Chapter 6

The second group Daniel targeted didn’t fare any better than the first. With just another of his crude temporary wands used up, and judicious use of his spear, he killed them all without alerting the other two groups.

Unfortunately, things went a bit awry with the final group he meant to kill.

The wands he’d made were rush jobs. Very crude and would get him laughed at by other mages as a waste of resources and time. The system didn’t even give him the skill Basic Enchanting for crafting them with how unstable they were. But he’d had little time and they let him cast combat spells without using up his own reserves. Very useful, since his mana pool still wasn’t nearly as large as he’d like.

But their unreliability was still an issue, and perhaps even worse than he’d thought.

When Daniel used his wand to take out the fleeing members of the group, it only managed to fire off one spell before it exploded in his hand. He cursed and tossed it before quickly gesturing and casting two more force bolts as quickly as he could. Unfortunately, the goblin still managed to get out of the silencing field and scream before two bolts slammed into its head, cracking its skull and killing it.

That had alerted the final group of goblins, forcing Daniel to hide and wait to see what would happen. He could still easily take out this group, even out of wands, but they were the ones he wanted to let get to the camp. Live attacking goblins would be much better proof to everyone else than some dead bodies for them to find. Perhaps he could try and scare them with some illusions and force them to flee in the direction of the camp?

Then again, that might not be necessary.

Goblins, and most Monsters, despite some high-tier ones actually being intelligent, were far more bestial and instinctual than even animals. And they came this way, towards the camp, for a reason. He still wasn’t quite sure what that reason was, but that didn’t matter for now. If nothing else caught their attention, they might still go towards whatever was drawing them before, despite losing most of their forces and something dangerous obviously being nearby.

Daniel watched carefully from beneath the underbrush, blending into the shadows again, as the final goblin group approached, weapons at the ready.

The lead goblin caught sight of the dead bodies and let out some rough shouts of panic while looking around angrily, waving its weapons. Its fellows did the same, and after a while, with no obvious danger in sight, they went to inspect the remains of their fellows.

Despite knowing what would likely happen next, Daniel still grimaced as one of the goblins poked and prodded at the remains. Then, sure the other goblin was dead, it let out a disturbing, almost childlike laugh, and lept at the remains, tearing into it with its teeth and nails. The other goblins moved to do the same, and a short fight broke out before they noticed the other corpses and went after their own.

For the next couple of minutes the goblins devoured everything that was left of their fellows, Monster crystal and bones included, before finishing with belches of contentment.

Daniel frowned at the sight. Cannibalism like this was just another thing about Monsters that helped them earn that name. Monsters desired mana above all else, and really didn’t care where it came from. It’s how they grew and gained strength. Thankfully, they would need time to process that mana, so they shouldn’t be any stronger for this than before. Even then, just the flesh and Monster core of a single other goblin wouldn’t have made too big of a difference.

The only somewhat troubling thing about it all was the loss of the Monster crystals, which he would have liked to have more of. But he still had the ten he’d gotten off the other goblins. That would have to hold him over until he could hunt more Monsters.

A couple more minutes passed until the goblins finally got over their eating stupors. They groggily got to their feet, and then two of the goblins, which only had clubs, traded theirs for an axe and a dagger. At the same time, the other three goblins, who had been better equipped, sniffed the air, before they started moving in the direction of the camp. The two remaining goblins, new weapons in hand, rushed to catch up to their fellows.

Daniel let out a sigh once they were out of sight, before getting up and heading back faster but at a different angle. Part of him still wondered if he was doing the right thing. If maybe trying to be as honest as he could, while abiding by the restriction the goddess had placed on him, would be for the best.

But that was far too likely to either end with people disbelieving him, or suspecting him, or outright fearing him, or even outright blaming him, depending on how he went about it. And if he wanted to keep everyone alive, and out of the hands of Count Caminus and the rest of the cult in Tarnith, he couldn’t afford that.

This would be for the best.

And they would be able to handle it.

Last time a group of more than twenty attacked and only a handful of people died. This time, it would be five, and at least two of their night watch would have guns.

Daniel made it back to the camp only a bit before the goblins. He’d just gotten back to his spot and dispelled his illusion before he heard the shouts.

“Holy shit! What is that?”

“What? Why are you—holy fuck! Look out!”

“Fuck!”

There was the sound of gunfire, and Daniel quickly got up. He didn’t bother pretending to have just awoken, or stop to see what Nathan did. Part of him was just too nervous about what might happen, so he grabbed his spear and moved in the direction of the battle.

He made sure to keep an eye out for the other guy with a gun, though. It had sounded like a good idea to make sure the people with guns were on watch and were ready to fight at the time. But thinking about it again as he heard screams and gunfire, he hoped that the people with guns didn’t exaggerate their skill with them, and they had enough trigger discipline not to cause any friendly fire accidents.

More shots rang out and shouts as well. The whole camp was awake now as Daniel made his way over, only not running in case he ran into someone.

The goblins had attacked from the other side of the camp from where Daniel’s lean-to was, so it took him longer than he wanted to get over to where the fighting was. And by the time he got there, it was already over.

His eyes widened and anger at himself filled him as he caught sight of someone on the ground, a goblin on top of him and a few others surrounding him. One of the guys with a gun was there, looking around frantically, though keeping his pistol pointed down thankfully. The other was also looking around, spear in hand, as if expecting a horde of the things to come pouring out of the forest.

A quick look showed five dead goblin corpses. He would have been happy not having to sneak off to take out a straggler if he hadn’t still lost someone. Maybe he should have culled the group, take one or two out first—

“Ugh, a little help here. This thing’s heavier than they look.”

Daniel was pulled out of his self-incrimination at that voice, and he sagged a bit in relief that it came from the guy on the ground. Then he quickly forced that relief away and rushed over. Just cause he could still speak didn’t mean he wasn’t injured. And if he was, he might end up having to reveal something anyway. Goblin blades, teeth, and pretty much everything about them was not clean. If a wound was deep and wasn’t cleaned then dying of infection was very likely.

Not really a problem for the natives of Atheardeus and their potions, but definitely for them, without even some disinfectant spray.

“Are you okay?” Daniel asked, reaching the group and kneeling by the downed man. He looked vaguely familiar, though he wasn’t sure what the man's name was. He was part of the scouting group with Joseph though. “Do you feel any pain anywhere? Did it stab you or anything?”

“I think I’m fine,” the guy said, a strained smile on his face as he started to push against the goblin on top of him. Daniel helped him get it off, though he moved slowly, in case the man was wrong. “I knocked its knife out of its hand before it just jumped me. I kinda just… snapped its neck after it started to try and bite me.”

With the goblin pushed off the man, Daniel took a long look and was relieved to see that he didn’t even have a scratch on him. At least not on his skin anyway. The denim jacket the man wore had some tears but he didn't see any blood.

“What happened?” Someone asked from behind him, and Daniel got up to stand, helping the down man up.

Then he held his spear up, pretending as if he was expecting an attack and looking cautiously at the forest along with the other two. He'd let one of the others explain. As they did, and more and more people gathered, Daniel had to hide his feeling of relief as things had turned out exactly as he wanted.

Just one more problem to take care of, then he’d have to figure out how to get them on the move.

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The effects of the attack were still very readily apparent the next day.

After everyone had figured out what happened, and the braver of them had examined the goblin corpses, they finally had to admit that there were a lot more than wild animals in the forest. There were still plenty of different theories as to where the goblins came from, and just what their whole situation was, but they couldn’t pretend all they had to worry about were normal predators.

Not when they could all see the monstrous appearances of the goblins and the weapons that they’d been armed with.

Two things helped prevent people from panicking outright from the revelation. One was the fact that the attack was stopped completely and no one had been injured as a result. The one guy who had been brought down by a goblin had looked a bit beat up, but he’d ended up with nothing worse than a bruise.

The other thing was the two new classes that were obtained. Fighter and Spearman. Fighter was offered to the guy who’d been knocked down. Spearman went to one of the other members of the night watch who’d managed to get a kill without a gun. Both of them had accepted. And while classes at level one didn’t do that much, as they only had one skill each and the effects weren’t that strong, it still gave the group as a whole hope.

Hope that despite the strange unnatural things around them, that they had a way of getting stronger to face these issues.

Of course, that didn’t mean people still weren’t very wary.

Everyone was a lot more cautious and people mostly stayed in the clearing in the morning. Despite some people wanting to get a Fighter or Spearman class too, no one was eager to actually run into anymore monsters. Not even the scouting groups, who’d realized that they had no idea what they might run into while trying to find a way to safety.

It was only until it became obvious that they needed to keep foraging for food and materials, and after a pep talk from Clark and Sapphire, did people start heading out again.

The scouting groups went out of their way to get the best and sturdiest spears, along with making sure their groups had two gunmen with them at all times. That had almost started an argument, since everyone wanted to stick close to someone with a gun instead of just some wooden spears.

But in the end, it was decided that the scouting groups would be in the most danger and thus needed them. And since they were their only chances of finding a way out of the forest, few could argue that they weren’t needed.

So Joseph ended up bullying a gun off of one of the other gun owners, while Ted, the other scouting group leader, recruited two onto his team.

As for everyone else, they only went out in groups and they all armed themselves up with spears.

It was a good start in terms of safety, though Daniel realized that he might have made his next task a bit harder on himself. Since everyone was more cautious now, it would be harder for him to isolate his target and kill the fucker before he could hurt anyone.

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That made Daniel’s mood sour as he joined the fishing group with Nathan. As they worked on catching fish from the stream, he kept an eye out on his target as he thought about how to get the other man alone without being seen.

At the same time, he had to keep up his conversation with Nathan, which he apparently didn’t do a great job at. His friend knew him too well and noticed that he was distracted.

“Something wrong?” Nathan asked, as the two of them held still over some water, barefooted as they waited for the fish to come near. “I mean. Besides the obvious. Like I get this whole situation is crazy, but you seem extra distracted. Like not even scared or something, but like you're trying to figure something out.”

Daniel kept silent for a bit, gathering his thoughts as he tried to decide what to say, his eyes locked on the water running beneath him. Part of him just wanted to drag his friend somewhere private and tell him everything he could, aside from the one thing he physically couldn’t. To get another perspective and someone to confide in.

Despite having always called himself an introvert, Daniel still enjoyed having a close group of friends. Nathan and their other friends had been that on Earth, and Evelyn and the others had taken their place over time and through years of adventuring. That year after the final battle alone had made him really crave some companionship.

Yet, at the same time, this Nathan might be the same one he remembered, but he wasn’t the same Daniel that Nathan once knew. He was older. More worn down by the world. And he needed to do something that would look really crazy and terrible to his friend without the full context.

Context that he couldn’t provide. At least, he couldn’t prove it without risking someone innocent getting hurt. So did he tell his friend, and trust that he’d believe him? Did he even want to burden his friend with the knowledge?

He’d have to tell Nathan about his magic and his knowledge of this world soon. So at least he'd have one person who knew that he knew what he was talking about, and that he could use all his ability to help without having to hide most things. But he didn’t have to tell him about the murder—no execution—he needed to figure out how to commit.

The only question was, should he have the talk with Nathan now, and potentially distract himself? Or should he wait until later, and focus on the now for the moment?

Daniel sighed inwardly as he made his decision. It would be better for everyone if they had the talk after he’d taken care of the dirty business. So there wouldn’t be any attempts to stop him. Either because Nathan didn’t believe him, or just because he thought that killing would be going too far. And he couldn’t explain that not killing the fucker had ended with one more dead at his hands and him getting away.

“Just trying to figure out our whole situation,” Daniel finally said, noncommittally. “It’s nothing to worry about. My thinking, that is. This whole situation is still crazy.”

He didn’t need to turn to know that Nathan was probably frowning at him.

“Though there is something I want to talk to you about. In private. Not right now though. Let’s talk about it later. Maybe tomorrow.”

“Alright… If you're sure.”

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Eventually, Daniel’s opportunity didn’t appear thanks to anything he did. It's just that the people summoned weren’t able to keep up their caution and high stress for long. They weren’t trained for it. Combined with the fact that all the goblins had been killed and they hadn’t encountered any more of them, or anything else in the morning, and people started relaxing.

Everyone still went around armed, and quite a few people still refused to go anywhere without a group, but many more people relaxed.

By the late afternoon, most people didn’t even move in large groups anymore, unless they were planning on going far. Going to the bathroom alone also didn’t prompt worry for those going off on their own. So Daniel used that as an excuse to avoid looking suspicious when he noticed his opportunity finally arrive.

And it came just in the nick of time, because Daniel had been getting more and more impatient, and wondering if he’d just have to bite the bullet and kill him in a much more conspicuous manner.

Like rushing in as an invisible man and just bludgeoning him with a rock or something.

Thankfully, that wasn’t necessary.

He’d been eyeing his target the entire day, observing him carefully and discretely. And so he noticed right away when the other man walked away from the camp along the stream. Other people had done that on occasion too, going up or down stream to just get some time to themselves.

That might have been what he was doing too. Or he could have been scouting around where he could drag someone off to without anyone else hearing. Who knew with monsters like him?

Daniel, after making his excuses to Nathan, went towards the latrines that they’d dug downstream of their camp and far enough from the river to avoid polluting it. Then, once he was sure he was out of sight of everyone, he cast Minor Invisibility on himself and quickly made his way back to the camp.

He stuck near the trees, circling the camp to avoid going out in the open, where his spell might be seen as a shimmer in the air. Then, he finally stopped at the tree line and observed his target as the man continued to walk along the stream, heading even further from the rest of the camp.

The man didn’t really look anything special. His hair was a dirty brown, which wasn’t strange since they were all a bit dirty. Even Daniel, since he didn’t want to stand out. He had bland brown eyes and a bored expression on his face as he walked. He wore a dress shirt and jeans, with some square-looking glasses. He just looked like some guy from Earth. Probably old enough to be out of college and had a job before all this.

Yet despite the facade of normality, the guy, Alfred Jones, was a fucking Monster at heart. Rapist. Murderer. Sadist. He would show all of this and more in the future if he was allowed to live. And worst of all would be the fact that he would manage to get away because no one had the stomach to execute the sack of shit when they caught him in the act. But not this time.

This time, the man would die before he hurt anyone.

The only question was how Daniel would do it. The man wasn’t quite out of sight of the camp yet, and he’d prefer if no one noticed until the man was already dead, to avoid complications. Which meant he needed to lure the man away…

And he knew exactly how to do that, didn’t he? After all, he knew the man's type.

One face he had recognized, back at the camp, had been one of the young women there. She was pretty, with brunette hair and bright green eyes. She had a beautiful heart-shaped face and a gentle look to her. She seemed relatively cheerful, helping build the lean-tos, despite their situation.

But when Daniel had seen her, all he saw was a flash of a young woman, just like her, except pale as a corpse and half her face smashed in. The rest of her body had been a ruin too, having fallen a long distance. An accident they had thought back then. But none of them had the experience or the stomach to really check. But if someone had been there, they could have told them that it was not an accident at all.

Something they’d only realized later after a disgusting confession from the man himself.

Anger rose in Daniel’s heart as he thought back to this, his fist clenching tightly enough that he had to force himself to stop, lest he make himself bleed.

It had been a long ten years for Daniel, and in this world, he’d actually encountered many worse things than Alfred. Deranged cultist. Power-hungry necromancers. Bloodthirsty bandits and uncaring and sadistic slavers. Brutal all devouring demons and chaotic sentient Monsters. But this bastard still stuck with Daniel for a number of reasons.

One was that this was the first time he’d encounter such an evil person.

He’d heard about such people online back on earth, but they’d always been abstract things. And so when he finally saw such evil in real life, it left a mark. Made it so when he met similar scum later in his life, and had been in a position to stop them, that Daniel hadn’t hesitated to give them a swift and brutal end. Something an Arcane Shadow was rather adept at, even if he hadn’t actually had the class until later in life for some of those.

And it was only fitting, now that he had the chance to get rid of the scum that had gotten away, that he take it with both hands.

Daniel took a single breath to calm himself, pushing away the burning anger in his heart, leaving only ice-cold concentration. Then, carefully he weaved an illusion over himself.

Soon afterward, standing where he’d been, was the same young woman he’d been thinking of before. Long brown hair, heart-shaped face, bright blue eyes. A body that drew the eyes of most guys, wrapped in a modest sweater and jeans combo.

Daniel had to make sure he got everything right with another illusion that worked as a mirror reflecting light. And had to spend some effort getting the expression right, so that his smile was gentle and pleasant instead of predatory.

Then, once he was sure the illusion was good, he called out to Alfred. They were far enough from the camp that the others wouldn’t hear, and he made sure to stay in the forest enough that no one could see his form except Alfred. Didn’t want to accidentally incriminate the girl he was pretending to be.

It didn’t take much to lure the guy over. While this kind of thing wasn’t Daniel’s specialty, preferring pure stealth to subterfuge, he had some experience with it. Pretending to be another person. Even pretending to be a woman on the rare occasions where that was more advantageous.

He was probably a bit rusty at it, since after the demon invasion started, there was little use for such skills, but it was good enough.

He looked pretty. Was the guy's type. And was beckoning the guy over with a smile and leaning in a way to emphasize his illusioned form’s bust.

Alfred ate it up and followed Daniel deeper into the woods. At times Daniel ducked away and hid to gain some distance before appearing again further away. Just a bit more to go, so he wouldn’t have to move the corpse away, and they would be done.

He probably led the man farther than he needed to. Some part of the back of his mind wanted to make the man suffer before he died and thus needed more space so no one would hear him scream.

He crushed that idea as soon as he realized this. That would be pointless. He was here to get rid of a Monster in their midst. That was it.

So once they reached a small clearing in the woods, Daniel turned around. All it would take would be to send an overcharge force bolt straight into his face and that would be it. Monster slain.

But, part of him couldn’t help but hesitate, as he turned around and saw the man. Alfred looked so normal. And what if, somehow, despite everything seeming the same so far, this man wasn’t what he remembered him to be?

Maybe he hadn’t actually gone back in time… Maybe this was a slightly alternate timeline. His only “knowledge” about time travel came from fiction from Earth. In this world, all the texts on the subject were about freezing time for objects or speeding it up. It was generally accepted in magical circles that time travel backwards was impossible.

And maybe it really was.

Daniel didn’t know where these doubts came from, but he couldn’t help but think about it. Then again, it’s not like there wasn’t a way to check.

The illusion Daniel was using didn’t change his voice, so he had to use another spell for that.

“Is there a reason you followed me out here?” Daniel asked, his voice correctly girlish, though he had no idea if it actually matched the original girl. Not that Alfred really noticed, given his eyes seemed to be locked on the illusion form's chest, even if it was hidden by a sweater.

“Do you have to ask? You're the one who called me out here?” Alfred said, with what he probably thought was a suave smile on his face. Daniel couldn’t help but see it as disgusting. Predatory. Though maybe he was just seeing what he wanted to see.

“Yeah, but you're the one who kept chasing. Is there something you want from me?”

“I think we both know what I want,” Afraid said, chuckling and taking a step closer. “After all, why else would you want to be alone with a man like me in the woods alone.”

Daniel let out a small laugh, a bit strained but the man didn’t seem to notice. “Sorry. I guess I just like being a tease. Just wanted to have some fun, that’s all. Not actually ready for that sort of thing.”

That finally got Alfred to stop smiling and frown slightly. But then his smile came back and he tried to close the distance. “Why don’t you give it a shot? And see if you really aren’t ready for that kind of thing.”

Daniel backed away, not wanting the illusion to fail, and shook his head, pretending to be panicked. “Nope. Sorry. I was just playing around. Just a little prank. I’m definitely not ready for that sort of thing.”

This went on for almost a minute and was starting to get on Daniel's nerves. It was also making him consider if maybe he’d been right. That somehow something had changed beyond what his actions did.

But, before Daniel could run off and end this little encounter, Alfred seemed to run out of patience.

“Alright, enough of that you little slut! You don’t get to be a tease like that. So just be a good girl and hold still.”

Daniel almost laughed at the fucking words out of this guy's mouth, and stood still to see if he could push things further. At the same time, with one hand behind his back, he started forming a spell. Maybe he’d been wrong then. Or hadn’t been wrong. “Okay, listen here, asshole. Just cause I teased you a little, doesn’t mean I owe you shit. What are you gonna do anyway? You can’t even catch me. And if you do I’ll scream.”

Alfred’s nose flared, and he seemed to freeze in place for a second as he took a breath. Then he reached into his pants and pulled something out. A knife. “If you scream,” he said, his voice calm, almost dead-like. “Then I’ll fucking cut up that pretty fucking face of yours before I take out my frustrations on you. If you're a good little whore, then maybe I’ll just use you and won’t have to cut you up.”

Daniel froze at those words, no doubt looking shocked to the man before he smirked. Doubts assuaged. Guilt gone. It was time to end this farce.

With a thought, Daniel ended the illusion.

Alfred looked at him in confusion, then shock. And that’s all he had a chance to do before Daniel pointed the hand from behind his back sent a charged-up force bolt straight into his face, letting that anger that had dimmed before come back burning to the surface and helping stoke the spell.

The ball of pure force slammed into the man's face and it exploded like a ripe watermelon.

Daniel stared at the man turned corpse with dispassionate eyes as he used the Cleaning Cantrip to get rid of some of the gore that had splashed onto him.

“Fucking finally,” He muttered to himself. “I was beginning to think that somehow I’d been wrong. But you were every bit the peace of shit I thought you were.”

“Bit of an extreme reaction, though, wasn’t it? Straight to murder?”

For a split second, Daniel froze. Too shocked at hearing someone talking when he thought he was alone. Then he spun around and found Sapphire of all people standing there. She had a placid smile on her face, but her eyes were cold. And Daniel noticed after a second she had a gun in her hand. It wasn’t pointed at him, but it looked ready to be pulled up at a moment's notice.

“So, you want to explain what’s going on?”

Daniel took this all in for just a second before he let out a tired sigh. Gods damn it.