My last memory was of a banana peel.
Yes, you read that right. Not a speeding truck, not a lightning strike, not even a dramatic, life-saving sacrifice.
I, Kenji Tanaka, a perfectly average 28-year-old office worker, met my end because of a carelessly discarded piece of fruit on a busy sidewalk. There was a comical slip, a moment of weightlessness, and then an abrupt, final thud.
So, when I woke up with a headache that felt like a construction crew was renovating my skull, I was understandably confused.
The air smelled of damp earth, woodsmoke, and something vaguely swampy. I wasn't in a hospital. I was lying on a pile of what felt like dried leaves and animal skins inside a small, circular hut made of mud and sticks.
"He's awake! The sleepy-head is awake!" a scratchy voice chirped.
I groaned and tried to sit up, my vision swimming. Several figures huddled around me, their silhouettes strange and misshapen in the dim light filtering through the hut's single opening. As my eyes adjusted, my breath caught in my throat.
They were small, maybe four feet tall, with skin the color of moss, long, pointed ears, and wide, luminous yellow eyes. They were all looking at me with expressions of pure, unfiltered concern.
Goblins.
My heart hammered against my ribs. I was in a goblin den. I was about to become goblin food. I scrambled backward, my hands sinking into the dirt floor.
"Easy, easy!" another, deeper voice grunted.
"You hit head hard. Very hard."
I stared at them, bewildered. I could understand them. Their language was a series of guttural clicks and growls, yet the meaning flowed directly into my brain, as clear as my native Japanese.
My own hands came into view as I pushed myself up. They weren't my hands. They were too small, too slender, and disturbingly, they were the same mossy green as the creatures staring at me. A cold dread, far worse than the fear of being eaten, washed over me.
I stumbled to my feet and lurched out of the hut, ignoring their worried calls. Outside, the world was a riot of oversized flora under a sky of an impossible turquoise hue.
A small, muddy puddle, fed by a slow drip from a giant, fleshy-looking leaf, sat nearby. Shaking, I knelt and peered into the murky water.
The face that stared back was not my own. It was a goblin's face. Big yellow eyes, a long, sharp nose, and ears that could pick up satellite radio.
My jaw dropped, and the goblin's jaw in the reflection dropped in perfect sync.
I died slipping on a banana peel and was reborn as a goblin. This had to be the universe's cruelest, most elaborate punchline.
Just as a wave of hysterical laughter threatened to bubble up from my chest, a crisp, electronic ding sounded in my head. A translucent blue screen shimmered into existence before my eyes.
[Planetary Evolution System Activated]
[Welcome, Host, to Planet Veridia!]
[Your new life's mission: Evolve your people. Expand your territory. Conquer the stars!]
I blinked. The screen remained, hovering patiently. Was this a hallucination? A side effect of head trauma and interspecies reincarnation?
"Uh... profile?" I whispered, the word feeling strange in my new mouth.
The screen flickered.
Host Profile
Name: Kenji Tanaka (Soul) / G-13 (Body Designation)
Race: Goblin (Rank F - Basic)
Level: 1
Attributes:
Strength: 3 (Pathetic. Avoid lifting anything heavier than a large rock.)
Agility: 5 (Decent. Good for running away.)
Stamina: 4 (Can jog for a few minutes before wheezing.)
Intelligence: 8 (Anomalously high for your species. Try not to get a nosebleed from thinking too hard.)
Skills: None
Evolution Path: [Locked - Requires Village Level 2]
The system had a bit of an attitude. "Anomalously high" intelligence, huh? I guess my college degree wasn't a total waste after all. A flicker of hope ignited within me. If this was real, if this system was real, maybe I wasn't doomed to a life of eating grubs and being cannon fodder for human adventurers.
"Village profile," I commanded, my voice a little stronger.
Village Profile
Village Name: The Muddy Puddle Tribe (Default)
Village Level: 1
Population: 15/30 Goblins
Leader: Grug (Strength: 6, Intelligence: 2)
Resources:
Food: Edible Grubs (Critically Low)
Building Materials: Mud (Abundant), Sticks (Sufficient)
Special: None
Buildings:
Crude Hut (x5)
Defenses: None. (Good luck!)
Objective for Level 2:
Construct a [Village Hall (Basic)].
Survive the next 7 days.
"Critically Low" food and "None" for defenses. The system's cheerful "Good luck!" felt more like a threat. So, we were a tiny, starving, defenseless tribe on a planet I knew nothing about. Fantastic.
"Hey! You okay?"
I turned. The big goblin from the hut, presumably Grug, was standing there. He had a nasty-looking scar over one eye and held a crude spear. He looked at me, then at the sky.
"Big sky-rock fell," he grunted, pointing his spear vaguely towards the forest.
"You were close. Big sleep after."
So that was the story. They thought I was just one of them who got knocked out by a meteorite impact. It was a perfect cover. I wasn't some freakish alien; I was just the village idiot who took a rock to the head and was now acting weird.
"I'm... okay," I said slowly, testing the words.
"Head hurts. But I'm okay."
Grug nodded, seemingly satisfied. He then gestured to a group of goblins listlessly poking the ground with sharp sticks. "Hunt. Food is low. You hunt too."
I watched them for a moment. They'd jab a stick into the soft earth, wiggle it around, and occasionally pull up a fat, squirming white grub, which they'd pop into a woven basket. It was inefficient, slow, and relied entirely on luck.
No wonder our food was critically low.
My anomalously high intelligence of 8 began to churn. In my past life, I was just an office drone, but I was a dedicated gamer. I'd spent thousands of hours on city-builders and real-time strategy games. This situation... it was just the starting zone of the universe's most immersive, high-stakes game.
An idea, simple but brilliant, sparked in my mind.
I walked over to the hunting party, ignoring their curious stares. I found a flat, sturdy-looking rock and a thick, broken branch. Using a sharp stone, I began scraping one end of the branch into a wedge.
"What you do?" one of the smaller goblins asked, tilting her head. Her name was Kiki, I remembered from the system's brief population list.
"Make better," I grunted, concentrating.
It took a few minutes of clumsy work with my weak goblin hands, but I soon had a rudimentary spade—a flat rock tied to a stick with some vine. It was ugly, but it was functional.
I found a patch of soft, damp earth that the others had ignored. Instead of poking one hole at a time, I drove the spade into the ground with my foot, just like I'd seen gardeners do. I pushed down on the handle.
With a satisfying schlorp, a whole square foot of earth turned over, revealing a writhing nest of at least a dozen plump, juicy grubs.
Every goblin in the vicinity froze. Their jaws went slack. The hunters stopped their random poking. Even Grug, who had been watching from a distance with a skeptical frown, took a half-step forward, his one good eye wide with disbelief.
I grinned, a wide, pointy-toothed smile that felt both alien and exhilarating. I scooped up the grubs and tossed them into the basket. In thirty seconds, I had gathered more food than they had in the last ten minutes.
A triumphant ding echoed in my mind.
[You have successfully innovated a new resource-gathering technique!]
[Village Morale has increased!]
[You have earned the Title: 'Clever Goblin']
[New Quest Issued: A Foundation of Food!]
[Task: Using your new tool, gather 100 grubs before nightfall.]
[Reward: System Points +10, Village Food Stores upgraded to 'Low'.]
I looked at the stunned faces of my new, green-skinned tribe. I looked at the quest floating in my vision. I looked at the simple, game-changing tool in my hands.
"Alright," I muttered, the words filled with a purpose I hadn't felt in years. "Conquering the stars can wait."
My goblin grin widened.
"First, let's conquer dinner."