Goblins

His feet thundered past tree, stump and bush alike as he blasted through the great forest, not once pausing as he continued onwards before seeing the target stump. As he closed in, he tensed himself in anticipation as he leapt upon the stump before bracing himself for impact as he instantly followed it with a roll off. It was during this hectic action that a knife slid through his hand, his fingers acting as lubricant as the knife smoothly entered flight.

He pushed his legs off the ground once more as he jumped up from his curled position. Expectant eyes shot towards the tree in the distance which acted as the practise board, only to dim as they saw the scene. The tree was a good 20m and he had been rolling as he threw out the knife, and yet the knife had struck the trunk, piercing through the bark and cambium to reach the sapwood. In spite of this, he still walked over to the practise tree with eyes that drifted, not at all focusing at what he saw but rather thinking upon what he had done wrong.

Yes the knife had hit the trunk and it had pierced a good way through it, but it had missed the muddy circle he had painted on the tree prior to practising. Many of the other Goblins would feel ecstatic but it wasn’t the same for him. Perhaps it was a naïve way of thinking that practise would make perfect, and yet he still desired deep within himself he could reach there.

After a bit of thought, the Goblin collected the several knives that stuck out of the tree like spikes on a porcupine before walking back to the village. The Goblin didn’t rush his way back: he had no need nor desire to, after all nothing awaited him at home.

Goblins had a fast birth rate meaning parents just could not look after children. This meant baby Goblins were brought up together by the tribe until the age of 1 where they were given liberty. With this liberty came a joy of being free but all good things comes with a catch, and the catch for their freedom was that they now had to take complete care of themselves. Never mind any other needs when just to feed yourself, you had to brave the forest and its dangers.

At the age of 1 they were given freedom but not allowed the right to a name. After all what is the point of a name if that Goblin would just die the next day? This was especially true as this village was in the great forest, a massive expanse of greenery which within hid dark secrets. Therefore it had quite the high death rate even for powerful adventurers, although the Goblins did just live in the outskirts which should have alleviated the death rate but that was mitigated by the fact that they were in general a weak race.

Therefore they were only allowed to name themselves on their 3rd birthday, which this Goblin had become a short while back which was when he had named himself Damon.

Damon had already arrived at the village while still lost in his thoughts.

“CrroooOOOOOOOOOOO”

His stupor was quickly broken by a blaring horn-blow, which transformed his gentle walk into a rushed jog towards the centre of the village. The village itself was made of huts, made from mud with plant material for structure, and a clearing in the middle that was used for village meetings. Each Goblin used to make their own huts due to its simplicity but now most just used old unoccupied huts made by others due to their low survival rate. The countless huts surrounded a circular clearing in the middle, around 20m radius, which was now filled with several Goblins.

Goblins anatomy-wise were not the most exciting creatures: they were humanoid creatures with distinguishing features being their fangs, above average nose sizes and angular eyes. Though the biggest give-away was their pasty green skin. The Goblins in terms of size weren’t too small but definitely not big either, the average males in the forest went up to 160cm while the average females reached 155cm. Damon himself was already 120cm, and would be taller than his counter-parts were it not for their early deaths. Instead he was up against Goblins older than him, most reaching from 130-150cm.

This basic description agreed with around 90% of the Goblins who kept on swarming into the clearing, ballooning the number of Goblins in the clearing to around 80 by now. The 10% remaining were the Goblins at the centre of the clearing, because surrounding the large blow horn was a well-aged Goblin and several other large, muscular Goblins.

“Quiet!” The aged Goblin bellowed and it was quickly followed as the noisy rabble instantly quietened down.

“Over the last week, a warrior stumbled upon a cave which earned us a loss of life!”

“Luckily the rest of his group escaped and the warriors have now investigated that area. We are now confident that what lies in that cave is a silverback bear. Know that the monster is a tier two, meaning a massacre on our side would be necessary if we wanted it. However the investigations have also shown that the monster is currently at maximum size, meaning no one here could ever hope to kill it. But that is also to our advantage, after all any monster at maximum size would want to evolve.”

The raspy voice continued onwards onto a few more details about minor matters before concluding the meeting.

“A silverback bear evolves into a moon bear by bathing in moonlight for a night, this means just as it is evolving, it will be weakened and we can kill it. Its next evolution's strength depends on the amount of moonlight it can absorb in a night, so it will definitely wait for a full moon. It is just within our luck that the next full moon will be in 2 days, meaning we have enough time to prepare. Remember that as long as we get the bear’s body, we can forcibly evolve ourselves!”

His speech ended on what the people actually cared about.

“We will be sending 10 warriors alongside with a few pack carriers in order to make sure the warriors are in best condition as they arrive.”

What proceeded was him choosing 10 of the strongest warriors standing near him, in which there were two notable ones: Raarak and Withil. Both were extremely strong warriors at the top of the pack but more importantly, both were vying for the next position as Chief. In truth the village’s strongest warrior Gregal could have solo finished this task, but it seemed he and the current aged Chief seemed to agree on using this task to indirectly test the two candidates. Whichever one succeeded would have an advantage over the other, enough so for one of the two to be chosen as the next Chieftain.

He was done within seconds, after which he began naming the pack carriers.

“…., ….., ….., Damon,….”.

A smile bloomed widely on Damon’s face as he heard the golden word. Although it instantly wilted within the next second.

“Chieftain, I desire a battle with Damon for his position!”

“…hmm… Accepted”.

The Goblin who had requested to fight him wasn’t after the extremely “glorious” position of pack carrier but rather the baggage it came with (hehe). The warriors would have monopoly over the beast’s carcass as they brought it back and the pack carriers who came alongside with them would have second dibs. Having a better quality piece could exponentially increase chance of success, which in turn made perfect sense why the other Goblin had wanted his place.

The reason for choosing Damon? He was the scrawniest and weakest of the bunch due to the fact that the other pack carriers chosen were older than him.

Within seconds an area had been cleared out as the warriors made the physical parameters for an arena. Across the makeshift arena stood the challenging Goblin who was 130cm tall and quite a bit more muscular than Damon. In his left arm he loosely held a small, wooden axe while his right hand edged towards the bag tied around his waist.

In an attempt to ruin Damon’s focus, the Goblin greedily swallowed in air before he released it all at once in the form of a threatening, but childlike roar. His arm shot towards his waist-bag like a snake pouncing at a prey, before it almost ricocheted off the bag as it rebounded backwards, only within the hand was a shoddy knife. The knife sliced air as it closed in on Damon.

It was to the opponent’s misfortune that Damon had seen such an attack come from a mile away and had already rolled backwards, causing the knife to harmlessly fly overhead. Despite not even being on his feet, Damon had already flicked out a knife that was in flight by the time he jumped back up.

Clearly flustered by the fluidity of Damon’s actions, the other Goblin flinched before jumping backwards.

“RAARGH!”

The moment of hesitation revealed its danger as the knife found deep purchase within the Goblin’s arm. Blood slid down the Goblin’s arm with the knife at the centre, akin to an overflowing volcano.

The warriors surrounding the two seemed amused due to the amateur attempt at fighting shown by the challenging Goblin. It was almost as if they had watched a rookie do an action before being completely overshadowed by the expert who followed.

Gritting his teeth, the challenging Goblin clenched his jaw down although tears still escaped his eyes. Damon had already sent another knife flying towards the opponent Goblin, although it didn’t cause any damage this time as the Goblin ducked beneath the incoming knife before rushing Damon.

Before one could even blink the Goblin was already in front of Damon, smashing his axe downwards while his face seethed out anger. Slightly flustered by the sudden change in scenario, Damon responded by using one of his knives to strike the axe blade upwards. Although this turned out to be very foolish as Damon’s wrist began to bend under the pressure.

The pain must have helped Damon’s brain finally catch up as he simply let go of the knife, although by no accident. The Goblin, who had been winning this battle of strength suddenly found no resistance whatsoever against him, causing his axe to strike thin air before his body lost balance and fell. This was enough time as Damon jumped backwards while he threw another knife out. Missing at this range would be a joke for an amateur, nevertheless an expert at knife throwing. The knife pierced through an eye before stabbing the brain, causing a fountain of blood to be expelled outwards.

The already downed Goblin lost all remaining energy in his body, crumpling down to the rough ground: an instant death.

???

He was born bigger than the rest. At the age of 1, he had already reached other 3 year olds. At the age of 15, he was already the biggest in his tribe and his growth had still not finished. It was at just a month after his 15th that the tribe lost their leader due to an attack. He had made himself a name in the tribe but his size was nothing when compared to the fame of a few of the elders. But none of that mattered as it had been passed down their species that the strongest would be leader. This made perfect sense, after all which troll didn’t love a good fight?