The Black Box

A 3-meter tall hobgoblin was wreaking havoc inside a small cave-like dungeon, swinging its giant club everywhere. A goblin warrior dodged its attack and jumped forward to deliver a critical blow to the side of the hobgoblin with its blue sword.

"Now get back," a person from the group attacking the hobgoblin shouted. The goblin warrior immediately rushed back.

Another person shouted from the other side, "Now's your chance. Hit his thighs." A kobold ran forward and delivered a spear thrust straight onto the hobgoblin's legs, stumbling it down.

"Do it, Abe," the first person shouted. The guy named Abe immediately took out a thumbnail-sized marble from out of nowhere and threw it on top of the Hobgoblin.

The marble shined as it turned to a bird with very sharp talons that immediately started to scratch the hobgoblin's face off. Before it could even do anything, the hobgoblin's face was all battered and bloody.

Even then, it didn't back down. It immediately swung the club onto its own face, trying to hit the bird.

"Sh*t, Revert!" Abe shouted. The bird immediately shined, turning back into a marble that disappeared onto Abe's body. "I can't use the falcon anymore. Finish the fight while it is still stunned!" Abe told the other 2 people.

"David, tell your kobold to target the heart," the first guy shouted. "Okay," David said. He immediately ordered his kobold to spear through the chest while the hobgoblin was still in a daze from attacking its own head.

The spear pierced through the chest of the hobgoblin. At the same time, the goblin warrior also came in with its sword and cut the neck of the hobgoblin. Blood splattered everywhere on the cave floor.

"YES!!" all the 3 people celebrated seeing the defeated dungeon boss. David reverted his kobold back to marble as well that disappeared into his body. He then spoke, "Sheer the skin fast and we can live, Paul."

Paul was the name of the first guy, who owned the goblin warrior. "I know, I know. Look, my goblin is already doing it," he pointed to the goblin warrior who was in the process of cutting away the skin of the hobgoblin.

"Mark, Come and help the goblin," Paul screamed to the only member of the group that didn't take part in the fight, the porter.

"Yes, Coming," Mark said as he walked forward and took out his own knife and started tearing the skin off the monster, almost as if he had done it hundreds of times before.

For almost a year now, he had been working as a porter for various groups of people that wanted to come and fight the different goblins of the F-Ranked Goblin dungeon.

He still hadn't graduated from the Hunter Academy, so he shouldn't even have been allowed to enter a dungeon without professional supervision. However, due to the circumstances in his home, he was allowed to have a temporary license that let him work as a porter and a porter alone for the different groups that entered the dungeon.

He would be immediately disqualified from the academy if he dared to even fight in a single battle. As such, he had been staying in the back of the dungeon on the sidelines, never getting into fights ever.

Together with the goblin, he finished carving the skin off of the hobgoblins. He then looked at the center of the chest of the hobgoblin and saw an irregular blue-colored stone, which he pulled out. It was about the size of a pigeon's egg and gave off soft blue light as well.

"It has one," Mark said to the group of three.

"You got one, kid? Good job," Paul said as he walked back towards the corpse and took the stone off his hand. "Hey look guys, we got a big mana stone," Paul said out loud.

"Woah, that's bigger than the other ones we got so far," David said.

"Of course, it's bigger. It's from the dungeon boss after all," Abe chimed in.

Mark turned around and gestured into the shadows and a goblin with a giant backpack came forward. The goblin seemed to be having trouble walking due to the amount of stuff it was carrying on its back. Mark felt bad for it, but he still put on the skin onto the goblin.

He grabbed the club and started walking behind the people as they started leaving the dungeon.

As soon as they left the dungeon, Mark's goblin disappeared into bright light and returned back to him as a marble. The backpack it was carrying fell to the ground. They were now out of the dungeon and in the midst of multiple people entering and exiting the dungeon.

F-Rank dungeons could handle up to 50 instances of the dungeon at once, so there was no problem with so many people entering and exiting at once. The dungeon portal was still white, so there was nothing to worry about.

"Let's split the loot," they said and started distributing the loot. Mark just stood to the side, looking at them, knowing what was going to happen next. They were going to forget about him and distribute the loots among themselves and only leave him with the unwanted stuff in the end.

They put their stuff inside their storage rings and in the end, they only left him with a few goblin hides, 1 marble, and 2 small mana stone.

"Can I get a little more?" he asked, just in case.

"What?" Paul seemed to be offended by this. "All you did was walk around and make your goblin do the carrying. We could've done that ourselves if we were level 10, and you dare to ask more?" he shouted.

"What's going on?" A dungeon association staff came running after hearing the commotion.

"N-Nothing's wrong. I will leave now brothers, thanks." Mark quickly put what was on the ground into his storage rings and ran off before they could tell anything to the staff member. After reaching a bit further away, he cursed them.

"If only I wasn't on a temporary license and needed the money, I would show you b*t**es how to properly hunt in a dungeon," he cursed under his breath.

"Sigh, just one more week, and I can graduate and get my official hunter license too."

The dungeon was in an industrial area, so Mark easily located a dungeon trade center where he sold his 8 mana stone and multiple goblins hides from the 4 dungeon hunting he had been to today. Together, they still barely gave him 60 units at best. That was barely enough for 2 days worth of food.

It was past 4 PM, so he decided to go home. It took him over half an hour to walk back home because he wanted to save money.

He walked up the stairs of the building to his apartment, and when he reached his floor, he saw a notice on the door.

< Dear Ms. Michelle Grier, it has been 2 months since you last paid your rent. If you fail to pay it by the end of August 30th, I will have to ask you to vacate the premises. Thank you>

< John Banks>

It was a move-out notice.

"Sh*t" he thought. He tore off the paper and entered his apartment.

"Sister, I'm home," he said.

"Ah, you're back. " A voice came from one of the 4 rooms in the house. He followed the voice and walked to the living room and found his 27-year-old sister, watching children's cartoons on the TV.

"Have you eaten yet?" he asked.

His sister turned around and said, "No."

His sister had a mature face. She was tall and beautiful, fair of skin and kind of heart. Yet now, the expressions on that mature face were very child-like, and her beautiful face had a large, red scar running along her forehead to the left temple.

"I'll get some food for you," he said and went to the kitchen to prepare something for himself and his sister. He brought in a simple meal. They didn't have much money for anything fancy anyway.

He put the food on the table in front of his sister and sat on a chair holding his own. His sister, however, didn't touch the food. Instead, she looked at him, with wide eyes.

"Is… Is that you, Daddy?" she looked at him in disbelief.

'Not again,' he thought.

"No, Sister. It's me, your brother Mark," he said.

He got a little sad, seeing his sister lose all of her memories once again.

Ever since that incident 2 years ago, when Humanity got over the terrors of the dungeon, his sister had lost most of her memories.

Ever since then, every few days, his sister would lose her memories once more, reverting back to when she was barely 10 years old. Thankfully, it was about the time Mark was born, so he could let her know it was him grown up.

However, it wasn't easy telling her how their parents died in a dungeon outbreak every single time she lost her memories. It took everything for Mark to keep himself together.

Only after letting his sister know who he was and where she was did he leave her to watch the children's cartoon once more, and left the room.

"I need to go to the higher dungeons soon and find the ingredients to heal her," he thought.

He walked to his room and took off his storage ring. However, before doing that, he took out the marble he was given. He placed it between his two fingers and looked at the window through it, trying to see the monster inside.

"Thought so. Another goblin," he said as he pulled out the drawer. Inside were a bunch of different things, but the one that did not seem to belong there was a slick, black box that seemed to devour all lights in the vicinity. Every time he opened the drawer, it felt like the room dimmed a little.

This was a box that returned with his injured sister, back after the incident. He had tried asking what it was, but there was no way she could remember anything after that. Without an answer, he had just stashed the black box in his drawer and forgot about it.

He opened the box and looked at the 9 marbles all perfectly placed in 9 out of 10 different circular dents inside. These were all marbles with the goblin in them. They were so abundant in the market that selling them didn't even give him a few units. So he had decided to just keep them for if his goblin ever died in a dungeon hunt.

He placed the final goblin marble inside and closed the lid. After that, he went back to the kitchen to prepare some dinner.

Unbeknownst to him, however, the barely visible black box was now starting to shine in green color.