The tension in the room was icy, and Elliot almost found himself not wanting to speak…
But he did anyway.
“Summoning… Like, I don’t have to fight for myself?” The god’s eyes darkened for a second, giving Elliot a deep, unsettling feeling right down to his very soul.
“It is… quite a bit more complicated than that, you know? One has to have proper leadership to lead their flock, else they measly fall to the slaughter of your own making. …However, with the right mind and intelligence, one can easily surpass even the strongest of men all by their lonesome.”
The dark god had started puffing out his chest in pride, not noticing the rest of the gods looking to each other with snide smiles on their faces. It wasn’t until the goddess of light cleared her throat that they all turned back to their stoic, quiet faces. The dark god hadn’t seemed to hear her, and considering how the goddess’ frown turned to a smile the moment the dark god turned to her, it was intentional.
Elliot briefly wondered if the dark god wasn’t quite as respected as the others, before they suddenly spoke up again. “So… how about it? Are you up to such a task?”
He didn’t need to hear anymore, it was free labor, what more could he ask for? “I’ll take it! As long as I’m not in the front, am I right?” Elliot said with a shrug. The crowd let out a quiet chuckle as the light goddess flicked her hand, and the black pearl floated toward Elliot at incredible speeds, smashing directly into his chest. He could barely hear the gods being berated by the light goddess as the world around him shattered, and he once again found himself thrown into the side of a mountain, crashing into the ground in a giant dust cloud.
He groaned, flashing colors appearing all around him as he picked himself up. He took a step, wobbling with an uneasy sense of balance. Damn gods, if they had the pitiful, skinny body he had… Hell, if they even had a normal human body they’d still know better than to treat him so roughly. “Dammit… They could have at least fixed up my clothes.” He muttered, noticing the new holes in his pants. While checking on the further damage on his poor clothes, he noticed the book that had gotten him into this whole mess.
It was neatly on the ground, the same black color but with gold plating lining the borders rather than thread. It seemed quite valuable. He bent to pick it up, only to have it disappear and materialize in his hands. “Huh. Neat.”
He could fucking summon books now. That was pretty powerful, right?
“No, the hell it isn’t!” He shouted, chucking the book as far as he could in front of him. Before the book hit the ground, however, it reappeared in his hand, giving him a moment’s pause. He sighed, and threw it a few more times before finally deciding to open it. He opened it down the middle to find nothing written on it, and he almost chucked it again before he checked the first page.
Now he was getting somewhere. In the book were two spells, each seemingly stemming off from each other. “Summon fiend… and Capture fiend.” Those two spells were listed in the front, each with a small (F) inscribed next to them. It was simple, but with these two spells, he was already far better off than before. Well, he would be once he managed to capture something. Unless… “Summon fiend!” He felt a weird feeling come up from the core of his stomach to his arm, and then he felt the warmth come…
Only for it to fade away. Cursing, he tried again, and then a third time, before coming to the dreadful realization that…
“Come on! Please! Summon fiend!!”
…yep, he had to take something down first.
The setback didn’t stop him from almost bubbling over in excitement, though. It may not have worked, but he still felt the power flow through him when he tried. That meant this was all real…
Shit… for the past couple of weeks, he was actually starting to doubt himself, thinking it was all in his mind and that he was just going insane. But, it was real… the book, the compass, the map… all of this couldn’t be faked by his mind, right?
He did an awkward little hop, unable to contain his excitement. “Magic! Holy smokes, magic! I’m a goddamn wizard! A wizard!” He was a magical being now! A person who could do anything with a wave of his fancy book!!
…Well, almost. All he had to do was take a monster out. With all the adrenaline of a junkie on cloud nine, he dashed back to the goblins he met before. He didn’t care if they were powerful enough to take him out, as long as he hit first then he had the advantage, right? It took him a good minute to find them again, but when he finally arrived the sight wasn’t quite what he expected.
The red goblin seemed to have met him halfway there. Its eyes were exhausted as it trudged along, barely looking alive. It made sense, considering the goblin on his back. The poor goblin seemed to be tripping over his own feet, delirious as he carried his wounded buddy, lying limp over his tired comrade back.
Elliot’s heart squeezed as he saw this brave feat… all for naught. The last time he’d fought a goblin and managed to defeat it, he remembered how it had died. It had been a slow and painful one, but the moment it lost the life in its eyes, it had lost its green skin, turning into a murky bluish gray…
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
The same bluish gray the limp goblin on it’s back had. It didn’t take too long for Elliot to realize the red one hadn’t realized that yet, too hurt and delirious to even look in front of it more than a few feet. It didn’t even notice him until he coughed, looking up at him with pure shock. “Ueek… Ueek! Gauh!” It’s eyes, dead just a moment ago, went to a violent rage. It went to take a crouching stance, before realizing it still had its friend on his back.
It took a moment to look at him with anger before gently letting down his friend. It barely seemed to stay on its feet, swaying back and forth as it stayed in front of its fallen comrade. Even though it seemed ready to fall, its eyes were unwavering.
He almost couldn’t watch. He raised his hands in surrender, showing the monster he meant no harm.“Uh, I'm not here to… fight? Well, I guess I was but I don’t think I should get in your way so uh, I’ll just-” It lunged at him, and in the shock he dodged to the right, causing the red goblin to fall forward from the momentum of its own attack and tumble to the ground. It groaned as it fell to the floor, and when it tried to stand up it only fell again, too weak to pick itself up…
Well, all bets were off.
He kicked the thing on its side, earning a painful ‘gueek!’ from the ugly creature. “You little shit! I gave you an out! You better not wake up!” He gave it a couple more kicks before his foot connected with its chin, fully knocking the thing out. He raised a victorious arm in the air, hearing the imaginary bell ring.
‘Win by knockout!’
…Gah. Despite the short ‘fight’, he was already out of breath from kicking the downed creature. “Serves… Serves you right.” He took in a deep breath to calm himself down, chuckling to himself shortly after. Then he realized he might have messed up as the goblin was still on the floor. “Damn, I didn’t kill him, did I?” He nudged its arm with his foot. No response.
The red goblin had already been at death’s door, and he might have just pushed him through.He had no idea if red goblins changed colors after death like green ones, either so… Damnit! He kicked it gently in the side, deciding against checking its pulse. The idea of touching something possibly dead grossed him out more than he cared for.
Hell, it might have even worked with just corpses. Bringing his arms out, he stood in front of the almost corpse, preparing for whatever cool magic was about to happen. If it happened at all… No! No negative thoughts! He was gonna do this!
“Please work! Um… Capture fiend!”
The magic flowed into his arm again, and excitement bubbled in his heart as small, glowing blue wisps came out of his hand. It was just like the magic he had expected!
Then the earth around him turned black.
With a giant shudder, the ground in front him seemed to get swallowed up, growing larger steadily as it reached towards him. He yelped out loud and he moved back, confused and terrified over what was happening. As if that wasn’t enough to give him a heart attack, the goblin in front of him suddenly seized, spiked chains ripping through its arms and legs as it was pulled towards the massive ominous hole in the ground.
Considering how little it reacted it was probably either already dead as he expected, or it had been killed by the chains on contact. Seeing its skin turn a murky brown confirmed its demise…
Either way, the situation was gruesome as hell. Elliot fell to the dirt as he watched the poor goblin be dragged into the black ground, sinking in as if it had been made of black sludge. It wasn’t until it was fully submerged that the horror stopped, and the ground around him returned to normal.
Elliot was just left there after it was all done, body and clothes drenched in sweat. The whole scene almost made him pass out. That had been the most terrifying thing he’d ever experienced.
And the coolest, admittedly.
Shakily, he stood up looking around him. He must not have noticed from the carnage but the green goblin had also disappeared, taken by the terrible, evil, no-good spell. He checked the book and sure enough, there they were. Along with some new information
“Summon fiend” (2/5) (F-rank)
Goblin (F-rank)
Red Goblin (F-rank)
+4 intelligence
…Nice. Um, Intelligence?
What did that mean? Was he smarter now, or were the creatures? Was he able to summon these creatures if he used the spell? Would they actually be under his control in the first place?
He thought hard about what happened, seeing if his new intelligence would do anything for him …In hindsight, he probably could have done things a lot better, especially the part that included kicking the goblin to death. None of that was something his idiot brain couldn’t already figure out before, though.
Christ, he had hoped the red goblin had actually died from his earlier beatdown, since it would have had to deal with the chains entering its body. The first time he’d seen it, it had looked so prideful, but he guessed it deserved that pride if it was willing to die for its goblin comrade. It really made Elliot think. Would he be that great if one of his friends fell in front of him?
He decided not to think about it. If there was any lesson to learn here, then he’d make sure to stay clear of it. It was a goblin, he wouldn’t try to learn anything from a stinky, no good goblin. Instead, satisfied with his work, Elliot decided to keep moving forward to the town. He took out the map and compass, making sure he was going the right way before realizing just how exhausted he actually was.
Made sense. The sun was already near getting dark, and he’d been on foot since morning, so… he decided to set down for the day, sure a bit of rest wouldn’t kill him.
Half of him really just wanted to mess around with the book, though. With a yawn, he sat down, settling into the side of a boulder that hid him just ever so slightly out of view from the path. He couldn’t handle any more emotional adventures like the one with the goblin just now, at least for the night. He opened the book again, reading through and then flipping through the blank pages once more, just to see if he was missing anything. He wasn’t.
He sighed, resigning himself to the fate of probably being eaten by a rogue goblin. He struck out his hand, taking a deep breath for resolve. “Summon fiend, Red Goblin.” Ooh, that was definitely a different feeling. His stomach felt like it was pitter-pattering for a second, like a sauce left to boil a bit too long, before his arm glowed a soft, pinkish red. The magic around his hand turned into a liquid, and instinctively he pointed a finger down, letting a drop of the mana fall to the ground.
A familiar, dark circle appeared where the drop fell, and he had to jump back so he wouldn’t get caught up in it. From it, the ground underneath vanished into an empty hole. Slowly, the goblin he’d seen moments before rose up from the ground as if on an elevator. It stayed lifeless until it was fully revealed, and then and only then did it open its eyes.
“Gabuh?”