12 Episode 6: Identity Crisis

The darkness swirled round and round my mind. I was numb. No pain. No emotion. Nothing. But somehow, within this void, I saw a face. It was HER face. Jet black hair, pale skin, silver piercings on her lips and on her nose. She smiled at me.

"Blair..." I muttered.

Then her smile turned stoic. Then sour.

"Blair, wait..."

I reached out for her. But before my hands could reach, she disappeared into the darkness.

"Blair!" I shouted as I shot up from the cold, hard, floor.

My ears rang as blood rushed to my head. My muscles spasmed from the pain that pulsed through them. I breathed in deeply, slowly, to regain myself. I blinked to refocus my blurry vision. What the fuck happened to me...?

"Quite bold of you to mutter another girl's name in your sleep," Mr. Han's voice said from the shifting shapes that I saw.

"Well, quite bold of you to admit you were watching me sleep," I replied. "Should I report you to HR?"

"Don't even joke about that Roberts..." he said with a slight hint of fear. "I need my paycheck to live on Earth."

I tried to get up, but my body protested before I could even prop myself up an inch off the floor.

"Don't try to get up," he said. "You almost died so you need to rest."

Following his words, I surrendered to the pain and fatigue and laid back down. With every deep breath, the ringing in my ears subsided and my vision focused with every blink. And as my senses returned, more stimulants entered my brain. The mana in the air caressed my skin. The cold, crystalline smell of pure water. And the high-pitched voice of a panicked, crying creature.

"Help me! Let me go! Please, someone! Save me!"

I turned to the direction of the voice and rubbed my eyes because for a second, I thought I was hallucinating.

But no. It was real. There was a goblin, tied to a makeshift frame of ice and rock. He dangled upside-down over a pot with something boiling in it. We locked eyes briefly but I immediately turned away without saying anything.

"I know you see me!" the goblin sobbed as Mr. Han poked him with a stick. "Please help me, man with weird scribbles on his body! Your friend's a monster! He's gonna eat me!"

The goblin's cry piqued my interest. I looked down at my torso and found intricately drawn lines and runes all over my skin. I sighed and turned to Mr. Han.

"Are you twelve? Why'd you draw on me while I was asleep?"

"Oops! Forgot I did that," he chuckled. "Here, let me take care of that for you."

He snapped his fingers and at once, the scribbles sizzled and sent me reeling in pain. I shouted in agony but after a few seconds, the pain subsided and the markings disappeared.

"Why?" I yelled.

"Oh relax," he said dismissively. "I just tweaked your mana circuitry with my blood to increase your odds of survival."

"Increase my odds of survival?" I exclaimed. "What the hell happened to me?"

Mr. Han shrugged and stirred the pot.

"I don't know," he said. "The dragon did something to you and I have my theories about that. But until I'm 100% sure, I'm not gonna tell you anything."

"That's right..." I gasped. "The dragon! Where is it?"

I whipped my head in search for the gigantic creature but found nothing.

To answer my question, Mr. Han pointed behind me.

I immediately turned to see where he was pointing and my eyes went wide. It was a little girl. She was sleeping on the floor, dressed in a white dress with blue frills. She had snow-white skin and puffy cheeks that were typical for a ten-year-old. She was normal-looking at first glance. But soon enough, my eyes fell on the two ivory horns that peeked out of her glittering blue hair, and the large white tail that shifted with every breath she took.

"Mr. Han... Where's the dragon...?" I muttered.

"Wipe that stupid look off of your face, Roberts," he replied. "Denial doesn't suit you."

"It isn't denial Mr. Han! It's disbelief," I exclaimed and buried my face in my hands. "So you're meaning to tell me that I basically tried to kill a little girl with your gross toenail?"

"Hey, cool it with the insults," he replied. "The bacteria in that gross toenail was the reason you beat her in the first place. Also, she might look young in terms of human years, but I'm estimating that she's around 300 years old."

He then took a ladle and sipped the contents of the pot. Then after smacking his lips in satisfaction, he reached for the goblin.

"Alright, the soup's good," he said. "Time for the main ingredient."

"Aahhh! No no no no, wait!" the goblin wiggled and cried desperately. "I'll talk! I'll talk! Just let me go."

I narrowed my eyes as I prepared for the incoming migraine. What the hell's happening? We came here for The Miracleworker right? How the hell did I end up with a mysterious body tattoo that disappeared into my flesh, an unconscious dragon girl, and a screaming goblin? And what do I address first?

After thinking for a bit, I made my choice.

"Who's the goblin?" I asked with a sigh.

"Oh this one? It's just the Dungeon Master," Mr. Han replied. "I searched the entire Dungeon while you were recovering and found no bodies. This guy was hiding in one of the secret rooms so I dragged him here to interrogate him."

"Lies!" the goblin objected. "You were gonna eat me even if I talked! But now that your decent-looking buddy's awake, I'm gonna take my chances."

"Hey, hey, do you think this guy can stop me if I did try to eat you?" Mr. Han said with a slight growl and a drop of bloodlust.

The goblin shrieked and wiggled violently in panic.

"Stop scaring him, Mr. Han," I said as I propped myself up again. This time, I had enough strength to stand so I inched closer toward the pot. "And you, goblin, just tell us what you know about The Miracleworker."

"I'll talk! But both of you need to promise me that you won't eat me!" he demanded.

"Fine, fine, we promise," I said.

"No! Swear on your existence that you won't eat me!" he insisted further.

Mr. Han and I raised our eyebrows at the demand of the little goblin. To swear on your own existence is the highest promise that a being can do. Gods who can't swear by an authority higher than themselves were usually the ones to use it, but since Fantasia came in the picture, mortals were able to do it too.

"Fine, we swear on our existence that we won't eat you," we said in unison.

In an instant, a golden flame burst into existence and entered our hearts.

"Good," the goblin, sighed. "I also swear by my existence that I will tell the truth."

A golden flame also entered his heart when he said that.

Promises made, we untied the goblin and sat around the fire. The soup that Mr. Han was making in the pot was actually edible so we shared it among ourselves.

"So, Mr. Goblin," I started.

"Dominic," he interjected. "Mr. Goblin's my dad."

"Ok... Dominic? Can you tell us who The Miracleworker is?" I asked.

Dominic took a big sip from his bowl before answering me.

"They came to me ten years ago" he started. "I say 'they' because ever since we met, they've been different races and genders. Anyway, they said they'd give me anything I wanted from outside this frozen hellhole if I let them dump some bodies in here. Then I was like, 'why not?' The Dungeon ate the bodies anyway and I was always interested in the outside world so I thought, 'win-win' ya know?"

"Can you recognize these bodies?" I asked.

"Nah man," he replied. "I let them dump it, I get the stuff. That's all there is to it."

"Damn it..." I muttered.

"But hey, I know what they look like right now, so if you can give me what I want, I can help you catch them."

I raised an eyebrow and turned to Mr. Han who then promptly gave me the ok signal.

"Fine," I sighed. "What do they look like right now?"

"They're a woman this time. An Elf if I remember correctly," he replied.

"An Elf?"

"Yeah, quite the looker too. A little young-looking for my taste though. They dyed their hair this crazy mix of color that made me think that I ate something bad. And worst of all, they tied it into pigtails. Pigtails! I saw them as an old fat man before you know?" he then shuddered. "Damn bastard's aiming for cute when I know their previous faces."

I turned to Mr. Han again.

"That doesn't narrow anything down since the look he described has been a trend among Elves during the past year," Mr. Han said. "But since your in-law's feeding frenzy plan has made the underworld quite volatile, they'll be trapped in that form once we register this Dungeon in the Adventurers' Guild."

"But what if they have a plan b? Maybe they made a deal with a different Dungeon. Can't they change their appearance then?" I rebutted.

"Unlikely," he replied. "Operations like this one takes a lot of finesse. Make only one splash if possible. Having multiple Dungeons would increase the risk of being found out. Remember, it took us years to even discover this one. And that only happened when the feeding-frenzy began and their idiot ex-clients came out of hiding."

That's right... It was a pain to find this place but it only took a few threats to flip Dominic. If The Miracleworker made deals with other Dungeons, someone would've already found some clues about them and flipped the other Dungeon Masters too.

"So what's our move, Mr. Han?" I asked.

"The Miracleworker can play this in two ways," he replied. "One is to hide until the feeding-frenzy is over. Most likely in plain sight, living a normal life with the identity they've stolen. There'd be no more victims, but we won't be able to catch them either until they start their operations again."

"And the other?"

Mr. Han smirked and took out a lemon. "Squeeze them into making an alliance with a major crime boss," he said and squashed the lemon to smithereens. "We start a witch hunt within the Elven community. Those guys take their unity really seriously. If they get credible information that there's an impostor among them, they'll hunt down The Miracleworker until they get caught or the World Tree somehow ceases to exist."

I chuckled nervously.

"Will the higher-ups even approve that plan?" I asked.

"I'll make them do it," he replied without hesitation. "Plus, I bet those old hags would kill to have a development like this. The Elven community has been very peaceful lately."

This guy... I swear that one of these days, I'll end up fighting him for some stupid reason...

"Your pal's a bit scary..." Dominic whispered to me.

"Yeah, but he gets the job done," I whispered back.

"Come on, get up, Roberts," Mr. Han said with childish excitement in his voice. He then stuffed the pot and utensils inside his sleeve with haste. "We're done here."

"Wait, what about that dragon?" I pointed at the still sleeping girl.

Mr. Han went to her, unceremoniously picked her up, and threw her over his shoulder.

"I'll take care of her while I figure out what happened to you," he replied. "I also need to teach her how to be a dragon so I'll be keeping her until she's ready to reenter society."

Mr. Han then took out some scissors and used it to tear into the space in front of him. The tear opened into a swirling vortex of blackness that sucked up everything around it.

"We'll come back here with a contract for you, Dominic," he said to the goblin whose mouth was agape from the sudden show of power. "Thank you for helping us."

He then stepped into the hole along with the dragon.

Meanwhile, Dominic went up to me and put a hand on my shoulder.

"He forgot you still can't walk, didn't he?" he said with all the sympathy he could give me.

"Yeah... he did..." I sighed.

"Want me to help you get in there?"

"Thanks Dominic," I replied. "You're a good friend."