Reaching into one of my many pockets, I took out a piece of meat wrapped in paper fresh from the butcher. I had managed to carve a piece from the cut of cow that the geezer had bought earlier in the day.

I stuck the small piece of meat through a stick I carved into a sharpened point. Then I built a quick fire by gathering the wood shavings from the wooden spit into a pile. Putting a few more sticks around the shavings, it looked good enough.

I didn’t have a flint and steel, which is what most people used to start a fire around these parts. But I did have two small pouches of chare leaves and magan rose petals. Taking a leaf and a petal, I put them between my thumb and index finger and rubbed them together. Soon enough they began to smoke and I quickly flicked the combo into the wood shavings. The shavings caught fire, and it quickly spread until I had a nice crackling fire going.

I shaved two more sticks into pointed ends and stabbed them into the soft earth on either side of the fire. Taking the spit, I laid it gently between the two sticks above the fire. I made sure the meat was far enough above the fire to slowly cook it and not charr the meat.

Then, I shimmied up a tree and waited.

According to my limited knowledge of monsters, they were attracted to the smell of cooking meat. I had heard a couple of stories from passing adventurers who complained about suddenly getting attacked whenever they wanted to eat a hot meal out in the forest. If there were not enough people in the group, the monsters would attack. The smell was like a homing beacon to monsters.

I waited. And waited… Aaaaand waited.

Damn! This was taking forever. The shadows were getting longer and longer as the time passed and the meat was beginning to dry out from the constant low heat. Then I heard a twig snap.

Out of the bushes walked a green figure that walked on two legs. It had a long sharp nose and pointed bat-like ears. Its eyes were large, with big pupils to match. It was a goblin.

The monster mostly walked on two legs, but would sometimes crouch down on all fours and crawl forward a bit while looking around itself. The creature had a filthy piece of fabric wrapped around its groin that wasn’t doing much to hide anything. It didn’t carry any weapons, except its naturally sharp dirty brown nails and its pointed teeth inside that wide mouth of its.

It seemed to be alone, which was odd. Goblins usually travelled in groups. But it didn’t matter too much. A goblin head definitely counted as not stupid.

I watched as the goblin crouch-walked towards the meat. It reached out and grabbed the stick and began to gnaw on the meat, holding either side of the stick in its dirty hands.

Grabbing my knife tighter, I prepared to jump down on top of it.

Suddenly, a small white spike struck the goblin in the throat. The goblin's eyes widened as it reached up and pulled the small needle-like spike out. After it did so, blood began to gush out of the wound. It seemed it hit an artery.

The goblin desperately tried to stop the bleeding, but another small projectile struck it. Then another. And another. Soon enough, the goblin fell over dead in a pool of its own blood. White spikes littered its body, creating many small injuries that gushed obscene amounts of blood. Really, too much blood. I wouldn’t have thought that so much blood would pour out of such small wounds.

Deciding I would rather not get stuck with one of those spikes, I waited.

For a good while, nothing else happened, and it was silent except for the rustling of leaves in the slight breeze. It seemed that this hunter was cautious.

Finally, as the sun was halfway gone over the horizon, I saw something move. A small creature crawled out of a knot hole in a tree and down onto the ground. It was a small thing. It looked humanish, but a lot smaller, only standing at 20cm tall. Its head was unproportionately large and pointed, with a large third eye in the middle of it. It wore nothing, with its skin seemingly made of the same bark as the surrounding trees. It also carried an adorable miniature bow along with some white arrows.

What a little bugger.

I stayed still. I did not know if this was a monster or a subhuman race. Goblins were easy, everyone knew that goblins were monsters, but this thing? I didn’t know what it was.

And so I waited and watched as the thing approached the goblin corpse. Instead of cutting off the goblin's ears as any adventurer would, the thing instead headed toward the goblin's stomach. And took a huge bite out of it…

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Okay. Nothing that was sane would eat a goblin. Even if this thing wasn’t a monster, which it most definitely is, I would be doing everyone a favour by killing this insane subhuman.

And so I dropped from the tree.

My feet landed a moment before my knife descended. But that was enough time for the little creature to fling itself to the side, only taking a large cut on its side instead of through its spine.

In return, it drew its bow and shot one of its small white arrows at me. I tried to dodge but still got hit in the arm. I quickly pulled the arrow out in panic but quickly regretted it. The wound opened more and blood began to flow.

The arrow had barbs!

Now angry, I charged at the little creature, my longer steps quickly overtaking its fleeing form. I went for a classic football tackle and managed to grab it.

I squeezed and then yelped as it stuck one of its arrows into my left palm.

My grip loosened and the thing managed to wriggle out. But it was now out of arrows. The few others it had carried were now on the ground, it having abandoned them in order to escape my grasp.

“Looks like your out, you little shit! Hehe, I’m gonna enjoy this.”

Then the thing did something unexpected. Its mouth seemingly peeled open like an orange, revealing another arrow growing out of its gums. The thing grabbed the arrow and pulled it out with a small spurt of blood.

“Oh no you don’t!”

I went for another tackle with my other hand, intent to squeeze the life out of the little devil. I managed to grab and squeeze before it managed to knock its new homegrown arrow.

I felt its head burst beneath my hand like an extra large grape, but not before I felt a cut on my wrist.

Quickly pulling my hand back revealed that the bugger had cut my wrist. And it was bleeding like crazy!

“Shit, shit, shit, SHIT!”

I tried to staunch the bleeding with the hems of my robe, but it just wouldn't stop! Thinking quickly, I grabbed a chare and magan and rubbed the two together. When it began to smoke, I pressed the combo against my cut wrist.

“FUUUUUCK!!”

It hurt. It hurt a LOT. Burning was a special kind of pain like no other. It just had that special oomph that made it hurt like a motherfucker!

Looking at the wound, it was still fucking bleeding!

“Fuck it.”

Deciding to do two birds with one stone, I pulled the arrow out of my left palm with my quickly weakening right hand with a burst of blood like opening a champagne bottle. I then grabbed half a handful of petals and leaves each, put them between my hands, and began to rub. When it began to smoke, I pressed my left palm against my right wrist and hissed as the burning returned greater than before.

Black began to cloud my vision.

…

“What?”

I woke up with a start to the last rays of sunlight bouncing off the white trees around me.

“Shit. I blacked out.”

Looking down at my wrist and palm, I saw angry red skin. But thankfully, it had stopped bleeding. Although I did feel a bit woozy. Looking at my arm, it had stopped bleeding on its own.

I reached into my pocket and grabbed a small cross-root with a wince. I threw the root in my mouth and began to chew. It was unbelievably bitter, but it was an important ingredient in health potions. By itself, it was not nearly as effective, but it should boost my blood regeneration by a margin and help stabilize me. At least enough to get back to town.

I lay on the ground for a few more minutes before I hoisted myself up. I began the trek back, but stopped after a few steps and looked back.

The little creature's head was ruined, splattered on the ground, barely recognizable as anything. But the goblin head, now that one was still intact.

I took out my knife and began the icky process of cutting the goblin's head from its body. I had a bit of trouble getting through the spine, trying to saw with the knife. Finally, I just stomped on it and managed to snap the bone a bit. Then I dug my knife into the gap and used leverage to pry the bone open more until the head finally came off.

…

In a rundown bar, Donny sat on a stool and cleaned his glass. He didn’t know why he cleaned a glass constantly, perhaps he just needed his hands to be kept busy. Some people did not take kindly to being pickpocketed. Yes. It was much better to just overcharge people for drinks instead. Much safer. So perhaps it was for the best that his hands were kept busy, for his own sake.

The sun outside had fallen, and the only illumination now were the candles, giving the rundown bar an even dirtier vibe. But he didn’t care. His place was the only mercenary guild hall in town. Though calling it a hall was a bit much considering the state of the place.

Nevertheless, if the mercenaries around here wanted to get paid, they would have to come here. And as their kind do, they waste almost all their money on the drinks at his bar. Everywhere else they would get dirty looks, but not here. Here, they were accepted… Until they get robbed in a back alley somewhere by some of their fellow patrons.

Yup, his life was good. The bar was practically hopping tonight too. The night shift eye-candy Patricia was doing good work, allowing him to sit on his bench, clean his glass, and rake in the cash.

The door opened and let in a breath of fresh air to the smell of alcohol and sweat in the bar. With the breeze came the unmistakable metallic tang of blood.

Donny couldn’t see who came in, as they were short enough to be obscured by the bodies present in the bar. Then a hand reached up for the counter, as the other hefted a goblin head by the ear onto the wooden top.

The head landed with an audible thunk.

“I got your head, fat ass.”

Donny gave a chuckle. He liked this little girl's spunk. He only wondered how long she could keep it.