Battlefield- Evolution

by Daniel Dragon

  “God… I really hope that girl left an easy trail to follow because if I can’t find her, I’ll have no choice but to leave her to die in the woods,” Dracon muttered as he walked to the first floor of the barn , looking down at the girls currently barely surviving on the first floor.

  I’m sorry, but when I grow strong enough… I promise to return for you and make sure that you all survive… Now… how do I turn into a hobgoblin?

  “Heh… you’re in luck kid… You indeed have a new skill that’s on your sword called hobgoblin transformation… Still, if you thought it was hard getting the hobgoblin form, imagine trying to kill orcs! It might be better to go after kobolds first…”

  “I’ll do my best…” Dracon wrapped his hand around the bag on hi s back and then pulled off a satchel he found on the hobgoblin’s waist along with two knives he’d almost missed hidden in his pants. He put the two basic knives he’d found in the bag as well, and then walked through the bushes going towards the forest…

  The night had darkened the field so much that he could barely see with his goblin eyes… He knew he now had to transform because a hobgoblin was allotted much more freedom than a goblin. He grabbed tightly to the hilt, and muttered the words hobgoblin transformation as he moved through the stalks of growth.

  He turned into a hobgoblin a moment later, watching his skin turn from green to red and his height to increase to almost 5 feet.

  His eyes also started to clear up and he began to notice that the stalks looked more and more like the corn he’d seen growing earlier in the day. Five minutes after that, his vision was almost perfect, and he could even make out his fingers…

  “Status” Dracon said with excitement from that change to his eyes, walking further and further into the field before he finally made it to a safe place.. After making it roughly ten meters deeper into the field, a red lacquered box appeared in front of him.

  Dracon

  Level 5

  Race(s) : Human / Goblin / Hobgoblin

  Age: 18

  Exp: 3050 / 5000

  Health: 950 / 950

  Mana: 60 / 60

  Force: 600

  Endurance: 425

  Acceleration: 450

  Trickery: 300

  Stealth: 420

  Skills: Silent Feet, Great Strength, Night Vision (HG), Basic Tracking (HG)

  ~~ Night Vision and Tracking are skills that all hobgoblins are instinctively born with, so they are better at seeing in the night…

  Dracon closed his prompt as quick as he could, noticing that most of his stats had been boosted after his latest transformation. However, still, he was extremely worried about taking a human girl with him… He had to think of some type of cover so they wouldn’t get caught on their journey across the landscapes of Earth…

  He walked into the forest, and noticed two pebbles by the tree before he picked them up and rolled them in his hands. He’d told the girl to leave a trail for him, and as he focused on them he tried to activate ‘tracking’. It caused two sets of foot prints to appear as he looked down at the ground… Luckily, he’d picked up the stones and was able to catch her trial….

  However, he now began to ponder about the hobgoblins by the river as he walked further down the path off the footprints…

  No wonder those two hobgoblins were able to get onto my trail… They were probably using tracking to follow me to the trees… However, maybe that’s why orcs always keep hobgoblins with them at their base as their right hands… They probably use them to capture any humans that get away…

  Dracon followed the footsteps further and further into the forest before he came across a large series of fallen trees. The footprints ended there, and he sighed as he pushed away one of the trees revealing the blonde girl, he’d let go just the day before…

  Her body had healed somewhat after just one day of being alone it the forest. He leaned down and pushed gently against her back, causing her to scream and rise to her feet as he put his hand against her mouth…

  “Vampires have very good hearing, remember, and werewolves are even more discerning” Dracon said, putting his hand against her mouth. “If you want to get us killed, I dare you to scream…”

  ‘Please… please hobgoblin… I… I didn’t mean to esca—”

  “It’s me! The goblin that saved you…” Dracon turned around and sighed, activating his human transformation as the moonlight shined down on them. “You… you see! I’m a human just like you… Now… we need to get out of here now okay? Do you know any of the towns around here that we can go too?”

  “Then tell me my name…” The girl replied, “I told you my name! You could be a werewolf! I… I don’t know what you are!”

  “Waal… Stop it!” Dracon said with a loud whisper, hugging her and putting his old shirt over her fragile body… “We’ll be going now, okay, to a safe place where you can eat? I… I have something for you to drink, and a little bit of food on me that you can eat when we’re in a wagon…”

  “Why? Why are you risking this for me?” Waal asked, shaking her head as she grabbed at one of the trees. “Leave me here in the forest and go help someone else! I… I’m not the person who needs your help the most!”

  “Stop! You’re not beneath anyone else! You’re a human being!” Dracon pulled her off the ground and transformed back into a hobgoblin, holding his sword with his other hand…

  He still had to get a wagon from the barn before he left, and take the hobgoblin’s body with him. If he was lucky, the dead body was still underneath the desk where he left it…

  After an hour of walking, he made it back to the barn.

  ~~~

  Mactrid looked at himself in the mirror after the doctor finished patching him up. He needed over a hundred stitches and over one hundred basic healing spells to get to full health.

  He sighed and got off the bed as he looked at doctor Jase, trying his hardest to remain calm as he thought about the difficulty of the mission ahead.

  He had to find one goblin out of hundreds of millions of goblins, and only knew that he had a tiered weapon with a jewel imbued on it. Even worse was that when he tried to hire trackers – hobgoblins – the tracks had disappeared in the woods by the Black Heart River. He must have climbed into the trees, making it nearly impossible for them to relocate his trail!

  However, he still had hope, and remembered of a werewolf that lived nearby Grande City a few miles away from where he was currently. Their tracking skills were much more advanced than hobgoblins, and he luckily had just enough money to pay for his help…

  “You don’t have to say thank you, but if you don’t mind you can pay me,” Jase said to Mactrid as he sat on the cot… “There was also a little goblin that helped you… He deserves your thanks as well…”

  “If I could, I’d kill that goblin… You said he’s the one who didn’t bow? What kind of bumpkin would make such a stupid mistake around supreme demons…?”

  “I don’t know, but you’re mostly back to normal… Your health will take over 3 weeks to return to full, so right now you’ll be like a walking level 10 if you get in a fight…”

  “As long as you don’t have to fight another orc, though, you should be fine… Jase wiped back his white hair, and then walked over to the girl who had barely recovered on the cot across from Mactrid…

  Even with the Iv, if she didn’t recover in a week she’d have to go to a butcher, and he’d have to send her there according to the rules… However, her constitution was so frail that he wasn’t sure if they’d even get meat off her bones… Plus, even if he used a healing spell and broke the rules, she probably would be dead in a month at most unless a miracle happened…

  Doctor Jase turned to look at the large orc who had probably just suffered what some could only imagine as worse than death. The orc got up and walked out of the small hospital, leaving behind what looked like a brown money satchel on the bed…

  “Here… I’m giving you 30 sterling because you didn’t kill me whe
n you could’ve human…. That should be more than enough to cover it right?”

  “Yes, you’re surprisingly generous… However, judging by that mark on your arm… You own a farm? I always wanted to ask this… Why do you demons not mind eating humans? Don’t you find it weird eating something that can talk?”

  “We’re from different worlds… “ Mactrid replied, “We find it weird you humans eat vegetables, and you find it weird that we eat you… However, the truth is we value sustainability more than you idiots… If you guys didn’t ruin the world, we wouldn’t have been drawn here in the first place…”

  “So, basically, it’s our fault,” Jase said, laughing as he tossed back the bag after taking out 10 sterling. “I don’t need your pity orc… That conversation was just worth a 100 sterling to me…

  “Enjoy your day, human… You’re lucky to have it,” The orc pointed at the scar on Jase’s hand as he exited the door. “If there is one type of human I respect, it’s you… Someone that’s been to a thousand battlefields, and killed hundreds of his own kind… Without you, actually, I’d probably not have eaten at least three meals…”

  Mactrid left and walked towards the mountains, heading towards the werewolf as he held a small pair of handcuffs that he’d gotten from the wagon. Thanks to Tor, he was able to find out which pair of handcuffs belonged to the goblin, luckily, after investing the trails of his movements with the trackers…

  It was strange, but because Mactrid had almost died, he felt more alive than ever, and took his time as he walked into the forest, heading towards a place of werewolves and demons.

  Chapter 8: Werewolf

  Dracon was luckily able to get a horse from the barn and took the hobgoblin’s body along with Waal down one of the many roads outside the town. Unfortunately, though, he had no choice but to leave behind the hundred girls who worked on the farm when he left.

  At least until an orc came to check on the girls, though, they’d be able to go a few hours without working. All he could do now was take the road and hope that no one stopped him from traveling with a single human, a blonde girl, as he traveled deeper into demon territory.

  He looked up at the white tarp over the wagon and then turned over to Waal eating impatiently in the corner. He’d taken some meat before he left that was meant as food for goblins – pork entrails. He’d eaten it a few hours before, and could barley stomach it, but it seemed like Waal had no trouble eating pounds of it.

  She must have been through some truly horrible experiences…

  Dracon reflected on his time serving on the battlefield, at this time, and at least realized he got to eat a good meal before each battle. His muscles were important for his chances of leveling up, so he got to eat three meals a day as long as he got more than two kills…

  His orc, Mactrid, was surprisingly fair as long as you weren’t dead. As soon as you died, though, you were nothing more to him than meat to be shipped to a butcher in a nearby city.

  Dracon grinded his fist as he thought about it, looking up at the moon as it started to be replaced by the sun… They’d been on the road for maybe four hours, and he decided to stop at a nearby river to water the horses…

  Since he was a hobgoblin, all the guards were actually very nice to him, and didn’t bother him as his horse waited at the ford. He could see an estuary not too far away down the embankment, and took in a deep breath of air before he filled up three buckets with water…

  Afterwards, he got back into the wagon and started heading further down the path… The good news about roads, he’d heard, was that they always headed to a city or an important location…

  After spending his entire life inside of only two cities, even this road was something nice for him to experience…

  “You… you have any idea what we’re going to do when this road leads to somewhere?” Waal asked, waddling her brow as she ate some meat.

  “I’m hoping that it lets me go to a place where there are kobolds… I’m hoping to level up a few more levels so I can transform again…” Dracon replied, opening the map and trying to figure it out…

  ‘You mean… you mean you didn’t used to be able to do that transformation?” Waal asked, spitting out a bone as she chewed on some more pork entrails. “Are… are you sure that’s a good idea? What if they catch you?”

  “Let’s talk about what it was like for you as a child first…” Dracon knew what he was doing was risky, but didn’t’ need to hear about it. “I don’t know anything about third tier girls besides they are forced to work at farms…”

  ‘We… we’re raised until we’re ten with our families… unlike boys, and then… then we’re sent to a training institution for three years…” Waal said, smiling as she thought about those pleasant days… “We… we used to be allowed to eat three meals a day and actually read and learn… Just in case there are any demons that take fancy to us in those three years…”

  “Occasionally, a third-tier girl will be picked by a vampire, or a higher-ranking demon and brought to work for them on their properties… However, I… I was never chosen during those three years….”

  “Afterwards, I… I was brought to the farm where I got roughly one experience every 3 days no matter how hard I worked… There… my first hobgoblin master was actually much nicer and let me eat three meals a day… That all changed when I turned eighteen… Then, suddenly, if you fail, you get eaten by the demons…”

  “That’s sort of like me…” Dracon replied, sighing as he felt the cart shake, hitting some large rocks on the road… “I was on the battlefield fighting to survive so demons didn’t eat me until I escaped… However, wait… do you hear that?”

  “Hear wha—?”

  Dracon got out of the wagon’s interior and walked outside, looking at over twenty wagons heading towards him.

  They were from a nearby battlefield – he guessed - and judging by the humans walking along the trail and their rough, ripped bodies, they were probably all getting close to level 5.

  The battlefields were all held in various areas, but the higher the level you were the better the tier 3 city that you stayed at. Once Dracon made it to level 3, he would’ve been brought to one of those higher ranked cities where he would’ve stayed until level 5.

  Looking out at the troops, he was pretty certain this would’ve been where he ended up if he was able to survive and felt a strange feeling welling up inside of him…

  “I… I think I recognize someone…” Dracon thought as he grinded his fist, looking at a man walking next to the wagon. That man, the one with the black hair and cold eyes, had trained him almost single handedly at BlackRock City a few years ago. When he’d first gotten to the battlefield training area, before he was an official soldier, a level 2 soldier named Creston had trained him on how to survive in the battlefield.

  Seeing him again at this moment made Dracon feel extremely strange, and every ounce of him wanted to save him from his fate as three orcs walked on the troops left and right sides…

  The higher grade 4 meat, as the humans at level 4 were referred to by the demons, were protected by stronger soldiers, though, making these thoughts all just pipe dreams. A large werewolf also stood behind them, walking up and passing Dracon as he bowed into the dirt.

  “Heh… oh, we have a smart hobgoblin,” The werewolf said, and here I was thinking of eating whatever you had in your carriage… However, I have to ask, why are you heading towards my territory?”

  “I… I lost my way at the river… My map was wrong,” Dracon pulled the map out of his chest. He didn’t understand the demon’s language, and passed it to the werewolf. Instantly, it smiled before tearing up the map in his hands.

  Dracon had headed to an area completely off his map… The werewolf laughed and pointed Dracon towards his city over the hills in the distance…

  “You seem like a nice hobgoblin… I’m looking for someone to help transport the dead bodies of these humans that can’t survive… Go to Alegrove City by traveling up that r
oad and I’ll give you a job!”

  “Thank you so much, sir!” Dracon knew he had to respect werewolves much like he had to respect orcs as a goblin.

  They were both two ranks above him which meant he had to listen to their commands, based on demon hierarchies, or else risk losing his life.

  It wasn’t only because of the level difference that he needed to be respectful, that was part of it, but it was also because of an inherent desire of demons to serve those stronger than them.

  He bowed to the werewolf and agreed to help, getting back into his wagon and finding Waal playing dead on the floor. He couldn’t help but sigh and wait nearly ten minutes for the werewolf to be far enough away before he spoke to her.

  He also had to be careful with what he said for the next few hours. If the werewolf happened to be close by and his hearing was as good as he thought, almost anything he said could be used against him.

  “Waal… I want to only talk about basic things… Do you understand? I just saw the most beautiful werewolf I’d ever seen, and I’m afraid he might be angry if I say anything to offend him…”

  Waal nodded her head, instantly understanding his concern as he brought his wagon further down the road. There were hundreds of trees surrounding the mountains in front of them, and he slowed down in the center of some large boulders before turning to Waal.

  The sound wouldn’t travel far here around these boulders, and he looked at the thin, attenuated girl with a trace of concern. What was he supposed to do with her now that he was going into a city where humans were nothing but meat or workers?

  He didn’t know if they’d allow him to have her there without treating her like shit, and for him to have to disrespect someone he just saved was not going to be an easy task.

  “I… I’m afraid…. Afraid of how I’ll have to treat you in that city… Would you please not get mad at me if I’m forced to spit on you or worse?”

  “You… you see my leg? I’m level 3, so it’s starting to heal fast, but I’d be dead right now on someone’s plate if you didn’t save me.” Waal replied, smiling and shaking her head at Dracon. “Even if you have to whip me, I’d rather be whipped than be dead.”