“Then who am I?” Yuuko grips her sword tightly as she wonders about her identity.

“You are Yuuko Kurosawa, daughter of the Kurosawa dojo master, a 16 year old Japanese girl. You have been in Japan forever since we knew each other. That much I can guarantee.” Makoto says “The problem is not with your identity, but Lexar’s power. His power let us meet the other us that we have no knowledge of, yet we know for sure that they are us. If you are starting to question, you must start from there first.”

Lexar stays silent at Makoto’s thought. He realizes that he is somehow irresponsible, not knowing anything about his power.

“It’s okay, Lexar. We don’t blame you for giving this power. Although there is mystery around it, we know that the power you gave us is not harmful. If it had not been for this power, we would have died back at our school. In fact, we are grateful for it. Anyway, we can take time to think about it later. Right now, we should focus on the situation at hand.” Makoto turns to Yuuko “Yuuko, make the goblin spill out what they are trying to do here.”

“#######? (What are you trying to do by gathering such a large number here?)” Yuuko interrogates the goblin.

The goblin’s attitude this time is much calmer than a moment ago. He does not understand what the humans are saying, but he knows that they are not the rumored cultivators. There is one thing that the goblin purposely hid in the story he told them, and that was cultivators possessing the ability to torture the soul.

Judging from the human’s attitude, it seemed that it was the first time they heard the story. Seeing how unknowledgeable they are with common sense, he thinks that they are just a couple of stupid girls with strong power. A plan formulates in his mind as he tries to think how to escape.

(Curse humans! I am going to make you regret for messing with me. I will personally rape you girls and make you give birth for me, the mighty goblins! And that cat, I will cut him into pieces and eat him until nothing remains.) The goblin fantasizes in his mind as he imagines when his plan succeeds.

“######## (We have just raided a few villages the other day. We are going to hold a feast enjoying the whores we captured along with the food today. These guys here heard the news and wanted to join us, but those who did nothing deserved shit. We are responsible for chasing them away.)” The goblin says.

Killing intent emits from Yuuko as she presses the blade on the goblin’s neck “##### (Where are they?)”

Yes, the goblin mutters in his mind. His gamble is successful. He risks making them angry, but they are not going to kill him. Because they need to save the women they capture. Human is such creature. They always care about their own race, especially the females.

“######## (In our nest)” The goblin replies.

“###### (Which direction?)” Yuuko asks.

“####### (First, you pass through the old stinky bear’s shitting area. Then travel pass through the spring at the part where the kobolds usually pee. Crossing our hunting area is the our nest).” The goblin timidly spits out the location of its nest.

“######## (Are you messing with me? What’s with that direction?)” Yuuko is angry.

“########## (That’s true. Please believe me. We goblins use the smell to mark the place we need to travel.)” The poor goblin shrieks out.

Yuuko relays her conversation to everyone else. Makoto is disturbed with the information, while Lexar stares at the goblin with suspicion.

“There is something wrong with this goblin. It is definitely up to something.” Lexar immediately points out the problem. In the past life, he had experience with being interrogated and interrogation. The goblin faked the misery quite well, but Lexar noticed the subtle change in the behavior. A sense of calmness can be sensed from its voice.

“I also think so. But we definitely cannot leave those women alone. I don’t think he is lying at this part.” Yuuko shows her concern.

“I think it is time for my new experiment then.” Makoto approaches the goblin. Positive energy is gathering in her palm.

A sense of danger approaches the goblin. It does not know what happened but things are definitely not going as planned. It struggles violently in order to shake Yuuko’s leg off. In response, Yuuko increases the pressure beneath, crushing its shoulder bones. A painful scream comes but the goblin does not stop thrashing around violently.

A hot wave approaches its face as Makoto’s hand extends on its head. The goblin grabs that hand on fire, trying to push it away, but to no avail. Even if Makoto’s forte is not physical ability, her current strength is not something a mere goblin can push away.

A gentle white flame starts spreading through the goblin’s body from Makoto’s hand. The goblin does not feel any burning or pain from the flame, but it knows that the flame is very bad for it. And this is confirmed as the strength in its arms slowly weakens.

The goblin swears that it is mustering all the power in its muscle, but the usual strength from it is no longer there. It’s not only the arm, but the whole body, every part of it is weakening. The trauma has come back to it, the trauma of being a skinny low level goblin which was forced all kind of abuses from the others.

“####### (NO! STOP IT! PLEASE, DON’T TAKE AWAY MY STRENGTH!)” The goblin begs for mercy.

However, the perpetrator, Makoto, does not stop but increase the intensity of the flame. From being excited trying new experiment, Makoto’s expression gradually becomes cold, and a hidden fury is building up inside her.

With all the strength from leveling up consumed, the flame starts eroding the goblin’s mind and memory. Questions start forming in its head: why are there two girls in front of it, what is it doing here, why is it here, and who is it. The last question is its last thought as the mind of a goblin captain disappears.

“Sorry Yuuko, for stealing your precious exp.” Makoto stands up and apologizes to Yuuko.

“Nevermind. It’s only a goblin. What happened? You suddenly made a very scary face.” Yuuko says.

Makoto proceeds to a nearby rock and sits on it. Her face shows painful expression as she squints her eyes and massages the temple. After shaking her head a bit, she then extracts a strange sphere of white light from the left side of her head.

Different from the program “ball”, this ball is much smaller in size and does not have any mysterious feeling about it. Rather than calling it ball, it is like a bunch of mixed up strings tied together, and has this “low class” feeling. If comparing with the program “ball” as a shiny metal alloy, this new ball here is like a rusted iron mass.

Makoto’s expression becomes better as she takes the new ball out of her body. Smile returns on her face again and asks.

“What do you think this thing is?”

“Let me guess, judging from how the goblin weakened, you probably burned the exp in its body, making it downgrade rapidly. However, the flame did not limit to that. You have probably done something to the mind, causing it to enter the vegetative stage.” Lexar gives his thought.

“Very good answer. That’s how the story went on the outside.” Makoto pats on Lexar’s head “So let us get to another important topic: how the bit interacts with, the monster case….”

“Sorry for interrupting, but you should tell us the most urgent thing first. What did you find after killing him?” Yuuko interjects Makoto while pointing at the empty eye goblin.

Makoto face slightly darkens as she recollects what she learned at first. After wondering for a while, she decides to talk.

“To sum up, aside from stealing the bit from the goblin, I also extracted its thought and memory. It is this thing.” Makoto presents the white ball in her hand “There are a lot of memory and information, even from a low class monster like goblin. As you can see, it is all jumbled, and I could not read the majority of it. Luckily, I was able to read the most recent memory.”

The goblin’s plan is quite straight forward. Everything it told them was the truth, about how the goblins raided villages, capturing many women, holding a feast and the direction to their nest. However, vital details were omitted.

The scale of the goblin army is massive, as there are more than 5000 goblins doing the raids on the villages, and their targets were not only a handful, but many villages and towns. The number of casualty on the human side was massive, as well the number of captured women.

In the goblin army, aside from the normal wild ones which occupy more than half of the army, there are many goblins which evolve or have classes. Their variety ranges from basic class such as mage goblin, archer goblin, warrior goblin, to very high class such as devil goblin, goblin commander, goblin champion. On top of those beings is a creature called goblin king.

Under the effect of the goblin king, the goblins are able to unity together and act as an army. Not only that, their growth accelerated with the king’s gift, granting its underlings quick level up and ease to obtain a class or evolve. The goblin riders Makoto group defeated were a bunch very close to evolve to goblin knights, but sadly they now do not have that chance anymore.

The path the goblin rider told does lead to their nests, but it is the path specifically aimed toward adventurers, a job that is usual in the fantasy world. Void of monsters, but full of goblin’s trace, this path was designed to lead the adventurers into their ambush points. Beneath the ground is a special tunnel system that allows the goblins both to hide underground and set up a sudden attack on the surface. This place also serves a training ground for the goblins as they will lure adventurers or strong monsters into this place and attack them.

By inciting Yuuko’s anger, and with its confusing direction, Makoto group would have no choice but to make the goblin lead the way. While moving, the goblin would make the signal to call for its friend and prepare for an ambush. Even though the two girls and one cat are strong, they would be no match for a whole army that already prepared a trap for them.

“The reason why I am angry is because I saw its imagining us being violated, while Lexar being eaten alive, along with the memory of raiding a village. The goblins killed, sabotaged, ate the children, and raped the women.” Makoto tightens her fists as she says.

“Then why did you not say it straight away, instead of smiling and going on about this discovery? Makoto, what is wrong with you?” Yuuko angrily shouts at Makoto.

Makoto stays silent for a while then starts speaking “What use is knowing it immediately? In fact, even if we come right away to rescue those women, it’s already too late. Not only that, how are we going to take care of that 5000 goblin army? With only three of us? With our current ability?” Her voice is low but still carrying impact “That’s why I want to start with my discovery first. For us to get stronger, for you to calm down first and forget the issue.”

“Sorry, Makoto. I was too hot headed. I did not think about it much.” Yuuko deeply bows to apologize.

“No, it is also on my side, too.” Makoto’s gaze casts down “It’s probably me, but perhaps I do not consider those people as the same human as us.”