Isekai Terry: Tropes of Doom (An Isekai Adventure Comedy)

Okay, thought Terry as Kelima did battle. This planet is seriously weird. Are those actually goblins?

As near as Terry could tell, they were goblins. They looked like goblins. Short, green, red eyes, and hyperviolent all fit the bill. It just didn't line up particularly well with the whole cultivation vibe that had initially led him to dub this entire place as Chinese Period Drama Hell. Not that he meant to give up on calling it that, but there did seem to be some kind of logical breakdown. This part of the world felt increasingly more like a Western-inspired Japanese anime than a cultivation novel or manhua.

Yes, other-Terry finally answered. Those are goblins.

That took a while. Did you have something better to do?

I was playing video games. So, yeah, I deemed that more important than immediately answering inane questions from you that you already knew the answer to.

Terry remained silent for several seconds before he mentally yelled, How in the fuck are you playing video games?

You wouldn't understand the complexities of what I am or can do. So, there's no point in explaining it.

You set up a blind subroutine to hide the mechanics from yourself, didn't you, you selfish AI?

There was a long pause before the magical construct said, No.

You did! And you didn't even offer to let me play?!

You have more important things to do.

Like what?

Dealing with that hobgoblin before it kills Kelima, for one.

"What hobgoblin?" Terry accidentally said out loud.

He looked around and spotted the hulking thing as it waited in the shadows of some trees. Apparently, it was happy enough to sacrifice its goblin minions to Kelima's training. I didn't think it was going to be as sanguine about letting itself become fodder for her advancement. Part of me wanted to let her at least try to take it on. If she got seriously injured again, though, he'd have to force-feed her another healing potion. That would mean setting up camp here—whatever the hell part of the middle of nowhere here was—for days. That prospect held no appeal.

In truth, the faint patina of novelty being on a fetch quest initially held had long since been worn away by the sandpaper of irritation. He just wanted to get to the mountain, kill the thing that lived there, and collect the special, special rocks. With all of that in mind, he decided that it was best to just deal with the hobgoblin. Terry looked around, picked up a mossy rock, and beaned the hobgoblin in the head with it. At that, the stupid thing started looking up, like the rock could only have fallen straight out of the sky. No doubt chucked from the heavens by an equally stupid goblin divinity.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," muttered Terry before he raised his voice. "Over here, you big moron!"

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The hobgoblin kept looking up for a few seconds before it finally turned its dull gaze over to Terry. He nodded encouragingly while waving it over.

"That's it. That's a good, dumb monster. Come to Uncle Terry. I'll put you out of your brainless misery."

"Why are you provoking it?" demanded Kelima through clenched teeth.

"Do you want to fight it?"

"Never mind. You do you," she said before adding something under her breath. "Like always."

As the hobgoblin took its sweet goddamn time deciding if it should attack him, Terry wondered if it would have better to just kill it with the rock. He could have, but he'd been worried about where the rock might end up. If he'd thrown it hard enough to be sure it would brain the hobgoblin, it probably would have kept going. That would probably make a hellacious racket as it bounced off trees for a mile or possibly knocked them over. He honestly hadn't put in the practice to know how much force to use while throwing things. Up until now, he'd mostly gotten lucky. Then again, it might be more accurate to say that he just hadn't cared if the things and people he threw stuff at died.

The situation out in the untamed wilderness was different. Terry was content to make Kelima fight monsters that they ran across naturally, assuming they weren't too strong. It was something else to attract a stampede of monsters that weren't already focused on them. For one, he'd end up doing most of the fighting. Not that he was opposed to fighting. He'd stepped in plenty of times when Kelima was about to get overwhelmed. At the same time, a stamped situation would put her in a lot more danger of getting hurt by something she really wasn't ready to fight.

No, it was better to just get the thing's attention and kill it the old-fashioned way. Up close and with excessive violence. Or, as Terry had recently started thinking about it, The Dao of Ninja Scroll. The hobgoblin finally managed to rub its two brain cells together long enough to ignite the fire of a single thought. It let out a roar and charged at Terry. It was surprisingly quick for something that big. It was fast enough that he needed to dodge out of the way when it swung the short log it was using as a club in a vicious downward strike. The makeshift club connecting with the ground sent moist dirt flying everywhere, including all over Terry.

"Are you kidding me?" demanded Terry. "Do you have any idea how damn hard it is to clean clothes out here?"

Furious that his moderately clean clothes were now filthy, Terry didn't dodge the next swing of the club. He just punched it. The log exploded. That left him covered in dirt and wood chips. In the back of his head, Terry knew that he'd done some of it to himself, but he had a big monster right there to take out his frustration on. Terry took advantage of the way the hobgoblin stared at the splintered remains of its club in total confusion. It had probably expected to see the club covered in messy human bits. While it was being sucker punched by Darwin, Terry walked over to a smaller tree that was a bit bigger around than a baseball bat. Probably. If Terry's distant memory of high school gym class were to be trusted. Which he was pretty sure they weren't, since he couldn't have cared less about that class.

At any rate, he jerked the tree out of the ground, roots and all. He didn't waste any time in walking back over to the hobgoblin and hitting it in the head with the dirt-covered roots of the tree. There was another explosion of dirt and wood pieces. However, that explosion came with bonus servings of green blood, bone, and hobgoblin brain matter. Much of which also landed on Terry. To add insult to injury, the blood or possibly the brain matter smelled like a garbage dump.

"I'm going to have to burn these clothes," he said bitterly.

He would have liked to take out his frustrations over that indignity, but the headless corpse of the hobgoblin had already fallen to the ground. Then, smiling a little, he turned to look over where Kelima and the goblins were all staring at him.

"Hello, goblins. Come to Uncle Terry. Let us reason together about the Dao of Ninja Scroll!"

He took one step toward the group, and the goblins tried to scatter.

"Don't run!" shouted Terry as he sprang after them.

It was only as Terry ran down the screeching, terrified goblins and brained them that the proper term finally sprang to his mind. Oh, shit, he thought. This is a kitchen sink world. What a pain in the ass.