"Human, why can you not stop talking?"
"Look, I was just trying to understand why you are doing all of this. What are you in this for? Why me of all people. Its business 101 to understand your partners in crime."
"As I said, human, nothing about this is illegal. You just so happened to come before us. We decided you to be the right tool for our plans."
"See, that is what I do not get. I have no memory of us ever meeting. Besides, who is that 'we', I only see you here. And why did you not tell me about your plans?"
"Human, can we just concentrate on the task at hand? The answer will remain: You will know once your possess enough strength."
Moros would have scoffed if he was currently in control of his body. To him there was no need to act all mysterious.
If the entity wanted him dead, it would have killed him a while back.
If it was trying to silence him, it would simply need to kill him or not reply to any of his questions. Yet, here the entity was walking around in his body, making a big show about family and friends while brutally roasting some goblins.
Afterwards it would go on about granting Moros some power in exchange, which he was totally not against. But, it did feel like this was a huge show about practically nothing.
It was like one worked 30 years to have countless monster cores to buy everything their heart ever desired, then using that money to buy a lollipop worth 1 small monster core.
Everything just did not seem worth the effort.
Not that Moros was complaining about the situation at hand, he was not losing out on anything. He only had the tiniest of issues with one peculiar thing, what was he supposed to do while the thing went on and on doing its things?
It's not like there was much to do in this scenario. Most of it was walking around waiting for a goblin to come join the family.
Poor guy would then be grilled upon a spear and a translucent ghost type thing would bow to Moros' body for granting it the chance to live together with all the other burned buddies.
Moros would feel some mana enter his body and a bit more strength…hurray!
And what did Moros have to do during all of this? Exactly nothing!
He still saw everything that happened, but beyond that it was sheer boredom. The powerful existence did not even want to discuss financial advice with him. With so much experience, being so powerful…there had to be so much it could have taught him.
Instead, it went on just to tell him all about honour, dignity and virtue, all things that could not be bought.
Which Moros could only laugh at, like the honour of piloting his body that was bought with giving more power and mana to him, or the dignity of joining the family that the goblins paid for by being turned into charcoal by a spear.
Those things could never be bought.
The same applied to the virtue, or their pride or any other fancy term they would use. None of that would ever apply after they sold out to use Moros as a tool.
If an entity, no matter how powerful, settled for the likes of him, he could never believe that those ideals still applied to them. Times must have been rough for them.
Of course, that means he needed to exploit their weaknesses and maximise his gain, before the entity would realise its mistake.
Suckers like this were a rarity and it was his duty to rob them blind.
However, the plans had to wait as yet another strange situation developed in front of his eyes.
From the left, a goblin came sprinting towards him, eyes filled with hatred. From the right came another goblin, walking towards Moros in a cold, calculated manner.
Yet, as they both stood in front of his eyes, things turned weird.
Angry goblin looked to the right and stared at its lookalike in great confusion. Goblin 2 returned the gaze and was equally confused about the goblin that looked just like it.
Both approached the other and scrunched their noses, taking in the smell unique to goblins.
And yet, the second the sensation entered their specific noses, both drew their weapons and rushed at one another, willing to kill the other without a second thought.
Leaving Moros baffled as to why they had all forgotten about him.
"What is this abomination?" its voice dripped with disgust.
"What abomination? These are 2 goblins that have forgotten how to goblin and are now fighting each other."
"Do not dare to claim that my family and that vermin are the same ever again. This thing exudes an aura of your kind, human! Who has committed the grave sin of tarnishing our family?!"
Moros failed to see just how any of the two resembled humans. A goblin's notable characteristics were hating men and lusting after women, which were not exactly traits that humans had.
Countless other monsters fell in any of these 2 categories. Judging it to be based on humans simply following these criteria was not exactly a good way to determine the truth.
"How exactly do you think that a human is in there, somewhere? No offence, but to me your family looks just the same. Both are green, bleed green, and both want to murder me."
He simply wanted to genuinely understand where the difference lay.
Their battle prowess looked about the same, one wielded a small dagger, the other brandished 2 slightly longer knives, was that it?
They fought the same, dodged the same, acted the same, their ears twitched the same darn way. How could he possibly differentiate between the two and claim one of them has human in them?
"There is an easy way to determine if my family has been tainted by your kind. Do simply make it feel angry, it shall respond in kind."
Moros had to think for a second, what would he have to do to make a human mad? So angry, in fact, that the human part would respond to his words?
Should he insult its magic? Should he insult its weak fighting strength? No, these things were not enough to get a response out of a goblin that was busy fighting its clone.
He had to use the big guns, something that would turn even the most patient man into a furious, screaming lunatic. He had to go there, he had to talk about politics.
"I do think Elysium invests too much money into its festivities, most people are not worth such enormous spending."
The goblin turned around, looking Moros dead in the eye, if looks could have killed he would be more than dead, he would be super dead.
"Your mother is too expensive, have you not considered how valu-"
Its head was cut off, mid-rant as the real goblin decapitated the fake goblin in one fell swoop. Yup, there was definitely a human in there. It talked like a human, responded like one and did not shut-up even if its life was in danger─that is 100% a human.
"See I told you it was of one of your species. My family would have simply stabbed you instead of insisting on a debate."
"How very human of them."
The entity ignored Moros' commentary. It simply stepped forward quickly to introduce yet another goblin to its family.
Though Moros was not exactly interested in the procedure playing out in front of his eyes. His thoughts were more on why there were goblins in this world with humans in them.
Was that the reason why the prison facility kept on killing so many goblins? Though what did they need these many goblin-human hybrid bodies for?
If they really cared about these things going against nature, they would have simply blown this planet up and called it a day. They were not after charity, that much was obviously true.
Which raised another question, why were there suddenly normal goblins on this planet?
If there had only been the human ones, where had the real ones come from?
"Hey, you not god-godish being, do you have any idea why your family is suddenly here?"
"My influence is severely limited to what is before my eyes. Do you see a reason for their timely arrival? It is the gods' grand plan at work. Their dirty hands have arranged all that you see before yourself."
"Does it not sicken you? To know that you are toyed with, to see these lives being treated as mere tools for entertainment?
Every word was delivered with sicking hatred the entity carried for the other gods. It was deep, refined over countless years and turned into the bottomless abyss of hate that it was today.
Moros had no strong feeling about any of this if he was honest.
He was just here to live a long life and make a whole lotta money. What the Gods did for their entertainment would not involve him beyond sending a few goblins to the family in the afterlife.
It was a low level planet with weak creatures all over it, what could the Gods possibly do here beyond mindless, low level things.
Turn this world into hell?!