Goblin Village and Human Town

When Alex woke up, she still felt like shit, but because she could still think, she assumed that the Blacklight virus hadn't turned her into a useless zombie. The problem was that she felt that her hands and feet were tied, and she herself was no longer leaning on a tree. Whoever moved her, they definitely didn't trust her pretty ass, so she's definitely not going to trust theirs.

'Well, at least now I can calm down. If I have to live in this world, then I should learn more about it. As soon as I get to the city, I will immediately lock myself up in the library.' She nodded to herself.

Slowly opening her eyes, Alex was met with the old wooden ceiling. The boards were rotten and overgrown with moss. She heard the forest burning around the house, or a very large campfire. It was one of the two. But considering that she heard strange screams and footsteps, Alex finally decided that it was a campfire.

'Are the villagers celebrating something, or just decided to have some f– oh God, what's that smell?!' The said smell inside the house was horrible, as if a huge piece of meat had been placed somewhere under the floor and left to rot there for two weeks. Alex slowly turned her head and saw that her guess was not so far from the truth, she was lying in a room full of half-rotten corpses. Deers, hares, mutant fish, and even a human, there was enough corpses to make a graveyard.

Alex didn't look at the bodies for long and turned to the other wall, trying not to throw up right here and now. She pushed off the floor with a sudden force she didn't know she had. "What the–" Alex looked down at her now untied hands with a strange expression. 'If this is true, then I can…' She concentrated, and a wave of blackish red muscle ran down her arms, but immediately disappeared.

For a while, Alex just stood still and wondered what the Blacklight had done to her body. 'Superhuman Speed, Agility, Strength, Senses, Endurance, Healing Factor, and Evolutionary Adaptability: an ability that allows me to adapt to minimize the damage I take from repetitive attacks.' She clenched and unclenched her fists a couple of times, testing her new strength. 'That's not even counting active abilities, but I doubt if I can use them without enough Biomass– well, other than Consume.'

Alex looked at the dead bodies that surrounded her on all sides and grimaced. 'If I'm not mistaken, I'll also be immune to any disease.' Some kind of mutated maggot crawled over one of the bodies and Alex again had to restrain the urge to gag. 'I need get to the city, and only then I can break down, I can't afford it right now.'

Gathering her courage, Alex carefully walked around the dead bodies and crouched in front of the door. She looked through the keyhole and narrowed her eyes to see who was screaming outside. The entire yard was filled with short green humanoids with green skin and ugly, pointy faces.

'Goblins?' Alex thought and continued to look into the hole in shock. 'There are at least twenty of them! Hell, I don't even have a knife with me… I need a weapon or–' Alex stopped abruptly and looked down at her hands. 'I am a weapon. I just need an initial boost of biomass.'

Her eyes fell on the bodies in the room, and she swallowed down her disgust and fear. She has just been reincarnated in a new world and wasn't going to die. Of course, she didn't want to be, but if she no longer had a choice, then she would pump out everything she could from this new life.

"Fuck, I hope it works." She muttered and laid her hand on the half-rotted carcass of a seemingly normal deer. A black mass of tendrils ran down her arm and dug into the flesh of the corpse, and began to pull it towards Alex's body. When the corpse was close enough, more black tendrils emerged from Alex's torso that latched onto the loose chunks of flesh.

The girl did not feel how each of her cells worked at two hundred percent, taking as much biomass from the corpse as it would allow to take away his half-rotten state. After a couple of seconds, the corpse of the deer disappeared, and only a shocked Alex remained in its place.

"It's like a hundred spiders running under your skin." She winced and looked down at her hands. If earlier Alex looked like a living skeleton, now she looked like an athlete with compact muscles. She hasn't grown an inch though… She looked down at her bare feet and with barely a thought, a pair of black sneakers appeared on them.

She felt that all her clothes were biomass now, so making a new pair of boots was pretty easy. The only problem was that the changes in her body and clothing took away most of the deer's biomass, so Alex quickly consumed another unknown animal. This time, she didn't feel any significant changes.

"Huh… My weight stayed roughly the same." She shifted from foot to foot and didn't even leave a mark on the floor. "Weird." Now that Alex had slightly more than zero biomass, she knew she wouldn't die on the first hit. She tried to turn her arms into claws, but that didn't work.

"Blacklight hasn't settled in my body yet." She muttered. "No memories either. Is that because their brains were rotted, or because they are animals?" Deciding to test this theory, Alex consumed all the beasts one by one. Now she had enough biomass to survive in this place, and she received fragments of the memories of a rabbit and some kind of yellow turtle. So, there's that...

Alex crouched again at the keyhole and began to wait for the right moment to attack. The stars were already shining in the sky, so the only source of light were torches and a huge fire, where all the goblins gathered. No one paid much attention to the little "meat" house – because that what it was for goblins, just a meat house – so when a goblin passed by the door, Alex quickly opened the door, grabbed the goblin by the neck and dragged it inside the house.

The goblin's body hit the wall and its neck snapped with a loud crunch. Alex didn't even have time to blink as the entire body of the green humanoid was consumed. She felt herself getting shorter, her body changing its shape, and her head cracking with new information.

When the pain and changes stopped, there was a goblin standing in the house – who was actually not a goblin at all. After absorbing a humanoid for the first time, her body decided to test its abilities and took on the appearance of one green and ugly goblin. Alex looked down at "his" hands. "Note to self: I do get memories from other being than humans in full..." She looked at the large bloodstain left by the corpses. "Or from beings with unrotten brains."

Alex looked at the remaining corpse of a man and turned away to the door with a grimace. She could either consume him or leave him to be torn to pieces by the goblins. And as much as she didn't want to leave his body to the little freaks, she couldn't even think of touching it. If she believed in God, she would pray. But she didn't, even after meeting Aqua.

"Requiesce in pace." She muttered, and bracing herself, pushed open the door and left the house.

Fortunately, almost all the goblins were still gathered around the fire, so no one noticed "his" exit. Alex took advantage of this and immediately walked away from the fire, but heard someone call out to her from behind.

Before that, it is worth saying that goblins as a race do not have a language. They weren't smart enough to develop their own language, but they were able to communicate with certain shouts and croaks that were a parody of normal language. So instead of the usual "Hey!" Alex heard something like "Gakka!" which usually meant "Stop."

"He" turned around and shouted "Kreekh!?" with typical goblin annoyance. That meant "What do you want?" but much ruder.

The goblin that stopped her pointed a short-clawed finger towards the house and grunted a couple of strange sounds with irritation, to which Alex shouted angrily in response and pointed to her stomach, and then to the forest. The first goblin screamed in shock and ran towards the crowd that had gathered around the fire, then Alex ran into the forest, knowing that the goblins would not be able to catch up with her on their short legs.

Running away, Alex felt an extraordinary power flowing through her entire body. She had never felt so alive before, but even so, Alex still feared for her life. She had never been in a real fight, so killing an entire village full of goblins was out of the question. All she can do against them is hit them with all her might and hope for the best, and that wasn't the best plan.

Sure, she could kill them all and get out of the village without a scratch, but human nature is not so easy to overcome. Her first task was to find shelter and then worry about killing goblins.

Halfway to the forest, she dropped her goblin form and became herself again to speed up. Now, she told the goblin that there was no food left in their "meat house", so she decided to go hunt. This was bad news for the entire village, so the second goblin ran to tell the others.

Weaving between the trees, Alex jumped at the first thing that she came across, leaving a crater on the ground behind her. She landed on a tree trunk and jumped to the sky, breaking the poor tree in half with the force of the jump. Alex threw up her arms and began to soar over the forest, she hoped to see a road, but saw something much more appealing.

"Ah, so that's the city…"

The city in front of her was surrounded by a high stone wall that blocked the view of the houses. But even so, Alex could see the river that flowed into the city and most likely divided it in half. Unfortunately, she didn't have time to consider anything important and began to rapidly decline towards the forest.

She fell into the crown of one of the trees and decided to take a breath. Alex pulled out a couple of sticks that were stuck in her hair and turned around. Looking back, she was surprised to see that the village was two miles away from her. "Apparently I'm faster than I expected."

Lying on one of the thick branches, Alex finally allowed herself to think about what had happened.

She died neither from illness nor from a heart attack or organ failure. She was murdered by a fucking ceiling fan. Alex almost burst into tears thinking about how unfair it was. Not only has she spent her entire life feeling like crap, but now her family will find her corpse when they wake up – if they didn't already.

If this was not enough, even after death she didn't go to heaven or hell, she fell into the hands of a bitch who sent her to a new world only to fulfill the monthly quota! She refused to believe that the bitch was a true Goddess. 'A being with too much power for her own good? Sure. But a Goddess? Fuck no.'

And this new world. Alex knew too little to decide if she liked this world, but her first impression was not the best. 'Why is this village so close to the city? Nobody wants to deal with the problem? Rick would explode from… such… neglect.'

Finally, her thoughts returned to her family. If before she was filled with rage, now she felt only sadness. Her family has been a part of her life for as long as she can remember, but they were gone. 'Rather, I am gone.'

She would never see them again, never hear their voices, never try her mother's cooking, never listen to father's silly advice, never beat Rick's record in another video game… Alex could no longer hold back the flood of tears and curled up into herself. Yes, it was dangerous and stupid to cry in a forest full of monsters, but she was only fifteen years old, even with a hard life she had, Alex was not used to suppressing her emotions.

She wept for what once was and for what it could've been. If she died in America, would she be able to go into life after death? If they went to Israel, would she be able to live a couple more years? Questions floated in her mind, but she couldn't find an answer to any of them.

After a couple of hours, she was able to stop. She did not feel better or worse, Alex knew that over time she would get better, but she didn't think that she would ever be able to leave her past life behind. Before her stood the beginning of something new, and she hoped that this life would be at least a little more pleasant than the previous one. So, getting up to her full height, Alex felt how the Virus strengthened her skeleton, muscles, skin and even eyes. Now she was ready. Jumping again, Alex headed towards the city.

-=-=-=-=-=-

Her "walk" through the woods ended without incident. Of course, most likely it was because she spent most of the time in the air, but it still counted. Alex saw strange animals a couple of times, but decided not to look at them for too long. Especially strange were the three-eyed deer with human teeth. She had a strong feeling of deja vu, but she couldn't remember where she saw it before.

Stopping near the road leading to the city, she looked at the people passing by. Alex didn't think that she would be allowed into the city with her current clothes, so she decided to see what the people of this world are wearing.

Adventurers, civilians, and even merchants wore clothes that Alex had only seen in the anime and fantasy movies. To be honest, she expected something like this, seeing that the buildings in the city also approached the medieval era. She would be more surprised if people were wearing something futuristic. 'I feel like a stalker.'

Concentrating on her biomass – fuck, that was sooo weird – her clothes changed from a green tank top and pants to a black sleeveless tunic, light leather vest, black pants with high leather boots. She didn't add anything extra, but she had an idea to steal Mercer's outfit from the game. Unfortunately, it would stand out too much in the crowd, so she decided not to.

Alex came out of the forest no different from a typical traveler, she even added a mace to her belt – how does this even work? Metal is not an organic material – and a small circular shield to her forearm.

Oddly enough, there were no guards at the entrance, people just passed through the huge gates without a care in the world. This made Alex think that either this city was so safe that they didn't need guards, or that someone was stealing money.

Entering the city, Alex looked around and smiled. A familiar sense of curiosity woke up in her, she experienced it every time she entered a new city. People of various races walked around: humans, gnomes, elves, even demi-humans! Everyone was minding their own business and no one looked like they didn't belong here.

But then she was hit by a hundred smells and loud sounds. Her enhanced senses worked fine before, but only now was she able to stop and register this particular change in her body. Luckily, Alex didn't smell like blood – every last drop of it was absorbed into her body – and so she was able to quickly get used to the new sense of smell and hearing.

She heard conversations in Japanese and breathed a sigh of relief, if it was a completely unfamiliar language, she would have to spend time learning it. She tried not to think that she could just consume someone and learn the language from their memories. The houses around were built in the western medieval style, which confused Alex a little. She was expecting something more… Asian, given the language spoken here.

The main road was made of gray stone, while the roads leading to the lanes were made of sand. Alex's eyes fell on the window of one of the houses and she frowned at the perfectly polished glass. With the technology that Alex has seen up to this point, such good glass will be quite difficult to produce. 'Wait a second, the bitch said there's magic in here. That explains some things.'

For a while, Alex just walked around the city and looked at life here. She listened to people's conversations and when civilians were in trouble, she offered help in exchange for information and some money. So far, she rescued two cats from a tree, helped move a particularly heavy table, helped a woman carry her shopping bag, and calmed down a pissed off horse. Alex wasn't sure exactly how she did the last one, but she did it.

She eventually learned the location of the Adventurers Guild, the city library, a shop full of strange enchanted things, and a good blacksmith if she ever needed one. She also became richer by 5000 Eris and got a sweet roll, which she thought was a pretty good bonus.

Her feet led her to the Guild building and Alex stopped. She had no idea what she could do in her new life, so she decided to start with the first profession that came to mind. If she didn't like it... Well, she could always become a blacksmith and start making modern weapons.

'Though, given what I know about human nature… Well, it's best to leave that idea as a last resort. Maybe I'll want to create my own kingdom with blackjack and hookers. Ah, and AK-47's too.' She calculated how much material she would need for mass production and cringed.

"First I'll find out exactly what Adventurers do. And if I'm lucky, this world's death rate is way lower then Goblin Slayer's." Alex shuddered and went inside the Guild.