December 14, 6:30 PM JST / Eldora, Northern Lunarest Border – Thrash Clan Rally, The Hollow (Dawn)
“When the fire dies, the ash still remembers who burned.”- Thrash war saying
The world came back in layers.
First was the cold.
Not sharp winter cold, but that damp, creeping chill that crawled up from the ground and sat in his bones. Wet dirt pressed against Rin’s knees and shins. His hands rested on his thighs exactly where he had left them, fingers curled loosely over rough goblin skin.
Then came the sound.
Goblin voices carried up and down the slope, muffled by mist and distance. Wood thudded, something heavy dragged, someone laughed too loud at a joke he could not hear clearly.
Last came the light.
His vision brightened slowly, grey lifting to pale blue. The mist that had been thick and dark when he logged out still clung to the Hollow in low curtains. Now it glowed faintly, catching the first thin strands of sunrise pushing over the Lunarest border.
Rin drew in a breath.
The air tasted of wet earth, old poison, and burned canvas. The back of his throat still remembered the gas, a sour ghost sitting behind every inhale.
“This world’s realism never ceases to impress me,” Rin thought, letting his eyes adjust as the Hollow resolved around him again.
A small overlay slid into his vision, tucked politely into the edge of his HUD so it did not block the view.
Aria’s voice followed half a heartbeat later, right in his ear.
“Welcome back,” she said.
Her tone was crisp, awake, and a little too amused for someone who had just watched him drop into a murder crater for the second time today.
“Vitals are clean. No spike when you dropped in. You’ve been out for about an hour real time.”
Rin let out a slow breath, watching it puff in front of his goblin face, a faint cloud that mingled with the lingering mist.
“Good to know,” Rin said. His voice came out low and rough in goblin form, but the sarcasm was unchanged. “It’s… reassuring to have that information. How’s the pod running? I know it’s still running on overdrive.”
He pushed more weight into his legs and shifted.
His knees complained first. His calves followed, stiff from kneeling in one position. When he moved, the ground sucked at his feet with a damp pull. Ash stuck to his toes and the lower edges of his armor, clinging in grey bands where leather met skin. The Call of the Bones necklace rested against his sternum, warm and steady under his ragged chest piece, like it had been sitting there the whole time watching over him.
Aria’s keys clicked faintly through the headset.
“About two in the morning when you bailed,” Aria said. “Just after that mess with New Covenant. As far as the pod, I’ll run some analysis from my side and give you an update. It’s insane you got these old things running with no fresh parts.”
A small clock blinked into place in the corner of his HUD, synced to server time.
[SERVER TIME – ELDORA]
06:02 – Dawn Cycle, Northern Lunarest Border
Rin pushed himself fully upright and stretched his arms out once, then rolled his shoulders. His goblin frame still felt wrong and right at the same time. Shorter reach than his real body, different balance point, more spring in his legs than he had any right to have. He stretched his legs out one after the other, trying to settle back into the smaller build he was slowly getting used to.
His level marker still glowed on his HUD.
[Lvl 10 | Kaiseki – Goblin, Thrash Clan]
Title: Descendant of Shiv
Faction: Thrash Clan – Trusted
He let his gaze drag across the Hollow.
Where four players had died, there were only scorched marks and stubborn scraps of melted life. The gas Grok and Muzzle had pumped through the camp was gone, but Rin could still smell it if he focused, that rotten, chemical edge that sat on the back of his tongue.
The blackened triangle of his spell circle had collapsed into cracked earth and fused debris. Burned canvas hung off half-melted poles like dead skin. Bone fragments peeked through the dirt in places where the blast had bitten deeper.
Up the slope, goblin movement cut through the mist.
Palisade stakes were being dragged uphill, shoulders straining as Thrash goblins reset them higher along the ridge. The sound of wood grinding into new holes carried faintly down to him. Smoke from cookfires rose in narrower pillars than before, closer together.
Thrash had started moving the rally.
“Wouldn’t expect the camp to be quiet after what went on,” Rin thought. “If I didn’t have my own mess to deal with, I could get lost here so easy.”
He lifted his hand, flexed his fingers once, then let it fall back to his side.
“In case you’re wondering,” Aria said, her voice a steady line in his ear now, “chat blew up after you logged out. There are at least four clips of you nuking that tent trending on the Loop. PK Wraith is still crying. Also, I have never seen an NPC warchief flag a player guild as an enemy faction before. It’s ballsy. I’m starting to like your goblin mates more, but be careful. This feels like the kind of early patch weirdness the devs sneak in to see who breaks it.”
Rin snorted softly, eyes still sweeping the clearing.
“I kind of noticed,” Rin said. “Sevish did that right before I logged out, if I recall. I’ve been noticing a lot of the NPCs… react on their own motives.”
The memory of the notification flickered in his HUD.
[FACTION NOTICE]
Warchief Sevish of Thrash Clan has registered:
Guild [New Covenant] → ENEMY.
Aria hummed, a low, thoughtful sound.
“In HGO, when guilds declare war, it’s usually about karma,” she said. “Can you pull up your status window again, Rin. I want to see if Thrash’s flag changed anything on your side.”
Rin focused on the system tab and willed it open.
His HUD responded immediately. A translucent panel expanded in front of him, clean white text hovering over the misty Hollow.
[CLAN STATUS – THRASH CLAN]
Active Enemy: New Covenant (NC)
Reason: Assault on an Elder of Thrash
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
Notes: ???
Rin’s brows pulled together.
“Great,” he thought. “Enemy list. Reason: me. That tracks.”
“Yeah, that tracks,” Aria echoed in his ear, like she had reached the same conclusion at the same time. He heard another quick clatter of keys as she probably mirrored the log on her companion app.
“Not sure what the question marks in ‘Notes’ are for yet…” she added.
She let the thought hang.
“…which is kind of terrifying, if I’m being honest.”
Rin stared at the floating panel for a second longer, then closed it, letting the Hollow come back into full focus.
The ash still remembered. So did the system.
And now, so did everyone watching.
Rin watched the line of text and grimaced.
“So what does that actually mean?” he asked.
“Short version?” Aria said in his ear. “If any of New Covenant’s people come back sniffing around Thrash territory, you can put belt to ass and the system won’t slap you for it. No extra karma hits while they’re flagged enemy. They’re fair game.”
A laugh slipped out before he could stop it.
“Put belt to ass, huh,” Rin said. “That’s one way to phrase it.”
“Hey, I don’t waste good lines,” Aria said. “You pissed off a top-guild egomaniac, got a warchief to drop an enemy flag, and didn’t die. The least the universe can do is let you farm them without a karma tax.”
Rin shook his head, still smiling.
If she keeps dropping jokes like that, having someone in my ear might not be so bad, he thought.
The Hollow was still mostly empty.
Grok, Muzzle, Tikka, Drosh their markers had already pulled back toward the rally. Up the slope, his minimap showed clusters of Thrash tags where goblins were hauling palisade stakes and supply crates toward the ridge, tightening the camp’s shape.
Down here, there was only one other Thrash goblin.
A scout stood halfway up the incline, weight settled lightly on a crude spear as she watched the Hollow through the mist. Her armor was lean and practical layered leather, bone plates at the shoulders and thighs, nothing bulky. Built to move.
When Rin focused on her, the tag above her sharpened.
[Nalli – Thrash Scout – Lvl 19]
Her gaze snapped to him the instant he shifted. No lag, no flinch just a clean, practiced read of movement.
She descended the rest of the slope in quick, sure steps, boots barely disturbing the damp earth. When she reached him, she grounded her spear beside her and inclined her head, not groveling, not casual something in between that felt like a scout’s version of a salute.
“Elder Kaiseki,” Nalli said. Her voice was clear, quick, and steady, with a slight rasp that sounded like too many nights breathing cold air on watch. “Warchief Sevish and Huntress Wyx sent me to watch for your return. They are waiting in the war tent on the upper ridge. I was ordered to send you up the moment you returned.”
The word Elder didn’t hit like an accident anymore.
Sevish had thrown it at him in front of half the clan. The whispers afterward were just gravity. This was the weight he had picked up when he stood his ground in the Hollow instead of running.
Rin nodded.
“Got it,” he said. “Looks like you’ve already started moving the rally?”
Nalli glanced uphill, then back to him, spear still planted neatly at her side.
“Yes,” she said. “We’re collapsing the lower block and tightening the ring along the ridge. Less open ground for invaders to cross, more high ground for our archers and casters. If New Covenant or anyone like them comes back, they will have to bleed uphill for every step.”
That sounds exactly like Sevish, Rin thought.
Her eyes slid past him toward the center of the Hollow.
Rin followed her gaze.
The ruined tent was still a black ribcage in the mist, char fused into ugly curves around the burned triangle. Dawn light filtered through the drifting sheets of fog, catching pale motes of bone dust where the spell had hit hardest. The air still carried a faint bite of gas and char if he breathed too deep.
“This place has been the talk of the ridge since the flames died,” Nalli said quietly. “We’re used to raids. Ambushes. Poison in the dark. We are not used to seeing an entire hunting camp vanish in one cast.”
She didn’t sound frightened. Just honest.
“Hunters on watch say they saw your fire from the treeline,” she went on. “They said the Hollow went green and the sky answered. When they told Warchief and Huntress, neither laughed. Neither called them drunk. They just listened.”
Aria let out a low whistle in his ear.
“You didn’t just wipe a squad,” she murmured. “You rewrote local legend. NPCs remembering a specific cast? That’s new. This storyline really is on another level.”
Nalli’s gaze flicked, just once, to the bone necklace resting against his chest, then back up, like she’d made a connection and filed it away.
“The old stories talk about Shiv’s shadow walking beside goblins in the worst wars,” she said. “I always thought those were scare tales for the young. But after seeing this Hollow…” She shook her head once. “People are starting to say Shiv is watching Thrash again. And that he’s watching you.”
Rin’s fingers brushed the Call of the Bones, feeling that steady, familiar warmth.
If a god is going to watch, I’d rather he remembers I was on this side of the fire, he thought.
He shifted his weight, bringing his focus fully back to Nalli.
“You’ve been running messages for Sevish and Wyx longer than I’ve even been in this camp,” Rin said. “Anything else I should know before I walk into that tent?”
That actually made her smile, quick and sharp.
“I’ve carried orders for Warchief and Huntress since before some of the hammer-heads could lift their own weapons,” Nalli said. “They shout when someone wastes troops. They laugh loud when a raid goes well. Today they’ve been quiet. Watching the ridge. Watching this Hollow. When they go that quiet, it means a march, a siege, or both.”
That slotted neatly into everything Aria had said about the enemy flag and everything Rin already knew about the map.
Yeah, he thought. They’re bracing. Waiting to see if this was a spark or the opening move.
A tiny red dot pulsed at the top edge of his HUD REC something he hadn’t noticed before.
“Recording?” Rin thought “must be Aria”
He filed it away. Sevish first. Talk to her about that later.
“Alright,” Rin said. “Before I head up, I need a favor.”
Nalli straightened a touch, attention sharpening rather than shrinking like some of the other goblins he’d met.
“Name it, Elder,” she said.
“I want eyes on the road,” Rin said, nodding toward the narrow track that wound out from the Hollow toward the main approach. “Walk the perimeter. Watch for anyone who doesn’t smell like Thrash. If you see armored types, robed types, outsiders in general—don’t try to be a hero. Shadow them and get word to me or the war tent as fast as you can. I want warning, not another surprise.”
He kept his tone natural. Just a request, not a test.
Nalli followed his gesture, weighing the path with a professional’s eye.
“Perimeter sweep along the road and lower slope,” she repeated. “Mark any outsiders, track their direction, report up the line. Understood.”
A hint of pride bled into her next words.
“I am faster than most of the line-breakers,” she added. “They make enough noise to wake the dead. If anyone comes within sight of the clan, I’ll know first.”
“Good,” Rin said. “Then I’m counting on you.”
The world flickered.
A new window snapped into the corner of his HUD, clean and sharp.
[SYSTEM NOTICE]
New Function Unlocked: Personal Garrison
[UNIT ASSIGNED]
Nalli – Thrash Scout – Lvl 19
Status: Active Deployment – Perimeter Patrol
Garrison Slots: 1 / 25
Another line slid in underneath.
[NEW VIEW UNLOCKED]
Unit Detail – Nalli (Scout)
[REMINDER]
Skill Points Available.
Rin blinked once.
On his minimap, a faint ring of grey at the edge of Thrash territory pulsed around a new icon at the mouth of the road, tagged with Nalli’s name. A slender timer bar sat beneath it, full and unmoving for the moment.
“You seeing this?” Rin muttered.
“I’m seeing it,” Aria said, and this time the sarcasm rode on top of something more serious. “I’ve watched guild leaders boss around fifty players at once. I have never seen the game hand one person their own NPC garrison. You just unlocked fog-of-war tools by giving a goblin scout orders. That’s… yeah. That’s big.”
“I didn’t open a menu,” Rin said. “I just told her to scout. That’s it.”
“Exactly,” Aria said. “You talk, the system turns it into infrastructure. I’ve been grinding ranked and managing White Lotus for years and I had no clue Eldora had this kind of depth tucked under the hood. I’ve been treating this like ‘queue, fight, log off.’ Meanwhile, you’re over here unlocking RTS tools with one conversation.”
Her voice dropped half a notch, losing some of its playfulness.
“Between this and all the Eldora resource crap they keep running on the news,” she added, “we probably need to stop pretending this is just ‘grab loot and go.’ People are moving real money and real leverage through this world.”
In front of him, Nalli hadn’t reacted to any of the UI. For her, there was only the order.
She adjusted her grip on the spear, expression settling into focused readiness.
“I’ll circle the road and the lower slope first,” Nalli said. “If anything feels wrong tracks where there shouldn’t be, metal where there should be leather you’ll hear from me before they get close enough to breathe on the clan.”
Rin let himself smile.
“That’s all I can ask,” he said. “Go do what you do best. I’ll handle the arguing up top.”
That earned a short, genuine huff of amusement.
“I’ll take running over shouting any day,” Nalli said. “Good hunting, Elder.”
She dipped her head once more, then turned and headed down toward the narrow road that cut away from the Hollow. The mist swallowed her in a few strides.
A heartbeat later, Nalli’s garrison marker on his HUD began to move.
On his minimap, her icon traced a clean path along the lower slope and out along the road. Patches of fog peeled back where she passed, revealing bends in the track, rock outcrops, and tree lines he hadn’t visited himself. The timer bar under her name ticked down in slow, steady increments.
Rin watched that tiny light move for a second, then exhaled.
“Not a bad start for a goblin nobody,” he murmured.
Aria’s tone warmed again.
“Yeah,” she said. “Let’s see how far you can push it before the devs realize what they just handed you.”
End of Chapter 14