Friday, May 14th, 2027

Orcs were worth ten shards, but I would rather face ten goblins than another one of those monsters. The only reason I was able to kill goblins so easily was that I was far stronger than them, had greater reach, and a single wooden spear throw was enough to take one out of the fight. I shuddered at the thought of facing an orc head-on. It might be worthwhile to save up enough money for a gun, as I couldn’t think of any other way I could survive a head-on fight.

Once I had recovered from eating the soul sphere, I returned to the orc’s corpse. For a moment, I wondered if I should butcher it and save the meat in one of the fridges on this floor. Maybe I would have if we were lower on food and weren’t killing goblins every other day. For now, we were fine, and I wasn’t emotionally ready to start carving up orc steaks just yet.

Dragging the corpse towards the stairwell proved to be a challenge. Luckily, the stairs were right next to the elevators, but the elevator the corpse was in was the furthest away from the stairwell, and the beast was heavy. I grabbed one of its arms and dragged, but I could only manage a few feet at a time, and I cursed myself for exercising before moving the corpse. Eventually, I made it to the door, and I left the corpse there, so it was ready to go when the lights came on. I looked back at the carpet and groaned. There wasn’t much blood from the corpse, as most of it had spilled in the elevator and poured into the gap between the elevator and the floor, but there were bloody footprints and goblin tracks from when we left and two long smears from where the beast’s mangled arm and side had dragged. I was going to have to steam clean the carpets again.

There wasn’t much time until the power returned, so I flopped on my couch and took a break. After about an hour, the lights came on, and I remembered that I hadn’t shut off the lights on this floor yet, but that could wait. The most important thing was security.

I returned to the elevators and pressed the call button. If I was right, then having an elevator in fire service mode on this floor wouldn’t count, and a new one would be called. As the seconds ticked by, I started to worry, but the button remained lit, and I soon heard the telltale “ding” announcing an arrival. This elevator was thankfully clean, and I quickly stepped in and used the fire service key. The fireman hat light came on, and the doors never closed. I breathed a sigh of relief that there didn’t seem to be any issues. I hadn’t even considered that the monsters might use the elevators, but I already had a way to lock them down. My cleared floors would remain secure.

I repeated the process for the third elevator on this side, which had a pile of goblin shit in it, and then again for the three on the other side, one of which had a dead goblin inside, and another that reeked of urine. The goblin corpse was old, and I immediately grabbed a trash bag to dispose of it. Once I tossed it into the depths of the tower and heard a delighted moan from below, another pang of guilt stabbed my heart. The beast must not have started on the poisoned corpses yet. Heaving the orc over the railing was a herculean task, but with both Chez and the female helping, we managed to cast it into the abyss.

As I stepped back into the hallway and saw the blood on the carpets I had worked so hard to clean, I decided today would be a cleaning day. I didn’t want to risk dripping anything after I cleaned the carpets, so I started with the blood-soaked elevator where we had faced the orc. I used a mop, both on the walls and the floor, and the sticky-half dried blood came out with a bit of work. Next, I moved on to the other elevators, and my mop served me well.

I inspected the rooms the Orc had ransacked and found the corner where he had chosen to relieve himself. He of course chose to use the carpet in the bedroom rather than any of the tiled surfaces, and so it was a job for my trusty steam cleaner, which I put to good use purging the mess and the hallway carpets once more. The orc’s mess reminded me that I hadn’t found the scene of the crime this morning, and I had to search my apartment for the remnants of the poop argument that had awoken me. I followed my nose and tracked it to a suspicious stain in my living room. Then I returned and tried to put the apartments in order, but they would never be the same.

Ding~!

Skill Improved: Cleaning Cleaning has reached level 11

I cleaned up the trash and food scraps, but there was nothing I could do about the doors or the cupboard doors torn off their hinges. I had tried so hard to return my floor to a semblance of normality after I had chased off the goblins, despite the doors with holes bored in them, but the orc had ruined my efforts. The two rooms without doors stuck out like a sore thumb.

Once the floor was as neat and clean as it was going to get, I went around and flicked off the lights and unplugged non-essential appliances. I grabbed a shirt for the female goblin and put a load of laundry in the wash, including Chez’s shirt, which brought a surprise. He was wearing a thin, goblin-sized leather vest underneath his usual shirt. He must have bought it with his share of the shards, though I was surprised he hadn’t shown it off to me yet.

I took a look around, trying to think of something I could do, but once the floor was clean, there wasn’t any work that needed to be done here. Some of the apartments had books I could read, but I didn’t feel right just sitting and doing nothing with so much that needed to be done elsewhere to eventually secure my freedom.

I took an elevator up to floor 53, the nearly empty hall that would be forever stained with blackened blood after what I had done. Both Chez and our newest companion were terrified of the elevator, and after our run in with the orc, I couldn’t blame them, but I wasn’t taking no for an answer. Eventually, they relented. I hadn’t bothered to flick off the lights in my haste to clean up yesterday, so I went around and started shutting everything off on this floor too. After the first few apartments, I realized the goblins had broken into every single room and ransacked the freezers, so I simply shut off everything but the hallway lights at the breakers.

I armed the female goblin, who I realized I really needed to choose a name for, with one of my wooden spears. She vehemently resisted, and Chez seemed to agree with her, but when I insisted, Chez yelled at her in goblin, and she took it. Now that I thought about it, I had never seen the female goblins fight except when I ambushed them in the bedroom, and the leader shoved them toward us. There were also far too few female goblins compared to males, to the point I had only ever seen a handful of them. I wondered if females were born less frequently or if something else was going on. Either way, I didn’t have the luxury of allowing her to sit on the sidelines. I needed fighters, not freeloaders, and I was expecting a fight.

Our next stop was to inspect our claimed territory above us. I had to ensure that no other monsters had slipped into previously secured floors before we moved on. I had planned to take today off and was once again regretting my excessive exercise, but I couldn’t sit still, knowing there might be goblins raiding the supplies I had secured above. We rode the elevator up to floor 54 and started our search there. I kept both goblins with me as we searched floor by floor, and I started to think I was paranoid after we searched four floors and found nothing, but on floor 58, a floor that had been untouched by goblins, one of the doors had been bored through.

I opened the door and carefully stalked into the apartment, with Chez and the female close behind. The main room was empty, but I found two goblins asleep on the bed.

“Stay,” I whispered to Chez, and he stuck out his chin. I gestured to the female and said, “Stay,” again, and Chez muttered something to her causing her to stick out her chin as well.

I crept over to the bed and found a kitchen knife lying by each of the goblins. I took them, carefully set them in my pockets, and then I slashed the throat of one of the goblins. I had started to grow numb to the weak flails and the terrified, pleading eyes every goblin had when they woke up, knowing they were doomed. Like so many before it, its lips moved, silently whispering words I would never know as air bubbles gurgled softly from its eviscerated neck. The other goblin failed to notice the end of its friend mere feet away and continued to snore in blissful ignorance. It was just what I needed.

A lone, unarmed, and sleeping goblin presented a rare opportunity. I snuck back to my goblins, took the female’s spear, and handed her one of the knives I had stolen. I knew that neither of the goblins knew the word, but I pointed at her and then the sleeping goblin and whispered, “Kill.”

She looked at me with a puzzled expression, and I pointed at the knife and then the sleeping goblin. She drew her head back and tucked her chin in, something that I had learned from watching Chez meant, “No.”

Chez understood me well enough and started to growl and mutter something to her. I was proud of Chez. Finding a girlfriend hadn’t changed him, and he always took my side. She kept bobbing her chin down and back into her neck, and finally, she squealed in frustration, which woke the goblin in the bed. I tore the knife from her hand, shoved a spear into her arms, and pushed her forward between us and the other goblin.

It was ruthless, and I felt guilty, but she had to make a choice like Chez had. She tried to back away, but I placed the tip of my spear into the small of her back, forcing her to impale herself if she wanted to retreat. Chez started yelling at her in goblin, and she was shaking. My guilt turned to shame, but my hand didn’t waver. The chance of another opportunity like this coming again was practically zero. We had a single, unarmed goblin, and she was in no real danger with Chez and me here to back her up. I couldn’t afford a freeloader, and this was the safest chance I would have to test her mettle and her loyalty. If she refused to fight, I would have to decide whether it was worth feeding her or if I should cast her out into the stairwell and leave the door locked behind her.

The enemy saw his dead companion and stared at us as it realized what was going on. It frantically searched for its knife while Chez and the female yelled, screamed, and argued. The female was crying, and I gave her back a sharp nudge with the tip of my spear.

She stumbled forwards as the enemy grabbed a small lamp and hefted it like a club. The beast charged, roaring in rage and defiance. The female finally pointed the spear at the charging goblin, and when he was almost upon her, she stabbed forward, catching him in the hip. The shock of the impact tore the spear from her shaking hands, and she retreated towards us, crying, but she wasn’t done yet.

Chez started to rush forward to finish off the enemy, but I held him back. I handed her another spear and pointed at the goblin. “Kill,” I said firmly.

She hesitated, I leveled my spear at her, and she finally stuck out her chin. The enemy had managed to stand again, though it seemed unable to put much weight on its left leg. It screamed in defiance and lunged forward as the female stabbed frantically again. It was a glancing blow to the shoulder, and the enemy goblin remained standing. She managed to keep her grip and stabbed again, striking its chest, and the enemy stumbled backward. She pressed on and thrust forward again, catching the beast’s belly and driving it to the floor. She started stabbing wildly again and again until long after the beast stopped screaming.

I felt a bit sick at what I had forced her to do, but I knew it was necessary. We would all have to work together and fight with everything we had until we were free. As she slowly walked back, splattered in blood, I realized it was time to name her. She had proven herself, and calling her “the female” sounded degrading. I glanced between her and Chez and decided they made a cute pair.

When she reached us, I gently set a hand on her bald head, causing her to flinch. I sighed at her reaction, even if it was understandable. “Your name will be Cheddar,” I said softly.