Regressor's Revenge: Becoming the Villain in My Second Life

At around six in the morning, the bellowing, booming, and earthquakes finally stopped. Two hours later, the sun rose low in the sky, and still not a single person in the camp had spoken a word, as they were much too terrified of drawing the tendril monster’s attention.

Mikhail knew, however, that there was no hiding.

That monster was all around them.

It wasn’t in the trees.

It was the trees.

***

Zayn was the one to break the eight-hour silence.

"We can’t hide forever."

People stared at him in horror and crept away.

Zayn began making his way to the gate. Instantly, some of the Summoned blocked his path, though they still dared not speak.

A hoarse voice joined Zayn’s.

"He’s right..."

’Huh?’

Axel looked over at the man who had spoken.

Caked in cold sweat, Mikhail sat with his back against the wall. But that was all he had to say before he closed his eyes and rolled his head away.

Finally, Lucas spoke:

"I won’t force any of you to join us, but he’s right. We shouldn’t just wait here and find out what’s gonna happen in a month."

Lucas stood beside Zayn, handed him a sword, and equipped one himself before adding:

"Let us open the gate."

The terrified Summoned looked back at him.

"So we can all die? We listened to you last time, and nine people died!"

The woman who screamed was Cynthia, the same one who had spotted the first goblin.

"The problem was that you didn’t listen," Lucas chided. "If everyone had listened, nobody would have died then."

"Then what about Terry?! He did exactly as you said!"

Lucas breathed in and out, then calmly replied:

"Blame that on me if you want. I’ll let you. But does it look like I know anything about this place? Could you have predicted that? Do you think every leader always knows exactly what to do?"

He looked over the frightened crowd.

"I’m just trying to survive. We needed a leader, so I became one. No — I asked to become one, and nobody objected. You can oust me if you want, but then you’d better be prepared to lead everyone into the unknown and hold their lives in your hands."

Lucas’s voice softened, but only slightly.

"Look, I don’t want to be a tyrant. If any of you have an idea, voice it. I’ll listen. But if you have nothing important to say, keep it to yourself. You’re only going to scare us more than we already are."

He stared at Cynthia.

"So tell me. What ideas do you have?"

Cynthia slumped, defeated.

"I-I... I just want to go home."

Lucas pointed behind her.

"Sadly, the only path home is through that gate. So please, step aside."

Slowly, Cynthia slinked away and retreated to the far side of the enclosure. The others blocking the gate followed after her.

Once the way was clear, Lucas stepped forward and threw the gate open.

In front of him lay a beautiful bed of flowers, with no evidence that there had ever been a struggle.

Lucas turned back to the Summoned.

"Once again, we should scout the land. Our rations will last a day or two at most. Like I said, I won’t force you. But those willing, come and venture with me."

The first to move was a young girl with bushy blond hair who looked a little like Lucas.

Her name was Ruby.

The second was Axel.

He trotted over and stood at the entrance of the camp with the other three.

The four of them waited, but only two more joined their little cohort.

In the end, their group was Lucas, Zayn, Ruby, Axel, Leora, and Amaya.

The six of them stepped out, expecting to see the horrid sight of their mangled comrade dangling in the air above them.

They looked up, but everything appeared normal. There was no evidence of a man ever being dragged away against his will, other than the shallow line carved into the dirt.

Yet...

Axel saw a different view from the other five, and it horrified him.

’The markings we made on the trees are gone...’

But it was the other thing Axel spotted that shook him to his core. When Axel looked up, he compared his current view with yesterday’s and noticed the discrepancy.

’The leaves.’

Today, there was one more gigantic leaf in the trees ahead of him.

Axel turned around, looked above the goblin camp, and saw that the nearest tree held six more small leaves lining its branches. Then he looked over to where they had fought the goblins yesterday. On the closest tree, he counted eleven new leaves.

Axel opened his mouth to say something, then stopped himself.

’Nobody needs to know.’

How would the others react to learning the leaves around them were formed from the dead?

Furthermore... all the other leaves around them might have once been living creatures.

Maybe even humans.

Lucas asked:

"Something wrong?"

"No, it’s nothing," Axel replied while watching Zayn crush a dead leaf under his foot.

***

Two hours had passed since they had left the confines of the black wall. Since then, they hadn’t run into a single goblin, nor had the tendril assailant attacked.

Too scared to mark the trees, they instead planted sticks in the ground as markers.

While walking, Axel couldn’t help but scrutinize the message implanted on his arm.

’But I’m not even close to answering where it came from or what it truly means.’

Other than that, the group had grown a little closer.

In particular, Zayn and Amaya seemed to be getting along. Leora was warming up to Axel. Ruby and Lucas, despite not seeming all too close at first, gave off an air of familiarity.

Suddenly, Lucas broke the long silence.

"Wrogi."

It was the code word they’d come up with for "enemy spotted."

Following Lucas’s gaze, Axel spotted a patrol of five goblins.

Lucas slid behind a tree, then muttered:

"Don’t engage."

Swiftly, they followed his lead and took up a position to watch.

’I’m surprised they didn’t see us. One even looked over at us. They have bad eyesight, do they?’

The goblins continued their patrol in the group’s direction, but suddenly halted.

Axel panicked, thinking they’d been spotted, but the patrol only turned and carried on down a different path.

Lucas whispered a quiet command.

"Follow."

***

For thirty minutes, they kept a respectful distance while trying to gauge what the patrol was doing, but they’d learned nothing during that time. And it seemed that their tailing of the goblin cohort was coming to an end.

’Poor bastards...’

Axel watched as a murder of giant crows swarmed down and attacked the goblins, who desperately swung their crappy swords to no avail.

’They stand no chance...’

’I’m sure we wouldn’t either.’

The giant crows used hit-and-run and diversion tactics. Some screeched in the goblins’ faces, causing them to clutch their ears. Others dove at them only to avert their course at the last second, while a small group dropped huge sticks from above.

The sight was both marvellous and terrifying.

But maybe it was too interesting.

Too preoccupied with the fight ahead of them, the six failed to notice the crow that had split off from the murder and landed behind them. It was only when leaves and sticks scattered that the group turned around to face the enormous crow lurching on its thin legs right behind them.

’Scary!’

The crow stared at them with beady eyes of pure black, then tilted its head.

Ruby almost screamed and tried to draw her sword, but Lucas calmed her down and stepped between the scouting group and the crow.

"Do not attack it until it attacks us. They hold grudges."

Lucas kept his stance, planting the sword at his feet and resting his hand on the hilt. Then, he added:

"But whatever you do, don’t show that you fear it."

’Easier said than done!’

Axel already hated crows! A huge one was terrifying!

Ruby bit her tongue and focused on the tree behind it.

Axel focused on a ginormous butterfly far off in the distance behind the crow.

Zayn, Leora, Amaya, and Lucas fought their fear and stared directly into the crow’s eyes.

They all came close to breaking, but none wavered.

The crow then squawked as if laughing at them, flapped its wings, and flew away to rejoin its group.

’We survived...’

For now, the crows would be labeled as a neutral force in the Obsidian Forest.

From their spot, they watched as the goblin corpses were slowly covered by the ground or dragged to the side of a tree. Then, they were lifted up its trunk until they disappeared into the canopy of leaves above.

’So... that’s how it is.’

’The trees only become aggressive at night, while the ground only claims the dead?’

Having seen that sight, the group followed the traces of the two goblins and tracked them back to a new goblin camp.

This one was north of the clearing where they had been summoned.

***

After finding the northern camp, Lucas led the group southward to show them the camp he had found with his own scouting party. Having witnessed all three camps, the group formed a theory.

The further north one went, the stronger and more fortified the enemy became.

The southern camp was nearly half the size of the eastern one, while the northern camp was almost twice as large.

Consequently, they also theorized that the Goblin King and its castle were to the north.

Satisfied with their findings, and exhausted from barely sleeping, the group made their way back to the eastern camp.

The group grew scared that, in the time they’d been gone, the Summoned who stayed behind would have elected a new leader and prepared to oust Lucas.

However, they should have known better than to expect something so bold of those who stayed behind.