"An undead bird, huh? I praise you for creativity, but unfortunately it sticks out pretty well out here in Lorre," Lysander explained as I could do nothing but stare down his burning scythe from my crippled host.
"This is getting old, dude," I sighed to him telepathically. "I-if you want me so bad, then why don't you propose and marry me already? Or at least wine and dine me."
"…What?" the reaper asked
I cringed at my own words. I was trying to sound badass and sarcastic in light of his threats, but I instead ended up sounding like a mumbling moron.
"Forget it. What are you going to do to me now?" I asked as my assailant swung his scythe over my skull neck.
"Well like that adorable icy slug that you were controlling a few days ago, I'm guessing that this is just a familiar that you summoned," the dark-armored man replied as he bit his lip. "So it doesn't really matter if I incinerate this body or not. Maybe you could be nice and tell me where you real body is?"
"…uh, no. Not happening." I answered.
"A pity. Well, in that case, I'll have no choice but to follow my instincts and hope that me killing this thing will allow me to sense the qi linking you to it lead back to your body," Lysander grinned. "Are you feeling lucky?"
Without giving me a chance to respond, the end of his weapon became a flamethrower as he blasted my vulture corpse with a spray of fire. I lost connection with the bird in less than a second, blinded again…but only momentarily.
"Alright…where are you?" Lysander asked as he raising his scythe while the last remnants of the undead buzzard fizzled away. "Aw don't tell me—I don't sense anything."
Of course he didn't. I'd quickly scanned for the kernels of nearby organisms just before I got turned into a well-done vulture BBQ, and I was able to link myself into a fluttering moth hovering around a torch in the street below. Now flying upwards with the powdery-grey bug, I couldn't help but chuckle to myself as the mage's head whipped around back and forth, likely trying to catch a glimpse of my kernel energy returning to my real corn body. I wasn't even sure if I'd be able to mask my presence during the transition, so I was playing it safe.
I flew away to rejoin my comrades, looking below to see the Grey Storm mercenaries still rushing down the street and roughly interrogating people. Judging from some of the screams or yells or pain, I wondered if they were straight up torturing people for information on me. It made me feel bad, and I wouldn't at all have blamed these innocent people for disclosing everything they knew about me and what I'd done.
"Guys? Guys, can you hear me?" I asked while fluttering down to the road out of Carverstead.
They could, but I couldn't hear them from behind the barrier. Lyka helplessly pressed her hand against the purple flames, looking longingly at me, while Krissy just shook her butt at me. Darotha rolled her eyes, and Dirx just grinned. My moth host couldn't go through the barrier, of course, but I figured that I was far enough away from the main part of town so that Lysander wouldn't see me reconnect to my body. I did it as fast as possible, where I was pleasantly surprised to feel that I'd passively absorbed many kernels from my group in the meantime, so I decided to activate my corn's "eyes and ears".
"Alright—I'm back," I greeted, prompting Lyka to shower my kernelled body in kisses.
"I missed you so much, Master!" she cried. "I was worried about you the whole time!"
"What's going on in there?" Dirx asked.
I explained to everyone what I'd seen, how two powerful members of the Royal Mage Corps had arrived in search of me, putting the whole town on lockdown and dispatching hired mercenaries to search the townsfolk. Lyka and Darotha were appalled, but the goblins weren't surprised.
"The mages and the regular soldiers in the Franturro army aren't the biggest fans of each other," Dirx explained. "I'm not surprised that this headless guy went with mercenaries instead of just leading troops from the army."
"But a headless horseman? That's a class of undead," Darotha added with concern. "What's the king doing? All undead are supposed to be banished."
"Either way, I'm the one that they're looking for, so I'm going to need to do something about these guys so that innocent people don't get hurt," I sighed. "Those Grey Storm guys are being pretty rough with the civilians."
"And Daddy is just letting it happen?" Lyka asked with a frown.
"His hands are tied," I admitted. "He doesn't really have a choice. The headless guy threatened to slaughter his troops if they got in his way."
"Well isn't this a sour hog," Dirx scoffed. "Is there anything we can do, corn-man?"
"Nothing that you guys can do, but there is something that I can," I stated sincerely. "If it's me they want, then I should confront them myself. Maybe I can get them to chase me out of town so that they can at least leave Carverstead alone."
I expected a lot of "don't do it, Tino, it's too dangerous!" from my group, but instead, I was shocked to find that everyone was down with the plan.
"You can do it, Master, I believe in you!" Lyka exclaimed. "I've seen an innocent-looking corncob do amazing things so far. You don't need to fight those guys, but even if you did, I could see you beating them!"
"Oh yeah, you got this, sweetie," Krissy said with a kiss of her lips. "I'm not worried."
"Corn-man, if you were any other random person, I'd be very concerned," Dirx added. "But heck, why should I be with you? You're the all-powerful vegetable that saved that town once already."
And like that, I was forced to follow through with my plan and sacrifice myself as a diversion to lead the mages and their mercenary team away from Lyka's town. I was confident that I could beat many mid-level enemies around us with some prep-time…but those two mages? Especially the horseman guy? Those felt like final-bosses to me.
Naturally, I was very, very concerned.