One hit meant death and Alexander had been caught by surprise. As he jerked his sight towards the rapidly approaching green shape, he felt that he’d never focused on a creature more. The blue tongue, out of the mouth and pushing against its cheek, bent and buckled like a flag in a storm.
It seemed the goblin completely forgot to control the expression on its face when it saw Alexander, a poor defenceless meal. This was an opportunity, a time for fresh meat and delicious blood. What stopped it from getting this? A kid in a wheelchair? What a joke.
It admitted that the skeleton looked scary though, but it knew that skeletons couldn’t move. How was one standing up then? Well, truthfully, that thought never crossed its mind.
Just as quickly as Alexander noticed the expression on the goblin’s face, did he notice the large pickaxe dragging behind the goblin. It was almost as long as the goblin, and had been constructed by wrapping some sort of wire against the top of a thick stick and around a piece of sharp metal. One swing by that thing could easily cave in a skull.
As the goblin approached closer, the thoughts in Alexander’s head sped up. He’d never felt this way when practising with Morticous. These feelings were much more primal, the sense of stress much more elevated, but within that stress there was a calm and focus which took over him.
Even though goblins commonly travelled within groups, that didn’t mean they weren’t deadly alone. The main difference between them and a human child was their animalistic ferocity. They would do anything to win a fight, because unlike humans, they didn’t need to be riled up. A human could never press their fingers into the opponents eyes and bite at them from the start of the fight. They needed to be angered, frustrated, stressed, desperate.
On the other hand, a goblin didn’t need any of that. The second it got on its opponent it would use any method available to win, no limit on its brutality. They’d scratch, bite, headbutt and fight until their muscles didn’t allow them any further. This ferocity was what made goblins so dangerous.
Alexander had noticed how the goblin was completely focused on him and quickly formulated a plan on how to use that. He kept his skeleton still as he quickly moved about one metre behind and to the right of the skeleton.
When the goblin reached Alexander, saliva wetting its entire chin, it jumped up into the air, pickaxe swung high and ready to fall down. In its mind, the pickaxe was already firmly implanted into Alexander's head, piercing the part between his eyes, crunching those chewy bits of bone and giving way to the delicious, raw, flavourful brain, letting the blood flood out onto his face.
A bony leg slammed into its temple.
Confusion. That was what the goblin felt. Confusion, shock, and a whole lot of pain. What was it that had punched it? Why couldn't he taste those succulent bits of brain splattered in his face? It tried to figure that out, but before it had a chance to stand up or regain its thoughts, another kick hit its chin. Its balance disappeared, as if it had never had it from the start, and it slumped down onto the floor.
The skeleton stomped on the goblin’s head once. Blood began seeping out. Twice. Alexander heard a crack. Thrice. Alexander threw up, removing whatever poor excuse of a lunch he’d had with Morticous.
You have killed one common mining goblin.
10 experience gained.
The bloody head beneath his skeletons feet was filling up all of his sight. Slowly the adrenaline and shock seeped out of him, leaving him alone with this carnage. He gagged again. He couldn’t pinpoint the moment when the goblin had stopped being one, and turned into a bloody pulp instead. It wasn’t a memory in his head, as if a part of him hadn't thought it important to remember.
He couldn’t judge himself for that. He was in a life or death scenario, the state of another being, of the being attacking him, wasn’t something he could sit and take into account. That would take energy, something he could not afford to give away.
He slumped down restlessly into his wheelchair, letting tears well up in his eye. He felt that a distinct part of his humanity had disappeared with this. It wasn’t just losing his innocence. There was something deeper there. If he did this enough he’d transform into a monster, somebody he could not recognize in the mirror. He’d lose himself.
“Oh,” the merchant said, “you survived? You’ve got incredible luck, you should be happy for that.”
“Piss of-” Alexander said and stopped himself. That had been his voice, but it had sounded like somebody else entirely. “I was going to die, and you didn’t do anything to help me?”
“Sir, I’m sorry to say this but I’m not allowed to leave this store. Truthfully, I wasn’t allowed to warn you of the goblin.”
It was true that she had warned him off the goblin even though she was not allowed to help, but it was also true that she left him to what she thought was his death because she was not allowed to help. Alexander could relate with it to a part though, she had no obligation to him, this was her job. She had been instructed to act this way by another person, and it was that person Alexander had an issue with.
Although, that didn’t change the callous way she had closed the shop and left him to his fate. She was not an ally or a friend, but she wasn’t completely heartless either. She cared, but it must have been exhausting to work a job like that, look thousands of people in the eye and know they would die. Attachment would be hell in a position like that.
“My bad,” Alexander swallowed. “I let my anger get the best of me.”
He said this and turned away, putting his focus on the goblin corpse once again. Apart from the disgust in his mind, curiosity also filled it. He wondered if he could cast [Raise Undead] on the goblin.
He instructed his skeleton to pick up the goblin. It grabbed the goblin beneath the shoulders and slowly brought it up. Alexander felt more mana rush into the skeleton, but it was still within what he could handle. It was clear that this was just about the limit of what the skeleton could deal with in weight, although that would change as it grew stronger.
The goblin’s skin was warm to the touch. It reminded Alexander that this had been a living, breathing creature just a few seconds ago, and now he was about to transform it into his puppet. He couldn’t just do that without paying some sort of attribute.
“Thank you,” he whispered at the corpse.
He cast [Raise Undead]. His body hurt as he felt the mana within him twist and turn and flood into the goblin’s corpse. This spell would only animate the bones, which meant that all the extra weight on the goblin would pull on his mana.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
He thought about using the pickaxe to gouge out the goblin’s stomach, but he didn’t think he could handle the sight of that. When the spell finished casting, he felt another tug at his mana supply.
As the goblin stood and moved, it pulled much more on his mana supply than the skeleton did. It was only because of the demon that he could handle this extra strain on his mana. He certainly couldn’t support another goblin unless he skinned them completely and separated the bone from the body, but that was not something he had the time or will to do.
Blood still gushed from the goblin, now at a much faster speed than before as the goblin’s body had completely given up on regenerating. The little crack of skin on the side of its temple spilled out all the blood left flowing onto the ground. It smelled foul, like the smell of red meat, but thick.
Alexander got a good look of the goblin now that it was undead and it had a whole other sense of horror to it now. The whites of the goblin’s eyes disappeared, being replaced by black. The blood had dried, becoming like red hair lying flat against the skin. The goblin’s pupils had a void even blacker than the rest of its eyes. There was no emotion . Not a single desire or fear left, just an empty shell .
He was one step closer to being able to deal with the giant goblin.
He motioned for his skeleton to pick up the pickaxe. The weight of the weapon was heavily distributed on one side. This meant that if the skeleton swung, and missed, the enemy would get a chance to strike, something his undead currently couldn’t handle. He needed to make sure he'd put his skeleton in a position where it couldn’t miss.
He continued into the tunnel.
After some walking, he saw something which didn’t seem to belong within the cave. There was a copper chest against the wall. After he’d sent his goblin forward to check if it was a mimic, he approached the chest. Could this be another one of the tower’s implementations?
He pressed the button, and the chest slowly opened with a bright shine. Quickly, he jerked his head to the left and right and found himself very happy to be alone. He wasn’t going to open any chests in public, that was for sure.
He saw a wooden stick float up and he wondered if he’d gotten lucky with a wand.
Wand of Gzza
(Holy class item)
Decreases mana regeneration by 1
Increases mana potency by 2
This wand is imbued with the spell corpse purification. Cast it on a corpse to make it impossible a necromancer or any other dark aligned classes to use the corpse.
“What?” Alexander said out loud. The tower really was against him, and it wasn’t trying to hide it in any way. He tried grabbing the wand but it sizzled against his hand. A sneer formed on his face as he jerked his hand back. He tried letting the goblin carry it but a yellow flame emitted from the wand, burning the goblin’s hand. The burn quickly turned the goblin’s hand black, and it seemed it would become ash soon after.
Alexander noted that it was strange seeing a hand being burned and not hearing any grunt or scream whatsoever.
He thought of carrying the chest itself with the wand inside but it would be too heavy for his skeletons to handle. He moved away from the chest and towards the tunnel, and it didn’t take long before another thing took his attention.
There was a goblin desperately dragging itself across the floor, leaving behind a trail of blood. A sword with a white pommel had pierced it from behind. It’s face was clenched in pain, and Alexander instructed his skeleton to end it.
You have killed one common mining goblin.
10 experience gained.
Level up!
Two attribute points gained.
Morticous had spoken of this. The 500% increase that came from the demon would affect his base stat, which meant that for each point he invested into mana regeneration, he’d get five in return. It also meant that any point that went into his vitality would give him one tenth in return.
“[Interface],” he said.
Alexander Gray
Level: 1
Class: [None]
Race: [Human]
Stats:
Unallocated stat points: 2
Reflex: 2
Agility: 1
Strength: 1
Stamina: 2
Vitality: 1 (90% decrease)
Toughness: 2
Mana regen: 1 (500% increase)
Mana: 1
Mana potency: 1
Mana speed: 1
Spells: [Raise Undead] lvl 1, [Mana Bolt] lvl 1
Skills:
Titles:
Contracts: [Oath Bound], [Mortician's Apprentice], [Spirit Holder]
He put both of his points into mana regeneration, effectively making his mana regeneration stat 15. Morticous said this would hurt, and it did like hell. He felt something within him grow, and the icy feeling of mana expanded within him, somehow occupying the same space. He felt the pressure on his mana channels increase, and he also felt the mana push its way into other channels which had been blocked before, like water breaking through a dam.
When the process was done he felt like new life had been put into him. He could handle more units now. Sure, they’d collapse dead after only one strike to the ribcage, but that just meant he needed to play his cards properly.
Alexander cast the raise dead spell on the goblin in front of him, but nothing happened. It seemed that all the energy he was putting into the goblin disappeared and it only took him a moment before his sight fell on the sword. He let the goblin he controlled touch it, this time only with its pinky, and the yellow flame appeared.
It was a holy sword, and it had been embedded deep with the goblin. Alexander commanded the skeleton to knock the sword out of the goblin with the pickaxe, and it did so, taking a large part of flesh with it and cracking a large bone. It had been the spine.
There was no point to resurrecting the goblin anymore, however the trail of blood still held interest to him. He deduced that there had been a fight in front of him. He also deduced that whomever the sword belonged to, probably wouldn’t abandon it, which meant that they were too hurt to follow after the goblin.
He followed the trail of blood. The tunnel he was in became a bigger, larger room, and in the middle of the room he saw seven goblin corpses, diced and cleaved on the floor soaking with blood, and in the very middle he saw another human.
Immediately he made his skeleton drop the picaxe and rush over towards the human. He made it flip the human over so that it’s head faced upwards in an effort to see if they were still alive.
The human had lied on his stomach bleeding for a few minutes. The blood and pressure had finally gotten so tight that no more flooded out, and when Alexander flipped him over, blood once again flowed out, killing the man.
Congratulations!
Due to being the first person in the tower to kill another unit, you have been given the unique title Eager for Murder.
This title gives the unique skill [Blood Lust]. A faint red line will appear when you are within 100 hundred metres of someone near death.
(This title can not be hidden)