Daylight hours became a master's class in goblinry. He learned their routes by heart—marking patrols on mental maps etched with streams, thorn-choked bushes, and stretches of poison-bright mushrooms that glowed faintly underfoot. Sometimes he'd circle wide, ghosting their flanks just out of spear-range. Other times, cunning took over: dragging rocks through underbrush to forge false trails, piling leaves into deceptive rustles, setting distractions with tossed pebbles that mimicked fleeing prey.
By nightfall, hunger gnawed at his gut like a living thing, but fire was suicide—its glow a goblin magnet. Instead, he gnawed bitter roots pried from the soil, their earthy tang barely masking the rot, and chewed slivers of dried slime core. The taste was apocalypse incarnate—worse than death's doorstep—but it dulled his nerves, quieted the hollow roar in his belly with a sluggish ether buzz.
The goblins never relented. Once, their cackling laughter closed perilously near, boots thudding like doom. Noctis half-buried himself in foul-smelling muck—a stagnant puddle reeking of decay—forcing shallow breaths, willing his coughs silent as they lumbered past, oblivious inches away.
When the moon crested, silvering the chains overhead, he finally exhaled. Day one: survived.
I'm hunted, broken, starving to the marrow. But they haven't claimed me—not yet. One day. One trick. Tomorrow, they bleed.
Noctis stirred awake to goblin patrols splashing through the misted valley below, their snarls cutting the dawn chill. His body was a symphony of ache—slime burns itching like fire ants, side-throb pulsing with his heartbeat—but anger and necessity overrode it all, keeping him coiled and alert. His mind churned, already adapting, weaving yesterday's lessons into tomorrow's weapons.
Early on, he spied a pair of goblins squabbling near a hollowed log, guttural snarls rising in pitch. He couldn't parse their tongue, but body language screamed truth: leadership fractures, hunters turning fangs inward. Lesson one: exploit the cracks.
By noon, he'd claimed a perch on a massive chain draped between two floating rocks, shrouded in a tangle of leaves that dripped condensation onto his neck. Hours blurred as he observed: routines repeating like clockwork—circling boasts, grub-hunting breaks, returns to the futile man-hunt. He cataloged it all: alpha goblins barking orders, betas shadowing loyally, omegas lagging and earning bites or cuffing threats. Hierarchy rigid, but brittle—ripe for shattering.
Knowledge turned to action. When a trio veered off to chase a wild boar's crashing flight, Noctis shadowed them at a distance, studying their hunt: scent-tracking in weaving patterns, ambushes exploding in screeching violence. They tore the beast apart not with finesse, but overwhelming savagery, howling triumph to the indifferent sky. He grimaced, the scene mirroring his own slime-narrow escape too closely.
Near dusk, with their den temporarily emptied, he slipped closer: a root-carved depression in a colossal tree's base, littered with gnawed bones, splintered armor, and stinking hides. No direct assault—suicide. Instead, sabotage: scattering foul reek-plants whose stench warped trails, rigging traps with sharpened sticks tensioned by vines. Blind-rushing goblins would snag a foot, claim a hobble, seed chaos.
Evening tested his limits further. Food and strength demanded risks: nibbling trace mushrooms whose glow promised ether without instant death, stretching rations with slime-residue experiments that twisted his gut but fueled him. He slurped from a clear stream threaded with the world's eerie red tint, minerals sharp on his tongue, praying it wouldn't fester inside. Nausea warred with hunger, anxiety's itch crawling under his skin amid the isolation.
Then rain came—gentle patter swelling to a downpour, soaking earth and wounds alike, turning paths to sucking mud. He hunkered under a crooked overhang of rock, shivering as water traced cold rivulets down his back, mind racing through shadows.
They hunt. I learn. The game's tilting—slowly. Hold the line, Noctis. Dawn brings blood.
Noctis huddled in the rain-soaked shadows, the night's chill seeping into his bones like a persistent whisper of defeat. But his mind refused surrender, churning through the haze of exhaustion. You're not just running anymore, he told himself, the thought a mantra etched in blood. Every goblin you outmaneuver, every trap you spring, every hour you claw from the jaws of death—this is the real curriculum. They're monsters, sure, but riddled with flaws: predictable rage, fragile hierarchies, greed sharper than their blades. Learn those cracks. Exploit them. Turn their hunt into your forge.
Deep into the night, as mist coiled through the floating roots like ghostly serpents, a goblin sentry blundered into one of his vine-rigged traps. The sharp crack of snapping wood echoed faintly, followed by a piercing screech that split the darkness—a raw, guttural wail of shock and agony. Noctis peered from his concealed ledge, heart steadying into cold focus. The others swarmed in, torches sputtering in the damp, their silhouettes twisting as they hauled the thrashing figure free. Arguments erupted immediately: snarls rising to furious yips, claws flashing in threats, the pack fracturing under panic's weight.
A bared-tooth smile cracked his chapped lips, grim satisfaction uncoiling in his chest like a predator stretching awake. The game had tilted. He was no longer mere hunted vermin, scrambling in the dark. No—he was weaving into the world's cruel rhythm, a shadow with teeth, forcing them to adapt or bleed.
Before yielding to sleep's pull, Noctis forced a ritual check on his wounds. He peeled back sodden wrappings by dim moonlight, prodding the inflamed gashes with callused fingers. Infection loomed like a shadow—red streaks spiderwebbing from the slime burns, pus beading at edges—but for now, pain remained a manageable roar, dulled by willpower and scavenged sap. He swallowed a mouthful of bitter root mash, its earthy rot coating his throat, and replayed every lesson monsters had carved into him: wolves taught patience in the stalk, slimes precision in the kill. Resolve this, he growled inwardly. Make tomorrow goblin blood, not yours spilling again.
Exhaustion dragged him under as the system chimed softly, a cold glow in his mind's eye:
[Trait Progression: Trap Instinct (Minor)]
[Memory Imprint: Goblin Behavior—Patrol Radius Calculated]
Even with fear gnawing at the edges like a half-starved beast, he clung to hope—jagged, wrapped in razor edges. Tomorrow, I become the hunter. Weakness isn't a death sentence. It's an invitation: adapt, evolve, kill smarter.