“Cursed child, you’ll bring ruin to us all!”

She was chained to a wall in a damp dark dungeon. She had committed no crimes, she was too young to even understand why this was happening. Dirt and mud ruined her beautiful pale skin, it tarnished her pristine white hair.

“Will you take my hand and leap into the fire to be free?” a hand outstretched to her from the darkness.

“Save me…” her voice, barely a whisper from her emaciated, near death body, called out to the darkness.

“Good.”

“Vi, it’s your turn, so I would ask that you wake up.” Beelzebub’s voice called out loudly, and the white haired woman snapped up straight in her seat. Her thoughts were a twisted mess of her dream and her memories from waking up.

“A-Are you insinuating I fell asleep during our game? How preposterous!” flustered, Vi tried her best to pretend nothing had happened, but they both knew the truth.

And like that, their game continued.

-

I crept through the border of the trees, avoiding the main road. It wasn’t safe normally, and now the city watch and adventurers are on high alert because of me. Incindra hung from my back, the only way I could keep it from dragging along the ground too much.

“Master, what was your goal in creating this situation by allowing that man to live?” the spirit of the sword asked me, but she remained dematerialized.

“They think I’m a monster, so I’ll show them a real monster.” I replied, stopping behind a large redwood tree. “Until everyone is too scared to go out hunting anymore, then the only ones left will be my true enemy.”

“And who or what is this ‘true enemy’ exactly?” she asked me again.

“Shh, I hear something.” I replied, my hand reaching up towards Incindra’s handle.

Two humans walked down the road, weapons at the ready. They were adventurers, but they were too plain to be Vi’s pieces, so I wasn’t sure if I should do anything about them.

“Why are we out here searching for a single goblin, anyways?” one of them spoke. “Even if they are dangerous, wouldn’t it be faster if we just posted a raid against the main force?”

“Nobody wants to dive into that pit, there’s only one adventurer who would ever suggest we go wade through all that shit just to hit their city.” the other, a female adventurer with short brown hair replied, stopping and leaning a bit on her spear. “And I don’t think many people would be happy if he showed up again, those were dark times.”

“Yeah, but if we just wiped out all of the goblins, none of them would ever get high enough level to even be a threat in the first place!” he argued, his voice becoming more agitated. “With all of the adventurers in town, and a call from the capital, we could remove them as a threat forever!”

“That’s not how we do things, we’re heroes, not murderers.” she scolded him. “Do you really, actually want to go kill a group of women and children who aren’t even going to fight back? There’s a reason we only kill the goblins who start causing trouble.”

Those liars, I saw what you did to my village, we hadn’t done anything wrong! I could feel my rage building up within me, a voice inside my head told me to take my sword in my hands and…

“A raid on the goblin’s home huh, I like the way you think, boy.” A deep voice, somewhat obscured behind the metallic sound of a full face helmet, cut in. a heavily armored knight walked in, two swords hanging from his hips and a glorious blue cape flowing behind him.

I had to clasp my hand over my mouth to stop my voice, as I saw the level above his head appear when he got into range. What the hell was someone like this doing here, in a beginner zone?

His name was merely ??? as I had no idea who he was, but his level… was 27. The two adventurers before him were both level 3, and I was level 4… so what the hell is a level 27 doing here?!

“In fact,” the knight said, placing his hand on the younger adventurer’s shoulder. “I was headed down to the guild to set up just such a raid.”

“You… you’re him.” they both looked awestruck, like they had seen a legend. It wasn’t just his level, that’s not why they were shocked and amazed, it was something more. “I thought you were retired?”

“Yeah, me too. But I heard the call, so I suited up and here I am.” He responded, beginning to head down the road again. “If the goblins are causing this much trouble again, then it’s time for the Cobalt Knight to make his return to the stage.”

I remained frozen and unable to speak until the three adventurers had vanished across the horizon, as soon as they had I fell to my knees, panting heavily in a panic. A drop of sweat rolled down my brow and off the tip of my nose, splashing onto the back of my hand below me.

“Master?” Incindra almost sounded concerned, but their voice remained mostly emotionless nonetheless.

“When mom told me that story, every time I thought she was just trying to scare me, or that it was just a descriptive name… but that adventurer... he called himself the Cobalt Knight.”

“That man, I think he… I think he killed my father.”

I felt like I had learned too much too fast. A city of goblins, not my village, but an entire city! But it was in danger, from a powerful adventurer, one of Vi’s pawns, and I didn't even know where it was.

And that same adventurer killed my father when I was a baby. I knew now that I had to find them, the city of goblins, and save them somehow… but I was only level 4, there was just no way I could win!

This whole time, my entire life! Everything has played to their strings! I wasn’t in their grasp after signing that deal, I was always involved! Beelzebub knew. He had to have known my connection to him… was he trying to make me angry?