"Hey, brother. It's been a while since I've seen you."

I was standing in a field of pure green, the wind gently sweeping through the blades of grass. My sister was standing opposite me, a melancholic smile on her face. My heart skipped a beat.

"You look a little different, almost gross, but you're still my brother, aren't you?"

Why is she here? How was such a thing possible? Am I dead? Am I hallucinating? Are we both dead?

I stepped towards my sister, reaching out to touch her, but I didn't get one inch closer.

She offered me a shaky grin this time and slowly shook her head, the meaning becoming clear to me.

There was no way I was going to meet her in the middle of this field. There was no way I was going to feel her warmth and hear her whispers of comfort. There was no way I would see her smile in my new reality.

I couldn't accept this crap. I needed her to console me, to act as my support as I cried on her shoulder and told her of the horrible things I've had to experience in my short life. I wanted her to slowly rub my head and hear her whisper sweet nothings to me.

My legs picked up their speed as I began to run for her, my desperation to touch her, to embrace her tightly in my arms and apologise, growing. But it was like I was running on a treadmill. There was no getting to her. I was reminded of my own powerlessness to stop anything.

"So, it's going to be like this, huh?" I muttered as I came to a stop. My sister merely looked down at me with a creased brow, almost as if she was stopping herself from crying.

"I'm sorry, brother, but it's simply not possible." I unconsciously took one step forward once more.

"Why? Why does it have to be this way?"

"Because you're a goblin. You're not my brother. He died a long time ago."

I froze in place, my chest twisting as a phantom pain began to spread. The arm I was holding out slowly dropped to my side. I stared down at the ground, finally noticing my green skin. I could feel tears form in my eyes.

There was a loud cracking sound as the world slowly fell apart.


The next time I woke up, there was a throbbing pain in my skull. I could feel my hands behind my back and didn't bother moving as I knew I had been restrained. My vision was blurry, and I could barely make out the figures I was seeing.

I knew these were tears that were blocking my vision as the dream I had just experienced was still vivid in my mind. I felt pathetic for crying, pathetic for showing weakness in front of my sister, and most of all, for showing her I was now a weak, pathetic goblin that had nothing to its name.

The only thing I could do to erase this nagging sense of regret was to get stronger, after all. I needed to show her, a figment of my imagination, that I was more than a goblin. That I was more human than everyone would think. That I was strong, strong enough to do even the most impossible of things.

Oh, but I thought your sister doesn't love you, you poor, little, goblin baby. Why are you trying to prove to her that you're not a goblin when she's clearly expressed her dislike for you?

I felt pity for myself. Crying over some stupid dream when I'd made my mind to live was the worst thing I'd ever done. Who cares if my sister doesn't love me anymore because I'm a goblin? I certainly don't. For all I care, she could go die now because I sacrificed myself for her. She doesn't deserve any better.

The regret I felt after having those thoughts was too great to describe. I shouldn't be thinking about those things because I made the conscious decision to die for my sister, so no matter what comes after, I shouldn't be mad at her. I should be mad at myself and at the goblins that were making me think of such things.

A kick in the stomach brought me to my senses as I felt the strong urge to vomit, a sharp pain exploding throughout my stomach.

There was a multitude of incomprehensible grunts before I was pulled to my feet, my hands still behind my back.

What do these guys want now? Surely, after my attempt to save the girl they had captured, they would want to kill me. Although the attempt had failed miserably on the girl's behalf, they shouldn't be showing me any mercy.

…There I go again, placing the blame on someone else. I should regret my powerlessness and strive to become stronger, but its easier for me to deny any responsibility in what went wrong. That makes me sick. I'm not this kind of person. I should identify what went wrong and not make the same mistakes instead of being a coward.

No, that's a natural thing to do. Goblins don't ever think they've done anything wrong, after all.

My vision slowly cleared as the tears ran down my cheek, but I wasn't actively crying. They were left over from the dream I had. The goblin in front of me quietly grunt once and gestured to a side of the cave.

I glanced in the general direction and immediately regret doing.

Over there, in that side of the cave, was the girl I had tried to save. But there was something wrong. There was something very wrong with her. In fact, it would be more merciful to not call her a human anymore as she barely resembled one.

She was missing all her limbs, the legs up high near the pelvis and the arms at the shoulders. There was a great deal of blood and her wounds were bandaged with her spare clothing, but I didn't even know if she was alive. If she was, she'd die of an infection sooner rather than later as all of the goblin's tools were rusted beyond belief.

Perhaps she'd contract tetanus, if it existed in this world, and live a painful existence for the rest of her short life.

I shot the goblin a nasty look and he seemed to shrug before grunting once more.

He's saying its my fault this had to be done. He's saying they had no choice but to do this because they didn't want her to escape again. They're blaming their idiocy and lack of common sense on me. They're doing the same thing I was just doing, only they were placing all of the blame on their own kind instead of a sweet, human girl.

I spat in the goblin's face and scowled, mimicking his expression. He pulled a dagger out from behind him and pointed it at me, but I didn't cower. If this fucker wanted to kill me, so be it. I'd haunt him from the grave, assuming I wasn't reincarnated again. In fact, all these goblins deserved the same treatment, so I'd haunt all of them from my grave and let them live the rest of their lives in eternal fear.

That was when I noticed the blade had been stained red.

I resisted roaring at this worthless being as I knew it would make the situation worse. In fact, I take back my previous thoughts. If I calmly let him speak and he lets me go, I'll have the chance to kill him. He doesn't deserve any better for what he's done to this girl.

He doesn't deserve to live.

So, you are condemning your species and birthright. My disappointment is immeasurable.

After I rip this guy limb to limb and shove his own manhood down his throat, I'm going to kill the rest of the goblins in cold blood. I don't care if they cry or scream or beg for mercy. They don't deserve anything after the sights and experiences they've forced me through.

I tightly clenched my fists behind my back and felt my muscles bulge.

It seems as if my restraint was only cloth, so it will be easy to break out of.

With a grunt, I tore the weak strings of cloth that were binding my hands together and pounced on the goblin before he could respond, one hand already around his small throat as the other grabbed the wrist that was holding the dagger.

As he hit the ground, his skull bouncing up into the air for half a second, his eyes began to frantically dart around the place. With his free hand, he struck me in the face, however, my grip around his throat only tightened. No sounds were escaping his throat.

After a few moments, he dropped the dagger on the ground and desperately struggled, his body convulsing to secure his survival. He glanced to his left multiple times, but I ignored his attempts at communication with the others and wrapped my other hand around his neck. I could feel his windpipe squeeze under my grip.

Knowing this, a wide grin spread across my face, even as he managed to grab a small rock in a hand and bash it against the side of my head.

I grunt at him, telling him that no matter how much he struggled and hit me, I wasn't going to let go unless he killed me. The blood that was freely streaming down my forehead was proof of this, and the goblin began to panic.

His hands wrapped themselves around my own that were gripping his throat, and he desperately struggled to pull them off him.

With one last swing of a fist that missed my face by a mile, the goblin quickly stopped moving. His body went limp, his eyes rolling back into his skull, but that didn't mean I was going to let go any time soon. I needed to maintain my grip for a few more minutes to make sure his brain died.

I glanced to my side as I finally felt numerous gazes on me and noticed many goblins were watching the struggle. Not all of them were, though. The rest either didn't care and accepted that I was going to be troublesome like this, or simply had better things to do.

Perhaps they didn't care about this goblin I was killing and thought he deserved to die.

I felt the corners of my lips turn up as the struggles of my physical labour were coming to fruition.

Killing this goblin felt too damn good.

The adrenaline began to wear off, though, and to guarantee he was dead, I shoved his own dagger into his neck without any remorse. I slowly rose to my feet, ignoring his chokes and convulsions, and shot the spectators nasty looks. They too seemed to not care about what had happened and were only watching the conflict.

I didn't mind, though, as the state of the girl was more important to me. Whether she was alive or not didn't really matter at this point as she was dead regardless of what I did, however, that didn't stop a tender feeling from rising in my chest as I gently knelt next to her after rushing over to her.

If she still had attached arms, I would have held her hand and checked her pulse but now…now she was a former shell of herself. I placed two fingers on the right side of her neck, gently pressing up into her skin that was as cold as ice and felt my lip tremble.

Now I knew why the other goblins didn't stop me from killing their comrade. It was because he was responsible for killing this girl in cold blood and mutilating her to spite me, the goblin that wasn't quite a goblin. He ruined their chances at producing more goblins and feeling the apparent ultimate pleasure, so in their eyes, he deserved to die.

I gently stared into the girl's cloudy eyes before I slowly and softly brushed my fingers over her eyelids, closing her eyes for the last time.

I resisted the urge to sob as my greatest failure presented itself to me on a silver platter.


I was feeling empty and a little broken on the inside, but that only encouraged me to carry on. What I was going to do next, I didn't know. I needed to grow first before I could exact my revenge, so I was aiming to develop until I'm comfortable with my strength.

For now, I needed to find something to entertain me until that time comes.

Among the items the girl had in her sack, the book she had on her was the most interesting and was the only thing I could pass the time with. I didn't know what it was about, how advanced it was or if I would be able to understand it, but with the right amount of determination and boredom, I may be able to learn the language of this world's humans.

It would be a much-needed asset, after all. If I was going to slay these goblins and leave for a better life after fulfilling my goals, I'd need to know how to read and write and speak to survive. People aren't going to spare me just because I'm not attacking them.

I was a goblin, after all, and in fantasy works, goblins are pests that are to be exterminated and if these goblins have shown me anything, it's that they deserve to be exterminated. That is excluding me, of course. I am a smart goblin that knows many things. I do not deserve to die for I have committed no crimes.

As far as I know, your conception was the worst kind of crime. You're not supposed to exist in my goblin body.

Anyway, the book itself was considerably thick, being around two hundred, maybe three hundred, pages long. The script it used was some foreign mixture between what may as well have been Arabic and Hebrew, but I had no bloody idea. I wasn't a linguistic and my mother language, which was Japanese, is the only thing I've ever known, other than the dreaded goblin speech I was born with.

And goblins didn't really speak, either. Their speech consisted of grunts and screeches, so they were literally animals in the way they communicated. They kind of just knew what the others were saying through the grunts they were provided.

It was strange, but it further reinforced the fact that these beings were monsters.

All twenty or so of them needed to be exterminated before they committed more crimes.

I erased that thought from my mind as I stared down at the words on the page, noticing how the characters were clumped together to form words like a language that utilises the Roman alphabet. That suggested the language would have a grammar structure like English or another European language, but that wasn't very helpful because I have no basis in these languages.

However, because my goblin brain should theoretically be like a young child's, assuming I haven't grown too quickly, I should be able to learn the language somehow. I don't know how it works, but if I learn to read through some miracle, writing should be no issue if I have the time and resources to practice.

Speech was the only problem, though, as I have no idea how to pronounce the words or letters. From what I've heard of the language so far, it's too confusing my Japanese orientated brain to learn by myself.

I nod my head to myself as I came to think of a future course of action.

As soon as I'm able to, I should slay all the monster here, leave the cave and find a human that doesn't mind me too much, so I can familiarise myself with this world's language, but only if the person was willing enough to talk to me.

Yeah…that sounds good. Escaping this place and learning new things about this world would be fun. I was reborn here for some purpose, so maybe I'd do something great and be a goblin that doesn't deserve to die.

Maybe I'd slay a demon lord or end a monarch's tyrannous reign and become a warrior of justice.

I awkwardly laughed in my mind as such a thought was strange. I mean, me, a hero of justice? At this point, I was more of an avenger and revenger than anything else. But was there anything wrong with that? As far as I knew, there wasn't a difference.

And I wouldn't have it any other way.