My (Monster?) Hero Life

Chapter 119: Blending In

In a dark alley in the city, a pair of eyes kept watch on its surroundings. There was no doubt in the creature's mind that the eyes belonged to that it could not fail in its mission. It had kept itself to the shadows of the buildings all day. Narrowly avoiding passing vampires and gargoyles.

"Master Shadow will kill me if I return without him." The creature thought to itself.

As the streets grew quiet, it realised its moment to make its move had come. These were the hours when the majority of the vampires would retire to their homes. Although vampires did not require sleep, that did not mean that they were incapable of it. As such, the majority of them still liked to return home to perform this very human action. 

With nothing but an eternity to look forward to who would not enjoy the few hours of escape that their dreams would provide? The creature poked its head out of the alleyway to check that the coast was clear. As a ray of moonlight struck it a random passerby would have been able to describe it clearly.

It was a short humanoid that would only reach to the height of an adults waist at best. It had grey, cracked skin and long pointed ears. Its nose was long and crooked while its mouth housed two rows of sharp pointy teeth. Its eyes were yellow in colour, and it looked especially hideous.

If Kace happened to see this creature, he would recognise it immediately. It was obviously a goblin! The only difference between this one and the ones he knew was the colour of its skin. It just so happened that this particular goblin belonged to a tribe that had followed the vampires here to cause trouble for the heroes.

Only the vampires never knew that they had stowaways. Over time their bodies had mutated to adapt to their new, darker environment. This included a unique racial ability to control shadows. Once he was confident everything was clear, he slipped from one building to the next. Making his way deeper into the city.

At one point a gargoyle almost caught him as he was about to move across a particularly well-lit area. Just in the nick of time, he willed the shadows on the wall beside him to leave their place and wrap him in their darkness. Drawing him into the shadow world.

Once inside, it felt like he was swimming. The shadow world ran parallel to the world it was attached to. It had a mirror image of everything from the real world except there was substance to them. Just shadows that took their form. Instead of air, whoever entered this area would find them floating in a liquid-like substance. Which believe it or not, was actually liquified shadows. Or the Shadow Sea as this tribe of goblins called it.

He glanced back at the wall he had just come through and was able to see the gargoyle flying away. For those inside the Shadow Sea, every wall or feature was like a window that would allow them to watch what was going on around its real-world counterpart.

He sighed in relief and swam out of the shadow. With a wet sound, he landed on solid ground once again. The only downside to using this ability was the fact that air did not exist in the shadow sea, so they were unable to stay submerged for too long. It was more than enough for him to achieve his objective, though. Or at least it should be.

He passed through one of the archways into another ring of the city. To his dismay in this district, there were quite a few vampires still wandering the street. Cursing his bad luck, he ducked into the closest alley. He observed the passersby. Attempting to ascertain when they would be heading home. However, his nose caught a very distinct smell wafting off of several of them.

The goblin groaned as he realised what was going on. All of these vampires had been drinking! It was a common misconception amongst humans that vampires could not get drunk. Instead, it was actually one of the few things they immensely enjoyed doing. He groaned as he felt a headache growing. It was evident that this district would never be clear enough for him to pass unnoticed.

He climbed one of the low garden walls beside himself, hoping to find a way to get around the main streets. What he found in the garden gave him an ingenious idea, though! Several minutes later, a drunk vampire bumped into a petite figure. Feeling disgruntled, the vampire looked down towards his waist. His rising anger soon vanished though, as standing there was what he assumed to be a young vampire girl in a frilly dress and a wide-brimmed hat.

'Poor thing must have been sent by her mother to fetch her good for nothing dad.' The vampire thought with a touch of hypocrisy. After all, was he himself not in exactly the same position as the father of the child? Muttering his apologies to the young girl the vampire carried on his way.

This young girl, was, in fact, the very same goblin. It was another misconception of the human race that vampires could not have children. Which in this case turned out to be a good thing that it was a false rumour for this poor goblin. He wiped the sweat from his brow that formed from nearly getting caught. 

No disguise would be good enough if someone actually managed to catch a sight of his horrendous face. As he hurried onwards, he only attracted a few curious glances. Still, nobody took the time to stop him and ask questions. He made sure to keep the wide brim of the summer hat low enough to prevent those curious eyes from getting a glimpse of his face. 

'Lorget! You've outdone yourself!' He thought as he let out a quiet cackle as he passed between the legs of the vampires around him...