With the unfamiliar cry of a monster still echoing in his ears, a third possibility forced its way into Magna’s thoughts, wedging itself neatly between drowning and freezing to death, being torn apart by a monster’s claws and fangs.
He had, after all, experienced every imaginable death in the VR games he’d built himself, but no matter how real those simulations felt, none of it had ever been real, and neither had the pain.
’I think I’ll pass on the first and third options, thanks, and go with freezing to death instead.’ It seemed, all things considered, the most painless way to go.
Not that anyone was actually offering him a choice in the matter.
After drifting along the river a while longer, he felt the basket bump into something hard and come to a stop.
It wasn’t difficult to work out what had happened. The basket had simply run aground somewhere near the bank.
Unfortunately for him, it had stopped right in the direction that terrifying scream had come from.
Panic seized him, his tiny heart hammering away inside his chest, silently praying the monster wouldn’t find him.
That prayer, however, went entirely unanswered, as heavy footsteps, along with the rustling of bushes, drew slowly nearer.
It seemed like precisely the moment for his golden finger to show up and save him.
Even he wasn’t heartless enough to reincarnate someone without leaving them a sliver of hope, so he’d rather assumed whoever had sent him here would extend the same courtesy.
And yet no miracle came to save him. As his final moments ticked away, what little hope he had left simply withered on the spot.
Heavy footsteps drew nearer still, and a massive shadow fell over him.
A moment later, an enormous head loomed above the basket, staring straight down into his eyes.
It wasn’t, in truth, all that enormous. About the size of a child, if anything.
That hardly made it look any less dangerous.
Its skin was a dark, sickly green. Its head was nearly round, its nose long and pointed, and the whites of its eyes carried a yellowish, unhealthy tinge.
Magna knew the creature at once. The instant he realized it was a goblin, despair sank even deeper into his chest.
In any fantasy world worth its salt, goblins ranked among the most ferocious, merciless creatures going, which meant his death was unlikely to be a gentle one.
"Chrrik... grrr... kaah!"
The creature made a string of strange noises, spit flying between its crooked, jagged teeth and splattering across Magna’s face.
Then it reached toward him with long hands, tipped in chipped but wickedly sharp claws, and lifted him gently out of the basket.
Holding him up to eye level, it began speaking in some language he couldn’t understand.
"Skkree! Kah! Grok! Grrk! Skreeeew!"
Magna was on the verge of passing out from sheer terror, and yet, somewhere through the haze of panic, something caught his attention.
The goblin didn’t seem the least bit interested in eating him. It was, if anything, holding him with surprising gentleness.
Even its voice wasn’t nearly as frightening as he’d expected. Rather gentle, actually, certainly gentler than the woman who was supposed to be his mother.
’Could this goblin actually be kind? Maybe... she’s a mother too?’
Hope came rushing back into Magna all at once.
Right up until the goblin made her next move.
After staring at his face a few seconds longer, she cradled him in one arm and pulled aside her old, ragged shirt, revealing two rather unlovely green breasts, which confirmed exactly what he’d suspected.
Realizing what was about to happen, Magna’s face twisted in horror. He began thrashing about in her arms.
’No... no... no... Just kill me, all right? Eat me... Plea...’
Before he could finish begging, she shoved her breast straight into his mouth.
Despite every scrap of mental resistance he could muster, his newborn body’s instincts betrayed him completely. His mouth latched on it, and he swallowed a mouthful of milk.
’Huh. Not actually that bad,’ he thought, surprised it tasted better than expected, before taking a few more gulps to fill his empty stomach.
It had already been hours since he was born, and he was, quite simply, starving. Given the circumstances, refusing wasn’t much of an option to begin with.
[New substance detected... Green Goblin Milk...]
[Energy particles detected...]
[Converting nutrients into energy...]
At the sudden flash of glowing blue text, Magna jerked in surprise, nearly choking on the mouthful he’d just swallowed.
"Chruk... koh..." The goblin looked down at him with concern and began patting his back with one hand.
Magna, meanwhile, was far too occupied with the messages to pay her much mind at all.
’What is this? My cheat?’ That was his first thought, though something about it felt oddly familiar.
The mechanical voice and the glowing blue text stirred up a strange sense of déjà vu, and it didn’t take him long to work out why.
It was the very first prototype assistant AI he’d ever built, years and years ago. Long before Terra, he’d gone through countless earlier versions, but he still remembered that first one clearly.
Wanting to be sure, he decided to test it. ’Hey, Gaia... is that you?’
That had been the name he’d given the AI back then, but no answer came.
’Maybe it needs a voice command?’
Unfortunately, the only sounds he could manage were the meaningless babbling of a newborn.
There was, however, another way to get a response out of it, drinking more milk.
Just as he went to latch on again for another mouthful, the goblin covered herself back up with her ragged shirt.
Then, holding him tight against her chest with both hands, she started walking deeper into the forest.
His anxiety began climbing again at that, though this time, he didn’t feel nearly so hopeless about it.
After walking through the forest for several minutes, they finally came to a stop before the mouth of a cave, hidden behind a curtain of thick vines.
This was apparently the goblin’s lair, as she slipped through the vines and vanished inside.
The cave was pitch black, swallowing Magna in complete darkness. And yet the loss of sight was soon overshadowed by something far worse, an overwhelming stench of damp and rotting flesh, choking his still-pristine lungs.
Bad as the smell was, it wasn’t even the worst of what waited for him in the dark.
There were others.
He could hear their voices echoing through the cavern, which meant this wasn’t the home of one gobliin, but of an entire group.
They might, of course, be just as kind as the one who’d found and fed him. But no matter how much he tried telling himself that, he couldn’t stop trembling as fear slowly took root somewhere deep inside him.
Feeling the baby trembling, the goblin looked down at him with gentle eyes. "Koh-hah..."
She patted him softly to reassure him, her touch carrying a simple, wordless message. ’Don’t be afraid. I’m here.’
Magna found the gesture surprisingly comforting, and the trembling running through his tiny body slowly began to fade.
Once she was sure he was all right carried on deeper into the cave. Before long, they reached a larger chamber, where the rest of the goblins lived.
Compared to the narrow tunnels they’d passed through, this chamber was much better aired and better lit too, thanks to bluish moonlight filtering down through cracks in the rocky ceiling.
There were at least a few dozen goblins inside.
Some were as large as the one carrying him, others much smaller, clearly still children.
As he took them all in quietly, the goblins noticed the newcomer as well.
The moment their eyes landed on the baby in her arms, the whole crowd lit up at once. The chamber filled instantly with excited voices, something close to a celebration.
"Skreew! Kuh! Kruk! Grok!"