When he died he expected to go out gloriously, taking as many goblins with him as possible in the process, his death would be glorious only to him, others would morn, cry and beg for him to return but he would die happy knowing he'd ended many goblins in his time and before his death.

It was as he pictured, surrounded by an army of goblins without the help of the guild, he'd asked for their assistance, the news of the goblin lord hopefully bringing some into the quest he'd made.

It didn't.

No one came with him, none accepted his quest, the only ones who would have joined him were gone, doing another quest on their own, something he was somewhat happy about seeing as they would have died beside him like he was now.

He was a goblin killer, a hunter of those beasts, a slayer of their kind. An eradicator.

It was only fitting that he would fall to a goblin…no not fitting, it was fate, he was destined to die at a goblins hands.

When they came he was prepared to die, there numbers in the hundreds, lead by a leader in the shadows and without help he would die.

But he would take them all with him.

He fought with all his might, all his hatred powering each blow, killing goblin after goblin in droves, his traps he'd set previously doing their job to keep their riders at bay, there hob goblin units no match for his skill, experience and scrolls, there goblin champions to slow to catch him, making them easy targets in the open and finally.

The lord.

The lord was the hardest, a powerful goblin not only in strength but intelligence, he welded the axe of a fallen adventurer, using its great length to keep him at bay, more powerful than champions but as slippery as a rouge, a troubling match up but he came prepared.

He used everything in his arsenal, the bombs, the smoke grenades, the torch oil, his own sleeping bag, scrolls, everything to get the edge on the lord and eventually it worked, the combination of his arsenal soon overpowered the lord and finally with the use of a scroll he burned the sorry bastard to death, dropping a large amount of lava on the goblin while it was still, busy trying to get it's feet free from his sword imbedded in its foot.

And when the army fell as did he, his wounds finally catching up to him, the arrows, spears and swords all sticking out of his armour, piercing skin muscle and bone, draining his blood slowly. When he fell to his knees he smiled, the grips of fear unknown to him from his years of killing the beasts, only heat and light shone on him when he finally stopped breathing, his body remaining on it's kneels above a mountain of corpses.

He did have regrets, many so…but most of all he wished he could have said goodbye to them…

When his eyes opened he was confused, he felt weak, cold and vulnerable, his body refused to obey his commands, his vision was blurry, all he could make out were blobs above him, scuttling around in his vision when they passed, finally one figure slowed, looking down at him allowing his undeveloped eyes to focus on the figure.

Green, hooked nose, deformed skull, ugly, pointed ears and a wicked grin looked down at him. The defining features of a goblin.

He tried instinctively to kill it but his arms didn't move as he wanted, they simply stretched out in a wavy fashion at the goblin above him who simply laughed an ugly laugh before leaving. He felt rage in his small heart, the goblin mocking him in such a way made his blood boil.

But he could do nothing, his body simply refused to and in the end he felt darkness overtake him, his small eyes slowly closing and his mind slipping away into unconsciousness.

When his eyes opened again he found he felt stronger, still weaker than usual but stronger, he had decent control over his arms to the point he could move them with some effort and his eyes had developed more, becoming slightly larger and bulkier…greener.

Impossible…

His mind raced a mile a minute as he processed what he was looking at, his hands were small and stubby with sharp nails attached, they were the hands of a goblin child but he was…he was human, he should be but he died he should be dead not…not…

Not a goblin.

He wanted to scream, to shout, to kill those around him in rage and then to curse, shout at the gods who dared do this to him, to be born as a goblin was a curse none should dare receive, it was mockery.

Soon a new goblin came into the room, this one wearing torn up garbs with its face covered, this one was obviously a shaman, inspecting the young and to feed those who lived up to his expectations. When it's eyes landed on him he glared back surprising the shaman at his actions, he expected anger for his glare but instead the shaman's goat like eyes tightened from the smile under his mask, it walked to him and held a larva in it's hand and fed him, forcefully feeding him the bug they fed there young.

Before he could react with violence he felt himself tire once more, the darkness again overtook him once more and his eyes shut for a second time, disobeying his commands to remain open.

His eyes opened a third time, not because of himself but because of the noises around him, he instinctually sat up and reached for his sword, pausing when his hand grasped nothing, but air and his mind followed suit realizing he has sat up.

He looked at himself again to see he'd grown more, this time his growth seemed unprecedented, he judged that he was around the size of a small child now, a bit faster than most goblins as they usually needed four to five to grow this big, looking at the other children he confirmed, they were all still small but not much so, a day or two was all they'd need to grow to his current size and by then he'd be taller, fully developed into a savage beast.

The thought sickened him, to be a goblin made him cold it made him fell something he hadn't felt in years…

Fear.

The sound rang in his ears again, the sound pegged his interest due to its un-goblin like nature, he moved to his feet and made for the exit to the child pit and opened the entrance, he had to supress a smile seeing several goblin corpses littering the ground, the shaman laying against the wall with an arrow in his chest. No doubt adventures had killed them and just left, unaware of the pit full of children and treasure hidden behind the shaman's chair, a fatal mistake as the children would soon become monsters themselves but a life saver for him. He once overed the cave again, making sure the adventures were truly gone and when he deemed it safe he moved out of his cover.

Although he rejoiced in the fact that the goblins were dead it brought along a problem, alone a goblin would never survive and seeing as he was one it would make his life challenging. Luckily it was nothing new, he knew how to survive alone even if he was weaker than before he could pull through.

He looked down at his hands one last time before feeling his face, he noted with surprise he lacked any of the goblins defining ugly features, his face was smoother, lacking deformities like normal goblins would and his nose was more akin to a small snout then the crooked nose goblins had. He was thankful at the fact he at least didn't look like a goblin.

With his self-checking done he started scavenging the dead goblins for supplies, taking the bits and pieces of armour they had and attaching them to himself and looting a dulled dagger from the shaman's corpse, in the end he had a rusted kettle helmet, a single shoulder guard and bracer made from iron on his right arm that held his dagger, a chest piece and some scrap boots held together by leather straps, under this he wore the shamans robes to coverup, although they stank he didn't want to run around naked.

As much as he wanted to set off right then and there he had one last thing to do.

He moved back into the treasure room and looked at the goblin children, they were fast asleep unaware that their tribe had been killed, he looked at them for a moment longer before nodding and doing as he always did. Slay. He killed them all, driving his dagger into there hearts and killing them without a sound, by the end he'd slane five children goblins.

His eyes moved to the treasure and was disappointed to find he couldn't take anything, there was a few swords and bits of armour no doubt belonging to past adventures who'd failed to kill the nests inhabitants and were killed due to this. He made a mental note to come back later for the gear when he grew, he had no plans of dying again and would make the most of his new life, although he was reborn a goblin he was still one thing.

A goblin slayer.

And so he packed as much food as he could find and set off, planning on continuing his life as a goblin slayer. His new eyes came with an upside, he could see in the dark perfectly, thanks to his new eyes he was able to navigate the cave he was in perfectly and within ten minutes he was outside in the open air, he took a deep breath and sighed out his relief, the smelt great, three days of being stuck in a goblin den smelt horrid so it was a welcome change.

He made sure to stay off the roads as he walked, remaining off to the side and hiding in the treelines when he could to avoid spooking villagers, if he was found now even with his experience he doubted he could fight off a party of adventures even if they were porcelain ranked, he simply wasn't strong enough to deal with them and he didn't want to, it would feel wrong killing people he'd once worked with even for his survival.

He'd need to avoid villages and towns, survive off the land until he could get his plan finished to get in without arousing suspicion that he was a goblin. He would first need to evolve into a hob goblin, although they were slightly on the tall side if he could become one and get some armour they covered most of his body he could pass as a tall human and get access to towns and villages, maybe even the adventures guild in time, maybe he could take off his helmet if he looked relatively human and not an ugly bastard like other hob goblins.

He desperately hoped for the former, although he didn't show his face much previously he'd just off himself if he looked like a hob goblin.

During his journey he found himself familiar with the roads, he'd walked they many times on his quests to kill goblins, he knew this road a good amount having used it plenty of times, he knew it lead to the adventure guilds home as well as several villages on the way there, a major problem would arise if he continued the way he was walking, eventually he'd run into adventures and the fight that would follow suit would be devastating for him, although he wished to continue on his current path he reluctantly turned around going back the way he came to put as much distance between himself and the adventures guild.

One day I'll be back…I promise.

He didn't know exactly who he was promising this to, but it still held meaning none the less, even if it was only him who could hear it.

The first week had been tough to say the least, living as a goblin had been much harder than expected, his short size made traveling harder and his food supplies had run out much faster than expected, goblins got hungry surprisingly fast and required ridiculously large portions to be fed properly only after four days did his food run out forcing him to scavenge from the wild and hunt, one upside to his small size was that he was much harder to detect making it much easier to hunt rabbits and kill them before they could react.

In all honestly, he was happy his food had run out, eating rabbit was much more beneficial (and tastier) for his health than stale bread and charred semi-rotted meat, he noticed this when he was beginning to gain mass, combined with his traveling in armour, hunting rabbits and eating rabbit had his build go from lanky to slightly bulky in the time. Although the hunting could be tiring and frustrating it was worth it in the end, his healthy eating and active hunting would help him towards evolving into a hob-goblin faster.

Now lay the next problem, how long would it take for him to evolve? It was one of the few things he didn't know about goblins, it was hard to keep track of a single goblin for long periods of time to watch them turn from goblin to hob goblin, it may take weeks, months or even years for him to evolve, even with his healthier than normal standard living for a goblin it may take years for him to evolve. He'd need to find a way to speed this process up, his chances of dying would too high as long as he was a normal goblin.

This brought up a question of morality.

He knew that eating things stronger than himself would accelerate the process of evolving but there weren't many high-ranking monsters in the area and even if he came across one he wouldn't stand a chance against it. This left only one target for him to kill, adventures. Should he do it? Was his survival more important than the survival of others? If he did start killing adventures would he be any better than the beasts he killed?

No, he wouldn't become one of them, he'd live off wild life for now, killing rabbits and eventually larger pray when he could and if he didn't see any notable progress in the next six months he'd try hunting for a larger beast to kill.

His thoughts were interrupted when the smell of goblin shit washed over him, this combined with his enhanced smell almost made him vomit, instead he kept it to gag. Following where the smell came from he saw the opening in the hill, a shaman's totem sticking proudly outside the cave as a warning for adventures.

Before he could realize it, he was already walking to the cave's entrance, his steps silent from the countless hours of practice from his old life kicking in, he remained still when he entered to allow his eyes to adapt to the dark. He began his track into the nest, watching vigilantly for any signs of a trap or ambush but was thankful none was present and with no guards stationed it would mean the goblins were distracted with other things. He didn't need to search long for the nest, the shaman's totem sticking from the ground in front of a small entrance giving it away easily.

When he reached the entrance to the nest he peaked inside and grimaced at what he seen, a group of around ten or so goblin's encircling something he couldn't see jeering and laughing all the while, it wasn't hard to guess that it was a group of females in the middle of the circle, most likely rookie adventurers who planned to make it big only to be defeated by the nefarious practices of goblin kind on their first quest.

It wasn't uncommon for this to happen, many groups of aspiring adventures when to missions to kill goblins ill-equip, swords to long, no antidote potions, no heal potions and no head protection. All of this usually lead to the adventures being defeated, the males killed and eaten while the surviving females of the group were passed around to be raped, used to satisfy the goblin's lustful urges and to give birth to more goblin spawn, a terrible fate far too many were forced to lay witness to.

But in a way this was a blessing in disguise for him, he could get the drop on the goblins while they had there fun, he'd used this strategy to his advantage many times before, mostly to kill the shaman's or hob goblins, although the girls would have to endure longer he would be able to kill the goblin's easier without there leader interfering.

Carefully sneaking up on the group he looked them over, looking for the shaman within there numbers and nodded to himself seeing the robbed goblin standing on the side lines eating a chunk of raw meat. Blending in with the other goblin's he moved through the group to keep the shaman's eyes off him and when he finally emerged by the distracted shaman's side he lunched is assault.

Before the shaman could react to his attack he'd lodged his dagger into the goblin's head, piercing its deformed skull and stabbing into the brain killing it almost instantly, a small gurgle emitted from the shaman as it fell to the ground, but the sound was drowned out by the goblin's jeering nearby.

With one problem solved he was stuck with another, he couldn't just run into the goblin's attacking wildly, he may kill a few but when they regained their selves they'd be on him within moments. No, he'd need to kill them using stealth.

He set the next part of his plan into motion, turning and grabbing the furthest from the group by the mouth, muffling the surprised scream as he dragged them back and stabbed them in the throat with his dagger, he repeated this as he moved around the group, finding the furthest in the circle and dragging them away to kill them, by the time the other goblin's had realized what was happening they were already down to six.

The first to spot him looked in confusion, not recognizing him as part of the group but was hesitant to attack another goblin. This had been it's downfall as the goblin didn't have time to react when he jabbed his dagger into it's throat cutting off it's air supply and effectively killing it, by now the other five had noticed something was wrong and began shouting curses and screaming noticing there dead comrades laying in puddles of their own blood.

Due to him being a goblin himself the others couldn't pinpoint the threat, there lack of intellect concluding an adventure had done this leaving them exposed to being surprised when he lunched his final assault, killing one goblin in surprise while the last four looked on in shock.

When it finally registered the threat was another goblin the last for leapt into action, jumping at him with there claws and clubs ready to kill him, he dodged there attacks flawlessly, moving between there strikes and lunching his own attacks, each time his dagger moved it killed a goblin, each counter attack striking fatal places such as the heart, head and neck. Before he knew it, he was the last one standing, panting from the exhaustion of battle in his new body.

But his battle wasn't over yet, not until they were all dead.

He set his sights on the shaman's thrown and marched, approaching the treasure room and den with the children inside, when he reached the thrown he pushed it aside, breaking the loosely held together bones apart exposing the five goblin children inside, they watched him with looks of fear on there faces, backing away when he began his approach. All they could do was cry out when he mercilessly butchered them, killing the very last of the nests inhabitants.

Setting his eyes on the treasure the goblins had collected he smirked seeing the perfect weapon, a short sword lay against cave walls, a memento taken from a fallen adventure. Taking the short sword into hand he nodded, although it was a bit on the heavy side he could solve that with proper growth and development as time passed, the dagger he stored in between his chest plate, filling the gab between his body and the metal making it a little more comfortable to wear while also having the benefit of him being able to pull the dagger out when he was in a desperate situation.

The rest of the treasure wasn't anything to useful, just a second bracer for his left arm and a small hammered piece of metal with two leather straps around it, an obvious attempt at a goblin trying to make a piece of armour and failing but it would suffice as a knee guard for defence and delivering more punch when he used his knees in a fight.

Everything else on the other hand was to large to fit him, maybe if he was a hob goblin he could have used it but being the size of a child meant he couldn't wear armour made for full sized adults so seeing as nothing else of use was in the treasure room he exited into the nest to take a look at what exactly the goblin's had been distracted by.

Two girls, one elf and a human, both adventurers if the small adventurer tags around their necks were to go by. He approached them but they payed no attention, only looking up to the ceiling with broken expressions on their faces. He could see a swell in the human's stomach, it was obvious from this they had been here a few days at the least, repeatedly used during this time. He didn't need to ask for what he did next, he killed them both, driving his new sword through there hearts and when they finally stopped breathing he drove his sword into their stomachs to ensure the goblin's in their wombs wouldn't develop further.

In the end they died with smiles on their faces.

The goblin's hadn't much on them, only simple tattered bits of leather and fur to cove there more sensitive bits from view, the only goblin's holding anything of interest on them was the shaman who wore shaman clothes and the last goblin he'd killed who had makeshift belt on, taking the belt off the dead goblin he put it around his own waist and nodded.

He imagined he looked a little weird, it was rare to see goblin's with so much supplies on them at once, they usually shared their spoils with each other, taking bits and pieces of armour to wear.

Before he was able to ponder on it more heard a shout from behind him and turned just in time to move slightly before being hit on the head with a glancing bloow by something large and blunt, the surprise attack left him stunned, he stumbled backwards and shook his head before looking at his attacker and paused.

It was a goblin, a short, green skinned…female goblin.

What?

He tried to process what was in front of him, the goblin didn't look much like her other kin, she didn't look like her face had been bashed by a mallet, instead her features looked softer, her eyes were large, and her lips were prominent, she even had hair that was pushed to the side. Her teeth looked like they'd been cared for despite being sharp and large, they were a perfect white colour. She didn't wear to much, only covering her bear essentials with tanned hide and furs covering her chest, waist and feet. And finally, he looked at her weapon and almost chocked in surprise, she held a large mallet almost the same size as herself in her two hands.

Why are the females of every species so different than the males?

''AGH!'' The goblin shouts, running forwards and swinging her mallet at him forcing him to jump to the side to avoid his skull getting crushed.

He didn't exactly know what to do in this situation, she had a far superior weapon and was physically stronger than he was, if he ran and she proved to be faster than him he couldn't have time to defend himself leading to him being crushed to death.

He dodged another attack from the female goblin, the hammer just barely grazing his chest plate but held enough force in the contact to make him stumble backwards again.

She must be a fighter of some sort, it's not impossible for goblins to have a classification of some sort, there's shaman's and lord's after all.

It was the only explanation he could think of, the goblin he was fighting had a fighter classification of some kind or one of its sub categories.

If she's a berserker I'm dead.

He dodged another series of attacks before scuttling backwards as fast as he could, putting distance between himself and the much, MUCH, stronger female goblin.

He couldn't beat her in a fight, she was to strong, he didn't know how fast she was meaning he couldn't run without the risk of being killed, he was outmatched and quickly finding himself cornered, he had one option here, one he was debating internally if it was better than death or not.

Damn it all…

He was left with one choice in the situation, one that was just slightly better than death, to bend the knee. And that's just what he did, he dropped onto his knees before the female, hoping she wouldn't bash his skull in while he shoved his head into the floor and laid his arms out forwards putting him in a sort of worshiping pose.

A second of silence passed, then two and finally that silence was broken by the female goblin speaking.

''You expect me to let you live after you helped kill my tribe just because you're bowing?'' The female goblin asks, the goblin language giving her voice a natural rough tone as if it was being ground off two rocks before coming out of her mouth, though he was surprised he could understand her. ''Now tell me where the rest of your little raid party is and I'll make your death swift and painless.''

''Ah…I have no…tribe.'' He manages, the goblin language awkward to get out of his mouth after using English for so long.

''You expect me to believe you killed them alone?'' The female goblin asks, unamused by what she preserved to be a lie.

He nodded his reply, slowly grabbing the dagger he'd used to kill the goblin's and laying it out for the female goblin to see.

''I killed them…while distracted.''

Damn it's hard to speak goblin.

''Hm, a rusted dull dagger…?'' The female asks herself, picking the dagger up and inspect it before walking over to the nearest goblin and comparing the wounds, then moving to the next and comparing it.

''Hm, so you did kill them all, even if they were distracted.'' The female mutters, dropping the knife in front of him while she looked at him in a judging manner, even going as far as to cup her chin in thought.

''Fine I'll let you live, but you'll be my underling, after all you killed my last ones.'' The female goblin finally says, picking up her mallet and holding it over her shoulder like it was sort of paperweight. Seeing as there was no way to refuse her 'offer' he swallowed his pride and nodded, standing up allowing him to see he was just taller than her without his helmet on.

''Now stay here, I have to grab some of the treasure before we leave.'' The female goblin orders before marching over the treasure room and entering.

Now's my chance!

As soon as he seen the goblin go into the treasure room he bolted, grabbing his things and running out of the cave like a bat out of hell and was sure not to stop running for thirty minutes after until he was completely exhausted forcing him to collapse against a tree to rest.

''C-close…One.'' He managed through his short breath, unaware he was speaking both goblin and English. He remained sitting against the tree for five minutes to catch his breath, being sure to check every so often that the female goblin hadn't followed him out and when he finally caught his breath he began his way, making sure to walk faster than normal to put as much distance between the goblin nest and himself.

It had been a month now since he was reborn a goblin, he spent most of his time traveling, scavenging from the wilderness to eat and hunting animals like rabbits and even dear when he could, his meat filled diet had caused a major growth for him, compared to when he was first born he was lanky like all goblin's but now he was more built, he no longer needed the dagger between his chest plate to hold it properly, his increase in muscle mass has helped in his quest of destroying goblin nests he'd come across in his adventures, over nineteen nests had fallen to him in a month, he took his fair share of 'loot' from the goblin's, mostly armour when he could.

But today wasn't important because of it being his first month being alive again, no he'd honestly forgotten he'd been birthed a month ago. What was on his mind now was why everything was so…small?

His armour no longer fit him properly, his short sword now felt like a short sword and not a long sword and the dagger was far to small for him to use now, he also felt stronger, unusually so.

He was a hob goblin…

That was far faster than I thought it would be…

He was surprised at how quickly he'd evolved, one month was all it took and he was already evolved. Immediately he felt his face and sighed in relief when he felt no deformities, no crooked nose, no warts, no unusually large mouth, everything was normal and propionate to his face. He did notice one difference though, he had hair now, he could barely see it out of the corner of his eyes, but he had hair again, a full head of it as well just like his own before his death. Digging a hand into his now 'small' rug sack he rummaged through the contents before pulling out a cracked mirror and looked at himself.

I look just like I used to before I died…

He indeed did, he looked almost identical to himself from his previous life, the only difference being his dull grey skin, his hair was a bit longer, the elf like ears he now sported, his nose was a bit stubbier than usual and finally the fang that poked out of his mouth.

Honestly, he didn't care much for his own looks, he was just making sure he didn't look like the average hob-goblin, if he had he'd have offed himself then and there, he couldn't be a goblin slayer if he looked just like one of the ugly beasts.

But from one problem solved to another, none of his armour fit him and nor did his clothes, he was left naked under a tree with his gear littered about from being thrown off from his evolution during his sleep.

Looks like I'll need to make myself new clothes with what I have…

He got to work immediately, rummaging through his sack one more and pulling out anything that he could put together to use to cover himself for the time being, for an hour he sat quickly while putting together what he could and finally finished his new article of clothing. It was an improvised 'skirt' of a sort that started at his waist and ended at him caffs.

It's not the best but it'll do.

With that done he put everything away again before pausing mid-way through as he grabbed his old helmet, glancing at a few thick leather straps left from his crafts project he nodded and made his old helmet into a temporary shield that wrapped around his arm allowing his shield hand to hold the dagger just in case he was desperate.

Back to the adventures guild I go…

Seeing as he was a hob goblin he'd continue with his plan, he'd move back to the main road and register as an adventure at the guild hall.

It's not every day you re-register as an adventure.

It would take a week by foot, a few extra days if he continued with his plan of going back to nests he'd cleared out and taking what he could from the abandoned treasures and it most likely would take over the week, he couldn't walk into the guild hall as he was now, he had neither the money nor proper equipment to register.

I'll make my way back and stop at every nest and get my equipment sorted out, there should be enough to get me decently outfitted and then some.

Yes, he would return to his normal life of goblin slaying, a goblin slayer that was a goblin, hypocrisy but he would do it, he'd kill every single last one of them and when only he was left, he would kill himself to ensure no more goblins returned.

It was his fate to die at the hands of a goblin, even if those hands were his own in the end.

If the chapter feels rushed that's because I wanted to get some of the more basic stuff out of the way first, I wanted to get the meat of the story following Goblin slayer returning to the guild, from this point on the story will be slower pace but not so much as to bore you to death reading it.

Enjoy reading and I'll see you chav and chavetes later.