Building a World Class Empire in another World
Chapter 86: The truth

Chapter 86: The truth

"And why would he do that?" Aric asked.

"Because I followed him myself, I made the decision to follow him, I followed my Master, he didn’t take me," Gorin said. His tone dropped slightly as he spoke.

Aric noticed the drop in tone. He looked into Gorin’s eyes—there was a small hint of sadness and regret. Aric sat on the floor and crossed his legs. He locked eyes with Gorin and asked, "What is it that you want to say? There’s something, right?"

Gorin’s eyes widened in shock, but he quickly returned to his normal expression. "You can’t manipulate details out of me," he said, looking away.

"I’m not asking you for information on your master. I’m asking you to say that thing you want to say. It’s easy to tell that something is weighing you down," Aric said.

Gorin turned to look at Aric. He opened his mouth but then closed it. He looked away again.

"Oh, come on already, tell me—or would you rather we go back to the stabbing and healing?" Aric asked.

"I lived in one of the biggest Goblin tribes in the forest. With hundreds and hundreds of goblins hidden away from humans," Gorin said. He turned and faced Aric.

"Our tribe was one of the few tribes with equal male and female goblin population. But that was until my master came and destroyed everything. The Forest Terror, the Demon Orc. That was the name he was given, feared by all around.

He came to our tribe with his army of goblins. He wreaked havoc. They destroyed my home, killed everyone, slaughtered young and old alike.

They dragged the women away—my mother and my sisters as well. I watched them get dragged away as our land burned.

At that point, I knew that the weak had no place in this world. I knew that if I wanted to get stronger, I needed to follow my master."

"I have a question," Aric interrupted him. "If he was killing everyone, how did you survive?" Aric asked, his eyes closed into slits as he watched Gorin carefully.

Gorin saw Aric’s gaze and knew that he didn’t have a choice—he had to tell the truth. "I was able to stay alive because I was the first person to see my master when he came toward our tribe.

I was playing in the mountains with my friend. We had killed a horned rabbit, and we were eating, when suddenly, a goblin killed him out of nowhere with an arrow.

In panic, I fled to higher ground, not daring to look back at my friend. I was a coward. I ran after my friend was killed. The image of his bleeding body remained ever since then.

When I made my escape up, I saw the army of goblins head for my tribe—I watched them. I could have run to my tribe to fight or inform them ahead, but I didn’t do anything. I was frozen in fear. And after I watched my whole family burn and my mother dragged away, I walked down and bowed to my enemy.

The goblins tried to kill me, but the Terror ordered that I should be left alive. He took me in, and ever since then, my whole life had been to serve him with every fibre of my being," Gorin said, his head dropped down.

"Because I never wanted to lose again, I obsessed myself with getting stronger, becoming a warrior, in the hopes that I’d get as powerful as my master," Gorin added.

Aric stood up slowly, walking toward Gorin in slow and steady steps, his hands swinging by his side without any control. When he was close to Gorin, he threw a punch.

Gorin looked up just before the punch hit him. His body flew off the ground, but the chains pulled him back down to the ground. Bang—his body hit the ground.

"You fucking asshole. At first, I thought you were just one of the trapped goblins that didn’t have any choice—I didn’t know you were a sick bastard," Aric said, his teeth ground against each other, his fists clenched tightly.

"You watched your mother and sisters get taken away? And rather than help them, you bowed down to your enemy? You are pathetic," Aric said, looking down at Gorin. His eyes blazed with rage.

"I saw you as a powerful warrior, one that I respected—your resolve and everything. Yet you are nothing but a coward trying to hide your own failures behind that serious face," Aric said. His gaze lingered on Gorin, who was still on the ground. He fought the urge to beat him more.

Aric took a deep breath, calmed himself down, and walked to the opposite wall. He sat down and leaned his back to the wall.

Gorin slowly sat up. He stared at Aric with a bleeding mouth. "Thank you," he said.

Aric looked at him, confused—why would he thank him after getting his face bashed in?

"I’ve always needed someone to tell me what I couldn’t tell myself—to show me that I was a failure and a coward. I tried to make myself strong while secretly begging for someone to shove my reality into my face.

I am not fighting because I want to be stronger—I’m simply scared. Scared that if I stop, the Terror would get me as well. He had been a devil in my mind, weighing over me," Gorin said.

"So? What does it matter now? You are scared of him taking your life—then why not take him down? If he falls, you gain your freedom," Aric said.

"You believe that you can kill him?" Gorin asked, his tone implied that he doubted it.

"I want to believe so, but I can only do that with the right information—information that you have. You might have been a coward before, but now you have the opportunity. The opportunity to take the reins, the opportunity to fix what you did in the past.

If not for yourself, then for your mother and sister. Show them—wherever they are—that you are not a lost cause, that you did the right thing at the end," Aric said. He looked Gorin right in the eye.

"You can choose to die here at my hands because you were so scared of dying by the hands of the Terror," Aric said. He got up on his feet and walked to the door, about to leave. He opened the door and took a step out.

"My master needs mana crystals to use his power," Gorin suddenly said. Aric’s feet hung in the air, he stayed that way for a second or two and then turned to face Gorin.

"He channels his will through the crystals, locking strange powers inside of them. With the crystals, he is able to control thousands of goblins on his own.

As long as their will does not surpass his own, they will forever be under his control. He used the mana crystals in many other ways as well, some I do not even know how to explain or how they work.

I have never once seen him fight for myself, but his aura is like an unshakable mountain. He stays in the deepest parts of the cave, where the mana is most potent and the crystals are of the highest quality.

He barely ever leaves. He simply stays in there and sends us, his inner circle, out to do his bidding. It had been that way for as long as I began following him.

As for the rest of the cave, it’s a breeding house. He uses humans to give birth to goblins. The goblins are his army, with which he takes down other races, destroying and pillaging their homes.

It was a never-ending circle of battles and blood. We did all that to make sure that our master was happy with us. When one of us fell, we continued marching ahead. There was no stop to our battles.

His watch bird constantly flew over his territory in the forest, and whenever he found a tribe or being that it deemed threatening, it would report back to our master. That was how we found out about you as well, the bird brought information about an elf building a village within the forest."

Aric listened to everything, but there was one question on his mind, one that he had to voice out.

"What happened to all the female goblins? Where are they?" he asked.

Immediately he asked, Gorin’s face darkened. He looked down at the ground, his body trembling. "I’d rather not speak of that," he said.

"But it’s very important for me to know, Gorin. Maybe we can save the rest of the female goblins as well," Aric said.

Gorin slowly looked up. He drew a deep breath, as if preparing to say something earth-shattering. The more he stalled, the more eager Aric got, he needed to know what was done to the female goblins.