Ethan finally shook his head and looked around. A few feet to his left, Alyssa sat, holding her chin and looking lost in thought. Ethan guessed she was analyzing her own rewards, and almost moved on…

“Shit! Alyssa, be careful with the offer from the System for killing the Cleftfiend. It fucked up my class as a side-effect of accepting it.” Ethan told her, and she stared at him with shock.

“If you’d been a second later, I would’ve accepted the reward. What do you mean your class was fucked up, though?” Alyssa said.

“I don’t know, exactly. I haven’t analyzed it in-depth, but judging by my Panel, it’s not good. I assume, at least, that my class being tagged with Cursed is bad.” Ethan told her, and she frowned.

“No, I don’t imagine it is. You should check that out ASAP.” Alyssa told him, and Ethan nodded.

“I was just wanting to check to make sure Fred and Dis are still normal.” Ethan told her. A minute or two later, though, and he failed to find anything wrong with the goblins even after thorough inspection.

With that finished, Ethan sent them to monitor the area for danger, as they hadn’t exactly been quiet, and opened his Panel once more.

Subject: Ethan Cross

Class: Summoner (Uncommon) (Cursed)

Level: 9

Rank: 0

Attributes:

Agility: 2

Creativity: 2.5

Fortitude: 2.6

Insight: 1.2

Magic: 2.5

Processing: 2.8

Strength: 1.3

Impartments: Summon Altered Goblin, Summon Cursed Hobgoblin

1 Minor Physicality AP available.

To begin with, Ethan focused on the (Cursed) tag by his Class.

To be Cursed is to walk the path of Corruption. Few beings can remain sane and alive while walking this path, for Corruption spares not even its wielders, driving them towards insanity- and Corruption’s insanity is always rancid. You are only two steps deep into this path, however.

…There wasn’t even a slight indication of a chance of redemption. How was this fair? The description terrified him. Would he be beset by insanity forever now, because he accepted the System’s offer? Moving on with great reluctance in the hopes of finding more information, Ethan focused on his two Impartments.

Impartment Description: Summon Altered Goblin allows Subject to summon an Altered Goblin. These beings are best described as horrific; their every waking moment agony, they are aggressive, violent and feral, and will occasionally even disobey the orders of their summoner. Low mana cost. Dangerously autonomous.

Receive Impartment?

Impartment Description: Summon Altered Goblin allows Subject to summon a Cursed Hobgoblin. These beings have descended even further into Corruption and have been Cursed. They are actively evil, and act with the sole purpose of inflicting sufferance upon everything around them. They are only slightly inclined to obey the orders of their summoner. In return for their Corrupt depths, they are very powerful. Extreme mana cost. Fatally autonomous.

Receive Impartment?

‘Fuck no,’ Ethan thought in response. Ordinarily, even horrible knowledge was not necessarily bad… but that didn’t apply here. Not necessarily, at least- it was completely plausible that accepting these Impartments would push him even farther down the path of Corruption- or, the Impartments may contain knowledge that turned him towards evil or something.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Ethan allocated his Minor Physicality AP to his Agility, bringing it from 2 to 2.2. He noted that his Strength had increased slightly, although it was unclear whether that was due to his long, exhausting trek or the Corruption.

Maybe… maybe it wasn’t so bad? The description had said that few people could walk the path of Corruption and remain sane… but some people could, and that was enough to give him a bit of hope. Ethan still prayed that the System had simply forgotten to tell him that he could rid himself of the Corruption, though.

∑

About an hour had passed since the Cleftfiend’s attack. Fortunately, they had been left alone. Fred and Dis now had two new, luckily-completely-normal companions, Tred and Bred, who had been sent out to search for food.

Ethan had spent most of that hour of calm to recover, monitor Gadget, try to gain any information on Corruption that he could, and summoning the two new goblins. Unfortunately, Gadget still hadn’t woken up and he hadn’t been able to figure out almost anything related to Corruption, even when he’d let his Creativity and Processing out a bit- he simply lacked the data necessary to understand what to do.

“Found food.” Bred sent, and Ethan was on his still-sore feet the instant he processed the message.

“Bred found food- let’s go!” Ethan shouted to Alyssa, who was still sitting. “Fred, Dis, carry Fred for me. Tred, keep searching.” Ethan sent.

∑

Bred… had not been lying about finding food. The goblin sat about twenty feet away from a large, beautiful redwood tree adorned with even more beautiful fruits. They were strange- pear-shaped, but red like an apple, with patches of gold.

He didn’t see anything else around it- just a tree.- he counted twenty of the fresh, beautiful fruits, and his roaring stomach urged him to go and eat them… but he held back. Everything in this damned place was dangerous- even the System’s rewards. He wouldn’t trust a weird-ass tree to be safe. Ethan looked back, worried that Alyssa would just charge for the fruits the instant she saw them due to her… emotional class... but, luckily, she didn’t.

‘She said it was related to her mana? She spent a bunch of it burning the Cleftfiend and the nearby tree to the ground, I bet.’ Ethan thought.

“Dis, go and grab one of the fruits.” Ethan ordered. As the goblin cautiously approached the seemingly-innocent tree, Alyssa leaned forward, her face a mere inch from his ear. For some reason, he saw nothing strange about this… until she spoke.

“I’m going to kill you. Those are mine, you know?” Alyssa said, and Ethan whirled around. Alyssa was suddenly five feet away, but she had a physical class- she was probably fast as fuck. He let his Processing and Creativity slip from his grasp as he prepared to order Fred, Tred and Bred to attack, but…

His mind, spurred on by his recently-ascended Creativity, connected the many obvious dots just before he could.

‘It wasn’t real,’ Ethan realized, clutching at his chest as his heart pounded. ‘If it was real, she would’ve killed me right then and there, not ran off. She’s standing around completely normally, and I never would’ve let a stranger whisper into my ear like that. The goblins showed no signs of recognizing anything, and-‘

“Are you okay?” Alyssa asked worriedly, and Ethan shook his head. This was way too important to lie about.

“Absolutely not. I think-“

Before he could continue, Ethan heard wood cracking behind him. He whirled around again, just in time to see a tendril of barbed wood burst from the tree’s surface and lash out at Bred. Yet…

It was really slow- well, it wasn’t slow, but it definitely wasn’t fast- about the speed of a punch Ethan might’ve thrown. The goblin, who had already been on-guard, ducked beneath the strike with relative ease before hopping back, out of its reach and looking back for guidance.

‘That’s notable. I only ordered Dis to get the fruit, not to wait for guidance after failing. Are they sensing my intentions, or is it simply the autonomy? I should look into that.’ Ethan thought in an instant, having not lowered the intensity of his mind yet. Even as he thought, though, he spoke.

“…That doesn’t seem too dangerous. Fred, Dis, Tred and Bred, surround the tree. I’ll infuse you with a bit more mana than usual, and then you dart in and grab a fruit before the tree can retaliate.” Ethan ordered. He jumped a bit when he felt Alyssa place her hand on his shoulder.

‘It was real. She’s going to kill me. I was-’

“Ethan, are you alright? You looked-“

“Get off,” Ethan snapped, shrugging her off, stalking a few feet away before shoving his mental Attributes back into the grasp of his Fortitude, bringing his mind back into his control.

‘No, it’s not. This is definitely the Corruption, isn’t it?’ Ethan thought. ‘What the fuck do I do? I definitely need to invest into Fortitude more, since it helps with mental resilience as well.’ Ethan thought.

‘Shit, Alyssa must be worried… with the fact that I explained the situation to her, maybe even scared. Fuck, I’m scared too.’

Ethan remembered the System’s description perfectly- it had only happened an hour or so ago, after all. ‘Few beings can remain sane and alive while walking this path’.

And he was, apparently, only two steps deep into this path. How much worse would this get if his Corruption got worse?

‘Why the fuck did the System not warn me of this!?’ Ethan thought, wanting to smash his head against a wall. He sighed deeply, though, and tried to refocus on the task at hand.

‘Food. Food’s good; we’re starving, after all.’ Ethan thought, glancing in the direction of the goblins. Three of the wooden tendrils swiped at the four agile, swift goblins, but they were never hit. Fred, Bred and Dis held fruits in their hands, but Tred’s was still empty. Regardless, they’d inevitably get all of the fruits if it continued at this pace.

In the mean time… Ethan glanced back at where Alyssa stood. She was staring at him, an expression of intense worry on her face, and he couldn’t help but notice that she seemed a bit wary of Gadget and the goblins.

‘I’ll… explain to her later. Not now- not yet.’