Yuzuru pushed into the forest with his crossbow held steady in front of him. The woods were dense, the air crisp and still. He passed by the game trail he found earlier and steered off onto unbeaten paths. The late afternoon sunlight trickled through the leaves, casting a kaleidoscope of shadow across the uneven ground.

He didn’t know what goblins in this world looked or sounded like, but there weren't many hours left before darkness fell and so he needed to hunt quickly. While he had no plans to run face-first into danger, he couldn’t waste time keeping always to cover.

The sun crept across the sky. Yuzuru slowed, then stopped. He lowered himself to a crouch.

Between the trees, something was moving. He only caught a glimpse but he could already tell it wasn’t an animal.

Animals didn’t usually have green skin.

He snuck around the trees, pointing his crossbow forward.

The creature was bareheaded and barefoot, with a dirty fox pelt wrapped around a stubbly torso. Tuffs of dark hair poked from its temples like weeds. It was groveling at the dirt and muttering to itself in a language that didn’t sound much like speech.

Yuzuru’s finger curled around the trigger.

The goblin looked up. It started sniffing at the air, turning around towards Yuzuru’s direction.

Yuzuru fired, feeling the crossbow kick. The bolt slid through the bushes, punching between the goblin’s shoulders. The creature let out a raspy scream as it collapsed onto its stomach.

Birds fluttered overhead. Yuzuru stayed crouched, his heart beating fast. Only when the goblin stopped twitching did he get up to check on his kill.

Blood pooled around the goblin’s emaciated body, staining the fox pelt it wore. Yuzuru pulled out his knife and crouched by the goblin’s head.

“Sorry,” he said. “But I have someone I need to save.” He wasn’t sure if it had died or not, but he didn’t have enough confidence in his aim to say he got the heart.

The goblin’s eyes stuttered and found him. Yuzuru jumped back.

“Man monster.”

Yuzuru dropped his knife in shock. “What the...? You can talk?”

“Man….” The goblin coughed up a spattering of blood. “Monster. Evil.”

Yuzuru took a step back, then another. His back hit a tree. “You’re sentient,” he whispered. “You’re intelligent. Oh. That’s… messed up.”

The goblin tried to get up. It pulled its skinny arms under its chest and pushed. Blood burst from the shaft in its back and it collapsed again.

Yuzuru slid down onto the grass. He couldn’t move. He watched as the goblin struggled a little more, each failed attempt weakening it until finally, it died.

A voice announced through the trees,

Attribute point gained. Total: 1

Chaos gained. Total: 3/100

Sunlight disappeared as clouds covered the sky.

Yuzuru did not move for a long time. He kept watching the goblin, expecting it to get up. But it didn’t, and Yuzuru knew it never would again. Slowly, he reached for the translucent table hovering in the corner of his vision.

It came to him like a well-trained dog.

Mana increased to 2.

New Cantrip unlocked:

Create water.

Yuzuru hurled a handful of bark into the bushes. “You could at least give me a healing spell!”

A shrill cry answered him as from the other side of the small clearing, another goblin dashed out. It was even thinner than the first but had more hair, which fell across its face as it dropped by the dead goblin’s side.

“No!” it cried, tears rolling down its sullen, green cheeks. “Husband!”

Yuzuru’s jaw went slack. “You've got to be joking.”

The goblin wife raised her head and snarled with a mouthful of broken teeth. “Monster man. Do this.”

Yuzuru knew he was in real danger then. “Let me explain,” he said, scrambling to get up. “I’m… I was just… I didn’t know.” His eyes fell on the dagger he dropped on the ground. When he looked back up, he saw the goblin was looking at it too.

They both lunged for it at the same time.

The goblin got there first. She snatched up the blade and swung sideways at Yuzuru’s chest. “Monster man dies!”

Yuzuru pitched back. The blade opened his shirt, nicking the skin underneath.

The goblin didn’t give Yuzuru a chance to get his footing. She threw itself at him, swinging every which way. Yuzuru covered his face with his arms, feeling the cuts land. He shouted for the goblin to stop, that he was sorry, but the creature’s screams drowned out everything he said. With a nightly cleave, the goblin brought down the dagger into the butt of Yuzuru’s crossbow.

Yuzuru retaliated. He struck the goblin with the edge of his weapon, but the goblin caught the crossbow and yanked it out of his hands. Then, she barreled into him.

They both went down, Yuzuru on the bottom. Fists rained onto his face. Yuzuru shoved and twisted but the creature was too strong. Raising the dagger, it struck. Yuzuru held out his hand to block. With a spark, the blade glanced off his watch and sank into the dirt beside his ear.

Yuzuru clubbed the goblin across her face. He pushed himself up, closing the distance with his fists raised.

A man stumbled out from the bushes. He was focused on something behind him and Yuzuru had too much momentum to stop. They crashed into each other and fell.

The goblin halted her attack, glaring between Yuzuru and the new person as if she was unsure which one she was supposed to be fighting.

Yuzuru got up, as did the man. “I-it was an accident,” the man said. “I swear!” His eyes darted around the clearing like a fly without a place to land. “Which way, oh goddess, which way?”

A rustling came from the bushes. The man let out a panicked scream and threw himself into the underbrush, wriggling like a worm out of view.

“Man!” The goblin came charging, now knowing her target. Yuzuru was ready. He dived for his crossbow, swinging with both hands. The handle splintered as it connected with the goblin, the vibrations traveling up Yuzuru’s arms.

The goblin toppled, and then stopped moving.

Panting, Yuzuru staggered over to the goblin.

She was still breathing, her eyes half-open.

Yuzuru tossed the broken crossbow away. He turned around. That was when he saw the girl, standing over the dead goblin husband.

Yuzuru froze. He didn’t hear anyone come up behind him at all.

The girl was wearing some sort of ceremonial outfit, long red-white sleeves drooping from her arms like folded wings. She had straight white hair that fell to her shoulders, framing a face hidden behind a fox mask.

A curved katana hung by her waist, below a shorter wakizashi.

“God.”

The girl turned to look at Yuzuru.

“Not you,” Yuzuru said. “I mean I’m not calling you a god. I’m just really, extremely glad to finally see another player.”

The girl tilted her head. “I’m looking for a man.” Her voice was silk and echoed faintly from her mask. “Which way did he go?”

“Never mind that,” Yuzuru said. “You must be like me, right? You must be. You can’t tell me any normal person would be in that getup in the middle of a forest.”

The girl looked down at herself. Then, her shoulders started shaking. It took a while for Yuzuru to realize she was giggling.

“If you’ve been in Arcadia as long as I have, you’ll forget what is and isn’t normal.” She pointed to the goblins on the ground. “You did this?”

Yuzuru’s smile waned. “We should probably get out of here before the wife wakes up.”

“Goblins don’t attack unprovoked.”

Yuzuru had nothing for that. There was no excuse he could give, other than he didn’t know goblins were capable of having partners. It felt ridiculous, but still, he couldn’t blame anyone but himself. He’d already been given plenty of clues that this world wasn’t what he had been expecting when he woke up next to a cat-girl with a feisty temper.

Beneath the mask, the girl’s expression was unknowable. But when she spoke again, her words held a touch of disdain. “You wish to get stronger. You wish to play the game.” The way she said ‘game’ made it sound like a bad thing.

“It’s not like that,” Yuzuru said, and before he could get another word out the girl had a blade to his throat.

He didn’t see her move.

“I expected better from you,” she said.

“You… expected?” Yuzuru asked. “You know me?” He tried to step away but the masked girl pressed her sword harder against him.

“Don’t move. My blade is sharp enough to cut through obsidian.”

Yuzuru swallowed, making the wakizashi move. The blade caught the light of the setting sun, turning orange. “I’m sorry. I really didn’t know. About the goblin.”

After an agonizing second, the girl finally stepped back. She sheathed her blade and sighed. “You’ll never make it like this.”

Yuzuru let out his own breath. He rubbed his neck. The wound was psychological more than physical. “It’s not my fault no one tells me anything.”

“No,” said the girl. “I mean you’ll never make it because you’re bleeding to death.”

Yuzuru looked down at the spreading red across his chest. What he thought was a nick from the goblin was quickly making itself known as a slash. He felt dizzy. He wanted to sit but as soon as his legs started the motion they gave up and he collapsed onto his side.

“Don’t feel pressured to help or anything,” he told the girl jokingly. “I’m just here enjoying the smell of the earth.”

The girl made no move to help him. Only when Yuzuru’s eyes were beginning to shut, did he see the girl reaching into her sleeve and taking out two small bottles of red liquid. When she bent down to set them by his head, he got a whiff of her perfume. It was fruity and mellow. Familiar, but not quite.

“When you get to the city of Bronzehaven,” she said as she stood. “Go to the castle and ask to see the King’s Right Hand.”

“So I could read his fortune to him?” Yuzuru asked.

The girl laughed lightly. The sound plucked at Yuzuru’s memories, pulling up long-lost feelings he didn’t know he still had.

“I’ll be waiting,” she said. “Stay alive till then, Yuzuru, and don’t forget about my blade.” She turned and with a graceful twirl of her long skirts, disappeared into the forest in the direction the fleeing man went.

Yuzuru watched the girl go through his fading consciousness.

What was that about her blade…?