Operation:Fear

Operation: Fear was the plan that I haphazardly devised on the spur of the moment. It was mainly conceived due in part to my past experience and the inherent benefit I garnered by allotting certain points into one particular stat.

As the name implies, I was planning on using fear to get myself out of this situation.

For that, I needed the corpses.

The plan was to use the corpses of the dead goblins in order to illicit fear into the hearts of my foes. Although, at their current state, I doubt they could arise any fear, rather, they might have a better chance of raising conviction and anger towards me. No, I needed to cement my figure as an unstoppable, ruthless, killing machine to these green skinned monsters.

At first, this might seem like a stupid tactic. Who would ever think of scaring monsters? But regardless, I believed that these creatures were capable of displaying several emotions. For one, the constant anger they displayed towards my presence was no joke.

And if they could feel anger, then the most probable scenario was that fear also existed. But to rose such an instinctive emotion, I needed to be a force so fierce, that they cower at my very presence.

To do that, I planned on desecrating the corpses. After all, I needed them to believe that I wasn’t a guy who would simply kill their comrades. I wanted them to know that they weren’t safe even after death. I wanted them to know their corpses were next on my list.

I wanted them to fear.

So with that in mind, the first step in my “fear tactic” strategy commenced.

With deliberate footsteps, I quietly walked over to the pile of corpses and began my meticulous work.

First, I grabbed one of the older goblin scout corpses, which I had killed with two slices to the jugular. I dragged it along the tiled surface, placed it roughly on the center of the room, and knelt down besides it. In one fierce motion, I took my dagger sized knife and plunged its bladed edge deep within its abdomen.

I slowly began to gut this child sized creature.

Surprisingly, gutting was somewhat easier than I expected. I cut through the relatively thick outer skin, and carved my way down its intestines. I tried following the winding path of organs, but got bored relatively quickly, so I decided to just haphazardly cut away.

In a matter of seconds, I had fully desecrated this corpse. Of course I didn’t stop there. I stabbed at its lifeless eyeballs and twisted its ridged appendages this way and that. Moving the corpse was a little harder, due to the setting of rigor mortis, but nevertheless, I powered through.

Eventually, the corps looked defiled enough for my goals. As I stood up and admired (more inspected really) my gruesome work, I wondered whether this was enough to produce fear.

My aim was to use simple wartime tactics. Back then, enemy bodies, decapitated heads, etc. were used by armies in order to lower moral and curb enemy ambition. A good example of this was Vlad the impaler. His famed “head on a stake” tactic was enough to drive even the greatest of forces off his territory.

With tactics like that, It was even possible to win battles without any fighting.

Of course, I didn’t want to go so far as to cause them all to instinctually flee, since after all, I still wanted the exp from the 10 goblins waiting outside. I just needed their fear to be strong enough to paralyze.

With that in mind, I set aside the recently disfigured corpse, and began to work on another. This routine continued, and the eventual mindless snipping and gashing of bodies eventually turned into curious prodding.

I slowly began to examine every organ, before I removed and gashed it up. I observed as I cut open a vein from its arm and followed it through the interwinding paths circulating its body. Doing this helped me discover that a goblin was very similar to humans. They were just smaller, and more writhe.

Now, if someone were to see a pale faced, raccoon eyed youth, silently poking and prodding and dissecting at a tiny green corpse, then obvious remarks about his sanity would arise. But right now, I didn’t worry about that.

Aside from my initial goal of creating gruesome enough bodies that incited fear even in the nastiest of creatures, my mind and focus was enamoured by the fascinating intricacies that is goblin anatomy.

Every now and then, a fresh-- er, new goblin would spawn while I was busy.

Of course, I’d take the time to slay it such a thing did happen. Doing so only added to the growing amount of corpses I could desecrate.

Eventually though, after I had dissected my 8th goblin, and a new Goblin was currently being spawned, I hatched an idea.

My initial course of actions was to disfigure all the corpses first, then find a way to spread them around throughout the hallway. If I couldn’t manage that, then I thought that letting all the goblins in and allowing them to see what I did to their friends would be a good enough alternative. But with my sudden burst of inspiration brought forth by the 20 minutes or so of silent dissection, Operation: Fear could get a considerable head start,

Thus, as the next goblin spawned, I quietly waited for it to exit the stall. Right now I was hiding behind the wall, dagger in hand, while I greatly anticipated what was to come next.

Step, Step, Step

I could hear the tiny pitter patter of small feet as my prey-- er, the new goblin stepped closer.

After it finally did move into sight, I acted.

I dashed forward knife in hand. This time around, I wasn’t going for an instant kill, but rather, I wanted the creature to be an example.

With pre-planned steps, I moved close, and hacked away at one of the goblin’s feet.

As the right leg quickly became a stump, it toppled over onto the tiled floor. It uttered a shriek of bewildered surprise as it turned to look at its assailant.

Upon seeing me, it made quite a scared expression, but that was probably since it saw what I was doing with his fellow friends. This was made apparent, when its eyes darted back and forth between me and what was behind me.

It feebly attempted to raise its sword up to strike, but with one slash from my own, I amputated its arm clean off.

It cried in agony, but unfortunately, I wasn’t going to stop there. I hacked away at the remaining limbs, and before long, the green monster had become a quadruple amputee. Nothing but a torso and a head. It weeped in agony, its voice constantly shifting from utter fear and helpless anger.

I quietly dragged the helpless mass over towards the metal door, where its fellow goblins continued to bang and screech out in anger.

I rattled the door a few time with my dagger in order to get their attention. Maybe it was due to the surprise that I had finally responded, but there was a brief silence from the other side.

Not letting this opportunity go to waste, I set about doing what I came here to do.

With the help of my dagger, I began to torture the goblin.

I stuck the blade into its eyeball, not too deep as to kill him, but deep enough to cause immense pain. It cried and I could only imagine that the rest of the goblins on the other side were listening in, since they kept quiet throughout all this.

“....”

I silently watched, looking down on the creature as it struggle helplessly. It began an attempt at escape, crawling feebly with the power of its torso. Of course, such an action was useless. I simply kicked it back into place, where I continued the torture.

I yanked the knife away from its eye socket, and then stuck it towards the other eyeball. It might just be me, but I think it screamed louder this time around.

This time, I kept the knife lodged in there, as I grabbed one of the spares and began the physical torture. I did many things. I experimented with which method would hurt the most, and I tried everything my imagination could think up and everything my brain could recall.

From stabbing at its open wounds, gutting it while it was alive, carving weird letters or numbers on its skin, I tried everything. Of course, I stuck to the ones that produced the most sound -- cries.

While I was doing this, the group on the other side remained deathly quiet. I couldn’t tell if they had left, or simply sat down and listened, but nevertheless, I continued.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t go on indefinitely.

The goblin had a set amount of hp, and everyone of my torture methods shaved some of its life away. Eventually, when its hp reached zero, it stopped making noise.

After the goblin had died, I stopped moving and quietly listened for the reaction from the other side.

At first, it was silent, deathly quiet even. Eventually, murmurs and goblin chatter could be heard, but even this, I could tell my actions had played an impact. The noise they made was now more relatively toned down, as if the creatures deliberately did not want me to hear.

The effect was obvious.

I smiled with a rather grim expression. Although the task was bloody, and I didn’t particularly like doing it, it was still nice to see my actions bear fruit. The goblins were obviously feeling something from hearing the helpless and pained cries of their comrade. Now I didn’t know whether these creatures could feel compassion, but at the very least I hoped they felt fear. Fear that it might be them next to scream.

I got up and dragged the almost unrecognizable corpse to the back of the room and piled it up with the rest.

There I began a disturbing routine.

I’d hack and slash and dissect the corpses until another goblin spawned. Once a new goblin spawned, I’d drag it over next to the metal door, and I’d thus begin its torture.

Although, before I did so, I made sure to tap on the metal door with my dagger three times. I wanted them to associate these three taps with my presence, and the subsequent cries of their comrades.

After torture ended (and by that I mean after the goblin finally died), I’d continue with the dissection of the corpses. This repeated for a good hour or so.

Dissection, torture, dissection, torture, dissection, torture….

Every so often, while I was torturing, I’d hear whimpers or angry screeching from the other side. The whimpers were obviously from within the group of scouts or warriors, but the screeches were very distinct.

They sounded gruff and animalistic. Way different from the usual child like high pitch voice I came to associate the regular goblins with. This roar was obviously from the commander.

I didn’t really know what type of emotional turmoil that level 20 monster was going through right now. Maybe it felt fear, maybe it felt anger. I hoped though, that it felt helplessness. I hoped it knew it was helpless. So helpless that it couldn’t save its subordinates from this cycle of pain and death I was currently the envoy of.

Anyways, I ignored these noises and continued with my routine.

Unsurprisingly, I continued to gain experience from the torture. This was an obvious outcome since, even though I did take a roundabout way of doing so, I still killed them off.

After I had tortured the 10th goblin, I had amassed a fortune of scavenged swords and even 3 more health potions. I was also steadily leveling up as well. Now I was level 12. Only a small level gap of 8 remained between me and the goblin commander.

At around the same time I tortured the 10th goblin, I also finished up with disfiguring the corpses.

Now, the bathroom floor was littered in various monster parts. There was no one sense of cohesion, rather, it was a hodgepodge of bloody entrails and severed limbs. I shuddered at this seen.

Even though I was the one who made all this destruction, I was still surprised at my… my capacity. My capacity for mindless chaos at the face of desperation.

While I glanced at the scene in front of me, to my surprise, two new status windows greeted me.

Ding!

New Title Earned!

Psychopath

You have displayed physical and/or mental actions which constitute one to question your mental stability. These actions include, but are not limited to; mindless torture, corpse disfigurement.

Effects:

-2 in leadership and luck

+6 in all other stats.

50% resistance to fear.

*Doing subsequent actions that correlate with the given title will produce an boost in its effects.*

New Skill Earned!

Dissection (Active)

Through constant experimentation and trial, you have gained the foundation into understanding anatomy.

Skill Type: Regular

Skill Rank: Beginner

Skill Level: 1

Skill Experience: 0%

Effects:

Grasp monster weak points more easily.

Previously dissecting a species can allow for better understanding of anatomy.

When used in combat, the given effects will result (may vary):

Laceration - Severe form of bleeding effect

Amputation - Better chance at severing an appendage.

Use consumes 5 stamina. No cooldown time.

I frowned awkwardly upon seeing these two panels. While the [Dissection] skill was something that might prove useful, especially considering its effects in battle, I was a little bit conflicted by the new title.

I sighed.

“To be called a psychopath, even by this shitty system….”

I didn’t quite know how to feel about that.

Well, for now, let’s delete the title. Or at the very least, disable it.

I brought up status with a single thought and then proceed to attempt to delete this rather embarrassing title. After constant effort and various confusion though, I eventually gave up on this notion.

Because I hadn’t tried it with the [Pioneer] title, I soon found out that the titles couldn’t be removed or disabled. Rather, from how it looks, these things were rather permanent. Also, there effects stacked with the other titles, and there was no indication that they could be deleted.

I guess, in a sense, they’re permanent labels glued onto a player due to his subsequent actions.

I sighed.

I guess for now, I’d have to live with such a title.

For now, I chose to ignore the existence of such a title.

After having closed up the new status windows, I steadily rose to my feet.

I turned towards the metal door and sighed. I determined that it was now or never.

With the arrival of my new skill and title, I decided that I was done waiting. It was now time to launch my counterattack.

****

Author's note: Well, this chapter was unexpectedly darker than usual... but I hope it was atleast still entertaining to read.

Anyways, rate,follow, favorite, etc. to show support. This fic is still new, so it needs all the help it can get. Thanks.