. He demanded her silence, attention, and back-away space.
She smoothened her sleeves again and stood up with a forceful bend of the back. She flailed her arms as she walked toward him, raising a hand toward the sky, the sleeve falling to her elbow. Mana emerged from the tips of her fingers and, then, the palms of her hands, sparkling like rainbows and sunshine. She aimed her fingers at him, and she closed her eyes, turning them blue. She blasted at him, but she caught a blast first, falling to the ground with side-tucked legs. She groaned, murmuring about his pride, lifting herself up with inefficient placement of weight. She aimed her blaster hand at him and released the strength hiding behind her mask, screaming out of her hands and skull. A blast of ice struck Sille in the chest, as he fell to the ground, the fire from his hands escaping too late and missing the shot far-off. He gasped, pouring out blood from his nostrils and mouth. He bled from his chest, forming a stream of blood that would stain the grass for some time. His eyes turned dark.
She closed her fist, her palm pointed toward her. She gritted her teeth and stomped the ground, putting all her might into the piercing of the skin with the nails of her fingers. She slammed her fist against her arm, raising her head toward the sky and bending over, pressing against her hips. She fell to the ground on her haunches, straightened her back, and fell to the ground, lying on her stomach. She gave a muffled cry, as the nightmare became morning again. She pulled herself off the wet ground and wandered toward the seat, sitting down and covering her eyes with her arms. Her other arm relaxed on her leg, as tears dripped off her cheek.
A group of people stood at a distance, staring at the strange woman sitting remote. She patronized her desires for escapism: to rid herself of these emotions was like heaven to the touch. She gasped, rubbing a rash at the bottom of her belly, but this was all done fast. She stopped herself after some time, raising her hand to cup her chin sideways. She got up and trudged out of the area, staggering at irregular intervals. She hung onto anything throughout her path, shifting her back somewhat on every hang. She huffed, panting, and the morning rushed her with sounds of little water and dancing goblins.
A flurry of steps took her away from her position, out of the range of a bombastic feint of a knife. The goblins gauged her hurried posturing and charged at her flanks, pulling her down to the ground and roping her on the throat. They pushed down on the thickened, folded rope, their haunches on her wrists and feet. She heaved her waist upward and knee-kicked the goblins, as she rotated herself out of the way.
The goblins slashed her and pounded at her arms: she moved far enough to avoid the forces of a collaboration of arms into one pressed blade. She screamed.
A flurry of steps that faded into her crescent slashes with one leg raised backward. She fell to the ground, slamming her cheek against the ground, as a fuse of mana made her arms limp and blasted the scene before her.
The goblins flew and rotated like pancakes on a flipping pan; they thudded against the ground and fractured their bones. They groaned and cried, reaching out and rubbing themselves near where it hurt.
She trudged toward them on one leg, grabbing them on the throat and pressing each of them until their struggle took a passing away into the noises of the forest.
Squirrels dashed around like tiny rabbits, moving the leaves of the forest, foraging for themselves enough for the day. They squeaked, rubbing their elbow against their chin, as they retreated from the trudging, shoulder-rolling woman. She bumped against an intersection of branch and shrub, rubbing off the dirt on her.
She stopped, sitting down beside a tree, leaning her neck onto the branches.
A hum behind her stiffened her senses.
She turned around and backed off, stomping on her two feet. She grabbed onto a branch and pried it off, aiming it toward the tree whence she came. She threw the branch after the mana on her arm sparkled again. She aimed her hand instead and titled her head to aim, stepping backwards with a wide gait. She blasted the tree when a figure emerged halfway.
The figure hid again, mana sparkling emerging from behind the tree.
She tsk-tsked, brushing backwards the sleeves blocking her level arm. She shifted her fingers around, glancing at her wrist.
The figure’s arm emerged, throwing a ball of magic that blinded her. She fell backwards, hitting her head on the tree. She blasted everywhere and hit the figure.
The figure fell to the ground, as her eyes returned to normal. She focused them on the figure, whose clothes stretched furthest.
“Troll,” she said, rubbing the side of her stomach. She reached for the branch again and stabbed the figure, as she aimed her other hand at its head near the gushing blood of its throat.
She repeated herself with a gushing voice, euphoria filling her lungs. She sat on the ground, falling backwards, resting on the ground. Her wrist and back ached from all the blasting.
Three small men woke up, got out of bed, and reminded themselves about the coming adventurer from the north. Their smiles got one another a boost of energy that they used as soon as the time struck 7:00. They hurried out of their cottage and pushed a cart full of boxes inside which potions tinked against one another. They arrived at the new adventurer guild of their city, slotting their cart in a parking building where the items became sold. They sat down at a counter on a stool chair after entering the main building of the adventurer guild.
A line of bartenders handed them drinks, as they spoke at length about the coming election in the city. Their purpose here was to entertain and exchange gifts with one another; they finished this and left, meeting the woman adventurer, or Sille’s wife Luci.
Luci sneezed, covering her mouth, and saying “Excuse me.” This behavior never left her since her time back on Earth. She covered her mouth until she shook hands with the three small men, a team of dwarven handcrafted potion brewers. She handed her payment of the day, slotting her signature acceptance words onto a couple of papers.
She nodded and bowed many times, turning as soon as the handcrafted potion brewers were out of sight.
A group of goblins arrived to insert their payments at the ramp that accepted their bartered junk, They had hurled large bags taller than themselves when they emptied them. As soon as she saw them, she ran at them, but a troll stopped her, pinning a large ax in front of himself on the ground and huffing.
The troll towered three feet over her, holding a partial smile because of her wince.
She hurried as mana sparks flew from holes in her gloves. She blasted the troll’s legs where her hands made contact, insulating the blast inside the troll’s appendages. The troll flew into several pieces, scattering blood and gore nearby and at the goblins’ turned heads.
She screamed and gallopped toward the fleeing goblins that ran with flailing arms.
She threw her arms back and forth in her spring toward them, crashing her blades into their backs and necks, slicing them again and again until they hit the ground. Her knee often found its way on their backs and heads. She panted, as the goblins slashed at her with a wave of defense.
She wiped her sweat, sheathing her blades and retreating in an uphill climb.
The goblins grabbed at her with labile shrieks, sinking their blades into her limbs, pressing until she gave a drab scream. She healed the wounds with a drop of potion on them, returning the cap of the potion with a brusque wave.
Democratized goblin- and human-grade weapons arrived at the corner shop, near the entrance of the city. One of the shop staffs demonstrated their strength by chopping up a log-shaped cement block.
Liszt and Golem Crew Build a Media Operation After Surviving a Hostile Mage Attack October 17, 2022
The older man Liszt sat down with one towel over his shoulder, handing his co-worker a small jack-in-the-box–like brush. Two other co-workers besides the first one motioned for the four of them to leave through the back. 
Once they left the small room, they greeted a group of golems thrice their heights. “I need a small, brown soil nail around this size,” said the golem closest in front, putting a hand overhead and another below the hips. 
“Can”—Liszt said, rubbing his head with a furrowing brow—”this be arranged via the gob unit?”
“I see, I see.” The golem rubbed his chin, smirking. “T-they got you, didn’t they?” He turned to the side and gave a nervous but vindictive chuckle.
 Liszt almost slapped his forehead, but he stopped halfway. “I would like every second of my day put into the useful—”
“Oh, is that one of the owl birds roaming about? I’ve never seen one!”
“Hey. Hey! Listen to me!” Liszt gritted his teeth, balling one fist and almost turning away. He cocked his head back at the golem’s eyes, imagining his fist burning through the golem’s skull.
The golem returned his gaze toward Liszt. “What’s wrong? Oh, I forgot to eat brekky—” He put on a hat. “I’ll be back.”
Liszt stood there in silence and waited for ten minutes, but the golem never returned.
He trudged away, stomping the ground as flames flew out of the holes of the skin of his hips. “He made me… frustrated.” He adopted intellectualization as a way to cope, and he continued to mutter this until the end of the day.
The ceiling made an awkward, ear-splitting sound when he opened a door into his office.
“I should’ve reminded you that the ceiling got damaged in the brawl with the gobs,” said his co-worker Adam, biting a slim part of a wand, shifting from side to side as he inserted his tools into a hole in the wall.
“Adam. Thanks—”
“I should really remind you, again, that no matter how great that person you like to speak of is, don’t bite the carrot.”
“Yes, thanks, Adam, I know—you’re right—”
“I’m leaving at dawn. Goodbye.” He was still be standing there for another 15 minutes; for the most part, this last line of his was a self-reminder.
“Adam,” Liszt mouthed, curling his lips inward. He sat down on his seat, as the door opened.
A younger man shouted. “The plant, the plant! Is it right about ready?”
Adam said, “I do need a few more”—he gave a shy chuckle—”minutes.”
Liszt had widened eyes, his mouth opening and closing. He had dispelled six thoughts to interrupt his two co-workers when the younger man barged out the door. He rubbed his head from his forehead to his left eye. “I never needed anyone anyways,” he imitated a small child, folding his arms as he opened a desk with a bunch of papers to sign. He had a manager–co-worker relationship with everyone within the open area; forests and green encompassed them and gave them enough time to breathe their way through most messes.
He took a deep breath and let it out through his pursed lips, removing his arms from his nape and putting them on the desk. “I see bright lights,” he sang as he stamped papers, ”shining through the night.” He rolled his shoulders as Adam fell off his small, one-foot-tall chair. “The sky shall never be mine. I’m only a dandy lion waiting to go sky high—”
Adam screamed, but this was exaggerated.
Liszt cleared his throat. “I like to get my way most days. Today, I’m only a cheater, a beater, and a sound mind. I will never—”
“Oy, oy, let me get the package. I’ll be right back”—the younger man from a while ago closed the door—”again!”
Adam had continued working again when the younger man let the door close on its own. “Hey, Liszt, mind telling him I don’t need whatever he’s selling.”
Liszt stared at him, groaned, and nodded with a “yup.”
A meteor blasted into the camp, and a small orc came out from the meteor. “Where’s the small island I’ve been trying to find?” he panted as his face hit the ground.
A human behind him kicked him into the ground. “Impertinent little slog pile!” He continued kicking him sideways. Also, he shrugged his shoulders: this casted a spell that gravitated a pile of rocks toward the orc.
The orc screamed and yelped as he dodged the rocks. When one of the rocks smashed his calves, he fell to the ground and began crawling. “Island man is here, right?”
Liszt went out and watched them. “That’s a orc right! Is the war not going on right now!” He rubbed the hair on his arms, hiding a lip bite, his face crumpled.
His co-workers grouped together and spectated the scene.
The orc ran on three, dragging his broken leg as it made a trail along the dirt.
Liszt cursed. “What do you do when”—he rubbed his head hard—”an instance like this occurs?” He was intellectualizing again, and the golems’ eyes squinted at him.
The golem who offended Liszt stood in front and said, “Usually, I’d be swinging, but why don’t you try?”
Liszt widened his eyes. “You—” He coughed. “I…” He stood straight. “…can’t.” He ruminated in his head, as Adam followed Liszt’s stare at a small rod. 
“A long rod as a weapon?” Adam murmured, tapping Liszt on the arm. “Is the long rod heavy enough?” He stuttered. “Greg!” He called the golem who offended Liszt.
The golem’s brows shot up, but he ignored Adam.
“Greggy!”
The golem furrowed his brows, curling his lips downwards.
“Greg, my man!”
The golem bit his lip and took a step toward Adam. “What?” he said, his voice quiet but shaky.
Adam nodded, approaching. “I need to know what’s the thing between the thing with this long rod? Is it good or nah?”
Greg hesitated, unfocusing his eyes, and then nodded, giving a firm, subdued, approving smile. 
Adam shook his hands overhead. “Yeah! I knew it!”
Greg stepped backwards and placed his hands over the other golems’ shoulders, murmuring.
The orc took a spear to the chest. It shouted and wailed.
Greg turned toward it, grabbing boulders and piling them up in one place.
Adam was speaking to Liszt. “I was thinking we should do this and that—” He noticed Greg in the distance to the side. “Oy, Greg! Is that what I think it is? Shot put, let’s go!”
Liszt flicked his fingers against one another, moving one fingernail toward his mouth to bite.
Adam was holding onto Liszt’s shoulders when Liszt avoided locking eyes with Adam as he usually did. Liszt nodded when Adam barked once.
Adam sat up and hurried to Greg. “I can try this. Javelin tossing and shotput. How about that?”
“15 minutes,” said one of Liszt’s co-workers. “It’s been 15 minutes. We could’ve left a while ago—”
The golems shouted. “Yeah, we could’ve gone as soon as we learned they were an enemy—”
“Wait! That’s if! That’s if they were an enemy! Right!” Liszt went over, steepling his fingers and slouching somewhat. He was somewhat shaky, but he was almost brimming with confidence.
“Ha! Good job, Liszt—” said one of the golems beside Greg.
“But that is right,” muttered Greg.
Adam nodded hard, tapping Liszt’s shoulder. He locked eyes with Liszt and gave a split-second nod that Liszt reciprocated.
They approached the orc and the attacking human. Adam shouted, “Oy, is that a weapon?”
The attacking human raised a brow and said, “Huh?”
The orc was dead.
A long silence took over the confrontation. The golems shifted from side to side, their weight making noises.
“I mean, is that a…. Are you here to kill us?”
“Too blunt,” some of those beside Adam mouthed and muttered.
Adam balled his fist in front of him and said, rocking his fist, “I don’t want to fight you.” He turned toward the golems, who nodded. He turned toward Liszt and his co-workers, and they nodded. Adam smiled somewhat.
The attacking human pointed his arms at them, pulling his hands backwards and crossing his fingers behind one another.
Adam yelped. 
Greg turned away. “Get back!”
“Uh, frick, I can’t move my leg!” Adam’s leg became frozen.
The attacking human’s blasts of magic were vortexes of snow. “I should really do this more often!”
Adam’s tears flooded his left cheek. “We only had 15 minutes. You were right, guys. Uh, it’s my fault!” He cursed.
Liszt held onto him and pulled him backwards. “No, no, no, no, no!” Liszt was shouting.
Adam placed a hand behind him and covered Liszt’s mouth by mistake, cursing.
Liszt coughed and kept pulling, holding onto Adam’s wrist for a moment, but he rushed to hold him from the shoulders again. “I need your”—he heaved—”help again!” He gave the golems a good two-second gaze, his face crumpling like when he first saw the orc and the human.
Greg stopped running and affected an accent to brace against the wave of terror. With a frown as deep as a ocean, he tapped onto his fellow golems’ shoulders and pulled himself through the blasts.
The attacking human coughed as blood fell on the ground. He bent over and supported himself on ground.
Greg huffed as he gallopped, pulling his fellow golem’s shoulders as they surrounded Adam and Liszt. “You freakin’ piece of slop! I knew it! I knew it! You…!”
Adam gave a shy chuckle. Liszt bowed his head and covered his face.
Greg put them on his and the other golem’s backs, half-wailing as the human straightened his back again. “I hate everything! Everyone!” The other golems winced at his rageful voice, but soon, when they left the area of blasts, they joined him in chanting.
“I hate this so much!” They marched through the forest, looking behind them at every turn, looking for the ridge to guide them home.
The younger man walked up to Adam and asked, “Do you guys have any idea how much I’ve worked to get here?” He raised his hand and slapped toward Adam, shouting as soon as the golems stopped him. He broke into tears that he kept in throughout the encounter.
Adam gave him a broken smile, raising his neck and then putting it down after Liszt complained.
Liszt looked at the younger man and shook his head, but when he looked away, he was crying, too. “No one deserved this,” he said, forgetting that others could hear him.
The younger man sat down, his face crumpled as Liszt was a while ago. Some eyes among the people here still inhibited their terror, keeping their face still and untouchable.
Greg and the golems sometimes took a “bathroom break” where they smashed trees and shouted at the animals of the forest. This coping was a more productive avenue for fighters.
At the end of their journey, after the pointing ridge, they returned to the town each of them passed through on their way to the site at which they worked. Their voices sounded whistly and dry. None of the others dared to throw their anger at one another after they witnessed the younger man’s burst toward Adam.
The city welcomed them, putting each of them in a small room where they could breath and contemplate about the attacking human, who was still there. He was squatting, observing the site and touching their things.
“How much do these cost! It doesn’t matter! I’m taking them all!” He chuckled, dancing as he walked.
Greg travelled to and fro through the adjacent towns to proffer the human workers a basket of cantaloupes, broccoli, and blueberries. “This gift is customary for departings like these.” His voice was getting more awkward toward them, especially Liszt. He regressed his diction to when he was a younger man receiving etiquette lessons from his half-sibling’s late father.
“Could you put these down for a while?” said one of the servants at the adventurer guild where the group lounged. Liszt opined that a therapy session–like reunion meeting would help them get past the trouble. “I should really introduce everyone to a friend of mine. He’s the one who started this whole thing that began three months ago. It was supposed to be a working-outside, green project, but of course, it only ended up being a small space for a bunch of ex-freelancers to make trade. Making the newspapers has never been more difficult since our entire job is in the mountains; every scratch we make on the board only ends up becoming a spit in the face of more adept, professional, masterful media players. I’m not mocking you, guys. It’s been too long since our last ‘come-to-mind’ meeting, but all I have to say is that we should work for the adventurer guild since our own boss only pays us without even the care of meeting us after the entire thing blew up in smoke. Is anyone tongue in cheek about anything I’m saying?”
“I think the idea is fine,” said Greg, putting down his leg after he crossed it a while ago. “I don’t care in particular about what you do. What you expect me to do is a whole ‘nother story.”
“I see. If I told you to join the adventurer guild as ‘bouncers’ for their department of media. Would—”
“Nope, nope. I did this once before, and it’s back again, mocking me through you. I have respect for you now Liszt. You made life hard for me; being a threat to who I am is something I need to get used to. How long are you talking?”
“500-500—”
“500 minutes a day. 500 bronze coins a month. I’m a poor taker here, am I not?”
“I assure you that you don’t have to get Adam to do all the paperwork. I can—”
‘We settled this before, Isaac Liszt. Nothing more, nothing less. Give me the job, and we’ll be doing it all night long.”
“Nighttime? It’ll be daytime as with the trade site.”
“Seriously. You’re laughing.”
“I’m laughing because Adam apparently has an idea on how we can do that.”
“How would you do it, Adam?” Greg showed respect in his voice more so than with Liszt.
Adam nodded. “I would have ten people working for me at one time. I mean, beside me, on hands whenever I need protection. Those drags can be a little messy when you have the entire gob betting for your survival—” He gulped. “I should really not mention my habits, sorry.”
“Either way, mess it up, and we’ll be in the biggest change of our lives,” said Liszt. He lowered his voice. “That’s what my father told me.”
“Sufficient for me,’ said Greg, rubbing his neck. “Are you serious, though, about the whole fiasco with the adventurer tide thing? No one wants your swords and blessings. Don’t you know how—”
“Leave it to me. I can do this. I did this once before as a trainee. Now, I’m an older man with kids. Men like me do things, and we get it done.”
Adam nodded. “What he said. I should really file in a request for speeding force magic. I should get the official thing at least.”
“Yeah, yeah. No one wants you, but everyone needs you.”
“Yep!”
“Does the thing start at 6?”
“6, yes. We need the whole group anti-ing against the fiasco, though.”
“Hey, how long is it away from the other?”
“10, 15 minutes I’d say—”
“Got it, got it. Excuse me.”
“Oy, oy, major bullcrap coming your way.” Adam stared at his toddler on the bowl top of a table, pinching his fingers and shaping it like a plane.
“I can’t, I can’t. Please, no.” 
Adam’s wife chuckled beside him, staring at Adam’s toddler, for which she cared, but this toddler eluded her actual blood.
Adam smiled, rubbing the baby’s cheek against himself, his eyes glittering. He motioned the baby toward a dog that lay on his foot and shook its tail.
Adam’s wife glanced between the baby’s excited grin and a disproportionate, scarred, covered blade on the corner of the room. She rolled her head, stretching, and jumped forward, stretching her hand to poke the baby’s cheeks. She noted its healthy plasticity and her growing emotional connection with this baby that she nicknamed “Betta.”
Adam was staring at her, and when she noticed him and smiled, he smiled back, looking back toward the baby and repeating this. This time, the baby was smiling already, and below the baby, the dog continued to wag its tail despite Adam’s jargon and Betta’s awkward movements.
The human, who attacked the trade site where Adam and the rest used to work, was conversing with a tall treant shaped like an anthropomorphic, humanoid deer. “I should’ve gotten you that small beast—”
“Bear.”
“Beast.”
“Bear.”
“Beast!”
“Bear!”
“You have no clue just how useless the terms are here. You die. I kill you, and I win. I write history, and that’s all that matters.”
“Bear!”
A small magic orb hid behind a small bush as they walked around one another, keeping their distances.
The treant found a hole in his side.
The human cheered and extended his hands forward from his sides.
The magic orb blasted its way throughout the treant’s body, and the treant fell to the ground, drooling.
He hung the treant and observed its insides, nodding whenever he guessed right from his expectations.
“Blind spots matter, buddy!” he said as he folded up a rope that he crafted. This rope was useful for climbing trees fast and anything else with which he came up on the fly.
“I wonder if that’s how easy that is to do?” asked a woman keeping her distance from him. She wore a lavish dress and twirled a wand smaller than her hands.
“No, it is not,” he said, buttoning the sleeves of his suit jacket.
After a long silence, she said, “I got it.” She edged a step backwards, pulling and bending her left arm backward. Throughout the man’s rustling of the insides of the treant, she softened her hold on the wand until it hung upside-down. 
The man finished, stopped crouching, stood up, and stretched his neck to the side, gazing at his surroundings and, then, his destination. He drank from a small pouch and rubbed his chin. “Is that a bird?”
She tucked her other hand to the side and closed it somewhat, fingers shifting. “No, no—” She took a deep breath and struggled to affect his back-of-the-throat–incorporated accent. “It is not.”
He unfocused his eyes and widened his eyes, turning his soft gaze hard because of a small stutter in her voice. He made a tiny, threatening tilt of his head, his neck wrinkling.
She gave a subtle nod, and he began his gallop forward. She followed, waving her wand back and forth offbeat with her imagined tune. During each iteration of this waving, it collected mana in the air and would soon culminate into a threat, and this interaction eluded the man.
A female child emerged from behind a tree because of a call. After she tripped, she stretched her neck to the side and hung a sapling upside down as she proclaimed her wellbeing. 
When the two turned away and returned their gaze forward, she step-danced thrice in one path out of three imagined paths and gave the two other paths three stomps as well. She waved her arms around and play-acted her fantasy of levitation-and-zooming magic.
Liszt snatched an ax and placed it against the corner of his room, rubbing his backside. “15 minutes left. Ah—” He cursed. “Give me a moment, Amanda.” He lined his lips as his crossed legs obstructed his face as he was leaning on a long chair.
Amanda’s face drooped, and her eyes squinted for a split-second. She raised her arms, the palms facing against herself. She left the room, muttering about Liszt’s hard-talking voice.
The large troll Amanda turned over parchment in the adjacent room, where Liszt was frequenting to give her stories and eat from her aunt’s harvest for a month now. Most of their interactions were tucking them under the bedsheets, and any invitation to stay longer fell through the cracks. This touch–connection divorce would allow only one or two more months with the sickening, cold, rainy weather.
Greg rummaged the remains of a treant. “How long does the quest last? I count 16 dead bodies around the area. Nothing too serious, hopefully?”
“Hopefully!” said one of the golems.
“I wager that nothing comes easy nowadays, considering…” Liszt sighed, putting his bag over and on his head.
Liszt’s co-workers chuckled and complained throughout, adding some needed white noise.
“Conserve your energy. Get ahead. Move fast.” Adam’s arms drawled. His wet hair stuck to the sides of his face. His lips shivered as he folded his arms, reaching close to his back. “I need a breather.” He cursed, bending over and touching the wet hardpan.
“I saved hundreds of goblins, and you’re telling me nothing about that is worth it!” said the human who attacked them on the trade site nearby from over a hill.
Greg cursed as did the others, who murmured among themselves amid the rain. “I can’t take this rain, and now, we have some old dude taking his breath here—”
“Hey, that’s the guy from before.”
“Yeah, it’s him.”
Greg turned toward the co-workers’ faces and toward the complexion of the man he called “old dude.” Greg covered his mouth before he dared to shout, rubbing until the stone skin of his legs and palm grew hot.
“Are you sure that’s him! There’s a woman beside him”—he squatted higher—”and a child, too!” He complained.
“How long does it last?’ Greg wiped his forehead upward across his bald head.
“The rain,” Adam said in a muttering voice. He almost fainted and leaned against a rock ledge.
“I don’t know!” said Liszt after a five-second silence. “It could last from two hours to perhaps over two days, maybe!”
Greg had lowered his head to stare at Liszt when he raised it toward the sky and close to the direction around which the enemy human’s group stayed.
Adam retraced his steps and almost fell. Greg caught him, gazing at his neck. He held Adam on the neck and choked him.
The golems beside Greg cursed and pulled him backward until he tripped on his head. Greg stood up again and chased Adam, pulling himself forward with the protruding rocks around him. He groaned and then gave a cavernous scream.
Adam fainted, as Liszt and his co-workers put him on their arms and carried him behind the golems.
Greg roared and tripped again, hitting his head on the ground. He became unconscious. His fingers flurried fast, but it died down like a ticking time bomb.
“Back away everyone! Back away!” Liszt threw his arms back and forth, motioning the golems to retreat.
A few of Greg’s rocks cracked and detached from his body. This fracturing continued until a third of his left arm became magicless matter.
Liszt woke Adam up. “If only I told Adam to take a rest. Whatever!” He trudged toward Greg and poured mana into his body, preventing Greg’s body’s mana from slipping out further. “Get a fixer! How far is the nearest ward?”
“15 minutes times 3,” said one of Liszt’s co-workers, forming a cone with his hands for his mouth. “45 minutes!”
Liszt curled his lips around, his brows furrowed and his nose wrinkled. His eyes were fierce, and he stood up, looking toward the hill over which the three enemy humans were. He told the group to retreat out of the area.
A human mage observed three parties: Liszt’s co-workers who argued among themselves, Liszt who paced around, and the golems who edged away toward Greg.
“Liszt, Liszt, forgot the qualms with the officers,” said one of the co-workers. “Get someone who knows about this kind of stuff.” This younger man who almost hit Adam in the past gestured with his eyes toward himself.
Liszt ignored and brushed the man’s hands off himself, imagining the twisting fingers and shaking hands of the enemies.
The younger man frowned, and when Liszt saw it, he said, “I apologize about—” Two of the seven golems fell to the ground and wailed with no tears. He went over and consoled them.
“I need something,” said the male enemy human. “Something strong.” He thrust an empty pouch inside a pocket and curled his head hard around back and forth from side to side. He stiffened his askew fingers and grasped his arm, turning his head at the sky. He suppressed a groan and moved his eyes downwards at the moving inches of rock—the golems. His groan became whistly and jaw-stiff. He gave a deep hiss and opened his right hand, putting another hand on it and rubbing them against one another. Mana hissed and whistled between his hands. He roared as he threw a blast of freezing air, missing the golems and hitting the rock that obstructed most of their bodies. He raised his head and groaned, running down a few steps and throwing again. He missed, and then he kept moving closer until he saw their whole body.
The golems turned and jumped backward, running toward Liszt and the rest. The two depressed ones ran the fastest, and Liszt shouted at them, going forward despite his shaking body.
The enemy human and his two companions chased the golems and blasted ice vortexes at them.
The male enemy human in front moved his head with an irregular sideways bouncing motion. He shouted, “I’m right here!” He locked his hands into an incantation position and shifted his jaw hard. “Come! Come!”
Liszt’s side cursed because of the family of human monsters. They gallopped, flailing their arms around and throwing their legs high and far back. They whistled with their breaths and gave muffled shouts with their clothes flying about and hitting their faces. They brushed away the obstruction, some of them tripping and scraping their legs. They cried, yelling at one another for help, as one of them almost caught the full blast of the vortex. One of the depressed golems jumped and caught the blast with the top side of a hand.
The male enemy human’s taller companion aimed her wand and shook it up and down until it glowed. She contracted her shoulder and formed a ring with her mouth. “Poof!” she said.
Most of Liszt’s co-workers’ eyes unfocused, and they grabbed and shoved one another until some of them fainted. 
The certain younger man shouted and pulled Liszt’s arm, who failed to notice it fast. Liszt nodded and joined the formation to stop the bewitched ones from hurting themselves and anyone else.
The golems grabbed boulders and piled them together, reiterating Greg’s previous attempt at stopping the enemy human. They blocked the pathway and escaped, as the enemy human’s vortex failed to push a hole through the boulders.
“No more—” said many on Liszt’s side.
One of the enemy humans, a child emerged from the corner of the boulder wall and pointed at them. She levitated back toward the enemy human and pulled the man and the woman above the wall.
Greg woke up and stomped toward Liszt and the co-workers, pulling himself out of the golems’ cage hold.
Liszt shouted. “Why are you attacking us! We did not do a thing!” His accent was all over the place, and his stuttering was at its peak. Tears fell down his cheeks and the cheeks of his co-workers.
They fell on their haunches after the golems’ shadow covered them all. They tucked their legs to the side and crossed their arms close to their chests, holding onto one another or onto themselves.
Greg missed Liszt after the male enemy human raised a hand and closed it
“I need a group of people—not the golems. Evidently, their hands don’t work as highly mobile and flexible organs; swords is possible, but anything beyond that is like spreading a hot towel over a heat rash.” He had a much different voice when encountering an audience like this. “I want your cooperation as soon as possible. We need more people to join us. You have done well, and it was not a test. I was merely mad, and I soon wanted to see if you could escape me. You almost did. This is good enough.” He stared at them and allowed them to swallow what he said, prescribing a ten-second silence. He studied them, his head moving like an insect and his long tied hair like an insect’s antennae. He took a somewhat deep breath and softened his tone. “I have struggled with an alcoholic condition, and I want help for it. Does anyone know a healer for this sort of thing?”
Liszt took three full deep breaths over half a minute, motioning everyone with his eyes to trust him. 
“We do,” he said. “We have someone in our team that does the healing”—Liszt brushed his wet hair to the side—“but how long are you willing to sit here and wait?”
“15 minutes,” said the man, stretching his head to the side. He raised his arms overhead, stretching his shoulder blades backward. His voice became low like one in musing. “I need time, and I remember I also need someone to touch me with mana to heal me.” 
“Remind me again what’s going to happen,” said Adam some hours later when he woke up. He rubbed concealer onto his eyebags and around them, covered and rubbed his mouth, and pinched his philtrum. He yawned many times, his eyelids heavy. “I should be the one reminding you, but today’s an off day.” He chuckled and frowned.
Liszt sat down, his complexion heavy. He studied his strong forearms and frowned, contracting his belly.
Adam sat down against him and exaggerated a cheer.
Greg mirrored Liszt in both complexion and position, although he sat opposite of Liszt, a few feet interspacing them. Liszt leaned his head to the left, and Greg leaned his head to the right.
Greg said, “Apologize—” He coughed. “I’m sorry.”
Liszt straightened his back somewhat and faced him. His voice was quiet like a murmur. “That is alright.” He repeated himself when he noted Greg’s confused, split-second squint.
Their entire group relied on a 20–40-person operation to keep their mentality afloat. It took 100 days before the preparations finished, and the facilitator Utaro, a friend of the ex-enemy humans, extrapolated any sort of stability they gained throughout the three–four months. Utaro prioritized an only media approach first. Her appearance constituted a human with a rabbit head, yet her records excluded her from the rabbit–human hybrids, or “the rabbit people” in colloquial language. “It could sully the mold if we’re not careful,” she said. She liked to introduce herself and proffer her input on whatever work she allocated the assigned groups. Her physical labor proved disastrous in the coming days after her high reputation established that, as a young friend of the powerful ex-enemy trio, she carried great talent that extended to the physical side. This conception was wrong, yet Liszt’s group deferred to each of her abilities.
Liszt opined, “We deserve suffrage on the separation of wheat from the chaff.” He wrote these words down on a script and practiced it many times, but he did this practicing to show his group for the most part. He pressed using “human resources,” while Utaro preferred “fledgling resources.”
Utaro arranged range exports from Kalakal-based industries smelting branch coal from a magical plant low at risk and, for the most part, conducive to longitudinal studies instead of a disabling, mechanically disastrous wedge to activities throughout the Northern Province and the mountain range Jaol. Adventurers from all kinds participated in the subsequent conferences’ anti–magic of mass destruction policy promotion, by which bills from political newcomers became arranged.
The duration through which the south demanded a peace treaty fell by the wayside after a tense lake grab-off in addition to a minor engagement nearby at the north–south state boundary. The largest amount of deaths in 124 years occured in a war because of this 10-person–casualty, decisive, long-range magic battle. This body count was 700–845 infantry and 50–55 artillery mages.
“This is everything, nonetheless the minotaur people are of a much different order, resembling the humanoids.”
Outbursts preceded the peace treaty, but after it became settled, the national committee finally contained the people’s rage into a scandal they brought about through the secret police.
The latter elements, which the Fero-fero synagogue leaders heralded, arrested the unification of the seven states and furthered the already-tense mana connectivity of the states’ townspeople.
At the outskirts of town, Liszt observed a small group of goblins, and within this group, a tall treant directed yarn-making and airbrushing for a small cultural event. Hundreds of these goblins picked up on the message, which was “The weight of gold needs the desire of many.” They tried their best to make these small, ornamental rings the trendy show, loosening, for the moment, their culture’s two symbols of dignity: loins and headbands. A bunch of them proclaimed that this was an “untoward practice,” but the treant explained that many things deserved “a good rest” if one needed to instill “a “latent point.”
“Everybody’s always telling about it! I have no idea what instilled a man so wise to such an extent! How could you have any clue as to the operations involved in such a magnanimous feat!”
Goblins deferred minotaurs’ horns, while rather small horns defined most of these minotaurs. A hundred men inherited the goblins’ deference, and hundreds of minotaurs abused this deference, forming synagogues for their religion and culture to expand through the north to the the end of the peninsula.
Liszt said that it was “a gilded message” that was the crux of the “Minotaur Rage,” the newspaper’s new headline enlarged in large capital letters. Shadows painted a enormous land full of tethered souls rampaging until their souls faded away. Each of these souls turned to dust, and these dusts swayed with the winds, accepting the praise and temptation into a martyrish counterattack. “Return the land which you stole from us!” shouted the demonstration crowds in the streets throughout Lumbar Square, stomping their feet in tandem with the ringing of the landmark belltower etching the indelible words “Goddess Sylvia’s impertinence.”
A young man in the middle of the street awakened his spirit in a way.
“I wish your soul was normal.” His lips shivered. His brows pinched inward and outward. He wrinkled his forehead, his nose catching a sweat at its farthest tip. This touch separated. “Everyone of you are wrong! It’s mindless: this stupid thing! I won’t do it!” He pushed his hand against his face downward. “I won’t do it!” His head shook. His voice, too. And he tripped into a table. He bent his leg backward and slammed a chair to the wall. “I can’t see things the same way anymore!” He hurled his fists against the table and shot a beatbox with his leg.
He screamed, and many men blocked him, taking him out of action into the alleyways.
“These are not people,” he said, as his body fell away.
Young Man Violently Attacks an Older Man with an Art Piece October 18, 2022
“Fucking silverspooner!” The young man slammed his art piece against the older man, kicking him through the center of the portrait. His realism portrait depicted a friendly face and a very organized city behind him. He grabbed a cover and slammed it against the older man’s face, pushing a blade down his throat and hesitating to slice it.
Timothy and a Tall Creature Hunt a Dungeon and Fight Flying Belts November 8, 2022
A young man opened up a small chest. He rubbed under his nose with his finger, stumbling to touch the swords inside the chest.
A tall creature approached him from behind. It held up crescent moon knives and raised it as if to stab downward. It said, “Those are the newest stuff.” He pointed to the swords with all his fingers, nodding and raising his fingers many times.
“Really.”
“Yep. These ones…”
The young man, Timothy turned around. He gave a slow nod, touching his chin, and stared elsewhere in thought. “I kinda liked the look. It’s pretty good though in some situations, right?”
“Heh. Most likely… unless these guys were focused on what they had at the moment when they made this the first time.”
“It looks complicated. What am I missing?”
“Use the sword.”
“Ooh! Mace!”
“Dang it.”
Timothy cheered. He was holding a mace by the time he left the cafe. He was dancing and spinning around, saying, “I have a mace!”
“You have a mace…” said the tall creature behind him. He was closing the door to the blacksmith shop, extending his hands forward, touching his fine-lace–ornamented sleeve cuff.
Timothy grabbed the tall creature’s hand. “The tower is just there. Let’s go.”
The tall creature raised his head. He extended one leg forward and leaned backward, pressing his hands to his waist.
Timothy removed his hand. 
“Okay.” The tall creature led the way to a tower. 
They reached the tower.
At the tower, goblins played around. Each of them wore armor, tunic, surcoat, and cloak and kept a sword, but some of them held a walking stick.
The tall creature grabbed his chin. He directed Timothy to a small shop where two large dogs were panting, rubbing his hands all over one another. 
Timothy gave a huge nod. “Got it!”
He reached the shop. He was fishing for two coins from his waist pouch, compressing his lips, raising one corner of his mouth. He handed it to the person in front of him. This person was a tall minotaur wearing copious layers of cotton clothes, their fingers dancing around as if to keep a ball rolling on their fingertips.
The minotaur smiled and nodded. They handed Timothy a piece of magical fabric, giving the fabric a vertical fold, tying it lengthwise. They packaged it with a hard, thin sheet material like paper. They turned to another customer and answered a question concerning buying the magical fabric in bulk.
Timothy turned away. The current customer of the minotaur disturbed him, tapping him on the shoulder. Timothy froze. The customer was a large human wearing a draping, heavy cloak, furrowing her brows but smiling. She said: “Is that a mace? Do you like mazes?” She stepped backward, arranging a few drenched scribbled papers inside her bag and pouching a magical fabric.
Timothy glared at her. He was covering his mouth with his mace, eying the people around him, tensing his toes and feet.
The customer turned away.
Timothy turned away. He returned to the tall creature, offering him the magical fabric.
The tall creature was stretching. He reached for the bottom of his back with one arm from above, guiding this arm with his other one. He raised his head, murmuring, staring upward. He turned around, hearing Timothy breathing hard, raising his brows, shifting his mouth around as if chewing.
Timothy said, “Should we go to the same dungeon today?”
The tall creature glanced at Timothy. He returned his attention upward and moved his eyes left and right as if to find an answer to something. He lowered his head, staring at Timothy. After he stretched his mouth and cheeks around to yawn with his mouth closed, he blinked hard and said, “Yeah, yeah.”
Timothy led the way to the dungeon.
Bandits charged at them.
Timothy and the tall creature retreated. 
They succeeded in escaping an ambush.
They reached the dungeon.
At the dungeon, goblins mined past the entrance. Each of them wore loose clothes, a tunic, surcoat, hose clothing, and a belt girdle. Other goblins ordered these goblins. These other goblins wore the same clothes, but they also wore a peascod-bellied doublet under a buff jerkin. Spittle flew from their lips.
Timothy and the tall creature passed by these goblins.
They reached the true entrance of the dungeon.
Past this true entrance, monsters screamed. As adventurer ran back and forth, screams flew left and right, and clattering grated the ears.
Timothy and the tall creature charged at their first enemy.
A flying belt slapped at them. 
It injured Timothy on the shoulder and face. 
It broke him out of his peaceable spell. 
Timothy blocked the slap of the belt. 
He stabbed the belt on its buckle twice. 
It failed to inflict any noticeable damage. 
The tall creature dashed. 
He threw an upper cut and a falling kick, damaging it somewhat. 
The belt counterattacked, striking at the tall creature’s armor.
The tall creature dodged.
Timothy stabbed at the belt on the buckle again. 
The tall creature supported him, flanking the belt.
The belt slashed sideways at them both. 
It missed the two who retracted themselves.
The two charged again and attacked at the belt.
They succeeded in dealing significant damage.
The belt retreated.
The tall creature grabbed it by the end with one hand.
The belt struck at the tall creature.
The tall creature grabbed it with another hand.
Timothy grabbed it with both hands.
The belt screamed and attacked at Timothy.
Timothy and the tall creature attacked it.
They succeeded in defeating the flying belt.
Ten flying belts emerged from a passageway. 
Timothy and tall creature retreated.
They succeeded in escaping an ambush.
They reached another part of the dungeon.
Timothy was rubbing his head.
Young Man Takes a Jeepney to a Mall December 2, 2022
A young man got up when hundreds failed to wake up from their slumber. He looked around. 
He walked on the tilted floor of the entrance side of his apartment, rubbing his cheek. He glanced at the flowering plants that he had hung to the balcony railings set in front of his living room. He smiled, as a flowery smell passed by him. The wind delivered to him the pleasant smells of the flowers. He took a deep breat and stretched as he exhaled. He raised his brows, looking at the ceiling above him. The cracks and popcorn texture added a boost to his creative mood and put him at ease for the coming strictness of his exams. He clasped his hands, as he exited the apartment grounds and past an open, black gate. He greeted a few acquainted passersby before he rode a jeepney, paying the fee for the equivalent of one mile. He closed his wallet through its zipper and relaxed, leaning against the side rails of the jeepney. He tightened his grasp around his fingers, glancing at the other passengers of the jeepney. One of the passengers was holding a child on his lap. He furrowed his brows for a split-second, feeling empathy for the child even if the child was okay. He cleared his throat and stared at the moving scenery outside. He pressed against the nails of his fingers and closed his eyes to rest his mind.
He exited at his destination, climbing off the jeepney. He straightened his back and strided toward a mall.
The youngest one of the three became a tangent for others to dispossess and eradicate once and for all.
Goblins Inane and Asinine Travel, Complete a Quest, and Encounter a Transported Human December 4, 2022
Hundreds of goblins escaped from their prison where the trees were black and the ground was red. The youngest one of these goblins, Inane dispossessed another goblin Asinine of their sword and shield.
A toe-curling duel between two goblins invited the rest of the goblins to gather and observe.
Inane dropped his weapon, a spear, during his flurry of thrusts. He hit the ground on his shoulder after he leapt to dodge his spear and failed.
Asinine hurled himself at Inane’s spear to steal it, but he failed and incurred a bleeding injury.
Two goblins, elders and leaders of these two goblins and the rest, jumped into the fight and stopped Inane and Asinine with their large bodies and long arms.
The elders guided all the goblins to eat with bowls and a spoon.
While eating, Asinine frowned because he remembered his failure.
Inane gritted his teeth. His fingers shifted and rotated around because he was suppressing his disatisfaction.
Asinine muttered about the broken weapons which the blacksmiths forged and repaired nearby.
These blacksmiths answered him, raising their heads and shrugging. “Why?” they said. “Are you curious about the way we produce our swords? Don’t be curious. You cannot be too curious.” Their tones were defensive because Asinine had handed them a patronizing remark.
Sitting down, Asinine twisted his torso away from these blacksmiths, shifted to his knees, and pushed himself off the ground with his legs and hands. He stood up and walked with a casual strut. He sat down beside Inane, who was rubbing his back because of an itch. “How did the judges treat you?” Asinine said with a lisp.
Inane muttered about the tedious duration of the blacksmith’s repairing and forging and said, “They looked moody today, but I might be wrong.”
“‘Moody moody’ or hey-how’s-it-going moody?” said Asinine, rubbing his neck.
“Marcus and Adrian was not there with them.” Inane turned to the side where a few goblins were chortling and laughing.
“That’s bothersome.” Asinine looked at the pitch-black ceiling of the cave in which they were. His mouth was moving because he was checking his teeth with his tongue.
Inane unraveled his crossed legs and stood up with a bounce of his buttocks. He stretched his back by flapping his arms like a chicken flapped its wings. He headed outside onto a road that ran through an area of upland alongside Asinine.
Asinine clapped his hands twice when the end of a breezy drizzle contacted him. He danced as he climbed a hill.
Inane muttered about the dangers of the rain and the rumor of a flood in a village north of where they were.
Asinine interlocked his fingers tight and prayed for a good harvest for the goblins whom the rain affected.
Inane squeezed his thumb and rubbed his shoulder, turning his head upward. 
Six goblins climbed down in front of Asinine and Inane, singing, shouting.
Inane and Asinine nodded and waved at the nearest two of these goblins, ignoring the rest of these goblins behind these two.
After they gained a long distance away from the cave which they had exited, Inane grabbed Asinine by the shoulder and said, “Have the villages been getting knights recently?”
Asinine stuttered before he said, “The knights don’t visit my town, or the towns nearby. They’re pretty much tired of having to berate my elder for digging canals.”
Inane struck down a branch from a tree and waved it around like a sword. He spun it around and used it like a cane.
Asinine ran on four legs, climbing up a tree and grabbing the squirrel in it. He ate it and swallowed with a sigh of relief.
A young man fell from the sky and hit the ground nearby. His body looked fine and well, and he only rubbed his head and yawned as he sat up.
Inane strided a few steps away from this human, pointing a stick at them.
Asinine cleaned his bloody mouth by rubbing it with the back of his hand. He climbed down fast and headed to the side of Inane, grabbing a rock on the ground.
The human, Havoc muttered, looking around until his eyes sighted Inane and Asinine. He screamed and crawled backward. He hugged a tree and pulled himself up by hugging a vine. He almost tripped, but he tightened his grasp on the tree beside him.
Inane edged toward Havoc alongside Asinine, waving his stick like a club.
Asinine rubbed the rock in his grasp like a gem. He bit his lip somewhat.
Havoc cried, raised his fists in front of himself, and barked at Inane and Asinine.
Inane dashed toward Havoc, as Asinine shot a rock, grabbed two more rocks, and threw them at Havoc.
Havoc covered himself with his arms, turned around, and ran away from Inane and Havoc despite the dense forest in front of himself.
Havoc dodged to the side after he sighted a great ape around the highest point of a tree. Regaining his breath, he slammed his back behind a tree and realized that the great ape looked alone. He also compared the great ape to the goblins in his head before he stood up and ran.
Inane and Asinine shot rocks at nearby trees, afraid that Havoc was lying in wait.
Havoc escaped and sighted a goblin village north of Inane and Asinine. He avoided this village and trekked north.
Inane and Asinine stopped by a village south of Havoc where they entered an inn and enjoyed a pleasurable meal with a few non-alcoholic drinks. They exchanged a few gemstones for gold and traded their gold for a large amount of bread. They sold the bread to a few goblins before they left this village and rode horseback west along a narrow trail. Inane chomped on a bread with some paste, while Asinine hunted a few rabbits with an iron spear.
Asinine rubbed his chin after his teeth contacted rabbit bone. He removed the rabbit which he was eating from his mouth and put it on a boulder to smash with an axe.
Inane distanced himself when Asinine complained about frequent “bad food,” as he called it. Asinine considered hurting one’s teeth while eating as a sign of famine.
Havoc plunged into a pool of water after he had removed his clothes and cut his hair with a knife after his long hair had become an annoyance to him.
A group of peasant goblin women and children that used a carrying pole with attacted buckets full of water passed by Inane and Asinine.
A few woodcutters bearing axes left a stockpile in the distance after they had delivered and supplied some raw wood.
Inane and Asinine had reached the periphery of a small town.
Hundreds of peasants worked outside the palisade and stone walls aplenty of this town, and tens of soldiers guarded this side of the town, wearing plate armor. These soldiers had tucked a few wagons full of steel spears close to the walls at a military post.
Inane and Asinine entered the town and came across plentiful buildings, spotting at least one of almost every type. He came across a mill, a granary, bakeries, brewery, a vast spread of hovels, orchards, a wheat farm, a dairy farm, a hops farm, a stronghold, and stockpiles of raw materials.
A few hunters rode a horse-drawn cart past Inane and Asinine, bringing large prey into the town. These hunters were soldiers in essential training. Indeed, this training was vital because, for one thing, mastery of archery took several years of Herculean practice.
Inane greeted two children hopping toward him and Asinine. “How’s the going, little ones?” Inane said. “Care to have a meal prepared for you by Tuesday 10 o’clock?”
One of the these two children, Alua leapt and said, “Inane, how did you get here so fast?”
“I grabbed a horse and forced it to be my steed.” Inane deepened his voice to scare them somewhat.
“Wow!” Alua’s voice was squeaky because she was loud. “Wait, that’s wrong!”
“Major vibes broken by this man,” said Asinine. He turned toward two older goblins in the distance and walked. “He was joking, kids. Let’s head to the cemetery.”
“How did Father do when he was eating meals at the big house?” said Asfoscus, the other child beside Alua. He opened and closed his hands, observing their movements.
“The stronghold where the nobles are?” Asinine said with a pensive mumble. “He was elegant, that’s for sure, like a toad.”
“Like a toad?” Alua squeaked.
“Yeah, like a toad,” said Inane, waving his hand and twisting his torso to his right. “Excuse me, excuse me, John. A mage.”
One of the two older goblins in front of him, John avoided a hand cart, rubbed his head, and said, “What do you mean?”
“Mage a few miles south from here.” Asinine removed his hand from his mouth.
“Did he injure you people?” John tugged at the linings of his jacket. He spoke with a different accent.
“No, he ran as soon as he saw us.” Asinine run his fingers through his short black hair and rubbed the top of his forehead. “He was flying and came down, so it’s most likely, yeah…”
“A mage.” John raised his head up, excused himself, and blew his nose with a handkerchief.
John led them inside a small hovel to a round table after they had passed a broken dead-cart leaning on one wheel. They drank water, ale, and tea and ate savory glutinous rice porridge with some pig blood curd.
“Good, good, eat more,” John said, waving his hands up and down. He stretched his back, put down his jacket, and rubbed behind his arms.
After this social gathering ended, Alua went with Asinine and Inane to a chapel. Inside this chapel, a clergy guided many of the congregation to pray or meditate for three hours straight.
A child alongside many other disruptors, Alua interrupted some segments of the ceremony. Yet, these interruptions were negligible. 
John grabbed a small vace and dropped some powder into it. “Have a good life people.” He waved goodbye to his wife as she struggled to move away. He was grabbing her thigh and crushing it underfoot. “I live for the people, Madame Rancid.” He laughed with a rotten breath because he was intoxicated after drinking too much alcohol.
The human, Havoc reached a city where the heavens blessed him with a system. “I long to be one with my family again,” he said, his voice breaking. Exchanging gold coins that he stole, he bought a potion from this system and drank it. This potion healed his battered and bruised body. Finally, he stood and retaliated at the goblins who had punched and kicked him as if he was a toy.
The goblins fell to the ground like ragdolls, and he cried in relief, fear and anger shaking his fists.
Goblin children stared at him from afar, expressionless. When they scrutinized a nearby older goblin crying and screaming, they cried as well and went to comfort one another.
Havoc’s cheeks were becoming wetter. He ran.
Havoc met a helmeted, exiled knight, who pulled up their visor to greet Havoc.
Inane poked Asinine on the back, and when Asinine turned around with a grunt, Inane handed him a few gold coins. Asinine added Inane’s gold coins to finish up his purchase of a shield since Inane had stolen Asinine’s shield some time ago.
Asinine donned a jacket similar to what John wore.
Asinine and Inane joined a small group of goblin soldiers to a cave because of a quest.
These goblin soldiers required them to be prepared with weapons and armor. They promised them a handsome sum of gold for this demanding quest.
Asinine and Inane soon shivered in front of a bridge where spiders screeched below the bridge. They needed to cross the bridge and grab a key for a door in another part of the cave.
Asinine fell, but Inane caught him. The soldiers behind them dashed, leapt, and grabbed Inane to prevent Inane from falling as well.
Asinine gave a nervous chuckle, pulling his trousers up.
Inane gave a sigh of relief before rubbing his forehead and closing his eyes.
The soldiers squatted down close to the wall and each muttered about almost losing another good goblin.
Inane gulped when he heard it, but he pressed on. Truely, he carried a pickaxe across the bridge to mine the key of the quest out of the rock alongside Asinine.
The soldiers placed their hands on one another, as they recited a prayer for good harvest.
Asinine tripped and fell forward, hitting the ground.
Inane helped him up, grabbed the key, hugged it alongside Asinine, and marched across the briddge back to the soldiers.
The soldiers muttered their thanks and handed Inane and Asinine the promised gold and a paper.
Inane and Asinine signed the contract paper with their heart and soul that the soldiers had fulfilled their end of the deal. One of the soldiers’ signature was on the paper too. Inane dropped the contract paper that soon burned with divine fire and disappeared.
Inane and Asinine left the cave while the soldiers marched toward another part of the cave to fulfill their duty.
Inane and Asinine got a level up in their systems each. Inane dropped his two unused points in Constitution, while Asinine dropped two points into Strength.
Asinine - Level 6
Strength - 5
Agility - 7
Consitution - 3
Luck - 5
Intelligence - 9
Inane - Level 3
Goblin Alucard Fights Two Humans and Leads a Goblin War Campaign December 9, 2022
A young goblin, Alucard laughed and glared. 
He smashed the ground as pieces of dirt flew.
He grabbed the air. “I am the young saint Alucard!”
He lowered his hand and weapon. 
He pinched the air. “I curdle hands, and with the spirits of the furious dashes of light, I snap bones!”
He chuckled. “This time, I will destroy everything!”
Two mean-faced humans stood at ease far away from Alucard.
One of them, Reel said “What is he doing?” 
The other man, Doro said, “I don’t know, but it’s weird.”
Reel rubbed his chin and played with his foot. “Yeah, weird.” 
Doro squatted. “Oh, should we go?” 
Reel rubbed the top of his forehead. “Yeah, we should go.” 
He pressed his hands together as he whispered incantations. 
Heaps of birds burst from his mouth. 
These two humans dashed behind a small cave and disappeared.
Alucard raised his hands over his shoulder and head. “No!”
He fell to his knees as Reel’s birds abused him. “Get away from me!”
They pierced his body and damaged his gambeson. “It hurts like a knife! Leave, leave!”
Pieces of leather flew like sparks.
“Argh!” He opened his eyes and swung a stick like a barbarian. “I am the barbarian!”
He scared the birds as he bludgeoned them. 
He carried them somewhere else and stomped them.
He crushed them as if they were grapes in a barrel. “Stop moving!”
When he had killed many of them, He chuckled. “I’m utterly insane.”
He bounded from rock to rock, as he was a goblin. “Where are they?”
He sat down to recover and panted. “I need a breather.”
He spun his weapon around as he made a smile that reached the eyes. “Oh, but it will happen. I will get rid of them all!’
He pursed his lip as he poked the birds on the ground. “Speak, I dare you. I want to hear your pleas.”
They only squeaked. “Cocky little man!”
Alucard stood up and avoided them shifting in place. “What a waste.”
He chased the two humans. “I killed a lot of birds, and I’m going to kill a lot of people.”
He raised his fist and tightened it. “I am the cause.” He removed his expression. “And the effect?”
“Ok, I think we got him,” said Reel after the goblin had been gone for a long while. “He was a little cocky.”
Reel jumped as if he flew like a bird, and he landed like a magician. 
He glided onward, dodging the trees with ease. 
Two birds perched on his shoulder.
He rubbed their necks as if they were dogs. 
The birds poked at him to stop, but he persisted. 
They flew away in a dash.
Reel stopped, and his eyes roved around the forest. “Bye-bye then.” 
Doro jumped away and dodged an giant bird of prey.
He composed himself. “Dancing Dragon.”
This bird of prey gnashed its teeth and said: “Yes, yes, yes!
“It’s Dancing Pheonix, you imbecilic, tawdry rags! You will call me only this and only this! Now.” 
It moved his body into elegant posturing and cleared its throat. It preened and shot Doro a brief glare.
Doro returned his head toward it. “What?”
It pinched its nose and shook its head. “I have a message, Doro.” 
It looked at the horizon and raised a finger. “Your brothers—you know what.” 
It chuckled and stopped himself halfway. “First, the Clawing Detriments are dead.” 
It grimaced and frowned. “Your brother’s villages are now hamlets. This is what they did.” It pretended it was puking. These nasty creatures, these goblins.”
Doro raised his head at it and gave it a derisive look. “To be fair, my brother Lorlad is the rare fool who only likes to stop fights.” His jaw clenched. “He’s a waste of talent.”
Reel walked up beside the bird and acted shocked. “No way.”
Doro smiled and laughed. “No, seriously, seriously, soon, he will tear a goblin’s head apart and feel tight and free!”
They chuckled. 
The bird walked a few steps away. “Do you know that your father will hate this?”
It turned from side to side. “The goblins have come.”
It looked at a pond as it arranged its leather outfit. “They’ve destroyed your father’s chapel.”
Reel pointed a finger far away. “The goblin is back.”
Doro laughed, interrupting Reel. He turned to each one of them as he called their name. “My father enjoys a good fight. Let it be, Reel, Dancing Pheonix.”
The bird puffed its chest when it heard its name. “Ha!”
Doro sped up his voice. “My father is a smart man, but wise? He itches for battle. He begs for a credible reason to fight. He’s a warmonger.” 
He smiled with upward crescent eyes. “He was set free since he had been a child.” 
He coughed, frowned, and grabbed his throat. “Like him, I will soar like an eagle.“
He composed himself and returned to smiling. “He’s a good man.”
The bird blinked at him and rubbed its head. “I loathe the servants your father brought. They feast on the bones on which your father prays. Don’t let him make them common news—” It stopped himself before he put passion in his voice. “You are tolerating them, are you not?”
Doro waved his hands, dismissing its complaints. 
It shrugged and flew away.
Doro and Reel faced one another.
Reel gave Doro a tight smile. “Don’t interrupt me.” 
Doro rubbed around his nose. “You said something about a wild goblin?” 
Reel pointed near and coughed into his elbow. “He’s watching, and he holds the tree. He hides close by.” 
The goblin behind this tree leapt out since Real had revealed that he knew. 
The goblin cursed, rubbing his neck.
Reel opened his mouth, but he coughed halfway. 
Doro leapt from bush to bush, but he tripped on a plant.
He reached out at the goblin, and he smirked. “Now, let’s just finish this.”
An arrow flew, missed Doro, and hit Reel. Reel’s leg cloth armor blocked its damage. 
Reel and Doro shared a knowing look. 
Doro turned to Reel and handed him the orb in his pocket. “Here.”
Reel nodded because he knew about the powers of the orb. “Nice.” He meditated, and the orb began to glow. 
A liquid mana burst from the orb.
It coated Reel in a white, protective glue. “This is perfect!”
It blocked the goblin’s arrows.
The goblin Alucard had shot plenty of arrows while Reel had been meditating. “Dangit, too late, too late.”
Alucard ran until he grew tired of using his arms and bow and shifted to running on all fours. “It hurts.”
He charged to Reel and Doro and slammed against Doro. “Bang!” 
Doro had dodged many arrows when he leapt to save Reel from taking a direct attack. “Reel!”
Reel fell to the ground, as the orb paid him back mana with interest. “No!”
Doro slashed at Alucard. “Stop moving, please!”
Alucard oriented himself like a dancer. “No!”
Doro hit the wall as Alucard slammed him with both hands. Doro cursed.
He fell to the ground as Alucard sliced toward Doro’s neck. Alucard tightened his glare.
Doro grabbed Alucard’s arm. “Here!” 
Reel crawled to Alucard and pulled Alucard’s free arm down. “It is ours now!” 
“Oh, no.” Alucard struggled to stand. He damaged his arms and leapt away, and he sat down and recovered his energy.
Doro and Reel carried one another toward him.
Reel gnashed his teeth. “Get him!”
Doro’s voice weakened from blood loss. “Yeah.”
They attacked Alucard as Alucard only kicked because he was down. “Cur!” Alucard said. 
Doro and Reel fell and hit the ground because Alucard got a lucky hit with a liver kick. “Argh!” Reel said. 
Doro whimpered. “Stop!”
Alucard crawled away and climbed a tree onto a low, large branch. “I don’t know. I don’t know what the heck is going on.”
Doro and Reel lay still. “Where?” Doro said in a mumble.
Alucard waited for a few seconds and rubbing his head. 
He groaned. 
He remembered his bow and thought about grabbing it.
Yet, Reel still had two birds.
Alucard climbed down and inched toward the bow beyond Doro and Reel. “Just tiny steps.”
Doro and Reel bleated. “No more.”
“Dangit.” Alucard stopped, and he squatted fast and crawled toward the bow.
“Yes!” Alucard said in a whisper. He covered his mouth and coughed, as two birds pierced his neck. 
He grabbed the birds’ wings. 
He pulled them down with a whisper shout and stabbed one of them in the chest.
Doro and Reel moved.
“No!” Alucard jumped to the bow, grabbed it, and aimed at Doro and Reel.
Two goblins emerged from the near bushes. “Hey! Stop, stop, these men are not your typical men! Let them live!” 
They cocked their head at one another. “Stop him! Stop Alucard!” 
They ran and struggled because boulders blocked their way. “No, no, no!”
Alucard shot his arrow, and it struck Reel on the chest. “One out.”
He shot 13 times in under 10 seconds before the goblins attacked him. “In, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in,” Alucard said. 
Reel stood up. “I need to get up.” 
Doro shouted. “Stop him!” 
When Alucard had fallen to his knees, Doro removed a spell that hid his injuries.
Doro was full of arrows, and he faced Reel. “For me, for you.”
Reel was struggling to stay on his feet. “Really!” 
Doro was screaming. “Stop pushing me! Argh!”
The two goblins who charged Alucard were weak, and Alucard fended them off with a few jabs.
Reel cried for Doro. “Doro!”
Doro snickered. 
The arm of Doro that took the fifteen shots of Alucard healed, and the arrows on it fell to the ground. He dropped an empty, once-in-a-blue-moon potion. “I did it.”
Alucard charged and swung a stick that he got on the ground. “Cheating!” 
The stick exploded because Alucard put too much mana into it. 
Alucard fell backward, stood up, and swung his fists. He abused them, mixing his attacks with laughter and rage-fueled drafts of breath. “Now!”
He was stressed by reason of mana exhaustion and overload. “I will not stop until all humans end!”
He kicked Doro on the liver, and it did the trick. “Freak!” Doro said as he grew weaker.
Doro stopped shouting, and he became unconscious. 
Reel pulled at Doro and Alucard. “Lost cause!” 
Alucard shrugged him off. “I’m doing nothing. I’m not here.”
Reel lost all his mana and failed to summon his birds. “I can’t do it!” He looked down. “I’ll die!”
Alucard fell to the ground backward. 
He furrowed his brows, and his dazed eyes were open.
Reel saw an opportunity and stabbed Alucard on the leg. “No more! No more! Go away! Go away!”
Alucard let out a weak groan.
Reel abused him and screamed through clenched teeth. “Please, die!”
His legs tripped against the ground once, and he fell to one knee.
He jumped up and continued abusing Alucard. “Die, die, die, horrible, horrible goblin!’
Alucard’s eyes were still, but his fingers inched toward his bow.
He groaned. 
These fingers gripped his bow and pulled at its string. 
Snickering in one breath, he cocked his head and twisted his torso, sitting up. 
He shot at Reel, who was right in front of him. 
Reel reacted before he shot, turning to the side. “No, please!”
Alucard’s arrow dove deep into Reel’s shoulder. 
Alucard coughed. “Got you!”
Alucard fell unconscious.
Alucard was still alive because Reel was too tired and only abused the nearest body parts, the legs.
Alucard lived, as blood soaked the grass below him.
The two goblins who had charged Alucard woke up first. “My stomach aches..” 
They stood up and pushed Alucard downhill. “It hurts so much.”
They rolled his body and tied his body with handmade ropes. “Why did he have to hit me?” Alucard had hit them hard on the head during the fight.
One of them groaned as he did his job.  “I can’t believe I have to do this.”
When he had woken up, Alucard widened his eyes and suffocated in stale air.
He rolled himself away from the two goblins.
They grabbed the end of the ropes and pulled. “He’s awake!”
“Now, pull!”
Alucard slowed down and stopped. “No, no, no, why!”
Reel and Doro pressed against him with a foot each. “Not again,” Reel said. 
Doro only frowned because he was too exhausted.
Alucard pushed and pulled, but he failed to escape. “Argh!”
Reel let him live after Alucard had begged for his life. “What a lost cause, indeed!” 
Alucard gestured with his hands. “I did it. I almost killed you.”
Reel threw his cloak over Alucard’s face, disappointed. “What a disgrace!” 
He sat in a high place alongside the two goblins. “Get this man in prison. He deserves a second chance. I like the way he fights, but make him undergo a total collapse first.”
One of these two goblins tensed his hands together. “We cannot do this, Deities! We respect your wish, but your sixteen siblings are putting their hands on the tip of their blades, lying in wait for your return.”
Reel looked up with a confused smile.“What do you mean? They’ve already taken so much. This time, it’ll be right that I prove myself by this. He’s possibly a leader. Don’t you think we can make use of a leader? No need to discriminate against a goblin. War is might.” He pointed at Alucard. “He is mighty.”
A human somewhere far, John lowered his bow. “What a bunch of simpletons! I can kill them right now, but I need to wait for my ‘Mighty’ quest. Oh, what a bother! I should’ve shot and finished my quest by now, but I had to take another one.” 
He tapped his bow into a tree and remembered a song. “Tested and true. Nothing else comes after this too. What a hateful day. Everything sucks.” 
He climbed and jumped down a tree. ““Since I have a bow, then that rocks. But what else is to come of me? This world is such a sprinkly tree with its prices and rewards but its downs and distraught sour deaths. How could I ever be one with the tales? I am the bitter hunter.” 
When he landed, he grimaced, reading a holographic notification in his vision. “Stop quest.”
Reel threw his hands in the air. “Stop this now!” 
Two goblins hurt him because they treated him. “There and there.”
Reel relaxed his head. “Uh, I can’t do it anymore.” 
He screamed when they touched a wrong spot. 
When the two goblins had left, Alucard rolled himself around. “I will make it!”
Reel dragged him against a sharp rock. “What a bother! With Doro and me sleeping like sloths, I don’t think I can relax.” 
He struggled to stay awake long, as he had used the orb. “I need to sit down. I need to sit down.”
Reel went somewhere far to relieve himself. “Why did I use that orb? I didn’t even need it. This is painfully slow.”
Alucard freed himself through a sharp rock. “Thanks for that.”
He kidnapped Doro, who was in a coma-like sleep. “Finally, whoo-hoo!”
Reel cried in exasperation. “No!”
Alucard went home and recited a poem. “’‘If you should delight in the light, happiness will spring!’ And it has!” 
He dropped Doro’s body and squatted against a wall. “Let me sleep.”
The villagers around him held torches as he fell into deep sleep.
They praised him when he had woken up. “Have it! Everyone’s waiting for you! Come on!” 
They offered him gold that Alucard declined. “Please, you deserve this!”
Alucard accepted it after they had bothered him long. “I need prestige. I want to be rewarded by my efforts. I barely made any efforts today.”
Alucard carried the pouches of gold on his belt and strided through the cave.
He entered a house where he lived. “Good, sweet home.”
He lay next to the wall, hugging himself. “She’s late.”
He fell asleep and dreamed about murder and outrage. “Far away.”
He muttered after he had woken up and looked around. “This is just a joke, isn’t it?” 
He got up with cow-licked hair and stretched his shoulders. “She’s really late.”
He pressed on his lower back and curled his hands in the air, moaning. “That’s barely almost ecstasy.”
He made a promise as he held a band around his wrist. “I will conquer the right to exist. That will solve me.”
He grabbed the jacket and went into a ceremony. ““Please, care for us as we follow your steps!”
After this ceremony the goblins wielded weapons of war. “The taxes are too much. They force our hand!”
They stared toward a human settlement on goblin lands and marched. “Kill them, kill them all!”
Alucard turned toward where he had seen Reel last. “How shall we accomplish this? Do you see us, God?”
Reel muttered after he had sighted the goblins far away. “I see you.” 
He snickered at the edge of a cave. “I see them all.”
Alucard pressed against Doro’s arm. “You can’t leave. I must ensure your trapping.”
He struck a dagger on Doro’s body. “Now, be still. We fight the human lords.”
When they had created the dagger, the goblin smiths connected it to ropes.
Alucard placed the ropes of the dagger on Doro’s body. “No more nightmares.”
Doro lay still and suppressed his groans. “You fool! You know not the name of Reel the Butcher?”
Alucard gestured the goblins who tied up Doro to free his head to breathe.
Reel put on a smile, and he squatted and stretched. “It’s too late.”
He acted sad, clasped his hands, and bowed. “It’s too late.”
Alucard frowned. “What am I doing wrong, Anna?” 
He was getting excited for a fight. “I’m getting so riled up.”
He was afraid that he might push his mana too hard. “So excited. I feel like jumping straight in.”
Another goblin, his wife, Anna hugged him. “You’ll get it.”
She rubbed his shoulders and pressed her face against his neck.  “Just keep it still.”
She whispered. “Don’t let the mana burst.” 
Alucard broke a few blood vessels in Anna’s arms. “My bad.”
Anna backed away, healed herself, and returned to hug him. “Don’t worry.”
She put Alucard’s hand on her cheek. “I’ll be right beside you when you’re down.”
Alucard nodded. “I will need you there when we hit.”
Anna turned to a group of goblins joking around. “The wall?”
Alucard lowered his voice until it sounded like a cat purring. “Correct.” 
Anna hugged him tighter than she had been hugging him. “Aluey!” 
She freed him from her grasp. “Now that I notice, you’re sweating.”
When the marching goblins had rested, Alucard removed his shirt and bathed.
Anna squinted, her gaze moving downward. “Uh-huh.”
“It’s hot.” Alucard smiled.
They laughed. Their chuckles became guffaws.
Reel sighed, his voice shifting to a snicker. He sat down on an complex chair. “I can’t believe we’re here. I’m a different man now.”
Reel’s nearby servants shifted their eyes toward Reel, but they stopped themselves from looking straight at Reel.
One of the two goblins who had fought Alucard, Oso covered her mouth and nose, smiling. “It’s a pleasure knowing you, Deity.” 
“Reel,” Reel said, his face plastered with a visionary’s assuredness for victory.
Oso nodded and bowed somewhat at the hip with a knowing look. She handed Reel a magical flower.
With reflective eyes, Reel accepted it fast and pouched it. “Thanks… although my brother Doro is gone, most likely dead.” Twisting, he calculated the movements of his body to hide his fear.
Knowing that Reel was talking to himself, Oso bounced in another room past two partition walls. She pulled up the sleeves of her dress, bent over, and carried a crate of cheap items outside through a back door. She dropped this crate on a pile atop a wagon. It was a gesture toward the servants to keep their chop-down-the-tall-poppy urges in check. One of the servants feasted on bread because it was her breaktime. Somewhat rowdy, these servants were magic-empowered soldiers. Magic, bread, and circuses only did half of the keep-in-check work. She gestured them to get an overview of a plan by Reel and asked for suggestions on simple aspects like color and style. It was these kind, humble, down-to-earth gestures that careered this dense absorption of society. But it was love—pure—lovely.
“I need uncontaminated stomach medicine,” said Notla, the other of the two goblins working alongside Reel. “Oso.”
Oso nodded, running out a door. She turned around a corner and hastened into a small store where various containers of medicine collected dust on shelves. A human behind a counter in this store waved and said, “Goblin, state something. You’re here for the leader, are you not?”
Oso looked outside, her mouth shifting because she was in deep thought. “He’s not ready to be called that here. Please, be careful, pleasurable storekeeper.”
The owner wore clothes of friendly colors, had a dry mouth by reason of telling too much stories, and struggled to touch his back by reason of his plump body.
Fine shreds of fruit rind spun on the counter from the owner’s hands. “Something tells me I could be terribly disparaging when I say this, but why do you wear a slave collar?” His tone was anything else but friendly, only hurtful, only callous, only tiresome.
Oso took a deep breath to regain her bearing after hearing the owner’s disparaging comment. “I wear it to disdain the goblin creed of superiority.”
“It’s something like that, huh?” The owner shot her a patronizing smile.
Oso exited the store after she got a medicine, avoiding another word because the owner had troubled her. She scanned the fields of grass around with a knowing smile because she embraced positive thoughts about herself. 
The large bird Dancing Pheonix hit the ceiling of the store and landed next to Oso. “I was attacked by a goblin cuthrroat—oh, imbecilic!” the bird said, making exaggerated barks. “I should’ve had my fake claws quenched and tempered well enough! Oh, I will kill you, goblin specialists!”
Oso nodded at the confused bird.
“Oh, hey, Oso.” The bird put a claw to its mouth, pulling his mouth sideways. It showed its teeth, trying to greet Oso in bird language. 
“Had a nice evening, bird?” Oso said, closed her eyes. She placing one arm over her other one, rubbing her lips with her finger in deep thought. 
The bird eyed the pouch in Oso’s hand. “Better than the side effects of stomach medicine.” He cheered, pounding his chest and singing a hearty song about honor and pride. “Let them fall down, as we rise up! We are boars, and they are squaking cowards! We bring them down, and we bring ourselves up!”
“You’re not so positive, are you, Dancing Pheonix.”
“Hahahaha, good, good! Using my name gives you—” He made landing coin sounds. “Ten points!” He raised a fist and saluted. “Onwards!”
Oso looked around to process what Dancing Pheonix said. She blinked a few times, and when she had realized what the bird said, it guffawed and returned to singing, wheezes joining his deep drafts. When Oso returned her gaze at the dancing bird, it gave her a cheeky grin as if it held some deep, dark secret.
Oso looked away, furrowing her brows because she enjoyed listening to a bird.
Next to Notla, Reel was pointing at a piece of paper. “Do this. Then, do this. Then, do this. Do this last and don’t forget this—”
“Dancing Pheonix here.” The bird, standing outside the door, sighted a pile of crates. “Oh, wonderful!”
Oso scurried past the bird, avoiding the wings of the bird. “It’s pleasing to the eyes, yes?”
The bird raised one wing in the air and learned that its wing could reach the ceiling, nodding.
Reel gave the bird a look of disappointment.
The bird tilted its head. “What?” Its voice was positive.
Reel returned his attention to the paper on his hand, expecting that the bird knew what he meant by his look.
Passing Reel and Notla , Oso opened another door at the other end of the building, waving her hands in hopes that the outside air would enter the building.
Notla raised his hand toward Oso, paying attention to the paper and what Reel was saying.
Oso dashed and handed Notla a potion of stomach medicine.
Alucard, Anna, and the rest of the goblins marching toward a human settlement rested for a while because it was nighttime.
Anna pushed Alucard around because Alucard had made a funny joke. Alucard was laughing alongside ten other goblins.
One of these other goblins, Asin said, “Creative insult there, hehe.” He gestured to a goblin far away to come over. “Hey, what does the goblin kingslayer say to my son who turned level 16 two months ago?”
Alucard shook his head and smiled at the goblin coming over. “Is it time to take a break? You look out of it.”
The goblin standing next to Alucard clasped their hands and pressed against their nerves. “I would be happy to come out of it.” He was shaking from side to side because he was intoxicated.
Alucard touched his shoulder. “Go now. “ He gave this intoxicated goblin a light push.
The goblin thumped away toward where other goblins handled goblins who had become intoxicated.
Alucard stood up, and Anna stood up as well. “I need to hit the john. Greetings and good night.” It was past midnight.
He relieved himself alongside Anna, and they returned hugging one another and grinning.
Asin opined about the human kingdom and the alliances occurring between other goblin communities with other monster races like trolls and witches. He said in a somewhat loud voice, “I’d rather have a troll in my lawn then have a human ratting my avoiding taxes to the state.”
Another goblin, Hooligean interjected, saying, “I had a friend make a quiet totem for me.” He raised his arms overhead to emphasize often. “He said it granted wishes. Think the council won’t be supremely poisoning my drink the next day?”
Another goblin, Lowfo interjected, saying, “Nah, if it was not for the angry boys at the tournament, I wouldn’t have gotten my seed broken.” His voice was raspy enough that many goblins could tell him apart from the rest.
Hooligean heard Lowfo, clapped a few times, and got Lowfo and Asin’s attention. “Heh, this?”
Lowfo clasped his feet while he sat with legs crossed on the ground, straightening his back. “Ranking.” His voice was too quiet. He raised his voice. “Ranking!” He covered his mouth, clearing his throat. 
“Your ranking? Think you deserve a name on the board?” Hooligean raised his left hand overhead. “Supremely laughable”—he raised his other hand next to his left hand—“and obnoxious.” 
Lowfo gulped while his hands shook underneath his jacket.
Alucard fell asleep next to Anna.
Lowfo stood up and walked away, finding solace near carts with a pile of containers and items such as pots and a broken leather jacket and guard soldiers who only spared him a glance.  
Next to a pile of shovels, Doro stared at Lowfo on a cart, as Lowfo wandered in Doro’s line of sight.
Doro squinted at Lowfo, mumbling, trying to call Lowfo.
Lowfo avoided him because he was afraid, wandering only as close as three meters away from Doro.
Doro sighed through his nose, praying that someone would cut his ropes and set him free. He was willing to give his savior a hug if they wanted. Sometimes, out of the blue, his face crumpled, but it disappeared as fast as it came because inside, he was terrified of these green monsters. Inside, his fists shook to let loose and crush his enemies, but he was helpless underneath these ropes.
Lowfo returned to the goblins after 30 minutes where he laughed at a joke that Hooligean made.
The large bird Dancing Pheonix laughed at a joke that Notla made against Oso. “Oh, delay of five seconds before I laughed.” He tapped Oso on the back because he hoped that Oso was okay despite the depreciating joke.
Oso was expressionless. She suppressed her negative emotions and waited for 20 minutes before she left to be alone.
Lowfo fell asleep alongside Hooligean and a few others.
Alucard woke up first before Anna, and he went out after he fixed himself up. Truely, he prepared himself well for this journey. He showed a kind smile to nearby goblins as he walked toward his father and Anna’s five brothers who had been laughing alongside him last night.
Alucard handed each of them a small piece of paper that read “Remove the ban” at the top. He raised his voice. “The moment after we hit, arrange yourselves close to the wall. Don’t show until someone peeks. Camp there. It is absolutely necessary that you do not peek in. Let them come.”
Staying behind the five brothers, his dainty father, Oalx had donned simple clothes and been placing his hands against, below, and near his chin before Alucard came. Now, he was leaning forward, his arms stuck to his sides. In comparison, Anna’s five brothers locked their arms and looked away from time to time as if they heard words of lecture from Alucard’s mouth.
 “In all fairness, it is advisable that everyone turns off their mind for this moment. Turn it into habit. Some of what I say is repetitive, but keep in mind, the moment we fail is the moment we most likely die. This is prison long time, have to say.”
Anna emerged from a tree where two girls peeked at the boys. The boys looked where Alucard looked and sighted one of the girls crouching next to a bush.
They ignored the girl, hiding their interest by turning and walking away. It was a habit that they shared as a group.
Alucard left alongside Anna toward a pool of water.
Sweat fell from Reel’s chin and pooled on the ground. Reel swung his fists into the air. “Observe, observe. They eliminated Doro. They might hang me too. Lionhearted thoughts only.”
The large bird Dancing Pheonix snickered outside an open door. “Why don’t you come here?”
“Mosquitoes.”
“Oh, hairless little human.” The bird grabbed an empty potion. 
Oso requested it to return to the store where he had gotten the stomach medicine which Notla had taken last night. 
“Boring.” The bird flew to this store.
The storekeeper said their thank-you at the door because the bird was too large to enter the store. The storekeeper turned around and began to close the door.
“How many people come and go, human?” The bird flew a few meters in the air because a nearing hand-cart was passing on the road in which it perched.
Alongside a few others, the human, who pulled the hand-cart, said his anxious, hurried thank-you. This human lowered the cart to remove his hat in respect, still walking.
The bird flapped its wings and bowed its head. It excepted the human who had taken their time to remove their hat from the rest of the humans who it considered hideous.
The human who pulled the hand-cart put his hat back on, gauging the wellbeing of the people walking alongside him. These other people gave him arduous smiles because they only tolerated the bird making human gestures.
The bird flew away, leaving behind a breeze that soothed the skin of these humans in the heat of day.
Alucard and the rest of the goblins stepped foot on a hill chain next to the wetlands which they had targeted. Lowfo rearranged his neat clothes, fidgeting with the linings of his jacket. Asin clasped the shoulder of his son and revealed an ornament gift for good luck. Hooligean put his hands behind his head, rubbing his fingertips together. His lips were compressed. Anna drew three perspectives of the city from multiple strategic angles, handing a finished drawing to her goblin commander.
The commander sent only one tough goblin through the wetlands and past a few trees in hopes that the defensive enchantments on the trees wore off. 
The enchantment of one tree activated. This tree formed a mouth and arms with its branches. It bit the goblin and tore its arm off. The goblin fell underwater and died.
Asin covered his chin with one hand, stopping himself from covering his face with both hands. His eyes were full of terror for a moment.
His son was far away because Asin had told him to avoid seeing what he feared would happen.
The commander, Axom turned to his side where Alucard took a deep breath and ordered him to shoot the body. Alucard obeyed, and the arrow flew.
It hit the body, and some of the goblins standing behind Axom gasped even if they expected this course of action.
The commander placed a hand on Alucard’s shoulder and nodded many times. He gave him a determined stare that requested Alucard to hand him the burden of doing something that looked despicable.
Alucard only locked eyes with Axom. He slammed the bow that he used against his thigh twice as his mana grew strong. Some shreds of the bow fell to the ground.
Axom turned around where Anna rushed toward Alucard to console him. He bit his lip somewhat and made the goblins advance, taking the path that the dead goblin had taken.
Asin called his son to him.
Reel called his brother in a whisper, but his brother was still on a cart in a goblin camp. Dancing Pheonix, Notla, Oso, and eighty others walked alongside Reel in a distant, sparse spread. Most of them prepared their mana by meditating to prevent emotional turmoil. Finally, they reached the end of a rainforest in front of their wetlands.
Axom touched the water. “It is theirs only for now.” His hands continued underwater to touch the goblin who had died first among him and the other 224 goblins marching alongside him.
Lowfo, alongside many others, turned away from the dead goblin when they passed him.
“I feel sick,” Lowfo wanted to say, but he shook his head. He covered his mouth and nose instead.
“I need a healer beside me,” said Reel, bustling three healers behind him. Reel and these three healers hid well in the deep vegetation of the forest next to creeping figs.
These three healers in indentured servitude were young and part of a mixed race between goblins and humans. Their healing proficiency was native to goblin heritage, although they endangered their lives to heal as fast as Anna did.
Two of Anna’s brothers whooshed past Anna and toward Alucard.
“Alucard, good day,” said Haxl, one of these brothers.
Alucard gave them a genuine smile and faced them, standing, rested. He asked them their purpose in breaking formation, but he laughed because he was only joking.
The other brother next to Haxl, Notoriety said, “Adam got a bleed.”
Alucard ran and whisked two goblins nearby to sprint alongside Haxl and Notoriety.
These two goblins, who worked as adventurers alongside Alucard, sprinted to Adam, Anna’s second-to-oldest brother.
Adam was walking, rubbing near his wound, lips compressed, brows furrowed.
These two adventurer goblins, Zet and Myabe gestured Haxl and Notoriety to Adam to heal him, but Adam declined, shaking his head from side to side.
Haxl and Notoriety turned away, only listening.
Zet and Myabe raised their hands as if to strike Adam, and Adam saw this, squinting, his mouth wriggling in annoyance.
Zet and Myabe whipped Haxl and Notoriety to Adam to heal him.
Reel yelped and groaned as many wolves assaulted him. 
The three healers that had been behind Reel were on the ground, unconscious.
Those who had been walking alongside Reel abused the magical wolves until they exploded under the weight of their repeated mana usage to survive.
Reel sat up and rubbed his trousers with eyes full of agitation. “I almost died.” He was used to wolves falling prey to trapping pits and failing to get across enchanted fences.
Alongside Notla and Oso, the three healers streaked across and over dense vegetation, slopes, and boulders to heal Reel. They had run first because they smelled the wolves. Indeed, their keen noses were part-goblin.
The storekeeper who had taken back his potion from Dancing Pheonix, Elias closed his store and headed to the road next to his store and many other buildings such as a granary and a brewery. He rode a lizard-drawn cart along this road and greeted passersby.
These passersby were sometimes monsters like goblins and trolls. Elias entered the periphery of a hops farm as farming peasants frequented to and fro. He visited his friends at this farm.
Reel and those waiting alongside him left to a pond that formed through seeping groundwater.
Alucard shifted from side to side. He held back a manic laugh from bursting from his mouth, his eyes full of exuberant courage. He puffed out his chest, notwithstanding that he considered the only dead goblin Adrian on his commonplace merits.
Reel neared the bodies of the dead wolves and acknowledged their fur and eyes that had burst with passion for testing his will. He prayed that their spirits left facing heaven. “The spirit of honor watches like a hawk and grasps behind the walls of one’s heart to test the will.” His voice had been heavy until it calmed down halfway through this prayer because Oso and Notla emerged and climbed toward him.
Notla and Oso made a summary of the information concerning the goblins, their positions, and such.
As he listened to Notla finish up about this summary, Reel chewed on tough wolf meat. Oso had slipped to his hands when Reel swung his jaw to the side in biting. “Thank you,” he said fast.
Oso chirped, saying, “Welcome!”
“Welcome, me,” said Asin, giving his son a wide, cheeky grin.
His son shared his smile, and they laughed together as the commander Axom turned around.
Oalx, Haxl, Notoriety, and the rest of Anna’s brothers grabbed their shields and spears because they had reached the wetlands.
Tens of arrows struck the goblins, killing many. The goblins’ helmets only protected against bludgeoning damage.
The dead goblins were still, and they crawled toward soldiers who were responsible for providing emergency healing like Anna.
Anna alongside many others healed the dying ones back to normal. Consequently, the healers became indisposed, retreating to a safe area.
The marksmen attacking the goblins shot and reloaded fast by reason of the agility boost from mana. They used a trench because they expected the same treatment against them.
Because the goblins were terrible as longbowmen, they shot only shortbow arrows, threw javelins, and charged, eyes full of fervor and some indignation. Next to javelins, they wielded staves, sticks, large knives, and machetes. Furthermore, they entered into a rectangular formation, holding oblong shields.
When the human archers hit the goblins, these goblins sauntered around like toddlers before they sat and lay down. They only shifted themselves forward a few times, paralyzed through dying weakness.
The human archers retreated, and human pikemen supplanted them, distancing themselves from their trench.
The pikemen pushed forward. They bashed the goblins with their small shields before they stabbed with their pikes. They imposed a phalanx formation.
The goblins reached their breaking point when the spearmen pressed against the legs and feet, making the goblins hesitant in pushing against the flow.
This flow of the spearmen guided many goblins to the trench until they struggled to find a good position and fell dead.
Most of the goblins had retreated before this well-arranged massacre and rentered the fray with Alucard shouting, saying, “I am the young saint Alucard!” He made a manic laugh, inspiring aggressiveness in the ranks of goblins.
Near many large lizards carrying pouches containing paintings and drawings of goblin culture, Anna slept. These lizards were highly adaptable and hard-wearing like camels.
Alucard waved his arms overhead, following Holligean and using his prompt. “I break hands, and with my spirit, I crack bones!” He struck the ground, dirt flying from his hands. 
They kept retreating and heading into battle, determined to finish off their human enemies. Before a tactical stalement could intercept the goblins, Alucard focused his mana on stabbing a separated few human pikemen. He struck them with tightened jaws, biting onto a shoulder. He kicked them and stabbed them to death. He yelled, cheering alongside most of the goblins including Oalx and all of Anna’s brothers.
The goblins defeated the human pikemen and chased down the archers. Alucard raised his hand in victory his lips compressed, eyes looking around in pride. He was trying to remember where Anna hid.
Because Axom expected a swift retaliation from the humans, he warned the goblins to advance and prepare to hide in holes. Since the goblins were green, they camouflaged with the ground well when they sat still.
Those who finished their energy recovery bustled the goblin and human bodies onto death carts and covered them with banana leaves. They were afraid of an ill omen regarding bodies lying too long on the battlefield. This omen suggested that if enough of these bodies were to number past an unknown amount, a war concerning the polities of the known world would occur.
Lowfo sat still as heaps of birds perched from tree to tree far away, resting before they unleashed terror on the goblins.
The enormous monkey-eating eagle Dancing Pheonix and Reel’s smaller birds of prey emerged from the nearest trees, working together to shoot the goblins with a few crossbows. When they dropped their crossbows a few times, Dancing Pheonix returned them.
The bolts struck a few goblins hiding in foxholes.
Many goblins covered their mouths, their eyes full of shock.
The goblins retreated because the birds kept coming. They lacked anti-bird ranged weapons.
The birds stopped when Reel became exhausted, and the goblins scurried forth for weeks, sleeping in foxholes.
Once a day, for one to two hours, Reel sent out Dancing Pheonix and his birds, his system of battle decentralized.
With the help of his farmer lord friends, the storekeeper Elias supplied both food and medical supplies to the humans in their defense. He drank a cup of the luxurious coffee of epic rarity at a table near a factory. At this factory, local inhabitants interacted with factor merchants.
Despite the goblins’ first appearance being only around 250, their numbers merged with 10 larger gobllin forces as the invasion escalated to conventional warfare. Now, 5,000 infantry marched and 1,000 large lizards carried materials as pack animals.
Alucard guffawed alongside Lowfo, Hooligean, Asin, and many others at a muster where they ate their first true war meals.
The goblins’ food supplies included 108,000 lbs. of brown rice, 18,000 lbs. of meat, 18,000 lbs. of lard, 24,000 pieces of cheese, 1,600 stock-fish, 1,100 lbs. of uncut candles, vinegar, olive oil, pepper, saffron, and ginger, 40 tuns, 1,500 kilderkins of goblin wine, and 2,800 kilderkins of beer.
For weapons, they brought 120 cannons, 6,000 lbs. of cannonballs and 4,000 lbs. of lead shot. Eight hundred wagons carried powder and lead, 121,000 crossbow bolts, 6,000 fire-bolts, 400 handguns, cowhides, tents, and horse fodder for six weeks.
Before the merging between the goblin forces, Alucard’s small force had 73 skilled healers, 71 bowmen, 16 handgunners, and a mixed group of smiths, leatherworkers, a chaplain, pike-makers, tailors, cooks, and butchers, for 248 men in total.
They lost half of them to dysentery in a siege, so they used mercenaries to battle.
Now, the total cost of this campaign was 16,900 gold coins.
20.1612903226
They reached the border of the human settlement.
Inside this abandoned settlement that had become a hamlet, they came across a mill, a granary, bakeries, brewery, a vast spread of hovels, orchards, a wheat farm, a dairy farm, a hops farm, a stronghold, a chapel, and stockpiles of raw materials.
dysentery in a siege, looting homes, and leaving behind tanks by reason of a lack of fuel. fuel tanks were necessary.
Reel obstructed the goblins’ supply lines and stretched his small force apart to ambush supply convoys to full effect. He looked toward the goblins’ home, rubbing his hands, considering the goblins’ depot. He struggled, however, by reason of mountainous roads submerged in muddy water from frequent thunderstorms.
Alucard received healing after Anna and the rest of the healers rejoined the goblin forces. This cheap, forgiving healing left behind a protective effect. This effect prevented the onset of weather-related issues like hypothermia, hyperthermia, and many outbreak-prone infectious diseases. Some of these diseases were influenza, typhoid, trench foot, and trench fever. Hence, the abusive weather failed to enfeeble the goblins when it produced blistering heat and thunderstorm flooding.
Elias sat down next to his healthy, attractive sons and daughters. “If I could make it a rule to have each of you celebrated, I would.” He gave them each a kiss on the head and handed them presents wrapped in banana leaves. “I would totally put each of you up to par with the king’s bastard sons.”
His children made exaggerated groans and complaints about Elias comparing them to bastard sons.
Elias smiled. “Even they receive allowances, remember.” He gestured his children to practice their magic while he was watching. He would judge the magical prowess of each of his children.
His children combined hands and used their mana to ruffled the smooth wall and dimpled it. When they furrowed their brows, the wall returned to normal, and they let go of one another, making curious glances between Elias and one another.
Elias clapped many times. “I haven’t forgotten about each of your requests to join the city guard. I will be visiting the farms again for work and watching a trial by judicial combat for the assassination of Loxl. Then, I will hand-purchase equipment for each one of you. It will be really something.”
He gestured his children to sit down at one table and eat the salted fish that was high-priced by reason of its salt.
Although he lived close to a salt-producing area, the state imposed a severe tax on salt. Furrowed brows tainted his genuine smile toward his children. Part of him wanted to move from the capital to a place where salt was the same price as the everyday served wheat and rice.
The burgher and storekeeper Elias glanced at the stout walls outside his town. His expression became somewhat pained because the small, spindly fish bone that he chewed stabbed the inside of his mouth.
Alucard stabbed a human that fell into a pond with a large splash. “How did you—”
Another human bit Alucard’s arm, letting out muffled screams as goblins stabbed his back. He groaned, tears dripping down his chin. His eyes grew still, and after a few seconds, Alucard stopped struggling, nudging the human to fall to the ground.
Alucard showed the human eyes of pity. However, after the goblins who stabbed the human turned toward Alucard with eyes full of disgust, he removed his expression and focused his attention forward. He raised his arms overhead.
Now at the edge of the wetlands that belonged to Reel, the goblins pushed toward a forest to within 100 miles of the human settlement. They fought human adventurers at a guerilla stronghold in the vicinity of a few dungeons.
Alucard raised his hand as if to give the signal to attack.
Far away, 100 human adventurers flew on enormous birds like Dancing Pheonix. The birds perched on the ground at a dungeon entrance, and the adventurers jumped down. They observed the dead goblins that the birds had carried here. Among these adventurers, a group of comfortably dressed mages combined their mana usage and used a molecular analysis spell on these goblins many times. These analyses appeared as augmented reality-, internet-, and dark-chatroom–styled messages in his vision. A successful prompt with green borders among them read “After checking your database collection, no clear relationship was found between insect abundance indices and insects in the Halaan goblin’s daily diet.”
After they finished reading, these wealthy scientist mages nodded at one another because they had learned something new. They rode the birds after the adventurers on a quest glanced behind the nearby trees and vegetation to check for enemies. These humans left, and these scientists soon fell asleep by reason of mana exhaustion.
Along with many other goblins, Alucard lowered his hand, but he shook his head. He discouraged an attack because he considered these humans a waste of time.
Reel’s birds had stopped attacking the goblins when Alucard retreated from a dungeon after looting it for food and supplies.
Anna bear-hugged Alucard when they ate in the dungeon. “We should hit very soon.” She panted, struggling to move Alucard.
“We will hit.” Alucard shifted his head toward her, his eyes full of inspiration.
“They’re going to hit the camp!” A scream from a human pointing at the darkness alerted the rest of the humans nearby. With goblins around the camp, the humans struggled to put on their gambesons.
Alucard struck down several humans, as Anna fled because a bunch of fresh soldiers arrived at the camp at the perfect time.
Many goblins fell victim to a bunch of bolts, but the crossbows took a long time to reload.
The colonel of Alucard’s regiment directed the goblins at the crossbowmen.
Pikemen blocked the force of goblins. However, they were slow by reason of a costly interaction between mountainous, muddy, unpaved, rough terrain and their pikes.
Because the goblins were much faster than humans and climbed well, they avoided the pikemen and delivered the blow to the surprised soldiers in the camp.
The goblins soon returned to defeat the pikemen on the disordered mud, saving their javelins to further the disorder of the pikes.
Alucard shouted, using his mana to make the pike that stabbed him explode. He fell unconscious in battle by reason of exhaustion for the first time in this invasion.
Anna’s brothers helped him up and dragged him by the shoulders. A healer restored him to health, but Alucard still needed sleep.
Oso walked off a broken cart alongside Notla and Reel. She yawned and raised her arms overhead to stretch. Because she covered her mouth only after she yawned, she excused herself.
Reel waved his arms up and down. “Have them go through this route. Don’t force it. They should choke around this spot.”
Notla nodded every few seconds alongside two of Reel’s birds that had perched on his shoulder.
After Reel finished, Oso used a costly spell that made her unconscious for 8 hours in addition to the daily 8 hours of sleep. This spell gave her a tiny but permanent improvement to her overall strength rather than only muscle power or only magical prowess.
Reel’s father groomed her for war.
For the most part, she acted as the prince Reel’s attendant.
When she was unconscious after her costly spell, sometimes, Notla took care of her, but he left most of the work to lesser servants.
Actors in the grooming of loads of goblins for soldier duty was common among the human lords and nobles, but goblins were only a humanoid among many monsters that found themselves under the humans’ foot.
Alucard washed his feet in a clean pond. He squinted because he was in deep thought after his reflection had reminded him of Reel’s shiny orb.
He visited Doro, who was talking with Lowfo after the successful invasion so far had bolstered Lowfo’s self-confidence.
While Lowfo learned something new, Alucard only glanced at Doro before he left, dismissing Lowfo and Doro’s interaction.
Alucard waved his stick around and learned that it was now easy to inject mana into his weapon and avoid making it explode. He engaged in light self-training regarding his mana usage until Anna’s brother Haxl called him.
Haxl’s voice grew deeper after the goblins’ three months of walking and only a week of actual continuous bloodshed. “Howdi needs a lift. Adam, too. He’s complaining about the birds being too big.”
“Just keep them down.”
They sighted a large bird, in which a few enormous nails stuck. Since these nails had bound to the ground through ropes, the bird struggled to stay upright on the ground.
A few healers surrounded this bird and healed the part of the bird around and behind the nails to prevent the bird from tearing out the nails with its flesh by force to escape.
Anna’s brothers, Adam, Haxl, Notoriety, and one other rode the bird, as these healers raised their arms, ready to heal at any time.
“I shouldn’t be so stiff when it comes to these acrobats,” Adam said with a cheeky smile. He slapped the head of the bird he was riding. The bird complained, squealing. Adam winced for a moment, but he regained his bearing. A few goblins loosened the shortest rope that tied this bird down.
The bird flew a short distance in the air, but the three other ropes that tied it were too strong.
Adam cheered and laughed. “I’m a king. A wise king! Whoo-hoo!”
The other goblin besides Haxl and Notoriety, Howdi, who hugged Adam from behind, straightened his back and raised his head to look at the horizon. “I see…”
Oalx sat down at a table alone outside, focusing his bleary, myopic eyes on the steel wire that he was holding. He weaved a basket made from banana fiber strands that he had picked off the pseudostem of the banana plant and turned into ropes. He hummed an older song while he worked. Simple actions like weaving baskets helped him relax instead of youthful, exuberant feasts.
Haxl and Notoriety finished ten bowls of rice before they played a hand-clapping game with one another. They laughed and poked one another when they finished.
Axom laughed and teased alongside several staff officers and leaders of regiments. “I need a leverage. How did you manage to beat down the adventurers? They have mages! Mages!” He quieted down after the rest of the officers and leaders arrived. “How is everyone? Eat rice? It is ours only for now. They’re taking it with them after their actions here in the south.” He stopped talking when the officers and leaders all turned their heads toward him. He began and ended this ceremony with a prayer for divine providence. He expected the leaders to act alone for most of the lesser engagements. He made a wrinkly smile. Chiefly, he focused on quintessential relaxation so as to lead from the front.
He stood up on tiptoe and walked fast. His head faced down, but his eyes pointed forward. He visited imprisoned adventurer, mercenary, and soldier human leaders inside a dungeon chamber.
With friendly gestures and a smile, matching eye level with them, he showed Anna’s drawings of goblin culture to coax them into accepting the goblins. He convinced many of them to appreciate goblin art because, for one thing, the humans were stuck inside a den with stale air.
“How did they make it?” he told a messenger that had run many days.
The messenger requested a soldier to read the message that he brought.
“They said it was bottomless, Sir,” this soldier said, removing their helmet to accentuate his dynamic expression and voice. “They were serious. They’re risking their little worth.”
The message came from a lesser dynasty of nobles.
When he had opened the goblins’ noisest theatre of war alongside Alucard’s father and half of the goblin nobles, he entered a dialogue regarding dungeon exploration and clearing with this dynasty. 
“Only for now.” Axom spoke with this low-ranked soldier along with many others with the same tone toward the staff officers. 
The soldier read the rest of the letter he was holding with two hands.
According to the message, this dynasty continued to argue that their proposal would turn inside out another theatre of war. 
Goblins and humans from different ethnic groups had joined this other theatre when Axom succeeded entertaining many human leaders into adoring goblin culture. He showed struggle to those who believed in struggle and power to those who believed in power.
Elias greeted five new city guards wearing a common, yet powerful formal attire in human culture. With teary eyes, he kissed them on the head because they were his dear children. 
His children smiled and waved goodbye at him as they rode a carriage somewhere else where the state had imposed only a light tax on salt.
Elias widened his eyes and grinned, wanting to joke about salt and tax variation, but he stopped himself because they had gone too far away. He smiled nonetheless. “This is really something,” he said. “More adventures to come.”
Alucard and Anna continued their lovey-dovey adventures, smiling all day long. Because the invasion brutalized and entangled them, their tuneful romantic love grew stronger to reduce and compartmentalize the emotional effects of war.
Reel effected a cut to the goblins’ supply line when Notla hurried Reel’s company of soldiers to dig hidden trenches to assemble for surprise attacks and connect them via tunnels for secure fallback. According to Notla, the goblins “would feel anger aplenty.”
Alucard and the rest of the goblins starved, looting dungeons for food, but because the goblin force was too big, many goblins killed and ate one another to survive.
Alucard was screaming at the top of his lungs as he crawled away from charging goblins. He was the tacit model soldier among 200 other goblins, while Axom led over 5,000 of the goblins, running away to avoid dying and ruining the invasion.
Reel put his leg on a rock to listen to a report regarding the more obvious disposition of the goblin force after he had sent out his birds.
A concealed few of these birds killed Axom in the daytime in the distance of the strongest goblin soldiers. Finally, the goblin force fragmented into groups of fewer than 30 and scattered.
Alongside Anna, Alucard gathered a hundred other goblins and called himself the commander of the goblin army. He traveled many miles to the location of the first dead goblin Adrian where they prayed for providence, making a military post and training ground here. Alucard used his improved abilities and mental capacity toward training many goblins. He created a syndicate that he called an adventurer party. He was an adventurer, after all.
The scientist mages who had used analysis magic on dead adventurer goblins opened a room full of open shelves, their eyes deadpan.
A bookseller publisher turned these academics’ learnings into merits at high risk. These merits were books, regarding which they negotiated at trade fairs and print shops. Their method of funding projects was subscription publishing.
The human adventurers who had traveled on large birds alongside the scientist mages subscribed to pushing inside an island to within a few miles of a peaceful society of indigenious humans along with domesticated mongrel dogs.
They watched three hunters emerge because it was April and in dry season. These hunters synchronized their hunting activities on plant phenology. Because they observed that the warty pig fed on oaks and cinnamomum trees during the mid–dry-season, they hunted while these two trees flowered and fruited.
If these hunters should catch larger- and medium-sized species like warty pigs, deer, and palm civets, they lay tens of wooden snares in glades. If they should hunt large and agile species like birds, they would thrust and throw wooden and metal spears. If they should capture large flying foxes and smaller bats roosting in tree cavities, they reached out with long bamboo sticks with sharp hooks at the end of it and toy kites which they embedded with rattan and citrus thorns. Finally, If they should catch small birds like finches and parrrots, they would place sticky sap on tall trees.
These hunters returned home, selling a poached juvenile civet cat in a civet coffee plantation on the way.
At their home village, 300 long-tailed macaque roamed around because the villagers believed that these animals had sacred connections to their ancestors and protected them from any devastations.
The adventurers found inspiration in these hunters’ ingenuity as members of a reclusive society.
When it became morning, they listened to the singing of finches.
At an inn, Alucard sang a happy song after a prompt from Anna. He was tearing up because the goblins had lost. He had been suppressing his sadness for the most part, but Anna helped him open up and prevent the onset of paranoia and rage. Alucard reciprocated her consolation by wandering alongside her in early mornings.
Anna frowned for a split-second when she noticed the bandages of the goblins nearby. Alucard and Anna only had the darkest nights and earliest mornings to hang out, but it was sufficient for them because they made their interactions quick like hosts in a party. She gave a sigh of relief, clasping Alucard’s forearm. They supported one another in ways that demanded little time. In her line of sight, sheathed swords hanging to goblins’ waists shook past behind Alucard’s head. Their vision was perfect for war. Her face tensed by her cheeks, nose, and chin, putting on a smile that reached the eyes. She liked healing and supporting fighters, but she hated war as much as Alucard did when he managed his euphoric mood.
Oso chirped for Reel who had thanked her, saying, “Welcome!” 
She engaged a goblin, and its chest bled from many covered holes by reason of her flurry of stabs through her mana-infused pike. She strided away a few steps as this goblin hit the ground alongside 25 others. “Were these goblins engaging us? We eliminated them, but this brutalizing is unfair.” She crouched somewhat, smoothening the sleeves of her tunic.
She sat on her haunches, pushed the goblin on the ground, and spouted about the lost of her favorite adventurer group Clawing Detriments. Because she was lonely, she wandered around often. She searched for scarred animals that resembled how she saw herself. “I should do this again,” she said. She rubbed her thighs after she had sat on her knees to get a good look at an animal crouching behind flowering plants.
Reel accepted arranged flowers as a gift from Oso when she had returned and spoke to Notla about her magic concerns.
Notla murmured often. “I see your muscles have grown aplenty, but it has still yet to become abnormal.” He felt like saying more, but he stopped himself from teasing her since he had realized a month ago that Oso disliked it. In fairness to Notla, Oso had failed to communicate enough for eight months before Notla stopped. Now, although it was bothersome, Notla perused the awake Oso more to understand her and avoid a similar situation from flowering again.
Reel pressed his face against a small flower, taking in the beautiful smell that elucidated him on matters beyond his control. This flower was devoid of magical modification, yet it helped. It was the sweetest, vanilla-scented flower that he knew.
Alucard sat down next to a wall, his mouth shivering. “It is ice that reaches my chest.” His voice shook until Anna gave him a fragrant, honey-scented him on the cheek. Her kiss smelled well because she had tasted a touch of honey from fellow social workers.
Alucard glanced between Anna’s face and his fingers before he pressed the side of his head against hers. 
In a nearby city, they entered into a tournament with town-popular adventurers gathering to provide commentary. The competitors included Oalx, Haxl, Notoriety, Adam, Howdi, and the other two of Anna’s brothers.
Oalx was here because Alucard dragged the hearty-laughing friends of Oalx, whom these friends had influenced into basket weaving. These friends were also followers of Alucard.
Alucard participated only to judge the contestants. He spent his time wandering alongside Anna instead of sitting down like the rest of the judges.
He scared and delighted many contestants by reason of his mysterous, out-of-the-blue attacks in judging. It was all harmless fun until Adam complained about it.
Alucard and Adam had a tense relationship only when Alucard dismissed the status symbols that Adam valued with light-hearted teasing. In their era, these symbols included doorstop books, enchanted wagons, and orbs. 
Alucard and his entourage of personnel had adopted Anna’s proposal to make the fast tournament a legal ground for free, scarcity-driven gambling and social, prestige enjoyment. Audience fights ocurred from time to time. However, Alucard made it clear that he was proactive by watching alongside the crowd from time to time and betting alongside a military-persevering syndicate 200 strong. They made bets that involved voting and changing for them politically. They enticed bet losers with guises of grandeur in their political scheme. Truely, many men, women, and children had their fulfillment for a day.
Alucard won it all. This tournament had become his initiation into deadly politics by reason of the frustrated counterinvasion against the humans.
Anna granted him peace of mind by hugging him, but Alucard declined her hugs because she had defied him a few times. 
During the tournament, she singled him out to shame him and correct him in assessing suspect people and, other times, when it came to breaking people’s backs. She warned him about damages to expectations and cooperation if he broke someone’s toe or cut someone’s arm too deep. “Healing is expensive,” she said.
Lowfo sighed. “Healing is impossible.” He tried to heal an ill, stray dog, but he failed even after he had received training from Hooligean, Asin, and Asin’s son for a month. He contacted Anna’s brothers. They ignored him because Anna admonished them about solicitation of too much funds which she purposed for their research university schooling. They wanted a research university because it ran in their extended family.
The ill, stray dog which Lowfo failed to heal died in front of him by chance. Lowfo hugged him and called him Aidan.
Reel’s third-to-youngest brother, Doro said, “Adrian, that’s what his name was?”
“The first one who died,” said Asin, drinking his pouch in one draft. He put down the pouch on a simple chair beside Doro’s one. “I haven’t gotten used to it yet, but Alucard is out there.”
“Out there?” Doro shifted on his chair, struggling to relax after he had leaned away from and against the single rail of the chair. He said “heh” before he wandered off and pretended to stretch. 
“He’s now a political magnate—” Asin guffawed, slamming his chest. He coughed several times, leaned downward, and faced the ground. When he recovered, he smiled. “I’m joining him.”
“Huh.” Surprised, Doro faced away from Asin and jogged to a chair where he inspected Asin’s pouch. 
Asin stared for a long time to the side because he was in deep thought about his son and Alucard’s influence as “a magnate.”
When Doro faced him, he looked up because he was sitting down. Asin said, “Don’t stop looking at those pictures.” He cocked his head to the side. “Another punishment!”
The goblins rushed inside Doro’s cell and bludgeoned him until he groaned. Asin stood up, somewhat crouching, his hands on his thighs. He punished Doro after he had promised a daily punishment.
Since Doro was receptive to extrinsic suffering, they handed him art of the everyday goblin after his punishments. This art became a coping mechanism and link that let Asin gain a footing and a beat when talking to Doro.
Doro repeated anti-goblin gestures and language, but his heart for them disappeared as the spirit of home coincided with goblins.
Asin smiled as he left, and Doro smiled back, lying on the ground, wearing tattered goblin clothes. These tatters were decorative slashes that coincided with his suffering.
Lowfo suffered a headache and shifted toward reading books to cope. He sat still for hours, saying, “Could I have done this?”
Elias’ children did a search into the home of a suspected necromancer that split the individual through dark magic. These children, fresh city guards, invaded the most spoiled parts inside and attacked an undead dog that leapt at them. They wielded bill polearms that they swung with downward, flattening, overreacting motions.
This skeleton dog slammed against multiple hooks and blades, and its body fractured. It fell to the ground, shifting before it died. 
Oalx dragged a man through the mud, pushing his head down several times before he kicked his liver. He stopped before a referee ran up to declare the end of their fight. 
When he left, the man whom he beat had surrendered. The man cried in relief, as cheers erupted throughout the tournement stadium for Oalx.
Oalx ambled toward another victory, plunging his opponent into the dirt with both hands by reason of his enormous height. He avoided making any sounds, compressing his lips because he was afraid of dishonoring his opponent. It was cultural.
Alucard clapped because Oalx reserved enough passion and skill to react against the warmongering human princes. The counterinvasion of which he had taken part was a reaction against encrouching humans throughout their invasion. The wetlands and surrounding rainforests resided within goblin territory once.
After Oalx finished, he returned to baskets. Alucard gifted him stacks of fruits and pork to celebrate his return to baskets. He even got Anna to draw baskets that she would sent to the imprisoned human leaders.
Alongside Lowfo, Hooligean, and his son, Asin released these leaders by reason of Reel’s continued bird attacks. These birds dropped bomblets and shot crossbows, but it forced Reel to sleep 22 hours a day and forgo fun with friends.
Lowfo frowned by reason of his friends that had lost their lives to fast diseases. Only a few of his friends lived out of hundreds. Financial support from well-to-do goblins like Alucard kept him sane, but it was insufficient. Healing prevented and cured diseases. However, prevention was costly, and curing a fast-progressing disease once killed three healers by reason of its impossible mana cost.
Alucard said: “It’s impossible, but I have to inspire many. Or else it will useless. I can’t let that happen. I will eradicate the hopelessness of the world, or else, I am nothing but a coward, a weakling, a false leader. I must be strong. I must become the epitome of grace, beauty, and love. What else can I be? People.” He turned to his left. “They’re people like us, like me!”
From Alucard’s left, Anna hugged him. “It is working, working. Don’t let this distract you from the fact that you are here right now saving others. It is working. You are doing your best.” Leaving, she offered him space to cry alone because Alucard had identified with emasculation and taken to abuse against trees. “If you should feel better, I’ll be over there near the trees you had mentioned.” Her voice reflected her calm yet determined disposition.
A few days ago, at the start of the tournament, Anna signed up to be an opponent of her brother Adam. It was all fun and games.
She raised her leg, and her feet jogged against Adam. Adam yelped before he escaped Anna’s hold and bashed her on the head with both hands.
Anna galloped, swaying from side to side because she was dizzy.
Adam leapt at her like a spider and bludgeoned his way past Anna’s arms, knocking her down. Anna grabbed and pushed Adam on the neck, but she failed to interrupt Adam’s hold against her neck. Adam conceded his lead by failing perfect positioning.
Anna pushed him down, struck him at a favorable position to weaken him, and put him in a choke hold until he surrendered.
When she returned home after the tournament, she scampered to Alucard. He was slamming a tree with a stick after he had felled several thin trees. She fell asleep before she could say anything. 
A few days later, she rested alongside Alucard, who had fallen asleep, woken up and skittered to her, in front of flowers around a pond. She fell asleep.
Reel fell unconscious after his birds had returned to him. Oso slept nearby. Notla sat down and rested his mind, reading a book as a pastime.
A few scientist mages clopped outside a cobblestone storeroom onto a large bird that flew toward another storeroom. An “ex-adventurer,” soldier, bird-riding squad under the leader Havin protected them along with three indigenous people from an island.
They landed near droves of weeds and plants growing countless times. These exotic weeds were spreading throughout many forests by reason of Reel’s many birds. These weeds changed the habitats around them and let invasive plants overrun.
“To minimize risk, send an invocation in favor of Reel’s suspension of attacks.” They put aside the correlational nature of a coincidence. Several other human academics distrusted the word “correlational,” although correlational research abounded from them. These scientist mages purported this coincidence between Reel and the incursions of invasive species.
When they had disembarked toward home, a young woman among them, Asfeelus wrote down with her reference material in hand. “This is not good.” She struggled to write, and she let go of her quill by mistake. She took deep, musing breaths into calm, yet since she had said, “The war had worsened,” she owned to feelings of passion against it alongside her peers.
Large structures loomed in the horizon, each with luxurious indoors. 
Through frustrated muscles, the scientist mages tightened their grasp because they wanted to stop Reel. Asfeelus’ brief, impassioned writing expressed that they wanted the “sourcing of the soundness of the coincidence through skilled gardeners’ observations during activity and inactivity of Reel’s bird bombs.” They prayed, clasped their fists, and bowed their head. “Please, save these Halaans,” said Lola, an older woman among them. If their findings should coincide with the truth, the “Halaan” goblins’ Time would pause its tick for days, offering little help if any. A young man among these scientists , Salx wrote “It is almost useless for the country that scatters to recover their losses,” at the bottom of a page in tiny words.
Lola said “Kamusta ka po?” with the term of respect toward older people “po” in the Zelos language. This sentence matched “Kamusta ka?” in the Hafilt language. These sentences meant “How are you doing?” Along with most goblins and humans who fought in the war spoke Zelos, these scientists spoke Zelos. They introduced Hafilt-speaking, indigenous people to Reel. They wanted to affix Reel’s attention to these foreigners whom Havin’s squad had escorted abroad.
A young man among these foreigners, Macabenta said in a slow voice, “What are you eating?”
Lola interpreted for Macabenta after she had trascribed his words on paper. She struggled with his foreign words despite his familiar accent.
Reel mimicked Macabenta’s words while he stood at ease, yet supressing curiosity in his reflective eyes.
After they had finished their entertain-a-prince visit, the scientists left and sent Reel their war stop request through a managerial layer.
Reel disembarked to nearby farming community, hired a few miners, and retured to the weeds and plants. These miners, from whom he had outsourched services, dug and plucked them up with shovels.
“Status.” Alucard dug his pinky finger in his nose and rolled this finger around. He checked his level through augmented reality-, internet-, and white-forum–like messages in his vision. His level was the excellent 20 relative to Reel and the everyday level-6 goblins. “Just a little bit more. It’s very nice that I can think about this all the time. This is dangerous though. I can imagine putting the same effort as… didn’t it make sense really? It makes sense. It’s all going to make sense. I don’t have to try. This is it. This is going to be my ever… my forever.”
Anna crashed into him and into a hug and a press. Putting on a ridiculous look, she said “Hiya.” 
Alucard lay on the ground still.
After he had sat down, he squinted at her. His eyes roved around her face. 
“You’re saying some strange stuff—” Anna said.
He tightened his muscles, moving upward, overshadowing her. He gave her a smooth pinch on the side of her abdomen and pushed against her into a sweet kiss. He kept her from leaning backward. 
Anna threw her special rounds of kisses and squeezed him, rubbing herself all over him.
Alucard widened his eyes, looking downward at her invading leg. “Little lady, gently.”
When they had finished their kisses, they cheered and ran into a few hour long stroll since it was the pitch-black hours of early morning and returned to work.
Many goblin convoy workers of from another peninsula, Kalx arranged several bows into a cart as one of them shot a deer into the ground from atop a high branch. Many of them cheered said, “Ang trabaho maoy bililhong panahon!” which meant “Work is precious time!”
These children had reacted before many other city guards behind them ran through them. The suspected necromancer came out.
Brothers Wincock and Lentel Do Dungeon Runs and Free a Slave Named Aleshia December 20, 2022
A young man, like any other, becomes a beast when he releases his energy. For that short moment, he becomes irrational, but he calms down soon enough. Furthermore, by reason of the normal processes of human nature, this man becomes an easygoing fellow human. It is a testament to the grace which God bestowed on us. We should be grateful for the control that we have relinquished for the kingdom of Heaven.
A young man walked about. His mind wandered to the vainest things. He perceived several towers in front of him. He walked up to them with a glowering stare. He took out a knife and gazed at the smiling men ahead in the fog. He threw his knives one by one, spinning. He stomped the ground and thrashed the plants below his foot. The plants fell sideways after they had stabbed him on the throat. He grabbed a potion and drank it one draft. He ran. He hid behind the trees, dashing, and jumping like an acrobat. He traversed the trees like a monkey.
He fell over.
A tall monster gazed at him. Its lips curled at the sight of his body. It turned its head and spat on the ground.
The man stood up and climbed a tree halfway. He looked at the monster.
His weight against the tree pressed his knife to stab him. He removed it and wiped himself.
The monster trudged away. It huffed and puffed as it walked away, only looking downward.
The man leapt like an eagle in flight. He fell to the ground with a smooth landing. He caught himself instead of falling into a pond.
The monster roared as birds fled the trees.
The birds passed in front of a few towers in the man’s vision.
His face lit up, and he climbed down. He ran like a chimpanzee, grabbing onto the plants to stay standing. He rubbed his mouth because of an itch. He sighed and sat down. “It is Father’s advice to keep calm and still when one is in any kind of turmoil, but to leap!” He dodged the monster’s arm. “When it is dangerous. That is also necessary.” Blood leaked from his arm after a large rabbit human had bitten him.
The tall monster, and the rabbit human ran up to him. They lunged and let out their angry calls.
The man ducked and dodged a claw. He tripped backward.The rabbit human almost bit his feet.
He cried and covered his mouth when his lungs had lost their air. His health bar lowered by reason of a harmful landing. He got up and leapt onto a tree, hurtling his arms over its branches. He sighed and moved about, finding perfect balance since he was wiggling.
He coughed.
A far away tall monster turned its head.
He leapt. He climbed. He shouted. “Portal home!”
He disappeared in a flash.
And he was back. He rubbed his arms and sighed in relief, falling backward.
A smaller man picked him up and said, “Burpees.”
“I haven’t done it yet, but I will!” He stood up and ran off.
“Oh, wait a minute.”
“What?” The man running off stopped. He raised his head in exasperation.
He walked over. “Yes?”
“Open it.”
The man whom the smaller man instructed moved his eyes in realization. He stopped making superfluous movements. “Status.” His voice was quiet like a boar.
The smaller man complained about his wife. He stopped.
The other man ignored him. It was obvious through his eyes. He cared more about the grazing of boars than the babbling of folk. Those babbling about folk lore bothered him the most.
He sat down with a huff. His lips moved like a surreptitious man-snake that always looked for the meekest prey. He leaned backward. His thoughts processed plenty of information during this time. Yet, it was all for the pigs. He was a farm man. If he should study more, he would put himself high in the charts of intelligence.
“What say you about the weather? There’s only folk about folk stuff here.” He voiced the thoughts in his head.
The smaller man realized that the other man had interjected about more than ten seconds later. He frowned. “Yes, the weather is nice, so are you.” He was sarcastic in tone and his frolicking feet. His feet pointed at people as if he cursed them to the grave. “I wish you good luck in your journey. ‘Far, far away,’ you say?”
“Further than beyond.” The other man corrected him. His name was Wincock. He enjoyed a good feast. “I never interpret what you say wrongly. Do you think I am unfair, Adamson?”
Adamson, the smaller man, winked and joked. “You can only be so unfair in a lifetime. You’re like a god then with your tricks and freedom. Go, go now! You are healthy and strong! Unlike I! I sit here in a shed. I am a broke man, dead to the bones. You see now? I am stronger than you are in spirit. It’ll let you know. The journey. It taught me that so many years ago.” He looked up from his arm.
Wincock, the other man, left many moments ago.
“This despicable fool!” said Adamson and swung his arm through the air as if he threw. He sat on his haunches and cried.
Wincock delivered a large box full of goodies like golden candy, crispy chicken, and dancing toy warriors for a sweet baby boy. “Halli! You are ready and prepared for heroic favor! God Braham blesses your tiny little toes and those hips of yours will grow strong. You’ll become a ready soldier! Is that not the best!”
Halli rolled over.
“I forgot to fix him up,” said a taller woman. “He is feeling… under the weather. I hope to employ your brother again, Win. You know he’s still alive, right?”
“I know. I care more about his flock than he does. It is justice that he fell into the well. ‘Unlucky,’ I say, ‘but just.’”
“Karma truly beholds everyone and treats them fairly.”
“That’s right.”
He left the home and shook his boots to remove a stone. That mother wore a half smile. She had it prepared, boiled, steamed, and treated through herbs and all kinds of energy replacement magic. Some of which is metaphorical. Some of which is a dangerous issue.
Halli got up and fell over.
“Oh, Halli!” said the mother.
“Oh, Wincock fool,” said Wincock’s brother as Wincock strolled to his home. “I thought you cracked a knee or had your neck preened. Haha, you know what I mean? Preeneed! It is hilarious, is it not?”
Wincock gave him a death stare. “I like your shoes.”
“Anyway, I’ve got my wife and children at home. You want to do this now?”
Wincock raised a brow. “This affair you and I share.”
They stared at one another, their lips shifting about.
They broke into laugher. “Brother, you have the toothiest jokes! How can you produce such high-quality refinery?”
“It is natural like the wind touches your chest after a cold shower. Unless you lack hair there.”
“It is natural, yes. Do you have a wife, yet?”
“None other than the hope of Glade City, Delight Bridled.”
“She is lazy, is she not? I heard the news about her departure from expectations and the army’s complaints about her…” He cleared his throat. “Benefits and such. Her position goes without saying, yet it has produced such high-octane intensity of conflict and bring-her-down notions. I want your opinion. Do you like her with you on the magical adventure?”
“M-magical adventurer.” Wincock mocked his wording of his journey to the notorious caves. “I can only blame your mother.”
“Hey! Hey… You still don’t see her as such?” He pointed his head to a painting of his mother as a shepherd. 
“I only consider you my brother. But her—”
Two stocky women came out from behind Wincock’s brother, Lentel. “I need you help, Wincock. The army is angry at her. What are you going to do?”
Wincock interjected. “Like I always do. I am a man. Men eat things. We feast on things. We’re hungry. Where’s the food?”
“It’s ‘Men do things until they cannot anymore.’ Still, it is a depraved interest to think that women are pigs.”
“I only trust that part of the book. Don’t care about the rest.”
“That makes little sense. Quoting the book is trusting the book. Unless you forge your own book with some changing here and there.”
“I’m starving!”
“Have a big one!” said one of the stocky women behind them. They put down a cast-iron skillet dish that commoners served most often with chicken liver and egg on top. “I can’t wait to hear you scream!”
“I can’t wait to hear you bleed!”
They sang a depraved folk song about murder and plundering. This settlement were above the rest in their culture and experience in terms of quality of life. They enjoyed much attention from the cities by reason of the lineage whence the two brothers hailed.
One of the brothers put down a small vace and kicked it, hearing it roll to the ground. Alongside many other villages, they placed a game with rolling vaces and how far one could kick while avoiding cracking the vace. It was a mischievous game that started because of emnity between shepherds and peasants.
“I can’t sit down without hearing you knock or duck or yell out profanities with grace so flock!”
The man Wincock fell to the ground.
The people around him put their hands over their mouth. “Why would someone like this fall so badly?” said one of them.
“Is he not the winner above us all? For shame!”
Lentel shook his hands in front of them. “Stop, stop it! You, you, you!” He threw his pointing finger like a judge. “For shame!” He picked Wincock up. He exited the door with a loud bang.
Wincock looked at Lentel and considered his frown. “How are you, Lentel? You have bad friends.”
“Bad? I can only bear so much. We are better than them. We aquired honor.” He shot his hands up and down in exasperation. “More than just that! We deserve better. Do they not care that their greatest benefactor is sick? Or maybe that’s just the truth of the matter. We fool around by being weak. If we strengthened ourselves past those stronger than us that those people lean on for saving, we would overcome this city.”
Wincock guffawed. “Good! You have the beating heart. Now, let me sit down. My cramps hurt a lot.” He sat down, pressing his palms against a boulder to stretch. He sighed in relief.
Lentel moved away and offered his brother some space.
Two older folk walked past them. “Ey, is the party meeting adjourned or?…” said one of them.
“It is adjourned for the meantime, but you can go check.” Lentel tensed his eyes. “They might have resumed it as soon as we left.”
The two older folk left.
Lentel frowned and grabbed a few fruits. He bit one of them.
Wincock accepted the rest of the fruits. “I saw two figures. Were they Derek and Aiden?”
“That’s correct.” Lentel drank from a pouch, burped, and excused himself. “The dungeon raids. Between 20 to 40 days from now. Is that right?”
“That’s indeed the date.” He stared at the distance. “We should be going then.” He stood up and pressed against his hips to stretch. 
A large group full of dungeon miners greeted them at a later date. 
“I can’t imagine the placement myself to be that far,” said their leader that most often etched and wrote on paper. “Do they have reciters for the cleanup? Are the mages at the location? We’ll be moving away from the skeleton fort. How are we doing?”
“Good, apart from the unnecessary squabbling we had to wade through,” said Lentel, his lips conserving energy, “we’re a tad fine.”
“Are you speaking about me?” said the leader.
“Often, the council speaks about you,” said Wincock.
“What?”
“Time for breech,” said an authoritative voice. “Enter!”
“Oh, that’s why,” said the miner leader. “You’ve finally gotten a pass—”
“No more entertainment!” said the authoritative voice. He and several other people facilitated the dungeon raiding and mining through labored communicative magic. “See to it that we break open the ceiling, or the gates in this case. Their wall reparations should only pose a significant threat if none of you use fire magic. We all know what happens when skeleton walls get hit by a blast of arcane fire, do we? Stop stopping! Move!”
“I can’t move my leg,” said Sigurd, a knight. “I need help down here please.”
“Stand up,” said one of the facilitators. “Get Sigurd Two healing of the highest order. We need this man healed right now!”
An arrow imbedded into Sigurd’s head.
He hit the ground, dead.
“This man has got an arrow in his head!”
“Oh, no—”
“The skeletons are taking advantage of the confusion.”
“Where did they get their arrows!”
“We don’t know. They should have run out. No way skeletons have that much arrows just from loot from dead men.”
“It’s impossible I know!”
“Another volley of arrows! Take cover!”
“Shoot!”
A scream echoed.
“We cannot avoid them now if we are to get into the meat of the dungeon where the golden eggs are! Do not run! Take cover, but do not run! These skeletons are dead meat!”
“Skeleton!”
“You know what I said!”
Two skeletons sliced human skin by the edges of their blades. They screamed with tenacious energy bursting from their feet and hip bones. “We conquer human body and mind!” They slashed a human head off, and it spun like the sun. 
It hit the ground with a thud.
The two skeletons protected one another and climbed, covering their heads when the humans kicked at them.
Wincock jumped in front of them. He stabbed through the eyehole of one of the skeletons.
He broke their skull. The skeleton fell to the ground.
The second skeleton covered their mouth and lunged at Wincock.
Wincock dodged, backing away as Lentel kicked the skeleton into the wall and broke its head with a bludgeoning mace.
“How did I do?” said Lentel.
“Perfect,” said Wincock with a smirk.
Three other skeletons charged at them in a line. “We care not for human muck!” They stabbed Wincock in the chest, but Wincock’s chainmail blocked it. He smirked, and he lunged. 
After the fight, Wincock fell to the ground with a bleeding arm. “I can’t, I can’t.”
“Healing please!” said Lentel.
Wincock lay his head on the ground.
Lentel rubbed his shoulder to soothe him. “Okay, I’m going to check.” He turned around a corner, and the back of a large skeleton was set in front of him.
Lentel tripped the giant with a kick on the back of the leg. He pressed his mace against the ribcage and backed away when the skeleton turned around. He ran off, grabbed a rock, lunged, and shot it at the skeleton’s forehead.
The skeleton winced, fell to one knee, and returned its gaze toward Lentel. “Fallible.” He grabbed a large rock and threw it at Lentel.
The boulder landed on Lentel’s arm.
Screams sounded like the trotting of a horse on grass.
“Help, help!” said Lentel after the fight had ended. “ I can’t move my leg!”
“It’s your arm, man,” said one of the facilitators. “Healing is here.” He handed Lentel a potion after a group of people removed the boulder.
Lentel thanked the man and rejoined Wincock.
Wincock frowned. “We lost a lot, like a lot.”
Lentel slapped his head. “They deposited my coins into their skeleton UBI too! What a shame!”
“We got some in return. Here’s some gains.” Wincock showed a pouch of gold that had dropped from the two dead skeletons from a while ago. 
Two elves passed by them. “Do you know any other place that handles skeletons like this?” said one of them to the other. “We’re still new. We should get a check of the area.”
Lentel and Wincock stared at them.
The elves glanced between one another and the two brothers. They thought staring was rude as elves from a different culture. “D-do you have advice that you can share?” said one of the elves, the woman with twintails.
“20 g,” said Lentel.
“E-excuse me, S-sir?” 
“Sir? I’m indeed a Sir, but you can call me Winner.”
“Winner, okay, do you win at finding opportunities?’”
“That’s right,” Lentel advanced and flexed his right arm. “He has a weapon.” He pretended to look for something and find it. He pointed to his brother’s head. “It’s his brain.” He lowered his gaze toward the hands of the elves.
The elves winced.
“20 g.,” said Lentel. “It’s respect to pay a small tip before something such as this. I’m not wanting of cash, but I do watch out for opportunities.” He gave a mischievous grin.
“He’s funny-looking,” said the other elf in a whisper, the man with a birth mark on the nose. He raised and lowered his brows with knowing eyes.
“I need 20 gold?” Lentel made big movements when he glanced between the elves and Wincock with a confused look.
Wincock shifted around and raised his leg high to stretch, as if ignorant of the conversation and public setting.
“Right,” said the male elf, giving a tight smile. “Nevermind.”
“Oh, no, wait, w-who are you?” said a passerby, pointing at the male elf. “Your face.” He composed himself. “Do you prefer tea over coffee?” He wore normal clothes with the strange colors bright purple and yellow, attracting attention.
“W-what?”
“Come with me now. We have a small shop at which you can dine in the meantime. We’ll be making talk about your latest efforts to reducing the significant…” The elves and this passerby rushed away.
Wincock smoothened his sleeves as he sat down later at a long, rectangular dining place. “Is that them?”
“Yeah, one of them looks like Michael,” said Lentel. He put a cup of water to his mouth.
“Michael, the Aurl dude?” Wincock scribbled and tested the stylus at the entrance of the dining place.
Lentel drank and nodded.
“Can I make an offer of 200 g.?” said another customer, a man wearing dangling ornaments aplenty.
“Hard find.” Another customer in front of this first man, a woman with a loose-fitted jacket, pointed at a cloth-covered object. “Air-tight magic involved too. Don’t miss out.”
“Heh, I thought you’d say that.” The brought out a container full of gold and let it open with a slow reveal. “I can’t complain. It’s perfect.” He exchanged the man’s object with the chest. She walked toward an exit. “In one piece.”
Lentel nodded as Wincock explained. “There’s no more than five finches that pass through that area. Does it really matter if Michael gets a handle of it?”
“See, that’s the point.” Lentel cackled. “Michael enjoys the hard work of catching birds with sticky sap. He’s a smart guy. He’ll find a way to bring it in and take it into the normal.” He raised his hand overhead and adjusted his shirt from behind. “We have skeletons. What other ideas have you not told me?”
“That one with the dead dog.” Wincock swung his pointing finger back and forth thrice. “Another Aurl man suggested that dogs could be tested with the new necromancy magic.” He tensed his lips. “We could have automation finally, but that’s if we can get it work.” He shook his head with raised brows.
“Your point?” Lentel leaned one arm on the table, half-facing away from Wincock. He burped. “Excuse me.”
He went to the bathroom and returned after a few minutes.
Wincock had a thinking pose, resting his hands against his chest and chin. “Automation saves lives.” 
“You’re sounding more and more like a superfluously spouting scholar.” Lentel leaned against his chair. “The knights are already complaining that gunpowder will replace them. He ordered a small cup of coffee. “And you’re wondering about dead dogs.”
“I don’t care.” Wincock rubbed one brow. “It’s important, crucial even that people find new ways…” He clapped his hands and stared at the ceiling as if praying. “…to tread the earth.”
“As long as you have proper jurisdiction to commit to it.” Lentel shrugged.
Wincock smashed a skeleton at a later date.
“That’s not a skeleton,” said another fighter, a man wearing fancy clothes. “That’s a bone mob!”
“What’s the difference?” said another fighter, a taller man wearing fancy clothes.
“He’s not dead. He’s still alive, beating.” The shorter man panted as he put down his weapon.
“Scientific classification who cares?” The taller man chortled and coughed. He took out an orb and played with it like a precious toy.
“My golly.” The shorter man huffed as he spoke. “You like playing with dangerous objects that could possibly erradicate the human race.” 
“No, no, you’re talking about the Set Level Theory, are you not?” The taller man lunged and swung at a skeleton.
He cried as this skeleton sliced him.
“Anyhow, we’re going to destroy this bone mob’s den, too,” said Wincock to Lentel. “That, in itself, is promising.”
“Where is it?” Lentel rubbed the sides of his nose and mouth. “I”—he blew his nose on a handkerchief—” don’t see them.”
“It’s gone—” Another fighter fell to the ground. 
Wincock raised his brows and ran side to side, battle-ready.
A skeleton lunged from the shadows, slicing Wincock on the shoulder and neck.
Wincock fell to the ground.
The skeleton crashed against the wall and fell to the ground. It struggled to stand up and walk. It hurried away.
Lentel checked Wincock.
Wincock’s wounds were shallow. Lentel sighed in relief, rubbing the sweat off his forehead. “I need a breather.” He plucked at his gambeson. “I cannot resent them. Too much energy.” He raised his head, took a deep breath. “Where?” He whispered. He let his head fall and become limp. He let out a weak groan.
Wincock received healing, and he stood up alongside Lentel. “Where next?”
“The chambers where the wild skeletons are.” Lentel greeted a far passerby with a hand wave.
“Yeah, that’s what I needed.” Wincock turned toward a group of passersby. “Good morning!”
“It is,” said one of them, a woman wearing a cheap pair of earrings. “I haven’t forgotten. You’re Wincock. You belong to the town Absol.”
“Not at all.” Wincock smirked, resting his hands on his hips. “Absolutely not.”
She gave a polite, amused shrug, facing her companions. “Ha, you can joke, but that’s not why I’m here.”
Wincock rubbed the side of his legs, furrowing his brows. “You were calling me?”
“No.” The woman clasped her hands and made hesitant movement. “You’re staying too long in one place.”
A chorus of agreement sounded behind this woman.
“Move!”
“Time’s up!” 
“Let’s go!”
“It’s our turn now!”
The woman changed her pose to one with her legs stretched wide apart with a mannerly bearing. Indeed, some of her previous language betrayed this new, polite impression.
Wincock raised a brow, but he yawned. “Come, Lentel, let’s go. No reason to argue.”
Lentel’s eyes were closed, but the tendons in his hands tensed here and there a while ago.
He stood up and accompanied Wincock as he left the dungeon. 
They arrived at the part of a city where ex-bandit slaves fell at the feet of new masters. 
Wincock opened a cage cell a few days later. “Get out!” His voice was raspy and weaker than usual because he had to shout often to get his way in through a crowd of bidders.
A slave crawled out, a woman wearing nice clothes and looked clean. Yet, her hair and skin could benefit well from hair treatment and a good soapmaker.
Wincock sat down and dragged her inert person onto a chair. “Alishia, do you know your name? Would you care if I told you you were the produce of a most callous man.”
Alishia was quiet, and her eyes only glanced at him for a second before shifting away. 
Wincock tongued his cheeks, his brows jolting. “I emplore you to select a few needs and propose routes from them.”
“I don’t understand,” said Alishia. She looked tired, but because Wincock showed interest and talkativeness, she believed that Wincock could be an opportunity-giver to her. “What are you saying?” Her lips shifted about in nervousness.
Wincock rubbed his shoulders because he had been standing up and looking downward at Alishia. He sat down next to Alishia and handed her packaged food. They ate in silence.
Lentel rubbed his hair from behind. “I require assistance. A group of teenagers outside are peering at some children and scorning them.”
“Go ahead. Play slow. They know you’re from Absol.”
“It’s the jacket, no?”
“Just go.”
Lentel charged and stopped a few meters away from the teenagers he mentioned. “You’d be surprised with delinquents nowadays. They’d bump into a little kid and threaten them themselves.”
“So what, Absol-reeking, uppity cow!” 
Lentel slashed the two teenagers and crashed their head into the ground. “If you should have your way, the children would be sad.” He kicked them from behind until they fell unconscious. “If you should change your ways, the children would be happy.” He stomped them on the head.
Wincock, alongside Alishia, went over to him. “Hey, w-what are you doing?”
Lentel glanced between the teenagers and Wincock. “They think they’re all that. I’m sorry. I got ahead of myself.” He made the teenagers drink potions. “That’s enough for now.” He wiped the red potion liquid off their mouths. He pocketed his handkerchief. “How far is the nearest dungeon? Let’s get a small adventurer party together.” He greeted Alishia with a polite stare.
Alishia suppressed much of her surprise at her reintroduction to polite society. She ignored Lentel by mistake.
Lentel smiled. He could care less about grudges. His announcement to Wincock and Alishia regarded his callousness for others outside polite society. Now that Alishia was a part of this collective, he showed her respect out of his heart.
After exiting an area and entering an richer area, they hurried past many people and met a few affluent former soldiers. Lentel rewarded Alishia after he consulted her on what she wanted.
“Might I say ‘Thank you’?” said Alishia, imitating Lentel. Lentel taught her as much as he could because he regarded ‘proper language as only a rudiment of values. Alishia reinforced this idea by performing well.
“He might have at least went the short way and popped a cabinet while at it!” An outsider confrontation led to a spill on Aleshia.
Lentel beat them. “Don’t you care!” He sounded vindicative and hurt as if he was a victim of a pool murder. “You little cur!” He kicked them on the back. “I can’t believe you would hurt a person! A human! A fellow person! Don’t you see life! Do you have eyes! They were taken from you! You’re blind! So blind!” He stopped to recover. “I should’ve held back. It’s a good thing I told them to leave.”
Wincock finished payments to deliver goods to a individual buyer. “Goodness, it’s nice to keep in touch after all that ruckus at your place. How are we going to heed your demise then?” He chuckled, joking with the man that would transport these goods by hand and on foot.
Aleshia sat down, rubbing the front of her legs. She wore a long gown to cover her body and legs and a wimple to cover her hair.
Wincock wore neither. He wore an elaborate pointed hat and a mask that covered his face. “Aleshia, you are to help me gather folk that I know, folk that I would not dare approach on my own.” He walked past his servants, who tended to washed and dried clothes. He walked with a brisk, forward-leaning gait with closed fists and sharp swings.
Aleshia pressed against her hips as she struggled to stand up.
Wincock sighed, glancing at Aleshia’s hands.
Wincock went to Lentel who appropriated funds regarding diatetics. He bought food that received a ‘healthy’ rating and handed them to Aleshia and Wincock.
He was holding Aleshia’s hand.
Lentel tensed. He tightened his jaw, compressed his lips, furrowed his brows, and stood with suppressed anger in his gestures. “What are you doing?” He sounded calm and friendly.
Wincock raised a brow. “‘It’s okay,’ she said.”
Lentel looked to be in deep thought, pacing around for a long while.
“Do you have any idea how society has progressed at this point?” Lentel wiped some drying blood off his fingertips with a handkerchief. He removed his expression and suppressed the flares of his emotions.
“Oh, it was crowdy.” Wincock pressed Aleshia’s fingertips before he let go of her.
“Don’t make it a habit.” Lentel walked up to one-on-one talking distance. “She’s a slave. I agreed myself to prescribe a fine for those who did ‘that’ with slaves. It is dishonorable and horrid.” He grimaced.
Wincock stared at him for a while before he came to the conclusion that Lentel knew his secret. “Okay, okay, I’ll find a wife, but I just can’t see people like that.”
“You’re talking about Ideals? “
“Yes.”
“Stop learning ideals and receiving them to heart.”
Lentel paused to think. 
“We live by a strike against the soil,” he said with a morose, quiet voice, “not by an isolated man with isolated ideals that only—what’s the word?—contribute to wastefulness.” 
He struggled to point his finger at Wincock, his eyes wet. “You contribute to that by encouraging it.”
Wincock had a smirk before a microexpression of displeasure. “It’s my money, okay? This is how the world works. You don’t get it.” Wincock walked away, heading home.
Lentel sprinted at his best speed and caught up to him. “You’re wrong about the world then. Money should be moderated. We need moderations on how you utilize power. Men should not overcome one another because of pride. Society is built on reparations and forgiveness!”
Wincock raised his brows and shook his head once. “That’s a nasty way of seeing the world. You’re not who you think you are. You’re not that special man who’s going to save everybody.” He blew through his nose. “That’s not you.”
Lentel rubbed his forehead and looked offward at the distance. “Sorry knowing you still think in such cynical thoughts of abstract demonization.”
Wincock closed his eyes and sighed. “Okay, I’m done.”
Lentel opened his mouth to stretch his jaw, which he rubbed. “Sure.”
While Wincock strolled away with his hands on his hips, Lentel thought hard, rubbing his neck.
He said, “How much?”
Wincock turned around, making playful gestures. “500 g.”
Lentel brushed his hair backward, taking various self-soothing actions. “Got it.”
Aleshia blew her nose on a handherchief. She rubbed her neck after an insect had bitten her. She complained. She held the handkerchief with both hands and stood with feet together.
Lentel fetched her. “Aleshia, I apologize that you had to wait so long.”
He stared at her face to gauge her reaction. 
“Yes?” Aleshia sounded meek.
Lentel pressed his lips together. “What’s Wincock’s request?”
Aleshia’s head fell.
Lentel caught her. He put her down somewhere safe. “Aleshia, Aleshia.” He shook her. He fed her sugar, which state fines specified in weight.
Aleshia got up. “What happened?”
Lentel looked outside. “You fell asleep. It’s been a couple of hours. You shouldn’t entrust anyone this side of yourself, but because you looked sick, I gave you sugar.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but she stopped herself after remembering her slave status.
Wincock waited for Lentel and Aleshia to be available, eating bread pudding made from hard bread over 24 hours old. “I couldn’t have waited for a better time to eat Mama’s favorite meal.”
Two older men passed by him. “If it isn’t Wincock Talos. How did the campaign go?”
“Just any campaign?” Wincock put away his used plate. “It’s a good thing Lasa didn’t switch sides for the 15 years I was gone.”
“Everybody was definitely worried about that.” One of the older men, the schuckled. “Anyways, nice catching up with you.”
“I should really suggest moving away from that man.” Wincock smiled before eating another plate of pudding.
“That man?” said the taller, other older man. “Who?”
Wincock gave a perfunctory, cursory smile. “That popular reformist.”
The shorter older man cocked his head toward the other. “He’s the one who started it all. Why should we heed his words when the peasants are now growing restless?”
The taller man opened a small pouch and retrived an orb. “I heard he doesn’t subscribe to the peasants’ struggle against the nobles—”
Wincock raised his hand to stop them. “Ha, have a nice day.”
“A little bit rude, isn’t it?”
The older men ambled away..
Wincock took out an umbrella as rain fell. He enjoyed the streets as guards trudged around and punished those who dared make a mess and start a flood. The punished ones were tiny critters with manipulators, the opposable thumb kind.
Wincock, Lentel, and Aleshia met at the entrance of a gaping crevace. “This is a dungeon?” Wincock rubbed his chin.
Lentel smirked. “It’s smaller than usual, but hey, we’re the explorers. We take care of this stuff, right?”
Wincock clapped his hands. “You make this sound like an offer I cannot refuse. Okay, go in first.”
Lentel took out his mace and wore a mask. “Ha, I accept that invitation with joy!”
Aleshia sat down on a rock, pressed her knees together, and clasped her knees with both hands. “It’s cold.”
“Have a cloak,” said Lentel, throwing a cloak from his pouch.
Aleshia wore it and stared offward at the distance, concerned about issues above her station.
In an ambitious move, she ran off and escaped the immediate forest. She ran into a cottager family. The family requested payment to allow her to lodge under his roof. Their sugar–lodge agreement led to her escape.
Lentel invited day laborers to a small farm house. “Sit down, sit down. Now I know that the great inflation is not working with the cottagers right now. Today, you all have great opportunity to extend your efforts toward higher goals. We have located a deposit of gemstones from which you can make orbs that are priced very highly.” He nodded as he spoke. “I need everyone in on this because the consequences are severe if we can’t utilize this properly, you hear me? It’s a fast pass. A fast pass.”
The day laborers signed up in favor of Lentel’s objective. They treaded toward the location and map of which Lentel made them recite the features. They shouted with joy. 
Dead skeletons filled the dungeon Lentel mentioned.
“Okay, we’re good—”
Seven bandits hurried out of the illusory wall. 
One of them fell forward and hit his knee. “I cannot move my leg!”
“I feel like I’ve heard that before. Lentel bustled the day laborers away as large ants came out of the illusory wall. “Go, go, go!” He ran and dragged the one who fell, pulling them around a group of sharp rocks.
“What should I do?” said a day laborer.
Lentel glared at this laborer for a split-second. “Okay, stand there and get its attention while I bring this poor man out, okay?” He was talking at rapid speed.
“I’m stuck in the betwixt and between moments, the liminal spaces.” A large clay dog formed out of the ground below the laborer.
“Wait a minute. You’re not a—”
A large piercing noise sounded like metal scraping against metal.
The clay dog replaced the laborer’s legs, and the laborer gallopped with them.
“You’re a creature!” Lentel looked betrayed.
The laborer only glanced at Lentel and ignored him. “I’m human.” He sounded matter-of-fact and poker-faced.
Lentel ignored him. 
A few laborers ignored his warning to leave and only observed. 
Lentel threw stray rocks at them to leave.
He put down the injured bandit beside a wall and glared at him before he left.
“What’s wrong?” the bandit said, his voice shaking.
He stood up and touched the side of his knee. “Ah, I hope this doesn’t last.” He struggled to walk a few steps and fell backward. “Ah, my head, my head.” He removed his mask and hung it on a thin branch. “I need to think. How did I get here? It all started when—”
Lentel returned and dragged him into the wall. He made him drink a potion. “Drink.”
The bandit glared, but he dropped his jaw and drank fast. His body regenerated to peak condition.
Lentel struck him on the chest with a mace. “Where’s my gold! Where’s my exp!” He slammed everytime he spoke. “Give! Me! My! Exp!”
The bandit fell to the ground, dead. Coins emerged from his body.
Lentel leveled up. “Finally, I can defeat the bandits ambushing the travelers!” He ran homeward alongside Wincock.
He grinned. “Ah, yes, I can eat pudding in peace!” He clapped his hands and danced.
Wincock came home from a stopping point inn. He noted it as “tawdry but thanks for a place to stay.”
The laborer, who Lentel had instructed, fell inside a giant ant’s mouth. He let out a gurgly scream. 
Coins replaced his body. 
Seven women laughed as they tested their skills, throwing magical balls of light into lamps for a festival.
“Pilgrims have a bee in one’s bonnet about their ‘ordained mission’!” said one of them, one whose gown was high-waisted as if it sought to swallow her. She sounded scornful.
“That’s right! They live on a bee!” said another woman, one who wore a cone-shaped skirt. 
Another woman, one who led these women’s regular flax-spinning bee, interjected. “The woman had a sharp tongue for a Devotee! I would have cast her if I was her mother!” She mixed in her speech filler words from her second language Babababa.
Another woman, who held onto a horse tail for upholstering furniture. “Hey, hush, do not curse the woman…”
Wincock passed by these women and trudged inside an establishment. 
He sat down on a counter beside a group of billmen and longbowmen. They were noisy, and one of them praised the king’s decision to uplift serpentine cannons.
“What about?” said Wincock, his mouth shaking up and down, worried he might be asking stupid questions.
The billmen ignored him.
Wincock glared, but he restrained himself. He stood up and invited a few noble friends. They rode over peasant flax fields in a hunting party. 
He went through a regional market where peasants sold vegetables, cheeses, chickens, and eggs. “Howdy, everyone! I’m supraregional authority Wincock!”
He was drunk, but Lentel sat him down. “Oy, Wincock, time to head to the dungeons.”
Wincock nodded and found himself awake on a bed.
“Ah.”
Lentel led him outside. “Aleshia left. We have her though.”
“Right. No way she can’t get past that stopping point.”
“You’re correct.”
Two elves watched outside, aiming at them.
“What’s the use?” said one of them, a woman with twintails, her voice tense. “I don’t what’s the use. We should just sit down.”
“Right,” said the second elf, the man with a birthmark on his nose. He sounded confident and excited. “Let’s focus on the taller man.”
The woman rubbed her chin. “Wincock, you mean?”
The man glared toward Wincock and Lentel. “Uh-huh. That’s right. Grab him, I mean, take him!”
He leapt off a tree and chased Wincock, sprinting like he was manic. “Go, go, go!”
Wincock sat down, looking over to the two elves. He cursed. “Get out! Move!”
Lentel backflipped off over a boulder and held onto the fieldstones. “We can make do with just this.”
“You mean?…”
Lentel smirked.
Wincock laughed.
The woman rubbed her chin. “Where did they go?” She sounded worried, sweat reaching her brows. 
The other elf interjected, swinging a pike. “It’s funny we were the ones selected.”  He turned to the distance. “They’re late, but good enough. We can handle this.”
The woman traced her hand gun. She gestured to the other elf where she located Wincock and Lentel.
Wincock and Lentel dropped like bats, snatching the weapons off the elves. “Hiya!”
“What!” The woman sounded horrified because of the fur-cloaked forms that looked like beasts.
They ran backward into one another, tripped, and fell. “Stupid!” The other elf cried. 
Wincock put down the pike.
Lentel put down the handgun. “You don’t know weapons like I do. Heh.” He gave an arrogant smirk.
Wincock gestured to him to stop playing around.
Lentel took on a poker face. “Right.”
Wincock stabbed at the woman.
The woman blocked his stabbing arm and landed a punch on him.
Wincock fell backward. “Argh!” He hit a rock and became unconscious.
The woman made an offensive gesture with her extended arm.
Lentel kicked the woman’s extended arm and lunged.
The other elf threw punches that missed Lentel.
Lentel ran back, grabbed the handgun on the ground, and shot the elf.
The elf screamed.
Lentel grabbed the pike and stabbed him while he lay on the ground. “Finished the good work.”
Gold fell out of Wincock’s body.
Lentel screamed for a split-second. He made him drink a potion. “Come on! You’re better than this! I know you are!”
Wincock got up as the coins disappeared into the ground.
Lentel gave a sigh of relief. “That’s great. Don’t almost die again.”
Wincock paused to stare at the distance to reflect about his life.
He broke into boisterous laughter. He made jokes and became existential.
They returned home with some gold coins. Wincock fell asleep on the floor.
Lentel sat down beside Aleshia’s body in a ceremonial urn. “Sleep. Rest. Be at peace.”
He poured potion liquid into this urn. The dust that made up Aleshia’s body returned to its human state. He smiled. “Welcome back. You had an eternity away. It’s time to play.”
Aleshia got up. “You.”
“Me.” He gave her an excited grin. He let go of his expression and walked away.
Inside a wagon, at a later date, a bunch of dressed people stood still to listen to a sitting woman.
“I’m not kidding,” said this woman. “This hired boy. He got manure all up in his mouth. The hired girl. Gone and away. These soldiers. They only killed one, but they bundled up big bags of cloth, household goods, and clothes. They broke and spoiled. They stole bacon slabs, hams, and other stuff, shook feathers out of beds, knocked the hearth, and broke the windows. They burned up bedsteads, tables, chairs, and benches, though there were yards and yards of firewood outside the kitchen. Jars, crocks, pots, and casseroles. All broken. It was a disaster.” She opened her mouth and raised her hands several times, as if to say more. However, she stopped herself because the men in front of her looked dissatisfied.
“Now take heed,” said the leader of the men standing in front of her. “Only two of you are finding the everlasting today.” He pointed at three underclothed men and two other women beside the woman who had spoken. “Someone got a freaky smirk at me the other day, and now I’m enraged. Sit down, stay tucked. I’m going to cut the link to your soul. Your pride, your selflessness, your everything. You will be lifeless.”
Two men outside leaned against a bent tree in front of the men, women, and the wagon.
“Disgusting,” said Wincock, turning toward Lentel. “Bandit cur, isn’t it?”
Lentel smashed a dead bandit’s head into the sharpest edge of a tree. “Have soft hands. In this way, you will find them on the ground mocking heaven and dying. Laugh heartily. This is our time to throw our impassioned wings. Make haste.”
Wincock clapped and danced as the bandits heard them.
“What was that?” The bandit leader pushed himself off the wagon, flying into a few meters. “Stand still. I need a good look. Hmm… Lawyers?”
“No.”
“You dress like lawyers, haha.” The leader made his face go numb. “Why are you here?” He suppressed anger in his voice, and his speech was slow-paced.
“I dressed for the occasion. How do I look? Criminal activity, right?”
The bandit struck first, bustling Wincock away. “I cannot see this as anything other than foolishness.”
Lentel offered a hand.
The bandit shook it and broke Lentel’s hand. “What? Making fun of me, huh? Why are you smirking?”
Lentel sat down and waved his hand around because of the pain. “I need help. We are a group of drifters from the Abso, and it is today that we are supposed to arive for the summit meeting between the kings. Do you know the way?”
The bandit feigned shock with hands to his cheeks and a dropped jaw. He retained this expression and gesturing for ten seconds.
He raised a brow. “What is this stunt? You like what you saw just now?” He ordered his subordinates to stretch Lentel’s body out on the ground. “Time to pour some of my favorite juice.” He relieved himself over Lentel. “This is perfect.”
Lentel cried. “W-what? Stop!” He eyed a barrel beside the wagon.
Wincock kicked the bandit leader on the nape. “Ha! Get this!”
The bandit leader went a few steps forward, but he still stood. “Heh? This? You’re mocking. Why are you smiling? Huh!” He struck Wincock on the chest with a kick. The bandits grabbed Wincock’s arms.
Wincock yelled as the sharp metal on the boots pressed into him. “W-what the heck! I’m not at fault! I didn’t do anything!”
The bandit leader took out a utility knife from one of his subordinates. “G-good.” He stuttered because he was excited. He sliced Wincock on the chest. “That’s perfect. Now, get two more men from the wagon.” Six bandits dragged two screaming men outside and beside Wincock.”
“H-howdy—” Wincock feigned cheer.
The leader sounded harsh, deep, and enraged. “Shut up!” He sliced Wincock’s favorite part off. “This is perfect. Shameful but an acquisition that I’d like to keep in memory. I will never be weak again. This is power!”
Wincock fell to his knees because of the weight of the boots of the bandits that pressed into his chest and pressed down on him. “I c-can’t.”
“You are!” The leader sliced Wincock’s neck, and Wincock died.
Lentel was on the ground, frozen because of fear. The bandits surrounded him. “W-what shall we do with this, Alto?” said one of the bandits.
The bandit leader, who called himself “Alto,” smirked. “I will be breaking him to the end in a while. Wait for me.”
The men who beside Wincock cried.
Aleshia kicked open a small barrel beside the wagon. “T-that should be enough right?” The wagon released a gust of wind that sought to reach the dead.
Wincock got up, and his body turned into a skeleton, his skin and flesh falling away. “What I must do?” He bit onto the bandit leader’s hand, crushing the muscles. He stabbed the leader many times into the belly.
The leader fell and hit the ground. 
Aleshia watched with her mouth wide.
Lentel stood up, checked the cracked barrel on the ground, and extended his hand toward her. “Where is it?”
Aleshia turned her head left and right. “I have it. The orb. It’s here.”
“Thank you.” Lentel sounded intent on rewarding her. He gave her his usual polite smile, but his eyes were proud this time. 
Lentel sat down on the ground against the wagon as Wincock fought the rest of the bandits with a pike.
Lentel reloaded the handgun, telling Aleshia to back off. Aleshia nodded and stepped away.
A piercing, ear-scraping noise from Lentel’s handgun rung through the air.
A bandit hit his head on a rock. Soft blood pooled where he lay.
Screams sounded, and the bandits ran away and after one another, picking up their things that fell. They shouted and cried for help.
Wincock stood up after falling over from dizziness. “I need a potion. I’m bleeding. Yelp!”
Lentel baby-fed him.
“Okay, thanks, I need to move my back. Sheesh. This back is working!” Wincock laughed.
Lentel raised a brow.
Alishia sounded confused. “What’s my duty?”
Wincock stared at her for a few seconds.
He squinted. “Down there at Dozl.”
“W-what are we doing there—”
“Let’s go!” Lentel adjusted his waist pouch.
Wincock jumped and raised his hands in the air. “Woohoo! We got things done today!” His skeleton body rattled and perplexed Alishia.
Alishia gave a nervous laugh when Wincock glanced at her.
At a later date, seven adventurers laughed around at a village bee meeting. “I assume one of them just fell over just like that,” said a woman, who held a rectangular shield dirty around the corners. “Why would they fight each other? I don’t know. I heard it was because of race.”
“Really?” said a younger man, who wore tree bark, ractan-bound armor. “Yes?”
“Elves. Humans. We’re not so ‘the same–the same’ as most would argue.”
“Enough of that talk, Sillia, Ashfallen,” said an older man. “You’ll get me imprisoned.”
A chorus of laughter sounded.
Wincock and Lentel dropped off a wagon in the distance. They handed out alongside their servants, lackeys, pageboys, and stableboys to the villagers gifts of fruits, vegetables, other stuff. “Here, you go, I need two of you to become skeletons like me. We’re fulfilling a divine mission, yes.” He smiled as if it was natural for him to come.
The villagers gave up resistance at the first sight of his insignia. 
The village head came and entertained him as representative of the village. “Yes, thank you,” he said. His smile was fake, but it sufficed Wincock and company.
Wincock pivotted his glancing and gait toward the younger man Ashfallen.
Ashfallen frowned, rubbing the side of his mouth.
Wincock left after sending a lettter of recommendation to a league of adventurers. He wrote the name “Ashfallen.”
He preferred his group’s findings of the state of the vilage to his information collectors. These collectors were administrative scribes who handled repositories and the information therewith in various instititional households and scriptoria. 
Wincock had fun taking over one of his subordinates. He laughed with Lentel when he said “The village occupies the northern side of what I call a bad time.” They were joking about the floods that had been occuring a few years ago for three months straight. The joke centered on the floods’ coincidential relation with two infamous knights claiming supremacy in a tournament with the title “Open the floodgates!” as their banner. A year ago, near the end of a short party, these knights wet themselves after meeting an orc for the first time. This accident created tension for a while, but when alone, peers of these two knights laughed all the time. 
Lentel chortled. “And if I had it enough, I would have sprinkled it with wine too.” He was referring both to one of the infamous nobles’ close friends spilling wine on their private parts after tripping and the village floods. It was a bad kind of laugh, a dark laugh, a bad, dark joke. 
Two men bathed in a pond, screaming, hugging one another. Wincock and company were passing by them. The men cringed at one another. “We should finish the job,” they said.
Student David Gains Super Strength and Regeneration, Then Loses Control December 22, 2022
A man, David watched the sunset. He moved his hand and rubbed his back. “Ouch.”
He climbed a staircase, hopped, and sat.
“Maybe this is perfectly whole.”
His hands exploded.
He screamed as the pieces of his hand returned and crystallized. “What’s going on? I never had this problem before?”
He stood, swung, and listened. “My hands. They’re stronger.”
He swung, swung, and swung.
“I love this feeling. It’s like I was given a gift.”
Two men pointed and ran. “He’s making the walls crack with only the wind!”
David stared. “What is it?”
The two men left.
David compressed his lips. “I don’t know how this even happened.”
The two men informed the groups. “A demon is on the loose. He’s been possessed!”
“Possession? What’s that? An English lesson?”
The two men slapped their foreheads.
David entered the room. “Why did you guys run in the hallway? Guys, check this out.” He slapped the air.
The air flew and hit the two men. They flew and hit the walls.
David and the students gasped and covered his mouth.
“Are they okay!” said someone.
“Cool!” said another. “Do it again!”
David bowed and apologized. “I will pay for their hospital fees.”
The students clapped. 
They stopped. “Oh, wait, we don’t live in the west, my bad.” 
David raised a brow. “Okay?”
His teacher called her associates and principal and discussed her, the students, and David’s concerns.
The students and teacher led David, left, entered the field of the school, and passed its lines. 
Most of the students watched and lounged as David displayed his power.
The rest of the students charged their phones, browsed the internet, and spread the evidence of David’s power.
David smashed the ground, and the ground trembled.
The students ran, shouted, and warned him.
David nodded and opened his wallet. He grabbed his money and raised his hands. He shouted and counted them. “I have enough money to cover for this ball. Good?”
He relaxed and shifted his legs and feet.
The principal entered the field, nodded, faced a group of police, gestured, and nodded. “News coverage on the site. Be nice. Students, take notice. Talks about drugs, alcohol, and anything controversial will get people downvoting, bad-reviewing, and turning the school into a dead zone. A little compromise, and we all get a taste of this without anyone getting the bad end of the stick.”
David nodded, and the students nodded.
“Okay, go,” a policeman said. “Try the ball.”
David stooped, touched the grass, grabbed a ball, and threw it. 
The ball exploded.
David clasped the sides of his head and tickled his hair. He winced and removed the left of his hands. “This is dangerous. What if it kills me?”
The principal assumed a smile. “David, good job. Thank you for your cooperation.”
David smiled. 
The police watched. “I don’t know. Stay here. David. We want to watch you. If you go home with that power, you might hurt someone.”
David frowned. “I threw someone at a wall, but he’s okay.”
“Or you might have held back.”
David gestured. “I might have, and the ball is just light.”
“The ball is not just light. It requires—how many Ned? He doesn’t know either but a lot of force, and you had bad momentum there. You’re not a kicker, meaning you’re much stronger than you think.”
David stared.
The police said, “This is not going to be fun, but my guess is that they’re going to test your strength to determine how much weights might stop your arms from hitting so hard. Can you lift something heavy to show?”
David grabbed a tree and pulled it. The tree broke, and David carried it.
The police widened his eyes. “David. What’s your full name?”
“David Johnson.”
“David Johnson. You were not given this power by some ‘known’ force, were you?”
David squinted. “Aliens? No. I don’t know. My hands exploded, and it came back together. No pain, but it made me nervous. When it came back, my hand could swing hard. I just knew it was different. As if my muscle memory understood the strength of my new body.”
The police sighed. “Good. Knowing is good.”
David sat.
“David, what did you enjoy before this?”
David smiled. “I liked playing RPG. Redston with my friends.”
“Really? I don’t know that. Anyways, David, that… might get disrupted over the course of the next few weeks.”
David nodded. “I know.” He grinned. “This is the best thing ever. I wish my friends could see.”
“Are they here?” The police looked around.
“They’re not. They’re somewhere else. Four, five kilometers away: one of them.”
“Then, I’ll bring them to you if they want.”
“Really?”
“If they let me. David, if you still think you’re normal, think again. The whole world will be watching.”
Groups of military arrived and parked. A couple of soldiers approached David and greeted him.
“David, do you like anything in particular?”
“Redston. And my friends.”
The soldiers stared.
David raised his shoulders and smiled.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
David rubbed his lips. “Ah, Surferking.”
“Surferking?”
“He’s my favorite player; he plays well.”
“Very particular with what you say. You went to speech classes like I did?”
David raised a brow. “Absolutely.”
“Really?”
“No.”
The soldier laughed. “Okay, okay, hey, does your family say the same thing?”
David raised his brows. “They told said I’m good at singing, but I don’t want to go to concerts and stages. I get nervous. I think it’s fine if I don’t sing for money.”
The soldier nodded.
David said, “My family really likes it when I sing. I used to sing a lot, but now, I like RPGs. It sounds sad, and I think about it. It’s not sad to me at all. I do it, and I study well. I finished my scores the other day and did fine.”
“Do you have a reason?”
“A reason?”
“Any reason for you doing anything?”
“It’s fun.”
“I mean, do you have like someone on your mind when you do things, hard things?”
“Yeah, my mother, my sister, brother who’s a little whiney, and my baby sibling. Whatever I become, I’m still my family’s son or bond man or something. I’m not a hunk, but we’re together. And I think, no I really, really believe life’s that. That’s all.”
“You do have a nice way of putting it. Thank you.”
The soldier’s companion whispered.
The soldier nodded. He waved, and the couple of soldiers left.
David waved, squatted, and rested.
David fell asleep.
The soldiers put a mattress and a tent and pulled him.
“How do we make sure he’s safe?” said someone. “If he becomes irrational, we’ll have to ‘eyeball’ him.”
“David’s family is helpful, and that’s all that matters,” said another. “Their advice is the only thing keeping the brass in check.”
David woke, sat, and touched the flaps of a tent. He palmed his mattress and got up.
He felt he was sneaky and secret, yet he felt he was loved and adored, popular. He grinned, danced, swung his arms, and the ground trembled.
The soldier entered the tent, gestured, and stopped him.
David rubbed his forehead.
“He has the usefulness of a large tractor maybe,” said a researcher.
“Maybe?” said the soldier.
“I have nothing. No tests. No papers. Nothing! We’re pioneers in this, and I care more about studying insects than a man with a strong arm.”
“Remind me again to read your papers and find out you sound nothing like ‘you you.’”
The researcher chuckled. 
“We already have researchers wanting to original-research this boy.” Ever since nuclear fussion’s popped up, now, we have David being an absolute badass, right?”
David sipped coffee, closed his eyes, and ignored him.
He exited the tent, and the sun revealed his eyebags and the red of his eyes.
“I’m so exited,” he said. “Military everywhere. I feel like a zoo animal.”
“You are an attraction,” said the soldier. “Look at all the ‘people out of green’ staring at you.”
David stared. 
“I feel like singing all of a sudden,” he said.
“Sure, go ahead,” said the soldier. “Why not?”
David shook his head. “Give me months practicing.” He race-walked.
The soldier sprinted and left the range of David’s grasp. “Please, don’t do that again.”
David opened his mouth. 
“Right,” he said.
The soldier handed him a piece of paper. “You’ve proved your power to people already.”
David touched a newspaper. “This is… I used to read this company or brand, you know? It was a long, long time ago.”
The soldier snorted. “Look at the bottom.”
David raised his brows.
“1,000,000 followers?” he said.
“Don’t worry. That’ll only get bigger as time goes on.”
David observed his spoon and fork as he ate.
The military allowed his family, and his family greeted him.
“David,” said David’s mother.
“What am I doing here, Ma?”
“You’re asking me that when you know what you did?”
“What?”
“You killed someone.”
The soldier stared.
David gasped. “I did?”
“No,” the soldier said, “you didn’t.”
David’s mother nodded.
“Carry five.” The researcher said.
David grabbed it. “I feel like I’m holding a bucket of water.”
“That’s bigger than two.”
“Carry six.”
He carried seven.
“Carry eight.”
He carried ten.
“David. Stop.”
“Okay.”
“Carry the exact amount.”
“The smaller trees get in the way.”
“Okay, but count them.”
David took a break.
“He’s getting stronger,” said someone.
“No, the top videos only showed the part of him that held back,” said another.”
“I think we should keep him locked somewhere. Does he get injured in any way by the trees?”
“He has. He’s fragile.”
David touched the bandage of the side of his head. “The smell of blood.”
The morning became night.
“Carry 15.”
He carried 15 trees.
“I’m holding them the same way I’m holding straws.”
“You are.”
“Are we relocating?”
“Luckily, this place is good. We can keep you here for longer if you’re comfortable. Ten months at least.”
“Months?”
“Yes, people will want to know how this works,” said a researcher, “and you might want to know how to cure it. And even better turn into good.”
“Good. It’s for the world then.”
“Yeah, you’re saving the world by being here essentially.”
“Not the super strength but the regeneration.”
“Both place high importance on you.”
David pumped his fists. “Okay, let’s go!”
“What if he had an enemy?” posted a user of the internet. “What if he was political all the time? What if he wanted to destroy everything? What if he wasn’t a gun shot away from dying? What if this regeneration reached his legs, his hips, hands, chest, and head? What if he was unstoppable?”
“No way, he’s a kind man,” read a commenter. “If he was evil, he would have killed his bullies. I honestly would have done it if I were him.”
“What do you mean ‘bullies’?” said another. “Where did you get that from? Stop projecting.”
“He should make a nation and call it ‘David Nation’ or something like that,” said another.
“Lame,” said another.
The comments became political and mentioned controversies.
“I’m a friend of his from school,” said another post. “Ask me anything.”
David punched blocks of cement and splintered them. The left of his arm cracked a couple of knuckles. “The wound disappeared, fifth time.”
“His hands are remarkable,” said a soldier. “Why haven’t they made him lift weights yet?”
“Something he can grasp?” said a researcher. “If he accidently tossed that thing at us…”
“My bad for asking then.”
“Can he shoot like a gun?”
The researcher stared.
David threw a pebble, and it destroyed a block of cement. “Oh right!”
“Don’t you think we should help him?” said one of David’s classmates.
“How?” said another.
“Punch him and maybe that’ll heal him.”
“Smart.”
David’s friends texted him, and their messages read: “Maintenance today” and “The box drop event is back after a long time.”
They studied David’s drops and diet. “Macronutrients, energy and micronutrients.”
“What’s macro?” David said.
“Macronutrients are nutrients that the body needs in large amounts. They include carbohydrates, proteins, and fats.”
“Thank you. What do I need to do to make this all stop?”
“They might study you for the rest of your life. This could save worlds upon worlds of people. Humans, animals, and trees. If regeneration is that all-consuming, it could save everyone.”
“Regeneration.” David pinched himself.
David grasped a block of cement, raised it, and exploded it.
“Hey!” said a soldier.
David’s body bled, and a gush of blood pooled. He closed his eyes. “Regeneration.”
His body healed, and the bleeding disappeared.
He grinned.
“He’s going to be a monster,” said David’s father. “Please, help him. I saw it. I saw him today, and I heard he’s gotten stronger. He can’t be. It can’t be.”
David lowered the right of his hands and tensed the hips of his legs.
He touched the ground, and the ground quaked.
“No—”
“Argh—”
“No, no, no—”
He killed a soldier.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” said David’s soldier.
“He’s one shot away from dying!”
“No, it’s ‘he was’!”
“He was not a perfectly whole person.”
“No.” The soldier clasped his face. “He’s not a bad guy.”
Bullets struck David’s face. “I can’t take it anymore!
“Why was I given this? I was so close to graduation. So close to stopping myself, but I can’t help it. I can’t help it. I am so close to becoming free.” He cried. “True freedom. No, no, no! I know it now!”
“He’s not a bad guy!”
The houses exploded, and the ground trembled.
“He’s not that. That’s not who he was. This is not it, this is not it!”
David shouted. “This is not right, but when I hit my pillow every night since I was born, the town never exploded and the earth never shook! I need to dance!”
He danced, and the earth trembled.
He sang, and the plucks of his fingers shook the seas.
He moved his hand, rubbed his back, and felt he lost something.
He rode a mountain and paddled. “Woohoo!”
He became ‘SurferKing.’
Author’s note:
Lord of the Flies is something like this; this is the opposite of a coming of age story.
Transported Gamer James Builds a Following and Leads Starving Children to Safety December 29, 2022
A man, James, crossed his legs, massaged his toes, and stared. His lips shook. “I am times-up.” He stood, dragged a chair, and reached a computer. He pulled the chair, rotated his torso, dropped the chair, and sat down.
He tapped a keyboard.
“Ready,” read the display of James’ computer.
“Go!”
James rubbed his mustache. “Three. Then two to go.”
He beat his opponent and cheered. “Woohoo! That was the easiest one. Next one.”
He turned the head of his avatar and dodged a punch. “Sweet!”
His avatar strafed, blocked a punch, and punched the side of his opponent’s head. “Alright!”
The opponent fell and hit the ground.
His avatar disappeared.
“You’ve reached the final round,” read the computer. “Take a breath and…
“Ready!
“Set!
“Go!”
James appeared, grabbed, and kneed his opponent. “Alright!”
He jumped and shook. “Wait a minute. I won, but why am I here?”
A tree emerged, regarded him, trudged, and leaned. “Hello.”
James screamed and cursed. 
“Welcome. No wandering. Only fighting. Fight to the death.”
James cried and hugged the floor. “My body is so heavy.”
“Status,” said the tree.
“‘Status’?”
James extended his hand and missed the notifications.
“Confirm,” he said.
The tree left.
James crawled.
“I need to get a hold of myself. Distractions, thoughts, begone.”
The tree returned, reached James, and dropped food. He regarded a pond, pointed, and touched it. “You can’t fight without eating. Eat and drink.
James ate and drank as his heart raced.
The tree grinned, and his face wrinkled.
James winced. “Wise mystical tree.”
“I am.”
James closed his eyes and sighed.
An opponent emerged.
James stood and assumed a boxer’s stance. 
His opponent revealed a spear and extended it. He dashed and stomped James’ foot.
James punched, grabbed the opponent’s head, and exploded it. He gasped, covered his mouth, and tumbled.
The tree widened his eyes and stuttered.
He composed himself. “Good work, James. Another one.”
James exploded another.
The tree clasped his head. “Another.”
James exploded another.
The tree shouted and posed. “Another!”
James exploded another.
A pair of opponents emerged.
The tree charged, flailed his arms, and swung.
James exploded the tree’s shoulder and the left of his chest.
The tree dropped, cowered, gasped, and hyperventilated. 
James glared.
The tree fainted, fell, and hit his head.
James punched the tree and executed him.
The pair of opponents paced, clapped, and watched James.
James shook, glanced, and regarded the opponents. He race-walked. “Confirm.” He pointed, gestured, and shouted.
The opponents stared.
James grabbed them.
The opponents lowered their heads, covered their faces, and dropped.
James shouted.
The opponents regarded James and gestured their deafness.
James raised his brows, nodded, clasped their shoulders, pulled, and raised them. He gestured. “Follow me.”
He shivered.
“Where should we go?”
The opponents studied James’ expression, raised their hands, and pointed.
James entered a road, descended, wet their feet and footwear, and reached a village.
Fishermen greeted them and bowed.
James bowed, and the opponents bowed.
The fishermen handed them bowls of rice and fish.
James and the opponents accepted.
The opponents became his subordinates.
James gestured.
His subordinates handed him a mace and sword.
The fishermen nodded and bowed.
James and his subordinates nodded and bowed.
The fishermen left, and James and his subordinates left.
James said, “Confirm, confirm, confirm, confirm.
“Status.”
James shook.
His subordinates watched and tilted their heads.
James regarded and grabbed them. He gestured his urgency, pointed, and left.
His subordinates panted, furrowed their brows, and plucked the hems of their tunics.
A bush rustled, and a pair of figures emerged and left.
The subordinates assumed swordsmen’s stances.
They followed these figures, wandered, and saw another figure.
The figure lowered his head, cried, covered his eyes, and regarded the ground.
The subordinates sprinted, left, and composed themselves.
James returned, raised his hands, and adjusted his trousers.
His subordinates regarded him and lowered their eyes.
James grabbed their tunics and gestured his disapproval.
He left a part of the village and entered another. He greeted laborers and cottagers, smiled, displayed the opponents’ and his bowls of rice and fish, and increased his voice. The subordinates copied him.
The laborer and cottages smiled and waved.
James nodded. “Confirm.”
A pair of goblins hid, crawled, lay, aimed their bows, and regarded the farmers.
James’ height reached six feet, and the sides of his shirt stretched. He wore trousers, a shirt, a coat, shoes, a necklace, and earrings. His trousers hugged the hair of his legs and touched the rims of his feet. His sleeves reached his wrists, and his face and mustache matched a conqueror. His appearance’s colors matched a lavender, coffee, and a desert. He pranced, shifted his hands, and grabbed his subordinates.
His subordinates’ height matched James’. They wore jackets, and their jackets included piles of cloth and lines of plates of steel. They wore shirts, underpants, and tunics of wool. Their tunics reached their knees and featured embroidery and braids. These braids reached their neck, the hems of their tunics, and wrists.
One of the pair of goblins grabbed the other and whispered. “Why is the farmer just standing there?”
A farmer grabbed a pitchfork and closed his eyes. His body and muscles grew and expanded, and a gale of fire emerged, exited his body, and burst. He opened his eyes and grabbed a wheelbarrow.
He retracted his arms, raised the wheelbarrow, charged James, and struck him.
James fell.
His subordinates caught and dropped him.
James hit his head and stood.
He dodged a wheelbarrow, grabbed its handles, and created momentum.
He retracted his leg, and his leg grated the ground.
He struck the user of the wheelbarrow, fell, and tripped him. 
The user fell and hit the side of his head.
James stood as farmers passed him.
The farmers dragged the user of the wheelbarrow and entered a building.
“Who was he?” said one of them. “I’ve never seen anyone beat this man.”
James greeted a child and an adult and gestured. “What are your names?”
“Number Two.”
“Number Seven.”
James stared, but he interrupted himself and left.
His subordinates regarded the child and James’ expressions. 
James shivered.
His subordinates squinted and rubbed the back of their heads.
James grabbed a farmer. “Where are the fishermen?”
The fishermen turned their heads and waved as James sprinted.
“Thanks for the food. Here.” James returned the bowls.
“Might I please ask your name?”
“Alluka.”
James stopped. “Number Two? What does that even mean?”
“Number Two? It’s a ritual. We don’t give names to children. We give them numbers to ensure that they can choose their true name: my name is Alukka. It means ‘valuable.’ When I was young, I chose this name because I believed I was valuable.”
James opened his mouth, gasped, raised his hands, stopped them, and touched his neck. He furrowed his brows, and his mouth quivered. He hugged himself.
The fishermen watched and frowned. “W-what is he doing?”
Tears touched James’ chin.
The fishermen passed him.
James exploded, and his voice carried pain. “You!” He bludgeoned and executed a pair of fishermen, and they stared, screamed, and ran.
James sprinted and grabbed them.
The subordinates jumped, ran, and stopped him.
One of the subordinates exploded.
James stopped and gasped. He hugged the body of his subordinate.
The fishermen left. James forced a smile.
He said: “It’s not your fault. It is not my subordinate’s fault. He chose this, and he died according to his beliefs. But right now, the horrible ones are right in front of me.”
He race-walked.
The other subordinate grabbed James and gestured his disapproval.
James removed his subordinate’s hands, left, and reached the fishermen.
He punched them, and one of them fell and hit his head. “Where’s your food?” James said.
The group of fishermen left, separated, and piles of groups formed.
A fisherman yelled. “Who is he?”
“I don’t know!” said another. “What should we do?”
“Leave them and find a way around. Hide. The forest is big.”
James regarded a group of trees and tripped, and his head hit a branch.
A group of fishermen emerged and attacked him.
He twisted his torso, faced the sky, palmed the ground, and supported himself. He thrust a pair of his fingers and executed the group.
James returned.
A group of children and adults followed James’ subordinate.
James squinted and greeted the group, and his heart raced.
James gestured and asked his subordinate’s name.
His subordinate offered his name. “Broken Tree.”
James regarded the body of the first of his subordinates.
He gestured, but he interrupted himself.
He stuttered. “You’re telling me the meaning? It must mean something else.”
His subordinate, “Broken Tree” understood James’ “something else,” nodded, bowed his head, and compressed his lips.
James grinned and interrupted himself.
He grabbed fruits and fish and fed the group of children and adults. 
“This is not enough. They’re malnourished. Can someone speak for me?”
An adult emerged, carried a box, dropped it, translated his words, and became his translator.
James left, scouted his location, and reviewed his knowledge.
“Confirm, confirm.”
He located a dungeon, and the etching of a pair of giants marked the sides of the dungeon’s opening. “Postponing that for now. Let’s check out this deer.”
A golem formed, crystalized, emerged, broke the ground, opened it, and exited. 
It charged a deer.
The deer attacked it, and the golem exploded and became dust.
A group of fishermen appeared, handed the deer food, and bowed.
James stared and backpedaled.
He extended his hand. 
He aimed it.
He pretended he seized them and closed his hand.
The deer regarded James, and a part of its horn separated. This part flew, gravitated, and the air was its center of gravity. It shattered. The deer shifted its head, and the pieces formed symbols.
The pieces stopped, and a symbol of a tree faced James.
A miniature of the golem formed, crystalized, emerged, broke the ground, opened it, and exited.
It reached the deer, regarded the side of the deer, fell, hit his head, and bowed.
James greeted the deer, waved his hands, and bowed.
The deer backpedaled.
James grabbed the deer, and his demeanor was friendly.
His demeanor grew frustrated as the deer struggled.
The deer stopped.
James removed his hands, and they rubbed themselves.
The deer bowed and fell, and his horns hit the ground. He bowed.
James raised the deer. “Now, show me your power.”
The deer blinked and nodded.
The golem raised its head and regarded James.
James crossed his arms and adjusted his position, and his hands hugged the side of his hips.
The deer shifted its head as a part of its horns shattered. The pieces of this part flew and formed symbols.
James raised his hand. “What’s that?”
The deer gave a triad of nods.
“Decay?”
The deer shook its head.
“Anger?”
The deer shook its head.
“Green?”
The deer tilted its head and nodded.
“Not the answer?”
The deer nodded.
“Poison?”
The deer nodded.
James grabbed the deer and golem, and they left.
Broken Tree saw James’ shadow, and it reached him. He gasped and dropped.
He composed himself.
James emerged, and the deer and golem greeted Broken Tree.
Broken Tree nodded.
As the trees overshadowed the finches and parrots and midnight came, James stared.
Broken Tree woke, grabbed his stomach, and wandered. 
He saw a figure. 
As the figure shouted and cried, Broken Tree rubbed his lower lip and squinted.
Broken Tree left, returned, and slept.
As the bird slept, woke, and sang, James entered a cell.
He listened.
“You don’t deserve anything,” said the farmer. “I knew you when I saw you. Man wearing strange clothes and very sure of where he’s going.”
James gave a triad of nods
The farmer twittered.
He became tired, but he became James’ friend.
“Confirm,” James said.
The farmer raised a brow. “Confirm?” 
James nodded. “Confirmed.”
He left.
James gathered the group of children and adults. His translator, Angel signaled, spoke, and gestured.
The children signaled, separated, and created groups. 
James squinted, raised his hand, and stopped Angel. “Excuse me? What is this?”
Angel raised a brow, interrupted herself, and assumed elegance and a smile. “I’ve separated them.”
“By?”
“By age and male and female.”
James compressed his lips and nodded. “Thank you, thank you. You’re right. Hmm.” He rubbed his lower lip.
The children raised their hands.
“Aren’t you going to pick one?”
James’ face tensed, and he clenched his fists, shoulders, and toes. “What did you say?”
“Aren’t you going to choose one?”
James laughed. “Ah, sorry, no, no. We’re going to leave. We need help. Is there a city nearby where we can go to?”
Angel shook her head. “Not anywhere I’m familiar with, but if you want, we can try the villages down the river.”
“River?”
“Yes.”
James raised his brows.
Angel stared.
“How many do we have right now?”
“50.”
James dismissed her, gestured his support, dismissed himself, and left. 
“Status.”
The children marched.
Broken Tree strolled, tilted his head, and watched them. He bit bread, raised an arm, moved it, and hugged himself. He interrupted his foot, displaced it, aimed it, and lowered its front. He clenched the other of his feet and stretched his back.
The children stopped and raised their hands.
Broken Tree offered them a talk.
A child said, “Praise the prayers of the King.”
Another said, “Please, please, please.”
Another said, “I can’t make it good.”
Another said: “It’s them! They make it so troublesome. Don’t they know order, justice, fairness, and peace?”
Another said, “I don’t know.”
Another said, “Please, just stop them.”
Another said, “I wish I was faster.”
Another said, “I don’t have a reason, but please.”
Another said: “Kill them. They’re bad. They’re horrible. They kill people and hurt them.”
Another said, “Tomorrow, I will live a better life.”
Another said: “See? I can do it if I tried.”
James handed them food and pointed. “You all lived here and survived because of magic. Now, you must learn because you’ll starve on this journey.”
Broken Tree taught the children his magic.
James accepted a lecture.
Broken Tree’s mouth shifted. “I will be introducing all of you to basic magic. Now, please pay your respects.” The children bowed their heads, and James bowed his head.
James rested and listened as days and nights passed and children starved and died.
They entered a village, and it rejected them.
“How do I check how many subordinates I have?” James said. “Subordinates, please.”
Broken Tree woke, rubbed his back, and observed a figure.
This figure climbed a tree and splintered branches. He descended, felled the tree, shouted, and cried.
James woke and clenched his teeth. 
He beat his friend. 
“Thank you,” said James’ friend, Matthew. “I hope to learn more from you.”
James dismissed him, dismissed himself, and left.
“Confirm.”
James shivered and stopped.
He strode, and his shoulders swayed.
Broken Tree raised his hand and greeted him. “When are you going to let it?”
James stopped and stared.
He left.
As warty pigs and deer cried and days and nights passed, James stared.
“I am Grace.”
As James’ deer and golem fought beasts and days and nights passed, James stared, and his body shifted.
They reached a village, and it rejected them.
James entered and sought its authority.
James displayed his power, but he showed restraint.
“Confirm,” he said.
A trio of teenagers listened.
James grabbed a hammer. “I am the Hammer.”
The rest of the peasants of the village fled, reached others, and addressed cottagers. 
These cottagers addressed serfs and laborers, and these laborers addressed soldiers. 
These soldiers addressed lords, and these lords addressed nobles. 
These nobles addressed merchants, and these merchants addressed foreigners.
The trio of teenagers emerged and regarded James.
One of them said, “If you should be willing, we will join you.”
James accepted them.
He and his subordinates ate, drank, cleared a woodland, and uprooted a marsh. 
A flood came.
James and some of his subordinates became sick.
As the rest of his subordinates lived and worked, James recovered.
“Confirm. Status.”
One of James’ teenagers hid and ate stones. 
James said: “Hey, hey. what are you doing?” He sounded afraid.
The teenager raised her brows and apologized.
James dismissed her and left.
The teenager left, hid and sniffed cloth.
James watched her, ran, and shouted. “Hey, what are you doing?”
He itched.
The teenager turned her head.
The skin of James’ face flaked and itched. He touched his face. “What’s this?”
James fetched Broken Tree, and Broken Tree addressed James’ translator.
James’ translator, Sophia, regarded the teenager. “Someone or something did tie her down and hast beshrewed her.”
The teenager hummed and touched her neck. 
“I hate to say this,” she said, “but I don’t think like you do.”
James raised his hand, but he put it down. A memory of himself left his mind.
The teenager and Sophia stared.
James said, “Okay, we take her. The flaky skin. Doesn’t matter. What matters is we get what we need. I’ve already grown frustrated and offended about this matter long, long, long time… ago.”
The teenager raised her brow. “What do you mean—”
Sophia opened her mouth.
She said, “How about—” She interrupted herself. She relaxed, and her voice sounded agreeable. “Um-hum.”
James assumed a demeanor of authority and amenability. He strided, turned, and faced Sophia. “Results.”
Sophia glanced and left.
James crossed his legs, raised a leg, massaged his toes, and stared. “Are you still hear?” He left, dragged a log, and returned. He pulled the log, rotated his torso, dropped the log, and sat down.
“Did you know flocks seen 250 meters apart are highly likely to included different birds?”
James and the teenager left.
A Necromancer Monster Asks for a Smoke Before a Confrontation December 30, 2022
Big, bad monsters crawled out of a hole, and one of them, a young necromancer, pointed at a ceiling light. “I need a smoke.”
“Smoke? You already had one.”
“I need it now.”
“Just don’t do it here while Mr. John is tired and about to snap. It’s him, you know.”
“Ok, but I’ll take a quick one just in case I go ballistic.”
“Oh, please, it will be the end of the universe before you treat people at face value. We all know you treat them like worthless piles of dirt, and that’s not face value no matter how you explain your ‘point.’”
Transported David Coordinates a Goblin Assault on a Bastion December 30, 2022
The wind carried David as he ran through and fro. His mind was racing. He ate a piece of pizza that he never expected would hit so hard. He fell and grabbed his head, and his mouth quivered. “I should really do something about this,” he said, “but I can’t bear to beshrew a monster so bold to death!”
“What did you say?” said a boy, watching David’s shivering hands.
David raised his brows. “Ah, yes, we’ll be going. No matter, we should take our time here where we are.”
The boy raised his brows. His brows were too young to choose only a singular brow and show his disappointment and confusion more clearly.
David smiled. “Yes, I prefer eating donuts. Donuts. Why am I talking about donuts?”
A tall man tapped David’s shoulder. “We’re leaving. Your earth shakies are back again. Now, get in the portal.”
David ran without a word. His mind jumping left and right like a kangaroo on heavy shoes. “I need my medicine.”
“Okay, call them ‘potions’ for one and stop being so paranoid.”
A troll slammed the ground, and the earth shook. David and the tall man shook, but their demeanors reflected serenity. “This here, is our next stop. Remember, David?”
David’s face became blank, and his head spun. He glanced around like a nervous wreck. “I see.” His voice was strangely calm, but this David was the ‘him’ without his interrupted mind. He stopped leading the way and followed the tall man. “John, are the goblins obeying my every order as you promised?”
John nodded. “Take lead this time. Stop being a pussy. Your time is nigh and ripe. Take control, or I’ll be back with a hatchet and slaughter all your chickens.”
David interjected. “No, not my chickens!”
“Oh, yes, chickens taste good. Ok, bye, I’m leaving.”
David raised his hand and gave a slight nod. “I was sure I forgot something here. Where’s my pliers?”
A goblin eating a mango stared.
David grabbed the mango and took a bite.
The goblin froze and dropped his jaw.
David returned it and charged the forest. His body ached because he had slammed his back against the wall.
The goblin handed him a pouch.
David grabbed it and showed him a map. “Ok, ok, get goblin 2b group right over here, and the rest, you can just swallow some goodies and fall asleep, you get me?”
The goblin gave a slow nod as he processed David’s words because of his foreign accent.
David smiled. “Ok, we go.”
The goblin ran and left.
David huffed and summoned a small dragon. “Ok, this dragon is about as strong as two goblins. If I can get it over there, then, we’ll be good. Just barely enough… passable. Either way, whatever happens, this is it. We’re taking over the bastion.”
Two goblins stared. “We had this guy talk about this twelve times already. Should we be concerned?”