It had been thirty minutes since Lemigas entered the game and he had barely been given enough time to come to terms with his fate.
Lemigas pulled backwards, dragging his feet through the mud as the ferocious goblin slashed at his chest.
He was yet to meet his Architect; the real person on Earth who had summoned him as a unit. He hoped they would have some answers as to why and how he was here.
The goblin brought down its blade, causing Lemigas to block wildly with his—a simple Iron Ore Shortsword. But the goblin's strength was far too much for him and Lemigas was thrown back into the mud.
"Ughhh!"
So far, he'd only met his fellow challengers. Austus, the one who he had thought was the most promising, was dead. Apart from Lemigas, only two others remained.
A girl named Marion, and a boy named Amnet.
He wasn't sure what fate had befallen them. Last he saw them, they ran into the wet forest, a goblin each chasing after them. But as long as there wasn't yet a notification announcing their death, Lemigas presumed they were fine.
"Ngyyaahhh!"
The goblin leaped high, the pointy end of its blade glinting as it brought it down to impale Lemigas. With eyes wide, Lemigas rolled away on the mud, painting his clothes with wet soil and grass.
The goblin slashed to the left, and the blade tore skin on Lemigas's back, causing him to cry into the moonlit night. He crawled to his knees and then successfully to his feet just as the goblin brought the blade down again.
Lemigas felt a gnashing pain at the back of his leg. A chunk of his skin had been peeled off, blood leaked out of his pink tissues, causing him to wail out in agony.
At the same time, the pain and the fear of losing his limb sent a burst of adrenaline that caused him to thrash wildly. Lemigas spun and slashed his blade behind him, catching the goblin by the chest just as it leaped at him.
It shrieked and fell backward, plopping onto the mud. Lemigas cried in pain again, cursing as he looked down at his bleeding leg.
Lifting his head, he saw that the goblin was deeply wounded as well. His slash had opened its chest pretty badly. Lemigas gripped his sword, eager to take advantage of the opening.
He let out a cry to embolden himself as he limped and jumped on the wounded beast, his sword angled low to finish it off.
But goblins, even though Level 1 Beasts, were still faster than ordinary unawakened humans.
The small, green monster grabbed the hilt of its sword just in time to push it up, allowing Lemigas to fall into it.
SKSSSSHHH!
Lemigas's eyes popped wide. He was knelt on top of the beast, head low, sword raised to kill, but he was frozen in place. Blood leaked out of his mouth until he choked and forcefully spat it out.
The goblin's blade was stabbed directly through his right chest and out his back.
SKSSSSHHH!
The goblin pulled out its sword and then punched the sword upward, stabbing around the same area again. Blood pushed out Lemigas's back, leaked out of his chest and his mouth.
When the goblin pulled out the sword again, his body weight was suddenly too much for Lemigas to carry anymore. So, he fell backwards, collapsing into the mud.
The grass and wet soil around him were immediately tainted with blood. His head was aching, his heart was pounding faster than ever, pumping more blood to try to save his life.
But all that blood was only leaking out his wounds.
Lightning lit up the sky, then a thunder roared. Right after, a downpour of rain began. Lemigas stared at the dark heavens, wondering what the hell just happened.
What the hell was happening?
'Is this how I die?' he asked himself. 'Did the devs do this? Did they bring me here just to kill me? Is this revenge?'
Harsh drop of water fell against his face, washing the dirt away, mixing with the blood and making a pond of pink liquid around him.
Lemigas's eyes were about to close when a notification filled the sky.
Ding!
That female voice rumbled in his dying chest.
[ Unit, Marion, has successfully defeated a goblin ]
Lemigas stared at the notification. 'Someone... won. Someone else... killed a goblin. They won.'
He slowly tried to find his breathing. 'How can someone else win while I allow myself to fail? I can't... fail.'
He dragged his upper body up, groaning in pain, feeling every muscle in his chest begging him to give up and just die.
But that wasn't Lemigas's style.
The goblin, now standing, saw that he wasn't dead. It growled viciously and ran towards him. Lemigas waited for it to get close enough, then he pushed his right leg forward, catching it by the chest and launching it far away.
Not waiting to see where it would land, he quickly rolled around, using his knees to drag himself up to his feet. The rain was getting stronger, making the ground even wetter.
Lemigas quickly picked up his sword, and limp-ran into the trees beyond the grass, hoping to find a hiding place where he could rest and recuperate.
The trees loomed ahead, dark fingers clawing at the weeping sky. Lemigas pushed through the first line of brush, his wounded leg screaming with every step.
Behind him, the goblin's shriek cut through the rain. It hadn't given up.
Of course it hadn't.
Lemigas stumbled between two wide oak trunks, their bark slick with running water. He caught himself on one, palm pressing into moss that squelched beneath his fingers.
Breathing was as painful as death itself, each breath felt like someone was twisting a knife in the wounds that were already there.
Lemigas needed to stop the bleeding. Now.
His back hit the trunk of a thick tree, its canopy dense enough to slow the rain to a heavy drip rather than a direct downpour. Lemigas dropped his sword into the mud beside him.
He didn't want to let go of the weapon just in case he was ambushed, but his hands were already moving, already grabbing the soaked fabric of his tunic.
With as much strength as he could muster, he took off his shirt, holding back a groan. First, he tore a thinner piece and dropped it into the mud. Then, painfully, he lifted his right arm and looped the shirt under his armpit.
The fabric was already soaking through with rain and blood, but he pulled it across his chest, over the wound on his right side, up toward his left shoulder. Tight.
He tied the knot with his teeth and left hand working together, pulling until the pressure made him see stars. Blood still seeped—he could feel it warm against his ribs—but slower now. Slower.
His leg was next. Lemigas picked up his blade and shoved the hilt in between his rattling teeth. Then, he tied the cloth tight around the wound, his scream muffled by the sword hilt.
Lemigas pressed his head back against the bark and panted like a dying man. He kept reminding himself he couldn't die, because dying meant losing.
And he never loses.
Lemigas closed his eyes and listened. Nothing, at first. Just rain and his own heartbeat thudding in his ears.
Then he heard a sound like something was sniffing. Lemigas's eyes snapped open. The goblin was somewhere in the trees with him.
He carefully turned and peered behind his hiding tree. The small green beast was ten feet away in the thick of the forest, sword tight in its hands and a hunger in its hunting eyes.
The goblin knew he was here. Not exactly where—the rain had seen to that—but somewhere in this patch of forest.
The rain helped. Its relentless hammering meant the goblin couldn't hear him gasping. The wet trees and soil helped hide his human stench too, and the waters had washed away the trail of blood he'd left from the clearing to the trees.
But the goblin wasn't giving up. It kept sniffing, head moving around, searching doggedly.
Lemigas's hand found his sword resting on his waist. His fingers wrapped around the leather hilt as he forced himself to think past the pain. Past the fear that sat heavy in his chest like a second heart.
All the time he'd played Towers of Asturias, Lemigas had never wondered exactly how the gacha worked.
Every time he pulled the lever and watched the animation play; the swirling lights, the dramatic reveal, the little portrait that appeared in his roster. He'd never thought about what came after that.
He'd assumed they had been fighting each other in some simulated arena. Or being tested by automated trials.
He'd never known they were here, being hunted by Level 1 Beasts.
Lemigas thought about all the units he'd summoned over the months. All those little portraits that turned gray after the tutorial floor.
The game had made it seem like it was an ordinary RNG: Summon 10 potential heroes, send them into the tutorial floor, whichever ones came out victorious awakened.
Some were lucky enough to have 5 to 7 units awaken. But the most common number was three.
And now it made sense why. The others had died here. In places like this. Alone and afraid, with no Architect to help them, no explanation for why they'd been ripped from their lives and dropped into a monster's hunting ground.
His jaw tightened. But the ones who survived... Lemigas watched the shadows between the trees. The goblin's silhouette moved behind a trunk twenty feet to his left. Circling. Still searching.
They awakened a class.
That was what that notification meant. Marion had killed her goblin. She'd won. And somewhere in the system, in the architecture of this nightmare, she'd crossed a threshold.
She had awakened a Class.
So this meant one thing...
Lemigas's eyes narrowed. He watched the goblin's head peek around the trunk, its yellow eyes scanning the darkness.
...Killing that beast didn't just mean he survives. It meant awakening some kind of power. Something to help him leave this place.
Lemigas adjusted his grip on the sword. 'There's no way I'm gonna lose,' he told himself.
His leg screamed. His chest burned. His head felt light from blood loss and adrenaline. But his eyes were clear. He watched the goblin take another step. Watched its head turn the other way, exposing the side of its neck.
'No way.'