Lord Of Goblins

"What's wrong? Come on and eat.", says Ghorza to Lev.

"I'm not hungry…", says Lev as he stares at his meal and it stares back with its six eyes. It was a fuzzy cave worm. It's one of the most abundant species in the magical cavern. Along with its unusually amount of eyes - despite it being a cave dweller, it has two long whiskers stretching from the sides of its head and a long thin slippery tongue slipping out of its mouth. It was half his size, so it was separated into three pieces. He got the head since it was Gherm's "favourite", his sister took the middle part, and the bottom will be eaten as a light breakfast tomorrow.

"You really don't wanna eat that? You know, it's pretty expensive to get one; not to mention that you haven't eaten anything since you woke up.".

"Really sis, I'm not-".

Grrrrrrr.

"…".

"Not hungry huh?", questions Ghorza as the sound of his grumbling stomach was loud enough to wake the dead.

Lev was dumbstruck. He was betrayed by his own stomach, leaving him unable to make any comebacks.

"Gherm,", says Ghorza with an imperative tone while holding a piece of grey meat from the head "eat.".

"Maybe it would be-".

"Eat.".

"Shouldn't we-".

"Eat.".

"Fine!", he yielded. Since truthfully speaking, he needed to eat. No matter how disgusted he was with the idea of eating alien bugs, he had to adapt. His survival depended on it.

He grabbed the grey meat from the now smiling Ghorza's hand and stuffed it into his mouth without a second thought.

"Gherm? Why are you making such a face?", asks Ghorza worriedly as fuzzy cave worms were, for as long as she remembers, Gherm's favourite. She never imagined a day where he would show such a look of disgust when eating them.

"Nothing to worry about. It just looks like there was some lazlick mould inside it.", he lied as he tried to make a cheerful expression.

"Oh. Lucky you," she says since though Gherm hates the idea of even smelling them, she adores their extremely sweet flavour.

'How on earth did he enjoy eating these damned things.', thinks Lev as he kept chewing the bitter-sour meat while trying to maintain a look of joy on his face. To Lev, the taste was absolutely repugnant and the texture was just awful.

He finally swallowed the worm meat hoping it was all over, only for his hope to be crushed by Ghorza's next words.

"Now time to finish the rest.".

"Sure...", he said with a smile on his face, hiding his d.e.s.i.r.e to cry.

He managed to endure the urge to gag and continued eating with an expression of joy while making some small talk every now and then - Gherm was never the silent type. He held his act well, performing all the small gestures, quirks, and nuances that Gherm was known for and it seemed to work. Every time he talked, he also expressed himself with his hands and during every embarrassing question he was asked, he twitched his ears and nervously tapped on the table with his left hand's index finger.

'Finally...', he thought in relief as he finished his meal. He let out a sigh of relief, stood up, stretched his body, and proceeded to go grab a bowl of water from the left of the room. He drank a little and then as he was about to wash his hands, Ghorza shrieked.

"What do you think you're doing!?".

Startled, he almost dropped the bowl but managed to retain a tight grip on it. He then was going to ask her why she screamed like that only to remember, 'Oh, right. Bogeys are tribal primitives. They don't understand the importance of hygiene.'.

To him, he was about to wash his hands. To her, he was about to waste some of their precious hard-earned clean water.

"The doctor told me to clean myself to prevent diseases, and if I can't, I should at least wash my hands.", he told her.

"Oh really? Then why didn't he tell me beforehand?".

"You know how absent-minded he can be.".

"Not enough to neglect his job, and how would washing stop diseases?".

"It prevents numerous tiny evil spirits from making us sick.".

"And you honestly believe that?".

"I have my ways to know and trust me, he wasn't lying.".

She sighed and held her head, "You do know that though you rarely ever lie to me, the keyword is rarely. I feel like that you've been lying a lot since you woke up. Even during dinner, I felt like something was off. Like you were trying to act as if you're yourself. Please, Gherm, tell me why, and be honest this time." she pleaded.

Lev was stunned. Even experts on the political field have a hard time uncovering his act. 'Guess that's family for you', he thought with a smirk on his face. He tried to think of a way to explain to her why he was acting different, why he feels different, but he couldn't think of a way that would subject him to fewer risks in the future.

"I have memories from another life.", He said. This time it was better to say the truth. She can interpret in any way since though bogeys believes in possession, they also believe in reincarnation. She could take it as a joke or believe it, in the end, he can't just hide the changes in Gherm's personality without any previous preparations. He was a politician, not the god of deceit.

"You're joking.".

"Nope.".

"Come on Gherm, I'm serious.".

"I'm serious as well.".

As Ghorza stared into his eyes, she knows that he wasn't joking around. She started to back away slowly and grabbed a stone knife from the table.

"Ghorza-".

"Shut it! Leave Gherm alone demon!", she yelled with a furious expression in her eyes.

"I'm not a demon.", he said as he backed away from the enraged sister.

"Sure you aren't, and I'm the chief's daughter.".

"Mermon powder.".

"What?".

"I'll prove it to you. I'll drink some water with Mermon powder, which as we all know, can burn demons. If I start burning than it's obvious that I'm possessed and you can do whatever you want with me, but if nothing happens to me then you have to believe me that I got memories from another life. ".

"You're crazy...".

"No, I'm not. I'm just who I am, and it's not a demon possessing my body.".

Ghorza doesn't lower her knife, but she steps back far enough for him to grab the Mermon powder jar from across the room to the left.

'Thank god that she accepted.', He thinks as he opens the jar, "Hopefully the thing about this powder being used for expelling demons and spirits is just some superstitious nonsense, and if it does do that, I hope it either doesn't work on me, or send me back to where I belong.".

as he grabs a pinch of the powder he sighs in relief as nothing happened, but it is known that some powerful demons have some varying resistance to the powder, but all of them are expelled if they ingest it, and that's what he did. He mixed the powder with some water and drank it.

...

...And nothing happened.

"Do you believe me now?", he asked the stunned girl.

"So you're really Gherm?".

"No. I'm Tanach, the dreamer of worlds.", said Lev in a sarcastic tone.

"Pfft! Tanach!? Out of everything you chose the lazy one?".

"What can I say? I love being lazy.".

"You sure do, young bro. You sure do...".

...

"So, care to explain to me how you have other memories?", she asks Lev in a questioning tone.

"I honestly don't know how it all happened. I felt that I was in a void, then my body was swept away as if I was inside a river, only to find myself heading towards a ball of light. After slamming into it, I woke up with an aching head and an additional set of memories.".

After Lev's explanation, Ghorza's face took on a multitude of expressions. Confusion, shock, excitement, and then fear.

"Do you realize what this means!?" she yells worriedly.

"No, not at all.".

"You're a chosen one, Gherm! A chosen one! It's been a long time since a chosen one appeared, and more so a greyborn chosen one."

"Uh oh...".

"Uh oh, indeed. You must never tell anyone about this and if you gain any abilities, never show them to anyone. It could spell our doom.".

Ghorza had the right to be worried since chosen ones were known to change the world around them. They are reincarnations of the gods and their champions. They wield powers that can go beyond human comprehension. Their power can be as simple as superhuman strength to complex ones that can alter the fabric of reality.

"Maybe... Maybe you could be lucky and turn out as a lost soul. What do you think? Check your recent memories, do they contain any divine figures?".

Lev sighs as he now knows what he is, "Looks like I'm a lost soul and not a noble one.".

Lost souls are people who inherit the memories of another mortal, unlike chosen ones they're not divine at all. They only have memories, but no new powers whatsoever, which considering that most mortal memories are irrelevant since they are mostly of commoners from ancient times, makes lost ones useless and easy to forget. Only a few manage to succeed due to their newfound memories as they're the ones who inherit the memories of great leaders and legendary craftsmen.

"Thank the gods." Ghorza said with a sigh of relief "I feared that it might be over for us...".

"Yeah, thankfully it's just a commoner's memory.", he said with a smile.

'A commoner from another world, that is.'.

Though there is the concept of transmigration and latent memories in this world, it is usually among this world's inhabitants. There was never a case of inheriting memories from another world and there never was a case wherein the foreign soul took control of the body instead of integrating with the previous soul, which means there's either a problem in the reincarnation process or Lev's resistance of his own world's process led to a failsafe that sent him into this world. There's also the possibility that supernatural entities were at work, leading to current events.

"Great! Though commoner or not, you better hide it. They're usually considered useless, but who knows what secrets lie in your new memories. Aghh, this entire issue is giving me a headache.", she says while rubbing her forehead.

"That's why I didn't want to tell you, sis. I know the issue is complicated, and it's not something that I can just tell others easily. I know that if others find out about it, I can be hunted down, tortured, then killed. Lost ones aren't indispensable, so if I get caught, I could be experimented on, chained to be cut open, to see what makes me tick, to see if lost ones have any hidden gifts, or maybe it's just for their amus.e.m.e.nt, to show their superiority as they probe me both physically and mentality, to laugh as they twist me and break me, as they strip me of-".

"Stop!", screamed Ghorza with a fury unseen before. "NEVER say anything like that again!".

"Never... please...", she told him as she hugged him.

Lev stood there shocked. He realized that he took it too far. He was always known to unknowingly spout the worst-case scenario without taking into consideration the feelings of others, usually leaving him guilty.

And guilty he is. he hugged her back and let her cry on his shoulder and when she was done, he smiled at her. "I think it's better to go to sleep and leave the thinking for tomorrow."

" Yeah... sleep... let's go to sleep..." she said before taking a deep breath, "You better feel better by tomorrow since we have a lot of work to do to gain back those merits.".

"Alright, sis. See you tomorrow. Oh, and you better wash your hands beforehand, trust me, it's for your own good.".

After they washed their hands, they walked to the sleeping quarters and laid on their separate mats made from old rags that they bought using their hard-earned merits.

"Good Night, Gherm.", said Ghorza as she closed her eyes and entered the land of dreams.

"Good Night, sis.", he said as he closed his eyes, but sleep he did not.

After waiting for a few minutes, he checked if she's actually asleep before breaking his facade and losing himself in his thoughts.

"So I died huh..." said Lev to himself before thinking of what exactly happened at the moment of his death.

'I was shot during my victory speech. Brutus and Maria were there, he applied pressure to my wound to stop the bleeding while she called the ambulance.'.

'Heh... I'm pretty sure the big lug started crying like a baby, despite his large intimidating physique, he was always a big softie. Maria, on the other hand, she was a tigress.', he thought as he remembered how she always used to get into fights no matter the odds.

He reminisced about their childhood as a tear fell from his eye, 'Will I ever see them again? I hope so because life is only half as fun without them.'.

'Now what should I do about my life?', he contemplated as he looked at his hands. Gherm's life was anything but easy. Abusing greyborns is the norm, and though the other bogeys try to act civilized and merciful by giving them the rights to own items via merits, they still overprice the sold goods which are usually of the worst quality. Even small-time criminals that as long as they aren't grey get treated better.

'I need to find a way to improve my life, and I need to take care of her.', he thought as he looked at the sleeping Ghorza, even though he isn't exactly Gherm, he inherited his memories and can feel a little influence, possibly from Gherm's will, on his own. He realized that, considering how he's easily accepting the change in his environment, he's merging with Gherm. Thankfully, his will is stronger than his counterpart's by far, so it will be more like him assimilating Gherm than gaining any of his negative traits via an equivalent merging process.

Many questions swirled in Lev's head, and he knows that he can't solve them all in one night, so he closed his eyes and allowed himself to drift off to sleep.