Erwin grabbed the small hands on his cheeks. "Warm," he thought as he embraced them.
And with each passing second, his worries decreased, the void in his mind, the forbidden memory, all slowly receded.
"Sweet opium." Erwin embraced the warmth.
The woman smiled; her words crystallized before her once more. ["I can feel your pain, suppressed, hidden, but there."]
His pains, worries, and traumas were all pushed aside.
Sounds of the artillery quieted.
Screams suppressed.
Blood washed away.
"I wish I could stay like this forever." But he knew the truth.
It wasn't the first time he'd let someone put blinds over his mind.
He jumped away from the woman, putting some distance between them.
When he stopped, he took out his hatchet and glared at the woman. "What are you?"
"A hallucination, a ghost, some sort of monster?" Possible answers bounced in his head.
["An ally."]
"An ally against whom?" His eyes still locked on her, and he took more steps back. "Who sent that skeleton? Who summoned me to this planet?"
["It is complicated."] She then looked at Erwin. ["Better if I just show you."]
And as the last letter appeared, she disappeared.
In a panic, Erwin turned back and swung the hatchet with momentum from his body.
["Do not panic. I am not your enemy."]
Words appeared before Erwin.
"Where are you?" He asked, his eyes bouncing across the cave, searching for the woman.
["With you. Hijacking something not supposed to be on your body."]
As her sentence ended, a blue screen appeared before Erwin. Glitching in and out of reality, it stayed afloat before him for a couple of seconds, illuminating his face before disappearing.
"What was that?" Erwin mumbled it out loud. "It felt so familiar, so warm." His hands moved toward the screen.
["A curse, a cancer, the half I couldn't stop."]
The woman appeared before Erwin again.
["They want you to play a certain role, become a character in their story. That's what I am trying to stop. Them robbing you of your agency."]
Erwin shook his head. He tried to think of something.
"What play? What story?"
"Who are those 'they'?"
"Why me?"
Out of thousands of questions that appeared in his mind, none stood out more than one. "And that curse, what is it?" He managed to mutter.
["Curse of the ****"]
The crystal letters appeared as normal, but the last ones appeared in a form Erwin couldn't comprehend.
"The what?"
["The ****"] The woman looked at the abstractly shaped crystallized letters, with some disappointment on her face, ["I see. I am not allowed to give you any more information, not about this topic, not for now."]
"But the words." Erwin looked at the woman, his eyes shaking, his mind hurting as he tried to remember. "I can't… I can't remember, but they were there! I heard them speak."
The woman shook her head. ["I know, but they don't wish you to learn it, as they don't wish me to speak of it."] She disappeared once more, and the screen appeared before Erwin once more.
Its glitching has decreased, making it much more stable than before.
And in exchange, bright colors faded to a monotone gray.
It had no trace of the warmth from before.
[New Quest: Five Guardians
An unnatural storm that blocks all entrances and exits! Find and defeat five guardians of the forest to open a path and gain exclusive ****** and ****]
"What is that? Those redacted parts, what are they?"
["The carrot."] The woman appeared once more and pushed the screen away. ["This is the way they corrupt their players."]
"Just with that screen?" Erwin turned back to it. "But how?"
["That screen… Some call it the system, some the guideline. It provides quests and narratives, leading people into the path they desire."]
The woman grabbed the screen.
["Rewards provide tools and strength to endure the path, but also cause a highly addictive euphoria."]
"I see…" He wanted to say he understood; he really did, but the reality of his situation, being stranded alone in this forest, with so many seemingly impossible concepts thrown at him, made him unsure. He couldn't be sure.
"Then, this quest, I must avoid it, right?"
["No…It is complicated."]
What patient still inside him snapped. "The forest is covered in a storm, designed to ensure I stay trapped inside. Then, what? Am I to either bow to their path or wait here till my death?"
["I will take care of that part!"] The pale woman looked determined, her fists clenched before her chest while the stitch lines pulled at the corners of a mouth that couldn't open. ["By suppressing the guideline, I can stop the influence, but it will come at the cost of not getting any rewards."]
Erwin closed his eyes. "She speaks so conveniently, with a solution to everything; it's hard not to trust her. Makes it all worse for me." Unknowingly, Erwin started to tap the ground; the speed at which he did so increased as questions in his head multiplied.
"What to do with her? No answer comes to mind. Damn it." "Those guardians, what are they?"
The woman smiled. ["Then let me start!"]
*****
Morning had arrived. The sun was strong today. Slowly melting some of the snow.
It was also quiet, except for a small, humanoid creature covered in fur and wearing clothing made of plant fiber and leather.
He grumbled loudly as he dragged a wooden club on his back.
Leaving a trail on his path.
The chief shaman sent him out to scout alone, but he had eaten all his food by the third day and was now searching for something to snack on before returning to the tribe.
"No beast, no food. I hate snow." He repeated in his head.
His thick fur and rather durable skin made the cold somewhat bearable.
"At least quiet. No demon-bird."
Goblin recalled the sightings of the giant beasts on the horizon.
Birds with wings as big as trees, skin as tough as rocks.
But he quickly dismissed the thoughts. They weren't here, so he didn't care.
Goblin kept moving till he reached a small creek.
He sat on the edge of it and put his club next to himself. Grass and moss that grew around the creek made for a decent snack.
For a moment, he looked at his reflection.
"A big nose half the size of my face, triangle ears sharp as an obsidian arrow, and two overgrown fangs…" Goblin smiled. "Still handsome."
After wasting more time, he got up and began following the trail he made with his club.
"Today good-" He stopped.
A smell. There was an alien smell, a strong one of that!
He took a deep breath. His nostrils opened to the size of thumbs. "Someone's out there." Goblin braced himself.
"Prey or predator, what is it?"
He wished for the former, but couldn't get too comfortable.
"Come out!" He shouted, readying his club.
His head turned around; his eyes scanned the surroundings before locking onto a shadow growing over him.
He raised his hand to look for the source, but only had a single moment to see the sun shine from the sharp iron blade.
*****
Erwin got up, pulling the hatchet away and shaking the blood off it.
"I can only hope I needed to kill him." Erwin glared at the pale woman perched on a branch, swinging her legs.
["Sorry, I assumed with your background."]
"You assumed that I wouldn't mind taking a life."
Erwin crouched next to the goblin and closed its eyelids. "I can kill without hesitation if the situation calls for it. It's not like my hands are clean anyway," he got up and looked back at the woman. "The man who killed just because of orders is long gone. I prefer to have a reason if I take a life now."
["Understood."]
The woman disappeared and appeared next to Erwin and crouched before the goblin whose skull had just been cracked in two.
With her fingers, she pointed at red tattoos. ["Goblins live in tribes and worship different deities. Some tribes trade with humans, some avoid them."]
"And this one belongs to what sort of tribe?"
["This one hunts anyone who is not one of them for glory. They are warriors. A ferocious group."]
Erwin sighed. "Still, I cannot justify the kill with just that alone. And beyond that, I feel like I am about to poke a hornet's nest."
They were on a scouting mission today to locate the tribe and hunt their Chief Shaman, the first guardian.
Erwin secretly followed this specific goblin for two days, observing his behaviors, actions, and limits.
He glanced once more at the body. "Small, but strong, like a chimp. Maybe a little less strong."
Once he decided he knew enough, he wanted to leave, but the woman warned him.
["Do not underestimate them. If they sense an enemy, they will send more after you."]
With her encouragement, he decided to ambush the goblin, so he climbed a tree and waited for it to approach, taking the moment of confusion to attack.
"And now we killed him, how are we supposed to find the tribe's location?"
The woman pointed towards a tree.
The tree bark had carvings similar to the goblin's tattoo.
["You are already in their territory; follow the marks, and they will lead us to them."]
Erwin nodded. "Alright. But I am retiring for today. Before I see those so-called 'Hobgoblins' and assess their strength, I am not attacking anywhere."
["Wise. I shall accompany you back to the cave, or would you prefer quietness?"]
"It doesn't matter."
So, he turned around, taking the path back to his shelter. "First blood is drawn. Hope I won't repeat that mistake once again."