My guess was spot-on. The moment we stopped and Britheer drew his sword, eight gnarly, sickly green beings screamed into the air and rushed out of the forest ahead; surely realizing we had sensed their ambush. Brandishing crude wooden spears and roughly made bows, they were simply armed and posed little threat at range. Their feet ran collectively with the sound of crunching dirt accompanied the jingling of their many bone and rock necklaces.

Standing just a few feet tall on average, they looked like children dunked in tar, with their backs broken, and their skin filled with boils and transformed to a leathery quality. Their elongated noses thrust out in front of their moldy and rough teeth, with said nose randomly pointing in a direction that was straight for the most part. Yipping and howling, their voices were light and guttural. Yet, it didn’t carry enough weight to feel threatening to me.

Their weaponry however, did.

Cutting my finger, I protectively drew Ivy close with an arm around her waist and allowed our contract to flow. My blood flowed to her skin, vanishing inside it. The attachment strengthened in my mind. Nature grew closer and closer. I could taste the buds of flowers on my tongue. Hear the panting of a distant deer frolicking away. See the light catching off tiny specks of pollen displaced by the goblins’ charge. It felt wonderful. Invigorating. So peaceful and pure.

I merely thought of the nearby foliage coming to my aid and it happened. Nearby trees bent with a throaty voice. Their branches launched across the road, thickening, creating a low wall between the goblins and I. The first goblin hopped onto it. It screamed at me. Spittle sprayed from its mouth as he shook his spear. Rage and blood-lust filled its dark eyes. A wretched scent of grime and sweat served its aura.

With a simple flick of my wrist, a branch swatted it off the wall and back at his friends. Easily. It squealed, spinning, tumbling into the goblin group. They howled at me in rage and the other seven hopped on the wall. Before they had a moment to jump off, a branch swatted them back. Angry yells erupted. They stood, recollected themselves, and charged again. They jumped up. I swatted them down.

The two with bows stepped away and let loose their arrows. I glanced at the streaking projectiles and branches swatted them as well. Both the archers bounced and screamed in annoyance, throwing a tantrum before firing at me again. Once more, the arrows never reached.

This process repeated in a loop. The archers fired. I blocked. The goblins leapt onto the wall. I knocked them back off. Over and over and over again. Whenever they tried to run around the branches by reentering the forest, I knocked them back into the road. It turned into a weird form of goblin pinball, I felt. Soon they were panting and pouring sweat. Moving slower than before but still trying and trying. Rather dumb creatures.

“Well… this has proven to be anti-climatic…” I muttered. I willed the branches to grab the goblins. They did.

Picking the eight of them up, each wailing and trying to escape, the branches locked them in place so escape was hopeless. They whooped and howled and wailed and bawled, faces tinging with red from the effort of fighting against the wood. I looked back at the shocked faces of Larw family. I internally chuckled. Gramp’s mouth was hanging, eyes large. Britheer and Yla looked as though they were seeing the sky fall and watched with rapt fascination.

“Is there any point to killing them?” I asked.

Britheer shook his head a little to regain some composure. “…their… their ears can be traded in with a guild for confirmed kills, which can be traded for money.”

“Are there any operating guilds in Sparrow Lake?”

“…no…” he said, eyes latched onto the bizarre battle.

I nodded, “Okay.” There was no point in killing them then. But, I needed to make sure these creatures knew who was boss. Who the victor was. And who not to mess with again.

I turned the goblins upside down and proceeded to bonk their heads against the ground in rapid succession; light enough to not hurt them, but hard enough to jostle them. They howled and wailed the entire time. Their necklaces and bracelets tingled to the ground. Their scraggly heads bobbed with ever bonk. I kept it up for a minute before flipping them up again.

I set them down and they screamed, trying to run. I grabbed them and bonked them on the heads again. Set them down. They tried to run. I did it again. This kept on for a while till they finally understood enough to stay still. They gripped their heads with both hands, sitting, tears and snot running down their face with eyes full of fear.

They were rather ugly things, I noted. Indeed quite the sight and smell. But, something about them just… didn’t bring me to kill them. Perhaps it was Ivy’s understanding of them? It was something. I saw them as more viciously naughty children than cold-blooded monsters.

Wordlessly, I pointed to the forest and waved them away. They needed no encouragement. Grabbing their weapons and fallen items, they dashed into the trees and kept going, leaving us far behind.

I felt odd doing it. Like letting an enemy live… and yet, it felt right. They posed no actual harm to me because they were so weak. In melee, I would have been cut to ribbons. No doubt. But with my magic, they hadn’t had a prayer from the start.

‘So magic really levels the playing field…’

Gramps asked angrily, “Why’d ya lit the snots go? Only thing ta do with wretched gobs is to cut the head! They must’n killed many many ‘fore us. Evil things, gobs!”

“I will kill who I need to kill, Gramps,” I said calmly, glancing back at him. “I didn’t see a reason to kill them. So, I didn’t.”

He shook his stick angrily. “But they be gobs! They kill and eat us hum’ns all the time!”

“And humans kill and cut off their ears for coin. Seems the relationship is mutual both ways.” The words didn’t make sense to me. They didn’t sound like me. And yet, they felt so true… except why was I referring to humans as if I wasn’t a human myself?

I looked at Ivy and she smiled, giving my arm an affectionate squeeze. Realization hit me. Those words weren’t entirely my own. Ivy’s sentiments joined with mine to create that.

Gramps tried to counter it with, “But they be gobs! Kill and maim! Rape and pillage! They be monsters! Ya should ‘ave turned ‘em into jam!”

A flair of anger rose inside me. Who was he to judge my actions based upon the needs of others? To tell me what I should or should not do? Why did I have to go out of my way to kill something I didn’t want to? If he disliked it so much, then he should hunt them down and kill them.

‘Don’t try and force your will on me… old man.’ I wanted to say it, but I didn’t.

Taking a deep breath, I calmed myself enough to reply. “This discussion is over, Gramps. I am not a protector of humanity nor one bound to vengeance for crimes humanity’s enemies did or did not commit. I did not wish to kill them. I do not need to explain myself.”

“But-”

Britheer cut him off with a harsh and solid, “Silence, father.”

Gramps pursed his lips and frowned, but nodded and kept his voice to himself.

“Let us continue,” I said, sheathing my sword. Britheer followed suit. With that, we resumed our journey onward; I kept my arm around Ivy’s waist, enjoying her closeness. She smelled of flowers.

‘Well… I guess that just shot down the overzealous hero route,’ I thought after a while. And for good reason. Why did I have to sacrifice for these people? I didn’t. I could still be kind to them. Help them. Protect them… but I wasn’t going to become their slave; to let them push me around. I didn’t want to kill the goblins. I wasn’t going to force myself to do it just because goblins and humans hated each other.

It wasn’t my problem.

And didn’t heroes turn into slaves? A slave to the people? Everything would keep going wrong… the hero would try and try and try to fix everything, save everyone, till in the end the hero would make the ultimate sacrifice and die. Or lose someone they loved. Or something like that… the happy ending would only last until the next tragedy reared its ugly head.

‘Heck no… some other justice-loving sap can do that.’ I turned and gave Ivy’s head a little kiss, earning an adorable smile from her. I smiled back. No, there was no way I’d take the tragedy route of a hero.

I had spent nearly an hour worrying over an answer so simple; for anything and everything, I’d take Chaon’s route.

My way.