Towerborn

"Well, that was definitely something."

Raze lay on the ground, staring at the tall wooden ceiling in a daze. 

In less than a month of being transmigrated, he had lost his virginity. 

And yet all he felt was emptiness. 

The deed that he had seen glorified as the best thing in the world by multiple people online didn't really feel that good. 

It was a weird feeling, since he was really looking forward to it. 

But in the end, all of it just felt emotionless and in vain. 

Perhaps it was due to the fact that he didn't love Layla and instead wanted to kill her. 

When they had just started, it felt pleasurable to him. 

He knew this was the kind of reaction he was supposed to be feeling, and yet all he felt was emptiness as he stared at Layla, imagining in his head all the brutal ways he could kill her for what she had done to those kids. 

And yet each time, he had to stop and remind himself to wait. 

In the end, the only thing he could conclude after today was that sex was overrated. 

'Anyways, moving on, while the act wasn't that good, I at least got to know everything I wanted to know'

The first thing he learned was the identity of the statue. 

Athex is the goddess of abnormalities. 

This was the first time he had heard of such an entity. 

So this led him to believe it was a goddess that had existed on the planet this floor was based off before it got assimilated into the tower. 

There was also the possibility that these tribal people had made up a non-existent figure to worship; after all, it wouldn't be the first time a tribe worshipped a god who didn't exist. 

And yet he doubted it. 

After all, the main selling point of this novel, even back on Earth, was how every floor has a story as long as one is willing to listen. 

There was another pretty important piece of detail that Raze remembered. 

Every floor of the tower is based off a dead planet or realm. 

And the people living in the tower are those who have already died in the real world and got reborn into the tower without their real-world memories. 

Such people were called towerbornes. 

The main difference between a tower born and a climber was the fact that climbers could climb the tower and even go back to the outside world. 

Towerbornes couldn't and were instead stuck on whatever floor they were born on. 

Another difference came from the fact that while climbers could go stronger by absorbing beast shards and runes, tower-borns were stuck with the power and stats they were born with. 

Originally, while reading the novel, he hadn't paid much attention to the small bits of lore sprinkled into the chapters every now and then. 

But now that he was inside the novel, these little bits of information felt invaluable. 

It helped him understand his new world better and make more informed decisions. 

Anyway, the point that he was trying to get at here was the existence of the goddess Athex at some point in time. 

He didn't know if she was still alive or not, but just in case, he had to tread carefully. 

Or else he might end up accidentally offending a goddess. 

While there was no guarantee of her still existing, it was always better to be safe than sorry. 

With his questions about the statue answered, there was only one thing left that intrigued him. 

Why exactly were humans even cooperating with goblins in the first place? 

So when Layla had her guard down, he asked, and what he learned really made him regret ever being curious in the first place. 

The simple answer to the question was evolution.

Layla wanted the humans on this floor to evolve, and the solution she had come up with was Hob goblins. 

Born from the disgusting union between humans and goblins. 

A goblin possesing a human understanding of emotions and intelligence while possessing the monster's instincts and body. 

While the first generation of hob goblins is stupid over many generations of breeding, they are meant to rival humans in intelligence. 

With the intelligence and bodies of monsters, they would be able to completely dominate the whole forest.

Hob goblins got rid of the main problems hindering the sum of it's parts while adopting the best parts.

For humans, it was their low population count and slow birth rate, taking 9 months for a single child, as well as their body, which is not fit for combat. 

While for goblins, it was their lack of development and intelligence. 

Hob goblins would fix all the problems both races have and create an absolute race meant to rule. 

Over the years, both humans and goblins were going to go extinct on the floor, and all that would be left were Hob goblins. 

This was Layla's vision and the reason why she did the things she did. 

To create the perfect race. 

Apparently the goblin chief was one such hob goblin and was in on the whole plan. 

The village chief was also in on the plan, but aside from these three people, everyone else in their respective civilisations was clueless about the whole plan their leaders were working on to replace them with 'better' versions of themselves. 

And when he questioned Layla about the reason behind why she chose to send children to copulate with goblins,. 

She started blabbering on about compatibility and how, due to adults being too big for goblins, it wasn't possible to successfully create an offspring between them. 

Which is why she had the idea of using kids due to their smaller and similar size to goblins, it drastically increased the success rate of copulation. 

Her whole life, Layla had been treated as a divine priestess and worshipped as such, which led her to develop a God complex. 

Thinking of herself as better than other humans and thinking that nothing she did could be wrong. 

The worst part is that this floor is based on real events in history. 

At some point in time, on some far-off planet or dimension, all of this really happened. 

While he didn't know whether she had succeeded or not, he knew one thing for certain: her actions had ruined millions of innocent lives just because of her God complex. 

Even back on Earth, he had heard tales about the evil and vile nature of humanity. 

But he had always ended up dismissing them, not wanting to let a few apples ruin the bunch. 

And yet today he felt his faith in humanity wavering. 

But that didn't matter. 

He could ponder the true nature of humanity another day. 

While he couldn't travel back in time to save these poor people and kids in real life, he could at least do something for them in the tower.