Ch. 140 – HORNS?

"Going goblin mode," it turned out, was no joke.

She felt it first in her stomach. An ache – then a sharp pain. She hissed involuntarily, attracting the attention of one of the grunts. He turned his bulbous white head towards her as the air around her bubbled. It had turned humid, boiling. Literally blue with heat. Momo’s skin felt like it was being ripped straight off her face, dissolving like paper in a bonfire.

“Oh, that’s hot,” she mumbled, her tears evaporating nearly as quick as they came. “Really hot.”

From the horrified expression Nura was giving her, it probably looked as pleasant as it felt.

“Momo, your… your…” the smaller girl stuttered. Her finger pointed towards Momo’s chest.

Momo looked down.

Oh. She thought, noticing a large, black hole where her heart should have been. That can’t be good.

With an abrupt thwip, a torrent of fire burst out of her center.

She was instantly incinerated.

The pain was so vast but so short, like a paper cut from a machete. It felt like maybe she had just died again, only briefly; the cord of her soul snipped with blunt scissors, spat on, then tied together in an amateur sailing knot. A sort of mechanical, systematic slapping around of the soul from one dimension to the next.

That wasn’t just allegory. In that brief moment between life and death, she swore she saw a factory of workers – all ghastly white, translucent. No eyes. No noses. Just flurries of hands and rope. They were seated by conveyor belts, attending to newly arrived after-lifers. People, pigs, goblins, lizards. Some kind of soul sweatshop.

The one attending to her had a few postage stamps laid in front of him, as if she was some envelope he simply had to categorize. One of them had an N, for Nether, she supposed, another for A, possibly Alois, and then packages upon packages of other options. Some in foreign languages. Some with beady eyes staring back at her. Routes to other universes.

No E, she thought, in a brief moment of lucidity. I guess Earth isn’t my home address anymore.

The fleeting image lasted no more than a second before her attendee chose her stamp – A, as she suspected – and she was roundhouse kicked back into the world of the living.

And immediately fell to her knees, nauseous like she just came off a Viennese rollercoster.

“God,” she groaned, trying not to throw up. “I should have stuck to Intermediate.”

Fortunately, the worst seemed to be over. The fire had dissipated. It left a circle of ash around her, an artifact of her transformation. A piece of parchment floated in the middle of the hot debris.

Momo’s first instinct was to press a hand to her chest, worrying not for herself, but for the gerbil-rat living inside of her. Feeling the gentle tipper-tapper of feet, Momo sighed in relief. Biscuit was still alive and kicking, post-cremation. Tough little guy.

Momo lifted her gaze. Nura was cowering several feet in front of her, petrified.

“Oh, don’t give me that look,” Momo mumbled. “People burst into flames all the time.”

Speechlessly, Nura shook her head, as if to say no, not that. The girl’s eyes hovered to the top of Momo’s head, her lips quivering.

Momo frowned. Her hands flew to her scalp, only to run into immediate resistance.

“What the hell,” Momo whined, her hands grasping around two completely unfamiliar sloped extremities. They were short, firm, and tapered off to a sharp edge. “Are those… horns?”

Nura nodded with a whimper. Momo was mortified.

“I thought this class wasn’t supposed to change my appearance,” she grumbled.

Furious, she picked up the piece of parchment. Luckily for her, the cloud grunts seemed completely daunted by the fiery explosion she caused, and kept their distance.

You have chosen the [Nether Dokkaebi] class. Your [Corrupted Druid] and [Con Artist] classes have merged, opening up your 2nd class slot. You have gained the following stat boosts (+31 INT, +30 DEX, +23 CHA, +10 STR, +100 HP).

Your race has been changed from Human to Nether Dokkaebi. You will retain your human form, except for some minor physical differences. It usually takes 2 - 3 days to break in the horns. Try not impaling anyone with them while they’re still forming.

You have also gained the following skills:

[Polymorph - Dokkaebi]: Polymorph into your true form – the Dokkaebi. This fearsome goblin invokes [Fear] into all enemies with an INT below 25, causing them to flee.

[Possess]: Dokkaebis are infamous for their ability to possess inanimate objects. Using Nether energy, temporarily soul-transfer yourself into something inanimate. At the first level of this skill, you can only possess things with a weight below 40kg.

[Maladaptive Daydreams]: Plague your target with waking nightmares for 15 seconds.

The following skills have been altered by this class choice:

[Polymorph - Merlin] has been upgraded to [Polymorph - Nether Imp]: The tiny, purple flying devil of the underworld. Like a bird, but with arms, legs, and fireballs.

[Abyssal Blast II] has been upgraded to [Nether Fireball]: Rain death, destructure AND fire on your foes.

[Summon Lesser Familiar II] has been upgraded to [Summon Dokkaebi]: In addition to summoning Nether beats, you can also summon another Dokkaebi from the Nether. Unlike the other Nether beasts you can summon, which are mere imitations of reality, this Dokkaebi is the real, ultra-powerful thing. The only downside is they might not actually follow your commands. Fun!

[Undead Forest Totem] and [Mycelium Listening] have combined and been upgraded to [Nether Mycelium Turrets]: Use Nether to possess a field of mushrooms, operating them like turrets to shoot Nether energy at your opponents.

“Are you kidding?” Momo said, ignoring the vast majority of the upgrades and focusing on the second paragraph. “Horns? Hooorns?”

“Um, Momo,” Nura mumbled, finally finding her voice. “I – I know you just got reincarnated as some sort of hell demon, and hopefully you don’t want to eat me or anything, but I just wanted to remind you about the bigger picture at hand.”

Nura pointed to the sky, and Momo’s stomach dropped. The cloud titan had progressed far past blinking. He was moving again, and nearly on their heels; Momo watched as his enormous head apathetically consumed the prince’s observation box. The prince’s lifeless body, his tentacled head, and all of his artifacts were absorbed into the cloud’s undulating mass with a terrifying slorp.

“Ah. I see what you mean,” Momo said, swallowing. “I can deal with the horns later.”

“Yeah. If that’s okay,” Nura mumbled, trying to be understanding.

Seeing as Momo was no longer spitting fire out of her chest, the grunts once again grew interested in beating the ever living shit out of her. One of them was already rearing up his fist, ready to pummel her chest in. She dodged – easily now. So easily, in fact, that she tripped over her own feet, unprepared for just how quick she was.

“Oops,” she grumbled, her face planting into stone once again. “Stupid, nimble body.”

She recovered swiftly. The instant 30-point jump in Dexterity nearly doubled her previous points, forcing her to relearn how her body worked. For the next few minutes, she just practiced her usual maneuvers. Duck, strafe, jump. It was like playing the tutorial in a new videogame, mapping all the motions to the right keys.

As she danced around like a ballerina, she took mental notes about what had changed. One, everything she did was faster, quicker, more efficient. Like a racecar with an oil change. Two, she could jump higher, duck lower. No need to stretch beforehand, or brace for landing after an air-spin. Her gymnastics had reached slightly below the level of Simone Biles.

It’s like my body got a hardware upgrade, Momo thought.

“Alright,” she hummed, breathing easily as she cartwheeled out of another attempted cloud-suckerpunch. “I think I’m getting the hang of this whole thing. Maybe.”

Nura nodded cluelessly, staring at Momo in speechless awe. 

At least she doesn’t look like I’m about to eat her for dinner anymore, Momo thought, frowning. Small victories.

Of course, the real task was still ahead. Momo looked out into the sea of amorphous, angry bodies. Hundreds and hundreds of clouds that wanted her dead.

Now it’s time for me to really test the limits of this bad boy.

“Get on my back,” Momo grinned. “We’re taking me out for a spin.”

—

Momo would have never classified herself as an athlete. In fact, she was probably an anti-athlete. Opposed to all things categorized as sports, even e–sports. She rejected the whole concept of getting your heart rate above 60 beats per minute. She would have been happy to die laying in her bed, spread eagle, choking on too many Lays chips.

She was a changed woman. A repenting follower praying at the shrine of Fitness. For the first time in her life, Momo understood why people owned a treadmill. Or a bike. Or a sports car. Why? Because going really fast is fucking amazing.

“Please, for the love of Nerida, slow down!” Nura screeched, holding on for dear life.

Momo wasn’t running, she was flying. Zig-zagging around cloud grunts as she descended towards the floor of the stadium. She had pocketed her clogs in favor of running barefoot, feeling the damp stone under her feet as she rocketed from cliff to cliff, stairway to stairway.

A runner’s high, she remembered it described. By the Gods – this was like Runner’s Cocaine.

“Stop!” Nura cried, hitting Momo hard on the shoulder repeatedly. “I see them!”

Momo skidded to a stop, her heels digging into the damp ground.

True enough, there they were – Akram, Radu, Sumire, and the screaming, flailing masses of the ball’s guests, trapped by falling debris and towering cloud monsters. Momo hadn’t even noticed that she had made it to the floor of the amphitheater, too blinded by the euphoric joy of running like an absolute maniac.

Sumire was the first one to notice their arrival. The pirate-knight’s eyes flew first to Momo, a smile lighting up her previously grim expression. Then, after a moment, her eyes widened. She had spotted the girl Momo was carrying – the terrified, utterly exhausted face of her baby sister.

“Oh,” Sumire mumbled, weak and soft, “Nura.”