《Lands of Concrete》


 The Slums

    A goblin was lying on his rotten mattress in a house. Not the kind that royalty have access to; it could barely be called a home. The frame was practically breaking apart, and the doors were on the verge of falling off their hinges. This was what SbUg called home.


    Crammed between a decrepit convenience store and an abandoned house, with barely enough space to live, he had to make do with what he had. This was what life in the slums was like, after all.


    ''Sigh... I feel terrible... I can''t believe I have to go to the mines on weekends now...''


    Sluggishly opening his half-lidded eyes, it was time for SbUg to get ready for work. He slid the cloth covering him, which was breaking at the seams, to the side and sat up on his mattress. He let out a clearly worse-for-wear yawn ¡ª if it could even be called that ¡ª from his dehydrated mouth. Using his stronger-than-average legs to leverage himself onto his feet, he stood up.


    He walked over to a pile of clothes on the ground.


    ''What a nice... wardrobe... haha...''


    It was nice to laugh. It was nice to make jokes. He liked focusing his attention on anything other than his painful life in the slums.


    He picked up a tattered pair of pants and a shirt. The former was an uncomfortable mess of sewing. It had a rather boring brown color and barely fit him. The latter was a more comfortable blue, looking like an exemplary piece of work compared to the pants.


    It was quite a ripoff, to be fair. It had cost him 1 silver and 18 copper, around the price of four weeks of terrible-tasting rations. Even though it was a total scam, he really wanted something to show that he was a hard worker, something to show that he was willing to put in the effort to achieve his goals. Really, it was just the first step toward riches for him ¡ª the first of many.


    After putting on his clothes, it was time to go to work. He didn''t have the privilege of making himself look nice or brushing his teeth before work. Hell, he didn''t even have working electricity or water. Luxuries like that were hard to come by for a slum rat like him. In the slums, you had to make do with what you had to survive, making whatever sacrifices survival demanded along the way.


    He walked to the rotting wooden door of his room. The door handle had fallen off long ago, back in the days when this shack of a house looked a little less decrepit, so there was no need to twist a knob or pull on a handle. He simply pushed into the door... and... it was stuck. Maybe it was the wind, or something else from last night, but the door had somehow closed fully.


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    With no handle, there was no way to get the latch to retract.


    ''Do I really have to kick it down? This day is definitely starting out well!''


    Unfortunate events tended to cascade for SbUg. It could never just be one bad thing happening to him at a time. For example, a few months ago, a cart had run over his foot in the mines, causing an injury. This made him flinch in pain, which caused the cart to tilt over and fall off the barely barricaded edge of the track into a fissure. He got a real bad scolding ¡ª both physical and verbal ¡ª from his boss, and some paycheck deductions for losing the cart.


    In short, he knew this could potentially be a terrible day already, which was why this minor inconvenience put him in such a bad mood. Well, maybe having to kick down his bedroom door was a little more than a minor inconvenience. Maybe a sort of... medium one?


    Tired of thinking of ways to distract himself from what he had to do, he finally got ready to kick down his door. It was already falling off the hinges, so it had to ¡ª hopefully ¡ª be an easy task.


    Really only hearing about people kicking down doors in the rare fictional stories of the slums, he wasn''t sure how to go about it. So, he just had to go for it.


    He awkwardly readied his leg, reeling it back. He launched it forward with all the force he could muster while standing on one foot and...


    "Ah! Curses..."


    Without knowing how to kick properly, all he managed to break were maybe a few toes. Well, maybe not break, but they hurt like hell at the moment due to his poor pain tolerance.


    ''Maybe I just need a running start...''


    After holding his foot to try to ease the pain, he backed away from the door. After getting as far as he could ¡ª against the wall of his bedroom, next to the pile of tattered clothes ¡ª he got into position to start running.


    He launched himself forward. With every step he took, the door came closer and closer. He readied himself to jump into the air just before the door was within arm''s reach and sprung into the air. He put his feet in front of him, the soles facing the door.


    The force from the running start and the jump was much greater than simply trying to kick the door from right in front of it. But would it be enough? His feet touched the door, and with all the force he had built up, it didn''t just break down. It shattered.


    ''I did it! It... it even shattered!''


    His celebration was cut short because he was now nearing the ground. The same ground that was now littered with chunks of a wooden door. His luck was really showing now, wasn''t it?


    He hit the ground back-first and immediately felt the consequences of his terrible luck. His back was littered with sharp pain ¡ª pain that he didn''t have a particularly high tolerance for.


    ''Damn it... damn it all...''


    He was probably running out of time to get to work by now, so he didn''t have time to process the terrible pain coursing through him or take out the chunks piercing his back. The only thing he could do right now was keep going. And hope that was the end of his terrible streak of luck.

 Leisureless Streets

    Putting his lime green hands flat against the ground, SbUg lifted himself up from his back. From the wooden shards piercing his back to the dread he felt from the streak of bad luck potentially not being over, SbUg wasn''t doing very well. Nevertheless, he couldn''t be late for work, no matter how he felt.


    That was just how it was in the slums. Either you get taken advantage of, or someone else takes advantage of you. That was just what it took to survive. And currently, he was being taken advantage of by his boss. At least he got a little bit of copper for it. He was okay with being taken advantage of, as long as he got something in return.


    And currently, he was at risk of losing that something. Jobs were hard to come by in the slums. It was honestly a miracle he even scored it, considering his circumstances. Houses were a rarity as well, and he was more fortunate than most in the slums. Even though his living conditions were still terrible, he was happy to be better off than a lot of others.


    ''Well, time to get to work, I guess.''


    After getting onto his feet, he walked over to his front door. Luckily, it still had the handle, so there was no need to kick it open. He twisted the wooden handle¡ªmetal was a delicacy for the rich, after all¡ªand after pushing the door open, the smell of built-up trash mixed with horrible rotting rations hit him.


    The slums were... quite a sight to take in, to say the least. Homeless goblins littered the streets. Various pieces of garbage and rations¡ªfinished and unfinished¡ªpainted them in abundant shades of black and brown. It was like the slums were a surrealist piece of abstract art.


    Walking into the streets, SbUg became a bright green dot in that painting. He stood out quite a bit because of his color. Most goblins were a darker shade of green, so he was a bit of an outlier.


    He started walking toward the mine. Since he was going to have to pass the convenience store next to his house, he decided to go in to check the time. The convenience store was a bit less of a disheveled mess compared to everything around it. It stood out a lot, actually. The two who ran it were a good lot as well.


    The one currently on shift, Larg, was a dark green goblin of short stature. His short stature was quite misleading, as he was quite a tough gob. Often, homeless goblins would come in to steal food. That was quite a mistake, though, as Larg would either tell them off, chase them, or just straight-up fight them. His tiny hands were conditioned from many fights, as he used to be a sort of ''punk'' type in the slums. He settled down long ago to work an honest life, but that didn''t quell his love for fighting.


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    The other worker, and owner of the convenience store, was Plark. Plark was a humble and kind man, a rare sight for the slums. With a kind smile and a light green tinge to his skin¡ªnot the kind that SbUg had, but more of a sign of healthiness¡ªit was clear he spent a lot to take care of himself. His origins in the slums led him back to his roots after he made it out of them. Now, he fought for a better life for slumrats. Bringing city food and clothes to his convenience store and giving Larg an honest life were just two parts of his fight.


    Whether it be hands-on with the convenience store or politically, such as lobbying for better rations in the slums, he was someone who genuinely cared.


    "Hey, Larg, what time is it right now?" SbUg asked the dark green goblin.


    "It''s around 6:50 right now, why? And shouldn''t you be at work? And what''s all on your back? Are you doing alright?" the well-mannered goblin replied.


    "O-oh! Oh! I have to go, like... 10 minutes ago! And don''t worry about all that! See you tomorrow!" SbUg answered while backing out of the convenience store.


    The mines were about a mile away, located at the Concrete Pillars¡ªa mountain chain that acted as a border of the slums. So if he wanted to make it in time, he had to start running toward it as quickly as he could.


    After SbUg finished talking, he turned around and bolted out of the store completely, reaching his top speed of about 7 miles per hour just as he got to the end of the street.


    Dodging the various piles of trash proved to be quite a challenge while also trying to run at top speed, but SbUg had no other choice. If he didn''t make it in time, his very livelihood would be threatened. He had no moments to spare.


    The small houses turned into blurs, and homeless goblins stared at the strange lime green goblin running through the slums. With not enough food to spare, it was a very rare sight to see anyone running, let alone someone with a rare complexion. He appeared to be very strange at the moment, so it wasn''t out of the ordinary for people to be staring. It still made him uncomfortable to have the attention of the other slum-dwellers on him, but it wasn''t something he could change.


    After an unknown amount of time, the mines were finally in sight. Bordering the Concrete Pillars, there were countless hoists, winders, and wooden staircases. There were plenty of tunnels into the mountain chain, but none were as big as the main entrance SbUg was headed to. Stepping over the last pieces of trash on the border that separated the slums from the mines, he didn''t lose any of his momentum. He had to continue running, no matter what. His lungs were on fire, and he felt like he was going to pass out, but he had to keep running.


    He finally got to the main wooden staircase and began running up the steps. After about 30 seconds, he made it to the top. He was at a huge entrance tunnel of the colossal mountain chain. There were wooden supports and ropes bordering it, and minecart tracks running in and out.


    With nothing going wrong so far, it appeared his bad streak of luck was possibly over. He had arrived at the mines.