They were small and green, with large, pointed ears, and wore animal skins and furs, making them look somewhat wild compared to the ordinary lives they led. Victor had mixed feelings as he looked at the village.
Some goblins were ugly, others adorable, and a few didn’t even look like goblins. However, they all had one thing in common.
’They look like Brika.’
Somewhat dazed by the memory, Victor walked along the dirt streets, where carts pulled by lizards resembling Komodo dragons rolled past, carrying crates of vegetables and fruit.
Some children ran past him, laughing happily.
’I’ve never seen her laugh...’
Although he had laughed and celebrated his victories, Brika was colder than she appeared at first glance.
’Back then, she called me by my name.’
When the Wendigo caught him, Brika had used the name Victor for the first time. Perhaps she had said it unconsciously, but ever since that phone call, when Brika shouted his name once again, Victor hadn’t known how to feel about it.
Now this floating eye had introduced itself as some kind of weapon sent by Brika, which made no sense, since she had given up on being rescued. All she ever said was that they were going to die, and she hadn’t missed the opportunity to say it again during the phone call.
[Cogito, ergo sum. Move forward. Move forward.]
"I know. Shut up," Victor said. He continued exploring the memory.
The place really wasn’t what he had imagined. He remembered how, in many stories, goblins were portrayed as savage creatures living in caves, attacking humans to steal their weapons and do horrible things to women, but this...
This was the complete opposite. It was like looking at a miniature human society.
’I don’t understand... There are too many things I don’t understand right now.’
When he checked the countdown for the time he had left to save Brika, he couldn’t find enough reasons to believe any of this would end well, either. He had forty minutes left, but that didn’t seem like enough time when dealing with a maze.
Fortunately, he had this eye, which seemed to know where to go. Without it, Victor might have remained trapped in Richard Graves’ noir memory for much longer. If this really was Brika’s doing, he owed her his heartfelt thanks.
The floating eye moved faster. Victor grew curious about this until the eye finally spoke.
[Cogito, ergo sum. Memory of an important day.]
Victor stopped beside the eye. In front of them, outside one of the small houses, a goblin family stood before a group of knights, who were also goblins. Their dark armor covered their entire bodies.
The mother was holding a young Brika by the shoulders, while the father argued with the armored goblins. Victor couldn’t hear what they were saying because the voices in the memory were indistinct, but Brika had a resigned look on her face.
Then, one of the knights grabbed Brika by the hands and tore her away from her mother. Her father flew into a rage and charged at the knights, but a single one of them was enough to knock him unconscious with one blow.
After that, the armored knights took Brika to a cart pulled by two lizards and disappeared into the crowd. Her mother fell to her knees, sobbing uncontrollably, while her father came to and crawled across the dirt, reaching out in an attempt to grab his daughter.
[Cogito, ergo sum. Mr. Hope. Victor. Move forward.]
"Yeah, I know..." Victor whispered, staring into the distance, where little Brika had disappeared alongside the knights.
He turned his attention back to the eye, which continued onward until it entered Brika’s house. Victor had to crouch to get inside. Together, they climbed the stairs until they reached the second floor, where Brika’s bedroom was located.
There was an old bed, a table, a chest, and a poorly made stuffed toy depicting an animal resembling a two-headed dog with a dragon’s tail.
All of this only made Victor feel more distressed. He didn’t know why he felt this way, but he didn’t want to keep feeling like this. If only he had the Fairy Tear, all of this would be easier.
[Move forward. Move forward. Chest. Open the chest,] the eye said.
Victor complied much more readily this time and opened the chest, finding darkness once again.
"So this is the way to the next memory. You’re really helping me."
[Move forward. Move forward. There’s no time to waste.]
"Yeah. I know."
Victor reached into the darkness. The next moment, his body was swallowed by the chest.
He fell into a deep, black pit that transported him to the next memory. The next moment, he landed face-first in the wet dirt, where the blood of a thousand soldiers spilled across the ground and mixed with the mud.
Victor got back to his feet and realized he was now on a vast battlefield littered with the corpses of humans and goblins. Dark clouds covered the sky as torrential rain soaked every inch of the place.
"What is this place? Another one of Brika’s memories?"
The goblins alone made that much obvious, but where was Brika?
He only had to look toward the heart of the carnage. There she was, standing among the corpses, wearing black armor that barely covered her vital points. She held two bone knives in her hands and stared silently at the sky, her expression vacant.
Victor stood up and walked toward her. He stopped beside her and remained silent.
Brika then spoke in a tired voice.
"I am war. War is death."
She looked at her knives and continued:
"Blood, sweat, and tears. We are warriors."
She raised her knife high and shouted:
"I am Brika Gramodai of the Blood Feather Clan, and tonight, I have defeated them!"
However, she ended up falling to her knees.
"I defeated them."
But there was no one there to celebrate that victory with her. Victor sat beside her and looked at the blood-soaked landscape. He thought for a few seconds before turning to Brika.
"We’ll defeat him, Brika. We’ll get through this."