WARNING: This Chapter might be upsetting for some people. Feel free to skip it. I'll try and keep the upsetting scenes to a minimum.
Upsetting content would be suggesting Sexual violence is happening or has happened.
For paragraphs i think people may find upsetting, I'll surround it with Three stars, so if you don't wanna skip chapters, you can still avoid upsetting scenes.
***Like this, as an example***
Waking up with a Terrible headache inside of a dark area where he can't see anything, Cashew was confused as to what happened. The last thing he remembered was being spotted by a Goblin and then kicked in the face by that same Goblin.
"Aside from the Headache, I seem perfectly fine and it seems I regained all of my Mana, so I assume 5-6 hours have passed." Cashew assessed his situation, realizing that he must be in the Goblins home now, it is dark and damp and his eyes haven't adjusted yet, so he was gonna stay put until his eyes adjust.
Cashew lifted his hand and felt his forehead where it hurt, realizing there is a gash on his head where the Goblin kicked him. "Nevermind, I guess I'm not fine aside from the Headache." Cashew thought as he touched the Gash one more time, flinching, and deciding to leave it alone.
***As his Eyes adjusted, he started to wish he didn't let them adjust. The scene that's unfolding is rather gruesome. He is inside a cave with several people, most of whom are dead, and almost all of them are being used as breeding cows. Even the dead ones. 2 women and 1 guy seem to still be alive. The one girl seems on the verge of death as Goblins use her and the guy seems to have lost the will to live. The other woman seems to be new, the goblins seem to not have touched her yet and she's hiding in a corner, stifling tears. Clearly traumatized by the scene.***
Deciding not to watch anymore, Cashew looked around the room he's in and spotted an exit to the room. slowly working towards the exit, by the time hes reached it, his eyes have fully adjusted and he can see everything just fine. Such as when he turned around and noticed all the goblins are now staring at him.
"Ah?... Maybe they only heard me and can't see me." Cashew thought as he stared back at the Goblins, it's too dark for him to tell if they can see him or if they can just hear him.
Remembering something important, he checked his shirt to make sure his spell book was still there, which it was, he then started moving forward even more slowly than before, glad that he's barefoot and doesn't have to worry about shoes making noise.
However, as soon as he started moving again, one of the Goblins let out a screech, telling Cashew that they did see him and now he needs to run. All of the Goblins stopped what they were doing and immediately started running towards Cashew at the exit.
Cashew immediately stopped Crawling and ran through the exit of the cave room he was in, leading into an underground tunnel, still no sunlight coming from either direction, Cashew cast a Poison Rune on the ground at the entrance of the room he was just in and bolted to the left.
The Goblins immediately Noticed the Rune be placed on the ground, as in this dark cave, the magic basically lit up the room temporarily. The Goblins all still had momentum from running, so they still ended up stepping on the Rune and triggering it.
Cashew didn't bother to turn around and see how many he managed to kill with that spell, but it has to be at least 5, based on the amount of bodies he heard hit the floor and the pained screams that followed.
This tunnel seemed neverending, no matter how long he ran, it seems he wouldn't come across another room or an exit.
"Ok, assuming I was asleep for 5-6 hours and I did fully recover my Mana, poison magic seems very cheap, there seems to be no difference in cost between Poison Rune and Poison Ball, Poison Ball and Water Ball seem to drain me about the same... Poison Rune is better for this situation due to the numbers and my inexperience, Id say I can cast 11 more Poison Runes or 12 more Poison Balls." Cashew made the guesses in his head, not wanting to use too much magic and lose consciousness in the middle of fighting.
"Either way, I see no exit in sight, so maybe I should save my spells for absolute emergencies either way." Cashew made the decision as he kept running, not stopping and still seeing no exit within the dark cave tunnels.
After turning a corner, he noticed a room to the side and immediately bolted into it, not know what he'd find in this room, but assuming it's closer to the exit than running down that seemingly infinite tunnel.
***However, when Cashew entered the room, he noticed that it was empty, aside from 1 dead woman near the center of the room. It's obvious the Goblins abused her frequently, one of her eyes were missing and the other was bloodshot, her face was pale, but at the same time, red, showing that she spent a lot of time crying before she died. The woman had leather armor still on her torso, showing that she may have been a fighter or adventurer of sorts. She had no pants on, though. A few moments after Cashew entered the room, her body suddenly started moving, not moving as in she's still alive, moving as if something was inside of her.***
Deciding against wanting to stick around and see what is happening, Cashew glanced around the room and spotted another exit to his left, about 2 meters away from the corpse. He bolted towards that exitway.
***Right as he passed the corpse, her legs were moved open and something started crawling out of her, even though Cashew is very young and small, this thing crawling out of the woman was still only about the height of Cashews middle finger, but as it crawled out, it kept getting bigger and bigger. In the span of 5 seconds, it was already the same size as Cashew, who was about half a meter tall by this point. What's worst is it wasn't the only one, several more kept crawling out of her, even crawling out of areas you wouldn't see babies normally crawl out of, such as her ear. nearly a hundred came out in the span of 5 seconds. Deciding this is an emergency, Cashew cast a Poison Rune right next to the corpse and bolted out the room before the Rune even hit the ground. The spell detonated as soon as it imprinted itself on the cave floor. the first 5 of the new goblins noticed and tried running, but were unable to get out of the blast radius. All of the baby Goblins that came from this woman died instantly from the Poison Rune, with the 5 who started running dying slower as they were farther from the blast radius and Inhaled less poison.***
Not staying to see what happened, Cashew ran through the exit of this room and noticed he is in another Tunnel, decidjng to go right this time, he will soon be happy with this choice as it seems there is light down the tunnel he is heading. Not sunlight, more like artificial light from a fire.
As soon as Cashew was happy with his choice, he also started to regret his choice as once he entered the cave room that the light source was coming from, he saw a torch on the ground and his father fighting a group of 30 Goblins with a sword and shield.
Cashews father seemed tired and sluggish, as if he's been fighting for a long time. The Goblins were small compared to him, so the impact from the Goblins weapons didn't seem to have much impact each time they swung their weapons.
As soon as Eric noticed his son, a look of relief washed across his face and he swung his sword at the nearest Goblin, slicing it's body in two halves from its left shoulder to the bottom of its ribcage on the right. After killing this Goblin, Eric immediately Bolted towards Cashew and picked him up, also picking the torch up on his way and bolting towards what Cashew assumes is the exit.
The Goblins not enjoying the sight of their most recent kidnapping victim being taken away, they also started bolting after Eric and Cashew, throwing rocks and bones at him, hoping to knock Eric over.
Cashew feeling helpful, looked at his dad to make sure he wasn't looking at Cashew and cast a Poison Rune on the ground behind them. The Goblins were unable to stop in time and ended up triggering the Rune, of the 29 Goblins chasing them, Cashew only noticed about 6 of them die from this spell.
Cashew looked at his father to make sure he didn't notice the magic Cashew used and it seems like he didn't, he kept running and running and eventually sunlight was visible. They were nearing the exit of the cave.
Seeing the sunlight, Eric dropped the torch he was carrying and ran even more, holding Cashew even tighter. As they got closer and closer to the exit.
Eric finally made it out of the cave and didn't stop running. Looking around, Cashew didn't see anyone else, so unless his father abandoned them in the cave, he must have came alone, which is surprising and also made sense.
As city guards, they must know the habits and lifestyle of the goblins, so all of them must have known that they could die going to save me. Since there were still dozens of dead people in that cave, the guards must not bother going to save people that Goblins get a hold of, thinking it's not worth losing however many guards. Cashew must have been the same. Whatever method told his father and the rest of the city guard that Cashew was in that cave, they must have thought he was already dead and retrieving a body wasn't worth sacrificing their lives.
"Thinking about it, it looked like my father didn't even make it very far into the cave." Cashew realized, if he didn't wake up and start trying to escape on his own, he wouldn't have came across his father and his dad could have died in there.
Eric kept running and running and eventually reached the village walls. A few guards noticed and called for help. Eric collapsed to his knees, still holding Cashew tightly, one of the other guards asked Eric if he wanted to keep holding Cashew or have Cashew taken to his mother.
Eric: you think I'm hurt? No, I'll be fine... Just tired.
Eric responded while trying to catch his breath, not letting Cashew go, holding him tightly to the point that it hurts.
Guard: Ok then, do you want me to go let her know that the two of you are back?
Eric: No need. I just need a minute and I'll go to her myself.
Cashew let out a pained noise as Eric's hold got tighter, which Eric noticed and loosened the hug, apologizing for holding him too tightly.
Guard 2: The kid is still awake?
Eric: Yeah, I didn't even find him. He found me.
Guard: you're telling me that your kid saved you?...
Eric: Nonono. He was running through the Tunnels of the Goblin Cave and came across me near the entrance.
Guard 3: I see... That would have been embarrassing, though. Being saved by the kid you went to save.
Eric gave a short chuckle to that guards comment, not finding what he said amusing, but deciding not to say anything about it right now. The old guards know what the chuckle meant, but Cashew and guard 3 didn't.
After finally catching his breath, Eric carried Cashew home.
Sara: Oh, cool. You found him.
Was Cashews mother's response once she saw the two of them return, she continued on with collecting eggs from the chickens, not even coming up to the two of them to make sure they're ok. Eric didn't question Sara's reaction and instead took Cashew inside the house while Sara continued with her work.
Eric brought Cashew inside and started cleaning him with a wet cloth, as well as spotting the Gash on Cashews forehead from when the one Goblin kicked him.
Eric: Why?... Why are you so desperate to die? You seem to go out of your way to do stuff that could kill you...