The red goblin who received the bowl was no less surprised than the rest of us, but that didn’t mean he was about to argue on our behalf. On the contrary, he sneakily cast me a smug look and quickly got to his feet, loath to waste any more time should Khar change his mind again.

I was furious, but there wasn’t anything I could do. Khar did just pummel our whole group into the ground, leaving no doubts as to who called the shots around here.

I sat down, watching the other group greedily devour the gruel. My heart ached as I saw the already small amount of food left in the pot gradually diminish. I wasn’t alone. I could sense the growing indignation coming from the other members of my group, their faces contorting after every gulp that disappeared in the throats of other goblins.

The room was quiet if not for the sounds of vigorous slurping. The damned goblins seemed to derive even greater pleasure basking in our ire than from the food itself. The last one went so far as to meticulously lick the bowl clean, leaving me equal parts disgusted and infuriated. He was about to pass the bowl back to us when Khar grunted, looking this time at the members of his own group.

His entourage served to illustrate in full detail just what you could expect from living under Khar’s reign. Aside from the fact that they didn’t have a single colored variant of their own, even the unevolved gobs looked frail and malnourished. They were also completely subdued, looking like a pack of beaten down curs from the streets.

Still, their experiences made them more attuned to their master’s mood. I almost screamed when I saw them confidently taking two full bowls of gruel each, nasty smiles blossoming on their faces.

When our turn finally came around, there wasn’t much gruel to speak of. Fuming, I bent down and scraped the bowl against the pot, gathering the meager remains that were stuck to the sides. In total, it didn’t even amount to a single serving. I was enraged to the point of not even feeling hunger anymore and simply passed the bowl to Bob, leaving the room without a word.

Blood was pounding in my ears. The thrill of having persevered through the beating, the pain from my wounds, the hunger and indignity, they all coalesced in a boiling torrent raging inside my head.

“Fuck!” I roared, striking the wall of our room with my fist.

The rest of the group made it back not long after me. Their moods weren’t much better than mine, only the target of their ire was different.

“Rhys,” Bob said. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

I looked at her, momentarily speechless. I wasn’t exactly expecting a support session, but I never thought they’d turn on me instead.

“You’ve got a problem?” I questioned her, feeling maddened and betrayed.

“You challenge Khar, despite having no strength to do so, and when he lays you on the ground, you still don’t yield.” Bob replied, looking me straight to the face.

“You’re breaking the rules.” She continued hissing in that repulsive goblin tongue of theirs. “And we all suffer for it.”

“So you want to be like the goblins from his party, living by whatever scraps he deigns to leave for you?” I shot back at her, barely suppressing the anger raging inside of me.

“And your plan is not to eat at all?”

I didn’t answer. Just stared at her hatefully, examining her as if it was the first time I saw her.

Bob continued speaking, slowly. “You are our leader. And we are to follow. But you’re not fulfilling your responsibilities.”

“Yes, I’m the leader. And what are you doing?” I growled at her, my despise for goblins, for this rotten life bubbling inside of me. “Are you not challenging my authority right now?”

“That’s right.” She answered. And to my shock, struck at me with her claws.

I stumbled back, completely taken aback, marvelling at the new wound on my chest.

This hesitation lasted only a moment. I roared furiously, my indignation finally reaching its peak. My hatred for this world, these dark caves, the constant pain and fear erupted all at once. The resentment I accumulated against Khar who I could not lay a finger on, finally finding a suitable outlet.

Our room was small, leaving Bob with little space to take advantage of her agile movements. But she still made best use of what she had. Without any hesitation, she switched from using claws to fists and proceeded to target my kidneys, following Khar’s example.

Every time one of her punches connected, it would send fresh waves of pain. I relished the sensation. The desperation I had to bottle up inside of me when I laid on the ground now burst forth with a vengeance, imbuing my fists with power.

My body moved as if I was possessed. I ducked under her attack, and quickly kicked her in the shins. Bob stumbled and before she regained her balance, I grabbed her shoulder and slammed her body against the wall with a loud thud. She still didn’t stop resisting and I was all the happier for it.

Ignoring the fists that continued to target my kidneys, I wailed on her. There wasn’t a shred of mercy or restraint in my attack. I just blindly punched all over her body, each blow containing my accumulated hatred of the goblin race.

Loud thuds reverberated in the cramped confines of our room. My savage assault eventually extinguished all the strength animating Bob’s body and she fell limp to the ground. But I still wasn’t satisfied.

Gasping for air I looked at Alpha, “Come here, you bastard.”

Without waiting for him to move, I pounced on him. He tried to retaliate, but somehow his attacks lacked their usual reckless abandon. His passivity only made me madder. I didn’t stop hitting him even after he fell to the ground. My punches and kicks assaulted his curled up body, and didn’t stop until I felt the last drop of my accumulated anger leaving my body.

I stood in the center of our room breathing heavily. My gaze slowly moved from the unconscious bodies of Bob and Alpha to Trax and Rudi, the two of them huddling together in a corner, too afraid to raise their eyes at me.

I felt empty.

The fury, the maddened euphoria of the subsequent release, it all left me emotionally drained and exhausted. There was a vague feeling of having lost something, but I was no longer in a state to think about it. I collapsed on the ground like a dead body.

The hazy blue glow of the lichen growing on the walls of our room continued its languid pulse. The specks of splattered blood staining the floor reflected the light, shining in the darkness like shards of broken glass.

***

We gathered for the morning announcements. I was initially met with a reprise of the smug looks I remembered from yesterday’s dinner, but those expressions quickly changed as they noticed the state of my group slinking behind me. I was in a comparatively decent condition thanks to the stone, but Bob and Alpha didn’t have much time to recover from the previous evening.

There was nary a space on their faces that wasn’t covered in bruises. The stiffness of their movements clearly showed that if anything, the injuries hidden under their clothes were even more substantial. They both walked with a limp, though Alpha’s was more pronounced. All in all, they were in a state similar to mine after getting thrashed by Khar.

Of course, it wasn’t disdain or repulsion that replaced their smug expressions but rather respect. I found it beyond me to care any more.

Khar was the only one who appeared to be unimpressed. His only words for us were “Bring me food.” and he even repeated the second part about rewarding the most successful group with the right of eating after him.

We stopped near the entrance of the dungeon so that I could smear the ivy on my skin. I haven’t received any notifications from the system when I woke up this morning, leaving me quite distressed, but it was too early to give up just yet. To my surprise, the other goblins copied my actions and started gathering the leaves of their own accord.

I wasn’t planning on forcing them to go through with it this time. By this point I simply didn’t care. If they weren’t interested, I felt no obligation to expend energy trying to convince them otherwise.

Yet the goblins followed suit and started applying the ivy juice to their skin without a word of complaint. Even Bob displayed none of her usual opposition, and vigorously smeared herself with the ivy, no shred of apprehension or defiance to be seen.

I marvelled once again at the difference in our perspective. To me, yesterday’s fight was like crossing the Rubicon, final rupturing of whatever camaraderie we might have shared. To them, however, it was business as usual. One goblin challenged another and got his ass whooped in result. And since she lost, she simply accepted her lot and carried on without holding a grudge. In stark contrast to what I have been doing...

Was I wrong?

No. I grumbled inwardly. If a bastard steals your food and tortures you, it’s only right to oppose him. I definitely shouldn’t have been attacked by my own party right afterwards.

Only, I was looking at it from a human perspective. Even worse, it was a Rhys perspective. Am I doing them a disservice by treating them like I would another person? Maybe I should treat them like what they are, goblins, simple monsters controlled by whatever directives they received from the system.

But that also felt wrong.

Memories of yesterday’s fight flashed through my eyes. Guilt and shame started welling inside of me. Eventually I got completely confused. The great rift that was supposed to divide us turned out to be nonexistent. My belated feelings of guilt also had no reservoir since in goblin’s mind nothing worth apologizing over took place.

In the end I spit out the stone and gave it to Bob. “When you feel better, pass it to Gharak.” I said.

She simply nodded her head. There didn’t seem to be hostility in her eyes, but I sensed that I wasn’t completely correct in my supposition that yesterday’s fight left no hard feelings.

Well…

In the end, I decided to temporarily postpone further deliberations on the conundrums of interspecies friendship and focus on more pertinent tasks. Like growing in strength. Lacking food shrank my timetable quite a bit. There was also the issue of me not receiving a single point to my attributes, despite enduring many times greater hardships than before.

Still, I had one last ace up my sleeve.

The drops of shining liquid continued to glow from the spot I had marked previously. I smiled and shook the canteen filled with glowing dye, pouring some on my fingers and making a new marking, as we entered a corridor leading the opposite way.

We continued walking in silence. Our surroundings didn’t appear to differ greatly from those we saw in our previous outings. Just a maze of dimly lit tunnels filled with strange plants and even stranger mushrooms.

Yes, it looked exactly the same, but there was a slight difference.

“We’re going the wrong way.” Alpha grumbled.

I grinned. For the past hour I could feel a slight tension pressing on me. Its intensity continuously increasing as we ventured deeper.

The feeling was unpleasant in itself, but I couldn’t shake the excitement. It was strange in itself that we had never come across any other goblins on our excursions. When you coupled that with the uncanny ability to find your way in this impossible labyrinth of crisscrossing corridors, there was one conclusion that came to my mind.

The system didn’t actually help us to navigate the dungeon, but rather sent us on patrols along a set route.

It was worrying to discover that my mind had been altered to some extent after all. Still, I felt even greater relief to learn that it was possible to resist system’s influence so long as you correctly identified its source.

We suddenly heard shrieks of fighting goblins coming not far away from us. I rushed in their direction. Sounds of intense struggle echoed along the corridors as we made our way there, but were soon replaced with silence. I tried slowing down my steps, wary of confronting another beast, but instead sped up in spite of myself.

I saw three humans. And five corpses of slaughtered goblins lying on the ground.

Only one of the men had his sword drawn. He was in the process of wiping the blood off it when he noticed our group. His eyes shone with greed when he looked at me.