The OP MC

by Logan Jacobs

  Instead, the lead goblin, the largest of the group, was fucking cowering away from me.

  “Human strong!” it cried. “Smart and strong and new leader!”

  “Are goblins supposed to be cowards?” I asked Mahini.

  Her piercing blue eyes were filled with disgust as she looked down her nose at the creature backing away from us. “If they are the last standing, they usually run away.”

  “Aww, man!” I groaned. “Here I am hoping for an epic boss battle, and all I get is this cowardly lion?”

  Good thing my sword was super light. I didn’t want to waste any more calories dealing with this pathetic creature.

  “Not kill!” the goblin begged as it dropped to its knees. “Goblin do as human say! Obedient to new leader!”

  Its simpering made me pause. I didn’t trust the coward as far as I could throw it, and I knew I would never want such a cowardly creature by my side even if it was loyal to me.

  “What is it saying?” Mahini asked me.

  “It says it will obey me,” I murmured back. “But I know it’s lying to me.”

  I hadn’t even bothered to raise the sword against this creature, and now I sheathed it entirely.

  “On feet!” I snarled in the goblin’s language.

  The creature stumbled to its feet, and I almost laughed as relief filled its big black eyes.

  “Great One?” Mahini questioned.

  “Goblin kill men,” I growled at the goblin. “Men of female. This male not kill goblin.”

  I turned to Mahini who looked at me in utter confusion.

  “Mahini gets to kill the goblin,” I said to her in our shared language.

  The former goblin leader lifted its head toward the desert woman, and its pleading eyes shimmered with hope. It had no idea what I had just said to her.

  But this bastard was about to pay at the hands of my woman.

  Chapter 9

  “You want me to kill it?” Mahini breathed.

  “Of course,” I told her. “You may have killed the creatures that actually killed the Golden Swords, but this creature gave them the orders. They will not be truly avenged until the leader is cut down, once and for all.”

  “W-Well, yes, but…” The desert woman looked at me with wonder in her blue eyes. “That honor should belong to you, Great One.”

  “I’m already a god,” I said as I shook my head. “This is my gift to you. Elrin won’t care who lopped the goblin’s head off as long as we bring it back to him.”

  I took several long steps back and left Mahini standing in front of the simpering goblin.

  “Avenge your family, Mahini,” I said to her as I covered the door.

  The dark-haired goddess stared at me for a long moment before her expression turned fierce. Every memory of the Golden Swords seemed to flicker in her eyes, and when she finally turned to face the pitiful goblin leader, she stood as strong as a mountain.

  I shuddered at the faint sound of her leather-clad fingers gripping the hilt of her sword. The desert warrior woman was a force to be reckoned with, and I was so glad she was mine.

  “This is for my family,” Mahini whispered as she lifted her sword.

  The goblin couldn’t understand her, and its eyes filled with terror as it finally realized what was happening. It gabbled at me, but when the sword finally whipped through the air, the creature’s piercing wails were cut off like a record yanked off a turntable.

  Black sludge splattered the ground and oozed from the decapitated body as it slumped over, and the severed head rolled across the room until it rested against my boot.

  The copper mine was free of goblins at last.

  “Well, that was fun,” I joked as I nudged the severed head with my toe. “What should we do with all the bodies?”

  “Leave them,” Mahini suggested as she wiped her sword on the headless body. “The villagers will be awed by the prowess you have shown here.”

  “Hey, come on, I didn’t do this alone.” I gestured to the pile of bodies the desert goddess had created. “We cleared this place out together as a team. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  “Don’t flatter me, Great One.” A radiant smile lit up Mahini’s face, and her cheeks darkened with a blush. “You would have defeated all of the goblins as easily as you slaughtered the kobold horde. I was merely your backup.”

  I shook my head but didn’t try to argue with her. In a way she was right. It might have taken me another few thousand tries, but I would have eventually cleared out the mine without her assistance. Her humility was endearing and added to all of the other wonderful qualities about her.

  After I snatched up the lead goblin’s head, I led the way back through the mine. When we reached the room where I got my feather sword, the two of us spent some time organizing the crates of ore to bring back with us, and since we had left a mess of bodies in the tunnels, it was the least we could do.

  I put the severed head and Jax’s sword into one of the crates and placed it onto another crate with copper ore. Mahini grabbed the chest of copper coins, and she led the way down the tunnel. She tossed her cargo across the gaping hole and easily leaped after it.

  “You will have to toss everything one at a time,” she said. “Empty the crates and throw them first.”

  “Sounds good,” I said, and I created another save point just in case I fell in the chasm while trying to jump over it.

  It was a bit of an annoyance having to chuck the severed head and each individual rock across the chasm, but it was better than overreaching and one of us getting impaled on the spikes below. Once we got a rhythm going it all went much smoother, and the whole process took maybe five minutes or so.

  I cleared the gap, grabbed the two crates again, and then led the way to the entrance of the tunnel. I paused long enough to grab the other crate of copper ore from earlier before turning and heading back out into the open sky.

  The sun had gone down while we were in the mine, and since neither of us had an empty hand, we would have to travel to the town in the dark. The moon and stars overhead gave us just enough light to see the winding path, and since I was such a grade A badass now, I wasn’t worried about nocturnal beasties coming to gnaw on us while we walked. We would just kill anything that moved and be on our way.

  The air was clean and delicious with the scent of rain, and I took several deep gulps to get the smell of goblin blood out of my nose. It was hard to tell exactly what time it was, and since I had respawned so many times, I knew my internal clock was all out of whack, but I guessed we had been fighting goblins for several hours at least.

  “We should hurry back to town,” Mahini suggested as she stepped to my side. “I don’t want to be out in the open when the rain hits.”

  “Are storms really bad here?” I asked and followed her as she started down the trail to the plains.

  She shrugged. “I don’t think they are. Kotar sandstorms were worse than anything I have experienced while living here.”

  “Ugh, I can’t even imagine a sandstorm.” I was lucky to have never experienced one back home, and I really didn’t want to. “The worst I’ve ever lived through is a pretty weak hurricane, and I thought it was amazing.”

  “What is a hurricane?” the dark-haired beauty asked.

  We trekked along the path as I did my best to explain what a hurricane was. Those blue eyes of hers widened when I told her the difference between a hurricane and a cyclone, and she had so many questions about meteorology that I could barely answer. The conversation lasted nearly the entire walk back, and since we couldn’t jog this time, it took us nearly half an hour.

  “So a tsunami is a big wave, a tornado is a tube of wind, and a hurricane is like a tornado but over the water?” she asked once I’d finished explaining.

  “Yeah, pretty much,” I said with a nod. “There were sandstorms, too, but the people that lived there had adapted to the climate so well that I never heard of someone dying in one.”

  Or maybe those kin
ds of deaths just weren’t broadcasted like hurricanes and tsunamis were. I left that part out of the conversation because I really didn’t want to try to explain television to the bright young woman.

  Mahini’s mind was insatiable. I was going to have to be careful what I said around her, or I was going to be trying to explain physics and other things I had limited knowledge of.

  A shout rang through the air as the town came into view, and within a minute, the makeshift gates were glowing with torchlight and the people of the town surged onto the path. Several people were waving their arms, but most of the townspeople were murmuring to one another. The hum of their conversation vibrated through the air, and I could feel it long before I could make out individual faces in the crowd.

  “You have returned so quickly, Great One!” one of the men shouted. His name was Myron, and I recalled that he had lost his brother to the goblins during an attempt at taking back the mine. “You’re covered in blood. Are you injured?”

  I smiled at the man and shook my head as I placed the crates down at my feet. A few of the townspeople leaned forward to look inside, and they must have seen the severed head because they gasped.

  “The monsters are no more!” I shouted so the people in the back could hear me, and then I grabbed the severed head by the ear and held it over my head. “Here is the leader of the goblins!”

  The cheering that split the air caused my eardrums to pop. The ground began to shake as the townspeople surged forward, and soon there were hands grasping me from all directions as the people sobbed and chanted my title. I braced myself with the expectation that they would hoist me onto their shoulders like the people do in sports games, but the townspeople were content to let me keep my feet on the ground.

  “The mercenary has coins!” a shrill voice rose above the loud cheering.

  And then everyone was celebrating for an entirely new reason.

  The welcome was better than I could have imagined. I knew that the townspeople would be thrilled to know the mine was free of goblins, but I never expected the amount of joy filling every face. I figured the mine was only a small step in the right direction when looking at the big picture. It had been out of commission for such a long time that it would take a while before the copper trade brought any revenue in.

  But these people were acting as though I had brought back every little thing that they could need to survive. It didn’t seem to matter that they were close to rationing food or that general house supplies were extremely limited. To them, the clearing of the mine solved all of their problems.

  I had brought back their hope, and that really was all they needed.

  “Welcome back, Great One,” Elrin said as he approached from within the crowd. The lines around his eyes crinkled in the torchlight as he grinned, and the sparkle in his eyes made him look ten years younger. “I cannot begin to tell you how pleased I am that you have been successful.”

  I scanned the crowd for a splash of red, but it didn’t look like Elissa was invited to my homecoming, so I returned my eyes to Elrin and raised an eyebrow. “And our deal?”

  The town leader gave me a knowing smile. “It is an honor to join your name to our family, Great One. Elissa’s hand now belongs to you.”

  I grinned and resisted the urge to pump my fists. It probably wouldn’t be the most sophisticated reaction to getting engaged, although I doubted anyone in this town would even know what I’m doing to judge me for it.

  Holy shit. I just got engaged.

  Before I could really process the thought, a gentle tap on my armored shoulder pulled my focus outward. Mahini stood beside me with the chest of coins and the crate with the severed head and Jax’s sword.

  I made a quick save point, just in case, and then removed the severed head from the crate. With a nod to Mahini, I turned and held the head out to Elrin.

  “From one leader to another,” I said as I tried to make some kind of ceremony out of the presentation. “Your mine now belongs to you once more.”

  The town leader grabbed the severed head by its other ear and the two of us lifted it over our heads. The cheering of the townspeople increased dramatically, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if someone could hear it a hundred miles away.

  “The Great One has vanquished the evil that took over our mines!” Elrin shouted over the cheering, and everyone quieted down as he continued. “My daughter, Elissa, will be wed to our savior tomorrow evening!”

  And with that, the cheering reached a fevered pitch. I clapped my hands over my ears and laughed as I was once again surrounded by the townspeople.

  Elrin led Mahini and I into the center of the town and then went to work organizing the townspeople into a long line that snaked through the streets. When the first woman stepped up to thank me for saving the town and clearing the mine, I had a sudden idea.

  “Here,” I said and flipped open the lid of the chest of coins. The chest was filled to the brim with the flat orange coins, and I knew that there was at least enough for each person to get a handful of coins. “I know it isn’t much, but I want you to have this.”

  I may as well have given the woman a flawless diamond from the way she held the coins to her chest.

  “Oh, bless you, Great One,” she said as she grasped my hand. “Bless you!”

  It took well over an hour to distribute the coins to the town’s population of about forty people. Each person got fifteen coins, and when I included Mahini, Elrin, and Elissa’s shares, there were only four coins left. Both Mahini and Elrin tried to force me to take their portions, but I turned them down.

  “I’m a god, remember?” I grinned at them. “Most people will just give me what I want because I’m so awesome.”

  “You will receive Elissa’s share as part of her dowry,” Elrin said in a tone that allowed no argument. “I would also like to give you another gift, Great One, that will serve you well in your endeavors.”

  The man gestured for me to follow, and after I grabbed Jax’s sword and the near-empty chest, I trotted after him with Mahini at my side. Elrin led us through the streets to his house, but then he turned right down one of the side roads. The buildings here were all boarded-up, and we came to a stop before the last one in the row on the left.

  “It isn’t much, but I thought you would want your own home if you are to live with us,” Elrin said.

  The house was a small two-story building made of bright wood that told me it was one of the newer houses. The windows on the lower floor were all shattered, but the door was still sitting in its frame and there didn’t seem to be any holes in the roof.

  The inside was a little worse for wear. The entire first room was filled with holes in the floor and charred bits of the ceiling caved in. There was no furniture in the main room, and the dining table I could see through an archway was missing two of its legs. I didn’t trust the second floor to hold my weight so I wasn’t about to go investigating up there.

  “This has the least amount of damage.” Elrin’s voice was small and wounded, as though he knew I wasn’t exactly impressed with what I was being offered. “I will bring proper beds from my home as gifts, and I’m sure others in town would be happy to supply you with whatever else you may need, Great One.”

  I admit that if I had been given the choice, I would have wanted a house as large as Elrin’s, but a house wasn’t actually part of the agreement, and I knew the value of the gift he was giving me. If I could get Jax and some of the other men to help with getting new lumber, it wouldn’t take too long to get the place looking as good as new.

  I wasn’t much of a DIYer, but a little home repair never hurt anyone.

  “It’s great, Elrin, thank you,” I said as I turned to the man. “This will make a better base of operations than the Inn.”

  “You will still need to visit Torya if you wish to bathe,” Mahini pointed out from the arch to the dining room. “Hers is the only building in the town that has hot water.”

  “We could always do it the long way, tho
ugh, right?” I asked. “With a fire and a big tub?”

  “You could,” Elrin conceded, “but the nearest source of water is Jax’s stream, and that’s across town from here.”

  “Torya’s it is,” I concluded.

  Elrin left after that to organize moving the beds from his house, and Mahini offered to return Jax’s sword to the blacksmith. The desert goddess promised to come back after a hot bath at the Inn to help me come up with a plan for the following day. It was late, and I was ready to crawl into bed with my beautiful warrior woman, consummate our bond, and celebrate our victory over the goblins..

  I walked through the house taking inventory of my new belongings and making a mental note of all the furnishings I would require. The first level had a very basic floorplan. The living room was right off of the entrance with a dining room through an archway at the back. The kitchen was through the dining room on the left, and a small empty room sat at the front of the house off of the living room. An empty doorway at the foot of the stairs led to a short hallway and a larger room. From the empty dresser, I guessed that it was the master bedroom.

  I assumed that the upper floor was smaller than the lower floor, and it probably had at least two bedrooms. I would know for sure once we patched up the worst of the damaged wood.

  Mahini returned after about twenty minutes, and I made a new save point as I walked around and told her everything I had decided to fix right away. The entire floor of the living room and about a third of its ceiling would have to be torn out and rebuilt. The kitchen was okay except for its windows, and the dining room would need chairs and two legs for the table. The master bedroom would need half of its floor ripped up and all of its windows replaced.

  Glass panes weren’t something that was available at just any store. It was a rare commodity that required artisanship in the same sense as iron or a sword but using sand instead of metal. I suspected that the technology to make single panes didn’t even exist so most windows were made of smaller shapes held together by strips of iron like the lattice in castle windows.