Chapter 29: Goblin Lord (2)

How many days had it been… months? Years? Keeping track of the time in this place was very hard. I, who once was a fabled apothecary, crowned as ‘Miracle Doctor’ by some and a genius by others, working for the king himself as his royal health advisor now reduced to this sorry state.

Why did such a thing happen?

Whom did I anger?

Not once did I not ask myself these questions while living my life as a meager goblin. I was just minding my business, working on developing new and unique medicines that could help people and the kingdom as a whole. Then why, why did such a thing happened to me? Why must they felt the need to drag me into their worthless feud and made me a scapegoat out of it? Did my past contributions not enough to secure my life or I just outlived my importance?

The worst of it was the one who killed me… my own apprentice. The one, whom I trusted so much, in the end, backstabbed me in the worst possible way. What I did not do for that bastard? I even took care of him like my own son. Yet, he killed me in cold blood to gain the favor of people behind him.

However, those people underestimated me. They thought I am just an average apothecary who only knew how to make potions. They didn’t know I am a master at Arcane Magic too. It happened a long time ago when I was young. In those days, I wasn’t even started on potion craft yet. While returning from hunting from woods, I encountered an injured old man chased by a Silverback Wolf, a basic monster. After I rescued him, he taught me in the arts of witchcraft magic.

Due to its dubious nature, witchcraft was as much hated as those Halfbreeds. Also, like how it happened with Halfbreeds, the practitioners of witchcraft were hunted down to extinction. At first, I was apprehensive about learning the most hated magic format, but under the coercion of the old man, I ultimately learned it. Later, in order to further my arcane powers, I had to learn potion craft and that’s how I became a renowned apothecary. Famous enough to be invited by the royal family to be their royal doctor.

Before my disciple landed the finishing blow, I used arcane magic to transfer my soul to a previously marked location and possesses a nearby living being. After mastering this magic art, I once went to a remote village and handed a medallion to a small child. When I transferred my soul, I thought the medallion should be still around that child… who would have thought this medallion would actually somehow find its way to these filthy low-class goblins. As expected, my soul entered into the body of a tiny goblin that born not long ago.

I couldn’t help but scream and screech in frustration when I became aware of this. In the end, I had to calm down myself. Since it’s already happened, there was no use being hung over it. Now I had to think of the future. Although I lost my ‘Invocation Mark’ due to changing bodies, I still have all the knowledge of arcane arts I learned throughout my life. As a goblin, there was no way I could receive an Invocation Mark anymore, as that thing was only exclusive to humans. I heard other races have their own equivalent, but that’s beside the point.

Invocation Mark, it’s a kind of blessing every human receives after they come of age by going to a church or renowned guilds. The function of this mark was nothing but to absorb the life source energy of the monsters they slew and change it to their strength. It also gives the holder the freedom to choose which aspect of them they wanted to increase. One can choose to increase their strength, defense, speed, or magic… everything was possible as long as enough blessings were gathered. As a man who pursues the art of magic, of course, I focused all my attention on increasing magic.

Without the help of an Invocation Mark, I had to adopt the primitive way of increasing my magic power after finding myself in the body of a goblin. That method was nothing but to use magic repeatedly until it increases automatically. There was also another sinister way but at that time, I was too weak to even try it out.

Thankfully, the goblin habitat had a few medicinal plants around which I could use to practice my art of medicine and increase my strength. Initially, I planned to kill goblins and other monsters bit by bit and continue evolving until I could take a human form. Although I screamed bloody murder and revenge on the empire, to achieve that I had to grow powerful first.

That was my initial plan.

However… everything changed when one day I suddenly gained a skill out of blue. This skill was what made me see hope for my revenge and a plan rapidly formed inside my heart. This skill was useful to me and helped me a lot in rising to power inside the goblin community. I call this skill ‘Priority’ and its ability was similar to the name I had given it. The skill, it could choose a certain aspect of a target and increase it as per my wishes.

For example, if I see a bleeding man, I could use the skill to prioritize the ‘clotting’ aspect making the man stop bleeding in a blink of an eye. I, who was once a master apothecary, this skill had the possibility to become lethal in my hand. However, such a powerful skill came with a fatal weakness. It can only be used on plants and beings who were of lower intelligence. Again, as a master apothecary, it wasn’t that much of a big deal.

I think it took me a few years(?) but I finally subdued the whole goblin race under my thumb. In the meantime, I also found talent amidst the masses that evolved to a higher version of goblin called Goblin General. Then I began to create an army of powerful goblins. In this year, I also evolved from a normal adult goblin to a rare branch called ‘Goblin Chemist’ further enhancing my prowess. With my attainment from my previous life and help of this special race trait, my abilities as an apothecary enhanced even further.

Combining witchcraft and potion craft, I started to create dubious potions one after another and had them consumed by the goblins. In a short amount of time, it started to transform the goblins from a weaker race to a race strong enough to dominate a floor. During those days, the first floor was shared by a few other races, Imps and Kobolds if I remember correctly. I had them annihilated under my rule since they refuse to submit to the goblin force. The females of both races were captured and used for breeding.

Such a powerful force didn’t come from sacrifice after all. The potion, which made goblins this strong, had a very low probability of yielding results. Out of hundreds, only five or six would successfully digest it and grow strong. The rest would die of energy overload or some other side effect.

However, I didn’t care about that. As long as it produced results, I didn’t care how many were sacrificed. These goblins had a higher birth-rate anyway. In just a month, they could produce more infant goblins than what my potion could kill in the same period.

Everything was going well until those damn orcs attacked. My years of hard work gone down the drain with each goblin troops killed by them. It was to the point I was forced to act personally. I thought of instilling fear by defeating and possibly killing the leader of the group and it worked for a while. Even a few orcs joined my cause making me happy at the unexpected gain. However, I didn’t know it was actually a trap, and I jumped into it spectacularly.

The orcs whom I trusted enough to guard my lab, suddenly went on a rampage, wreaking havoc everywhere. My lab was destroyed to bits, and many powerful goblins were killed in the process. They killed even a few females who were used for breeding. The loss sustained was huge, forcing me back to square one. The emotions I suppressed long ago resurfaced again like surging tides.

Hopelessness, anger, sadness, and frustration… among many these were prevalent. After calming down, I realized that orcs shouldn’t have been able to come up with such a strategy. They were as intelligent as goblins, how can it be possible for them to create such a detailed and meticulous plan?

It was impossible.

There was someone behind these orcs pulling the strings. As I came into realization, I ordered the remaining ones to be captured and thrown into the Snake pit. A cave was full of a certain type of poisonous snakes. Without one of my potions, it was nearly impossible to traverse through that cave and not be attacked by the snakes. At the same time, I went into the destroyed lab to create a potion to have these orcs tell me about this mysterious manipulator.

However, before I could even start with the potion craft, Urt, the goblin that managed to become Goblin General came running towards me, bearing a piece of bad news.

“Lord, this is bad! The orcs killed each other inside the snake pit.”

I was startled at first, not believing what I heard. Then rage filled me as I punched the table I was working on. No matter which approach I took, ultimately I arrived at a dead end. This group of orcs should have shade some light into this matter, but now, that too was extinguished. With the rage, came fear. Fear of this unknown enemy, which remained unknown to me even now.

Will I die again?

My heart started to palpitate as scenarios flashed before my eyes.