“They must have been part of the small human resistance… Still, why would the resistance waste their time on saving level 2 humans?”
“Maybe because they know of your greatness, Mactrid… They’ve probably heard of your glorious meat that is touted as the best in all the slaughterhouses on Earth!”
“I’m guessing it was sheer chance… They don’t care about my meat,” Mactrid spit on the floor, sighing as another human was strung up and hoisted over the branches of a white flowering tree… The man had red hair and blood shot eyes, having been caught just before he made it to the ocean and got his chance to sneak aboard a demon’s supply ship… Unfortunately, that was his only chance to get to his tier-one homeland, and he’d ruined it when a goblin found him and brought him here.
That man who’d been caught was Tor that Dracon had left in the wagon as he galloped off towards the river.
At this moment, Tor could barely see, but knew that because he was caught things were now over for him.
He had some hope before he got caught that his family might pity him, and let him hide in their mansion, but now… now all he could do was try and earn a second chance at the battlefield…
“Ah, sire… I forgot… This one was muttering something about the goblin…” the hobgoblin said, smiling as blood started dropping out of Tor’s eyes – his lips barely moved as his skin paled and his hands pulled at the rope around his neck.
The orc immediately sighed and tossed a blade out of his sleeve, causing the rope to immediately get cut as Tor rolled on the ground. His pale skin had turned so white he looked like a ghost, but it only got worse as he got dragged along sharp rocks…
“You’re death could either be fast or slow, muttering human… Tell us what you know about the goblin and I’ll maybe let you die instantly…” Mactrid said, pulling him further down the lines of rocks as he took out a blade…
“Please… please let me go back to the battlefield,” Tor coughed out blood, covering as many wounds as he could on his right rib as a blade touched against his chin. “If I tell you about the goblin, please… please give me a chance to fight again…”
“Heh, you really want to fight? Sure… tell me something I want to hear… However, if you don’t, I’ll drop you into that oil and watch you burn alive, okay?”
“I’d like that!” Juarez said, laughing as he looked at Mactrid ring Tor’s neck and hoist him up in the air… “However, he can’t talk if you squeeze his throat…”
Mactrid tossed Tor onto the floor after making sure he understood the seriousness of lying to him, and made him skip against the rocks before he jumped and landed by his side.
A few white leaves fell down onto Tor’s head from above as he tried to get to his feet. He pushed into the sharp rocks and forced himself to stand a blood dripped through his fingers that had just gotten pierced. As he looked up, though, all he saw were 15 of the humans that had tried to escape from the wagon with him hours ago…
His instincts had mostly told him to stay behind, but was this really that much worse than the battlefield!
He’d been turned into a monster after almost two years of killing people!
Tor grabbed at his neck and coughed out blood as he leaned against one of the black boughs of the white flowering trees, seeing a man kicking above him as he looked up and sighed..
Mactrid appeared right in front of him as he tried to figure out what was best to say in response to the orcs previous question…
“All I know was that there was a human with me with black hair and blue eyes… He was the last one you put into the wagon, and had a large scar on his chest from the battle… he had a strange ability that I’ve never thought possible for a human to possess…”
“Go on…” Mactrid replied, crossing his arms as Tar fought for his breath… “Tell me, what does the goblin that snuck into the wagon have to do with that human with the scars?”
“He… he forced us to run away after he killed the goblin…” Tor said, coughing out blood… “However, his ability is extremely strange… If I tell you what that human was able to do, can you please let me heal before I go to the battlefield…”
“You don’t make demands to me, human,” The orc replied, pulling him up by his red hair and spinning him in the air. “I’ll give you one chance to live tomorrow at the level 3 battlefield if you help me find that goblin… You’ll at least have a small chance of surviving…”
“No… please… please… please give a fair chance,” Tor started crying as he tried to hoist his hands in the air. “I… I really have good information… Please… please don’t put me there…”
“Master… He’s bad meat anyway… Don’t put him with the level 3s… He might ruin their quality that we sell at the town’s meat shops…”
“Stop it Juarez…” Mactrid sighed as he softened up his touch around the human’s neck… “Five seconds before you can no longer speak… Now tell me what that human had to do with that goblin!”
“It’s… it’s a transformation… The human transformed into a goblin… I- I can’t breathe…” Tor put his hands on his throat, trying to get in a morsel of air as he kicked in the air… “That’s-that’s why…. Why he’s so hard to catch! He must have been waiting for the day he turned level 2 to activate that ability!”
“Heh… Well, that’s a stretch… Did he have a weapon on him? He probably found a weapon with an ability we got from our new stock from overseas…”
“It was a sword…” Tor coughed out, covering his chest as more blood started dripping down his legs… “Please… you can corroborate what I said with the others you catch…”
“You…. You can go back to the level 2 battlefield in a week after you recover…” Mactrid tossed Tor over into a pile of white leaves, turning around and walking towards the exit… “Jaurez… if what he said is true, then it looks like we know what happened at the river… It looks like we have a minor rebellion on our hands…”
“Sire, but how would he transform? What kind of sword would allow him to transform?” The hobgoblin replied, scratching his head as a few more humans were carted into the room.
They looked extremely tired and worn out, and some even had spears sticking out of their bodies from the goblins that caught them…
Mactrid had not been kind to those who’d escaped just like he told the humans in school when he raised them to fight…
He reflected then on all the weapons he’d received and suddenly remembered one blade that had caught his eye on the last shipment with a jewel on it… Could it be? Was that the weapon the black-haired human had gotten and used on the battlefield? He grinded his fist as his eyes burned with rage…
“We- we got a new shipment of weapons five days ago, and I left some on the battlefield that happened two days ago… I… I even gave the best weapon we got sent to that boy with the black hair… He’d been the best in his camp… However, I knew it felt a little heavy for a tier three weapon!”
“Ugh, we don’t know how good that weapon is and we don’t even know who the blacksmith who made it is! If it’s a tier zero weapon, the sooner we catch him, the better the chances we have of this not getting worse!”
“He… he went towards the river,” Tor said, getting up and propping himself against the tree as he did everything he could to survive… He knew that Dracon would probably do the same thing if he was in a similar situation, and didn’t feel bad at all spilling his guts… “I’m only telling you this because I realize how much of a threat, he is to the demons…”
“Heh… you’re not a stupid human, are you?” Mactrid crossed his arms, walking towards the exit as a few other humans were brought in and dragged against the rocks… “Well, if you’re right, I might as well let you kill the humans that escaped to let you recover a little bit…”
Tor got up and bowed, putting his head deep into a bed of rocks on the blood covered floor as Mactrid turned to a weapon’s rack on the wall. There were dozens of weapons including swords,
knives, cutlasses, and a few guns that were in glass cases.
The orc took a large black sword and tossed it to Tor, leaving the room as he heard humans screaming behind him…
He didn’t have to say anything because he was pretty certain Tor would kill almost anyone to survive. Mactrid smiled and preceded to his horse, planning to head to the nearest city to request some help from trackers…
Chapter 5: twilight
Dracon woke up the next morning, finding four hobgoblins lying on the floor wreaking of alcohol.
He sighed as he noticed hundreds of goblins pacing around the bunks. To his right, out of all things, an orc was standing their with an axe walking towards the two hobgoblins.
“Invidia… how dare you sleep on the job!” The orc said, huffing out of his large green nostrils as he walked over and kicked him on the floor… “Do you realize how many times I’d have to kill you if one of the girls escaped…”
“Sorry, sorry…”Invidia coughed, getting up and pulling himself off the floor… “I’ve gotten so used to Earth that I started celebrating my birthday… I… I got ahead of myself and drank a little too much last night…”
‘Well, look at the field… There are three girls that fainted because you never told them to stop working! Go drag them out of the field and see if they are still alive… If all three of them are dead, I expect you know you won’t get paid…”
Invidia coughed and bowed, running off down the stairs and into the field before he screamed at the girls…
Dracon tried his hardest to remain upbeat as he got up and walked down the stairs with his head down. All the other goblins seemed to be leaving, and he had heard that goblins could only stay in this barn for a day…
He’d always seen goblins enter and leave cities after staying a single night. Because of the hierarchy, they were always bossed around by the orcs and hobgoblins and had to do whatever they were asked.
Beings like vampires would never even stoop to talking to them, making them about the same value as worms to those above the orc rank…
Even ogres, who liked to live solitary lives, were completely superior to goblins in every way. Dracon made it to the field and passed by Invidia as the hobgoblin checked one of the girl’s pulses…
His face had turned completely cold as the girl laid lifeless on the floor.
“Take her away goblin!” Invidia turned to Dracon as he walked past and tried to leave… “She’s barely alive! Take her to Grande City and have her get healed! If she doesn’t come back alive, I’ll take off your leg!”
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Dracon did his best imitation of a goblin, putting the girl over his small frame and turning to look at the orc. A strong feeling of contempt was emanating out of the orc’s eyes, making him feel more inferior then the shit in the grass.
He turned and started walking back to the town, with the girl on the back, bowing his head as he clutched the sword in his right hand.
He really needed a sheathe for the blade, and had no choice but to hold the weapon as he carried the girl. What seemed like ages later, he made it into the city gates where two orcs were standing guard… After telling them what happened, they laughed before pointing him to the right…
“The only human healer we have in this village is in that small house… Still, remember to respectful to the healer goblin… Not all humans are our food, remember?”
“Yes! Yes!” Dracon said, bowing slightly as he waddled off with the girl, trying his hardest to not drop her on the ground. Her breath was beginning to seem shallow at this moment, and he hurriedly ran through the city.
Along the way, he couldn’t help but get pelted as he passed by a few restaurants, butcher shops, and weapon smiths… A goblin was bad enough, but a goblin trying to save a human was considered worse than swine in these parts…
Luckily, he made it to a small wooden house where there was a medical sign by the door. He opened it up and walked in, finding a man standing by the window with a stethoscope around his neck…
“Put her on the bed, goblin…” The man said, sighing as slammed down a glass… “I’ll try and save her… You can come back in an hour…”
“Can I stay?” Dracon instinctively asked, trusting almost no one in a demon town, even humans. “Would that be alright?”
“Ah, you mean so you can scowl me you little shit? I’m a tier one human… I hope you know that means if you talk down to me, I can talk back?”
“Yes! I stay!” Dracon said, dropping back in the chair in the corner as he crossed his arms.
The human laughed at him and put his hand against the girl’s forehead, sighing as he looked at her pale body and abnormally thing waist. She had become dehydrated by all the hours of constant working, and he had no choice but to give her an iv and pump her with fluid…
The apocalypse had happened in the year 2032 and had come at a time when humanity was at the risk of destroying earth. Now, three hundred years later, the only technology of humans that remained was their medical techniques and a few basic amenities like lightbulbs…
The rest had been destroyed by the demons after they fought a hundred year war against humanity, or had been turned into antiques… All war machines like tanks had been destroyed after they’d lost out to magic except for a few basic weapons like flash grenades and smoke bombs…
“So… so little goblin… You carried her rather gently… Is there a reason for your kindess” The doctor, Jase, said, patting the girl on the head with a wet washcloth as she started to brighten up little by little… “Did… did you find a human girl you liked where you grew up?”
“I… I don’t know… she suffering so I help… Where you from?” Dracon said, spitting on the floor as he looked at the human… “You… your fingers look like they’re dirty and disgusting… Did you farm as a child?”
“Heh… observant… I’m one of the few humans to make it to level 10 by fighting on battlefields… My name is Jase… Not that you would care what a battlefield is…”
“I know what it is,” Dracon replied, nodding his head… “That’s where we get our meat from! Humans fight and kill humans to level up or feed us! I… I never got to taste, though, because those orcs are selfish…”
“Orcs are only level 22 at most… Their bodies don’t allow them to level up further… In my day, the vampires still bothered managing the battlefields, and they were quite a bit more frightening,” Jase continued,
“They can make it to level 40 or 50 depending on their bloodline… There are only perhaps 20 other races above them in the realms of darkness… Were you born here or somewhere else?”
“I was born here,” Dracon said, taking what he’d overheard from a goblin a few years back, and running with the tale he heard about his family… “My mother had fifteen kids and I was the youngest… Hence, I’m even less valuable then most goblins…”
“Ah, so you must pity these fourth tier humans… Well, I don’t… My wife worked on a farm until she was 33… She used to sleep only two hours a night because she was addicted to improving her farming skills… I think eventually, all the bad humans will get plucked and us stronger humans will earn our place in demon culture…”
“What about humans killing all demons in revenge…? Won’t humans do that if we peacefully coexist” Dracon raised his brow with a trace of seriousness in his voice. “I had nightmare about that… Aren’t they monsters? They… They have no limits on leveling up like demons!” Dracon tried his hardest to not sound amazed by humans, but couldn’t keep it all back… “I mean… if you trained, couldn’t you get to level 100, and kill even orcs!”
“Heh… I could, but that’s only because of the mana you demons brought with you… However, I wouldn’t dare kill any demons because I’m truly afraid of them… Now… tell the hobgoblin you’re under that this girl needs three days to recover…” Jase continued,
“If he doesn’t give her three days, might as well send her to the butcher now…” The doctor finished, putting his
hands in his white coat as he smiled at Dracon.
“You… you no care about her getting butchered… You human?” Dracon replied, “why no care about her going back so quickly?”
“I’d kill her myself if it meant me and my wife would be left alone… I’m a doctor not an angel… By the way, you’re interesting little guy… How come haven’t spit at me yet like all the other goblins?”
“Ah! I… I—I just tricking you!” Dracon spit onto the floor and slammed one of the books down a second later. “Eh, I hope you reveal yourself so I can tell orc!”
“I’m not a goblin, however, you’re doing a horrible job pretending to be idiot. You’re also a horrible liar Goblin because I know you had a human friend in the past… Remember 3 days for him to pick her up!”
“I go! I go!” Dracon got up and exited the door, walking out of the village as the moon started to rise in the sky. He suddenly felt a strange sensation passing over him as he walked into the village. Was this that time of day that the demons always celebrated, twilight?
Chapter 6: supreme
All the demons were bowing around Dracon as he exited the doctor’s office, causing him to just stand there in complete confusion as he tried to recall what was happening and why they were bowing as their shadows started to move behind them…
Wait, was this what Dracon learned about in school, the thing called twilight hour?
Wasn’t there a rule for all demons during the time of twilight that none would move or there would be a risk of disturbing one of the great demons called the supreme demons…
These… yes… these were demons he’d learned about that flew in the sky and had reached past level 100… It was a hierarchical rule that required all classes below the supreme demons to give them twilight to travel freely and quietly through the sky. Apparently, this was a tradition that originated from the world of darkness where they also had a sun and a moon orbiting them during the cyclic calendar…
Battlefield- Evolution Page 4
