“Where am I?!” my eyes shot open wide, the slight glow of the mushrooms around me reflecting off the large red globes that allowed all goblins to see in low light conditions. My body was aching, but I couldn’t feel the wound in my chest at all.
Something wasn’t right, my memories didn’t match up with the situation, I was just… stabbed through the heart, right? Thrown down a cliff? Why was I completely fine. The sound of the battle was long gone, there was only silence around me. I would have felt sad, but I was still confused as to how I was alive.
I placed my left hand against my left breast, looking for the wound I had been dealt, but it wasn’t there.
“Gone, it’s gone?!” I freaked out, not because the sword wound was gone, no… my heart wasn’t beating. No heartbeat, but no gaping hole in my chest either… “What… what’s happening?”
I slowly crawled to my feet, my red hair, normally tied back was a mess, stuck all over my body by mud and… I think that’s my blood, yet I’m now uninjured.
And then I noticed that there, on the palm of my left hand, was a marking. Like it was carved into my flesh or branded, the picture from that playing card was there, a man wearing a blank mask with a single eye on the right side, and a strange hat with three floppy points on top.
“Alright Fiffil, just take a deep breath, and figure out how to get out of this chasm.” I talked to myself to fill the void in sound around me. Yeah, that wasn’t crazy at all, right? I mean, everything going on was crazy.
“Fiffil, daughter of Mikk’al and Fimmy, Ruby clan...” in order to clear the confusing clouds in my mind, I started to recite everything I know about myself. “Goblin, level 1. Class, Joker. Skills at level 1: Wildcard.”
Wait wait wait, hold on, monsters don’t have classes, my class was goblin since the day I was born. Every time I’ve brought up my ability scores in my mind, they’ve always read the same way, level 1, goblin. But there’s something mixed in with that now, and I said it as if it was second nature.”
“What the hell is Joker? Wildcard? Huh?!” Now I was even more confused than I was a moment before, what had I gotten myself into?
For now, let’s look over my full ability sheet.
[Race: Goblin] [Class: Joker] [Level: 1]
[Mind:10] [Body:10] [Soul: 8]
[HP:7][MP:2][SP:20]
[Skills: Wildcard]
Well, my scores haven’t changed, the only difference is this Class and Skill. Let’s see, what does this Skill do?
[Wildcard: Passive Skill]
[One who’s fate his been irreversibly twisted by the abyss, where there once was limited potential now lies infinity]
“Are all skills written like this? How do adventurers know what their powers do?” I complained, then moved on because trying to understand it was honestly hurting my brain.
My stats were useless, and I was still trapped in a chasm in the dark. If that god… devil, whatever it was that revived me was still here, he wasn’t talking. I guess getting out of here is up to me.
-
“How cruel you are to your pieces, not even a hint at what she has to do next?” Vi laughed, picking up a blue knight on her side of the table and moving it two spaces up. “Well, not like it would change anything, Beelzy~”
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“How many times have I told you to stop calling me that, darling?” He responded, moving the crimson piece carved in the shape of a small, confused goblin to the right of the board. “Would you prefer I brought her here, so she could battle you directly? It might get a little confusing if she becomes both a player and a piece, though.”
“I’ll respectfully pass, that sort of meta narrative gives me a splitting headache.” Vi replied, taking a sip from her goblet.
“Alright then, I won’t bother. No then, it’s your turn.” he closed his eyes and sat back against his large, crimson throne.
-
While I was trying to understand all this Class nonsense, I noticed the chasm had a breeze blowing through it. Was there a way out if I continued further into the dark? I wasn’t sure, but I had no way of climbing back up, so I continued forward instead.
A short while later, it opened up from a small chasm to a much grander cavern. The walls were lined with brightly glowing blue crystals, sparkling from their own light in a spectacular fashion. A shallow stream ran through the cave, and my first thought was to wash off all of this mud.
I cleaned off my clothes and hair, then splashed water on my face to see if I was going to wake up, but no, this was all real. After fixing my hair-tie I began to follow the flow of the water further into the cave.
I don’t know how long I was walking for, but my feet were well beyond sore when I finally saw it: light, not from a mushroom or glowing rock, but actual, real light.
It was so bright that even from this far away my dark adjusted eyes burned, but I pushed forward. The pass became steep, so I began to claw and crawl up the cavern until finally, I was out.
I was completely blinded the second I climbed out of the musty old cave, the light from what I was told was something called ‘the sun’ was so intense compared to what I was used to.
I closed my eyes and stumbled over, falling down a small hill and landing in a pile of soft plantlife.
“People really live up here?!” I shouted, but after a moment the pain passed, and I was able to open my eyes, just a little bit. I peaked one eye open, and saw I was surrounded by large, big plants.
“Trees, are these trees?!” I hopped up excitedly, my eyes darting all around me despite the pain from the bright light. “they’re so much bigger than I expected! Whoa!”
The air smelled so strange, was that the scent of… fresh air? Not stale cavern air and mud, but the surface?! In that moment, I totally forgot everything that had just happened to me, and I was in complete bliss.
And then that moment was shattered.
‘Oi, got another one over here, filthy goblins.” a human voice shouted from the trees, and I froze up.
Right, things were dangerous out here, and we had just been attacked. Had I really just walked right back into danger, like a complete moron? I had somehow survived, and now I’d just wasted that second chance by not taking a moment to think.
“Huh, what the fuck?, Loran, I can’t target it?” one of the adventurers said, confused, as three men surrounded me.
“Why are you saying that to me, it’s not my fault... why are you bothering with targeting anyways, it’s right in front of you, just hit it with that hammer and be done with it, or can you not hit a stationary goblin with no weapon?”
“But, it’s HP bar has a blue border, like an adventurer’s… are you sure this isn’t like a really dirty halfling or something?”
“Idiot, look at it’s skin, those teeth, that’s a fuckin goblin, man. Why are you always so stupid?”
“B-But...”
Despite speaking in the common tongue of the surface and not in the language of the goblins, I could understand them perfectly, and they kept bickering. Apparently whatever adventurers could see that I couldn’t made me look like I wasn’t a monster to them? Was this “Joker” class confusing them somehow?
Anyways, I had to escape somehow, so while they were arguing I looked over them carefully, the closest one, with the big hammer, was in my range, and he had one thing I could reach that wasn’t properly armored.
His legs were armed with iron greaves, but the gap between them to allow his hips to properly move… without thinking further, I headbutted him right in the groin.
“Holy fuck!” he screeched in pain, falling over backwards. His hammer flew through the air, slamming right down against his right shoulder. “AAAAGHH!”
There was no way I could lift that hammer, but he had a shortsword on his hip, so I grabbed it before the other two reacted and jumped on top of him. He raised his hand to block me, so I sunk my sharp fangs into his armorless fingers.
“Ahhhhhhhhh! Guys, h-help me!” he screamed, trying to shake me off. His right arm hung limp, was his shoulder broken?
It was all instinct that drove me, I had never learned to fight, I had never killed anyone, but I knew I had to defend myself. His stolen blade slashed down against his neck with nothing to stop the deadly cut.
As his blood spilled and his friends looked on in horror, a strange noise echoed in my mind, like a bell ringing.
[Your level has increased]
[HP+5][MP+1][SP+10]
[Skill Obtained: Roulette Slash]