The branches claw at my face as I crash through the undergrowth, this borrowed body screams with every step. The goblins' shrieks pierce the night behind me—screeching, laughing, taunting. My lungs burn, but I don't dare slow down. This frail form isn't mine. These legs, these trembling hands—they belong to someone else, someone younger. Yet the terror feels intimately real.
A root snakes up from the soil, and I stumble, my palms slamming into damp moss. Pain flares, sharp and bright, but there's no blood. No scrapes. Just a phantom ache that fades too quickly. I scramble upright, pulse roaring in my ears. The goblins are closer now. I hear their claws skittering over stone, their guttural snarls slicing through the trees.
"Faster," But the voice that escapes me is still wrong—a higher-pitched, fragile voice. A stranger's.
The forest thins abruptly, the ground dropping away. I skid to a halt at the edge of a cliff, gravel scattering into the void below. A vast, primordial forest stretches beneath me, its canopy shimmering under a swollen moon. The trees here are colossal, their trunks wider than skyscrapers, roots coiling like serpents.
A guttural growl spins me around.
The goblin emerges from the shadows, its hunched form silhouetted by the distant bonfire's glow. This one is larger than the others, its arms corded with muscle, a rusted cleaver gripped in clawed hands. Saliva drips from its jutting lower fangs, and its eyes
"Oh god…"
Its eyes—glow a sickly green, pupils slit like a cat's. It licks its lips, throat vibrating with a low, hungry purr.
I back toward the cliff's edge, pebbles skittering into the abyss.
"S-Stay back!!!" The words sound pathetic, even to me.
I try raising my hands in a boxing stance. But even I know how futile it is against swords and stones.
The goblin tilts its head, as if amused. Then it lunges.
Time fractures. The cleaver arcs toward my skull, and in that suspended moment, something flickers at the edge of my vision—a faint, golden haze, like sunlight glancing off glass. Instinctively, I throw myself sideways. The blade whistles past my ear, embedding itself in the dirt where I stood.
Too close. Too real.
The goblin wrenches its weapon free, snarling. But the golden haze lingers now, pulsing softly. I blink, and words materialize in the air before me, glowing like embers:
[ ! ] COMBAT INITIATED
[ Temporal Anchor (???-Star) Activated ]
[ Stamina: 49% ]
"What the hell—?"
The goblin strikes again. This time, the haze sharpens into a translucent grid overlapping my vision. Red markers flash where the creature's muscles tense, predicting the cleaver's trajectory. I duck on reflex, and the blade shears through a sapling instead of my neck.
[ Stamina: 19% ]
The numbers burn brighter, searing themselves into my mind. This isn't a hallucination. It's a system. And I take a gamble…
"Stats"
I breathe. The grid crackles, morphing into a screen. A blue interface erupts before me, its edges flickering like unstable code with text displayed in the center. Extremely organised:
Name: [ERROR]
Class: Anomalous Entity
Stats:
- Strength: 1-Star
- Vitality: 2-Stars
- Agility: 2-Star
- Intellect: 5-Star
- Stamina: 19%
Attributes:
Temporal Anchor (Passive?): A reminder that you're an outsider, you have been granted the authority to 'perceive' into the inhabitants of this world — With sufficient usage, you may see more…
Survival Instinct (Passive): "You died once. Try not to do it again 😏."
Hollow Frame (Curable Debuff): While the mind is expansive, the body is a hollow mimicry — merely a shell incapable of expressing full potential in the material plane.
Element Affinity:
Wind (Main Element): 1-Star
Mana Remaining: 250/250 MP
"It's like a game…"
My knees buckle. The goblin's roar jerks me back to reality but the interface remains, hovering just beyond focus. A game. A game. The fall, the endless dark… Had I somehow been uploaded? Trapped in some VR purgatory? Or was this the universe's sick joke, rebirthing me as a plaything for goblins and glowing menus?
The creature lunges once more, but now I see the red markers, the predictive arcs. I sidestep, and as the cleaver misses, I drive my fist into its sides, hoping I would hit its liver. Flesh bends. The goblin howls in pain.
[ Good Strike!!! ]
[ Stamina: 1% ]
"Shut up!"
I hiss at the notifications. Is it cheering me on? No judging on the passive [ Survival Instinct ], it's taunting me, in a sick encouraging manner.
Staggering back, the goblin writhes, its back hunched over, the area where I struck the goblin grasps. But it regains composure, most likely even more determined to kill this filthy human now.
But Wait.
[ Temporal Anchor ] stated that I have authority to "...'perceive' into the inhabitants of this world…"
If I'm capable of doing whatever little damage my punch has inflicted, that means I should be relatively equal in terms of stats as the goblin.
It's worth a shot to be honest, I highly doubt I'll be able to stagger it long enough with another punch seeing as my stamina is left at 1%. I quietly mutter in my mind
"Inhabitant in line of sight, stats…" praying that it gives me some information. The system buzzes, the blue of my own stats fading where a red interface forms in front of the goblin.
Name: Armed Goblin
Class: Apprentice-Class Monster
Stats:
- Strength: 2-Star
- Vitality: 3-Stars
- Agility: 3-Star
- Intellect: 2-Star
- Stamina: 51%
Attributes:
None
Element Affinity:
None
It's an Apprentice-Class Monster? Well nevertheless, its stats, except intellect, are above mine. And the worst part is that it's still at 51% stamina, even while swinging that huge cleaver.
It's a fight I can't hope to win…
I glance at the cliff's edge. The drop is lethal, but that's my only other option. Suicide, death by fall a second time…
However, the interface's [ Survival Instinct ] tag pulses urgently, as if whispering Jump. The goblin leers, rising unsteadily. Behind it, more screeches echo—the massive pack closing in.
Well what other option do I have left?
"Fine, Let's play."
I sprint toward the cliff. The goblin gives chase, its breath hot on my neck. At the precipice, I leap— forward and up, The goblin trips and overshoots, plunging into the void with a wail.
My fate is similar, but I trust my attribute. But what am I supposed to do to survive this? Even if the system said that this was the most optimal spot to be in, hell, it could be the most optimal spot to die a painless death.
Though, a recurring thought occurs once again. Inside my stats which the goblin didn't pose were two things. Elemental Affinity and Mana. I've heard these statistics somewhere before. Not in University, not in College. Not even in highschool nor middle school no, sometime long ago these phrases were familiar to me. Given the context of these words, there's only one time period in my life where I'd love to hear them be uttered.
"Elenos Arcane Academia: The Legend of the Light…"