The goblin king introduced himself as Czar and went around naming the children in front of him, one by one he named the babies, until it was my turn, with a cynical smile he pointed at me with his index finger and touched my forehead.
"Greedy"
Greedy? Is he still referring to that affair with the elf? Not enough he continued his explanation.
"All of you from now on will live to serve and protect me, so that in 2 years we can participate in the event"
He didn't say much more, and left us alone in a room, for a week, without food or water, newborns, but mysteriously no one died, the room seemed to provide life energy, and it kept us nourished and healthy.
In time I became even more certain, Czar evolved by finding this place, somewhere in this castle there must be a chamber with abundant life energy.
A week later he came back, we could all be considered human children of 5, we could walk, run, and in the case of that brother of mine who is running at the king, bite.
Of the ten of us, Strong, as he was christened, seemed to be the strongest, at least physically, his body was muscular, even without him having done any exercise, and also he was three times bigger than an average child goblin, which made him look like an adult.
"Stay in your seat, you little shit"
With a precise kick to the chin, the boy flew like a ball towards the wall, no one dared to rebel anymore.
"Everyone stand here in front of me and introduce yourselves"
Czar wasn't very creative when he christened us, the one with the blue eyes became Blue, the one with the red eyes, Red, the muscular Strong and so on and so on and there was me, the one he didn't even think of a name for.
"Greedy"
The king crossed his arms and waved, then he motioned for us to follow him and the very moment I stepped outside the room I could feel the difference in the air, the life energy surrounding me, it was almost as if I was punched in the stomach and I felt difficulty breathing.
"Don't weaken now brats, follow me"
Every step I took made me lose my breath, and it went on for some time. I looked back and saw that two had fallen and were not moving, they say that when the body gets used to vital energy, the lack of it causes the body to suffer a reaction, ranging from weakness, to death.
"Ignore them, they will catch up with us at some point."
We walked from that side of the castle to the other where he showed us a hole in the ground that apparently had no end, I recognized that kind of entrance, it was a dungeon.
"I have gained my powers here, fight, survive and return, only then will you be eligible to be my soldiers"
As he saw that no one had understood, he without any remorse pushed us into the hole and I felt myself in free fall until I hit the ground and realized that I had finally reached the end, there was no one around me, none of those who had been pushed here with me.
"Hello?"
I spoke aloud in my native tongue, but there was no one here to answer me, however as I thought I could hear the unmistakable sound of the crawling of a gelatinous creature.
"Pook"
That was the sound it made when it saw me, apparently it was surprised, its body looked like a blue jelly with a little ball floating in the center, I know what that is.
(Dungeon detected)
(Synchronizing...)
(Dungeon being renovated to match the level of the goblin named: Greedy)
(Gene points detected: Multiple sources moving)
Immediately upon seeing the slime I felt a little dizzy and various information appeared in front of me.
(Race: Common slime)
(Note: Incredibly weak)
(Weaknesses: Core exposed)
(Difficulty rating: 5/100)
Still curious about the creature I approached to touch it, but as soon as I thought about it, a short movie appeared in my head.
In the movie I would walk up to the creature and touch it, as a result my hands would be burned, then I would fall to the ground from the pain and be melted and die, my last breath symbolized the end of the movie.
I was thinking about touching him when that movie appeared, so this movie could only mean one thing, I could see the consequences of my action, to make sure of that I looked at a stone on the ground and thought of something, and again the movie appeared.
In the movie I would throw the stone and hit the core easily and thus the creature would die, it seemed like a good idea so I carried it out and like in the movie the stone went through the slime's body and hit the core and destroyed it, a "pop" sound was heard and the slime disappeared leaving behind only a sliver of the core on the ground.
(Collecting spoils for gene evaluation)
When I picked up the sliver on the ground I could still feel the slime's viscosity, it was wet and cold, and sticky, I looked down and couldn't see anything special or abnormal about it.
(Evaluation started)
(Please ingest the object)
I thought about eating it, but to my surprise there was no movie for that, surely there must be some trigger or requirement, I just haven't figured it out yet.
Ignoring this fact, I ate the Slime chip and to my surprise I felt a small burning sensation in my stomach, it passed quickly, but no doubt it made me feel stronger.
(Gene points acquired)
(Gene points +1)
And what do I do with these points? I just ate a piece of a monster for nothing, but then again, I am a monster now, aren't I? This should get more recurrent, god damn it, I didn't think things would turn out this way, that's why I didn't pray to anyone.
Still with complaints in my head I went on my way, two more slimes appeared, but they were taken care of in the same way as the first one, it was then that I realized that this place was much bigger than it seemed.
I couldn't see the ceiling and the stone walls were freezing, I was barefoot and naked and still didn't feel cold, that's strange. I was only following one corridor, there was pottery on the floor, so I concluded that this must be the castle's dungeon.
When I got to the end of the corridor I met an acquaintance, it was another goblin soldier of the King Czar, named Long Neck, because his "limb" is long, he was also naked so "it" is on display.
(Race: Named Goblin - Long Neck)
(Note: Completely useless)
(Weakness: left arm, right leg)
(Difficulty rating: 10/100)
His body color is a moss green, his arms are long and thin, so are his legs, he is extremely normal and has the appearance of an ordinary goblin. Again the movie didn't come up so I decided to ignore him, but when I approached him I got a fright.
"Brat"
That was the word he spoke as I stood next to him, how did he know my language? I couldn't tell, what I knew was that he was looking at me as he said it, he surely meant me.
"Maybe I am, what about you?"
"Smart"
He didn't even blink as he said that, it seemed like an obvious conclusion to him, he had a stone in his hand, it was pointed and was dirty with slime, he used his own intelligence to beat the slimes, even though his left hand was burned, which means he touched his enemy.
"Together"
He took his stone and pointed to the door, it was obvious that he wanted to go with me, and as I was intrigued at how he could speak my language I agreed, as soon as I opened the door I felt a strong nausea.
"Is this room hell?"