I was on the edge of my consciousness when I saw the crimson ground beneath me shake.

I tried to get my eyes to focus, but it was an impossible task. After all, I was bleeding to death. My left hand still managed to remain part of my arm, but just barely. If I sneezed hard enough, I believe it would have just flown right off my body.

Then, I saw some tiny cracks appearing on the ground. It was like an earthquake occurring on the smallest piece of land ever.

Surprisingly, my mind was still working somewhat, and my best guess was that I was hallucinating. It had to be one of the side effects of… well, being close to death.

It was then that I suddenly noticed something appearing in front of me. At a first glance, it looked like a dust storm. But I soon saw that instead of being formed by tiny particles of dirt, it was actually made of specs of dim light. It was bigger and taller than me, and it felt warm. It was very near my body, and I welcomed the odd comfort it provided me.

It wasn’t long before this storm began to take more of a physical form. It shrunk in size little by little until it solidified into…

A baby?

Now, I knew for certain that I was hallucinating. I had to, because I saw a baby standing in front of me. I didn’t know much about babies, so I had no idea how old she could be. She could have been anywhere between six months to six years old for all I knew.

The baby was wearing a onesie pink and yellow furry costume. It looked like it was a costume of some kind of a monster, but I didn’t recognize its species. She was wearing a hat with two eyes and two horns, and there were two more furry eyes on her chest. There was even a dainty ribbon on her neck, and she was holding a stick as tall as her like it was a weapon. All in all, it was a cute look that would have gotten her all the candies in her neighborhood.

And yes, I assumed she was a girl. This assumption was based solely on the color of her clothes, because to be honest, all babies looked the same to me. So if you want to call me sexist for basing her gender on her outfit , go right ahead.

I was going to die very soon anyway.

I had to be dreaming, right? Or dead, and I was in heaven surrounded by baby angels in pink monster costumes. These possibilities were much more likely than a real baby appearing in front of me in the test chamber.

The baby looked at me just as confused as I was. Even the giant goblin, not too far away and ready to finish the job, looked befuddled by an unexpected appearance.

Wait… I checked again to see the goblin's reaction. When I confirmed that it was indeed staring at the baby, I realized that I couldn't have been hallucinating. If the goblin could see it, it had to mean that there really was a baby here, right?

“D…did you summon me?”

The childish voice asked me. The baby looked back and forth between the blood soaked ground and me several times. I think it was trying to figure out who I was and where we were.

My voice was unsteady when I replied, “Umm… I don’t think so?”

Did I… summon her? I didn’t remember doing such a thing. In fact, I didn’t know how to summon anything, let alone a baby.

But then, who else could have made her appear like this? It certainly couldn’t have been the goblin, who was lowering his body to prepare for another round of a battle even as we talked.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Then was it the Door? Was this part of the Test?

I had never heard of a baby appearing in any of the tests. Sure, I knew that the content of the Test varied for every Rhombic, but it just didn’t make any sense to me. What would be the point of a baby in a test? As a distraction? A decoy?

But I already failed the test.

Just then, I heard the goblin bellow in frustration. It seemed that it had lost its interest in the baby, and now, it was ready to complete its task.

Stomp, stomp, stomp!

The green beast bolted toward me, and therefore toward the baby too. She was only a step away from my dying body. Each of the giant goblin’s steps was enough to shake the ground and the trees around us.

This was going to be the last blow for me. I wasn’t in the position to worry about the baby, because I was just about to be pulverized.

Goodbye life.

Goodbye strange baby.

Schwing!

But it appeared that the world wasn’t quite ready to send me off just yet. An almost-invisible energy barrier with a tinge of blue color surrounded me and the baby. It formed a dorm shape around us, and I could more feel it than see it. The same warmth from the dust storm earlier hugged me as my enemy crashed into the barrier.

Ktunk!

“Kweeeek!” the goblin shrieked in pain.

It was rushing toward us at full speed, so the force at which it hit the barrier must have been spectacular. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it broke its own skull from doing this.

To my huge disappointment, the goblin didn’t croak like I hoped it would. I didn’t see any blood from its head either. But I could tell the pain was getting to it because it continued to grunt.

My mind was still foggy, but I sure appreciated how powerful this barrier was.

Although the Supports were generally better at creating a barrier, all Rhombics, even sad old me, had the ability to form an energy shield. It was mostly invisible, and it provided protection from both physical and magical attacks. As you might have guessed, the strength of the barrier depended on the Rhombic’s own Level.

As for me, I could technically create a shield, but it was so thin that a finger poke could shatter it. And I knew this because this was literally what happened. During the training, RM poked at my shield, and it shattered helplessly just like the women’s rights when Roe v. Wade was overturned.

Hence, I never wasted my energy trying to form a “protective” shield for myself.

“Are you okay?”

When the baby asked me, all I could do was blink. I no longer tried to make any sense of who or what this baby was. I had no choice but to accept that this barrier was created by this baby, and my brain quickly schemed for my survival.

Making a split second decision, I asked her, “You gotta help me. You need to save me, Baby!”

I wasn’t ashamed at all that I was begging a wee baby to save my sorry ass. I didn’t care that I was asking a tiny child to face the big bad monster for me. And I certainly wasn’t embarrassed that I actually said the words “Save me, Baby”, which sounded like a 90’s pop song.

It was becoming apparent that this… whatever or whoever she was, was stronger than me. Hope began to grow inside of me, and I gazed at her desperately.

“Umm, alright,” replied the baby rather solemnly. Of course, her seriousness was ruined by the fact her inability to pronounce “r” made her actually say “awight”.

Suddenly, the baby raised its stick in the air and it began to glow. Before I could say another word, her body disappeared and only a ball of light remained in the air. My heart sant, wondering if the baby had lied and abandoned me. I was about to scream bloody hell when I heard her voice from the bright orb.

“You can use me to fight!”

The orb shot toward my right hand, the one that was still functional. The light dissipated silently and when I looked down…

I saw a spanking new sword in my hand.