Mogrin's fingers trembled like they had their own heartbeat.
The pouch lay near the edge of the clearing, half-hidden under leaves, its drawstring loose. Dark leather. Stitched seam. The kind of thing humans carried coins in. Or sharp things. Or both.
To a goblin, it might as well have been a god blinking.
"Mogrin," I whispered, gripping his wrist hard enough to hurt. "No."
He swallowed. His eyes stayed glued to it. "Shiny pouch," he breathed.
"Trap," I hissed.
Mogrin's ears drooped for a heartbeat, then stubbornness pushed them up again. "Free," he whispered, like the word tasted sweet.
Nothing was free. Not in the office. Not in this forest. Especially not when a calm human captain had just said, they'll come for scraps.
The humans had begun packing. Boots shifted. Metal clinked softly. The fire was being smothered. The air still stank of cooked fat and smoke.
We needed to leave.
Now.
I tightened my grip and started dragging Mogrin backward, inch by inch, careful not to snap twigs.
Mogrin resisted—just a little. A small pull. A child tugging toward candy.
And then the pouch moved.
Not on its own—leaves shifted as a human foot stepped near it. The pouch rolled slightly in the mud, catching lantern light for a blink.
Mogrin's pupils blew wide.
He jerked.
I yanked him back again, whispering, "NO—"
He ripped free.
Like a fish slipping a hook.
My heart stopped.
"Mogrin!" I hissed, and the name came out too loud.
Mogrin darted forward in a blur of skinny limbs and reckless hope. He skidded at the edge of the clearing, crouched low, and snatched the pouch with both hands.
For half a second, nothing happened.
Then the forest betrayed us.
A dry leaf crunched under Mogrin's heel. Loud in the silence. Loud as a shout.
A human head snapped toward the sound.
"Movement," a voice said—calm, sharp.
The pest captain turned.
His eyes cut through the trees like a knife.
Mogrin froze in place, pouch clutched to his chest, eyes wide with sudden understanding.
I lunged.
Too late.
"Goblin," the captain said, not angry, not surprised. Just confirming a fact.
The archer raised her bow.
"Mogrin!" I snarled, and this time I didn't whisper. I slammed into him, knocking him sideways.
The arrow hissed past where his skull had been and buried itself into a tree trunk with a hard thunk.
Mogrin made a small squeal of terror, pouch still in his grip.
"RUN," I barked—one word, pure survival—and my goblin body finally agreed with my mind.
We bolted into the brush.
Behind us, humans shouted.
"Don't chase deep—" the captain started.
Someone else yelled, "Bounty's right there!"
Boots pounded. Leaves shattered under heavier feet. Metal clinked.
The chase began.
We sprinted through ferns, ducked under roots, slid down a muddy slope. Mogrin ran like his life had finally become real, breath sobbing, arms pumping, pouch slapping against his ribs.
I grabbed his wrist mid-run and yanked him close. "Drop it!"
Mogrin's eyes flashed with panic and greed. "No!"
"DROP!" I hissed, voice cracking.
He flinched—but his fingers tightened instead.
Idiot.
We burst into a familiar corridor of roots—near the tribe's temporary hollow. My stomach clenched.
If the humans followed our trail… they wouldn't just find us.
They'd find everyone.
I tried to veer, to lead the humans away, but Mogrin was already angling toward the hollow. Toward safety. Toward the only place he believed safety existed.
He didn't know how predators worked.
They followed the wounded.
They followed the panicked.
They followed the obvious.
"Mogrin—" I started.
He shouted, "Boss! Metal-men!"
Too loud.
The hollow erupted into motion.
Goblins surged up from cover, startled, eyes wild. Boss rose from his root perch, good eye narrowing. Scouts clicked alarms. Trappers scrambled for weapons.
And then the humans arrived at the edge of the clearing corridor, just far enough back to see goblin movement through leaves.
The pest captain didn't waste time.
He raised his hand.
The humans moved like a machine.
One threw something small—an oily bundle wrapped in cloth—into the underbrush.
It hit the ground, rolled, and burst.
Smoke exploded outward in a thick, choking cloud.
Not campfire smoke. Not wood smoke.
This was chemical. Bitter. Burning the eyes. Crawling down the throat like insects.
Goblins coughed and gagged instantly, some stumbling out of cover in panic. Perfect.
"Formation," the captain said calmly through the haze.
The humans stepped forward in a line—two with shields, one with spear, one with sword, archer behind, another with a staff or wand. They moved together, covering angles, advancing slowly and inevitably.
The forest—beautiful, calm—became a slaughter corridor.
Boss shouted, "Back! BACK! No fight!"
But goblins weren't disciplined. Fear turned them into scattering animals.
Some ran straight into the smoke and collapsed coughing, eyes streaming.
The archer fired.
An arrow punched into a goblin's throat and pinned him to a tree root. He clutched at it, gurgling, blood bubbling around the shaft. His legs kicked for a moment, then slowed.
A second arrow hit another goblin in the belly. The goblin screamed, fell, tried to crawl away with intestines starting to slip out under his fingers. The archer didn't look away. She simply nocked and fired again.
The third arrow took the crawling goblin in the back of the head.
Silence from that one.
The humans advanced another step.
The staff-user raised a hand and whispered something.
A line of fire blossomed along the ground—not a roaring blaze, but a deliberate, creeping strip of flame that forced goblins away from the safest routes, herding them into open sightlines.
My eyes watered. My throat burned.
Thoughts slipped.
Not words—fragments.
Smoke-bite. Fire-line. Run-run. Too loud. Too bright.
Translation broke. My mind stopped being Patrick-brain and became goblin-brain, panic-raw.
Hide. Teeth. Metal-men. Burn. No air.
Mogrin clung to my arm, coughing violently. The pouch was still in his hand.
I wanted to strangle him. I wanted to save him. Both at once.
Boss shoved through the chaos, barking orders, trying to funnel goblins into a retreat path. "Roots! Deep roots! Go!"
A trapper goblin tried to stand his ground near a pit he'd dug earlier, shaking with rage and fear. He jabbed his sharpened stake at a shielded human.
The human didn't even slow. He raised his shield and slammed forward.
The shield edge caught the goblin's face and crushed his nose flat with a wet crack. The goblin staggered back, hands flying up.
The spear behind the shield drove forward and punched through the goblin's chest.
The goblin's body jerked, then sagged on the spear like a hung coat. Blood ran down the shaft in a steady stream.
The human yanked the spear free, and the goblin fell, twitching.
Another goblin—a scavenger with a bone knife—leapt from a root, screaming, and slashed at the archer.
The archer stepped back. The sword-user moved in without a word and swung once.
The blade cut the goblin from shoulder to hip.
Not cleanly. Bone caught, tore. The goblin split open like a butcher's mistake, spilling blood and wet heat onto the ground.
The goblin didn't die instantly. He looked down at himself, mouth opening in disbelief, then collapsed, hands clawing at nothing.
I staggered backward, dragging Mogrin.
Too many. No air. Fire. Metal. Teeth.
My hands shook. My spear—where was my spear? I'd dropped it. I'd lost it in the smoke.
Mogrin stumbled, coughed, and then his foot caught on a root.
He fell hard.
The pouch flew from his hand and landed in the mud.
A human saw it.
He laughed once, breathless. "Told you."
He stepped toward Mogrin, sword lifting, casual.
Mogrin looked up at the human—at the sword—eyes wide.
He didn't scream.
He couldn't breathe enough to.
Something inside me snapped.
Not brave. Not noble.
Just… no.
My body moved.
I threw myself between them and grabbed the nearest thing—my earlier rock? No. A broken stake. A piece of sharpened wood dropped by a dead trapper.
I lunged low and drove the sharpened wood up into the human's thigh.
It sank in deep.
The human shouted, startled. "Ah—!"
He stumbled, sword wavering.
I didn't stop. I yanked the stake out and stabbed again, higher, aiming where my goblin instincts screamed was soft.
The stake punched into the human's lower abdomen.
He gasped, eyes bulging. Blood spread across his tunic. He tried to swing the sword down at me.
I ducked under the blade and slammed my shoulder into his waist. He toppled backward into the mud.
He tried to crawl away.
My hands grabbed his collar, pulled him back, and then my claws—my claws—raked across his throat.
Not a clean cut. A tearing. Skin split. Blood burst hot and thick over my fingers.
The human made a choking sound, hands clawing at his own neck. His eyes locked on mine, wide with shock, then slowly dimmed as his body shuddered and went slack.
Ding!
The blue system window flared across my vision, bright even through smoke-tears.
Human — Killed+75 EXP
Another line appeared immediately, as if the system had been waiting for this moment.
LEVEL UP!
My heartbeat stuttered.
The world sharpened for a terrifying instant—colors too bright, sounds too loud, the smell of blood so intense it became almost sweet.
A new window slid into place.
Name: VarkRace: GoblinLevel: 2EXP: 40/100
And beneath it, the attributes updated, numbers ticking upward:
STR: 3AGI: 5VIT: 3WIL: 6
A smaller note flashed:
Bonus: +1 to all attributesUnspent Points: +2
The windows vanished as quickly as they came.
No time.
No safety.
Just a brief confirmation that the world had rules, and killing was one of them.
Mogrin stared at the dead human, then at me. His whole body trembled.
"Vark…" he wheezed, voice tiny.
"No talk," I rasped. My throat burned. My mind fractured again into goblin fragments.
Move. Hide. Smoke hurts. Fire bites.
I grabbed Mogrin under the arms and hauled him up.
A shout rang out behind us.
"Down!" the pest captain ordered, calm as ever. "They're pulling back. Don't let them regroup."
He'd seen the kill. Maybe not clearly, but he knew someone had dropped.
The humans advanced again, smoke pushing goblins into the open like a tide.
Boss bellowed, "RETREAT!"
A goblin—young, small—ran toward Boss, clutching a bundle of meat like he couldn't bear to lose it. He tripped in the smoke and fell.
The shielded human stepped forward and brought his boot down on the goblin's spine.
A crunch. A wet pop.
The goblin's limbs jerked once, then went still.
The human didn't even look down. He moved on.
Another goblin tried to flee through the strip of fire the staff-user had laid.
His ragged clothes caught. The flames climbed fast, licking up his torso. He screamed, a raw animal sound, flailing as fire ate into skin. He ran three steps, then fell, rolling, smearing burning cloth across leaves.
The smell was awful—hair and skin and cooked fat.
The goblin's screams faded into hoarse choking, then silence.
Mogrin gagged.
I pulled him close, forcing him forward through roots and shadow, trying to find the retreat path Boss had called.
Behind us, goblin deaths punctuated the air—wet impacts, choking gurgles, brief screams cut off.
Not random. Not meaningless.
These were tribe members. Scavengers who'd packed meat. Trappers who'd built pits. A scout who'd signaled with clicks from the canopy. They died with the same helplessness as any creature under a boot.
We reached a narrow root tunnel—an escape channel into thicker terrain.
Boss stood near the entrance, directing flow with furious precision, milky eye fixed on the humans.
He saw me dragging Mogrin.
His jaw clenched.
Mogrin coughed and stumbled, nearly falling again.
Boss's gaze flicked to the dropped pouch lying in the mud behind us, then to the dead human near my feet.
Boss didn't have time to ask questions.
He made time anyway.
"Mogrin," Boss snarled. "You bring them."
Mogrin's face crumpled. "Mogrin—"
Boss's hand lashed out and struck Mogrin across the head.
Not enough to kill. Enough to teach.
Mogrin cried out, staggering.
Something in me surged—anger, protective instinct, maybe just stress.
I stepped forward.
Boss's good eye snapped to mine.
For a heartbeat we stared at each other.
Then Boss turned away, barking, "Move! MOVE!"
The humans were close now. Too close. The archer's arrows thudded into roots around the tunnel entrance, making splinters fly. The spear-user advanced with shield cover, methodical.
Boss stepped forward to hold them for a second longer—just long enough for more goblins to squeeze into the tunnel.
A sword swung toward him.
Boss ducked, fast despite age, but not fast enough.
The blade clipped his side.
Blood splashed dark across his leaf cloak.
Boss grunted, stumbled, and for the first time his calm cracked.
Ear-Torn yelled, "Boss hurt!"
Panic surged again.
Boss shoved himself upright, teeth bared. "GO!" he roared.
I grabbed Mogrin again, ignoring the sting in my leg, ignoring my burning lungs, and hauled him into the tunnel.
Behind me, Ear-Torn hesitated. He looked at Boss. Looked at the humans.
Then he looked at me.
And in that look I saw it—calculation.
If Boss died, someone would need a new power center. And if the tribe needed someone to blame, I was convenient.
We pushed through the tunnel into thicker forest. The tribe poured out into the undergrowth beyond, scattering into pre-planned fallback routes the scouts must have mapped. Boss had prepared for this.
Prepared didn't mean safe.
The screams behind us faded into distance, replaced by harsh breathing and sobbing goblin half-words.
Mogrin's head lolled against my shoulder. He was alive, but barely. Smoke had filled his lungs. His body shook with delayed shock.
I didn't know if he would make it through the night.
But I'd chosen him anyway.
Chosen him over staying "useful." Chosen him over proving to the tribe that I wasn't weird, that I wasn't cursed, that I wasn't trouble.
Because if I let him die… then what was the point of surviving?
We collapsed behind a thick wall of roots farther away, hidden in damp shadow.
Boss stumbled in last, supported by two goblins, blood soaking his side. His face was gray-green and tight with pain.
The tribe's numbers were thinner now. The air felt emptier.
Morale wasn't shattered like glass.
It was shattered like bone—still present, but wrong, cracked in places that would never be the same.
Ear-Torn stepped forward, voice sharp, cutting through the whimpers.
"Boss," he said loudly, so everyone would hear. "Weird-head bring bad."
A murmur rose instantly. Hungry grief searching for a mouth to fill.
"Vark weird.""Vark talk clean.""Mogrin touch shiny.""Vark go near metal-men.""Metal-men find us."
Mogrin tried to sit up, eyes glassy. "No… Vark save…"
Ear-Torn ignored him. "Weird-head kill metal-men," he continued, twisting it like a knife. "Now metal-men angry. Now they hunt."
Boss's good eye fixed on me, unreadable.
Pain made his breath ragged. Blood stained his cloak. But he was still Boss.
He could stop this.
Or he could let it happen.
I stood there, shaking, hands still sticky with human blood, chest burning, mind flickering between words and fragments.
Smoke. Fire. Teeth. Mogrin alive. I kill. I live.
Boss said nothing for a long, terrible moment.
Then he spoke, voice low, rough.
"We move again," he said. "Deeper. No camp here."
Not a defense. Not an accusation. Just an order.
But the tribe's eyes didn't leave me.
Not grateful.
Not relieved.
Hungry.
Afraid.
Blaming.
And as we limped deeper into the forest with our wounded leader and our shattered tribe, I felt it—clearer than the system windows, clearer than pain.
Surviving the purge wasn't the hard part.
Surviving what the tribe decided about me afterward… was.