Hulim lowered her breathing to the bare minimum, quietly standing at the edge of the Goblin patrol’s path.
A few green-skinned Goblins, clutching thick wooden clubs and wearing grass skirts, passed right by Hulim, never noticing her presence…
Watching the patrol gradually move away, Hulim didn’t make a move against them to weaken the Goblins’ fighting force.
She still wasn’t clear on the Goblins’ alert mechanisms; making a move rashly would only put them on guard.
“But, to think they didn’t notice me even this close…”
Hulim turned her head toward the Goblin tribe and began the next stage of her operation.
Clang!
“Garu? (What’s going on?)”
A green-skinned Goblin looked back at the wooden rack that had mysteriously fallen over, its face full of confusion.
“Gah—?! (Slacking off again!)”
Just then, a Big Goblin strode over, bellowing at the green-skinned Goblin.
“Garu, garu, garulu! (It wasn’t me, I didn’t do it! The rack just fell over by itself, I was checking it!)”
The green-skinned Goblin flailed its arms anxiously, gesturing at the rack lying on the ground.
“Gah? (The rack fell over by itself?)”
The Big Goblin looked even more confused.
“Garulu! (Yeah, yeah!)”
The green-skinned Goblin nodded vigorously.
“Gaji—! (Do you take me for a fool?!)”
Thud!
Suddenly, the Big Goblin, raging, punched the green-skinned Goblin right on the head, knocking it to the ground. Then it roared at it again.
“Gaji! Gaji! Ga! Gah—! (Racks aren’t alive, how could it move by itself! You just want to slack off! If you do it again, I’ll break your legs!)”
The green-skinned Goblin trembled, hugging its head and kneeling, not daring to resist.
After the Big Goblin finished venting and left, the green-skinned Goblin slowly got up, rubbing its aching head, then glared furiously at the fallen rack, grabbing its club and beating the rack furiously.
“Ga! Ga! Ga! (It’s you! It’s you! Stop moving around!)”
The rack splintered, wood chips flying everywhere.
Suddenly, a wood chip shot off toward the shadow in the corner. Just as it was about to hit the wall, it rebounded in midair as if it had struck something invisible.
“Ga?” The green-skinned Goblin caught sight of this scene.
With a baffled look, it gazed at the corner, then slowly approached, holding its club warily.
When it reached the spot where the wood chip had bounced off, the Goblin poked its club into the air.
But the club just swung through empty space, touching nothing.
“Ga?”
The green-skinned Goblin scratched its head in confusion, then, feeling somewhat unlucky, waved its hand at the air and turned to head back to its post.
But as soon as it turned, it saw a towering figure standing right in front of it…
The green-skinned Goblin’s gaze slowly lifted, meeting a pair of cold eyes looking down on it.
Green-skinned Goblin: “Ga…”
The Big Goblin grabbed it by the neck and lifted it right off the ground.
“Gah——!!”
On the other side, Hulim, who had long since left, breathed a sigh of relief.
“Good thing I didn’t get exposed.”
Concealment-type magic always had one fatal weakness: once someone paid close attention, it was hard for it to work.
After all, concealment wasn’t true invisibility, just a blurring of form, best used in dim environments. Although she had two Nature-type spells to help, making her concealment as if always shrouded in darkness, if she drew attention, even a stupid Goblin would know a moving patch of darkness was suspicious, right?
“Better keep investigating…”
Hulim scanned her surroundings carefully, quickly casting her gaze at a certain house.
Creak~!
A gate made of rough branches suddenly swung open, then closed on its own.
“Ga?”
The Goblin outside curiously peeked inside, found nothing amiss, scratched its head in confusion, and simply went back to its duties, completely unaware that a very dangerous intruder had slipped into the most important part of the tribe.
“This place is…”
Hulim looked over the largest house in the tribe.
Inside hung many dried animal corpses, and the floor was heaped with wild fruit.
Stealthily making her way inside, she’d already figured out most of the Goblin sentry positions and their fighting strength. It was worse than she’d expected. Not only were there lots of armed archers, there was more than one Goblin Mage, and most importantly, the proportion of Big Goblins was astonishingly high: among over one hundred thirty Goblins, more than thirty were Big Goblins! Normally, in a Goblin tribe like this, the ratio of Big Goblins to ordinary green-skinned Goblins should be about 1:10. This abnormal ratio had to be due to the lord.
Very likely, the Goblin Lord of this tribe had already advanced once, reaching C+ rank…
If that was the case, in normal circumstances, it would take the Adventurers’ Guild rallying four or five C-class parties—or more—to wipe them out.
“Could it really be an advanced Goblin Lord…”
At this point, all Hulim lacked was the most crucial information: the Goblin Lord itself.
She’d thought the biggest house would be where the Lord was, but now it seemed it was only used for food storage.
“…No, maybe this place will be useful.”
Gazing at the piles of food stockpiled by the Goblins, an idea flashed through Hulim’s mind.
Over an hour later.
A horn sounded through the Goblin tribe.
“Ga, ga!”
“Garu!”
“Gaji!”
A group of Goblins entered the food storage.
Under the supervision of two Big Goblins, the lowest-ranking green-skinned Goblins carried food outside.
“Ga!”
At the door, a Big Goblin kicked a slow-moving green-skinned Goblin, making it drop half a dried Horned Rabbit from its arms.
The green-skinned Goblin wanted to pick it up.
“Gah——!”
But after a single roar, it turned and fled, not daring to retrieve the fallen food.
“…”
The Big Goblin sneaked a glance around, saw the other Big Goblin was focused inside, and inched its way toward the food. Once beside it, it quickly bent down, grabbed the meat, and stuffed it into its hands.
Nervously, it looked inside again. Seeing it hadn’t been noticed, it quickly opened its mouth wide and took a bite of the dried Horned Rabbit.
“Ga?”
But as it chewed, the Big Goblin felt something was wrong. It frowned at the food, unable to figure out the problem.
Just then, the other Big Goblin noticed and turned around.
This Big Goblin hurriedly hid the bitten rabbit behind its back, narrowly avoiding being caught.
But because of this, its doubts about the food were forgotten. The group of Goblins, carrying food, made their way to the central clearing of the tribe, where a bonfire was already blazing and a cauldron had been set up.
Food was tossed into the cauldron and placed on grills.
“Ga!”
“Ga!”
“Ga!”
“…”
Over a hundred Goblins, led by several Goblin Mages, started shouting in unison as they circled the food.
“Gao——!”
With a deep roar, a massive Goblin stepped out from one of the houses.
It wore thick armor and wielded a gigantic stone axe.
The Goblin Lord had finally appeared.
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