Tutorial Rewrite Chaps 122-127 scrapped alt. version

(AN: I would like to preface this by explaining a bunch of stuff. To preface, this is a scrapped version of events that I wrote before fully understanding my own intentions for floor 15. No planning, no thoughts, just barging straight ahead. Kind of dumb. (Very dumb.) So, I wrote it, all 23 A4 pages and 8 462 words and then I stopped because it just... didn't feel right. Their relationship just didn't sit right with me. This was too... direct. There just wasn't any subtelty to it. I loved writing it, mind you--it's a wonderfully delightful bit of arguing, but... it's just not the way I wanted their relationship to pan out.

The change I made was a simple and extremely potent one. To be specific, in this version, Simel isn't mute. He talks. He can express himself. Which is wonderful for The Drama, but it makes their relationship more even. They're equals. It basically forces Ho-Jae to face the climactic realisation that Simel actually hates him a dozen chapters early, which is very cringe. 

So, yeah. I scrapped it. Probably one of the biggest revisions I've done in my writing career (if it can be called that) so far. It also thrust me into a bit of a slump, and caused me to not write on this story for two months cuz I needed the time to think and properly plan where I was heading. But now, I know. And it was so simple, too! I just had to basically flip the relationship they had on floor three completely on its head! Wonderful. Excellent. 

Anyhow, enough messing around. Here's the thing. One the RRL uploads catch up I'll unlock this one for the normal readers so they can view my failiure as well, but for now... Here ya go. 

Enjoy, I suppose?)

Casually leaning myself against the fleshy wall, I try to make an expression that would to most people come across as friendly and polite. I’m not sure whether it worked or not though, because for some reason, Simel just looks even more uncomfortable.

“So, um,” I say after a long while of skin-crawling silence. “What’s up?”

Simel does a full-body twitch that almost looks painful, his eyes widening a hair. Slowly, his jaw opens, lips trembling as he forces himself to speak. “You…” he says, voice strained and gravelly. “You can understand… our speech?”

I smile tightly. “So you’re, erm, doing that whole answering-a-question-with-another-question bit? Haha, yeah, that’s a good one! Um…” I gulp. For some reason, swallowing my saliva doesn’t swallow down the lump in my throat. “But, uh, yeah, um… Yeah. Yup. I can. N—now I can, at least! Back when we met and I, uh, erm, sort of like, kind of hurt those goblins in the, eh, army and all that, I couldn’t, though, ‘cause I wasn’t… I didn’t… you know?”

By the look on his face, Simel does not, in fact, know.

“Why?” he croaks. “Why do you now understand our speech?”

Okay, I don’t mean to be judgemental, but it isn’t very polite to just have this be all about him asking questions of me. As most people learn in society, conversations should usually be two-sided in the exchange of information. But it’s okay, he has questions, I have answers… it’s fine! “Oh, that’s simple, really, erm…” I wave my hand a little and the movement makes him twitch again. “I just… well, I’m not, like, totally sure exactly what I did, but the gods didn’t really like what I did when I, when we, you know, um, the last time we met? Yeah, they didn’t think that I was being very, well… So they gave me this language comprehension thing as a, I guess, punishment? It hasn’t really changed much so I don’t get the point of it all but, uh, yeah, that’s, um… That’s how and why and stuff. Yeah?”

Where he sits, Simel leans back just a little bit. His eyes flutter closed and he takes a deep breath. I have no idea why, but I feel like I’m about to be reprimanded. After a few seconds, his eyes open again, and he looks over at me again. With a face as blank and emotionless as a mask, he asks, as plainly as he would discuss the weather, “So, when will you kill me?”

The fleshy wall I’m leaning against suddenly gets very slippery and I lose my grip and trip, falling onto the floor with a squishy squelch. “I, uh, um, that’s,” I stammer, trying to stand up only to slip on the fleshy floor to fall yet again. “I wasn’t—that’s not really…” After a few seconds of slipping around, I’m able to stand up properly by rooting myself in a pair of my own bite marks, my legs only trembling a little. I raise my hands, partially for balance, partially to punctuate my words. “Heh, um,” I say with a little nervous laugh, “why would you, uh, think that I would ever do that? Simel?”

And for some reason, some weird otherworldly alien inhuman reason, he looks at me like I’m the one being incomprehensible and weird here. His mouth opens, and then he closes it again, his brows squashing together in thought. He spends almost a full minute just thinking, eyes closed in concentration.

Finally, he opens them again, and looks up at me. “Why would I expect anything different from a monster like you?”

“Haha, uh, um…” I try to laugh it off, but his stern expression won’t even twitch. God, this atmosphere is so damn tense I can barely stand it at all. Maybe it will go away if I just do away with—

No. No. No. Bad thought. Bad thought. To make the bad thought go away, I stab my right finger through the socket of my right eye and into the brain, wiggling it around a little. Scramble scramble scramble.

Ah ah ah ah ah ha ha haha ahahha hahaha.

I open my eyes again. “Come on, Simel!” I say, looking down at him. He wasn’t this pale before I scrambled myself but his expression is the same. “I’m your friend! I’d never do that kind of, that sort of,” my vision twitches here and there, falling for a brief horrific moment on the bluish bruise around his neck, “—stuff to you. Not to you. Because, as I said, Simel, I’m your friend!” Smiling, I spread my arms wide. “And friends just don’t do that sort of, um, you know, stuff to each other. It’s not… It’s wrong. Yeah?”

Simel’s eyes widen slightly. His lips quirk up, not in humour, but rather in intense befuddlement. “You…” he begins, head already twitching back and forth in disbelief.

“You think we’re friends?”

123

What a silly question!

“Of course we are!” I say boldly. “You were nice to me, and treated me kindly, and gave me food, and then we hung out a bunch, and shared dinner and stuff, and then—and then…” I scoff. “Well, things got a bit weird there at the end, but that doesn’t really matter does it? All that matters is that now you’re here, and I’m here, and nothing’s cha—”

“Like Hell nothing’s changed!” Simel shouts, leaping to his feet. “Everything’s changed! Friends? You and me?” He scoffs. “Don’t make me laugh. Calling us friends is like calling the sky red, or the ocean black. No, as a matter of fact, we are the exact opposite.” Step by step, he approaches me, eyes burning with black fire. For every step he takes towards me, I take one away from him, backing away until my bare back touches against the exposed flesh of the walls. He jabs his finger at my chest. “When we last met, I really thought you called me a fiend. It made so much sense. I hadn’t been able to protect you from the head sorcerer, so you wanted revenge. That made logical sense. The hug was an attempt at my life, and calling me fiend cemented our relationship. I thought I understood your mental processes. But this? This is insanity!”

“I—I wouldn’t call it—”

He draws a deep breath. “I’ve heard of your kind. Not before we found you. But afterwards, when I had no choice but to learn as much as I could to bolster our defences, I found out that you were not unique in anything but your mind. Hu-mans. That’s what your kind of called. And, from what I’ve heard, most of your sort is almost sensible. Some can learn to speak our language. But still, even then, I will have nothing to do with your ilk. If they are anything like you, then I can never be too far away from them.”

“That’s a bit harsh, I mean…”

“If you want me to cease talking,” he says breathily, “you’ll just have to do to me what you did with my soldiers.” I can’t bear to look into his eyes anymore. “Oh, don’t be a coward, now! Have you ever hesitated killing one of my kind before? It’s not hard. Our lives are brittle. It’s not hard at all. Here, here,” he says, grabbing hold of my right arm, and I can’t bring myself to resist since it might hurt him, and he lifts it up, putting my hand back around his thin throat. “Finish the job.” He grips my hand, making my fingers clutch slightly harder. “Just like before.”

“N—no!” I cry, pulling back my arm with all the force I can muster, making one of my claws draw a scratch alongside the side of his throat. I pull the hand close to me, my trembling eyes glueing themselves to his brittle neck, where a little droplet of blood is now forming.

Simel breathes shallowly. “Y—yeah. Just like that. A bit deeper, and I’ll…”

My hands snatch out, clutching onto his shoulders. “I can’t! Please, stop telling me to! Don’t tell me to hurt my friend. Anything… anything but that. Please.”

Simel’s eyes fall to my hands before slowly rising to my face. There. Now he’s making that difficult face again. It’s been almost a full year since I saw it last. It’s almost nostalgic.

“...Why?” he whispers. “You’re a monster. You shouldn’t hesitate at killing me. It doesn’t make any sense.”

A self-derogatory smile rises to my lips. “Friendship doesn’t need to make sense, Simel.” I meet his eyes. His trembling, uncertain eyes. “It just… is.”

His mouth slowly closes, and he pulls his lips tight. And for just a second, neither of us say anything. And then, after a moment, he shrugs off my hands and whirls around, stomping back over to where I laid him down. Turning back around, he sits down again in a huff. “So,” he says. “You won’t give me the honour of killing me.”

I don’t really know how to answer that, so I say nothing.

He takes a steadying breath. “If you’re not going to kill me, then what fate awaits me?”

“What fate?...” I scoff. “I haven’t really, well, considered it that much. I was just hanging around when I caught scent of a bunch of goblins, and then I went there, and I… and then you were just there, and then it started to rain soot, so I couldn’t exactly leave you there, so I brought you here, and now—”

“Did you kill the prince?”

I blink. “Um, sorry?”

His hands clench into fists. “I said, did you kill the prince?”

“What prince?”

Moving as theatrically as though he had rehearsed it, he puts his face into his hands. “The fourth prince of the Split Horizon Empire. He had recently left to rescue his betrothed—the second Princess of the Free’d Kingdom—from the witch of ash.” He looks up at me, eyes sharp and knowledgeable. “Does that ring any bells?”

Princess, prince, witch of ash…

Hey, wait, that does ring a bell or two!

“Hang on,” I say, turning my attention to my inventory. Let’s see here, goblin skin, goblin skin, goblin skin, goblin skin… Aha, skin of goblin! I pull out the female goblin skin and hold it up like a potential dress for the autumn ball. “This one?”

His eyes narrow into slits. Carefully, he stands up, walks over to me, aligns his face with that of the skin, and sighs. He only looks at her for a second or two before looking up at me, shaking his head, and walking back to his seat to resume his whole head-in-hands bit. He doesn’t say anything for almost a full minute, so…

“Is it the one?”

He looks up at me, his eyes infinitely tired. “Yeah,” he snarks. “It’s her. Fabled for her beauty and divinely humble attitude, beloved by all the lands. Now reduced to… whatever it is you call that.”

I blink at him. “Humble might be a bit… disingenuous.” I look down at the hide in my hands. “Mentally, I mostly refer to it as a goblin hide, but you can really use it for anything. Clothes, disguise, food, towel… It’s a five in one—”

“Stop, stop,” Simel grunts. “I’ve… I’ve heard enough. Just, please… Put her down. She doesn’t deserve to be held like that, and especially not by you.”

Oh, friendly banter! That must mean we’re getting along better, right? See, it was a rocky start, but now we’re getting into the swing of it. “If you say so, commander,” I say, laying the skin on the floor. Hm. Now that I think about it, it might not make for too bad of a rug. The pale green skin tone actually contrasts nicely with the fleshy pink and grey of the room. All and all, it gives the whole place a few much-needed earthy, warm tones. Maybe Simel should have gone into an interior decorating career rather than… whatever it is he does now?

On that note, I do actually have a few important questions to ask him!

“Hey, Simel,” I say. He doesn’t look up from where he sits. I keep talking anyways. “Did you recently get married? Or—or pick up an instrument of some kind?” Now he finally looks up at me, mouth opening and jaw working, but strangely enough producing no sound. I hold up my hand. “No, wait, let me guess. Hmm…” After a second or so of thinking, I smirk knowingly at him. “You got yourself a girl-goblin, didn’t you?” His eyes open wider. “You did, didn’t you?”

His head jerks back and forth. He takes a long breath. “No, I did not get married.” I open my mouth to make a wisecrack, but he speaks first. “And, before you ask, no, I didn’t pick up any instrument.”

My smile twitches. “But—but that… that doesn’t make any sense. If you aren’t doing well, and you aren’t married, and you didn’t pick up any instrument… What’s left?” I look over at him, where he sits in his half-burnt armour. My chest feels hollow all of a sudden “You, um…” I almost smile. “Why did you pick up a leadership position?”

He folds his fingers across his lap. “After what you did, there weren’t many left to lead. So, it fell on me. Does that make you feel better, friend?”

“N—not exactly, I was just…” I gulp. “Saying… stuff.”

His eyes fall to the goblin rug at my feet and his gaze softens. “I’m not sure why I expected anyone other than you to be capable of such cruelty.”

I can feel my own brows furrow. “What cruelty?”

He makes a sound that might in some twisted mirror dimension be called a laugh and leans back where he sits. “Since the witch of ash unfortunately makes… made her abode in my kingdom, when this whole drama with the prince and princess was made known, the empire and the kingdom both demanded that we go out and do something about it. So I gathered what few men we still had left and headed out to the weeping woods, expecting to find combative harpies and living trees. Instead, we found only dead, charred bodies. Isn’t that odd? Just a big patch of burnt grass surrounding her tower. And the inside was just as bad. She was dead, mutilated as though a beast had gone through her, and at her side, we found a neatly skinned goblin. We didn’t even know it was Her Majesty. Not at the time. How were we supposed to know that you would have done… this?”

Oh, so the harpies and trees really did all revert cuz the witch died, huh? Interesting. Well, you learn something new every day.

“But we could follow your trail. The second I saw the skinned body, I knew that you’d done it. However, my soldiers weren’t quite so convinced. But that’s only because they weren’t there. They didn’t see what you did to the city. I did. Though, I guess I’ve spent too much chasing shadows for them to fully believe me.” He chuckles. “Either way, thanks to our silver compass, we were able to follow you out here. We tried to find a guide, but no one would dare help us cross this black desert. They all said it was a suicide mission, and maybe it was.”

“The prince was the only survivor we were able to recover from the forest, and now he’s dead, too. I suppose it’s only a matter of time before I follow the same fate, either from you, or this hell in purgatory.”

I can feel my hands curl into fists. “No, but that’s… You’re not going to die. I won’t let that happen.”

He looks up at me. “Okay. So, if you won’t let me die, then… What will you do?”

What will I do? Well, obviously, I need to… I have to…

<A change has been made.>

<Tutorial stage,

Hell Difficulty Fifteenth Floor

Boss Stage>

<[Clear Condition]

Do the right thing.>

124

I stare at the message in front of me. The message stares back at me. It doesn’t even move.

That’s… odd.

Without really thinking, I glance over to one of the fleshy walls.

<Giant [BOSS]>

…Yeah, that’s still the boss.

I turn my eyes back to Simel.

<Simel>

I blink at the message. Hey. Whoa. That’s… that’s new. And weird.

Simel’s expression doesn’t shift by a hair. “So?” he asks. “What will you do?”

My jaw falls open. I’ll, um, I’ll do…

I—I don’t know! How am I supposed to know what the right thing to do is? Isn’t the whole not-knowing thing a huge part of moral and ethical philosophy? Morality is supposed to be subjective, nobody knows what’s truly good or evil, or even if either one of those exists at all! Even things that seem clearly good or evil, like helping people in need or killing another human being, can become just the opposite depending on the situation. If you help someone in doing bad stuff, then what does that make you? Likewise, it isn’t evil to kill someone who’s trying to kill you. It’s all subjective, so trying to keep track of what’s right and wrong is a pointless exercise that only serves to over-complicate the simple.

I shouldn’t need to think too hard about my everyday actions. If it feels right, then it is right. You shouldn’t need to ponder any further on it, because then you can easily think yourself into a corner.

…In that sense, this situation is very simple.

I won’t be brought back to the lobby with the next attempt, or even the one after that. Since I can stay here, it will be easy to just… help Simel and then come back here to finish up the floor. Simple stuff. Whether it’s right or wrong is unimportant. It feels right to help Simel, so that’s what I’ll do. If he remains here he’ll die, and that makes me sad, and I don’t want to be sad, so that’s that.

I turn to Simel with newfound determination. “I’ll help you,” I say firmly. “No matter what, I’ll get you to safety, and then…”

“...And then?”

I smile sheepishly. “That’s not important. All that matters is that I get you to safety. Clearing the floor can come later.”

But for some reason, despite my helping him being directly tied to his future survival, my words don’t seem to have any effect on him whatsoever. He looks just as mildly contemptuous as he did five minutes ago. I almost feel like saying that he looks a tad bit more irate, but I don’t want to think of him that way, so I just won’t admit it. “When I’m safe, you say?” Since I’m not sure what he’s hinting at, I just nod enthusiastically at him, a feeling that does not translate to him at all. “And when, in your warped mind, will I be safe?”

I thumb my lower lip. “I was thinking when we reach some sort of civilisation, but then you might get accosted by thugs and stuff, so I think it’d be best to get you to wherever you need to go where you can get like resources and stuff so you can continue doing whatever it is you do for a living now, but even then you might get attacked by monsters, so…”

“I’ll tell you something,” Simel says evenly, his eyes affixed firmly on me. “From my perspective, I will never be safe as long as you are nearby me.” I open my mouth, but he speaks before I can even find the words. “And, no, I don’t mean simply one metre or ten feet or what have you. I’m talking about something more like… As long as you are within my kingdom, as long as you are even on this continent, I will never consider myself truly safe. Do you understand these words? Have they translated properly to your tongue?”

“Um,” I say, holding up my hands. “Heh, uh, actually, I think that might not have translated right, because I don’t think, well… Just to check, you didn’t happen to say something along the lines of I-wish-we-had-restraining-orders-in-this-world, did you?” He gives me a long, silent look. “Oh. Uh. Um.” I chuckle nervously, but Simel’s gaze is so harsh that it dies without even leaving my lips. “Yeah, so, you’re, erm… What you’re saying is… You don’t want my help?”

“I would rather be euthanized by a rabies-infected bear.”

Okay, wow, ouch, that’s harsh, but, uh… I take a deep breath. “It’s not like I’m trying to, like, hurt you here or anything—”

“Like you’ve hurt my people?”

I exhale sharply. “—But, if you don’t let me help you, I’m very certain that you will almost definitely die. Like just straight-up croak and die. And—and I can’t say that I know your rites and cultures too bad regarding death and stuff, but from where I come, dying is bad, m’kay? It’s pretty permanent, it sucks, and the people around you are also unhappy, so…”

“I have no one left,” Simel says matter-of-factly. “I didn’t have anyone before I reached Acheron, and the acquaintances—the friends—I made then are gone now.” His face doesn’t show a hint of emotion. It’s just a fact to him. “There will be no one left to mourn me.”

My jaw clenches. “But I’ll mourn you!” I exclaim with a wave of the arm. The movement makes him twitch and I freeze in place. Damn it. Damn it. Why…? “I’ll be sad enough for a dozen people! I’ll even cry, because you’re my friend, and losing a friend hurts. You should know that too, right? And even if you don’t, even if you don’t even see me as a properly sentient creature, I’m still one, and I’ll still mourn you. So, I won’t let you die. No matter what, you’re going to survive, and you’re going to get home in one piece. I’ll make certain of it.”

He scoffs, but the sound soon softens into a meek chuckle and he lets his face fall to look at the floor. “You won’t kill me, and you won’t let me die.” He looks back up at me again, a tiny, almost invisible smile playing on his dry lips. “You really are too cruel, Ho-Jae.”

I take a step towards him, and for once, my movement doesn’t make him jerk back. But I still don’t approach any closer. “If it’s cruel to care for your friends, then it’s a wonder I’m not the god of cruelty’s apostle.” Surprisingly, that little joke actually gets him to chuckle, and not in the please-God-kill-me way, but rather in the normal, ha-ha kind of way, which startles me so much I completely lose my train of thought, which was anyways on the verge of derailing, but whatever.

“So,” Simel says, startling me again. “What’s the plan, then?”

“Plan?” I parrot. For a full second, I just stare at him. He stares back at me. “O—oh! A plan! Well, that’s, um… Heh, um, not to be like that, but aren’t you the commander guy here? I’m just… me. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not exactly good at, like… navigation and stuff. I don’t even know where we’re headed, so I can’t exactly say that I can come up with a way to get us there.” I shrug at him, hoping that that’ll get my point across sufficiently.

“What you’re saying is, in other words,” Simel says, “that despite being your captive, you expect me to get us out of here?”

“Yes.” I smile and do a thumbs up.

Simel doesn’t seem to appreciate the gesture, but he also isn’t outright combative towards it. He purses his lips, and as I stare at him, his eyes slowly fall to the all-organic cruelty-free vegan goblin rug at my feet. He sighs, his lips pulling into a frown. “I need to return to the Split Horizon Empire to tell them about what happened to their prince and princess. They need to be given a proper funeral.” His eyes sharpen, slicing at me like razor blades out of nowhere. “Despite the state that they both happen to be in.”

I feel like he might be accusing me of something here, but I’m not sure what, so I’ll just ignore it. Nodding thoughtfully, I say, “Right, right, grab the prince and princess, return to that empire place…” I can feel my brows furrow. “Hang on a second. The prince?”

Simel nods. “Yes. Both of them.”

“You do know that he’s probably caked in fifty pounds of soot by now, right? Assuming he didn’t just get eaten by a sootcrawler or a swarm of juneflies.”

Waving his hand dismissively, Simel simply answers, “It doesn’t matter. We need to bring something back, or the Emperor will execute us both for not respecting their bodies.” He leans back a little. “Of course, had they both been alive, we would have been hailed as heroes. Now, instead, we’ll just be the unwanted messengers. Frankly, knowing his temper, we’ll be lucky if he doesn’t execute us anyways.”

“Haha, yeah,” I reply. But then a word he said pops out to me. “Hang on—”

“Of course,” Simel continues, disregarding my attempt, “it would have been a different story if my men hadn’t been massacred for no reason whatsoever. The loss of the princess would have been a grave tragedy, but the prince was always the more important one. As things stand, my best chances at living a future life would be to go into hiding somewhere and take on a new identity. Pick up a life as some village pastor, pretend I never attended the capital academy, and try to make something out of that.”

“Sounds like a plan!” I say chipperly.

“However,” Simel says sharply, “those would be the actions of a despicable coward of no moral worth. As the unfortunate ruler of Acheron, I have an obligation to my people to not back down. I took that oath. If the Empire is to punish me for their own prince’s foolish actions, then so be it.”

I feel myself frown. “No, but that’s… Simel, I won’t let that happen. I’d rather die before I let those empire fellas kill you!”

Simel looks over at me with the same kind of eyes you’d give a sly dog before leaving your sandwich unguarded. “I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but if you really do try to escort me to the Empire… Please, don’t destroy the capital. Think of the families, the lives that this would ruin. Not just the capital itself, but the entire country would suffer terribly. You must know that. Killing an Emperor or a King is the same as killing their country. An Empire bereft of its Emperor, of the entire royal bloodline, has nothing.” His eyes bore into me with dark desperation. “If there should be any good within whatever you hu-mans have for a heart, then you will show me the honour of not killing the heart of the Empire, even if I should die.”

125

My mouth opens but I can’t make the words come out so I try to play it off with a chuckle but he won’t humour me. I make a gesture in the air and his right eye twitches so I stop. “I—... You…” My head shakes right and left but I just can’t make any words fit into any sort of proper sentence. In the end, if only to gather myself, I step over to the side and take a seat atop a carved-out mound of flesh. “Simel, that’s… that’s a lot to ask, you know? I’m not really…”

“I know,” Simel says bluntly. “It is a lot to ask from something like you. But I still ask. Had I not known you so well, I might have pleaded on behalf of Acheron, but I know how you feel towards that country.”

I silently wince. Right now, if I’d had a mirror, I’m sure I’d be making the exact same expression that Simel makes at me so often.

“It’s not that I hated the city or anything,” I mutter under my breath. “It’s just that… that the clear requirements…” I glance up and find Simel making an expression of pure confusion, for once without any underlying disgust and-or horror. “Yeah, uh, it’s…” I say. Finding the words to describe what’s going on is almost harder than actually beating the floors. “Okay so long story short I got invited here from my home planet of Earth where the dominant species is humans and I accepted so now I need to beat the tutorial by clearing floors and to clear a floor I get a clear requirement which is usually to get somewhere or to kill something and when I do that I move onto the next floor to do it again and for the third floor I had to um the boss stage yeah uh it told me that to beat the floor I had to kill the king so I did and that’s why I did it so really I didn’t have any choice in it I was just following the clear requirement so if you want to get mad at anyone then those gods are probably actually listening in right now so if you give them a few strong words then they’ll probably hear you.”

And I was able to say it all in one breath, too.

I can see Simel’s jaw working. In the end, though, all he asks is one question. One simple little question that I can’t bring myself to answer: “And this is why you ruthlessly murdered children?”

…Children? Isn’t that, heh, um… a bit charitable of a description? Really, aren’t small goblins usually called spawnlings, or hatchlings, or something like that? Children… Calling them children would suggest that—that… you know. Yeah. That’s just not… yeah.

Somehow, my silence actually makes Simel’s eyes widen slightly. “...I can’t believe it. So you do actually have some morals?”

“Of—of course I have morals!” I bark. “I’m not some heartless monster or anything. It’s just that… I’m just… I’m a normal guy in a very strange situation. Yeah. That’s it. Back on Earth, I was, um… A standard, ordinary sort of person. I’m only doing these things because the clear requirements demand it, otherwise I’d be just your standard, everyday sort of person.”

Simel’s face wrinkles up in disgust. “Please don’t tell me you actually believe what you just said.”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

He shakes his head at me. “If you can so easily excuse what you’ve done by saying it was the circumstances, then there’s nothing you can’t sweep under the rug.” His eyes sharpen. “Including whatever you might do to me in the future.”

Oh, with this again. “What is it with you and me killing you?”

“That’s not—”

I wave my hand, shutting him up instantly. “That is exactly what it is, and you admit it. I have never, nor will I ever kill one of my friends! At least not my current friends. Future friends is a different and totally unrelated matter. And, reminder, you’re my friend. Ipso facto, I won’t kill you. Have I ever done anything like that to you?” He opens his mouth to answer but I interrupt him. “Never! Never ever ever ever. It’s just not on the map. If killing-you was a place on the map, then it would be the Bermuda Triangle. And, sure, that’s not a reference you get, but it basically means it’s a hoax. Get it?”

“...Sure,” Simel says after a long pause. “I get it. Friend.”

My left eye twitches. “Don’t—don’t say it like that. That’s… not right.”

Simel purses his lips. “I thought that’s what you wanted. To be my friend?”

“Yes, but not… That wasn’t honest. That was just mean, and almost a little cruel.” I try to make the proper gestures that might summon up the proper words, but they do nothing. “It’s okay if you don’t want to, um, to see me exactly how I see you, but it’s just not very nice of you to, like, taunt me with it.”

For a long while, he just looks at me, like he can’t exactly figure out if I’m serious or if I’m doing a bit. There’s no real way for me to respond to that, so I turn my eyes downcast, at the soft, squishy floor. After a minute or so, I assume that the subject has been dropped, so to clear the air and make way for new avenues of discussion, I finally look back up, and ask, “So do you happen to have cheese on this planet or—”

“You’re right,” Simel says, his voice indescribably heavy.

I blink at him. “You have cheese?”

He squints at me. “Well, yes, but that’s not what I was—” Shaking his head, he pulls himself together again. “You’re right. That was cruel of me. I’m… I’m sorry.”

I almost don’t believe my ears. “Th—thank you? No, I mean… apology accepted.”

Nodding sharply, he turns away to look at one of the walls, and I regret not spending more time on my interior design. I don’t even have a single wall-decoration. Pathetic. “That’s rule one,” Simel says out of the blue. “Let’s try not to hurt each other, be it in word or action.”

“Pardon?”

He nods again, a bit more convinced this time. “Getting to the Split Horizon Empire will take a while. In order for us to coexist, we’ll need to lay down a few rules. Are you familiar with the concept of rules and laws?”

I angle my head a little. “Yeah, of course, we also have that, I was just surprised because, heh, my other friend also kind of randomly decided that there would be a few rules I’d have to follow to make sure I didn’t do something, um, weird, so it was just a sort of deja-vu, you know?”

Simel rubs his chin. “Seems like a sensible fellow.” After a second or so, he continues. “What other rules did this… friend of yours lay down?”

I’m just about to answer with a clever list of all the rules Moleman came up for me when I suddenly remember that I actually have no idea. It should be in my head, but it just isn't there. Don’t tell me it got lost when I scrambled my brain a little? That… that would be unfortunate. Okay, hang on, let me try to rack my brains properly. Sometimes, us people are a lot like old machinery. A good bonk will usually get us going. Lifting up my knee, I angle my head for a second before bashing my forehead into it as hard as I can.

<You have learned:

Concussion Resistance Lv.10>

<You have learned:

Concussion Protection Lv.1>

Darn it. All this did was crack my knee, so now I’ll have to walk with one leg for a while. Bummer.

“Sorry,” I say, looking back up at Simel. “I have no idea. I can’t remember a thing.” For some reason, he looks a little horrified, even more so than usual. “Uh, Simel, is everything alright?”

His nose scrunches up like he’s looking at something mouldy. “What in the world is wrong with your body?”

“My body?”

He shakes his head dismissively. “No, forget I said anything. These rules you have with your… friend… are most likely not suitable for our current situation. We already have the first rule down, so as for rule two…”

“Hang on a sec,” I say, holding up my hand. “I totally agree, rules will be great, but, um… When did you last eat?”

His brows furrow. “Eat?”

“Yeah, um,” I say. “Like, I don’t really need to eat, I just do it to train my resistances, but you’re kind of normal, so you need to eat every couple of hours, right? And also drink and sleep and… all of those other basic things that you goblins do. And, sure, it’s been a long day and all, but I think this kind of conversation can be taken over a meal of some sort. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“I suppose I would,” Simel reluctantly admits. “Though, to be frank, I’m not entirely sure what you intend to feed me.” He gives an expressive, full-body shiver. “I refuse to engage in cannibalism.”

I wave away his weird worries. As though I’d ever try to make him eat his own kind. That’d just be weird.

“No need to worry about that,” I say with full confidence. “I know just what to eat.” Smiling, I simply reach my hand out and gouge a slab of meat from the nearby wall. “Voila. Fresh, delicious, and quick to cause indigestion!” I say, putting on my best advertiser smile. Simel stares at the piece of meat in my hand before slowly looking over at the wall where I carved it out. It’s started to bleed afresh, and the surrounding tissue is twitching painfully.

“...What is that?”

My gaze hops between the piece of meat in my hand and the wall. “It’s meat,” I say. “Fully organic, cruelty-free, WHO-certified…”

“It’s meat? What—what do you mean it’s meat?” His voice rises in pitch. “Why is the wall made of meat?”

That’s a pretty weird question. “Well, obviously,” I say, trying not to sound condescending, “we’re inside a hollowed-out cavity I gouged out inside a giant’s chest. My goal was originally to kill it for some reason, but now you’re here, so it’ll have to wait. Hm. Or maybe you goblins are all vegan? I can assure you that no animals have been killed in the making of this meat product, probably, I think.”

His eyes slowly move about the cavity we’re in, as though he only just now figured out what it is. “It’s—, we’re inside—...” Somehow, against all odds, he goes even paler. At some point you have to wonder whether or not there’s any blood left in him at all. His trembling eyes fall to the pulsating, moving bit of lung beneath him and his eyes widen in recognition. “A—AAAAAHHHH!!” he screams, flying to his feet, only to almost instantly slip on the internal juices covering the floor. I try to catch him, but then I remember that the floor is soft and I have claws, so even though it hurts, I let him fall. The floor greets his face with a welcoming squish and he yelps, desperately trying to push him off, which as we now know does nothing but make him slip even more, around and around, making him look a lot like a breakdancer on a slip-n-slide.

“Try to get a footing in one of my bite marks!” I call out to him, but I don’t think he can hear it over his own screaming. A bit of an overreaction if you ask me, but who am I to judge? Though, after watching him slip around on the floor for several seconds, I take too much pity on him and decide to help him out by putting the only non-slippery thing nearby beneath him, which in this case is my chic, modernist, all-vegan goblin rug.

With his feet on solid ground, Simel finally calms down. Supporting himself on only his trembling arms and legs, he takes a number of deep, calming breaths. At least, until his eyes meet with those of the goblin rug, and his body freezes completely.

126

Since he looks more than ready to have another episode of some sort, I pick him up and pull him off the rug. I keep forgetting how light he is, I mean, I could probably carry him with one hand! Well, actually, I can carry him in one hand, but the last time I did that it didn’t go too well, so I think I’ll hold off on it, even if it would be funny.

In my hands, Simel begins to tremble again, kind of like a puppy that’s been out in the rain for too long. It’s a cute parable, but his eyes look so haunted that I’m not sure if that’s really fitting. Maybe more so something like a soldier only just now realising what happened to the rest of his platoon? No, that’s too grim, hmm…

While I’m thinking about what metaphor to best describe Simel with, he apparently makes up his mind.

“Get me out of here,” he whispers forcefully. “Please. Anywhere but here. I can’t—I just can’t.”

I angle my head at him like a confused puppy. Still in the parable mindset, it doesn’t feel right to compare myself to a puppy, either. Can anyone really be favourably compared to a puppy? I guess, in terms of strength, I’m way beefier than a puppy. Or even two! But now I’m getting off-track, and each moment of silence that passes only seems to make Simel even more desperate. “Um,” I say intellectually. “The outside is really hot. You’ll probably die.”

His teeth grind together with such strength that I can hear them. “Where,” he pants, “is the exit?”

“Oh, that’s easy!” I say. With an easy movement, I put him down on the ground—specifically, atop the art deco goblin rug to assure maximum grip—and turn around to gesture at the flap of flesh keeping the outside from mingling with the inside. “Right over there’s a big piece of flesh that you can open. It’s not totally detached, so it’s got hinges like a door. Neat, huh?” Turning back, I find that not only is my expressionist goblin rug missing, but Simel as well.. “Huh? Simel?”

Something makes a sort of groaning noise and I turn around to find Simel desperately trying to push open the flap of flesh.

“Oh, there you are!” I exclaimed, striding up to him. “What are you trying to do here?” I chuckle and he looks up at me, wordlessly glaring for some incomprehensible reason. “And what are you trying to do with my rug? Though, of course, if you want it, I obviously won’t stop you, I would really just have liked to be asked first, but I’ll let it slide for now because we’re friends.” I smile down at him in a way that should invite relaxation and relief. Looking back at the door he was trying to open, I have a sudden moment of realisation. “Oh! You wanted to—? Ah, I see how it is. Since this is our only emergency exit, you wanted to ensure that you could open it in the case of fire or similar, right? That’s it, isn’t it?”

He doesn’t answer, but we’ve played the silent game before, so I’m pretty confident in being able to understand his intention, even if it is unsaid. Not letting my smile falter for even a second, I helpfully push against the floor. “See, it’s got a trick to it, you kind of need to lift it a little to get it open, but once you do…” Pop! The door easily opens, making a sweltering wave of wind rush inside, like the opposite of when you open the door to a sauna.

Funnily enough, with the exact same speed that the heat rushes inside, Simel rushes outside, leaping into the black desert as though he’s abandoning a sinking ship.

S—Simel?!

I almost expect him to instantly burst into flames, but apparently those weird knee-high boots he’s been wearing protect him from that, and he merely stumbles once, twice before righting himself.

“Simel!” I call out from where I stand in the opening. “Where are you going?”

Breathing heavily, he turns back to look maybe not specifically at me, but rather at what I’m standing in. Namely, of course, a giant. Though, technically speaking, I’m standing inside a hole in the giant, but, you know, same thing. He stares at the giant for a couple of long, tense seconds, and then he only gives me a single, cursory glance before turning around and stomping away. He can’t run because of the soot, but from what I can tell, he’s certainly moving as fast as he can.

In this heat, and in what he’s wearing, with only a single goblin rug for provisions, he won’t make it far.

“H—hey, Simel!” I call out, jumping down into the soot as well. It burns the same as it always does, but unlike Simel, there’s nothing stopping me from running. It actually only takes me a few wide steps to get to him, and since he’s not being especially logical all of a sudden, I’m forced to use a tiny bit of violence. Grabbing him around the waist, I lift him into the air, away from the dangerous soot.

He kicks his feet, succeeding in hitting me in the ribs a few times. “R—release me!” he shouts. “You can’t force me to be inside of—inside of that thing!”

“Hey, come on,” I say, trying to calm him down with my mild tone of voice. It’s not really working, though. “It’s not so bad, it’s not like the giant has a full deck of cards or anything, I bet he can’t even tell we’re in there. Besides, out in this hellish place, that’s the only really safe place.”

“It’s a living thing!” Simel erupts, grabbing at my wrists to try to forcefully remove me. I really don’t like how violent-ish we’ve gotten all of a sudden, but I know that a little bit of violence is part of all good man-to-man friendships. Like a pat on the back, or a punch on the arm. Compared to that, kicking me in the ribs and—oh, he just elbowed my face. My nose made a weird crunch, but that’s alright. Nothing I haven’t had before. Something wet and warm streams out from my nose and I lick at it. Mm. Yummy…

Oh, I forgot to respond! “What’s that got to do with anything?” I ask, but since my nose got all clogged up by getting broken and the blood, it makes my voice sound all nasal and funny.

He looks back at me, eyes fluttering down to my nose and back up at my no-doubt quizzical eyes. Swallowing, he grits his teeth again. “Put me down,” he says in a tiny, harsh voice.

I eye him, uncertain. “You won’t run away?”

“No.”

Hmm. “Well, alright!” Saying so, I put him down unceremoniously, making sure he won’t sink into any unusually deep spots of ash. All of a sudden, I realise that this must be exactly how parents feel putting down their boot-wearing toddlers into a puddle. Except, in this situation, the one I’m putting down is a fully-grown being, and instead of a muddy puddle, it’s a batch of burning soot. Basically the same thing, all and all.

Once he’s down on the ground, I’m happy to find that he’s not trying to run away again. A very silly thing for him to do, all things considered. Wasn’t he supposed to be clever, being a magician and all?

He clenches his hands into fists, pressing the goblin rug closer to his chest. When he looks back up at me, I find his eyes weirdly REDdish. “Alright, then,” he says. “Take me back there. Into that pained, living being that you, much like any other flesh-eating parasite, call home.”

Weird way of saying it, but since he asked so nicely… “Sure thing!” I chirp, and since I don’t trust his boots all that much, I pick him back up again to bring him back to the crib.

Once I’ve put him back down on the slippery floor, he still won’t move. He’s like an upright wooden board, which makes me fear that he might just topple over again. I almost want to hold his shoulders to ensure this fate won’t come to pass, but for some inexplicable reason, it feels like he doesn’t want to be touched right now, even if it is by a friend.

Right as I’m beginning to wonder if he’s actually been hit by a petrification ray of some sort, he starts to tremble, slightly at first and then quickly declining into a sort of full-body shiver. Unable to wait any longer, I gather my courage and ask, as mildly as I can, “Simel, is everything alright?”

“I won’t eat his flesh,” Simel says. “I won’t eat the flesh of anything that walks on two legs.”

…Doesn’t that narrow it down a lot? I mean, that basically means no poultry, no shades, no goblins, no squirrels… Well, technically, squirrels mainly walk on all fours, right? They just happen to occasionally stand up for some reason. Do they still count as two-legged creatures, or does their walk define them more than their stand? But now my mind’s gone and wandered again, and Simel wants an answer. “Um,” I say, “sure?” A thought hits me. “Is it because of religious reasons, or is it more like an allergy, or—”

“It’s a sound moral standpoint!” Simel barks. “Alongside not killing children and their mothers and their fathers! Even the ridiculous non-believers of this society understand the basics of morals.”

Morals? Is that the new topic? “Morals are subjective,” I say cleverly. “Everything depends on the situation.”

“Yes,” Simel agrees. “It always depends, but some things are the same. Killing is always, at least to some extent, bad.”

“Even when the one killed is bad?”

“Even then,” Simel says, “they still have their divine right to life. Killing them may be less bad than killing an innocent child, but it is still at least somewhat damning in the eyes of the Gods.”

I can feel my nose scrunch up, which sends a small jolt of pain through my face. Oh, right, it broke. “Gimme a sec,” I say, turning away. “I’ve gotta fix my nose…”

Simel gives me a look as I start jerking my nose back and forth, trying with little success to get it back into its proper place. Each way I pull it just makes it crunchier, but it’s fine. It’ll heal up once I get it right. And if it doesn’t look good, I’ll just cut it off completely and start from scratch.

A little more to the left, then to the right, no, now it needs to go a little up, and with one last push…!

Pop!

Ahh, there we go. Turning away from Simel a little, I clear my nose, splattering the squishy floor with a bit of blood and fleshy bits.

“Alright, now then,” I say, turning back to Simel, only to find him pointing at me.

<Cure.>

127

I blink at him. My nose suddenly feels much better. I can breathe properly through it. But why…?

“Even bad people,” Simel says, “deserve to be treated like people.”

🚉🚂 choo! You have reached your destination.

Mind the gap! <3