Chapter 29: Strong Aroma

  Gaia World, Day 14 After the Shattering.

  The anomaly itself was hidden from Pawel’s camp by trees and thick greenery, but now purple cracks were spreading directly overhead. Thin violet lines streaked across the blue sky, high above, slowly forming a dome that would eventually seal everything inside—an enormous arena of sorts.

  He tilted his head to look up at the expanding purple web and winced as the movement sent a fresh wave of discomfort through his body.

  “Damn… what timing. What new joy is it going to bring me this time?”

  He considered going out to investigate whatever had begun spawning.

  “Probably a bad idea. I need time to recover… and it’ll be dark soon,” he muttered. “But is hiding even an option?”

  It was something of a miracle that no large predator had stumbled upon his camp so far. But with all the cooking he’d been doing, if whatever came next had a decent sense of smell, it would find him easily.

  He glanced around as a plan began to take shape.

  “Well… maybe that’s for the best. I don’t need to go anywhere.”

  He pushed himself into motion—at least as much as his unnatural stiffness allowed. He moved like an energetic and overly excited ninety-year-old, groaning and wincing with every step.

  He chose a spot where dense, thorny bushes completely blocked one side of the clearing, slightly away from the fire. He dragged additional vegetation into place, forming a semicircular barrier from the fire’s side as well—chest-high, so he could still stand and throw his javelins.

  Once finished, he carved most of the meat from the skewer, gathered his weapons, and settled into position.

  A small piece of meat continued to sizzle over the flames—a bait.

  Pawel was just about to finish eating when a series of rustles and low grunts caught his attention. Something was approaching—and it was failing at stealth in a truly spectacular way.

  He shushed Snack, but the glutton was so absorbed in its meal that he would have had to bonk it on the head to get any reaction.

  Thankfully, the two silhouettes were completely focused on the low-burning fire in the middle of the hideout. The intruders didn’t even think to look around or question the abandoned-looking fireplace. At first, they seemed to be attempting stealth, moving in lowered, hunched postures and taking visibly careful steps—but they failed miserably. They kept knocking branches aside with their short, crude spears.

  At one point, the one in front stopped abruptly for no apparent reason, and the second walked straight into it, triggering a short argument in some strange, barking language. It was a cartoonishly bad display of sneaking.

  They were both about chest-high and painfully thin—like malnourished children with green skin. From Pawel’s vantage point, it was hard to make out any facial features beyond their large, pointed ears. But what he saw was enough to firmly identify them in his mind.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  These were goblins.

  As soon as the first creature reached the fire, it grabbed the skewer with the remaining meat and was about to devour it when the other lunged in, seizing the other end. The two began wrestling over it.

  After making sure they were the only two monsters approaching, Pawel stood up and hurled two javelins in quick succession.

  The first struck the goblin beneath the ribs. The sharpened wood lacked real penetrating power, but it was enough to pierce its thin skin and send the creature collapsing to the ground, writhing and screaming in pain.

  The second monster raised its hands, clutching the meat in triumph. It realized it was under attack only when the second javelin slammed into its shoulder. The blow must have struck bone, because the weapon failed to sink in properly.

  Now Pawel rushed from his position, hammer at the ready. As he closed the distance, he watched the goblin’s expression shift—from a toothy, almost gleeful grin that revealed yellowed, needle-sharp teeth, to a cruel sneer… and then abruptly to fear as it realized its danger.

  The gap between them was still wide enough for the creature to react. The goblin thrust its spear forward, forcing Pawel to stop short of a clean swing at its body. Instead, he struck diagonally, knocking the spear aside as he stepped in.

  But the goblin leapt backward at the same time, twisting the weapon and managing to redirect its point into Pawel’s outer thigh. The blade grazed him, tearing through skin and biting into muscle.

  He grunted in pain.

  The spear was now off-line, however, and Pawel didn’t hesitate. He stepped in fully and smashed the goblin’s face with the hammer’s handle, throwing it off balance. Before it could recover, he brought the weapon down in a brutal overhead strike, crushing its skull while it was still stumbling from the first blow.

  The strike was not clean—it landed on the front side of the head, pushing it aside violently. The sound of crunching facial bones, skull, and probably neck sent shivers down Pawel’s spine.

  Even after days of hunting and fighting, he still wasn’t used to hurting things. Severe injuries—even when necessary—stirred something unpleasant in him.

  Would he ever get used to it?

  Did he even want to?

  He turned around quickly to face the first, downed monster, in case it managed to get up—but no.

  It was still on the ground, groaning and moaning, anemically trying to reach to its back to get the aggravating javelin out, but was not able to pull it out. It only made it twist and caused even more pain. It was barely lodged into its thin body—but since the goblin was so small and skinny, it must have hit some organ.

  “Hmm, it is alive and powerless. Is there any point in taking it hostage?”

  “They seemed to have been talking to each other—let’s see if they understand me at least.”

  Pawel pulled the javelin out and was about to turn the goblin on its face, but as he leaned over to reach for it, the smell hit him.

  “Argh… that stench!”

  He righted himself instinctively.

  The monster turned on its back by itself and immediately reached for some handle by its waist.

  Pawel quickly stepped on its hand, and the sound of crunching bones made him cringe visibly.

  The goblin cried out in pain and began saying something in its guttural language, so Pawel began questioning.

  “Can you understand me?”

  It just said something in its own language.

  Pawel listened carefully. “Does it sound like any language I’ve known? No, no similarities.”

  “Do you understand me? Answer in my language or I will kill you?” He said it in Polish, then repeated it in English, and in German—which exhausted his linguistic skills.

  At this point, the goblin stopped talking and just looked at Pawel with fear.

  He heard a faint fart from the first body, and soon after, the smell hit him so hard he gagged and staggered two steps away from the monster, which it immediately attempted to use and reach for its weapon with its healthy hand.

  Pawel wrestled control over his body and hit it in its reaching arm with his hammer. It was now over the goblin’s torso, so the attack made it fold over, spit out, and then vomit. Not helping the smell.

  At this point, he gave up and just quickly walked away, creating some distance to catch fresh air.

  “Oh god, they stunk up my entire hideout!”

  His immediate, irrational hatred for goblins, born from media, now became much more justified.

  “Nothing that smells so foul deserves to live!”

  He kept an eye on the last living monster, in case it was active, but it seemed as if it finally kicked the bucket.

  “I have to drag them out of my place… But I really, REALLY don’t want to get anywhere near those things.” He thought to himself, contemplating just leaving. But no, this place was simply too good. He had to put on his big boy pants and just do what needed to be done.

  That last goblin was reaching for what looked like a dagger. Perhaps monsters will now begin dropping some useful items? He doubted it. But it still predicted some loot in the future.

  The stinging in his leg brought him out of his musings.

  The bleeding had already stopped, and even the wound itself began to visibly heal up. He focused on adding more power to several parallel healing abilities he had available now, and in two minutes, his leg was as good as new.

  “Okay, at least my magic is now getting serious.”

  With a sigh, he went out of the hideout to make sure it was even safe to start dragging the bodies out.

  He had no excuses after all.

  He tried tying a wet t-shirt around his face to dampen the smell, but it did not help much.

  After spearing the last monster with its own weapon, Pawel took its metal dagger and holster and got on to dragging the bodies away, which took the rest of the daylight away.

  Snack - it seemed- did not mind the smell at all. Pawel even saw it begun pecking on the bodies, after he had left them in tall grass, few hundred meters away form His camp.

  To his frustration, the hideout still reeked so terribly, he decided to spend the night by the water stream instead.

  “Well, at least the smell of cooked meat is no longer a problem.” Thinking that—he realized… he was hungry again.

  “Oh, you can’t be fucking serious!”