As the monster lure tower went up, sunset lingered on the horizon.

A good 15 wyvern dog bodies slowly cooled in the evening air. The tower reached high, and soon lights appeared on it, along with words repeating in a loop and written down in a few different languages on stone around the area.

‘Attention goblins! We’re requesting peace!’

Mark thought it absolutely insane, but it was part of the mission.

Isoko moved her scanning glasses to the top of her head and told Mark, “You know. We’re not learning anything if you drop them before we get a chance to even fight. I’m not complaining, mind you. Just pointing out something.”

Mark looked around, studying the street intersection.

Eliot had set up their glasses to show them goblins as blue glows, and Mark saw no blue glows.

Eliot could not actually scan for monsters, either. That’s not how his Power worked at all. He could only affect man-made things, and that meant that he couldn’t touch monsters at all. But he could take in information from around the nearby world and sort it based on if he could manipulate it, or not. That’s how Eliot scanned for monsters. All of Earth was filled with radio waves and human-made pollution and this was even a former human city, so the very air was ‘tainted’ with humanity.

So Eliot scanned for absences.

Mark spied the world through his glasses, and saw differences.

Spider webs dried in the broken windows of the streets ahead, rimmed in grey on the screen over Mark’s eyes. Some spiders lingered in the dark, not wanting to venture into the open at all; they were rimmed in solid white. The wyverns, dead and cooling on the ground, were rimmed in red that was already fading, because they had been killed by people so they were no longer ‘monster made’. Not wholly.

Eliot had marked the goblins as blue, and Mark did not see any real blue presences. He did see some faint blue impressions on the ground far ahead, but they were just smudges. Footprints. Handprints.

Mark continued to look around with the glasses, searching for threats, as he said, “Of course this is terrible for real world experience, Isoko, but we’re all still stressing our bodies a lot. I think Eliot is growing the most, but you started off at PL31, yeah? The scanner was reading you as barely tier 3 before, but it’s reading you as clearly tier 3 right now.”

Isoko watched as Eliot tinkered with the lure tower. A smiling goblin took shape in holograms in the air above the tower. The holographic goblin waved toward the west, toward the goblin territory. And then a person appeared. The holographic person stood with the goblin, and then they shook hands— And then the light show flickered and messed up.

Eliot hummed in annoyance. He fixed it. Soon, the lightshow was working properly, the goblin and human shaking hands and then the goblin walking away through a portal, back to Daihoon. The human waved goodbye.

Now if that didn’t count as an attempt at peace, then fuck the attempt at peace.

Isoko added, “I meant like battle experience.”

“We’ll get a lot of that soon enough,” Mark said, “And with enemies that aren’t just monsters.”

Isoko hefted her mace and flipped her glasses back down, saying, “I just want to kill a wyvern without assistance once.”

“Sure.” Mark pulled his Union back from her.

Isoko suddenly slumped a little, her Pure Platinum form fading a bit to grey, her mace turning too heavy and falling almost to the ground, but she rallied. She gripped the mace and held it off the ground as she said, “Ah, fuck. You were buffing me that much?”

“More like all the monsters watching us right now are buffing you that much, and I am just the vector for that. Mostly spiders, though. They’re too far away to think about attacking us.” Mark asked, “You sure about that?”

Isoko said, “Not so much at the moment, but yeah. I still am. I think some dogs are coming this way, down the street.” She pointed.

Mark looked that way and saw some small signatures down the way; outlines in red on his glasses. “Pretty far.” He looked up at the glowing goblin tower. “The light attracts them, yeah?”

Isoko said, “Light, noise, etcetera. Some monsters are thermal detectors, too. Most reptiles are heat-seekers. The wyverns are like that.”

Eliot patted the side of the lit-up tower and the electronics he had been working on slipped into the tower and then covered over in stone. The illuminated goblin-hologram at the top continued to wave and chuckle and beckon on a loop, toward the west. The human continued to appear and shake hands, and then send the goblin back to Daihoon.

Eliot said, “Okay! We’re good! Peace attempt established and connection established. Scanners active. Back to base!”

Eliot led the way back east, with Isoko and Mark following, and then Isoko taking point.

David walked to their sides.

Mark asked, “How are we doing so far, David?”

David said, “Unless something strange happens this mission is honestly way below all three of you, and especially together.” He frowned. “So let’s hope nothing strange happens.”

Lisa walked beside Mark, asking, “Why would anything strange happen?”

Mark shrugged. “Always a possibility.” He looked down at Lisa, and the small woman was getting kinda close, out of formation, which was rather weird of her.

Also…

Something else was wrong.

Mark’s glasses, from Eliot, rimmed Lisa in bright blue, and also Lisa was wearing… well. Nothing. But she had been in a battle, right? And so her clothes were ripped. And yet, Eliot should have fixed that, like he did all their other clothes.

… And the glasses rimmed her in blue, and blue meant ‘goblin’.

That’s how Eliot had set it up.

That’s how it still worked.

And then Lisa opened her mouth a meter away from Mark, and that was probably the only reason that Mark instinctively leapt away from her, pulling his hand back as her teeth snapped on empty air.

Mark slammed Lisa with all of his negative Union, dropping her to the ground, while connecting positively to Isoko, Eliot, David, and Juan.

Lisa fell to the ground, fainting.

Mark looked at his group. Eliot, David, and Isoko were all untouched by the scan of the glasses, but Juan was rimmed in blue.

Juan was going to bite Eliot’s right thigh.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

David moved fast.

Suddenly he had two heads in his hands.

Lisa and Juan’s heads.

Mark felt a terrible sort of itch in his head as he saw the heads of two of his friends in David’s hands, but he also saw them as green-skinned and with big ears, bright yellow eyes, and nasty, pointed teeth. Eliot gasped as he grabbed his head, while Isoko blinked a little.

Eliot groaned, “No no, stupid fucking… mind shit. Fuck.”

Isoko yelled, “Where the FUCK did they come from?!”

David said, “Listen up.”

All eyes turned toward David.

David had several goblin heads sitting on the ground around him, and also Lisa and Juan’s heads still in his hands.

Mark felt his stomach drop.

David said, “The goblins have been observing us for the last hour, but they have been in the area for days now.

“The goblins infected a hive mind spider and colony. This was in the briefing. You all should have been wary of possible Mind Powers.

“This sort of shit is normal out there in the wilds.

“You will meet problems like this in the future, and especially among goblin populations. If they didn’t view humanity as food and Power sources, then perhaps they could be reasoned with, but they are what they are, and we are what we are, and so, they cannot be reasoned with, ever. They will always attack, and you will always kill them whenever you can.

“Things like this are why people stay in walled cities as much as possible, and why those who hunt monsters are respected and valued, and never killed, unless they are killers themselves.

“Mind powers like this are pretty normal among monsters. Hive Mind being the most common one. I would classify this particular variant as ‘Mind Nudge’. Power Level 35, max. Mind Control is exceedingly rare, and almost never shows up among the monsters. It is mostly a human thing.

“Isoko,” David said, as he looked toward the girl. Isoko seemed worried, but then again, who wasn’t. David said, “You would have been immune to their Mind Nudge if Mark had been connected to you and passively buffing you just as he already was. You will rise above being susceptible to this when you get past tier 3, and enter tier 4. That said, the goblins specifically waited for you to remove yourself from Mark’s buffing, and they correctly guessed that you would try that, because you looked like you were getting bored with easy kills.

“Mark. You should have been immune to their Mind Nudge if you were focused on resilience against mind effects. As it was, you were just somewhat immune. They took a chance when they decided to attack, because they saw openings and they had to take them.

“Eliot. I have no notes for you. You did everything well, but you’ll always be weak toward mind stuff; it is your main weakness. In a normal mission, you would have a circlet of clear mind, at least.” David dropped the heads onto the ground with the rest of the pile, and left them there. “Also, all of you were talking about skills and shit out in the open. I won’t blame you for that; not overly so. But you shouldn’t do that in a normal monster hunt, for variants like these two goblins show up all the time. Keep that sort of talk hidden behind walls. Ideally, you all would have helmets that could keep your voices to yourselves.”

Mark was already frantically adding the idea of resilience against Mind Powers to his ideas of Union, along with removing the weakness of being affected by Mind Powers.

The full brush of the danger they were in revealed itself in a rush of blue light all throughout the vision of the scanners. Blue light lingered all over the street. Everywhere, really. In the windows, on the edges of rooftops, and by the bodies of the fallen wyvern dogs.

Mark saw bites taken out of the wyvern dogs. Those bites had not been there before.

David continued, “In light of this development, and your discovery of it, I’m declaring that your illuminated offer of peace is good enough. Only the most idiotic of sponsors would ever demand more of you past this point, and any such sponsor should be ignored completely if they would continue to suggest such a requirement. Except in the most extraordinary of circumstances —of which this is NOT— such a person would be considered under mind control themselves, and should be quarantined.

“This is now an absolute extermination mission. They’ll come at us at night, at full strength with dark to cloak them, and we need proper defenses.

“Let’s get back to base.”

Isoko started running, her face solid with focus. Eliot followed, looking a bit panicky.

Mark took up the rear, feeling uneasy.

David moved with an easy walk, letting everyone get far ahead of him, and then he reappeared in front of everyone, before he reappeared to the side. He was looking at everything, but also not really looking at anything at all.

Blue was everywhere on the scanners, and Mark was absolutely sure that he saw goblin heads duck down behind broken windows here and there. Mark thought that the goblins might be especially wary of David, but more than willing to attack him, Isoko, and Eliot, if they could. Which was just insane of them. But they didn’t care about losses, did they. They could always make more goblins.

Mark and his people reached the base.

The base had some blue markings on the walls and going up the stairs, but the goblins had not breached the interior. They hadn’t even gotten near the doors, and there were no openings for them to get inside any other way.

Eliot easily opened the doors, into the bright lights of the central room of the base—

Isoko rushed ahead. “Let me check!”

Isoko got into the room. She looked around.

Eliot looked panicky again. He busied himself with smoothing out the walls of the place, making them sheer surfaces, only for his eyes to go wide when he saw where little goblin hands had gripped onto the rock, preventing those parts from being affected by Man-made Manipulation.

Mark calmed himself and he tried to calm Eliot, too, breathing out the bad and taking in the good—

“Clear!” Isoko said, inside the place.

Eliot went inside, saying, “Thank the gods!” He couldn’t wait for everyone to get inside before he exclaimed, “FUCKING HELL?! Mind goblins?!”

Mark went inside and David followed, closing the door behind them.

Eliot was already rushing toward his scanning machine. He got to it, and then paused.

Mark saw that the screen was flickering weirdly. All of the screens on the security guard wall were being weird, too.

Eliot exclaimed, “FUCK! They broke it—” He pulled back and declared, “I can fix this! I can fix this, for sure.” He started flowing parts out from a hole in the floor.

Isoko chuckled nervously. “Ahh! Good news; you can fix it!” She muttered, “They broke it that easily, though?”

Eliot said nothing.

David spoke up, “The other good news is that we won’t have to seek out the goblins. They will come here to attack us. The only thing you have to figure out is how to kill them all. Honestly, that was your main plan anyway, and now they have no element of surprise. So this is good.”

Silence.

Mark clapped his hands. “Yup! This is good! Love a clear mission! Kill the goblins.”

Isoko and Eliot had a moment.

And then Isoko asked Eliot, “Can you make spears on wire that I can throw and pull back from the roof?”

Eliot said, “I can do that. I need to make traps out there on the other nearby buildings, so I’ll need you to get some practice throwing against the far buildings. Are you able to Tactile Telekinesis yet?”

“Not fully, but I’m hoping to get there fast.”

Mark started breathing in sustenance and breathing out deprivation, including the monster tree in the Union, while his heart pulsed resilience and weakness to and from his party, and also David. He asked David, “How do you do detection with Union? I can generally tell the distance out there to that giant tree, but I haven’t been able to figure out actual detection yet?”

David said, “I can’t help you with that. I have the power gifted to me; I don’t know how it actually works. I can just feel where my astral body touches. Can you do the same?”

Mark frowned a little, trying to sense what he could.

Once, on his first day at Healing Club, Mark had been able to ‘see’ the threads that made up his astral body. They had appeared to him even when his eyes were closed. He hadn’t been able to replicate that situation since then. He had needed visual clarity to a target, or at least to know where a target was, first. He hadn’t been able to target anything when he didn’t know where it was…

Oh.

Wait.

There was a bank of screens over there, that security guard station.

… Mark wanted something better.

Mark said, “Eliot. I need a holodisplay of the nearby scan for goblins, please. In the middle of the room.”

Eliot perked up. “Good idea! Much better than all the cameras.”

David said, “I like the cameras.”

Somehow Mark felt safer with David making jokes.