Chapter 2- A New World

Waking up from my surprisingly peaceful sleep, I appeared to be inside a wooden hut wrapped in a rough but warm blanket . The hut was rather plain, as there was only an old bed, dusty bookshelf, fire, and a desk. The fire was roaring and gave out an unnaturally radiant heat. There was also a plethora of unknown animal furs lining the hut that produced a feeling of coziness.

The hut's roof was short and as I looked out a the open door I could see many others huts similar in looks, varying in sizes.

These primitive decorations and the dead horse rider in medieval armor gives me reason to assume that this world has not reached the advanced ages of earth and is most likely in a time period similar to the medieval ages.

"ಆದ್ದರಿಂದ ನೀವು ಎಚ್ಚರಗೊಂಡಿದ್ದೀರಿ" greeted the old woman after noticing I had finally woken up. I sighed, finally registering I really was thrown into a new fantasy world restarting with nothing.

She was apparently determined to raise me as her own, because after finding me in the woods she treated me like I was her own child. Her name seems to be Elder Rina and I managed to make out that she calls herself a goblin. Ever since I awoke in her hut, she feeds me, bathes me, changes me, and takes care of me.

I don't know what happened to my father but I can only guess my mother was killed along with the knights as I was only just born when Rina found me. I hope there are other humans in this world and not only goblins and other worldly races.

At first I was fearful that our different races would cause a block in our relationship, but Rina didn't seem to care whatsoever about raising a human boy.

Regardless of Rina's treatment, there were definitely some major disadvantages to being reborn as a useless baby.

I can't communicate with anyone, move how I want, or even enjoy the simple pleasures of adult life. I was especially not happy to find out I could not control my bladder or bowels. But I suppose it will probably be quite useful to be reborn with a 45 year old mind.

For now all I can do is try to pick up information about this world from Rina.

Listening to her speak, I can't seem to understand her as she speaks a harsh, brutish language that I don't recognize from earth. Every time I try to form words all that comes out my tiny body is the sound of crying. This came to be extremely annoying as I quickly realized I was completely helpless and would have to rely on Rina for every basic necessity.

After a week of agonizing over not being able to do anything, I came to accept my situation and decided I would focus on learning about this new world and understanding the goblin language. I also practiced moving my useless small and chubby limbs so that I would be able to walk.

'Thump' 'Thump' My hands and feet slowly moved across the floor in a crawl, trying to form some semblance of a baby walk.

"Shit" I sighed out as I realized that it would take some time for me to be able to move like I did in my previous life.

"ಉಪಹಾರ" Rina called out to me, not understanding my use of fowl word choice, as she picked me up and placed me in a small chair.

It was time to eat. Quite possibly the worst time of day in my new life. Rina's bland meals she prepared for me tasted like eating a mouthful of edible dirt. Even worse was the humiliation of being hand fed by someone else, but I supposed I didn't have a choice as I couldn't even hold a spoon.

A small part of me did enjoy having everything done for me though, I must admit.

...

A month quickly passed by as I slowly began to relax in this new environment with Rina and slowly learned basic communication. I was now able to form basic words and found myself slowly starting to understand Rina's speech. I had long given up exerting control over my body, and just let Rina pamper me as much as she wants.

My patience eventually ran out, as my information gathering attempts were useless because no books or papers were in reach. I pondered if I should just come out and ask Rina myself for information but decided it would creep her out to hear a 1 month old baby forming complete sentences. I decided I would make a break for the desk where the papers are to gather information instead.

Crawling as fast as this feeble body could take me, I made a dart for the desk. I pushed my chubby limbs to their limit, crawling faster than I ever had in my attempts to move my body.

Just as I was about to reach her chair to climb up onto the desk, two large hands swooped me up along with a voice that remarked "If only you were this excited to eat my cooking".

She noticed my hate for her food? Rina is very observant, I thought wryly. But then again masking a baby's facial features was a near impossible task, even for a genius General.

Despite what Rina sometimes said she seemed to be rather fond of me and I found myself surprisingly savoring our relationship of adopted mother and son. I didn't even know my own mother back on earth, so to have someone share the simple things left me with a warm feeling inside my heart.

...

The crack of machine gun fire rang out throughout the night, alerting me and my soldiers inside our bunker wide awake.

"Wake up, the Americans are storming the beach" I screamed, waking any soldiers that had managed to sleep through the jolting gunfire. "Get on the machine gun and keep those damn American bastards from storming our base!"

Hirata, my most trusted soldier, quickly sprung to his feet and took hold of the machine gun, lighting up the beach with an array of bullets. The other soldiers quickly followed suit and grabbed their weapons to fend off the US attack.

As I looked out through the crack in the bunker opening, I saw hundreds of Americans wading through the coast up to the shoreline, along with a group of U-boats and battleships behind them. I could even see at least 20 fighter planes moving towards our position with an earsplitting roar.

This surprise attack was way worse than I thought, I grimly realized. With only 40 Japanese, we would be hard pressed to defend the beach from the massive amount of troops, even with the cover of a bunker.

"Azuma, call the central camp for reinforcements and tell them there is a US attack" I shouted out to my radio controller. "Yes Lieutenant sir" Azuma replied as he quickly hurried to make the call, fumbling with the radio in his rush.

I grabbed my rifle resting it on the bunker opening window, and pressed my eye down to the barrel of the gun to see through the sights. I skillfully traced the head of the closest US soldier, squeezing the trigger with a resounding 'Pop' when it was the right time to shoot.

He fell back onto the sand with a blank look of surprise with his head split open. After I picked out a few more enemy soldiers Azuma called out to me "Sir, the nearest Japanese patrol is 2o mins out from us".

"Damn it, that's not enough time" I grunted out in frustration. " We're gonna have to hold out for 25 mins with only limited ammunition and keep the US from overtaking the bunker" I shouted to the 35 soldiers remaining.

"No problem Sir!" Hirata replied enthusiastically. I yelled back " And don't any of you even think about-" I stopped mid sentence as I stared down at the floor, where there was a grenade rolling across the floor with a threatening hiss.

"Grenade!!" I desperately screamed out.

Hirata turned around and immediately jumped on it, covering his whole body on top of the grenade that was about to explode any second.

...

Waking up covered in sweat, I shouted out, startling Rina awake. Realizing it was only a dream I slowly calmed down.

"Is there something wrong Lux?" Rina said as she peered down at me with a small frown creased with worry.

I scrambled my brain to come up with an excuse so I didn't have to explain the reason for my nightmare.

"Bathroom!" I managed to gurgle out in embarrassment. Rina laughed, a pleasant sound filling our small little home. "Very well" she said as she carried me across to the small room where our primitive toilet was hidden.

This excuse seemed to do for now, but I hope Rina does not question me further about my recurring nightmares. I want to keep my real age a secret as I don't want our pleasant relationship ruined.

...

After roughly 1 year of living with Rina I'm able to speak sentences and understand the goblin language completely.

Though I kept my sentences simple and stupid to keep Rina's image of a harmless cute baby boy in her mind it was still a marvel for a 2 year old to be talking at all. Even though I had recently learned to walk, I was still lacking in the movement department.

I have learned as much about our current world and goblin clan as possible. We live in the North East Plains of a continent called Asgarden, which seems to be the only continent in this world accompanied with a few Islands.

In the the North East Of Asgarden there is Ice Wolf Clan(north of goblins), Ogre Clan(east of goblins), Goliath clan(north east of goblins) and the Goblin clan where I live.

These races are all classified as Monsters-intelligent and powerful races with varying abilities.

South of these clans across a great lake there is rumored to be powerful humans and other monsters. North of the Ice Wolfs and Goliaths is an ocean and to the west of the goblins is a snowy forest which turns into the uncrossable Hellvast Mountain Range.

Nobody seems to know if there's anything over there but it seems Rina suspects there is.

The goblin clan consists of a few smaller settlements inside the plains surrounded by a dead forest with Goblin Town being in the center, where Rina's hut is.

Goblin Town is a settlement of approximately 20,000 Goblins with wooden walls surrounding it and a wooden fort in the center.

The goblin Chief is in charge of all the goblins and below him are the 10 Hobgoblin Champions, below them are 1,000 Goblin Warriors, and below them is the rest of the goblin race.

The Goblins rely on small animals and a potato like crop for food and defend against the invading Ogre attacks. The Ice Wolfs don't fight and the Goliaths are too far from the goblins.

If only the goblins had better technology, more resources, or even stronger soldiers they would become a much more mighty force in Asgarden. Right now, they are looked down on and treated as on of the weakest nations.

…

There are some peculiar things I have noticed about Rina compared to the glimpses of other goblins I've seen. She is the only goblin who hunts in the dead forest, she keeps to herself and has no family or friends, and she likes to talk to herself.

Im guessing being by yourself and talking out loud to yourself are probably related. Anyways, thanks to that I figured out what happened to her family.

It seems her husband and her 2 sons went off to war to protect the clan in the latest ogre invasion 5 years ago, they didn't come back, and ever since then she has secluded herself from others.

As a military minded former General, I am always looking for new information and details about this new and intriguing world. So right now, I'm trying to find out what's written on the papers on Rina's desk.

After waiting for Rina to leave the hut, I sneaked up onto her chair and managed to climb up onto her desk. I immediately quickly began scanning her papers for any useful information.

There were some papers containing recipes and information on the goblin clan, but what caught my eye was a old dusty book titled

"Dummies guide to basic magic".

Magic? I thought incredulously, that can't be true. There was no such thing as magic. Well there were goblins, a part of me argued as I hurriedly began to read the rest of the paper.