1 Living the Goblin Life (1)

"I know", said a sweet female voice, almost like a whisper, "I will reincarnate you into something that truly fits you", she giggled.

That was about everything he could remember before waking up.

As he woke up, he could feel someone holding him, or was it something? What stood before him was a green creature with a grotesque face.

His first instinct was of repulse, but soon realized that moving away wasn't really an option. His body was just too small. Even his hands, which were green just like the other creature.

As the creature continued to hold him in its arms, he came to realize the situation he was in.

He was a baby goblin.

And that was his mom(?). He could vaguely remember being a human before this. And somehow he could identify that those were goblins (or something very similar), but any details about his past life were foggy to him. All he could remember was the sweet voice of the goddess(?) who reincarnated him. But to reincarnate him as a goblin... the idea that she did this just as some sort of prank pissed him off.

"Klun". The goblin holding him would continually repeat those words while looking at him. He couldn't understand much of what it was saying, perhaps it was a different language? But nevertheless, it seemed that Klun was his new name. As he couldn't remember his past name, it wasn't hard getting used to it.

Once he let the idea of the situation sink in, the goblin's embrace suddenly felt warm. It seemed like being embraced like this was something he couldn't get much of in his past life. He started to see the person holding him as his mom.

2 months later, and he was already able to walk. Apparently goblins grew way faster than humans. Most goblin babies beside him were already walking as well. The cave they lived in didn't have a lot of space, but it was big enough for the babies to walk plenty all over it.

Sometimes adult goblins came back to the cave with food. Mostly animal corpses. If they couldn't find meat, they would have grass or insects if necessary. All the food looked really disgusting initially, but Klun soon grew used to it as well.

4 months later, and he had a new younger brother. Apparently goblins also reproduced faster than humans. His name was Trok, but Klun still didn't understand goblin language anyway, so he had no idea of what it meant.

It seemed goblins here had a fairly close communal life. Which I guess you could expect from a group living in a small cave. All the adults would take care of the kids, and all the kids would usually play together. Though their idea of playing was sometimes quite violent, the kids would punch and kick each other until one of them started bleeding. Klun didn't enjoy these types of games, especially because he would often be the one getting hurt. But that was about what existed for entertainment inside a cave. His mom would always be there to comfort him if anything happened, though, which brought him some comfort.

8 months in, and he could finally start to understand goblin language. That's when he learned that "Klun" meant "thin", a name given by his mom because she had never seen a goblin as thin as him when he was born. Even now, he could see he was smaller and thinner than other goblins his age... Surely that goddess was really making fun of him.

But either way, he could begin to understand the structure of goblin society. The cave had around 200 goblins, and most adults would be responsible for gathering or hunting food, while the kids would stay in the cave for combat training. There was also a goblin leader in the cave, named Hort (meaning power in goblin language), responsible to protect the cave from intruders.

The kids in the cave would often be placed together to fight against each other, as a means of training. Not much different from the games they used to play. Klun would hesitantly join in after being forced to by the adults.

"Hahaha, ready to get your ass kicked again?" Klun was facing an usual opponent, a female goblin his age named Proya (meaning Fierce). Female goblins weren't too different from male goblins, but you could identify them by their rounder head shape. But in terms of physical strength, there wasn't much difference between the genders.

"Do we really need to do this?" Klun hesitantly asked.

"Of course, because I WANT to kick your ass." She looked motivated.

"Actually, my stomach has been bad for a while and-" Klun started talking, but Proya interrupted by jumping on him.

He fought back, but it wasn't much of a fight. She was bigger and stronger than him, and quickly held him down after a couple punches. Klun managed to land a few punches, but they didn't seem to have much of an impact. Eventually, she got up once it was clear he couldn't move anymore.

"Phew, that felt good." She had a satisfied look on her face. "Let's fight more later, haha." She left just like that, leaving Klun on the floor.

'This is so frustrating. Not only am I a goblin, I'm one of the weakest ones.' Dejected, he went back to his mom, who was taking care of his younger brother.

"What happened? Got beat up again?" His mom asks.

"...Yeah." He answers ashamedly.

"Are you trying to fight someone bigger than you head-on? We are goblins, you know?"

"What do you mean?"

"We are one of the weakest races. If we just went and picked a fight with everyone, we'd have been wiped out in no time. That's why we gather together, we scheme, we run. That's how we survive, that's the goblin way."

"I guess you are right." That made him think a bit.

"Being stronger than other goblins doesn't really mean much either, haha" She laughed as she petted his head.

"I'm not that much of a kid, you know." He answered embarrassedly.

"Yes, you are."

These warm moments were something he lacked in his past life, and made him think this life wasn't all that bad.

They weren't going to last much longer, though.