Battlefield- Evolution

by Daniel Dragon

  “Yes, I really do,” Dracon said as he sighed, looking at the manager of the Theta devices currently on sale… “I think I might as well destroy you and get put in a new unit…”

  “Wait! Wait! Wait!” Bob said, the feeling of fear elevating in his voice. “I… swear…. I swear on everything that the demon mainframe can’t reach the human mainframe! I don’t have the access to send a distress message… I swear on my life!”

  “Oh, so why can I download skills from the demon terminals then?” Dracon didn’t want to trust his AI, but usually they had trouble lying thanks to their coding. He sighed and clicked on the mainframe, waiting for Bob to respond as people waited behind him.

  “It’s because they never suspected a human would dare come here! They don’t have any skills related to transformations on the human mainframe! Demons are too proud to think that such a thing could ever occur! I promise!”

  “If you’re lying, I’ll destroy you before they catch me,” Dracon put his wrist into the mainframe of the computer, causing it to light up and a skill window to appear in front of him.

  [Skills available for Goblin – level 5]

  [Skill points available: 4]

  [Great Strength – level 5]

  Increases your force and acceleration by 30%.

  [Mana Arrow – level 5]

  Shoot an arrow made of pure mana at any foe that gets in your way in the heat of battle Does 80% of your maximum force to an incoming opponent.

  Mana required: 2

  Cooldown: 5 seconds

  [Silent Feet – level 5]

  Allows you to sneak in the shadows, in case you need to catch an escaping human. Makes it 50% harder for someone to notice you while in the darkness.

  Mana required: 5

  Cooldown: 1 minute

  [Blade Kick - level 5]

  Kick out with an attack from your feet that deals 120% extra force than that of your normal attack.

  Mana required: 3

  Cooldown: 5 seconds

  [Dark Acceleration – level 5]

  Increases your acceleration by 10% in exchange for 10% of your health for a duration of 10 minutes.

  Mana required 5 seconds

  Cooldown: 1 hour

  [Page 1 / 10] [All other pages are locked due to your rank of goblin.]

  I guess I should save up my extra skill points for the off chance that I’m able to kill one more hobgoblin… However, it seems to me that the most useful skill is Great Strength, which is a permanent skill… I think I heard from some demons that all demons usually get that skill so that the humans can never overpower them…

  However, what other skill should I get? I’m guessing that mana arrow would be good on a battlefield, but not with assassinations. The only other skill that makes sense is Silent Feet… If I’m silent, perhaps I’ll be able to assassinate one hobgoblin, so I can transform.

  Dracon decided to invest in those two skills, and saved the remaining two other skill points for later usage. Luckily, it seemed that Bob kept his end of the bargain, and no soldiers rushed towards him as the two skills were downloaded into him.

  A moment later, he glowed with a bright white light, causing a few of the passerby to scoff from seeing a goblin learning a skill…

  I… I have to get to somewhere safe… However, I don’t know where goblins are allowed to go in this city… If I walk into the wrong establishment, they’ll kill me for disobeying their hierarchal rules…

  The sun was still bright in the sky, so he figured he had a few hours to try and learn what goblins did… Luckily, a few goblins were walking by after dropping off the wagons, so he followed them as they exited the town…

  “Excuse me! Excuse me!” Dracon said, running up to one of the goblins… “I… I heard us goblins are supposed to go in this direction…”

  “Idiot… We’re only allowed to stay in the city to use the mainframes… The rest of the time we have to stay in the barns watching the humans work…”

  “Remember… Tier 3 women and Tier 4 women are forced to farm… Come with me idiot… My name is Borza…”

  “Ah, I’m Drack… My parents had a weird taste in names.” Goblins and humans named their children differently, so he obviously couldn’t say his name was Dracon. The man laughed at him and walked with him to the barn.

  There he saw over a hundred women in chains in dresses working extremely hard amongst the crops. Some of them looked like they hadn’t been fed in weeks, and looked extremely attenuated as they cut up the stalks…

  “It looks like some of these girls are about to collapse… Let’s go get some food and watch…”

  “Right,” Dracon replied, walking into the barn.

  There were hundreds of large piles of hay surrounded by collapsed frail women. To his right, there was a large staircase that went up to the second floor. On that floor, there were dozens of small beds with a plethora of goblins. A few of them were eating soup that wreaked of blood. Luckily, goblins were usually forced to eat the entrails of pigs and were never given humans to eat.

  Still, he tried not to show his rage as he got brought to a small bunk bed in the corner. A single hobgoblin was watching all of the humans down below in the fields from a desk beaming with contempt.

  Just what I was looking for… Dracon thought as he held tightly to his sword and sat on the bed. If he got lucky, that hobgoblin might go to sleep and end up as food for this weapon.

  “You… you coming?” His new friend said, grabbing a whip and tossing it to Dracon. “You can’t have that sword if you want to come… You’re never allowed to kill the girls, or you’ll get in trouble…”

  Shit… I was worried about that… If I put down the sword, won’t I lose my transformation. If I turn into a human here, they’ll kill me faster than I can say dead meat.

  Bob… do you know if I can sustain the transformation—

  “You… you asshole!” Bob said, speaking directly into his consciousness… “How dare you ask me a question after you made me fear for my life! I spent my entire life taking care of you, and now you want me to answer?!”

  If you don’t tell me, I’m sure that we’ll both die when they kill me…

  “Ugh… as far as I can tell, it takes one mana to sustain the transformation per minute when you’re away from the sword… However, I’m warning you… If you put this sword down, someone will try and steal it…”

  “I… I’ll keep this sword with me and hold the whip in my other hand,” Dracon replied to the goblin as he took a whip and smiled, wrapping it around his hand. “Don’t mind me… If one of the girls fall, I’ll take the risk!”

  “You’re stupid idiot!” The goblin laughed, pointing him to the fields as the hobgoblin stared at him like he was looking at garbage. “You… you get us in trouble, and the hobgoblin feed us to the pigs!”

  “I apologize, dumb head,” Dracon tried to imitate some of the disses he’d heard goblin’s say in his tier 3rd town.

  The goblin simply ignored him and they went down to the field, watching the girls till the land as a few goblins walked around them.

  Dracon, at this moment, couldn’t help but feel bad for the girls.

  They had even less chances of reaching level 5 then the boys. They got hardly any experience from farming, and only leveled up if they survived to roughly 40 years old.

  By that time, if they were able to make it to the a tier 2nd city, it would usually be followed by an unhappy life. Dracon simply stood their watching the girls till the land, trying not to cry as the goblin next to him started to laugh…

  “Ha, you’re a sensitive goblin, aren’t you… Can’t help but feel so much joy at these human’s suffering?”

  “It’s nice… Can I whip them?” Dracon said, pulling on the line of the whip to cover his ass… “This one isn’t doing enough work!”

  “I’ll do it…” The goblin replied, spitting on the ground as he spun the whip back and flailed it forward. He hit the girl three times in a quick burst, causing h
er to fall onto the floor as Dracon grinded his fist…

  She screamed in agony as his goblin ‘friend’ walked up to her and kicked her in the leg, making her scream as all the other goblins laughed…

  “Little disgusting bugs… It’s time for dinner,” The hobgoblin said, screaming at the females currently working the land… ‘Go to where the pigs are fed and take their leftovers… Don’t eat anything that’ll make them less fat!”

  “Yes… of course!” That same whipped girl got up, bowing to Dracon as she ran past with blood on her back.

  She’d gotten so tired that she could barely make it three steps without her leg snapping. When she fell onto the floor, all the other girls instantly looked frightened and turned to her with appalled expressions. They all knew what happened to girls who weren’t able to keep working.

  “I’ll take her to the butcher,” The goblin next to Dracon said, rubbing his hands together. “Unless you want to walk all the way there yourself, hobgoblin Invidia?”

  The hobgoblin sighed and raised his hand, agreeing to let the goblin pick her up as Dracon laughed with tears in his eyes at the girls unfortunate situation…

  He had to do something!

  He couldn’t just let this girl die without at least trying to help!

  “Hey- hey Borza, I’m new here… Do you mind if I take her with you?” Dracon said, smiling at the goblin as he dragged the girl by her brunette hair.

  “Sure, but… be careful with her leg… If we break it more, they might suspect we’ve stolen some of her meat…”

  Dracon nodded his head and smiled before he picked up the girl by her two legs, causing her to scream as they walked with her to the city gates. Roughly halfway through their journey there, Dracon dropped her by ‘accident’ causing her leg to crash hard into the ground…

  “Ah! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” The girl screamed, finally trying to crawl away as she got closer to the city.

  Borza grabbed her arm and pulled her up, turning to Dracon with an incensed expression on his face…

  “Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!” The goblin said, hissing as he looked at Dracon… “Damn it! I might as well kill this girl now! She must have been moving right?”

  “NO… NO please… I… I can still work!”

  Dracon sighed and held onto his sword, nodding his head as the goblin bent down and put the blade against her neck. He knew that if he killed the goblin, it would be almost impossible to save the girl permanently.

  However, he couldn’t not do something as he watched her writhe in panic. His arm seemed to move by itself as blood drizzled onto the body of the girl beneath him. Her amber eyes and brunette hair were soon covered with the blood of a dead goblin.

  Its head rolled into the forest as Dracon got covered as well with the blood from its flesh.

  “Can you crawl?” Dracon asked, looking down at the girl… “Do you think you can go to the forest on the opposite side of the river?”

  “Yes, but… are you going to kill me?” The girl said, staring up at him with a confused expression. “I… I really can work again… Please… please don’t let them kill me…”

  “I want you to go into the forest and crawl until you find a place to hide… Tomorrow… if I’m able to find you, I’ll take you with me to the next place I travel… What’s your name?”

  “They… they used to call me Waal before I ended up here on the farm… Can… can you at least get me to the forest’s edge…

  Dracon nodded his head and grabbed the girls arm along with the goblins, dragging them into the forest before he looked down at her eyes.

  He couldn’t do anything but this to help her, and sighed as he looked back at the farm. Luckily, there were hundreds of planted stalks blocking the view of the orcs who stood by the gates… Behind those stocks were the forests he’d come through, and he left the girl there before giving her his dagger…

  “Here… if you get attacked, use this…” Dracon hoped he wouldn’t regret giving up his knife. “Leave a trail from here to wherever you go… Make it as discreet as possible…”

  ‘Thank you! I can’t believe you’re doing this for me?! Are you a goblin with the resistance? If that’s true, why are you giving up your position for a wretch like me?”

  “You’re not a wretch, Waal… Now go into the forest and hide as best as you can… I don’t think they’ll care that this goblin died…”

  “Wait, but are you part of the—”

  “No… I’m not, but I can’t tell you anything else,” Dracon said, wiping the little droplets of blood off his sword as the girl scrambled to her feet. “I’ll see you later… Expect me to be a hobgoblin if I don’t fail…”

  I really hope this is the right decision,” Dracon turned to the field and walked back to the barn, passing a few dozen girls who were frantically either reaping or planting the crops. He kicked one of the girls – having to keep up his front - as he walked into the barn, smiling as the hobgoblin turned towards him.

  “Where… where did the other goblin go who was with you? Did he take her to the butcher?”

  “An orc requested him to bring her to supper,” Dracon said, remembering what he’d heard at the gate. “He said if I tell anyone, that I’ll be eating hay for the rest of my life.”

  “Damn orcs… Go eat you stupid, filthy goblin… The food is up here on your cot…”

  Chapter 4: hobgoblin

  Nightfall came as Dracon held onto his blade, looking at the moon rising in the sky. The hobgoblin was still sitting at the desk working as the girls remained in the field. They were expected to work 20 hours a day and ate two meals if they were lucky.

  He really hoped that soon the hobgoblin would give him a chance to strike. Unfortunately, as he sat there, three hobgoblins walked up the stairs and into the room. making the matter more complicated as dozens of goblins slept around him. The hobgoblins, in turn, grimaced at all the goblins before tossing a tied up bundle onto the floor.

  “This is for your damn birthday… You ready to celebrate your horrible life, Invidia?”

  “Eh, I want to work on my birthday, and watch these humans suffer… If you’re feeling daring, why don’t you take over my shift so I can go spend a night on the town…”

  “We don’t like you that much,” His two companions smiled, untying the bag and revealing what looked like an entire cow’s leg. “We bought you some of the freshest beef we could… You don’t have to eat like a goblin tonight…”

  Invidia smiled and held out his hand, sending out a fire ball that lit a small stack of hay on fire. He tossed the cow leg on top of it and smiled as his three hobgoblin friends peered out at the girls.

  One of the girls was working extremely slowly, and one screamed “Get back to work” as Dracon tried to remain calm. Some hobgoblins were extremely sensitive for feelings of hostility, and he didn’t want today to be his unlucky day.

  “You’re trying to do the impossible… I applaud you but you can’t save every human.” Bob interrupted his thoughts, “You already are able to turn into a goblin… Why don’t you live a good life and just let the demons kill whomever they please?”

  “I can’t do that… this sword was planted on the battlefield for a reason, and I plan on using it until I can no longer help humanity regain this beautiful planet…”

  “You mean Earth?” Bob laughed, sounding pissed a second later. “This planet was brought to the brink of destruction, and because of that the demon’s were allowed to invade… If you humans were a better race, this wouldn’t be happening…”

  “I don’t trust anything the demon’s taught me unless it doesn’t benefits them… Sorry, but that’s bullshit… Humanity is truly good from what I’ve seen… The demons simply came because they were hungry, and not because we made them come…

  “Ah, so… you really think that way?” Bob asked as the hobgoblins started to feast on the leg – they only liked their food a little bit cooked. “Well, there is nothing wrong with keeping your head in the
dirt like an ostrich…”

  “I don’t even know what that is,” Dracon shook his head and turned over, choosing to go to sleep rather than try to assassinate the hobgoblin tonight… ‘Maybe if we’re lucky, they’ll get drunk and I can kill all four of them…”

  “Heh… you’re right… You’re a wolf in sheep’s clothing, making you one of the few humans who can officially get payback against the demons… However, again, what if they catch on soon?” Bob seemed to be implying something sinister as his intoned dryly. “Do you think the vampires want humans getting stronger when they make such good food? Shoot, why don’t you… better yet, escape to a tier 2 city and make a family!”

  “I’ll… I’ll show you Bob… They’ll suffer for what they did to humanity…” Dracon turned around, looking at the hobgoblins one more time as he heard them laughing with cheer. He closed his eyes and went to sleep, praying that in the morning things would be different.

  ~~~

  Black-Stone Mountain, Black-Rock Village, daylight.

  In the dungeon of a large manner in Black-Rock Village, over twenty humans had been gathered in front of an orc that had an extremely annoyed expression on his face.

  That orc, Mactrid, couldn’t help but grind his fist as a few more humans were brought and hung up in punishment for escaping from their cart just a day ago. They had turned level 2 a few hours before, and yet now they were all going to die for trying to run away.

  Mactrid wanted to scream at the loss of meat as he looked over at his strongest hobgoblin, Juarez, currently cutting down one of the humans that had just died a few moments ago.

  “We still haven’t found 10 of the humans that escaped… It’s so strange, though, a goblin’s footprints were left behind at the site… Could there be a goblin that was hiding in the wagon?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Mactrid replied, looking down at Juarez’s red skin and the strange dimples on his cheeks as he bowed before him…