4 Raison D'Etre

"Master, we are hungry." One single sentence from one of his goblins had ruined Adriano's day. While goblins and other summonable monsters couldn't die forever, at least as long as he had them insured, they still were living beings. They needed to eat, sleep and breathe.

"oh c'mon guys, next thing you are gonna tell me is that you want beds as well!" Naturally, Adriano didn't care much about his monster's needs, especially when those needs would cost him something.

"Well, now that you mention..." Frank touched his back. For the past 2 days, he and his brothers had slept on the rocky ground, experience which wasn't exactly pleasurable by any means.

After 20 more minutes of haggling and discussing, (and losing a hand at poker.) Adriano finally decided to reward his loyal subject, as he called them. Using most of the credits he got from selling the kid and his rubbish, Adriano bought the three goblins straw beds, some meat, and a campfire, evolving the room to a goblin camp.

The rest had naturally gone into buying a comfortable bed for himself, Xiao Bai and some fresh food.

All in all his life was going pretty well, he would wake up, play poker with the goblins, bicker with Core about ways to improve the dungeon, cry about knowing he couldn't afford anything and then hug Xiao Bai to sleep.

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"Do you have any seven?" he asked to the three goblins he was playing cards with. They all shook their heads in denial. as he picked another card he asked: "so, I never asked, but where are you guys from?"

Frank, apparently always acting as the leader of the three answered for them. "we come from the black demon Rou's army. Nice place really. The only downside being the constant training we had to go through."

He then continued describing his home. "Imagine a mountain filled with tunnels and with an open-air onsen on the peak. dozens of different races all living together without fighting. that is home for us." a streak of melancholy flashed past the three goblin's squint eyes as memories came resurfaced.

"then how did you guys end up here?" asked Adriano perplexed.

"the black demon trains us for two purposes: fighting for him until our last breath, and when we become useless or he finds something better, he sells us on the market." at this point a tinge of sadness appears on all of their faces.

"In our case, goblins have become useless for his war purposes, however, we sell well on the market. That's why he has a few thousands of us bred and trained every year to be sold into slavery basically."

Adriano nodded at Frank's words feeling a little bit sad for them. Being born just to become someone's slave. Stripped of their freedom before they even knew what freedom was. Why did it all sound so familiar?

"Core, four mugs of beer! please." trying to cheer the goblins up he decided to offer them a drink, however...

[credits are insufficient for even a mug of the cheapest alcoholic, however, if you are thirsty you can afford two cups of water, would you like to purchase?] sighing at his penniless state Adriano shook his head and went back focusing on the game.

"what about you, boss? we don't see many humans managing a dungeon by themselves," asked Joe while checking his cards. The other two goblin's eyes lit up for a moment, evidently curious about the same thing. "especially not as poor as you." he concluded with a smirk.

"Well," he started. "For starters, I'm not human, I'm a celestial, we are very similar, one of the main difference is that we don't get old. We also have way superior technology and some of us are born with 'gifts' we could say, like moving things with their mind and etc." the shocking revelation made the goblins drop their cards on the table. one of the dropped card landed face up revealing something that turned Adriano mad.

"Hey! that's a seven, Luigi, you asshole!" Luigi's mouth took an 'O' shape as if he had no idea where that card had come from.

"So that's a seven?" Asked Joe from the side with a sudden realization. " I have two sevens then!" he said while showing part of his hand. Opposite to him Frank also silently placed a seven on the table.

"Wait a minute, you guys don't know how to read numbers?" Asked Adriano in shock. The three goblins shook their heads in shame. "can't believe I've been losing to you guys at poker for the past few days." he finished deflating like a balloon on his chair.

"Oh c'mon boss, don't be like that! you were telling us about your home and why you came to this dungeon." Frank said while patting Adriano's back.

"Sigh, I guess I have nothing better to do. You see the Celestial society is far from perfect, the advanced technology came at the cost of personal liberty. Our 'leader', Godking, as he likes to be addressed as, has full access to all of our technology. With a snap of his fingers, he can shut down lights, telephones, medical equipment... that's why as he established his absolute reign, no one dared oppose him, everybody was more afraid of losing their comfort than losing their liberty."

Adriano took a big sigh before continuing. "When I was born, things were already at the point where babies would get taken immediately after birth and raised by the government. in the place where we were educated the most important lesson was loyalty to the god-king."

"All the kids in my age group grew up dreaming of being useful to that mad dictator, however, I was different. Hearing stories passed down in whispers for fear of being discovered I grew up I yearning for the freedom I had never even experienced. To live in a world where not everything was set in stone, where you could express yourself without fearing retaliation. I found what I was looking in dungeons, or at least I thought I did." A sad expression flashed in his eyes for a moment.

"After twenty years of studying, I applied to work at D&M. Working on my first dungeon was one of my happiest memories, I remember not being able to sleep for days after, such was the thrill. The feeling of omnipotence that I received from creating was exhilarating. However, with time, it started to fade. Every world I created wasn't really mine. It felt like cooking the best dinner ever and then seeing someone else gorge himself on it. And then one day the idea struck me, why couldn't I secretly build my own private dungeon? a place where I could be free. And here we are."

Suddenly a glint of resoluteness appeared in his eyes. "I don't care how many will suffer for my dream to come true, they were born free to choose and they choose to come here and die." the bloodlust from Adriano's eyes spread to his goblins, that for the first time could feel who their boss really was.

Suddenly Core interrupted their talk.

[A level 34 adventurer has entered the dungeon. Estimated danger rank: D]

Like a bucket of cold water on a fire, fear suddenly poured over Adriano's ambition. His goblins were each at most E+ rank, that meant that whoever was coming was superior to them. Adriano hugged Xiao Bai and stepped back.

The goblin trio seriously nodded to each other and grabbed their weapons, assuming their defending stances. Soon after the door was kicked open by a middle-aged man, his graying long hair reaching the shoulders, together with his well-built physique, gave him a valiant aura of an experienced monster slayer.

His sharp eyes looked around the room as if looking for something, finally stopping on Adriano. "Where is Alzark?" he asked with a voice that sounded like thunder and rumbling rocks. The absolute fury hidden in his words could be felt by even the densest of people.

To answer him Adriano gathered his courage by squeezing Xiao Bai. "If I tell you he is not here, will you leave?" Unbeknownst to him, Adriano had involuntarily confirmed inside the invader's mind, that he knew Alzark.

"If not here, then where is he, I'm not leaving until you speak." The mace in his hand gave him the right to stay as much as he wanted and invited anyone who had anything against it to come and try him.

"well, that's kinda complicated to explain. How familiar are you with the concept of Dungeon market?" While Adriano was serious in wanting to help this man, at the same time he appeared to his eyes as if he was mocking him.

"Fine, don't tell me. I'll have you spit it out with your teeth after I deal with your watchdogs." He said before rushing forward and smashing his mace down on Frank's head.

Frank, on the other side, didn't really wanna kiss the mace and managed to avoid it at the last moment. The fight went on for over ten minutes, every time he attacked two goblins would team up to block the heavy mace while the other would hit him from the sides.

True to his valiant looks, his fighting was anything but mediocre. Even while being 3 vs 1, he still fought to an impasse with the goblins without showing any hint of fear in his eyes, as if all of this could be resolved in an instant.

After striking down another blow, and observing a goblin going for his undefended flank, his lips moved wordlessly, Adriano knew what that meant and tried to warn Frank, however, the warrior was faster and suddenly the poor goblin was covered in flames.

Turning his eyes away from his charred opponent, the warrior focused all his attention on the other two, however, this proved to be a fatal mistake. Coming from what he had deemed as a burning goblin corpse, a sword strike managed to sever his left Achille's heel.

Knowing his time was running thin, the injured warrior infused all his strength into a last blow carrying all his ferocity and desperation. The mace fell vertically on Joe's sword, Adriano could swear the world had slowed down at that moment. As the blade broke in a million tiny pieces, so did Joe's skull. In his last moments, his short yet bulky arms coiled themselves around the mace, stalling the warrior long enough for Frank and Luigi to enact revenge and behead him.

As the mysterious man's head rolled on the ground Adriano let out a sigh of relief. However the relief didn't last long, the moment he saw Joe's smashed head bleeding on the floor he immediately ran forward, picking up the mauled body. "Dammit Joe, you can't die like this, you still haven't raped anyone's family!"

Ignoring Adriano's kind words, Joe's body disappeared like wet sand, slipping between his fingers and returning to the earth. While he had not known him for a long time, Adriano had passed the last three days basically spending all his time with the goblins, thus actually gaining an affection for them.

And now, as he was finally seeing past their ugly faces and horrible smell, one of them had died. Just when he felt tears starting to form he heard the other two snicker. 'what do they have to laugh about? one of their brothers just died!' he thought and angrily turned around, ready to verbally abuse them a little.

However the moment he turned around all his rage disappeared. Why? there were three goblins snickering at him. Suddenly he remembered, the trio was insured, whenever one died they would come back to life for free.

Feeling his cheeks turn hot with shame he grabbed the mace from the ground. "as your master, I forbid you to move!" the goblins stopped laughing as they realized they had messed with the wrong person.

"let me see you laugh now!"

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Finally done disciplining his little helpers, Adriano asked Core to sell everything as usual, however before Core did anything one of the goblins stopped him. "Boss, wait! can we keep the head? in the black demon's army winners traditionally eat the strong opponents." Joe squirmed, evidently still a little afraid setting Adriano off again.

Seeing their adorable eyes as they pleaded Adriano pondered and then asked Core. "how much is the head worth?"

[By itself not much, however selling a headless corpse might hugely affect the final value.]

After that Core went into a deep explanation about how adventurer's bodies would get treated after being sold. Weak and useless ones would just be turned into fertilizers or black magic ingredients. However, strong bodies would probably get used to producing high ranking undead, and unfortunately, undead needed heads to act as weak point.

"Sorry guys, next time." Adriano dismissed the goblins who grumpily went to sharpen their swords. "ok Core, sell everything and tell me how much we got this time." He said while rubbing his hands together.

[processing... processing... processed. Current credit: 36.432 credits.]

A smile widened on Adriano's face. Finally, his plans could proceed.