Chapter 9: Disaster

Darkness…

The world was a blur of darkness around me. The only thing I could feel was the sensation akin to slowly drifting through the depths of an impenetrable ocean.

Gradually, a semblance of clarity seeped into my consciousness. 

A heavy fog clung to my mind, shrouding my thoughts in a haze. The last thing I remembered was that magic circle, shrouded in the arcane of ominous nature. 

Abruptly, a chill ran down my spine, jolting me awake. A disgusting voice whisper, almost inaudible, greets me accompanied by the menacing thrust of a rough savage knife towards the vicinity of my heart. 

My heart beat wildly in this sense of danger, then instinct took command. Swiftly, I rolled to the side, executing a deft kick to the assailant's hand gripping the lethal weapon. 

"Gah!" A surprised shout erupted as the figure of a grotesque, green monster came into focus. 'Goblin.' My eyes narrowed, a name forming in my mind.

I took a sharp breath, planting my feet with determination, and lunged forward with the thrust of my empty hand while applying enhancing magic on myself.

The goblin, initially laughing mockingly at our distance, was abruptly forced to halt.

"Arg!" A nauseating shout replaced its laughter. A long spear emerges from my ring, deftly landed on my thrusting hand, piercing the goblin's throat. 

Green blood spurt out to surrounding dirtying me and the once cleaned spear. Metallic smell filled the air. I furrowed my brow in disgust.

The creature struggled in a futile attempt to escape, but with a twist of my arm, I severed its head. Its disembodied head rolled across the hard rock floor, an expression of terror frozen on its face.

My body was drenched in cold sweat, my heart pounding a notch faster than normal. A silent acknowledgment crept into my thoughts: 'if I had been a few seconds later, it would have been my head that rolled.'

Drawing in another breath to steady myself, I found no solace in the thick, metallic-tasting air of the surrounding. 

The sensation of killing something leave an unsettling taste in the back of my throat, but I ignored it with the conviction of viewing the goblin as nothing more than a beast. 

'I need to focus on the situation at hand instead.' I thought to myself and closed my eyes, trying to make sense of the surroundings. 

The ground beneath was uneven, and the air carried dampness with the faint stench of decay. 

'This must be dungeon. What kind of magic is that? Transformation… or summon?' I don't know how they do it, but someone seems to have changed the area we're in into this dungeon. 

I opened my eyes and glance around, 'There's no one…visibility also not the best,' I thought to myself. The glowing green moss on the rocky wall served as the only source of light here. 

"E-!" I wanted to shout Egil's name, but I before I did, I realized how foolish my action would be. To make a loud sound in a dangerous place where the enemy could be lurking anywhere would only be my own death call.

At the end I settled to just strained my ears, hoping to catch any sound, but the lack of human sound only heightened my sense of dread.

Instincts screamed to move on, but my limbs felt heavy and unresponsive. The phenomenon before seems to weaken me somehow and if so, the other would also weaken.

When I think that, two faces came to mind. 'Egil and Alisa Kozlova,' my friend and the girl that I saw before.

She was one of the main heroine in the game that player could meet as soon as plot started. But the girl I saw before had one big difference from the heroine I'm used to.

In the game, she had a big scar marring from her cheek to her neck and its back story only revealed after player progress considerably on her route, of course along with a quest to heal them.

'She supposed to be an idol but because of that scar she had no choice but to be an explorer and attend academy,' I mused inside my head.

My mind raced with worry because if the situation now is the reason for that scar, then…

'Alisa supposed to be the only survivor,' and there's no detail explanation given about what happened during that backstory.

The only thing I knew from the game was that she miraculously survived until help come because of her unique ability. 

I tried to calm myself, but a gnawing feeling threatened to consume. I bit my lips in frustration, my hand clenched tightly into a fist.

'Does that mean Egil and I are supposed to perish here? Without achieving anything?' Frustration swelled inside, a potent mix of anxiety and impatience bubbling within. 

Most of what I knew about him came from Vincent's memory. I only meet him once, but even from that one time, I can guess what kind of man he is. 

An honest and earnest man. The type that will definitely become a very loyal friend. I'm sure even if I called him to bury body or bodies at 3, he will come in a flash.

'And even if we survive, does a chance the plot will be altered probably causing Alisa to die instead?' various thought filled my head, making me more confuse, 'How about her scar and the growth that stems from this ordeal? Will she even be the same girl that I loved anymore?' 

I scratched my head roughly in frustration. The limited information became the sources of my unrelenting turmoil. 

Imagining the potential alterations in the plot and the impact on Alisa's fate weighed heavily on my mind. Each possibility, a heavy burden on my already strained emotions.

The unsettling silence fueled my frustration, becoming increasingly erratic. I can taste iron in my mouth, lips bleeding from excessive biting. 

Then… something snapped inside. 

"Don't fuck with me." I muttered under my breath. 

'I will not lose anyone. Anyone I treasure will live happily. Fuck the plot! If the world will not let it happen, I will make it happen.' My smile grew unnaturally with the thought, showing all my teeth.

Egil, my best friend. Alisa, the heroine that I love. These two that I gave my affection will not die. I will not let it happen. 

"I will protect them," I said out loud. The desire to protect everything boiled inside me, but this is not such a pure feeling akin to a prince on a white horse. 

This feeling was darker. It was more than a desire—it was a consuming need, an obsession that threatened to drown me in its intensity. Something that will overwhelm anyone if they're not careful.

An inexplicable desire to confront the source of my unease stirred within, a desire to tear anything that can make them unhappy to pieces, bathing in the adversary's blood. 

The very fabric of my being recoiled at the mere thought of them in harm's way, and a voice within me roared with defiance. 

I would rewrite their destinies, mold them to my will, for they were not mere characters in a story; they were the beating hearts entwined with mine, and I refused to let the narrative dictate their fates.

And then, as if responding to my feeling, "Gah…gahgah," several overlapping grotesque sound was heard advancing in my direction, closer and closer each second. 

More goblins emerged from the darkness. Their grotesque figures, with wicked grins and malicious intent, filled the cavern. 

They began to laugh excitingly but when I looked back with an expressionless face, I could see their eyes that gleaming with malicious intent show a trace of another feeling. The feeling of terror. 

Arcane in my body flowed with vigor. My boiling feeling became palpable in the air.

Thick bloodlust filled the area. Not the controlled one like Bon's or an insignificant one like the goblin I killed. Pure desire to destroy. That's what I'm feeling.

"G-gah…" their voice began to trembling, like what they witness was more terrifying than any monster they ever encounter.

'Three goblins,' with [Enhance] applied, my senses heightened and I could see my prey more clearly.

With a sharp breath in, I lowered my body and dashed forward.

"Gah! Gagah!" one of goblin shouted which I assume some instruction, but because of their fear, their reflex were slow.

Arriving in front of these three bastards, I use the same tactic as before to the one that gave instruction, but this time I directly decapitate its head with calculate timing.

"Kuhk!" With a short cry, yet another head rolled, filling the cavern with the gruesome sounds of decapitation and enveloping the air in the heavy metallic scent of goblin blood.

'Leader's gone,' I mused, my eyes narrowed into a focused.

The air grew thick with tension. Without missing a moment, I shifted focus to the other goblins.

"Gah!" the goblins snarled in anger, their teeth bared in a grotesque and lunged towards me, brandishing their rustic sword. 

In a flurry of movement, I dive in direction of the goblin on my left and disarmed the goblin by twisting my spear body, sending the rusted sword clattering to the ground. 

"Gah!?" the goblin exclaimed, but I paid no mind.

With a swift and calculated strike, spear in my hand was replaced by a dagger and I plunged it into the creature's heart. The goblin's eyes widened in surprise, and its mouth twisted into a grimace of pain. 

The last one did a big slash toward me, but I blocked the strike with the body of the one I just stabbed, making its sword stuck to the body of its comrade. The stabbed goblin also stopped struggling in my hand. Dead.

Its green blood splashed in a mess, but I don't care. With a huge grin on my face, I put my opened palm in front of the last goblin's face, the hand with the ring on...

"My present," I sneered, revealing a mocking smile.

In an instant, a stiletto appeared along with a burst of small amount of arcane shooting it forward.

Puk!

Without any moment to react, the stiletto cleanly penetrated its brain, killing it instantly. Its face had the most confused face of the three.

"Huh…" I let out a turbid breath and tossed the dead goblin to the ground, quickly retrieved all my weapons. 

I looked down at the fallen goblins, my senses heightened and attuned to the surrounding make it possible for me to see arcane particle moving from them to me.

Suddenly, I could feel my strength surging, the heavy feeling I felt at the beginning also no more. 

'Is this what happens when you killed a monster and level up in the game?' I pondered by myself but I don't have time to muse deeply into this issue.

More inhuman sound was heard from the direction these goblins came from. From the sound, there must be more that what I just killed. I should be anxious about Egil and Alisa but surprisingly after I start killing these monsters, my mind became calmer.

'Everything has cause and effect. If there's no cause for plot to change for the better, I should just become an existence that can be such a variable. I need to get stronger and the only way now was…'

"To kill more monster, level up and improving my skills," my eyes narrowing in determination.

With renew vigor, I dashed forward, the intent to kill was focused in my mind. After just a few seconds, I could see several figures of goblin. The number was larger than before.

I got a weird feeling inside me. Before this, I was just a normal man that has nothing interesting in life. I should feel nervous about the idea of confronting these many monsters, right? But far from fear, I felt a bubbling feeling of excitement and thirst… the thirst for destruction.

Unconsciously, my smile grew until my face contort unnaturally. 

My world had shifted, and I could feel the primal pulse of desire within, a force that would guide me through the shadows that awaited in this realm.