Murphy’s Law states that anything that can happen, will happen.

Sometimes those things happen faster than expected.

In this case, instead of chasing after the army and their kaiju hunting party, I ran into a couple little green men wearing loincloths and holding spears. It was in the suburbs near the edge of the town, too, which made me wonder briefly if all monsters were naturally drawn toward concentrations of people.

They were standing in the middle of the road, and I didn’t want to risk damaging my car by running them over, so I unsheathed the meat cleaver I’d brought along and stepped outside.

Was this a stupid idea? Yes. But I wanted to test my Eidolon’s Embrace and the stats I’d gotten from it.

The goblins noticed me straight away and shouted an unintelligible war cry at me, raising their spears high.

The behavior reminded me of a monkey trying to make itself seem bigger to scare off predators, which made me hesitate for a second. Maybe these were nice goblins?

Then one of them chucked a spear at me.

Seriously? I’m twice your size. Stupid meat.

I started sprinting, surprising myself a bit with the speed. The goblins shrieked and raised their weapons at me, the one who’d thrown their spear pulling a shiv out of their loincloth. Clearly, they were too simpleminded to realize that they were outmatched.

I took out the shiv wielder first, maneuvering around the spear of the other and slicing into my main target’s hand. It was then a simple matter to carve into its throat and leave it choking to death on its own blood.

The spear wielder stood away from me with fear clear in its eyes.

As it should be.

I burst forwards, intent on slaying the monster before it got the chance to strike back at me, but it took the opportunity to thrust its spear directly towards me.

For a second, things slowed down.

My vision caught the quiver in the goblin’s hands, induced by its own fear and commitment to its attack.

I felt my own footing, unstable at the speeds I was moving.

The glimmer of some substance on the spear glistening in the sun registered in the corner of my eye.

Then something else took over.

I felt my body twist, gripping the spear in my left hand and kicking the goblin in the chest, springboarding off of it and flipping completely to skid across the pavement.

Then my body threw the spear forwards, and it sailed straight into the chest of the remaining goblin, piercing clean through and killing it on the spot.

Eidolon’s Embrace (Lv. 1) → (Lv. 2)

+1 Mana Recovery

+1 Attribute Point (Human Versatility)

The sensation dissipated, leaving only a feeling of intense satisfaction and a pulsing migraine, as well as a desire to vomit that surged whenever I looked at either of the goblin’s bodies.

I held my head in my hands for a moment, pulling up the screens to check over the update.

Name: Kenny Bert

Race: Human (Earth)

Role: Speaker for the Dead

Strength: 5 (+6)

Mana: 7 (+8)

Dexterity: 5 (+2)

Mana Recovery: 6 (+4)

Passives: Human Versatility, Echo Garden

Skills: Immortal Questions (Lv. 2) , Eidolon's Embrace (Lv. 2)

Quests: Reintegration (1%)

Already, my stats were getting pretty high, especially my Mana.

I dropped my point into Mana Recovery, figuring that it would probably help with my headache, but noted that I should increase my Dexterity. It had been the dragon’s lowest Attribute, so it would also be mine for the foreseeable future.

I’d felt pretty mobile in that fight, but that was only after my Echo had started manipulating me. It felt a bit strange. On one hand, it had kept me from getting stabbed and most likely poisoned, and it was unlikely that my Echoes could or would intentionally hurt me, but at the same time, I’d almost fully lost control.

The next time it happened, I’d have to test how much control I had over my own body while under the drake’s influence. It was possible that the full manipulation was caused by the strength of the dragon compared to my own weakness. Even now, the Attributes it was giving me were almost as significant as my own.

I took a long look at the corpses at my feet. I’d get to collect two Echoes from each, but which words should I use for the Echoes? I’d prefer to stay away from anything that might make me regret killing them, and learning something useful from them would be optimal.

Kneeling down, I placed my hand on the goblin whose throat I’d sliced open.

“Creation.”

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There was nothing. Nothing, ever, forever. Only hunger. Then, there was sensation. Sight, sound, scent. It was overwhelming, and the creature wept uncontrollably.

It wept for fear.

It wept for rage.

It wept for pain.

But most of all, it wept for hunger.

It devoured the knowledge of its body, and rose to its feet, gripping a spear, and started looking for something to hunt.

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I closed my eyes and pulled away. These goblins weren’t that intelligent. At least, not in a traditional sense. That was a weight off my shoulders. It also seemed that, rather than be teleported to our world, they’d been pulled out of some sort of void.

I put my hand back on the goblin and whispered again.

“Hunger.”

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It scratched at its stomach, the pain unbearable. The hunger, the endless hunger, it was agony beyond any comparison, and there was only one way to feed it.

To hunt.

It and its companion set forth, for every goblin knew that one was weak, but many were strong. Their numbers may have been too few, but the hunger was devouring them, threatening to send them back to the nothing.

They hunted and hunted, until they found a small, weak creature, covered with soft hair-twigs and a snapped arm-flap. Its sharp tooth-mouth cried out ceaselessly, and the goblins lunged on it. With its death, the hunger reduced, but only a little.

They needed larger prey.

And they could smell a lot of it.

The goblin pair began their travel towards the unnatural structures in the distance.

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For a moment, I just stared at the dead body.

They hadn’t eaten the bird. They’d just killed it and left it there.

Not only were the goblins monsters in as literal of a sense as they could possibly be, their hunger wasn’t for meat. It was for death.

They’d come to the city expressly to slaughter as many people as possible.

I ran the same questions on the other goblin and found that their experiences were functionally identical, aside from being in different positions.

The revelation that monsters were basically just murder machines from an empty void was upsetting, to say the least. The dragon had seemed different, but it had thought of itself as a newborn as well. Perhaps there was a difference between the two? The goblin echoes seemed to lack much in the way of personality, whereas the dragon had a lot of it, not to mention both types of ego. Was it a difference in strength or intelligence, or was there something else going on?

I started walking back to my car, intent on continuing my journey, when I glanced at the spear goblin’s body again and was reminded of my Passive, Echo Garden.

I popped open the trunk and shuffled some things around to make space.

The cleaners were going to have some questions for me, and I wasn’t sure I’d have any good answers for them.

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After my encounter with the goblins, I got back to my route of trying to follow after the military, but eventually I lost them with the sun setting and them getting further and further away. Instead, I started driving around randomly, trying to locate any other dead bodies or monsters that I could reasonably handle.

I did see signs of fights here and there, but no bodies, and definitely no more massive creatures. Maybe the local government had already gotten transportation set up for them? I was sure that they’d sell for a pretty penny, or perhaps they’d get someone to study them and figure out weaknesses, or maybe how they were being created?

Once the moon had risen and the stars were out, I knew it was time to call it and go home.

Luckily, my house hadn’t been broken into, and I was able to transport the two goblin corpses to my backyard and start digging.

Even with my Strength having more than doubled since the beginning of the day, digging a grave deep enough to make sure it wouldn’t stink took a couple hours. I didn’t know the exact requirements of Echo Garden, but my personal standard was that I should be able to go into my backyard and not want to die.

Handling the dead bodies was gross. They were dirty and bloody and uncooperative. When you lift a living thing, like a pet or a friend, they subconsciously help you distribute the weight because they don’t want to hit the ground like a sack of rocks. Dead bodies can’t do that, so I was forced to awkwardly chuck them into the pit, relying entirely on my boosted strength and their own relatively small size.

Once I dumped the final piece of, I felt a slight change in the area. It was like the opposite of a headache– my thoughts were clearer, and I had more energy. The dirt on top of the grave also started getting packed down, as though being stomped down by goblin-sized feet.

“Huh, that’s disappointing. I thought I’d be able to see them.” I frowned. “Then again, I can’t see the dragon Echo and my Skill is actively using it as a power source.”

It looked like I wouldn’t be getting visible ghosts. That was too bad.

With the goblin corpses handled, it was time for a nice long sleep.

After locking all the doors, I climbed into bed and closed my eyes.

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My eyes opened to gaze down upon a wide, open landscape, my domain. But upon it, there were vermin.

Heat built in my chest, and I ascended into the skies on my wings. The rats tried to flee, but I didn’t allow that– my jaw unhinged and an impossibly hot flame escaped my lungs, roasting the pathetic, rotten meat to char.

Satisfied, I returned to my resting place on the mountain and curled into a ball, closing my eyes and returning to one of my favorite activities– sleeping.

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My eyes shot open to the distant sound of shattering glass.

Quietly, I climbed out of bed, grabbed my cleaver, and crept out of my room, listening carefully.

I’m so stupid, why didn’t I board the doors and windows?

Monsters were almost always more active at night in fiction, so of course they would be here, too.

Part of me just wanted to escape, but the rest of me knew that the best thing I could do was handle the threat– not only would I get more Echoes and bodies for my Garden, there was also a chance of getting progress for my Skills, and thus more ability to handle stronger monsters in the future.

Instead of fleeing, I moved slowly toward where the sound had come from. There were faint hissing sounds, causing me to pause briefly. If it was some sort of giant snake, then there was a chance it was venomous, and that could be fatal if I messed up.

The sounds continued, and I soon concluded that they weren’t snake-like. I kept moving forwards, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever had snuck into my house.

Then, just as I reached the end of the hall, I got a better read on the sounds they were making.

“–just some middle-aged lady, and she doesn’t even live here anymore. Probably got some fancy summer home.” The voice was deep and quiet, but my ears caught onto what it was saying anyways.

“What if the neighbors heard us, though? I don’t want any problems with the police, man.”

“You idiot.” There was a soft impact, cloth on cloth. “The cops don’t have time to be dealing with thieves when there are monsters on the streets. Didn’t you see that dragon? Now shut up.”

They were people.

My knife trembled in my hand. Should I announce my presence, try to scare them off? Or would it be better to ambush them? They were right in what they were saying– the chances of cops showing up to help were low. Either I let the place get robbed, or I fight back and risk getting hurt.

Not to mention, these were people, not goblins. I couldn’t just kill them, but I didn’t know how to safely incapacitate people. They would probably be stronger than the goblins, too, and there was a good chance they had their own Roles and Attributes to worry about.

I breathed slowly, making sure to keep the sound from reaching them.

I needed to handle this problem, and currently the only thing I had on my side was surprise– that and probably Attributes.

I slowly peeked my head around the corner and saw two men, one tall with a muscular frame and one of a more average build. They were in full black, making it a bit harder to see them, but since I already knew they were there I just had to squint and focus. The big guy was carrying a gun, while the other, standing behind him, was looking around nervously and twitching.

I pulled my head back and leaned over, undoing my laces and gently stepping out of my shoes.

My hands were sweaty, so I wiped them on my jeans and adjusted my grip on my cleaver.

Then, I moved.

With seven Dexterity, it felt like my body moved half again as quickly as it should, and eleven Strength gave me the raw power to close the gap before either man got time to notice and react.

I chopped into the burly man’s hand, forcing him to drop his gun, and used my enhanced flexibility to quickly kick it behind me.

The big guy gripped at his hand and shouted in agony, and I quickly turned and looked at the other guy, who’d fallen back in surprise.

Then I noticed what was in his hand, and dove to the side as fast as I could.

There was a flash, and then an ear-shattering sound, and then pain.

I looked down and saw a huge gash across my arm, my sleeve torn and blood splotches everywhere. Something about seeing the blood flipped a switch in my head, and I felt the Eidolon take control.

Righteous fury filled me to my core. How dare these mortals injure a god?

My body zipped forwards, faster than I would’ve been able to manage on my own, led by my fist.

The smaller man had dropped the gun and looked at me with an expression of terror and regret. As is only right.

My arm hammered down, and then he was in the floor with an impression of my fist in his stomach.

My body turned of its own volition to gaze at the big guy, who was left staring at his friend and putting pressure on his hand to stop the bleeding.

Stop! I tried to regain control, to stop myself– or rather, the dragon– from going on a rampage.

No. The voice came back smug and self-assured, and I felt my body start slowly marching towards the meat.

I felt the wild grin on my face vanish as the drake played with the man like a cat would a mouse.

I pulled back with as much force as I could, trying to restrain the dragon, but it refused to allow me to regain control, and I was left watching helplessly as the would-be thief turned to run and my body dashed forwards, smashing into his back and pinning him to the floor.

With all the dragon’s Strength, this man had no chance of resisting me, and my hands wrapped themselves around his neck and squeezed.

He choked, gasping for air and failing to get it.

Then he caught fire.

My mouth hissed and the dragon rapidly changed courses to snap the man’s neck, causing the fire to cut out and leaving my skin only a little burnt.

You pathetic meat sacks and your weak skin.

You didn’t have to do that. He would’ve left and we would’ve been safe.

To let prey flee is to lose your place as the predator. It is only by being ruthless that we can ensure that we never face defeat.

With that, I regained control over my body and vomited onto the man that I’d just killed.