Anthropology Isekai Ch. 04

In this chapter, Mark starts to get to know his goblin interloper and they learn each other's names.

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The morning after left him cold and frigid.

Some people are emotionally quick on the uptake, capable of processing events and actions as they come. But it's not precisely an easy skill to have, to the point that it might not be a skill at all. An inborn gift? An abnormally mature mind? Or maybe just the fruit of experience and age?

Whatever the case, it is also true that some things are easier to process then others. Somethings, are, when you get down to it, so normal that they are flashes in a pan. They make the neurons that are familiar with their feelings burst for a moment and then you are either elated, annoyed or indifferent. "Letting go" of things is, then, evidence of an emotionally mature mind because no one has an infinite capacity to feel everything. Therefore, people must, by necessity, set priorities to themselves.

But what do you do when you are hit with something you can't ignore, don't know how to properly process and yet have to act on anyway? Of the many tactics to put off introspection for a later date, perhaps none are so common as suppression.

Mark woke up without the warm body that he'd had by his side. The tiny green woman that had, unbelievably, stayed with him during the night. She'd left him cold and frigid in a literal way, because while the jacket might have been cut and damaged from the fight yesterday it was still the best jacket that he had.

Figuratively? Mark didn't sleep with anyone else and hadn't since his brothers were too old for that sort of thing. Circumstances being what they were, it surprised him that he even got anything from that simple rest. All the same, there it was; a cold spot that should have been warm.

Was he immature? Was he so childish that he was already longing for the first girl he'd fucked?

Perhaps. Perhaps he really was that weak. Perhaps he really was that childish. But it didn't really matter.

The morning was cold, and the breeze was biting. There was no snow, but with his luck it would take no longer then today to start falling. His sides hurt from bruises and scrapes he had not noticed the day before; his ribs felt tender and there was an ugly line gash going across his stomach. But he was in his home, in his tent and in his sleeping bag. He had a few clothes that he could throw on, a pelts that he could presently be made to provide warmth and a pile of chopped wood that could be set on fire to provide warmth.

But what did it matter?

Standing there outside the foundations of his home, looking at things that he had not managed to pick up the day before, and that had not been blown off the mountain by the brisk night winds, he could only stare transfixed as he finally caught up with everything.

The first thing to die yesterday had been his dream and he was now standing on it's corpse, but he was barely even able to feel it. But other things had died too. His heart broke and, now, that he was properly dealing with it, he was faced with his conscience.

He had killed 5 goblins.

They weren't human, they were quite honestly ugly and they were smelly. They had weapons in their hands, and they had been interlopers in his home, but he had personally, violently, spilled their blood.

They were people, he had to assume, with their own hopes and dreams though Mark had stopped caring about other people's aspirations long ago. They were men out in the field finding a stash of resources that perhaps were like a treasure to them, though Mark had also stopped being moved by the similarities that he had with other people. They had attacked him, or had he attacked them?, and most of them fought bravely to the end. Was that enough for Mark to feel for them?

No, not really.

Mark could not say that he felt sorry that they were dead.

But he was sorry that he had killed them.

Just when he thought he couldn't lose anything else, well, here was innocence left to burn.

And the goblin girl? The goblin girl...he had no idea what to feel about her. His victim one moment, his sleeping partner the next. Here one evening and gone the morning today. She had offered herself to him when he had snuffed the lives ot her friends and, in that moment of emotional height, he had taken her.

That was rape, wasn't it? He didn't force her, but the implications were bad. He didn't think he would have killed her, but he honestly didn't know what he would have done if she hadn't offered herself at that moment. So should he feel bad that he had taken her after she and her band of scavengers made sure that he had no future?

He didn't know. He didn't want to say. The response at the tip of his mouth was an ugly thing that went against his morals and so....and so...

He would wallow in what was in front of him.

The morning was cold and frigid. And now he had to pick up the pieces.

There was so much that was simultaneously too little. Too much of a mess that didn't make him feel better even after getting rid of it. He was trying, he suppose, to clean up after himself before leaving. But, really, what a disaster.

4 years. 4 years of toiling just to make this a reality. He was 24 years old and all he had knew was work, but he had hoped that here he would found some measure of peace. Some time and space just for him. And while the dream had been alive, he had. And, perhaps, that made those 4 years valuable.

But now what?

Now what?

A light rain started to fall as he set his a little stove straight and fed it some lumber. It wasn't the wood he had cut for that purpose, from a pile of timber that he had been saving up for winter, but from the rough cut planks that he had planned on using to build up walls. And why not? He wasn't going to use them.

But that did mean that he had to see them go up in fire.

It was all so surreal, in anyway. He was in his home but it was really no longer his. Here building a future that was no longer real. Here, in this mountain, toiling for nothing.

There was...a release in it. To see what he had worked for burn. It provided him a certain ending and made the corner of his eyes water-

"Tagay?" a voice interrupted him.

"W-what?" Mark whipped around to see where the voice came from. How had he not noticed someone sneaking up on him? He was briefly afraid that it had been the lone escapee from the day before. As he was, with nothing in his hands but pieces of wood, he could have easily been speared from behind. Small as they were, it didn't really take a lot to push a sharp rock into a grown man's body and Mark had been lost in his own mind.

But then, he recognized her.

The coat he had lent her the day before she still had around her shoulders. It almost dragged on the floor, but the goblin girl was tall enough that it fit like a cape on her. She had tied the tips of its collar together with woven rope, when the coat had a zipper that she could use, and laid it on top of the robe that she had brought.

The goblin girl was looking at him in confusion, tilting her head as she stared at the wetness in his eyes.

"Why are you back?" Mark cleared his throat. And then he noticed that she was carrying things in her arms.

It was a stack of bibulous sticks that looked simultaneously soft and firm. They were brown in shade and bit fussy. They were about a foot in length and widen from one end before ending up in a mushroom cap.

...mushrooms. They were mushrooms. The goblin girl brought him mushrooms.

"Hed-ha!" she happily said as she...dumped them all in front of him.

"Is this a gift?" Mark asked, confused. Fire burned proudly and happily as he stared at the bundle. Why? Why this? Why a gift? Why mushrooms?

"Tera!" the goblin replied, pushing her ample chest up and making his coast part around it. But as happy as she was, there was an under current of expectation there. And Mark? He was polite, he had been taught manners, but he had absolutely no idea what to do with this.

"Thank you?" he gandered, making the goblin peer up at him, as she decided if she, what, believed him?

"Kya," the goblin chirped after a while, happily nodding to herself before she took the cord tying his coat collar together and pulled it undone. She then placed his coat on the grassy ground by the fire and sat on it as crossed her legs and looked...expectantly..at him.

"What?" Mark asked a bit more brusquely then he intended. The goblin actually flinched and leaned away from him, making him want to stifle a groan.

"Look, I don't mean to scare you," he said, despite the fact that it would have been really hard for him to not be scared had he been the girl, "But I just don't know what to do about any of this! About you!"

"I just....don't know what to do about anything," Mark deflated. The only thing he could do now was salvage what he had here and cash it in town. But what then? It wasn't like he didn't make a good living, but he couldn't truly compete against the well connected no matter what he did. He could make money, that was true. Not enough to be wealthy in the way that the well-connected were, but enough to be able to help out his friends and family. And therefore, wealthy enough to be forced to helped them.

Wealthy enough to give it all away and therefore not be wealthy after all.

The goblin girl just nodded along with him. She had no way of knowing what the hell he was saying, but she was nodding along with him. There was no understanding in her face, she wasn't following along. She was just there, letting him talk, and...

"What is your name?" Mark asked. She had said many thing the other day, and the little green woman talked, but if she had introduced herself, well, he wasn't sure.

"Tagay?" she tilted her head, not knowing what he was asking. Because of course she didn't.

Well, then.

"Mark," Mark pointed at himself, "I am Mark."

He had killed her friends and slept with her, and he was only JUST know introducing himself. It was incredibly silly of him to care about rudeness all of a sudden but, well, here they were.

The goblin perked up.

"Mak?" she asked, pointing at him.

"Mark," he repeated sticking a thumb on his chest.

"Maaark?" she attempted again, leaning forward.

"Mark," Mark agreed, poking his chest again.

"Mark," the goblin mused as she got up and walked up to him.

"Yes," he said, suddenly being a bit wary.

"Mark," the green woman said again and extended a hand out. Right next to where his thumb was poking his chest was now a green index finger poking him.

"Yyyyes," Mark ground out as he let his finger drop.

"Mark!" the goblin ooed as another finger joined her index and started prodding his chest.

"That is my name," Mark agreed as he leaned back. Not that it did any good, the goblin simply followed him.

"Hmm, Mark," the girl pensively said as, suddenly, it wasn't just her fingers poking at his chest, but her whole hands.

"What are you doing?" Mark asked.

"Koto nafner," the girl hummed as she started squeezing his pectoral muscles with her small hands, making him feel confused.

"Stop that," Mark softly slapped her hands away from his torso, but the goblin just didn't get the message.

"Nafner," she said as the arm that pushed her hands away were suddenly the object of her attentions. Her hands traveled along his forearms, pushing into his sweater and the sleeves underneath that to feel at his muscle. They slid down into the crook of his elbow and started feeling and squeezing his biceps and triceps.

"Nafner," the goblin gushed as her touches became a bit morbid as she traced the contours of his muscles head, heading into his shoulders. Physical contact wasn't something Mark really DID, as a rule, so this investigation had him feeling all sorts of things.

"Stop," he repeated again once she started poking at his shoulders and started feeling at his clavicle.

"Stop," he said once again once she was all but standing on his legs as she felt at his traps and his neck.

"Stop!" he all but screamed as her fingers grabbed on to his face and he finally lost his patience with this. His hands were clenching hers before he knew it, and the goblin girl looked a bit shocked as he made her back off. He was a bit flushed from embarrassment at being molested and the goblin girl only looked at him when something occurred to her.

"Ah!" she said as she tried to get her hands out of his grip and Mark allowed it. Hopefully, she now knew to keep her distance.

But she didn't back off. Instead, she took one of his hands.

"Girl," Mark warned her, but the goblin only shot him a grin as she took his hands.

And put it on her huge rack.

"Katya," she said as Mark felt the ultimate softness.

She had said that word before, right before she slept with him.

"Katya," she repeated, making Mark's fingers sink into her mammaries.

"Katya?" Mark repeated after her, still not knowing if this was her name, or an invitation.

"Katya," the goblin repeated as if he hadn't said it right.

"Kaaatya," Mark more carefully repeated this time, though his thoughts, and hands, were else where now.

She wasn't holding on to his hand anymore, but he quickly found that it didn't matter.

Into her robe, he pressed his fingers, going feeling at the flesh hanging of her chest. There in the crown of her tits, he could feel bumps that he recalled from last night. Bound as they were by her clothing, her nipples still felt magnificent in his grasp.

"Naln?" she asked, a knowing smile on her face as Mark's second hand joined the first. Those boobs, especially for her size, were massive and he could feel their weight as he hefted them.

And, as it turned out, she hadn't repaired her robes. Twine, like the one that she had used to tie the collar of his coat, came undone when he pressed his hands unto the under side of her tits. Her robe came undone from the top of her breasts and the rip he'd made on them went down all the way down to it's hem.

He could see her loin cloth.

Mark looked up at her, awaiting a response similar to his own. Katya, instead, spread her arms wide and smirked.

His hands trembled as the touched her stomach and traveled south-

"-No," Mark grunted and, with great difficulty, kept his hands to himself, "No, no! Katya? That's your name, right?"

Katya frowned at his hands and frowned that the question.

"Katya...I killed your friends, do you understand?" Mark said, hoping against hope she understood, "I KILLED them."

He pointed at the direction where they had thrown their bodies last night. At the edge of the decent where they had disappeared into the forest. And, to nail it home, he put a thumb on his neck and made a slicing motion.

Katya stopped being confused after that.

"And then I am pretty sure I gave you no choice about fucking," Mark said, "So why are you doing this? Why did you come back?"

"Why are we doing this?"

He less asked that then demanded.

From this close? He could smell her. Neither of them had bathed since yesterday, and he could smell her fertile scent. He remembered it, he...wanted it. The memories of last night were still hot in his mind and he longed for another event.

But he didn't know where he stood. Not with her. He didn't know why he was sitting here with someone he had so thoroughly victimized.

If she had hated him, not only would he have understood that he would have been happy. He had his reasons for doing what he did and he would have considered the score settled or whatever bullshit he could have told himself.

But no, she brought him mushrooms and was allowing him to touch her. She was touching him. So what did this mean?

Katya peers into his eyes, the goblin girl turning serious as she considers the matter. There was a vast language gulf that they were only beginning to cross, but he hoped he got his point across. He hoped she could see what mortified him about all of this.

And then she nodded to herself.

"Tanag," she said pointing at his Machete. He had it by his side inside the nice sheath that it came with. He would have carried a knife for utility instead, but the presence of the goblins meant that he had to keep armed as he would as he could.

Except, now he took out of and examined it. And then, without another word, he turned it around and gave it to her, hilt first.

It was a dangerous thing to do, but, heh, things made sense again.

Revenge, heh? Getting close to him so that she could get even. Such a basic premise but, well, he should have expected it. And now that he knew, he supposed he should have kept it away from her. Scare her away, even, and watched his back thereafter.

But aaah, what did it matter?

Revenge? Revenge was good. If she, here and now, struck him and he wasn't fast enough to avoid it? It would be the end.

Not just of him but also of his regrets.

Of everything.

It felt...right.

The goblin girl brazed herself and stared in amazement when it didn't pull her down with it. Her fingers locked into the hilt and she lifted it as she looked at it's steel blade. She swung it around, the flat leaf making swooshes in the air. Coming a breath's distance away from hitting Mark every time it did so.

It was fine. This was fine.

And then, when she had swung it around and made the pretty swooshing noises, she held it with both hands and brought it up to her head.

There was a determined look on her face. One that made away with any doubt.

This was it. This was the moment. This was...it.

Katya licked her lips. She moved the Machete up as she opened her mouth. But no battle cry came out. No scream of violence.

No, instead, it was a simple grunt...as Katya bit the back of the Machete.

"Hey, NO!" Mark jumped from where he was as the goblin girl knawed on his VERY pricey tool.

"Hng?" The goblin looked at him as Mark reached for her and turned around so that she could keep it away from him. All the while her fang like incisors tried to sink on it.

"Give me that!" Mark reached over her shoulder and yanked it out of her hands and mouth.

Katya cried as Mark took it back and kept it out of her reach.

"Mark," she said, pleadingly, "Mark!"

"I don't want you chewing on it!" Mark told her as she settled down and stopped trying to reach for it.

"Maaark," she complained and pouted.

"Only if you...argh," Mark groaned as he tried to figure out how to communicate. So he did his best.

He pantomime biting the thing, looking Katya in the eye, then he furiously shook his head. Even slashing with his palm in a "no" just to drive home the point.

The goblin girl actually sighed and repeated after him: "No."

Mark looked at her suspiciously but he relented.

The goblin pointed a finger at the Machete, "Mark."

"It's called a Machete," he told her, "Can you say that? Ma-che-te?"

"Mashete?" she sort of got it right.

"Machete," Mark repeated, knocking his hands against the blade.

"Machete," she got it better, and Mark nodded.

"Machete," Katya then demanded, pointing at the tool and becoining with her other hand.

"...You better not put it in your mouth again," Mark warned her and slowly gave it back.

Katya carefully took it and examined it again, another look of wonderment coming into her face as she saw how it made in her hand. She slapped it against the lumber about and even stabbed it into the ground. She gasped when it run with the clean peal of iron and when it sheared through the dirt as if it wasn't there.

Then she looked mutuniously at Mark and he knew that he had to act.

"Give it-no, no biting!" he yelled as he reached for it, but Katya was already running away with the thing as she tested how durable it was with her mouth.

Mark lost a good 20 minutes there, chasing the green woman around. It wasn't that she was faster then he was, but he was so much bigger then her that it proved difficult to restrain her without worrying about hurting her.