He could hear two voices talking in hushed tones, speaking words that seemed to make sense at the start but suddenly trailed off into nothingness, pretty much being regarded as gibberish to him. Two silhouettes came into view as he felt as though rain was lightly tickling his entire face...
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"Corrrrrn! Wake uuup!" A girl spoke as she grabbed the boy by the collar.
He felt as though his entire body was now being violently knocked around, as he groggily opened his eyes to a dimly lit stone room. Corn looked to his left with slightly closed eyes his line of sight meeting a green skinned, short, and chubby girl with a wide nose, warts on her skin, and tusks staring at him. To many people who would see her, her appearance would most definitely be regarded as extremely ugly, but since Corn was so accustomed to living in this environment, he had no extremely animated reaction.
"Leley...What's up?" Corn began as he rubbed the back of his scruffy unkempt hair, sitting up and finally standing out of bed, proceeding to stretch and yawn a bit.
"Today's the day! It's the day you and Klobbert both contest for Village lieutenant!" Leley said, slightly hopping up and down excitedly.
After completing his stretches, and throwing a torn brown shirt on, he smirked and ran out of the door of his stone hut taking the torch that lit his room with him. As he ran out he was met with multiple stone and dirt hut's while running across a mossy pathway. Many Goblins were up, shopping stalls were opening in the village and people were beginning to go about their day, many watching him run.
"W-Wait for me!!" Leley yelled, frantically chasing after him, struggling to keep up with him at all due to his advanced physical capabilities compared to her.
As he finally got deeper into the village from his own home, he slowed down and decided to jog so he wouldn't knock anyone down to the ground.
"Morning Corn, take this!" An Old Goblin lady yelled, throwing a weird looking green fruit with yellow spots towards Corn, who caught it while moving.
"Thanks Bartee!" Corn smiled, biting into the fruit which turned out to contain a yellowy and juicy inside.
"Hope you slept well Corn!", someone cheered.
"Good luck on that Lieutenant spot Corn!", another person yelled.
People continued to cheer on Corn as he ran by. He was pretty well regarded within this community of Goblins, thanks to living there for pretty much his entire life. Eventually he arrived to where he was running to, a clear water river that came from deep into the vast underground cavern in which the Goblin's lived. The Village which Corn lived in was called "Ishi Village", and was one of the thousands of Goblin villages in the underground kingdom of Goblin's.
Corn threw off his shirt off and onto the mossy, rocky riverbed and jumped straight into the cold river water, which instantly woke him up even more. He poked his head up out of the water, panting as his long brown stuck to his back and shoulders. As he moved hair out of his face, he noticed a figure in the distance running slowly as it got closer and closer. It turned out to be the panting Leley, who put her hands on her knees while sweating, looking at Corn who was bathing with an annoyed and pouty look on her face.
"You're always running off without me!!" She stomped the ground angrily as Corn laughed at her little temper tantrum.
From behind her, came a short stubby old Goblin with a wrinkled warty face. He held a an old looking wooden cane with both hands for stability, had an extremely hunched back, and wore brown tattered robes.
"CORN! You should be preparing for your fight you little gremlin!" The old Goblin yelled, forcing Leley to cover her ears in surprise and for Corn to laugh a little harder while in the water. He dragged himself out and put his shirt back on, flailing his hair about to dry it off, water spraying everywhere and even on the two Goblin's in front of him, who both did not pay much attention to it at all.
"Take it easy Grandpa Klornk! I'll be fine in that fight! After all, I'll probably pummel that shorty Klobbert into the ground anyway! Ahahaha!" He laughs proudly while slapping his Grandpa's back, who looked as though he was now in a blistering amount of pain.
Conk slapped Corn's hand away and began violently lecturing him, "I DIDN'T TAKE YOU IN AND RAISE YOU TO BE A SLACKER! BEING LIEUTENANT AND WINNING AGAINST KLOBBERT SHOULD BE THE LEAST OF YOUR WORRIES! YOU SHOULD KEEP AIMING HIGHER AND--"
As he went on and on, both Leley and Corn had their ears covered, his yelling and overbearing attitude greatly disturbing their ear canals. Klobbert noticed them inching away before immediately grabbing the scruffs of their necks, causing the both of them to yelp out in irritation and surprise.
"The contest for Lieutenant is in an hour! We have to get you prepared!" Grandpa Klornk ordered with a nod.
Corn groaned and crossed his arms, wanting to take at least a day off from practice, while Leley looked down at her feet in confusion as she was dragged away.
"Why me too?" She asked with a blank expression.
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The hour arrived, as hoards of village residents, village fighters, and even the village protection Captain gathered in the town square. The Captain wore some tattered white robes, an extremely serious expression pasted on his face even if he had a rather huge nose that made Corn cackle a little. The stone floor centre of the village was lit by a ring of controlled flames, both Klobbert and Corn standing within the fighting space.
"I want a nice clean fight! Of course, as all of our onlookers know...the TITLE OF VILLAGE PROTECTION LIEUTENANT, IS ON THE LINE HERE!"
As the announcer riled the crowd up, both Corn and Klobbert didn't face away from each other, Corn looking more smiley and confident than ever. This was mostly due to the fact that even if Klobbert was Thirteen as well, he was significantly shorter than Corn, and had a rather round belly. Granted, besides these rather diminishing factors, many of the village Goblin girls seemed highly attracted towards him due to the rather abnormally sized wart Klobbert had on his huge green nose. The sight of this did not really affect Corn due to being surrounded constantly by Goblin's but to a regular person, something like this would most definitely make them squeamish just from the abnormality of it.
"You scared Corrrn? I suggest you give up before I make you feel even more outcasted. I'm the village Captain's son after all." Klobbert said, his obnoxious voice and smile piercing into Corn's pride.
"Ah man, haha..." Corn rubbed the back of his still rather damp head while facing down before facing Klobbert again with a more excited smile, "Now I remember why I've always wanted to break that nose of yours."
The crowd of onlookers continued to cheer as the announcer, who had a rather impressive moustache for a Goblin began to count down from three, causing the Goblin's surrounding the fighting zone to slowly stop chanting until the countdown was over.
"...BEGIN!", the crowd burst back into cheering as the fight had been announced to begin.
Klobbert burst forward, his physical capabilities extremely impressive as he launched a fist for Corn's face, who ducked down with relative ease. He noticed Klobbert's rather unstable footing and struck for that, swinging his leg around at Klobbert's feet, causing him to lose balance instantly and fall onto his back.
Corn stood back up, but as he did, he saw two green feet flying at his face, which he quickly blocked, however he was forced back. Klobbert had launched himself up from the ground using his arms to quickly send a kick at Corn before falling down completely, also lifting himself back up in the process. Corn puts his arms down and smiled towards his opponent.
"Maybe you aren't half bad." Klobbert said, raising his fist's back up, his pointy tongue drooping out of his mouth a little.
Corn didn't reply as he jumped right back into action, the two boy's clashing fiercely in the middle of this flaming arena, the crowd's roar feeding each and every one of their attacks, blocks or dodges.
"Look at them go!"
"They're like animals!"
"Sucks that one of them is...OW!"
"Don't talk like that! YOU KNOW HE'S ONE OF US NOW!"
"Yeah...you're right sorry...IM KILLING THE MOOD! KEEP FIGHTING!"
"KEEP FIGHTING! KEEP FIGHTING BOYS!"
"KEEP FIGHTING!"
The crowd continued to roar this same phrase over and over again as the boy's fought. However, one seemed to be getting the better of the other.
"Why the hell...can you do this!?" Klobbert asked, wiping blood from his mouth while crouched on one knee, as he glared towards the standing and smiling Corn, who looked less injured, but hurt nonetheless.
"It's a simple answer really! You just aren't stronger than me yet hehe!"
Klobbert looked as though a blood vessel had just popped in his head, his eyes growing enraged as he stood back up, running while screaming towards Corn who put his guard back up in surprise.
Out of nowhere, the entire cave began to shake and tremble, rocks falling from overhead, people diving out of the way, as some were hit. Children screamed in fear as the crowd of people looked up in confusion and fear, the fight between Corn and Klobbert being abruptly placed on hold as the quaking forced both boys to quit on what they were doing, and look up in concern as well.
"What is going on!?" Leley asked while looking at Grandpa Klornk, who had a dark expression pasted across his face.
"Another one of those tremors? We haven't had one in this region of the Goblin Kingdom in yea--" Klornk began but was suddenly cut off by another large quake, sending a wave of fear and uncertainty through the hearts of the people here.
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The gargantuan stone roof which had covered this land for years was suddenly burst open as a bellowing groan echoed throughout the entire cave, rocks and large chunks of stone dropping from above like canon fire. Dirt and stone houses alike were crushed under this shower from hell, people being squashed like flies as cries of agony mixed with the growing scent of iron, and sight of red mist grew across the entire village.
A gigantic creature lurked above, it's head poking in through the humongous hole it was able to make, sunlight shining through for the first time on this village. It had a large wide mouth with an uncountable amount of teeth, rigid grey skin, no eyes at all where one would expect the eyes to be on this thing, and huge slit's in it's face above it's mouth for what one would assume to be it's nose holes.
Corn looked up at it nervously from behind a wall with Leley in his arms, her tears showing no sign of stopping as she held her mouth closed, her eyes looking as though she had witnessed the most horrid thing in creation. Corn looked at the old envelope in his left hand while sweating fearfully, swallowing his saliva as he looked back over to the rock that had just crushed his Grandpa Klornk from the waist down, his last piece of information greatly shaping Corn's not-so-distant future choices...