Chapter 39: Shirtless Psycho

The goblin lunged forward and swung at the crazed, shirtless man, who evaded the blow with a wild, acrobatic movement. However, he landed off balance and stumbled backward toward the creature just as it prepared another strike.

At that moment, the kind man rushed in, slipped between them, and took the blow on his bare arm, shielding the shirtless man from harm.

’Agh?!’

Zayn couldn’t help but admire his bravery. But at the same time, he questioned the man’s sanity.

Without hesitation, he retaliated, but the goblin quickly overwhelmed him — first by sinking its teeth into his arm, then by snatching up its fallen weapon and severing the limb completely.

’Someone, help him!’

It was difficult to comprehend why anyone, after witnessing such erratic behavior from the shirtless man, would put their life on the line for him.

Perhaps kindness was its own curse. Maybe that was simply the fate of the good — no noble act went unpunished.

The crowd froze as the kind man clutched the bleeding stump in agony. Several who had been rushing to help halted mid-stride and began to back away.

All but one.

A third figure — handsome, with shoulder-length dirty-blond hair and a fit build — did not falter. He pressed forward without hesitation, closing in on the goblin.

As he advanced, he scooped up the same rock the crazed man had used to carve into himself and hurled it. The bloody stone struck the goblin in the side of the head, making it stumble away from the wounded man.

Wasting no time, the handsome man sprinted after it, leaped, and drove both feet into the goblin’s right shoulder.

Its weapon flew from its grasp, and the creature crashed to the ground.

Both combatants scrambled back to their feet, though the goblin was slightly faster.

It lunged, slashing at the man’s face.

He leaned away from the blade, then retaliated with a sharp kick to what may have been its ribcage, sending it sprawling onto its back.

Not letting up, the man grabbed the bloodied, arrowhead-like rock from the dirt and charged.

’What the fuck is going on...?’

The goblin managed to rise and threw up a hand in defense, but the man drove the pointed stone straight into its palm. Before the creature could react, he pivoted and slammed his heel into its chest, sending it skidding across the ground.

’This is insane...’

The goblin rose, slower this time, struggling to dislodge the embedded rock from its hand. But the man didn’t give it the chance. He dashed forward and brought his heel crashing down onto the goblin’s head.

It staggered, then collapsed.

’This is all way too insane!’

Without pause, he straddled the fallen creature and unleashed a relentless barrage of punches. Each blow drove its head deeper into the dirt until its skull began to cave in and green blood seeped from every opening.

Only the slightest twitching of its fingers indicated it was still alive — or perhaps it was merely a death rattle. Either way, the goblin wasn’t long for the world.

At last, the man rose, retrieved the goblin’s sword, and, with one swift stroke, decapitated the creature.

Zayn felt he should have been horrified by the little green thing, especially after witnessing what it did to the kind man, but he was more terrified of the blond maniac.

Shying away from the sight, he found that Maks had gone missing sometime in the chaos. As for Amaya...

Before Zayn could locate her, the blond man began yelling and rambling about how to survive: ’They all had to stay united.’ Then he gave his name and began issuing orders and other instructions. Zayn listened, but only partially.

His mind was still lagging a bit due to the absurdity of the situation.

No, not simply the absurd situation... but also the absurd individuals who were in this situation with him.

Nobody was normal. Neither the kind man, the shirtless psycho, the beautiful murderer, nor the handsome lunatic.

’Only Maks seems to have any level of normalcy in him...’

Sighing, Zayn tried to steady his mind.

His first and most important order of business was figuring out the disasters. The second was this damned tattoo.

That first question couldn’t be solved for now. As for the second one...

’Where the hell did it come from? And when?’

In the time since he was summoned, Zayn didn’t feel like he’d ever been wholly unconscious. So, it had to have been mystically planted on him in that short span when the blue light surrounded him. He wasn’t going to question the logistics of it. He was more concerned with...

’Why...? What does it mean?’

He traced it up and down.

It was a vine that went from his left hand and snaked all the way up around his arm and ended on his clavicle, yet it had neither a start nor an end. It was purely black, with no other colors or negative space used.

Studying it intently, Zayn noticed sixteen prominent thorns that jutted out from the vine. Then he remembered his task...

’Do they represent the disasters?’

Feeling gazes on him, Zayn looked up and saw the members of the group he’d been sorted into all staring at him.

The crazy man looked at Zayn and said:

"And you?"

’Were we supposed to do something? Oh...’

"Zayn Gatlin."

The shirtless psycho seemed a bit agitated.

Had Zayn done something wrong? Was he not supposed to introduce himself?

The crazy man calmed down before saying:

"To reiterate, we’re supposed to travel east and scout the area, avoiding combat unless necessary. We have the next twenty minutes or so to gather ourselves and get to know each other."

The group of eight awkwardly stood in a circle, and nobody talked for a full minute. Zayn was just about to go back to studying his tattoo when the crazy man added some odd information.

"It’s not important, it seems, but I discovered that saying ’status’ brings up a screen with additional information."

Zayn’s introspection briefly paused.

If this man were right, this could lead to a breakthrough!

Zayn muttered under his breath:

"Status."

🌑🌑🌑

Zayn Gatlin

Age: 22 | Gender: Male

Contractor: [ - - - ]

[Tasks]

[Slay the Goblin King in the Castle] - (Time remaining: 719:15:34)

[Hunt Disasters] - {Failure: Human Extinction} — (Disasters identified - ???, ???, ???, ???) - (Disasters Slain: 0/16)

[???]

[Skills]

[Fall of Babel]

[Bypass language barrier]

[Second Chance] - {Upon death, be sent back to the beginning of the trials. Will be inflicted with [Memory Suppression] upon use} - (Uses remaining: 0/1)

[Relics]

[Afflictions]

[???] - (Progression: 0%)

[Memory Suppression] — {Caused by regression. Amount of fragments needed to recover based on karma} - (Memory fragments recovered: 0/12)

🌑🌑🌑

’Whoa, this one was much bigger...’

The content displayed on the screen in front of him erased any wandering thoughts from his mind.

"What?!"

Zayn screeched, unable to hold back his surprise, and the others stared at him momentarily before returning their attention to their own status pages.

His eyes settled on a specific [Skill] and [Affliction]...

’Those words...’

’Regression’ and ’Memory Suppression.’

Why in the hell did it say he returned to the past?

’I don’t particularly remember doing so...’

Sure, it said his memory was suppressed, but it wasn’t erased, right?

Zayn’s mind was being battered and beaten by each new anomaly that kept falling into his lap. First, he got kidnapped, then the ’angel’ descended from the sky, followed by him discovering the task to hunt down sixteen disasters nobody else had. Plus the mysterious tattoo...

’And now this?!’

Even if he hated home, Zayn now longed for it.

Would he get to return soon?

’Fluffles... I hope you’re safe, my baby.’

But what did it mean by fragments?

He could apparently recover his memory? Yet it didn’t say how to reclaim a fragment. Perhaps it was through hunting a disaster... but the numbers didn’t align, and he didn’t have a single clue as to what a disaster was.

Only time would tell.

For now, he would just keep moving forward.

However, literally doing that was a little tricky. He had no shoes, and he was in a forest.

Speaking of that...

It was a little odd to Zayn how the forest looked so unnerving, yet he wasn’t too perturbed.

Did that have to do with him returning to the past? Was that causing this odd sense of familiarity?

Zayn stuck around with his group just long enough to learn their names. Namely, he was focused on the crazy man, Axel.

’I wonder... What were the others and I like in my past life?’

Eventually, while waiting to depart, he noticed an odd pair out of the corner of his eye.

One was a woman with green hair looking frantic and panicked. Holding her hand was a woman with long brown hair...

’She was made the "hunting group" leader, if I remember correctly... I think her name was Julia.’

Julia was walking around while repeatedly asking:

"Does anyone know how to sign?"