Why a Goblin?

Let's fast forward about three days into Rick’s journey in the forest towards the cave he stayed in with Dran. It was an early misty morning in the forest and Rick along with the group of Goblins he was traveling with were engaged in the first of many early morning lessons.

Well, it was just Rick learning and one of the Maglins doing the teaching.

“Alright we’ve traveled for three days already, we can use this morning to start some of these reading and writing lessons. Who’ll be doing the teaching? Zargi or Kida?”

“I’ll be the one doing the teaching Mr. Rick! We can start right now if you’d like.”

“Yeah, we can, alright for everyone else you're free to hunt together nearby or just stay here and watch the surroundings. Okay Kida you can start.”

So the remaining Goblins decided to stay around Rick and Kida as they began the lesson instead of going out to hunt. They all agreed that Rick should be able to learn in peace and not be worried about any monsters ruining his time of learning.

Though of course Rick had Velora constantly scanning the area around him, so he didn’t necessarily need them around him. But they obviously didn’t know about that nor was Rick planning on telling that any time soon.

The only way a problem would occur is if a creature that was far above the level of Rick's ability and Velora’s scanning were to approach, but at that point, they still probably wouldn’t be of any help.

Rick himself might die depending on what type of monster approaches, especially if it was something on the level of Ezekiel, the fox that lived on the northern side of the lake.

Anyway, Rick let them do as they pleased, and he could finally begin his lessons with Kida.

Well, he would begin in his lesson if it weren't for one little problem. Though it's not actually a problem, just a small surprise or a large one depending on how you see it.

“Alright Mr.Rick, we can start by looking at any word in the documents provided to us by Jala and going over the letters in the word to understand their pronunciation and meaning.”

“Okay that sounds good, I haven’t really looked at the documents at all either, so I don’t know how Goblin letters look at all.”

“Here are the documents then, take a look and see if maybe you can understand any of it.”

“Now that I’m actually holding these documents, it really is amazing to see. It’s not actually paper but hardened thin sheets of skin.”

“Yes it is, it was developed long before I was born.”

“Gang green is capable of all sorts of stuff huh?”

It was then that Rick finally focused on the words written on documents in his hands. To him, it just looked like a bunch of random lines and shapes, and he couldn’t understand any of it. But just a few seconds after looking at it, something happened.

The random lines and shapes began turning into a language he was very familiar with. English.

The words on the documents were all turning into English. Every single last word was being translated in his very eyes and he was now able to read the entire document without problems!

Needless to say, Rick was very shocked! With his eyes opened wide he immediately looked through all the documents and saw they were being translated for him too!

Kida was looking at him the whole time and she was quite shocked to see Rick with nothing but the surprise on his face and him flipping through the documents looking for something as if his life depended on it!

She thought she was looking at a Goblin that just couldn’t believe that a Goblin of his level was not able to read even a single word! Even though he was the strongest Goblin around he couldn’t read at all! But she couldn’t be farther from the truth than she was now.

In fact Rick could indeed read every single thing written on the documents. Even things like commas, periods and apostrophes were translated in his eyes. But of course, Kida didn’t know that, so she decided she would at least comfort Rick, but before she could finish speaking Rick cut her off with some words of his own.

“Mr.Rick it’s not a problem if you don't know how to read, I’m sure you wi-..”

“KIDA! What language do you see in the documents?! Is it English?! Are you still seeing your Goblin language?!”

Kida could barely understand what Rick was asking and she didn’t even know what this thing called English was, but she quickly took the documents back and looked at the words written down. All she saw was the same words written before, so she couldn’t understand what Rick was asking of her.

“Mr.Rick the words are still the same as before, I don’t quite understand what you’re asking.”

“Ahhh so they’re the same for you! But it's English for me instead! Wait! what if I were to write something down?! Kida do you have anything to write with? Actually, forget it! I’ll just write something out in the dirt!”

At this point Kida was worrying about Rick, thinking not being able to read must’ve really hurt his pride as a Goblin that has gone through two evolutions. So she worriedly watched as a couple of seconds passed with Rick moving his finger around in the dirt in weird movements, after he was done he immediately asked if she could read it.

If someone from earth who could read English saw what Rick wrote in the dirt they would instantly see it was the words “Gang Green”, but for Kida all she saw was just weird lines of all sorts and she couldn’t make any sense of it.

“Mr. Rick..I ..I can’t understand what you wrote in the dirt.”

“So you can't understand it huh, figures. Well, it doesn’t look like you need to teach me how to read and write after all. I can read the documents, but it’ll probably be impossible for me to learn how to write it.”

[It's probably the one who created me that also gave you this ability. It’s probably a blessing and a curse, you will most likely understand every language in this world but will never have the ability to teach it to anyone else or actually learn the language.]

Sounds like a damn curse but whatever can’t do anything about it now.

Kida, on the other hand, couldn't believe what Rick just said, what does he mean he can already read the documents and doesn’t need to be taught! Is he running away from his duties?!

“Mr.Rick! I assure you I’ll be here every step of the way to help you in becoming able to read and write! It’s not as hard as it seems! Especially for someone of your level!”

“Ah so you don’t believe me huh, makes sense I guess. Here pass me back the documents and I’ll read it out for you exactly what they say.”

“Okay, if you say so Mr.Rick. You have to read every word correctly, or I strongly recommend you continue with the lessons!”

“Yeah, I’ll start right now then.”

Rick then spent the next hour or so reading through the documents for Kida. He also had to read the specific words Kida would sometimes point to because she couldn’t believe he could read. By the time he was done, Rick had memorized almost everything Jala wrote in the documents.