Konbini Ossan Volume 16 Chapter 12 — The Bottom of Darkness
Once I stepped inside, it was unexpectedly calm.
There was no assault from the Douki, nor any corruption from curses. Other than the sickness brought on by the curse I had taken in from Marceline, there was nothing to unsettle me as I advanced through the darkness.
After walking for some time, I arrived at what seemed to be the deepest point.
Waiting there was a Douki blacker than any I had seen before, a darkness so profound it felt deeper than darkness itself.
“So... we fight?”
I created a karambit knife made of dark matter and took my stance.
At that moment, the waiting Douki’s form collapsed, becoming a torrent of darkness that came rushing toward me.
“Guh!”
I didn’t make it in time to evade.
Swallowed by the darkness, my consciousness began to fade.
When I came to, I was in some kind of town.
Right in the middle of an unfamiliar town, standing in front of what looked like an Adventurer’s Guild building.
“Alright! So this is the Adventurer’s Guild!”
And there, right in front of me, stood a pink goblin, in other words, a young Candy Goblin boy, dressed in fresh-looking beginner adventurer gear.
And it wasn’t just this boy. Every person walking through the town was a pink goblin.
In other words, Candy Goblins.
Apparently, this was a Candy Goblin town.
When the boy entered the Adventurer’s Guild, I moved after him of my own accord, as if following him.
It seemed I couldn’t separate from the boy in this place.
Once inside the guild, the boy approached the reception desk and called out.
“Um, I came to become an adventurer!”
“New registration?”
“Yes!”
The boy’s adventurer registration proceeded without issue.
Then, as if following a template, a troublemaker barged in.
“Oi, oi! Looks like some toddling little brat came to register as an adventurer!”
Strangely enough, the one picking a fight with the boy, somehow I felt like I’d seen somewhere before, was the only human in this town.
No, probably in this entire “world”.
“Hey, brat. You’re becoming an adventurer at that age?”
“Yeah. I was helping my grandpa with his research deep in the mountains, but he died, so I came to become an adventurer so I could live on my own.”
The human snorted at the boy’s words.
“Oi, oi! You think some scrawny little brat who was doing research can handle being an adventurer? Hah, you’re really underestimating us, huh? Adventurers ain’t some job you can do just because you’re good at studying. Huh?”
At the human’s words, the boy replied with clear annoyance.
“Then what do I need to be able to do?”
“Strength, strength! What, want me to test you myself?”
“Fine. Then I’ll punch you with everything I’ve got, and you can judge from that!”
“Alright then, come at me!”
The next instant, the boy punched the human’s body at a speed too fast for the eye to follow, sending him flying.
The human crashed straight through the Adventurer’s Guild wall and lost consciousness.
“Umm... did I do something?”
And so, the boy’s meteoric rise began.
After that as well, the Candy Goblin boy continued achieving one great feat after another.
Even as a rookie, he defeated an S-Rank monster and shot up the adventurer ranks.
He crushed a criminal guild and protected the peace of the town.
He distinguished himself in the battle to protect the town from a stampede and became famous overnight.
One event after another unfolded, and the boy always, easily, rose to the occasion, protecting his fellow Candy Goblins.
And the villains who occasionally appeared were, without exception, all humans.
Watching the invincible young goblin, a thought occurred to me.
What if this scenery I was being shown was something like the dream the Douki was seeing?
Most likely, the being that became the Douki had once been an innocent, dream-filled, utterly ordinary boy.
But he lacked power, failed to protect his family, friends, and the people close to him, and died in despair.
He must have been one of the Candy Goblins who hurled themselves into the Mediterranean while cursing the world.
And if that was the case...
If there was still enough conscience left in that heart to wish for a peaceful world like this...
Then the possibility of dialogue still remained.
“Can you hear me?”
I called out to the Douki that should exist somewhere.
No, to the boy who was the protagonist of this world.
“I want to speak with you. You, too, have not tried to take me and kill me. If that’s the case, then there should still be room for conversation.”
It was a call based almost entirely on speculation.
And yet, the boy must have answered.
The world wavered, faded, turned gray, and froze in place.
Within it, only the goblin boy remained unfaded, turned toward me.
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E/N:
Are we not going to have a fight to death?
But… feels bad man! An entire race's genocide…
Stay tuned!
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