Suddenly I aroused by the strange clattering and noises that sounded like a screech. After thinking about my future and daydreaming, I felt tired and slept. Nonetheless, it was boring to be holed up inside a hole and too afraid to go outside, I only chose the only safe choice available to me. But that didn’t last for long when I heard a lot of noise from outside.

Curiosity getting the better of me, I crawled to the mouth of the hole and peeked out… only to widen my eyes in astonishment which then transformed to fear and trepidation. The whole hallway was crowded with small green things, bald, disgusting and naked with strange white poles in their back. They were moving around randomly, sniffing every corner of the place like a dog, as if searching for something. I, who was from the information era, could tell what they were doing. It might be … no its definitely related to that goblin I killed, with that conclusion I felt trepidation.

I am but a weak imp now, how can I survive the pursuit of so many goblins hell-bent on killing me off. Wild animals that liked to live in groups tend to show fearsome camaraderie so to speak. If you hurt someone from their pack, they would pursue you to avenge their hurt comrade. The same was true for these goblins as well.

Contrary to how it was portrayed in my world, goblins were although weak and dumb, weren’t cowards. They might be disgusting, but they were extremely protective to their own. With the reproduction rate surpassing any other monster in the dungeon due to their inherent ability to reproduce with almost any species, they made the second most populous group around. Even the human adventurers didn’t mess with them unless they have to. I, who didn’t know this information back then, unknowingly stirred the muddy water.

Looking at the goblins outside, I began to consider a solution to this problem. From my short interaction with them, my impression was as bad as it could be. There were trigger fingered and from what I could see from the intense search, a vindictive bunch. I can’t just hide inside this hole for my whole life. And to hide from a bunch of “inferior” green things left a bad taste in my mouth. Call it my pride as a human; even though I was an imp, a monster in all sense, in my heart I still considered myself a human.

After thinking for some time, I came into a decision. Of course, the only solution I could think of was to fight with them for survival aside from that there were no other ways. They weren’t humans and neither was I, so a peaceful negotiation was out of the question. Besides I already had a seed in my heart about vengeance, eventually I have to fight and become stronger so that I can make that seed to a huge tree… the tree of my revenge. If such was the case, why don’t I make these petty green things my first ever stepping-stones?

With these thoughts in my mind, I steeled my heart and mind.

I decide to fight instead of hiding for the first time in my life… the courage I didn’t had as a human surprisingly came easy to me as a monster.

Somehow, I felt depressed at that so I stopped thinking about it.

Now with my decision firm on confronting them, I started to think of strategies to take them down one by one. The weaker me was no match for a team made of two… for the time being. From my previous encounter with one of these, I knew my skill had an advantage over these freaks. Probably because of their low intelligence, one cast could make them immobile for two minutes in the least.

However, I didn’t feel like confronting them with this alone. It took me one minute and some seconds to kill a goblin while the illusion condition lasted for only two minutes. If I encounter a group of two goblins, I can only kill one while resorting to running from the other, even though I had enough MP to cast twice. Therefore, before engaging them, I decided to first level up this skill of mine. As for the target, they were already a few loitering around the mouth of my small “abode”.

…

Crawling to the mouth of the small hole in the corner out of the reach of these goblins, I set my target on one of the “strays” who moved too far away from the bunch. This one’s sniffing around, concentrating fully on the dark corners of the dungeon rather than the illuminated places. Narrowing my eyes, I pointed my finger towards its direction and mumbled under by breath, “cast illusion”

-2 MP

Target is now trapped in an illusion for the next two minutes.

It was a success. As for the goblin, it stood in its crouching position like a statue. Stiff and unmoving. I was delighted upon seeing it. No matter what my skills working made me confident and washed away whatever inhibitions I had towards this retaliation plan.

I had 5 MP in total, therefore I can cast this skill twice. While waiting for the goblin to recover from its “enchanted” state, I kept an eye out on the MP regain rate.

Two minutes passed and the little thing started to regain its consciousness. I was also curious to its behavior after experiencing my skill’s full effect so I didn’t cast the skill immediately. The goblin only shook its head and continued on the task at its hand. It wasn’t the least bit suspicious of anything that transpired just now.

A smile crept upon my face as I applied the skill again and retreated to the deeper part of the hole, closing it with some gravel I found inside. Considering these goblins’ intelligence, this much was enough to make them think of it as a part of “wall”. Although they hadn’t found my nest yet, with this many searching extensively, it would be just a matter of time.

There was another reason why retreated, I, for some reason started feeling extremely drowsy all of a sudden. It happened just after I used the skill the second time. It made my mind numb and my reactions become sluggish. Worried and curious to the root of my situation, I opened the status panel that hovered to the left of my field of vision.

Name: Alex Race: Infant Imp(?)

HP: 20/20 MP: 1/5

STR: 1.02 AGI: 0.6 INT: 2 WIS: 1

Evolution Points: 2/50 (?)

Skills: Infrared Vision(Lv 0.28), Cast Illusion(Lv 0.06)

As expected, my skill’s level had increased by 0.04, which means 0.02 points per use. Not only that I saw the other skill also increased by 0.08 points. As to my current drowsy state, I found a probable answer to that.

It’s my depleted MP.

…

I woke up after an unprecedented time, and when did I check my stats again. Except for the fully filled MP, nothing changed. The drowsiness had also vanished, filling me with vigor. Nonetheless, I found a side effect of depleting MP and made a mental note to not empty it in the presence of an enemy.

The goblins outside were still conducting their “thorough search” in hopes to find me. So there were still many targets for me to practice my skills on. Like before, after crawling to the mouth of the hole, I spotted an unlucky sap and applied my skill. After using the skill second time, this time I didn’t feel as drowsy as before. Although the mental fatigue was there, it wasn’t as bad. Unlike last time, I didn’t feel the need to sleep as hard previously leading me to conclude that perhaps my tolerance increased.

But even with my increased tolerance, I still gave in to intense drowsiness and slept. When I woke up again, a surprise waiting for me aside from my increased skill level. Like I had expected, my Cast Illusion increased by another 0.04 points. What I didn’t expect however was my MP increasing to 7 from 5. The effect was also reflected on the attribute panel with INT increasing by one point. I finally knew how MP related to my INT and WIS attributes.

The calculation was simple, twice of INT added with WIS, this was the MP.

This made me very ecstatic. Now I don’t have to be afraid of suddenly running out of MP. I can liberally cast twice without any backlashes and can push it to thrice. This last cast will be my trump card and a means of emergency exit. It probably happened due to me draining my MP reserves and allowing it refilling again, a welcomed change nonetheless.

Good things aside, I started to feel hungry again. It was to be expected since I had my last meal… a while ago. Since most of my time spent on sleeping, and the no concept of time inside the dungeon, I couldn’t be sure about days or hours.

It felt like a day though…

Like someone giving a pillow to a sleepy person, just when I felt hunger a shadow lurked on the mouth of my hole. My food already delivered itself to my doorsteps. At the thought, my mouth stretched itself into a sneer as a hideous expression appeared on my equally hideous face.