Chapter 69: Hope in the Dark.

Bleda was running as fast as he could, but the goblin he was chasing after was faster. The woman was still in mist form.

He could hear as she cursed his name. As she demanded that his entire tribe perished.

The skies were letting out a rumble after rumble after each curse.

Bleda knew that what he had done was in self-defense, but Drusila was not seeing it this way.

When she finally made a stop, her dagger in her hand, Bleda bowed.

He knew that the goblin could just as easily take off his head as stay in place, but he knew what he would have liked to get as an apology, if he had been the one to lose his brother.

"Why are you following me?" Drusila asked, as she narrowed her eyes. "Why don't my curses take hold?"

Bleda didn't respond for a while. He needed to collect his thoughts.

But then, as Drusila began to move towards him, he looked her in the eyes.

"You knew that your brother is sick, did you not?" Bleda asked. The lady sucked in a breath. "And what do you think made him sick?"

The goblin made a pause. Then she threw her dagger at a tree. It wilted in seconds.

This was a powerful witch, Bleda knew. His words were the only weapon he had to defeat her hatred.

"You think that you humans are the only ones entitled to the good things in life?" She roared, as she began to march at him. "That only you deserve to have children, who grow up in safety? Never having to worry about meat which has maggots in it? Never having to fight, unless they want to?"

Bleda kept his silence.

"Answer me!" She roared.

"My family and I are new to this world," Bleda told her, as he tried to formulate his thoughts. "We never treated our goblins as slaves. They were partners. We gave them food and money. Now we are ready to back them up so that they could enter the adventurer's academy!"

Drusila snorted.

"Yes! So that can humans call them pig children to their faces? To laugh at what we wear, to…!"

"If you are not willing to give us a chance," Bleda was becoming fed up with it. He didn't want to apologize about a world where he had not even spent a single year in! How was he to know that the goblins had it so bad in here? "Then why did you spare my life?"

Drusila was the one to keep her silence. A songbird flew off its perch and filled the forest with its song.

Bleda envied that bird. To be so up high that it couldn't even feel the tension beneath its wings.

"I didn't spare your life! I cursed you!" Drusila said finally, when Bleda didn't say anything else.

"Curses can be lifted," Bleda told her, as he looked her in the eyes. "But you know what? You are right! I do need something from you!"

Drusila took out another dagger. This time aiming it at Bleda's head.

He knew that his next words would either save human lives or doom him. But he was never one to shy away from danger.

"Have you heard about coffin births?" Bleda asked.

Drusila nodded.

"I would like to commission you to make a rune to prevent them. You can ask me anything you wish in return!"

Bleda bowed low, then. Knowing that the goblin lady could ask him for his life, and he would give it.

"You… you are not asking for wealth or fame, but for… the end of all coffin births?" Drusila began to blink.

Never during her years as a witch had someone told her such a thing.

"You must understand," Bleda said, finally lifting his head to look at her. "That a child's life is more precious than fame or wealth."

"You are just saying that because you already have both!" Drusila protested, ready to throw her dagger.

"Were you ever a mother?" Bleda was not ready to give up. He refused.

Just the thought that a baby was going to be born in its mother's coffin made him sick to his stomach.

To cry below the earth. To see the world through memories. To slowly suffocate.

Lossing all hope.

Only to be found by a ghoul who was scavenging the graveyard for his or her next meal.

Never to giggle. Never to breathe fresh air.

"No, I was not," Drusila said, but her brain was already connecting the dots. "Surely, coffin births are not so common?"

That was the wrong thing to say. Bleda glared at her.

"You must agree, dear lady, that the medicine in this world is not good enough," the Mongol began. "And you must also agree that a baby being born into Death's arms is not fair. It is monstrous! You have the chance to stop it from happening! And if you do, I will make it so that you can speak with your brother! I am a necromancer!"

Drusila took a step back.

She knew that the necromancers were not the best of people. She also knew that this man could smite her soul without even blinking.

But he had painted a chilling picture for her. Her mind began to think about the babies who were born under the ground.

About the cruelty of modern healers, who refused to cut off a commoner's baby out of their womb and place them in a rune to finish growing.

"You have the chance to do something for the world," Bleda continued, fire in his eyes. "I already made my offer. I beseech your heart to do what is right!"

Drusila finally placed her dagger back in its holster.

She looked up at the sky. Noted the stars.

Thinking of what would happen, should she take this quest.

"I will need mana stones," she said, for she could grieve her brother until the end of time.

But that didn't mean that she was willing to thread over the bones of forsaken children.

Be it human or goblin ones.