Contracted Monsters

Right after Gilgamesh's disappearance, Kalle was assaulted by another blinding light.

And this time, he found himself back on Earth after opening his eyes again.

He was still lying down on the ground, the goblin that swung its wooden club was also still in front of him.

Fortunately, time still stopped and Kalle got enough time to assess his current situation first.

However, he didn't have much time as he saw the goblin's wooden club that was stuck in the air before began moving down again, getting closer and closer to smashing his head.

Kalle quickly looked around him to find anything that he could use to save himself from the predicament.

And it didn't take long for him to notice something that wasn't there before existing in his hand.

While his left hand was still holding the girl that he was trying to save earlier, his right hand which used to be empty now held something that he didn't have before.

Looking at it, Kalle instantly recognized the silver-blue staff that Gilgamesh gave him.

He knew the staff was powerful.

But how powerful it was and what it could actually do? Kalle didn't have a single idea.

The only thing that Gilgamesh told him about the staff was that it would slowly guide him to become a dungeon sovereign.

But the problem was, Kalle didn't even know what being a dungeon sovereign meant.

So when faced with his current predicament and the lack of any instructions from the staff, one thing came to Kalle's mind regarding how to use the silver staff that was said to be his guide in becoming a dungeon sovereign, an existence that dared to call gods as scums.

When time started slowly moving again and the goblin's club was halfway towards hitting his face, Kalle decided to use the powerful silver staff that seemed to hold tremendous powers and many secrets as a…

Simple blunt weapon.

Swinging his right hand upward, directly against the wooden club, the two weapons soon clashed against each other as time continued flowing normally.

The wooden club that was seemingly stronger than it looked and was capable of breaking skulls with ease couldn't hold a candle against the simple-looking shepherd staff.

When the two clashed, a loud reverberating sound filled the surroundings as it drowned other voices of people screaming and panicking.

The wooden club that was unbelievably strong before had been broken into pieces when it made contact with the staff in Kalle's hand.

The goblin looked at the wood scrap in his hand before then looking at the spotless silver staff in Kalle's hand.

As if he didn't want to accept what had just happened, the goblin threw away what remained of his wooden club and charged forward instead.

Kalle was still lying on the ground and he wasn't in any better condition than before.

However, he now has the powerful silver staff as a weapon.

So instead of thinking of ways to only run away, a sense of defiance, the will to fight began to sprout within his heart.

Seeing the goblin charging forward, Kalle didn't hesitate to use the silver staff and swatted away the goblin's head.

He had only planned to hit the goblin's head as hard as possible, but he certainly didn't expect that he had somehow become strong enough to break the goblin's skull and splatter its head just like what the goblins did to the man before.

Kalle stared at his own hands and at the silver staff.

'I feel much stronger than before…'

With the goblin that chased after him being eliminated, Kalle hurriedly helped himself and the girl up.

"Run away from here, I will make sure none of them get close to you while you turn your back," Kalle said as he urged the girl to get away from the place as soon as possible.

It took the girl several seconds to process what was happening, but with Kalle kept on urging her, she finally ran away after taking one last look at Kalle's face.

"Thank you very much," She said before moving her feet as fast as possible.

Seeing the girl was finally saved, Kalle then stared at the other goblins that came out of the portal.

Most of them did their own thing, but after seeing Kalle easily kill one of them, the few of them who noticed it all turned their heads towards him.

They all became wary of him and seeing the silver staff in Kalle's hand, they all hesitated and just began a staring contest with him.

Kalle didn't focus too much on the goblins that he knew he could kill in one hit now.

Instead, Kalle focused on the red swirling portal in the middle of the crossroad.

The portal appeared near his apartment complex and he couldn't let something so dangerous exist near himself and his sister.

He needed to take care of it.

Following what Gilgamesh had said, he would need to go inside the portal to do it.

He didn't know much about the guy and whether he could be trusted, but just from the fact that the man had really given him the powerful silver staff and chosen him as his successor, Kalle doubted that the man would want him to just die right after being appointed as his successor.

And although he didn't know why, just feeling the man's aura and charisma was somehow convincing enough for Kalle to trust the man.

Besides, he now somehow got enough strength to break open a skull with a single hit. 

It certainly gave Kalle much more confidence than before to trudge through the unknown.

To get into the portal, Kalle needed to go past the goblins. And he didn't believe that he could just ask them nicely to get away or just sneak past them.

Moreover, he didn't want to take the chance that any of them would wander to the apartment complex where his sister lived.

So he needed to take care of them first before going into the portal to close it.

And when the thought of killing all the goblins popped up in his head, an unknown voice suddenly appeared in his head.

'A dungeon sovereign's strength came from the creatures they made contracts with.

To increase your strength, make contracts with the goblins! (0/3)'

The voice was mechanical at best. But it conveyed the message loud and clear to Kalle's head.

And when he tried remembering what he was told to do, the sentence, 

'To increase your strength, make contracts with the goblins! (0/3)' popped up in his head as writing.

It was exactly like the quests that he got from playing MMORPGs before.

'But how do I make a contract with the goblins?'

Right after the question appeared in his thoughts, Kalle got a vision of what he needed to do.

Although there were several steps in making the contracts, Kalle couldn't help but chuckle a little when he saw what the first step was.

"Here we go!"

With his silver staff in hand and a goblin as his target, Kalle began charging forward to the nearest goblin that had been staring at him all this time.

If the goblins were wary before and kept their distance from Kalle, or more precisely, the silver staff that emitted a certain aura that made them feel uneasy, their wariness was suppressed when they saw the human charging at them.

They were attacked, and they wouldn't take it lying down.

When Kalle and the goblins were close enough to each other, they began raising their hands and started swinging their weapons.

However, just like before, the wooden clubs couldn't do anything as they were destroyed the second they touched the silver staff.

A few of the goblins who had lost their weapons began panicking as they remembered what happened to their friend earlier.

Fortunately, they didn't have to worry for long as Kalle soon brought down his silver staff towards them.

Instead of hitting the goblins' heads, which would instantly kill them, Kalle hit their shoulders one by one and incapacitated them.

The other goblins that were located a distance away behind this batch of goblins stayed rooted in their spots now that they had seen their kin being effortlessly defeated.

And they did nothing when they saw Kalle walk up to one of the incapacitated goblins and put his silver staff right in front of its face.

Remembering what the vision told him about making a contract, Kalle repeated the words he saw in the vision to the goblin in front of him.

"With the authority given to the Dungeon Sovereign, hereby I, Maverick Calle, chose you to be my strength. Through life and death, you will be my power."