Chapter 10: Goblins III; End of Arc 1
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Everyone stared at Adrianna. I asked her, 

“How exactly did you break your shackles?” 

“I have a mana manipulation skill, so I just used some mana from the mithril.” 

“And why didn’t you break out already?”

“I appraised the hobgoblin you killed, and its stats far exceed my own. Even if I used all the mana stored in the mithril to attack it, it might not have died. Even if it did die, I would’ve had to kill all the other goblins, break everyone’s shackles, and escape before reinforcements come.”

If she can appraise, she probably can see my stats, but she hasn’t mentioned them. It’s possible but unlikely that she’s conserving mana and hasn’t appraised me, but I seriously doubt that. She looked at me with her brown eyes and gave a relieved smile.

I’m gonna go on a little tangent: If I were a human still, I might’ve thought she looked cute. I, however, am not a human. There are a lot of things human brains do that you might not be aware of. These most relevant of these are: muscle memory, facial recognition, speech recognition, pattern memorization, love, anger, emotions in general, all instincts, and an unimaginable number of other things. I no longer have access to ANY of these. To recognize people I have to remember things like how tall they are, the color of their eyes, the size of their head. Just recognizing their face like a human would is about as easy as telling QR codes apart. I can remember facts, but special memory types humans have like faces, smells, music, patterns, and many others are inaccessible to me.

Because of all that, the only reason I can tell she is “cute” is because her physical features generally match what I remember perceiving as “cute” in the past. They say beauty is subjective, but in order to determine what a human might decide is “beautiful” I need to objectify the features they are most likely to deem so. The things Adrianna has are as follows: a very symmetrical face, a thin figure, no physical blemishes such as acne and the like, long and well kept hair, and clothes that follow basic color theory. Despite her fashionable choices, she still looks like all humans look like to me: loud, moving sacks of meat. I can hardly tell them apart from each other. The elves were no different, but Orrian was easy to recognize by his height and the color of his hair, which was a few shades lighter than other elves’. 

Human and humanoid brains are rather impressive, aren’t they? Then again, my special brain isn’t had bad either. I can better decide what I do and don’t want to remember. I’m much more patient. I don’t get emotional easily. I don’t get attached easily, though I admit I’d be very sad if Orrian died. Admittedly, it does take a lot of the joy out of life, but I’m no longer really capable of minding. But I’m sure you’re wondering, “But Briar, what makes you happy? Surely you don’t live a life with no joy?”. I can get joy winning games of any sort. I don’t know why, but something in this brain of mine loves to win games. But games aren’t fun without an opponent. That’s why I played so many pranks on Orrian. It was to see if I could get away with it, if I could win the game.

How does any of this tie into  the current events? Well it’s got several main points. I don’t care about these people. They can die for all I care, if it weren’t for the game. The game is to take these people and get them out of this goblin nest. Everything is a game. Fighting the bandits? I just wanted to see if I could win. I suppose I also took Orrian’s wellbeing into account, at least a little. That girl in the forest? The game I set for myself was to see how much I could impress her. In the end, I lost. I couldn’t kill the fire bear, and she wasn’t impressed. It also didn’t help that my human form was scary to her, so the game was basically over before it started. Then I changed the objective of the game. “Save the elf.” I succeeded just fine, but it was too easy. Too boring.

Now it’s time for my best game yet. “Save the people from the goblin nest.” The beauty of this game is that it’s hard, but you can still get partial points. I’ve decided on 12 points maximum, but I lose one for every person who dies. I’ve chosen this goal not because I care about the people but because it’s the most obvious game to play. The reason this game is better than the others is because it’s not longer a question of whether or not I can win, it’s a question of how many points I can get. Instead of 2 possible outcomes, there are 13, with none being much more likely than the others. The perfect game.

Let’s get back to it. I can tell with “Clairvoyance” that the goblins from the other tunnel are almost at the entrance to this one.

“Get the others unlocked immediately, we don’t have much time at all.”

Adrianna got to it. In a matter of 43 seconds, everyone was unlocked. Unfortunately, the fake stone wall was blocked off entirely by goblins at this point. It wasn’t broken. I suppose they think they’re plotting an ambush. I guess they are, minus the part where I’m not supposed to know about it.

I stood up, or, more precisely, my illusion stood up since I didn’t want to waste mana doing it myself. “Alright people, ya’ll should arm yourselves from that weapon pile over there. Spears are probably the best. Put on any armor you can, but remember the people with the most armor are going out that door first.”

They handed out the gear amongst themselves. The strongest, bravest men took the best armor and the sturdiest swords to formed a line parallel to the entrance. The injured or weaker men, women, and the girls stood behind them with spears, forming two lines.

Adrianna stood in front of everybody. Her plan was to kill all of the weaker goblins with her skill “Flame thrower” and then fall behind everyone else, who would kill off any survivors. Adrianna would support them with her skill “Steel bolt.” All it does is create and propel a steel arrow at ridiculous speeds, but it is far more efficient newtons-to-mana-wise than my telekinesis. At my request, the injured beastkin boy is carrying me. 

I’ve been tossed over his shoulder. It looks to others like nothing is wrong, but the boy here can tell something is up.

“Your clothes don’t feel like clothes at all. They feel more like woven grass or something.”

Is this kid a woven grass expert or something? That’s an oddly specific and oddly correct guess to be pulling out of his ass, which makes me think it’s educated.

“Yeah. My clothes are an illusion. My body is just a rag doll made of woven grass. I can use magic to look like anything, like a goblin or a human. Different people see it differently though.” I dispelled the illusion so he could see. He seemed simultaneously surprised but also not surprised, much like when a person sees their favorite gaming YouTuber’s face reveal. It’s not quite what you expected, but also exactly what you expected, you know? I put the illusion back on and, from my incredibly dignified position on the shoulder of a stranger, instructed Adrianna to begin the fight with the goblins.


Pov: Some poor guy in the front

I didn’t sign up for this. I didn’t want to be here. Nobody did. But here we are, getting ready to fight for our lives against goblins. I have chainmail armor and a rusty short sword. I’m standing next to a guy with one blind eye and raging muscles, and behind a skinny girl with a funky hat. My muscles aren’t particularly shabby, which is why I was put in the front. What I would give to be in the back. I’m a toy maker. A toy maker I tell you. I make toys for my daughter and the children of the village. I have no combat skill and the biggest bout I’ve ever been in was with my best friend over wether syrup or blueberry jam was better on pancakes. We were drunk and I ended up with a really cool scar on my eye, which I suppose is half the reason I got put in the front. It totally makes me look like a warrior, but I’m not. So when the fake wall exploded, the goblins caught alight, and the girls behind me pushed me to fight the giant green evil thing infant of me, I stabbed it as hard as I could, tears in my eyes. It brushed my spear to the side. It gave me a single punch to the stomach. My vision went blank and pain soared through my body. Then I felt my head twist in a way it shouldn’t and all went black.


Pov: Briar

Well I lost two points but other than that it went pretty well. Adrianna’s spell wiped out all but a few hob goblins and several normal goblins. The men them out with only a few injuries and two deaths. In the end, ten survivors. Ten points. We buried the corpses and went to bed for the night. In the morning, we’ll start heading back to the town, which is a good 25 miles away. I wonder what games I’ll think of there.

So if you couldn’t tell, this chapter is the reveal. The twist. The explanation of what separates this story from others. And what is that reveal? It’s that Briar is a sociopath. They are a completely inhuman creature that gets joy out of self created and usually violent games, with no regard for life, human or otherwise. This was actually hinted at in a poll. The question was “What should Briar kill for” and one of the options was “She should be like Ains from Overlord, incapable of caring about human lives.”[modern_footnote]A significant part of Overlord's theme is that the protagonist, after being turned into a monster, no longer has human emotions. He goes on to ruthlessly kill and torture people though mostly indirectly.[/modern_footnote] This option didn’t win, but I decided it was the most interesting choice anyway. Having a “normal” protagonist would be, well, normal.

I’m very happy with the story so far, but I think I’ll end it here. That’s right, no more “reincarnated as a blade of grass.” Why not? Well it’s because I want to try new things, and I made a lot of mistakes. First up, I’ve decided I don’t like the colored boxes. They are a total pain. I also don’t like first person point of view. I think I put too much focus on the magic system. I came into this with the idea of creating the hardest magic system possible, but now I understand why it’s a bad idea. Having a hard magic system is FUCKING BORING and hard to explain. No one wants to keep up with all that math. Next time I’ll create something looser.

The biggest mistake I think I made are the first few chapters. They are positively terrible. I’ll make something far better next time.

What’s this next time I keep talking about? Well it’s my next story of course! I don’t intend to stop writing, I’ve just decided I don’t like this story anymore. I’ll probably stick to isekai, and it’ll almost definitely be fantasy.

Thank you so much for reading all ten chapters of my first story ever, I worked really hard on it. If anyone wants to pick up where I left off and write more chapters, and I encourage you, yes you, person who has never written anything before, just message me and I’ll link your story in the description of mine. :D

I hope you enjoyed my first story ever.

Peace out.

-Deojee

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