Chapter 171: Goblin
We all bent down to examine the Goblins, who we just realized could apparently speak Human.
“Ainash,” I messaged, “what’s it thinking right now? Is it really saying all of this with the intent to communicate?”
“Think so,” she said. “Could feel the bad monsters changing feelings when you and mother were talking, but thought it was because they were angry from being imprisoned or something. But now I realize was because they could understand you! Should get them to teach me your language.”
I laughed, caught off guard by her sudden declaration. Was she getting jealous of the Goblins that they could understand us? But then I shook my head, trying to focus on the issue at hand. “Okay, so, it’s obviously a problem that they could understand us that whole time. Pass this along to mother, by the way. We should talk mentally while we’re around them. But this could be a massive benefit, too. If we can talk to them—even if they aren’t very good at talking—we can negotiate for information.”
“Can tell if bad monsters are lying, too!” Ainash said. “Will probably be able to feel when they are feeling deceptive while they answer, so will not have to worry about lies.”
“That’s perfect,” I said.
There was a pause in the conversation, and then Ainash messaged, “Mother says we should definitely bring as guides now. Bad monsters will not try to escape if we tell we will kill them if they try. So can bring them and tell them to walk ahead of us, that way we just walk where they walk and do not have to worry about traps. And have them lead us to their home, too!”
“Yeah, I definitely see her side of the argument a lot more now,” I nodded.
“Also, mother did not say this, but I can feel mother does not want to kill bad monsters because she would be sad if they die.”
“Really?” I messaged back. “Are you sure you should be telling me this?”
“Think she is embarrassed,” Ainash said. “But she sees them talk and feels like they are kind of like Humans. I do not understand why Humans like things that are kind of like Humans, but she feels that way. I do not want to make mother sad, so I do not think should kill these bad monsters.”
“Yeah, well, I think it’s probably best to keep them alive regardless. And I do see where she’s coming from. Killing defenseless prisoners in cold blood, especially when they’re intelligent enough to negotiate, feels pretty ruthless. One thing if they’re trying to hurt us, but as long as we can reason with them, I don’t see why we shouldn’t at least try.”
“They really want to kill us!” Ainash said. “But I also think should let mother not be sad and should be weird and not kill them right now.”
“Sure,” I responded.
“Do you understand me?” Erani had crouched back down in front of the two Goblins while Ainash and I had our conversation, and was trying to start a dialogue between herself and the pair of monsters.
“You are stinky!” one of the Goblins responded.
“So is that a yes? You do understand me? I’m trying to help you.”
“Stinky!”
I sighed listening to the attempt. They certainly liked using that word.
“Look, I just want some information. If you’re cooperative, we’ll help you, okay?”
They both just sneered at her.
She continued, undeterred. “Where is the main base? Where are the rest of the Goblins located?”
The two shared a glance, and one of them nodded its head to its right—opposite the direction we knew their base to actually be in.
Erani frowned. “That’s the direction you’re saying it’s in?”
They nodded.
“Are there any other bases? Significant structures?”
They shook their heads.
I walked forward and looked down at them. “We know you’re lying. We know there’s nothing in that direction. We know exactly where your base is.”
Their faces paled. One of the Goblins started to say something, but stopped, evidently deciding it didn’t have much it could say that could make it look innocent.
“Do not lie to us,” I continued. “If you do lie to us, if you prove to us that your sole intent is to harm us, what do you think we’ll do? Let you go free because you aren’t useful? The only way you get out of this alive is by proving that you genuinely want to help. Not by trying to hurt us.”
They both nodded frantically at my words.
“So, I’ll ask you again, this time with a lot less patience. Just to prove you want to tell the truth. Where is your base?”
“Stinky!” One of them spat.
But the other one, with what little mobility it had in its current restrained state, wiggled its way to turn to its companion and shake its head. Then it turned back to me, and nodded in the correct direction. “One and a half biomes.”
“Biomes?” I asked. Was that some sort of unit of measurement?
“Mm,” it looked down in thought for a moment, then looked back up. “Walk for two hours.”
I nodded at that. “Good. Stay cooperative like that, and we’ll let you go when we’re done.”
“Yes,” Erani said. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way, why don’t you tell us everything you know about your base, and what we might find there?”
After a lengthy conversation with the two Goblins, we headed out. It was difficult to get much information out of them—both because they still held onto some defiance throughout, and because of the language barrier between us. Ainash, of course, helped out with their occasional attempts at deceit, telling us when the Goblins had any spike in nervousness or malice within them, which we could swiftly call out. They obviously always had some amount of that whenever they spoke—I wouldn’t imagine they’d ever be perfectly calm and helpful during an interrogation—but there was typically a swift and clear increase in those feelings whenever they were about to lie to us.
The language barrier, on the other hand, was much harder to work around. What we learned after speaking with the Goblins for some time was that they didn’t typically speak any Human language at all. They had their own language they used within their species. However, this group of Goblins, specifically, had gone out of their way to learn our language. They were pretty good at understanding it when it was spoken to them, but when it came to speaking it themselves, there was much more trouble. Their mouths were simply not made to pronounce some of the sounds, and it came out with an extremely heavy accent, especially with some words, which made it sound almost like complete gibberish sometimes. So there was lots of asking them to repeat things or word them differently such that we could understand what they said.
As for the information we got out of them, it was quite a lot. Though, there was lots of stuff that didn’t have any immediate use; we’d learned what they’d stolen from people—mostly anything that seemed valuable, like coins or precious metal—we’d learned how far out they’d expanded their territory, and how quickly they expanded it, we learned how much they wanted to expand further, we’d learned how they made their weapons, and where they’d sourced the materials from…Again, there was a lot.
Much of it I didn’t quite understand, of course. Why would they need coins and metals from Humans, when there was nothing they could spend that money on? And why had they been so desperate to expand their territory further and further, when they seemed to understand doing so would only enrage the Humans? But they didn’t seem like they wanted to spend all day answering random questions—neither did I—and I had to accept that, at some point, there were just differences between the species, anyway. I wasn’t sure I’d ever understand Ainash’s view on morality, for example, which felt like it was completely inhuman at times. Which, of course, it literally was.
Besides, my focus was much more on the immediately useful information. How many Goblins were in the base? Well, turned out it there were typically between twenty and one hundred in there at any given time. How large was it? Their units of measurement were different from ours, but we ended up figuring out it was around fifty paces by a hundred, with some additional basement areas. Were there any dangers on our way there? About a thousand pitfall traps. Stuff like that.
Once we were done gathering that information, we untied the Goblins and set off. Well, we untied the Goblins and then instantly tied them up again, this time keeping their hands behind their backs, but affixing their necks to some makeshift leashes using rope, so they couldn’t run off. Erani commented that it felt rather inhumane to keep them restrained in such a way, but when I asked for another way we could make sure they behaved, she couldn’t come up with a solution. So leashes it was.
They led us through the forest, helping us to avoid all the traps in the forest that they were intimately familiar with, with Index also moving along, searching as well to confirm they were telling the truth.
Index seemingly got bored during the long walk, now that it had a couple other experts to do its job for it, with it pretty much just making sure they didn’t purposely omit any traps to try and get us killed—which Ainash would most likely detect anyway—so as we moved, it started lecturing me on battle tactics.
“...so, because of that,” it continued in its rant, “you should likely use at least one or two more stacks of Expedite on everyone when you’re in the Goblin base.”
Sorry, I thought in response, why was that, again? Don’t I need as much Mana as I can get so I can kill the upwards of a hundred Goblins in there?
“As we saw before, there are only two main attacks the Goblins can use to hurt you guys. They have bows, and they have bombs. Not much else, since their Stats are too low to make any real physical attacks—even with their pointed fingernails. A high Dex Stat naturally combats ranged weapons, as it allows you to not only dodge their shots, but also close the distance between you two much more easily, putting you at a natural advantage. And besides, the Goblins, at their range of engagement, are typically going to be too far away from you to be within my limited range of sight. Because of that, you’ll want to be more cognizant of your surroundings, as you won’t have me to warn you about attacks coming from behind. I analyzed last fight, and over eighty percent of arrow shots you took hit you in the back. Though I’m sure the bruising you got from the arrowheads punching against your Endurance-hardened skin is enough of a reminder of that. Anyway, Dex helps with your senses, so it’s a good counter to their strategy in several ways.”
But what about the bombs? Isn’t it safer to stay far away, so they can’t blow us up?
“As we saw in the previous timeline, those bombs take a good while to go off. At least ten seconds, probably more, on average. And I know you didn’t get to see this, since you were inside the explosion last time, but from my outside point of view, I could see the blast radius on those things. It isn’t that wide, honestly. At least, it’s not wide enough that a bomb that exists outside of my perception could ever harm you. So if there’s ever a bomb that’s about to go off, and it’s in range to damage you, it’ll for sure be close enough for me to see and warn you about. With me not able to see the Goblins shooting from afar, I’ll be able to focus all of my attention on that, and on making sure you don’t step in any traps.”
Guess that makes sense.
“Anyway, speaking of traps, that’s another thing. From what I saw, in the last fight and the moments surrounding it, you took two hundred and eighty-three steps that were completely unnecessary. When you know the forest is covered in pitfalls and other step-triggered dangers, that’s not good. So I was thinking we could practice your walking such that you don’t shift around on your feet so much. Just try walking with your hands outstretched—yeah, just like that—and then put your feet over there…”
Index continued coaching me on the minutiae of the battle in preparation of the upcoming fight against the Goblins. Honestly, I was somewhat irritated by its neuroticism regarding every little thing that could go wrong—I still had two more activations of Time Loop in case there were any problems, after all—but I supposed it was just doing its job. At the very least, I was glad to have a helper that erred on the side of too cautious, rather than not cautious enough.
While I was busy with this, Erani continued in her communication with the Goblins. Though, it wasn’t quite that she was talking with them, and more that Ainash was, using Erani as a translator. Ainash had basically no way to communicate properly with these things, after all, so if she ever wanted to say something to them that went past the limits of what could purely be said through vague emotional feelings, she had to use one of us. And since I was busy with Index, that job had fallen to Erani.
“How old are each of you?” Erani asked for Ainash.
“Eighty-four,” one replied.
“One hundred and fifty one,” said the other.
Her eyes widened at that, but then they narrowed again. “Wait…how long is a…one? Eighty-four whats?”
The older goblin scrunched up its face in thought. It seemed to be the one with the wider vocabulary between the two. Eventually, its face lit up when it found the word it was looking for, and it said, “Months.”
“Oh,” Erani said. “So…around seven and thirteen years, then. I guess Goblins mature faster than Humans. At least, I certainly hope so.”
They just shrugged at that.
There was a pause as Erani translated their answers to Ainash, and then Erani spoke again with another question. “What are your names?”
“Sloblin,” the older one said without hesitation.
“Wonpoblin,” said the younger one.
I’d been half-listening as Index was talking to me, and at that blinked and looked over at them. Even Erani seemed taken aback by their answers.
“Sorry,” she said, “are you serious? Sloblin and…Wonpoblin?”
They nodded.
“Isn’t that really, really similar to ‘Goblin?’ Your species name?”
They nodded again.
“...Okay. Why are your names like that? Are all Goblins named like that?”
“Names like that because like that,” the elder Sloblin said.
“...Uh huh,” Erani said with a nod. Then she looked back at me with a questioning look on her face.
I shrugged. “Maybe it's a chicken-or-the-egg scenario. They might just not know whether they’ve been named after their species, or their species name was somehow chosen after their naming traditions. Or maybe it’s just a thing with this one tribe, or something.”
“I suppose,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not sure if I can translate the pun over to Ainash. Getting sounds over to her is difficult.”
“Maybe she was right, we just need to get around to fully teaching her how to speak Human. Clearly other monsters can do it.”
“Well we’re certainly going to try at some point,” Erani agreed, “it’s just a question of whether we can spare time away from our current efforts to get her into town in the first place. Though, maybe it’d be a good idea to at least help her understand what’s being said around her before she comes in?”
“Yet another thing on our plates,” I said. “Let’s just take it one step at a time. For now, Goblins. Oh, and, uh, Index has, like, nine, ten things it wants me to tell you. It calls them ‘constructive criticism.’”
She sighed. “Lay them on me.”
It took a while, but eventually we made it to the Goblin base. Well, ‘base’ was sort of both underselling and overselling it simultaneously. At least, it certainly wasn’t constructed the way I’d typically think of a base. It was massive—around fifty paces by one hundred paces—and built partially on the side of a mountain, so the walls were put up at a slant.
Normally, such a large size would make a building look quite impressive. However, this one was missing a roof. There was no top to be seen on the set of walls, leaving it completely open to the sky. And the walls were all varying heights in different rooms. Some barely even seemed like they’d pass my own height, while others were at least four, five times as tall as I was. With plain wooden log walls, I suspected they were constructed in such an uneven way simply because they cut trees down and lined them up without bothering to cut them into even lengths before doing so.
All in all, the place was shaped like an extremely uneven pyramid, and its position at the base of the mountain, slowly curving upward as it went on, only added to the unstable feeling of it. Seeing such a place suddenly made me feel very uneasy about the explosives that were likely held within. If even one bomb went off, would the entire thing collapse in on us? Though I had to imagine the Goblins weren’t so stupid that they’d create such an unstable structure and then fill it with explosives. Hopefully, they wouldn’t carry the things around in here, and they stored them off somewhere else, too.
After the two hours of walking, my Health regenerated back up to full through use of Regenerate, so I was effectively back in top fighting condition. Erani and Ainash didn't have that Talent, of course, but they hadn't taken too many hits to begin with; Ainash was simply skilled enough that she'd dodged almost every projectile that'd been shot her way in the previous fight, and Erani had been protected by Angelic Shield from everything that hit her. And all of our physical Stats were high enough that our Stamina/Minutes were higher than the natural amount of Stamina naturally consumed by walking unassisted by Expedite, meaning that aspect of our Statuses was topped out, as well.
“Bad monsters feel very very nervous,” Ainash said as we got closer to the towering pyramid of wood. “Do not know why. Not nervous like lying. Well, sort of nervous like lying. But also nervous like other way. Afraid of something. Do not know what means.”
“Mhm,” I responded. The exact way her empathy ability eluded me, especially with the exact way she felt other monsters’ emotions. I effectively had no experience in interpreting that sort of thing, so I left it up to her, typically. And if she said she had no idea what that meant, then I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to figure it out, either. Especially when all I got was a description of what she truly felt coming from them.
Index, I thought, any imminent danger? Traps we don’t know about?
“Not that I can see. But there might be more as you continue to approach. Keep an eye out.”
“Okay,” I said to Ainash, “guess the only way to figure out what’s going on with that base is to just head in. Let’s go kill some Goblins.”
“Yes! Will kill so many bad monsters!”
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