The Council Attaché did not have a body. It had a location. The center of the archive became its focal point. The air thickened. Light bent toward it. Sound died around it.

  My admin vision parsed the entity.

  [ENTITY: COUNCIL ATTACHé (OBSERVER CLASS)]

  [PURPOSE: FIELD ASSESSMENT OF CANDIDATE DEPLOYMENT]

  [AUTHORITY LEVEL: TIER 2 (LOCAL JURISDICTION)]

  [STATUS: PASSIVE OBSERVATION MODE]

  [THREAT PROFILE: ADMINISTRATIVE (NON COMBAT)]

  [/SYSTEM]

  It was not here to fight. It was here to judge.

  The cold in my wrist pulsed in time with my heartbeat. Sixty seven beats per minute. Steady.

  The Attaché spoke. Not with sound. With direct data transmission.

  [CANDIDATE LEO VANE. STATE YOUR PURPOSE IN DEPRECATION ARCHIVE.]

  I answered aloud. My voice sounded flat to my own ears. “Acquisition of Execution Protocol. Neutralization of existential threat.”

  [CONFIRMED. DISPLAY THREAT NEUTRALIZATION LOG.]

  A log appeared in my vision. The vanguard. The cube. The deletion. It played back in perfect detail. The child scream audio file deletion scrolled past as text.

  The Attaché processed.

  [ADDITIONAL QUERY: JUSTIFICATION FOR ARCHIVE SECTOR 12 DESTRUCTION.]

  “Strategic necessity,” I said. “The vanguard required a stabilized temporal mass to target. Sector Twelve provided sufficient density. Its restoration status was obsolete. Efficiency dictated its use.”

  [EFFICIENCY ACKNOWLEDGED. MORAL WEIGHT: UNCALCULATED.]

  The words hung in the air.

  Moral weight. The System could calculate it but chose not to. That was information.

  Lara shifted her weight. My admin vision tagged her movement. [ASSET LARA: AGITATION DETECTED. MUSCLE TENSION 87%.]

  Marcus stood perfectly still. [ASSET MARCUS: COMBAT STANCE. READINESS 92%.]

  Eli watched the Attaché’s focal point. [ASSET ELI: ANALYSIS MODE. STRESS LEVEL 74%.]

  The Rival touched his chest. His breathing pattern was uneven. [ASSET RIVAL: PHYSIOLOGICAL DISTRESS. CAUSE: PHANTOM CORE PAIN.]

  The Attaché shifted its attention to them.

  [ANOMALY CLASS ENTITIES. STATE YOUR PURPOSE.]

  Lara answered. Her voice was tight. “Survival.”

  [INSUFFICIENT. SPECIFY.]

  Marcus stepped forward. “We assist Candidate Vane. We secure the weapon. We fight the Arch Consumers.”

  The Attaché processed again. Longer this time.

  [TEAM DYNAMIC NOTED. LOYALTY METRICS: FLUCTUATING. EFFICIENCY POTENTIAL: SUBOPTIMAL.]

  It returned its focus to me.

  [CANDIDATE LEO VANE. YOU HAVE ASSUMED ADMINISTRATOR PROTOCOLS WITHOUT FULL ASSIMILATION. YOU WEAPONIZED ARCHIVED REALITY WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION. YOU ARE BEING PLACED UNDER REVIEW.]

  A new status appeared.

  [ADMINISTRATOR STATUS: PROVISIONAL]

  [RESTRICTIONS: REALITY ALTERATION LOCKED. WEAPON DEPLOYMENT REQUIRES APPROVAL.]

  [REVIEW SCHEDULE: IMMINENT.]

  [/SYSTEM]

  My weaponized arm grew heavier. The Null Core in my palm dimmed. Forced into standby.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “The Arch Consumers are still coming,” I said. “This sector will be consumed in approximately sixty seven minutes.”

  [ACKNOWLEDGED. YOUR REVIEW MUST PRECEDE FURTHER ACTION.]

  “If I am under review, I cannot complete the Omega Null assembly. I cannot fire the weapon. The sector dies.”

  [CORRECT. THIS IS ACCEPTABLE.]

  The words were ice.

  The System would let nine million real people die to complete its paperwork.

  I looked at the team. Their data tags flickered. Stress levels spiking.

  Eli spoke. “There must be an appeals process. A way to fast track.”

  The Attaché responded.

  [APPEAL PROCESS EXISTS. REQUIREMENT: DEMONSTRATE UNCONTESTED ADMINISTRATIVE COMPETENCE.]

  “Define,” I said.

  [EXECUTE ONE REALITY ALTERATION COMMAND WITH ZERO COLLATERAL DAMAGE. DEMONSTRATE PRECISION BEYOND CURRENT PROVISIONAL STATUS.]

  “Example.”

  [RESTORE ONE DELETED ITEM FROM ARCHIVE SECTOR 12.]

  Restore something from the cube I just destroyed. From the nine million lives I used as shield.

  “That’s impossible,” Eli whispered. “The sector is gone. Consumed.”

  The Attaché waited.

  It was a test. Not of power. Of understanding.

  The sector was deleted. But the archive kept logs. Metadata. Ghost files.

  I could not restore a person. But I could restore a data point. A single moment. A fragment.

  If I chose the wrong thing, I would fail. If I chose something with too much moral weight, I would fail. It had to be precise. Surgical. A demonstration of control.

  My admin vision scanned the archive logs. The metadata from Sector Twelve scrolled past. Millions of entries. Birth records. Traffic patterns. Weather data. Personal messages.

  One entry was highlighted by the system. A test suggestion.

  [SUGGESTED RESTORATION TARGET: PUBLIC TRANSPORT SCHEDULE LOG (NON SENTIENT, LOW DATA MASS, ZERO MORAL WEIGHT)]

  The safe choice. The bureaucratic choice.

  I rejected it.

  That would show competence. Not understanding.

  I searched manually. My perception overclock engaged. The world froze around me. The Attaché became a static point of light. The team became statues.

  I scanned faster.

  Found it.

  A corrupted file. Not a person. Not even an object. A sound file. Labeled: AMBIENT_CAFé_07.WAV. Duration: twelve seconds. Recorded three days before the Sector Seven test. Before everything ended.

  A café. People talking. Dishes clinking. A coffee machine steaming. Normal life. Already dead in the real timeline. Now dead in the backup too.

  But the sound remained in the logs. A ghost of a ghost.

  I selected it.

  Perception overclock ended.

  Time resumed.

  “I will restore audio file AMBIENT_CAFé_07.WAV from Sector Twelve metadata,” I said.

  The Attaché processed.

  [SELECTION NOTED. MORAL WEIGHT: NEGLIGIBLE. DATA MASS: MINIMAL. PROCEED.]

  I raised my weaponized arm. The Null Core glowed dimly. Still restricted.

  I didn’t need the weapon. I needed authority.

  I issued a command. Not as a Candidate. As an Administrator.

  “Archive. Recompile data stream from Sector Twelve backup logs. Isolate target file. Materialize as audio playback.”

  The command line appeared.

  COMMAND: RESTORE_FILE

  TARGET: AMBIENT_CAFé_07.WAV

  SOURCE: SECTOR_12_METADATA

  CONFIRM? [Y/N]

  I selected Y.

  The archive hummed. A speaker system I didn’t know existed crackled to life.

  Static.

  Then sound.

  The hiss of a coffee machine. The clatter of a cup on a saucer. A low murmur of conversation. A laugh. Cut off.

  Twelve seconds of dead civilization.

  The file played. Ended.

  Silence.

  The Attaché evaluated.

  [PRECISION: ACCEPTABLE. COLLATERAL DAMAGE: ZERO. MORAL WEIGHT: WITHIN PARAMETERS.]

  A new status replaced the old.

  [ADMINISTRATOR STATUS: CONFIRMED]

  [RESTRICTIONS: LIFTED]

  [WEAPON DEPLOYMENT: AUTHORIZED]

  [REVIEW: PASSED]

  [/SYSTEM]

  The Null Core in my palm brightened. The cold in my wrist receded slightly.

  Power returned.

  But the Attaché wasn’t done.

  [ADDENDUM: YOUR ACTION HAS BEEN LOGGED. COUNCIL OVERSIGHT NOTIFIED.]

  [CHARGE: UNAUTHORIZED REALITY TERMINATION (SECTOR 12)]

  [PENALTY RANGE: DECOMMISSION TO PROMOTION]

  [DETERMINATION: PENDING COUNCIL REVIEW]

  [/SYSTEM]

  I had passed the test. I had my authority back.

  But I was now formally charged with a crime. The same crime that saved my team.

  The System worked in contradictions. Efficiently.

  The Attaché’ presence began to fade. The focal point dissolved. The air returned to normal.

  Before it vanished completely, it transmitted one final message.

  [COUNCIL REVIEW SCHEDULED POST ARCH CONSUMER EVENT. SURVIVE, AND YOU MAY BE PROMOTED. FAIL, AND THE CHARGE IS MOOT.]

  Then it was gone.

  The archive was quiet again. Just the hum of dying cubes.

  I lowered my arm. The weapon felt like part of me now. The cold was my temperature.

  Lara walked toward me. Stopped three feet away. She looked at the weapon. At my face.

  “You played their game,” she said.

  “I used their rules,” I said.

  “Same thing.”

  Maybe it was.

  Marcus checked the entrance. “The Arch Consumers. We have less than an hour now.”

  Eli picked up his scanner. “The weapon is complete. We need to get to a firing position. Somewhere with a clear line of sight to the primary convergence point.”

  The Rival finally spoke. His voice was rough. “The archive has an observation deck. For monitoring reality layers. It should have a view.”

  I nodded. “Lead the way.”

  We moved through the dying archive. Cubes continued to crack. To leak. To die.

  The cold in my wrist pulsed with every step.

  I had the power.

  I had the weapon.

  I had the charge.

  And in approximately fifty nine minutes, I would have to fire.

  And find out if saving this reality meant being deleted by the ones who owned it.

  ??? GOBLIN SMASHING ???

  by CSN Publishing

  GOBLIN SMASHING

  Tokyo, 2045. For most, a future costs more than they’ll ever earn. For Rin Kazehaya, it costs everything his family’s home, his mom’s life in a hospital, and debt collectors closing in on his siblings. The only thing that pays is hustle and hope.

  When Hero’s Glory Online launches its Crystal League expansion, a single tagline is everywhere: “Bring your business here.” One week. Discounted entry. Real cash for every match, every territory won. Anyone can play but not everyone survives.

  Rin gambles the last of his savings on a shot he can’t afford to lose, logging in from a battered first-gen pod built by his father. But a glitch locks him in as a Goblin the weakest, most-mocked race in the game. No reset. No second chance.

  Now, every victory means cash, every loss risks everything, and every move is broadcast to millions while Tokyo’s most ruthless family closes in on his real life. If he fails, he loses more than a game.

  But Goblins don’t know when to quit. With nothing left but his wits, a gambler’s instinct, and a dream nobody believes in, Rin’s about to find out what happens when the underdog brings his business and his fight to the world’s biggest stage.

  New chapters every Friday at 8pm Central Time.

  Goblin Smashing comes from someone who’s lived the grind as an esports organization owner and competitive MOBA player. If you love siege games, high-stakes MMOs, and underdog stories, you’re in the right place.

  This story is only published on Royal Road.

  If you spot it anywhere else, it’s fake, please flag and report.

  ?? Listen to the Official Goblin Smashing OST ??

  

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