Chapter 5 – A cute goblin (part 1)
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A goblin armed to the teeth versus an elf with barely any clothes on. Who would win?

Trick question. Nobody, because we weren’t going to fight.

“No, not English. My name is, uh…” I remembered the female elf name I decided on as a part of the prank. “Feinerena. You can call me Fei!”

Aaand, there we go. I turned her into stone. Dang, and I thought I would finally get to talk to someone who wasn’t made of stone.

She shook her head and regained her serious composure. “How do you know English?”

“Well, ya know. I didn’t have much of a choice. I was just a baby when I was forced to learn it… in my previous life,” I gave her a knowing look.

Her eyes widened again.

“So, you too…?”

I nodded.

A moment of silence followed where she seemed to think about something, before raising her sword again and giving me a hard stare.

“Are you planning on destroying the world, then?”

I wanted to scream.

“Oh, come on!” So I did.

“Why does everyone want me to destroy the world?! I’m so sick of this!”

Exasperation appeared on her face. But I continued my rant regardless.

“First, those asshole elves are like, hnnn, your hair is red, you are obviously evil! Off you go alone into the forest to be animal food! And then this stupid ancient text or whatever keeps telling me that destroying the world is the cool thing to do nowadays! And now I finally meet another person after a month of wandering through the forest alone, and the first thing they say is whether I want to destroy the world?! Argh!”

I punched the wall.

“Argh!”

It hurt.

I dropped my torch and cradled my hand.

“Hey… uh, it’s okay. You don’t have to… destroy the world, if you don’t want to.”

That was one heck of a consolation.

“Look, how about we go back to my camp and talk about this?”

“Alright…” I said, avoiding looking at her, pretending to be angry. Well, only half-pretending.

When we returned to the huge crystal room, she seemed to have taken a look around her camp and noticed one of her pots lying on the ground. Whoops.

“So…” she started, her eyes darting from side to side. “Earth. We both reincarnated from there, right?”

“Yup.” I nodded.

“And… you are an elf now.”

“Yeah.”

“And you were thrown out… because of your hair?” she asked, probably still trying to process it.

“Mhmm. Apparently, some elven legends said elves with red hair were some kind of bad omen or whatever.”

She frowned. “That’s dumb… it’s not even all that red.”

“I know, right?! It’s more brown than red! These jerks were just looking for an excuse to throw me out! It’s a conspiracy, I tell you!”

She nodded with a frown, “Hmm, that’s just cruel of them. Throwing you out just for the crime of having slightly red hair?” She shook her head.

Well, that might not have been my only transgression, but I wasn’t gonna mention it.

She then glanced around and continued, “So… the texts on the walls.”

I immediately caught on to where she was going with this.

“They say that an otherworlder is going to destroy the world one day. So annoying! It’s like someone wants me to destroy the world real bad!”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “When I first read it, I felt quite disturbed.”

“Eh, it’s fine! It’s not like you wanna destroy the world.” I put my conspiracy-theorist face on. “Or do you?”

“What? No! Of course, not!”

“Then it’s all good!” I gave her a thumbs up.

She stared at me for a second before sighing. “I sure hope so…”

She was being too dramatic. Neither one of us was keen on the whole world destruction thing, so what could possibly go wrong?

I decided to change the subject.

“So… What about you? Why are you camping inside here?” I looked around, my gaze stopping on the suspicious crystal for a second.

She pursed her lips, before sighing again and looking sideways.

Oh, whoops… maybe not the best subject change?

A few seconds passed before she finally spoke. “Goblins… are dumb,” she managed.

I nodded, waiting for her to continue beyond the ‘sky is blue, grass is green’ obviousness-level of a statement.

“So… as a reincarnator, I have this special ability.”

Oooh, right. She had to have one too.

“I used it on myself, and it changed how I look.” She shuffled her feet. “A… bit cuter. Less goblin-like.”

Oh, a bit cuter, she’d said. That was an understatement and a half.

Wait.

“Your ability makes people cute?” I asked her, feeling kinda excited about it.

“Well, uh… sometimes? It’s one of the things it can do.”

“Wait, so it’s random? You don’t know what it will do?”

“No no no! Well… uh, a little bit? It’s complicated.” She scratched the back of her head.

I raised my eyebrow questioningly.

“My ability… can change the form of people and objects. Umm… I still don’t know the exact rules, but I can make a chair out of wood, a pot out of some minerals --” She gestured around the camp. ”-- And a cute girl out of an ugly goblin I guess,” she whispered the last part.

 Oh, that explained a lot. Still… one of those applications was way more important than others.

“So you could turn me into a cute girl too?” I asked, excitement bubbling inside me for some reason.

“Huh? Uh, well…”

“Or would it turn me into a chair?” I frowned, thinking about it.

“No, it wouldn’t! But… well, you’re already a cute girl.” She seemed to have realized what she’d said a second later and her green face gained a red tint as she looked sideways.

Dang… my girl act was so good, that she’d even called me a cute girl! That felt great! It made me proud of my acting skills.

“Sooo… what happened after you turned into a cute goblin girl?”

She stopped, swallowed, but managed to reduce the redness on her face after a moment.

“I had to get away from the other goblins.” She sighed again. “Goblins… are dumb,” she repeated.

Ah… So that’s what she’d meant. Now I kinda felt bad for prying.

But come to think of it, she was in a pretty similar situation to mine, wasn’t she? Reincarnated from Earth, living in her community for a while, and then the moment where she had to leave and ended up being alone in the wilderness.

“Then I found this suspicious door outside --” She pointed at one of the tunnels. ”-- and when I touched it, it opened for me.”

Huh? It opened automatically? I had to bubble it away!

“And… well, despite the creepiness, I decided to settle here for the time being. To pass the winter.”

Dang. Her story really was uncannily similar to mine. What gives?

“So…” She darted her eyes around again. “You have an ability too, right?”

“Hmm? Yeah! I have a bubble!”

“A… bubble?” she asked, clearly confused.

“Mhmm.” I gave her a grin and a side-eye. “Wanna see it?”

“Um, sure?” She tilted her head.

“Okie, then! All I need is to grab your hand to show you my almighty bubble!” I extended my hand.

She eyed it suspiciously for a moment before extending her own hand and grabbing mine.

I plopped us into the bubble as soon as our hands touched.

“Wha--?!” She immediately jumped back, grabbed her sword, and frantically looked around.

“Welcome to the bubble!” I raised my arms to emphasize the grandeur. “I can put things in here, and I can take them out! And as you just found out, elves and goblins count as things.”

She froze and looked at me, eyes wide. “You have a pocket dimension?!”

I crossed my arms and nodded with a grin. I then raised my hand and snapped my fingers at the same time I returned us to the real world. Just for the theatrics.

“Well… That’s… quite something.” She nodded to herself.

I’d made a great first impression, it seemed. Just what I needed for her to accept me as a tenant!

“By the way… why was there a statue inside?”

Uhh…

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