Chapter 9 – There Was No Way I Could Have Known That

The shriek was followed by a wave of its creators.

They spilled out of the cave like a tide of filth. Goblins. Dozens of them. They were short, green, and hideous, with jagged teeth and beady little eyes that glowed with malice in the gloom. The air thickened with their stench, a lovely combination of wet dog and old garbage.

This was it. A perfect, grimy dungeon for my friends to realize my utter uselessness and abandon me.

Kenji roared, a surprisingly deep sound for his pretty-boy face. He charged forward, his holy sword carving a brilliant arc of gold through the air.

“For the innocent!”

The first goblin he met was sliced cleanly in two. The cut was perfect. His form, however, was terrible. He almost tripped over his own feet from the momentum.

Daisuke was a sledgehammer. He swung his massive broadsword in wide, powerful arcs that were slow but devastating. Goblins were sent flying, but for every one he hit, two more scurried past his guard.

They were newbies. Their lack of battle experience was painfully obvious. But their stats, gifted by that slacker goddess, were doing all the heavy lifting.

Reina was… terrifying. She moved with a fluid grace that didn’t match the others, her dagger a blur of silver. She wasn’t just killing goblins; she was dismantling them with cold, efficient, vicious stabs to the eyes and throat. There was a focused rage there that was deeply unsettling.

And me? I was doing my part perfectly. I let out a high-pitched yelp.

I scrambled backward, tripping over a loose rock and landing hard on my butt. I held up my hands, my face a perfect mask of terror. I was the very picture of a liability.

The battle raged around me. A goblin broke from the main fray and charged in my direction, its rusty knife raised. My moment to be saved had arrived.

Instead of Kenji or Daisuke, it was Reina who appeared. She intercepted the creature, her movement a complete blur. There was no heroic clash, just a quiet thump as the goblin collapsed, a dagger buried in the back of its skull.

She turned to me, her face spattered with a few drops of green goblin blood. Her smile was sweet and reassuring. Her eyes were not.

“Ryuuji, if you feel scared, you can stay close to me.”

Her gaze was a physical weight. It was intense, possessive, and a thousand times more frightening than the entire goblin horde. This girl would absolutely lock me in a dungeon, but it wouldn’t be to abandon me. It would be to keep me.

Nope. Time to go. Time to activate the next phase of my brilliant plan.

While she was busy turning another goblin into a pincushion, I scrambled to my feet. I stayed low, using the chaos of the fight as cover. I sneaked toward the edge of the clearing, toward the relative safety of the nearby forest.

This was going to be perfect.

I could already picture the scene. Kenji, wiping sweat from his brow after the battle, would look around.

He’d say, “Wait, where’s Ryuuji?”

Then the anger would build.

“What do you mean, he just wandered off while we were fighting for our lives?!”

Hehehehe. It’s happening. They’ll finally see me as the selfish, cowardly loner I’m trying so hard to be.

I slipped between two of the gnarled trees, leaving the sounds of battle behind me. The air in the forest was cooler, the foul stench of goblin replaced by the scent of moss and decay. It was quiet here. Eerily quiet.

And then I saw it.

On a twisted, thorny bush unlike any other plant around, a single piece of fruit caught my attention. It was hanging there, practically begging to be noticed.

Fruit in a creepy fantasy forest, right next to a goblin lair. There was no way this was good for you.

I moved closer. The fruit was a sickly shade of purple, its skin bumpy and uneven, like a toad’s back. A faint, oily sheen covered its surface, and I could swear it was pulsing with a faint, nauseating light. It looked like something you’d feed to your worst enemy.

An idea, so simple, so diabolical, so utterly perfect, bloomed in my mind.

This. This would do it. This would harm them. Not enough to kill them, probably. Just enough to give them a really, really bad stomachache. They would be exhausted from the fight, and I would show up, the cowardly runaway, offering them poison fruit.

They would hate me. It was flawless.

I started collecting them. I pulled off every last disgusting, pulsating fruit from the bush. I stuffed them into my pockets until they were bulging. I opened my adventurer’s backpack—a cheap freebie from the mayor—and filled it to the brim.

Then I walked back, a triumphant, villainous smile on my face.

I arrived just as Daisuke cleaved the last goblin in half. The cave entrance was littered with green bodies. My three companions were leaning on their weapons, breathing heavily, covered in sweat and goblin guts. They were completely drained.

Perfect.

I strolled out from the trees, trying to look as nonchalant and unhelpful as possible.

“Hey, guys. You look tired.”

Kenji looked up, his face a mixture of relief and exhaustion.

“Ryuuji! You’re okay! We were worried.”

Not angry. Worried. This was already going off the rails, but I could still salvage it. It was time for the fruit.

I reached into my pockets and pulled out a handful of the hideous purple tumors.

“I brought these for you to eat.”

They all stared at the fruit in my hands.

“Hmm.”

Kenji’s nose wrinkled. Reina’s head tilted with suspicion. Daisuke just grunted. That was the look. The look of disgust and distrust. Soon it would blossom into pure, unadulterated hatred.

“I was, uh, scouting, foraged these. For energy.”

They were exhausted. They were hungry. And their pure-hearted, idiotic friend was offering them food. They wouldn’t be able to resist.

Kenji hesitated, then shrugged. He took one.

“If Ryuuji found them, they must be safe. Thanks, man.”

He bit into it. Then Reina took one, her weirdly intense eyes never leaving my face. Daisuke took one last. One by one, they ate the poison fruit.

I held my breath, waiting for the stomach cramps, the groans of pain, the glares of betrayal.

Instead, a soft, golden light wrapped around Kenji.

His exhaustion vanished. The cuts and scrapes on his arms faded away. He stood up straight, his eyes wide with shock. The same golden aura flared to life around Reina, then Daisuke.

“Ryuuji… we….”

Kenji took a step toward me. He put a heavy, trembling hand on my shoulder. His face was filled with awe.

“We’ve completely recovered!!!”

What.

My brain blue-screened.

“What do you mean?”

“When I saw you leave, I was confused, but I should have known! I should have trusted you! You weren’t running away! You knew we would be drained after the fight, so you went looking for something to help us!”

Reina was looking at me with those strange, fixed eyes again. That look still scared me more than any monster.

“How did you know about this fruit?”

My mouth opened, but no sound came out.

What? How the hell was I supposed to know?