Kaito moves silently through the dark corridors of the dungeon, careful with each step.
There is a melancholy mood in the air, everything is very quiet.
Sometimes, he hears strange sounds that seem to echo from far away, but since he walks carefully, he is sure that he is not being followed.
After his escape from the battle with the higher goblins, he noticed that the small goblins scattered throughout the area are more alert, as if they have been alarmed by his presence.
'These little fuckers are smarter than I thought They were now patrolling cautiously, scanning every corridor in search of the intruder.' But somehow, Kaito manages to stay hidden and avoids fighting them.
'I should go back and see if anyone is still alive who can help me defeat the superior goblins. Besides, it's been over thirty minutes since we entered the portal, we're running out of time.' Kaito thinks as he waits for a trio of small goblins to leave the tunnel he is in.
As Kaito walks through the dungeon and approaches the spot where the battle took place a few minutes ago, his heartbeats and breathing got faster. There was a mixture of hope and fear, after all, Kaito left everyone behind; he would feel guilty if they were all already dead.
'Maybe they just runned alway…' he thought while looking in front of him. But when he arrives at the place, he is confronted with a frightening, but also hopeful scene.
The bodies of his companions are gone. None of them. Instead, there are only pools of blood and tracks leading forward, a gruesome trail, toward the path the party was following before they started the fight.
The sight of blood splattered everywhere makes Kaito shudder. His eyes roam over every inch, trying to find answers as to why the goblins took their bodies. It was not a common habit of the goblins he knows. On the opposite, the goblins would usually cut them up into several pieces and leave them on display.
The air gets heavy and the feeling of uneasiness overcomes him, causing the fake awakened to immediately hide behind some of the cave's pointy rocks. His mind quickly ran through the options.
"It is not normal for ordinary goblins to work with superior goblins. Normally, they are two different kinds of monsters with different cultures and behaviors. I wonder if there is a shaman here..." He whispers to himself.
The hypothesis crosses Kaito's mind, but he shakes his head in the negative.
"No, that's not possible. We're not in the Mortal Tower. This is real life". Kaito insists, but suddenly he looks to his left and sees his reflection in a large pool of blood.
Seeing the reflection of his face, and the extreme similarity of his current appearance to that of his avatar from Mortal Tower, makes him know that he can no longer ignore the coincidences. First the change of his appearance, then the shop system identical to the one in the game he used to play, and now the goblins and their similarity to the ones in Mortal Tower... There is definitely a connection, if only through the irony of the game's creators.
"So, yes, there could be a shaman goblin here. That's the only creature that can convince two different types of goblins to work together. Kaito defines and then takes a deep breath. "Sheshh! Okay, it looks like the boss here is going to be pretty tough. And if I'm really right, there's a reason why the goblins took all of them."
A Goblin Shaman is an extremely rare type of creature in the Mortal Tower, and Kaito has never heard of one existing in real life in all these years.
The shamans of different races use decomposition to extract a kind of mana called World Energy, which can only be extracted from other living beings, but they especially prefer humans because they exist in abundance and carry a lot of mana compared to most creatures.
Of course, all this only applies to the reality of the Mortal Tower, but for Kaito, even the slightest resemblance would be the best news he could receive, because it could mean that all the other Awakened Ones brought to the shaman by the superior goblins are still alive.
Determined to move on and try to find out where his colleagues have gone, Kaito follows the blood trails with his eyes, thinking that this might be the only clue for him.
Then, just as Kaito is about to get up and leave the rock he is hiding behind, he notices movement in the corridor he is about to follow. His body stiffens and he slows down, carefully watching the corridor where the blood trails lead.
A small goblin emerges from the darkness. Its bright eyes are alert and it holds a small torch in its right hand.
Immediately, Kaito considers his options. He knows that if he confronts the goblin face to face, he might draw more enemies to his position if he yells. Kaito must do this quietly, but how?
'This might be a good time to finally use this thing.' Kaito thinks.
A few minutes ago, after getting the items from the merchant's shop, Kaito also took a few seconds to look up his skills in the Skill Usage Guide.
Since he is level 1, he only has two skills. However, none of them look like the ones he had in Mortal Tower.
His main skill seems to be called
'I can do this. How should I do it? Oh, right, take a deep breath and smell the blood. Well, that won't be too hard here.' Kaito concludes, looking at the puddle of blood that almost touches his left foot.
Then Kaito draws in the air with his nostrils and at that moment, his pupils change color. From a beautiful emerald green, his pupils turn an intense shade of red. At the same time, the four fangs in his mouth grow exponentially. Kaito also feels that everything around him becomes more sensitive, such as smells, sounds, and even his vision. He can hear every movement of the goblin near him in detail.
In addition, Kaito sees everything around him in variations of the red color spectrum, and for some reason this almost makes him laugh, but he restrains himself and jumps from behind the stone he was standing on, running towards the little goblin, who doesn't even have time to react, because Kaito surprises him from behind and cuts his neck, but not with a dagger, but with his mouth.
The goblin makes a muffled sound of surprise and pain as Kaito pins him down with his sharp fangs. The force of the bite combined with the speed of the attack is overwhelming. Kaito squeezes hard, using his strength to choke the creature with his own blood.
The goblin struggles desperately to free itself from the Awakened's grasp. Its glowing eyes fill with fear as its weak hands flail desperately at Kaito's face, but its attempts are in vain. The goblin's strength begins to fade, and its stamina quickly dwindles.
The goblin's life energy flows into Kaito, nourishing and strengthening him. He feels a comforting warmth coursing through his body, and the goblin grows weaker and weaker.
When the goblin finally falls to the ground, completely exhausted, Kaito releases the inert body and takes a few steps back, returning to his normal state. His fangs return to their original size and his pupils turn emerald green.
[You have restored 300 health to the Common Goblin.]
[You have killed a common goblin. You have gained +200 XP.]
Kaito looks at the defeated goblin on the ground, breathing heavily, and cannot believe that he was the one who killed this creature.