It had been three months since Ragnar transmigrated to this strange world which the goblins called the "Goblin Plane". He had easily taken the place of the original Ragnar Kalwar as he had no lingering emotions towards his life at Earth. He had achieved everything he had wished for there, standing lonely at the peak of Earth's martial artists. His only wish in this new life was to fight stronger and better opponents!
It was Monday today and Ragnar had taken the metro at 7am as usual to reach GIT by 8:30 am. He had built a strange hobby in the past three months. He liked to read webnovels on his gobile phone while travelling to the institute in metro.
In a noisy and packed metro with all the white collar goblins commuting to their office in the morning, he raised his head reflexively when he felt a pair of condescending eyes staring straight at him. They belonged to the class president, Nandini.
"Hey Prez. Can you please stop staring?"
"Oh, you are here as well. What a coincidence. Do you usually take the metro to the institute too, Ragnar?"
"As if I would believe you." Ragnar said in a whisper.
"Do you think I care whether you believe me or not? What I have said is the absolute truth." Nandini glared at a poor goblin engineer beside Ragnar until he vacated his seat and she sat next to him. A subtle but pleasant scent came from her which made Ragnar nervous. He was never good at dealing with girls, neither in his past life nor this one.
Nandini's lips curled upwards looking down at the despairing Ragnar.
As Ragnar observed the class president from the corner of his eyes, he could understand the feelings Sorle held towards her. However, it was none of his business. He did not want to pursue a girl more muscular and taller than him. The pursuit and the subsequent relationship with her would hurt his small ego of a martial artist.
After the awkward interaction, they both looked at their respective phones. Ragnar opened up the novel app he was reading before, while Nandini watched recorded videos of the previous day lectures at the Institute. Studying on the metro while going to the institute in the morning, she was truly a hardworking student, worthy of being GIT's topper.
"You're working hard as usual, Prez."
"Ain't that obvious? Meanwhile, what are you looking at?"
Nandini's gaze was fixed on the virtual projection of his gobile phone.
"A webnovel? Since when did you start reading?"
"Gi-ugh, I recently got hooked to the idea of binge reading webnovels while travelling everyday."
"Is that so? I also read webnovels."
Ragnar was surprised. 'This machine like scholar goblin woman also has a hobby?'
"Not your average goblin women, Goblin tycoon's daring wife, Rebirth of the Goblin Queen."
Ragnar was once again shocked. 'President reads romance webnovels!? Stop. Just stop prez, you are destroying your image in my mind.'
"Which webnovels do you like to read?"
"I am more of a war theme high fantasy reader. I have read Goblin Lord of Mysteries and The Legendary Goblin Mechanic recently."
Just as they were starting to enjoy their conversation, the metro lights turned off just as they were travelling through an underground station and the inside of the metro coach became dark.
~ Kiieeeck! The metro shook loudly and let out a metallic sound as it stopped.
Suddenly, the space inside the metro was warped and distorted to increase the area inside it. All the passengers were pushed to the either side of the metro. There were screams and smashing sounds all mixed together for a while until it became quiet.
In the middle of the whole metro coach, there was a square stage. It was similar to a Huyen langlon stage where martial artists fought each other on Earth. However, there was a translucent wall wrapped around the stage which gave off a WWE caged ring vibe.
As soon as all the passengers noticed the stage, there was a mass panic among the goblins.
Goblin women and other students who were standing in the middle of the metro and were pushed to either side of the train, groaned. There were also many weak normal goblins like engineers, mech designers, technicians and doctors who were easily injured during the distortion of space. Even in such a weird and crazy situation, all the goblins looked at their gobile phones for updates from the Goblin Union on the current situation.
"There is no virtual projection!?"
A goblin engineer shouted. Behind him, the technicians and mech designers sympathized with him.
"In the whole history of Goblin Union, there has been no situation where our phones were cut off from the quantum network!"
"How could this be? What is happening?"
For a moment, there were only shrieks and screams of panicking goblins waving around their gobile phones. When suddenly, a Goblin Noble student tried to open the sliding door with all his strength.
"Dammit, it won't even budge!!"
Yes, it was the smart aleck Sorle, who tried his best, but the sliding door didn't even budge.
"Make way for me."
Sorle immediately made way for his boss Ecbert who was a Grade 1 Goblin Lord. He was someone who was at the peak of the goblin evolution tree. If someone could smash the sliding door apart in this coach, it would be him, Ecbert England.
Ecbert ran from one side of the metro to the other and punched the sliding door with all his strength. This punch contained full force of a 202cm tall Goblin Lord. A true Grade 1 creature of the Goblin Plane.
~ Punch!
The sliding door of the metro still didn't budge a bit. Ecbert and all the other passengers were shocked.
Meanwhile, Ragnar was surprised by an entirely different reason. Ecbert's punch had a slight semblance of a nascent technique behind it. Even though, it did not follow the laws of physics of Earth, it held a completely different magical power. Looking at Ecbert's slumped arm and his pained expression, it looked like this power used the biological energy of a Goblin Lord.
Although Ragnar quickly shook his head to clear his mind of thoughts of battle and stood like nothing happened, Nandini who was observing him from the shadows smiled at his foolish appearance.
"Calm down everyone! Take deep breaths, it will help." Mikazuki August. 210 cm tall. Goblin Lord. He stepped forward to handle the situation. He was a sturdy goblin with red crew cut hair and had an intimidating aura of natural suppression towards all lower ranked goblins.
"Are you all calm now? All of you are requested to stop your actions and pay attention to me for a moment."
All the goblins sobbing or trying to make their gobile phones work stopped. Once everyone's eyes were gathered on him, the giant goblin opened his mouth again, "As some of you might know, Law IPC 3A of Goblin Union, in the event of a disaster, higher ranked officers will take charge. That is why I will now control the situation."
"What, who are you?" Ivar asked immediately.
All of the other goblins belatedly recovered from his imposing aura and strongly resisted the world 'control.' Then, the giant goblin pulled a mech pilot military card out of his wallet. "I am currently a Goblin Union military mech pilot captain serving in the ANL7 battalion."
Immediately, the weaker goblin's faces showed signs of relief.
"Soldier! He is a soldier."
However, it was too early to be relieved. A small window emerged in front of every goblin passenger's eyes.
[Evolution begins!]
[Evolution Scene #1 – Qualifications]
[ Difficulty: Pseudo-Grade1
Rules:
1. You will gain Ether by killing a Goblin on the stage or subsequent scenes in the future.
2. The natural suppression aura of higher ranked goblins are now disabled.
3. Only when you kill a goblin on the stage will you advance to the next scene.
4. Maximum kills on the stage before automatic promotion to the next scene: 10 Goblins.
5. Evolve to survive the war!
Clear Conditions: Kill one fellow goblin
Time Limit: One Hour
Compensation: 5 free to distribute Ether points
Failure: Death ]