Chapter 23: Gyuk’s Findings

I woke up a little after five hours. By then the Nightmare Seed inside Gyuk’s body had already sprouted into a tree, taking control of his body, senses, and even his soul. With a victorious smile, I opened my system and observed the stats.

Name: Alex Race: Adult Dream Weaver

HP: 100/100 MP: 111/111 (Regen: 2 MP/min)

STR: 5 AGI: 7 INT: 45 WIS: 21

Evolution Points: 10/1000 (?)

Passive 1: Nightmarish Body (!)

Passive 2: Shadow Meld (!)

Skills:

Infrared Vision (Lv 5), Cast Illusion (Lv 8.03), Nightmare Manifest (Lv 3.02), Metamorph (Lv 0.02), Nightmare Seed (Lv 0.1)

Nightmare seeds planted: 1/3

Knowing it’s already done, I sat cross-legged and focussed on that link that connected me and Gyuk. Again, in a flash of light, I arrived at the same purple cloudy place with a blank-faced Gyuk standing before me. The first thing I did was to ask about the situation he was in. Turns out he was still waiting patiently for the Goblin Lord’s arrival.

After that last visit, he hadn’t come to see them again. In the meantime, Gyuk and his cronies weren’t allowed outside. The cave they were in, was heavily guarded by adult goblins who were enhanced by the Goblin Lord’s potions. Their strength and speed, everything about them were enhanced to another level, making each one as strong as an adult orc.

After I heard this, I fell into a brief silence as I digested the info. Out of curiosity when I asked him about the total number of goblins who were as strong as the ones guarding him, Gyuk answered it with a number as large as the total number of orc tribe that came to this floor in the first place.

If enhanced goblins are already so huge, then what about those who weren’t yet?

My head began to spin as I thought about this. The opponent’s number was surprisingly huge. I began to suspect whether these goblins were preparing for something else or not? I stopped thinking then and there. Nonetheless, I had no clues to think further. It will be just a waste of time to continue.

Now that the Nightmare Seed bloomed, I can plant ideas and memories. So that’s what I did. Skipping past the memory part, I started to plant ideas like ‘spying’ ‘secretly killing the goblins’ ‘creating internal discord’ and many more into his head before cutting off the connection with one last order, “Keep my secret from leaking and order everyone from your group to not reveal anything about it. Second, keep an eye on that goblin lord”.

Then I came out of the hole and greeted with a gloomy atmosphere created by Gyuk’s betrayal. The orcs looked listless and defeated. The effect was a lot harder than I imagined. Perhaps the situation they faced upstairs had something to do with this look as well. After all, betrayal wasn’t a thing that should be taken lightly.

I didn’t return to Logier’s side, instead, I went towards the goblin forest. I have become stronger than before. With my intelligence and ability, I wouldn’t even be afraid of a fully healed Logier, let alone the goblins that roam around the outer periphery. The reason for this was my unbalanced stats. While my magic-related stats are through the roof, my physical stats are a pathetic sight to behold.

I have to change that while I am still just a small adult Dream Weaver. Besides that, I also wanted to see if my assumptions about stats affecting evolution path were true or not. Trudging through the barren land due to orcs cutting off the trees to make a perimeter, I arrived at the extreme edge, and stepped into the darkness cast by the shadow of the trees. It was a little faint but I definitely felt my speed increased to a certain extent due to the passive.

A smile tugged into my lips.

Looking up, I saw the huge crystal that provided sunlight into this place through the gaps between leaves. Once again, it managed to shock me to the core. I wanted to know its working principle. After witnessing these wondrous marvels, my thirst for magical knowledge just kept increasing. I desperately wanted to talk with someone about all these magic stuff and its mystic capabilities. I wanted to know more… more than anything, however, I wanted to play with magic. I wanted to see if it could achieve everything I have seen in movies and books.

Can I teleport? Can I fly? Could I make things appear from nowhere? I wanted to, desperately, know the answer to these questions. However, I understood one crucial thing; before I start playing with magic, I have to become strong first. Or else I won’t survive this place called the dungeon.

With creatures like orcs, goblins lords who might be a unique class, those Bloodyvores roaming around, a mere Imp like me will be squashed to paste, like a bug. Only having enough strength could assure my safety and only after I know that I am safe and secure, can I research about magic and its properties.

And then there’s my revenge plan. Every day the anger was boiling in my heart. Sometimes it becomes unbearable when I think about my life back on earth. Although it wasn’t perfect, and I didn’t have any magic power, still, life was peaceful in a way. At the very least, I didn’t have to constantly look behind my back in order to keep myself safe. Moreover, my little baby Coco was still there. Whenever I think about him, I would feel restless.

However, Coco was a smart dog. Of I don’t return in a day’s time, he would automatically go and bother my neighbor. The old man living there was very grumpy but strangely kind towards animals. With him around, I don’t think Coco will suffer… but I still miss him.

My anger towards the empire and that king rose by another few points.

I came back to the clearing created by the orcs and found a thick piece of a tree trunk. Walking around it in the circle, I bend down and carefully grabbed both sides of one end and tried to lift up. It was heavy, very much so. Even with my 5 points of strength that could twist a juvenile goblin’s head like a twig, I still was unable to even budge it. Unfortunately, I was not able to estimate the weight of the wood just by lifting it, or else I would have known how the strength stat quantified.

Although I couldn’t make it move, I still tried until I felt my hands going numb. Until I felt like I couldn’t even stand still, I keep on doing it. Finally, when I indeed unable to even stand, I flopped to the ground while breathing hard. Panting heavily, I tried to remain vigilant of my surroundings. It wouldn’t be funny if I suddenly attacked by a goblin while regaining my energy. It took me longer to recover my stamina than my magic, although there was no stamina bar. It was a given, because all my physical stats were below 10. Another reason was that the race I had chosen, was not meant for physical stats.

Sometime later, when I felt energized again, I repeated the same thing. While I couldn’t lift or even make it move, the sore muscles on my body proved that some improvements were going on in my body. I only stopped after feeling unbearable pain all over and returned to my hole. At the mouth of my home, a huge chunk of goblin flesh was placed by the orcs. Since the day orcs appeared, my food was taken care of by them.

Even though my body was aching badly, I still ate the flesh to replenish my energy and nutrients. After having my fill of the tasty flesh, I went into the hole and tried to fall asleep. It was hard as the muscular pain kept me on edge. After a period of time, which I didn’t bother to calculate, I finally fell asleep.

“Little friend! Are you inside?” I awoke to Logier’s shout, which resounded inside the small space giving me a small headache. After shaking my head to clear the ‘cobwebs’ I crawled out and looked at the serious-faced Logier. The stump where his left hand used to be at, was wrapped in a piece of cloth. On his right hand, he was holding the crudely made ax, which currently acting as his walking stick.

“Are you alright? Shouldn’t you rest to heal yourself?” I asked out of concern.

“It’s alright. Although I feel a numbing pain there, it’s not something I couldn’t endure.” He said while caressing that part, then he looked at me as waves of killing intent gushed from his eyes, “That aside, we should keep the war going. That bastard Gyuk, I will find him and kill him with my own hands. The rest of the traitors will be punished according to our tribe laws. But, that’s beside the point. We must keep the war going. Our future is at stake here.”

“Okay” I was impressed by Logier’s will. He was injured not long ago and it’s something as serious as losing a working limb, yet, he pulled himself up and prepared to keep fighting again. For the sake of his pride as an orc and his responsibility as a tribe chief, he had to pull himself up.

I contemplated on whether I should reveal about Gyuk or not. After short thinking, however, I decided against it. This was my trump card, the fewer people know, the better. Nightmare seed was a broken ability if used at the hands of an intelligent species. While adult Dream Weavers were intelligent, they cannot think far ahead and plan accordingly. If not, why would they be ranked so bottom at the ranking list of monsterdom?

I have heard from Logier once. Like how humans grade monsters, monsters too have a standard to grade each other. Unlike humans who consider too many factors, monsters have a single factor. That was strength. Due to their lack of ability to defeat some physically strong monsters, Dream Weavers are ranked somewhat lower than what they deserve. I don’t know about humans’ ranking list but it shouldn’t be the same.

Due to my presence and my intelligence as a human, this shabby race and its skills become absolutely deadly even to a powerful human. As I am now, even if a healthy Logier and Gyuk teamed up, they still couldn’t be able to defeat me. I have that much confidence. Because, despite their strength and speed, I have the range on my side. Unlike their close-ranged abilities, I can cast a skill all the way from thirty meters with Nightmare Manifest being the only skill that required me to go a little closer, around 20 meters. With the range in my hand, I wouldn’t eat defeat if I play my cards right.

Looking at my stats and especially the STR, which only had a growth of 0.2 points, I sighed and nodded towards Logier. Indeed, we have a war to fight. Since the party involved already showed his acceptance of the situation, there was no reason for me to keep holding back.

“Alright. Give me a minute, I want to make something sure before that I would formulate a plan for you,” while saying that I sat down on the ground and concentrated to the link with Gyuk. Not long after I appeared in the same purple cloudy place, together with Gyuk. However, there was a shock waiting for me in the form of a changed Gyuk.

He looked the same physically but there were new tribal markings like the ones goblins wear all over his body. He looked like he slimmed down a bit too. Getting over my shock, I asked him about it. His answer surprised me, however.

“The goblin lord has given us a liquid to drink. We have become stronger and faster as a result. However, according to the goblin lord, he mixed a poison into the mixture. He will provide a medicine to suppress its effect every day as long as we stay loyal to him. If we do something funny, he will stop giving us the medicine, and the poison will kill us in a few seconds after a day of last medicine consumption.”

The goblin lord wasn’t as dumb as I had initially thought. He took enough precautions against Gyuk’s group and managed to suppress them under his thumb in just a single move. This is the advantage of having a higher intelligence. They are capable of thinking of a way of all types of problems coming their way.

“I see. And what about the goblin lord? Do you find anything new with him?” I asked the most important question after some random talks about Gyuk’s status.

“Yes, I have discovered something important. The Goblin Lord isn’t a unique class. He even denied it himself when I asked.” Gyuk said in his cold and monotone voice, which was a sharp contrast against my shocked mental state. I couldn’t bring myself to believe it. Until now, I was operating under the impression that my opponent was a unique class, now that it wasn’t the case, then the only thing left was… a person like me who reincarnated as a monster.

Things had become more complicated all of a sudden.