“We were just bystanders. We needed to pass by the great beast to reach Dkionbra.”

“You already told us that,” the goblin nodded. “And we’re not suggesting you to be a liar. However,” he paused, staring at me. “Our witnesses suggest that boy’s bracelet to have been glowing.” He produced a bracelet on the counter.

“That’s mine,” I said. Mine was missing from my arm. How the fuck did I not realize that?

“Exactly. Were you casting a spell?”

The mermaid sighed under her breath. I guess she really didn’t want me to talk.

“I was trying to save the three goblins who struck first.”

“But how?” Another goblin said. “We didn’t see you manifest any spells. How did you… counter its venom?”

“I just swept it away,” I deadpanned. “The same with the first time, I swept away the three.”

Their eyes opened wide. “You can control your magic to that level of precision?”

“Not always. I’d say this time was a fluke.”

“Even if a fluke…” They started thinking.

“As I said, we cannot let him go.”

“Yes, we might never get another brilliant magician.”

“And he’s so young. He may conquer the ocean one day!”

“Just think how many hunters wouldn’t have to die miserably!”

Meanwhile, the mermaid was giving me some death glares.

Yeah, I’d probably fucked up.

One of the goblins, who looked like the leader of the bunch, kind of old- cleared his throat. “Would you be willing to help us? Right now, we’re in great need of a magician within our ranks.”

“I’m afraid I cannot. I’m on a journey to find my parents,” I said. “Everything else is a second priority for me.”

“I see… very well, we shall honor you as our hero and escort you to Dkionbra.”

“Elder!” The other goblins all rose, definitely not satisfied.

“It is not our custom to force those who do not wish stay with us. Or would you like to return to the dark ages?”

Some of them bit their gums, almost crunching…. But they all nodded and just left the room.

“Now,” the goblin elder said. “As our guests, please enjoy yourselves. Our Great Shrimp Festival starts today and lasts all week. Afterward, feel free to leave at your leisure.”

We were escorted out of the hut by the same female goblin.

“Sorry,” I said.

“…” the mermaid stared, sighed once. “Don’t worry, it’s not that bad.”

The fishman meanwhile hadn’t said a word… it didn’t take a genius to figure out, my man slept through the whole thing and was a sleepwalker….

***

We were given one hut. One hut to rule them- ahem… just one hut for all three of us.

It came with a single bed. Me and the mermaid claimed it, since our fishfriend was still sleeping. So basically, he got the floor.

“We should run tomorrow evening when they least expect it,” she said.

“How come? They did say we were free to leave by the end of the week-”

“You think they will really let you go? Besides, what if the Hermons show up?”

“Good point.”

I wasn’t stressed for time since I had no idea where Den or Mom was. I had a hunch they could be in the Forgotten Continent but that was only a hunch and that place was really dangerous.

What if they were stuck on a random cursed island or something?

“So yeah, we’ll do what we did the last time.”

“Please no more sewers,” I said.

“I agree. Goblin sewers are the worst,” our sleeping fishfriend said. Who apparently wasn’t sleeping anymore.

“We don’t have any other way,” the mermaid said. “Besides,” she paused but didn’t finish.

“I won’t fit,” the fishman said.

“You don’t have to. They don’t care about you. You can probably walk out right now if you wanted to,” Roksha said.

“I suppose.”

The conversation died. We didn’t have anything to talk about and we didn’t have any solutions. All we could do now was wait and see what fate brought us.

I did check the bathroom and the pipes though.

No contraptions or suction stuff this time. Just plain Indian style squat commode. Fuck…

It was a good thing I hadn’t eaten anything and didn’t feel like going. Because, I seriously never wanted to use these things ever again!

***

We got served freshly fried Sea food and sea curry. The lobster kind. The food actually arrived just as the sun rays disappeared. The goblin who brought in the food didn’t really say a word and didn’t stay around.

“How’re they frying things underwater?” I said.

As much as I wanted to taste the food… the idea of going- wait, I’d been here for over like five days at this point. Maybe more.

How come-

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

How come I never felt like going number one? Number two, sure. But number one… Did my anatomy change or something?

“Anything’s possible in the safe zone,” Roksha said.

So, this is a safe zone thing or something? Felt wrong to ask during our meal time, so I didn’t.

“I’ve been meaning to ask. How come you become so lively in the safe zone but you were so… meek above?”

“I have… issues,” she confessed. “I’ll tell you later,” she eyed the fishmen who ate cross legged on the ground.

“Do you know what Spatial Rationing is?”

“Unique trait of the goblin tribe,” she said. “They somehow sacrifice space in some place and use it in some other place. I think my uncle once showed me in practice.”

“So other people can learn it too?”

“I think so. But you need to have a knack for it. I don’t.”

“Maybe they’ll teach me if I asked nicely.”

“I don’t think you can learn it this fast. Remember we’ll-”

“I know, I know.” I certainly didn’t want to think about crawling down there though.

Once our food was finished, goblins came to get the bowls back.

“Can you get me that pretty blonde lady from earlier?” I asked. I repeated in sea tongue and one of the goblins nodded.

She came roughly half an hour later. And she came with some fresh Honeycrisps! “Thought you might enjoy them.”

“THANK YOU SO MUCH! I LOVE YOU!”

She rolled her eyes. “Sure, sure.”

I proceeded to devour one right away, offering one to the other two with great pain. They declined the offer so more for me, yay!

“You wanted to see me?” The goblin said.

“Yes. I never got to know your name; I’m Sol by the way.”

“Daine.”

“I wanted to know more about Spatial Rationing.”

“I’m not sure if I’m the right person. I only know it in theory.”

“That’s good enough for me.”

“I suppose there’s no harm in teaching you.”

There’s no harm in teaching an outsider… Roksha was right. They weren’t going to let me leave.

“First,” she said. “You constrict space.” She held her hands, almost like she was in a prayer. “Then you stretch space elsewhere, where you want to have more space.”

“Yeah, you told me that before. But how, or rather, what space do you sacrifice?”

“Hmm… usually space in the deep sea, where there’s nothing.”

“How?”

“We use catalysts,” she said, showing me a small scale. It looked vaguely familiar.

But after giving it a small lick, I could confirm, definitely manafish. And quite high quality one too. Stuff you couldn’t find back home.

So, the act requires a lot of mana.

“Sadly, the original art has been lost and I cannot show you the actual spell. Even our elder can only manage to form a bubble worth of space.” She smiled. “But maybe with time, you’ll be able to.”

Yeah, they definitely didn’t have any plans to let me go.

***

Although a festival, the goblins didn’t make any festive changes to their village. They didn’t dress for the occasion.

I felt stupid for borrowing their clothes (khaki pants and white braided shirt that didn’t seem to get wet). No wait, maybe it wasn’t a stupid decision. I mean, my own clothes were falling apart anyway. I actually thought my skin would be all wrinkly and shit but that wasn’t the case. I mean, my fingers were still a bit weird but apart from that, the rest of my body was fine thanks to the scales.

I sure hope Rexy was alright though.

Anyway, the goblins knew one thing rather well- party!~

They’d cleared up a field and made it open to all. Almost everything was shrimp based. Boiled, fried, battered, crushed, powdered and so on. The curries were pretty good and they had a wide selection of spices, spices I never had. The taste was kind of odd and it was hard to get used to it at first but I had a feeling I’d enjoy the fuck out of it eventually. So, I asked Daine to give me some later, to which she agreed readily.

The people treated me like a hero. They offered the best cuts and the best wine. I knew a certain someone would freak the fuck out and drain every drop of a bottle so instead of drinking, I asked them to just give me a bottle that I could take home. They of course agreed to that too, and I got the finest crimson wine in all of Timble.

With the morning feast behind us, the goblins started singing and dancing. They sucked. Like seriously, none of them had any artistic sense. But I laughed anyway.

Apparently, every time they went hunting, only half came back and sometimes they couldn’t really hunt because of that. They still had to; otherwise, everyone would starve to death. This was one of those times and that’s why they had to go after the Great Shrimp (4th gen) and thanks to me, they managed to beat it with less than double figure casualties.

Bubbly, warm, and sincere. These people didn’t have worries about war, they didn’t have worries about food (at least for a few months) and they didn’t have technology that was going to keep them locked up in their rooms. They were in the moment kind of people and they were certainly in the moment right now.

“Come dance with us!” One of the goblins urged me.

Sadly, I had feet, and they didn’t. It was one of the reasons why they looked so awkward.

“I’ll dance!” The fishman declared, linking his hands with mine and dancing… He was way taller than me, so his feet were on the ground, mine- not so much.

…

Anyway, I erased that bit from my mind and danced (more like spun around) with the Mermaid for about two minutes before I felt like puking and called it a day.

Laughter and cheers. Just a merry environment.

And apparently it was going to last all week. They were going to have more things later on like shops and stalls which would sell equipment made from the giant shrimp. I kind of wanted to see that.

But yeah….

“It’s really a great honor to receive armor straight from the prey,” Daine said leading us back.

Roksha was fine but she seemed kind of sleepy. The fishman though, had drank like two bottles all by himself and was pretty cheerful for once and with flushed lips too. Good for him.

“Does the shrimp have any mana-dense parts?”

Daine stared at me, smiled. “Yes,” she said, came closer, almost touching my face. “But to get that, you’ll have to stay here.”

Making it seem like it was my choice, nice, nice.

“I like it here. The people are nice and it’s a fun place. But… I need to find my parents.”

“I see…” Daine of course didn’t stop smiling; I never really thought goblins could actually look gorgeous but here we were. “I’ll talk to the elder and see if he would allow you to have a shard.”

“Thank you.”

“Too early to thank me.”

“Still,” I smiled. “Thank you.”

***

That evening, I was led back into the elder’s place. Roksha was with me but not the fishman because he was still hungover.

“These are the most valuable parts of the Great Shrimp,” the elder said.

He had three pieces on the table.

The first, a hexagonal shaped plate. It looked strong. The shrimp, I remember, had a lot of scales but those were red, not black tinted like this. Not to mention this thing had insignias on top of it. Not carvings, no.

Next, a solid spear like rod with a very sharp edge. I suppose this came from the tail.

And finally, a manastone. RED and as big as my head. Probably the most valuable thing I’d ever seen in my life. A bit crude in shape.

“Valuable indeed,” I said.

“Yes, and we’re willing to offer them all to you.”

“Not for free, I suppose.”

“We want you to stay here.”

“Yeah, you’ve made it clear.”

“No, you misunderstand. We want you to live here.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“We want you to stay here with your parents.”

“Huh? You mean-”

“Yes, we will allow one of our warriors to accompany you and find your parents and then you’ll spend your days here, for the village.”

“I’m afraid I have far too many commitments to the upper world. Even if I gave you my word, I might not come back. Besides, I could very well perish-”

“A brilliant magician of your caliber would not perish easily,” he said. “Besides, those scales… those scales are the mark of an apostle,” he said, eyeing straight at my chest.

“Deity bearer,” I corrected him. “One year. I will spend one year here. But only once I’ve found my parents. If you’re okay with that, fine. Otherwise, I will leave right now and you can keep your treasure.”

He started thinking. I suppose he was thinking of ways he could stop me here.

I’d learned negotiations from the very best… or so I thought. But maybe I came out a bit too strong.

“Very well. But in that case, you may only take one treasure,” he said. “Among these two,” he said. One of his attendants just took the red stone and well… I suppose that was true.

“The scale,” I said.

Although faint, the tip still had poison. I didn’t want to accidentally go around killing people. Maybe that was because of my indoctrination from the past world or maybe that was just my principle or naïve thinking but I was quite conscious about killing things.

I was also super conscious about not dying myself, so choosing the scales seemed like the best bet. “However, I would appreciate if you could make it into something more…”

“Fashionable?”

“In a sense.”

“Very well. We will have it delivered to you next week.”

“I-”

“You plan to leave tonight, yes?”

The mermaid and I stared at each other and smiled. Yup, our conversations had leaked. I suppose that was only natural given where we were.

“If possible.”

“I understand we came out too strong but we do not go back on our word. Stay for the week. Enjoy our festivities and our hospitality. Leave with pride as one of our own!”

“Okay.”

[A/N]

One of the biggest chapters of the month.

Enjoy

Ps. No chapters tomorrow