Ch. 36 Not Always a Happy Ending

Author Note:

This chapter implies some touchy subjects. That are R-18. And not the fun lemon kind… at least for the majority of people. I'll try not to go in-depth since I don't want to describe what happens in great detail. I don't plan on doing these often, and I wish this is the only one but the world is cruel and some monsters/creatures are not family friendly.

You have been warned, and thank you for reading.

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Myrddin makes it to the location where the dot is located and carefully scouts the area. He doesn't find anything at all.

"Fuck" Myrddin looks down at the ground.

The only other answer is the semi-clear night sky. But he assumes that this new creature doesn't have a flying fortress or wings to carry a 17 year old girl around.

He goes towards the base of the mountain and begins scanning for any opening.

After spending 15 minutes of finding nothing he decides to try something new.

He puts his short-short sword down and puts his hands out at his sides and closer his eyes.

"Ventus!"

He shouts and the wind begins to pick up. He is able to spread some of his little remaining mana into the air. He's hoping that he can manage to 'see' what his mana hits. Sorta like what he did with Jackson's shoulder. But this is different and on a significantly larger scale.

The wind circles around Myrddin and causes his jacket and hair to move around.

'Deducet te ventus, et ostendam tibi locum tuum'

Myrddin only saw darkness. There was a flash of a dull streak of green. Then hundreds of thousands of green streaks began to appear in his mind. He was able to see a lot of things. And one of those things was himself. As the wind hit him he was able to see himself.

He moves his arms in a sweeping motion. First pushing it forwards towards the mountain and then along its surface. He moves his arms and guides the wind where he wants to see.

The detail is very basic, but he will be able to find an opening much easier in the nighttime this way without exposing himself if he uses Ignis or Lux.

He moves his arms to the left and sweeps them down and then brings them to the right. It was mostly rocks, trees, and other nature things with the occasional small animals like a squirrel or bird.

After 15 minutes his head quickly turns to the right and his eyes snap open. He has located an opening off to the side a little ways.

Myrddin kneels down and gets his breathing under control. He wasn't exhausted, but he did have to exert himself a fair bit. He was able to find the cave and see the entrance, but after that he had to stop. The mental strain wasn't doing him any favors and his mana reserves were looking rather low.

Grabbing the short-short sword in his right hand he takes his wand out and holds it in his left.

Somehow, he knew the wand wouldn't be able to help him with his new spell 'Ventus Aspectu'. It was his intuition that told him the wand wouldn't help. He logicalized after the fact that since it required his own mana to relay the information back to his mind the wand using the World's mana wouldn't help him.

He stands up and begins slowly making his way over to the cave entrance. And boy does he hope this is the right cave.

When he gets to the entrance he nearly gags. Whatever is inside the cave smells terribly awful. Like something has gone rotten and continued to exponentially smell worse and worse.

"Shit…." Myrddin looks inside the cave and it's just pitch black aside from the first couple feet inside. He isn't standing in the entrance and only pokes his head around a boulder to look inside.

Moving back behind the boulder he takes a deep breath. All he needs to do is go inside and save whoever is inside and kill whatever took them. Or just rescue them and runaway. He bolsters his will and takes a step from behind the boulder.

"Krree-Gekkk!!"

Myrddin immediately steps back behind the boulder after hearing the voice of whatever this thing is.

It was a high pitched male voice that came from within the cave and sounded like it was coming closer.

Holding the short-short sword tightly and waits for this thing to exit. His wand also ready for something a little cheeky he hopes will work.

*tap* *tap* *tap* *tap*

He can hear it's soft footsteps as it gets closer. It's not wearing anything to cover its feet and by the sound of it, the thing really isn't that heavy.

"Grek ker reeekergek gereker"

It talks in its weird voice as it exits the cave. It looks up at the half-covered moon.

"Lux"

Myrddin doesn't shout but shoves what mana he has left into the ball of light.

"Graaaaaa!!!!" It shouts in pain as it covers its eyes and takes a step back. It's eyes burning and throbbing.

*Clank!*

It dropped its weapon to cover its eyes.

Myrddin jumps out from behind the boulder and thrusts his sword forward but his eyes widen when he barely scrapes the small creatures head.

Standing in the entrance to the cave is a 3 foot humanoid creature with 4 fingers and toes. It looks sickly thin with no muscle to see and it's skin showing off the creatures bones. Its head is small and circular. It's ears, one on either side of its head, are long and almost look bigger than the head itself while it has various earrings on each ear. It's nose looks smushed in like it is from a cartoon where it ran into a wall. It's mouth is in a frown while it bares it's very sharp looking teeth. And for the split second Myrddin saw them, its eyes were a dark red color. The skin looks a sickly green as it has blisters and welts along its torso, arms, and legs. The only thing it is wearing is a thin brown rag wrapped around its waist.

'Cobalorum'

Myrddin quickly moves the blade down to the right side of the creatures neck along where the carotid artery would be on a person and pulls his blade back.

*Sssssschhh* *Pssssshhhhhh*

"G- agghhrrrr…" The creature grabs its neck as it tries to scream but its throat quickly fills with blood that muffled its scream.

Myrddin takes the sword and thrusts it at the creature a second time, now knowing its height.

*SshhhThunk*

The blade sinks into the creatures chest and it collapses to its knees as blood and it's weirdly long tongue fall from its mouth.

The feeling of cutting the creatures flesh and stabbing it cause Myrddin's hand to tingle a little as if it was numb. The resistance weighing on his mind.

Killing this goblin creature doesn't matter to him, it's just the cutting of its flesh and the crunching of its ribs that disturbs him slightly.

But he moves past it fast enough. He's barely registered the fact this thing exists and he's already killed it. The fact that this is his first kill is what weighs on his conscience.

It's red blood begins pooling under it after Myrddin takes his blade back and the creature fully slumps over lifeless.

'Cobolium masculinum genus est monasteriale quod feminas aliarum specierum imbuit ad hominum multitudinem augendam. Ubi unus, multi propinquiores ratis celeris productionis. Item gemmas omnium generum colligunt. possunt esse pusilli, muti et debiles, sed specie, corpore et corpore, fallaces sunt. Hierarchiam in toto orbe antiquo habere solebant, sed hac aetate ad parvas cistas vagantes rediguntur dum suae speciei extinctioni resistere conantur.'

'The male goblin is a species that impregnates the females of other species in order to increase the population of their own. Where there is one, there are many nearer due to their speedy reproduction and growth. They also collect jewels of all types. They may be small, and look dumb and physically weak, but they are deceitful in appearance, physical feats and mind. They used to have a hierarchy throughout the ancient world, but at this age they are reduced to small roaming pockets while they try to resist the extinction of their species'

Myrddin tries to process what was just told to him by this voice. It actually helped him more than it did with the werewolf… maybe because he killed one? This hardly makes any sense.

He looks at what the goblin dropped and sees a kitchen knife fastened to the tip of a sharpened stick by some dish rags.

Ignoring the stench, he moves inside the cave.

"Lux…" He whispers as he pushes a light down the cave.

After the small orb of light goes 15 feet in he follows behind it in the darkness. Even if the goblins can see in the dark they will find it hard to see past the light.

Myrddin isn't sure if goblins have a weakness like silver is to werewolves, but stabbing them seems effective enough.

"Kraa?" "Kreeegaaa"

Murddin hears two more goblins from within and watch as they step into the light and hold their weapons pointed towards it.

*Sniff!* *Sniff-Sniff*

"Kraagaaaaa!!!" The one on the left shouts after sniffing the air. They stab the ball of light.

*Bmmmmm!*

The ball erupts in a blinding flash on Myrddin's command.

*Sszzzing!* *Thunk!!*

Myrddin charged through the light and slashed the one on the left across the throat and sheathed his short-short sword in the chest of the one on the right.

"K-"

*Crraaaack!!*

The one on the right was about to scream but Myrddin's heel went into its mouth and drove its head down against the hard ground and crushed its skull.

Myrddin was told these things were deceptively weak so he doesn't want to give them the chance to show off their actual strength.

*tap* *tap* *tap* *tap* *tap* *tap* *tap* *tap*

Myrddin can hear the many footsteps rapidly approaching him.

He points his wand down the cave.

"Ign-"

He stops himself. These caves could have various gasses in them. And considering how rotten it smells, there a good chance that whatever is making the smell has released Hydrogen Sulfide, or H2S. Along with being flammable, it is also poisonous, and corrosive. Worst thing is that it's colorless, but it does give off a rotten egg smell. And the smell from this cave is absolutely rancid.

So he tactically retreats. He can't see them so it's pointless to try and fight so many in the dark, even if they are briefly blinded.

He gets out of the cave. The small footsteps stopped briefly, likely to check the bodies of the 2 dead goblins, but they pick up soon enough.

At least outside the cave Myrddin has the moonlight to help him see a little bit.

11 goblins of various sizes come out. Some a little less thin and some even thinner. But they all have the same green skin with blisters and welts. Their height carrying from 3' to 3'6".

They all begins to scream and grunt while some point their weapons at Myrddin.

"TERRA!"

The ground in front of the cave immediately shoots towards the goblins all lined up as they try to exit the cave. Some are side but for the most part they are lined up.

*Fwoosh!* *Schh-thck-Schh-thck-Schh-thck…"

A spear made of earth comes shooting out towards the majority of the goblins. They are not able to dodge, but a few avoid it simply because they were trying to squeeze past each other to get out first to kill whoever killed their family. The spear travels through 8 goblins and eventually crashing into the wall of the cave further behind the creatures.

The remaining goblins look at Myrddin with a mixture of emotions. The biggest being anger while the second being fear. They have set up traps, but not anything like causing the ground itself to attack. They decide to try and retreat to warn the others.

But why would Myrddin let them do that?

"Terra!"

Another spear shoots out from the ground. The goblins try and avoid it but it is to quick to completely avoid.

This spear was significantly smaller than the previous one. But it still did it's job of either killing or wounding the remaining goblins.

The ones that lived give off dying screams that anyone can understand from any species. The sound a person or creature makes when they know they are on deaths doorsteps. Hannah's face appears in Myrddin's mind as her distorted screams from his vision mix in with the screams of these goblins.

Myrddin simply ends them with the spear that had a knife fashioned to its end. There is no need for him to have to get close enough to them to use his short-short sword.

After this he waits in a defensive position while he decides what to do next. He knows that him killing these things is a must. But the question is how he can do this properly without getting himself killed. Fire would have been the easiest but that's already not an option. And another option would be using two elements at once, but he can't do that yet. So he's stuck with using Lux to light the cave and use weapons. But he needs the wand to even use Lux so that he can properly see. His own mana would not be sufficient to light the cave properly for the duration it would be to get rid of all the goblins in the cave's depths.

He's not even sure how many goblins there are. This could have been their entire attack force, or it could have just been the scouting group.

"Enough wasting time" Myrddin gets out from his position and makes his way back to the cave.

"Lux!"

He grabs a few of the makeshift weapons, mostly the spears, under his left arm while he Carrie's his short sword in his right hand.

Making his way down and through the cave he ignores the rotten smell. He wonders how any living thing can survive down here. The air is stagnant and feels like he's sucking a smoothie through a small straw.

There are a few traps he avoids. Just basic things l, but they're more than what he expected from goblins. He has to check everywhere to make sure he doesn't get ambushed.

The light traveling in front of Myrddin then gets to an opening.

*Thwack!* *Thwack!* *Thwack!*

He can hear meaty slaps coming from the opening ahead.

And when the light reaches the room he sees 20 goblins, of various ages, around 4 female bodies. 3 of them barely even recognizable as female.

His mind blanks at the scene before him.

The next thing he sees is a room full of dead goblins with the nearly lifeless women.

He falls to his knees at the entrance of the cave as the walls drip with the vile red blood of these creatures. The ground is littered with their green corpses.

The orb of light floats above Myrddin's head as he fails to move his body. Partly because of how exhausted he is, but mostly because he's in shock.

The sheer brutality of the scene can shake even the hardiest of men.

The women's bodies are covered in wounds. Cuts, bites, bruises, bones poking at the skin, twisted limbs, and covered in who knows what types of liquids. One body looks more like a pile of flesh than a person.

"Hack…" A gurgle sounds from a body as an arm slowly lifts into the air towards the light. The hand stretches weakly towards the light, making it's destroyed nails and severe wounds visible.

Myrddin shakily gets to his feet and looks at the girl with clumpy long brown hair. Her hazel eyes look devoid of life yet she's still moving and looking at him, or the light flickering and struggling to stay lit. "H…. Hann…" He tries to ask if it's her or not but he can't continue when he sees her stomach. She looks 6-7 months pregnant.

"B… *Gak*… Beau… tiful…" Hannah tries to say as she coughs blood up. She looks into Myrddin's eyes.

Myrddin looks at Hannah's disfigured face, and in her hazy eyes he can see something pink glowing in them. His mind is cloudy but he looks around the room but only sees the white orb of light. He covers his mouth with his fort hand still holding the wand and tries to keep his dinner from coming up.

When he looks back at Hannah her hand has fallen to the ground and the pink in her eyes is gone. Her mouth moves but not even a whisper escapes.

Myrddin gets closer to her mouth and tilts his head to listen.

"K…. lll…. Killllll…" Hannah repeats.

He stands up and looks at the other bodies that somehow are still alive as they are in various stages of pregnancy.

Something hot runs down Myrddin's face as he looks at the scene up close. Tears run from his eyes and mar his vision. He understands what Hannah is asking. She's asking for the release that death will bring her. But can he bring himself to do it?

'Etiam si sanas eos, fracti sunt animae eorum. Eorum vivere iam non est. Sed si tantopere salvare eos volueris, facultas dabitur. Corpus eorum sanare potes, sed mens eorum iam abiit'

'Even if you heal them, their souls are broken off. Their will for life is no longer there. But if you wish to save them so much, opportunity will be given. You can heal their body, but their mind is already gone.'

'Sana'

Myrddin slowly raises his wand at the 17 year old. "S….Sana…." Myrddin tries to say th incantation but falters and barely manages to say it, but stops trying to heal them.

Even if he manages to heal their bodies. They will probably just try and kill themselves. Myrddin learns a valuable lesson:

You can't save everyone, especially if they don't want to be saved themselves.

With his wand still pointing at them. "terra…"

The ground beneath each women's head wrap around their forehead in a thin but sturdy head-restraint. Then the ground then sends a small object into the back of their skulls that ends their suffering.

Myrddin looks away and closes his eyes after hearing the sickening crunch and squish that puts them out of their misery.

The next time he opens his eyes he sees a pile of jewelry and shiny objects in the corner of the room, now covered in splatters of blood. He stands up and goes to exit the cave. Stepping over pile of spears he brought with him he goes back through the cave and stands in front of the entrance. He drops his short-short sword that crumbles away until it's just a regular pocket knife again.

With his palm facing the cave he gives one last incantation for the night:

"Ignis"

A fireball the size of a tennis ball goes down the cave and when it reaches the end it comes in contact with whatever flammable gas was coming from the depths of the cave, possibly the H2S, and the entire cave goes up in flames/an explosion.

Myrddin grabbed the clean pocket knife and puts it away. He then ran from the cave and back into the woods. He could hear the cave collapsing behind him and then there was silence as he came to a clearing with a giant stump in its center.

Not really feeling like hiking all the way back right now he rests against the stump and let's his head lay back and look up at the partly cloudy sky.