Chapter 32: Checkmate (3)

By now, Orcs and Goblins vanished into the background. It became a battle of wits and insults between me, and the man(goblin) who called himself Goblin lord. After hurling insults at each other for a few more minutes, we stopped before turning our attention to the main topic.

The negotiation!

“As the victor, we get to decide what we want first. With that in mind, I want to take over the current goblin habitat. The orcs will inhabit there.” I said whatever came to my mind. I was not a professional negotiator, and neither I had ever encountered a situation like this before. On the contrary, as a native of this strange magic-filled world, the goblin lord might have adequate experience in this area. Thinking of this possibility, I didn’t dare to play games and directly put forward what I wanted.

Even if the goblin lord had a thousand years of experience if I don’t even give him the chance to shine, what can he do? Nonetheless, this goblin lord won’t survive today. I decided to completely get rid of him if I couldn’t plant a Nightmare Seed. An unpredictable element like the goblin lord was too dangerous to let loose.

“Impossible! Are you joking with me? Do you know how many goblins are living in this place? Not only it’s large enough to shelter us all, but we also have a feeling of attachment to that place.” Goblin Lord raged and denied almost instantly. I already knew he wouldn’t agree to it. Too many things were at stake here. His dream to kill the hobgoblin and trigger evolution. Then ultimately escaping this dungeon, he couldn’t do all that if orcs take over his habitat. There might be some other reasons involved. However, I am absolutely sure it was not due to the feeling of attachment he so claimed.

Animals have more attachment to their territory than humans. And monsters were a magically evolved version of animals. They tend to have a deep attachment to their birthplace. Only under a threat of complete annihilation would they think of going somewhere else. If not for the Bloodyvores threatening a complete wipeout of their tribe, Logier wouldn’t have come down to the first floor.

But, only a natural-born monster could feel this attachment. Existences like me, the goblin lord, we can’t feel it. We were a freak of nature, born from unforeseen circumstances. Hell, even now, I sometimes have an existential crisis on who the real me was.

In conclusion, whatever the goblin lord said was pure bullshit.

“This forest is also huge.” I pointed my finger towards the huge lush green trees around us. “With your population, you can also make this place your habitat.” I was very aggressive with my demands. I was determined to find trouble with the goblin lord. In reality, I was only bidding for the time by dragging this farce of a negotiation. The earlier signal I gave to Urt was for him to start the preparations.

The plan was to subdue the goblin lord’s force first. Those group of goblins was so doused in strange potions, that even someone like Urt with his Hive Mind would need a few minutes to have control over their brains. And here I was, buying him that critical few minutes. Not even Logier and the orcs were privy to the steps of my elaborated scheme.

“You can also do the same, right?” Goblin Lord retorted. Right now, with gritted teeth, he must be thinking why a ‘mere’ Imp was so good at being unreasonable. He must have thought that with his intelligence and experience as a human, he will be able to fool us. Unfortunately for the lord, I am or more like was also a human. I, too, know how to be unreasonable.

“Nope. Since we have won this war, we decide who lives where. A loser has no right to bargain.” I showed my firm stance on this matter.

Suddenly a burst of killing intent assaulted me, whose source was the goblin lord before me. His eyes were glaring daggers at me, while his brows contorted. He was angry at my indirect insult, which proved his noble background while he was human. Both Urt and Gyuk, on different occasions, mentioned this fact.

“Don’t get too full of yourself, Imp!” He growled at me! He actually growled at me! I would have laughed and insulted him further with some profound words, but it will just expose myself so refrained. Until now, the reason I was able to have a flawless conversation with other monsters was because of the uniqueness of the monsterspeak.

While it might seem like we were growling and making strange noises when talking to each other, in reality, we were actually making coherent words that only we can understand. How this works, I don’t know as of yet. I guess it's one of the perks of magic circulating the world that gave birth to the monsters in the first place.

“Or else what?” I growled back at him with a similar expression. In the first place, as an Imp, I lacked facial nerves. I couldn’t show those complicated expressions as I was able to when I was a human. Even still, I tried my best to mimic what the goblin lord did.

“Else…? Or else, we will fight to the death. Don’t underestimate me just because we surrendered.” The anger in his voice wasn’t feigned, it was real. He was truly angry because of me. Things were going even better than I have thought. My eyes flickered as I discreetly looked at Urt. He had his eyes closed while sweating buckets.

“I am not afraid of another fight!” I fired back. Since Urt’s preparations weren’t done, I have to keep the conversation going. Hearing me, the goblin lord actually stopped for a second. It seems he realized he was actually conversing with ‘monsters’ instead of humans. Such threats may affect humans, but not the monsters. Monsters were not afraid of death, and neither do they care about death tolls. If pushed to a corner, they would fight till the last one standing.

“Listen, you goblin lord. I don’t care what you think, but since you are the one to surrender first, we will decide everything.” I claimed before looking at Logier, “Do you have any problem if this fight continues, Logier?”

“I don’t care either way.” There was a reason why he was so confident. Out of eight hundred tribesmen, the death count of orcs was only 75. That includes the death of Gyuk and his band. However, Logier didn’t know that yet. Either way, he already considered them dead, so it didn’t matter much to him anyway. On the contrary, goblins’ losses were huge.

Due to Gyuk and the orcs’ rampage, and later the massacre between the goblins instigated by Urt, more than half of their remaining fighting force was destroyed. Probably these two hundred strong goblins were all that remained with goblin lord who could even put up a decent fight against the orcs.

The victory was already in our bag. Only, the Goblin Lord hadn’t realized that yet. It doesn’t matter anyway. All the preparations were done. Even if the goblin lord realized something amiss, he would be unable to do anything about it.

“Sigh! Alright, you can take over our habitat.” The goblin lord relented. It was a surprise. I thought he would go all with me, and even threaten me with his chemicals. I narrowed my eyes and became suspicious of his motive. It couldn’t be this easy, right? He shouldn’t have given up that easily, right?

Indeed he hadn’t. And his motive became clear with his next actions.

“We will move out soon.” He stood up from his make-shift throne and came closer to me. Then he extended his right hand in an all too familiar pose.

A handshake!

“What is this?” I asked, feigning my ignorance of such actions.

“Just do what I am doing. It’s a form of greeting used among the goblins.” His excuse was foolproof. It must be so that he could inject some sort of poison into me while I shake his hands. As I have said before, this goblin lord might be an intelligent potion crafter. However, he was a newbie when it comes to scheming. But, against a bunch of lower intelligent beings, his ‘schemes’ were more than enough.

Anyone could tell that he will do something during this make-believe handshake. It was glaringly obvious what this man-turned-goblin wanted to do. Normally, I would have avoided even going close to him.

However, Urt had finished taking control over the two hundred goblins behind the goblin lord. There was nothing this goblin lord could do that would change the outcome in his favor. Nodding to him, I looked at the goblin lord and extended my right hand awkwardly.

While pretending like I didn’t saw his grin, we shook our hands.

“Although you are very intelligent, in the end, you are just a mere Imp after all…” Suddenly the tone of the goblin lord changed. His earlier resigned voice now had a tint of vitality and amusement to it.

I felt a prickling sensation on my palm. Pulling my hands from his grasp, I inspected it only to see a thin bone sticking in the middle of my palm. I pulled the bone out hastily. The area it penetrated had turned into a silver-colored scab.

“That is a poison meant to kill monsters like you.” The goblin lord smirked. Looking at me with a pleased expression he continued, “Unlike with the orc over there, I injected it deeply into your body. Even if you cut your arm now, it's already too late. You will die in a few minutes. It’s a checkmate, oh mere Imp.”

“Bastard!!” Logier screamed and came running with his crudely made ax in one hand. In his anger, it seems he had forgotten or perhaps gotten over his trauma.

“Hmph. Idiot pig! Urt, stop him.” But before Logier could reach the goblin lord, the smirking goblin lord, who was feeling very complacent, felt a heavy punch landing on the back of his head.

Name: Goblin Lord(self-given) Race: Adult Goblin Chemist

HP: 50/200

The notification appeared in my field of view as soon as this happened. Logier, who was running towards the goblin lord with his eyes red, also stopped midway. His eyes were wide, and his mouth hung open in surprise. The orcs were also as surprised.

But none was more surprised than the Goblin Lord himself. After all, the one who attacked him was none other than Urt, his loyal guard.

“Don’t kill him,” I ordered, stopping Urt, who was about to deliver a kick to the goblin lord’s head.

“Yes.” Urt said respectfully before pulling out a rope from somewhere, and tightly bound the goblin lord. The turn of events surprised everyone present, other than Urt and the fellow goblins. As per the Goblin Lord, he had an expression of a fish out of water. Opening and closing his mouth repeatedly as nothing made sense to him. He couldn’t understand why someone like Urt, who was so loyal to him, suddenly betrayed him to join the enemy.

Suddenly, an all too familiar emotion gushed out of the deepest corner of his heart. He looked at me with his eyes red, “You bastard, it's all your doing. Right?” He whizzed out through his gritted teeth.

“That’s right. It's my doing.” I smiled and agreed with a nod. This goblin was now like a fish on a chopping board. He couldn’t do anything other than scream and curse.

“I got it. you have already planted a Soul Seed on him, right? No, that’s not right. As intelligent as you are, you shouldn’t be able to use it so such a profound level!” The goblin lord instantly realized how this all happened. At the same time, a thought born inside his head. As realization dawned upon him, a look of despair flashed on his eyes. But when his eyes landed on my silver-like right hand, he somehow regained his confidence.

“So what if you are someone like me!? In the end, you are already poisoned. Death is the only thing waiting for you.” He laughed for a while, before stopping due to the combined killing intent of Urt and Logier. “I will give you the antidote. In exchange, let me go.” Now that he realized he was dealing with a fellow intelligent species like him, the goblin lord started using complex words that shouldn't be known to the monsters.

“Let you go?” I laughed really hard at the goblin lord at that moment. At the same time, I pitied him. “After knowing the truth about me, you think I will let you go? Don’t be ridiculous. Death is the only ending for you.”

“Wait, little friend. Don’t kill him.” Logier rushed between us, “You are poisoned. Before he hands over a cure, you can’t kill him.”

“That’s right, master. If we kill him, you will not get a cure and die of poisoning.” Urt also came in to stop me.

“Hehe, Imp, listen to them and let me go. Or else you will also die. It’s not worth it, right?” The goblin lord smiled, even more, feeling confident in his survival now that these two also spoken for him.

“That won't be necessary,” I assured Logier and Urt. Suddenly, the skin of my body started to ripple as my height started to increase. A few seconds later, in place of a Dream Weaver, a mutated adult goblin stood straight. “This isn’t my real body, after all,” I revealed the final trump card in my possession to everyone.

“What?” The one who screamed was obviously the goblin lord who had a disbelieving look plastered on his face.

“It’s a checkmate, oh mere Goblin Lord…” I said the exact phrase he said to me not long ago.