229 Don’t waste time, please! part Bardun behaved quite nicely the whole time and didn’t say a word until we were far enough from the human camp.
“Brother, I told you not to come. I’m so ashamed you saw me like that.”
Bardun said in his usual growling voice and lowered his gaze, the beast girl was startled and for just a second she opened her eyes wide. It seems that beast kin don’t know that goblins can speak human language.
“Warrior help warrior.”
I repeated to him the same words he told me back when he saved me, patting him on the back. It was meant to be a friendly gesture, like what Bob does to everyone, but I think it actually hurt him a little. I had completely forgotten that he was shot in the back. Bardun made a complicated expression, but didn’t complain because he understood I didn’t mean to hurt him.
It made me feel so guilty, is this how Bob feels whenever he does this and ends up lowering my hit points by mistake? I’ll try to reassure him next time he does it. It might hurt a bit, but he’s just being affectionate and I really don’t dislike him being friendly.
For whatever reason, the beast kin girl seemed to be really attached to Risa and followed her closely, keeping her distance from Bob and me. Risa kept walking straight, seeming to be completely oblivious of this. Bardun gazed at them with intrigued eyes, but he didn’t ask any questions. Knowing him like I do, he must believe she’s my wife.
“Hey brother, these are my friends Bob and Risa.”
“What’s the name of the one following us?”
.....
Risa seemed surprised that Bardun was able to notice Luke’s presence, but to me it was kind of obvious since goblins were the true masters of stealth.
“His name is Luke, don’t get angry at him if he says something impolite, it’s just the way he is.”
I shrugged.
“Don’t worry brother, I know most humans are don’t have manners, but if these are your friends they’re my friends too.”
“That’s rich coming from someone who doesn’t even knock on doors before entering.”
We headed back to the goblin camp in between jokes and laughter, It took Luke a while to catch up to us because he was still concealing his presence. Skills like stealth or conceal were useful to remain hidden, but they lowered movement speed by quite a lot.
Bardun really needed to rest, just as we all did. It didn’t matter that we didn’t do much fighting, it was a tense day and we all deserved some peace of mind. The only one who was still on high alert was the beast girl, looking over her shoulder at every chance she got and keeping her distance from any male human or goblin alike.
At first Risa was amused at the girl’s behavior, she kept following her everywhere like a puppy, but after a while she was starting to feel really annoyed by her presence. Risa was used to having her privacy, but this girl wouldn’t leave her for a second.
I must say I was a bit thankful, because when Risa tried to sneak up to my sleeping spot on the ground in the middle of the night, her presence was betrayed by the girl’s clumsy steps in the darkness. In a sense, she saved me from a certain type of ‘attack’ which was nice. Mia, who was sleeping soundly by my side and didn’t notice a thing.
After having her flawless plan frustrated by the beast girl, Risa walked back to her sleeping spot and fell asleep within seconds.
And just like that I fell into a peaceful slumber accompanied by Bob’s snoring and the quiet of the night.
“Come on Ryu, please get this thing off of me! I’ll even suck you off!”
Risa’s indecent words woke me up from my well deserved rest.
“Why should I? can’t you just send her away or something?”
I rubbed my eyes expecting that, somehow, she would just disappear. Much to my dismay she was still there in front of me.
“I can’t even take a dump by myself now!”
“Wow, too much information! Anyway, why don’t you teach her stuff to help you or something?”
Looking at the poor girl shivering in fear behind Risa I felt pity for her. I don’t know what kind of hell she went through but I think helping her goes beyond my area of expertise. Maybe if Helena was here she might be able to do something.
No, no way. Now that I think about it, she openly declared that she was against the beast kin. She didn’t even help Risa who is a human, there’s no way she would help a beast kin.
The door was slammed open as I was pondering such matters, it was Bardun making his usual entrance. The loud bang of the door was enough to startle everyone, Luke, the heroic thief even went as far as getting up in a swift manner and grabbed whatever he could use as a weapon with his eyes still closed.
It would have looked cool if it wasn’t for the fact that what he picked to defend himself was his boot.
“Don’t point that thing at me, I’d rather be stabbed than being forced to smell that thing up close.”
Bardun sneered.
“Then why am I being forced to see your ugly face?”
They both grinned at each other and laughed like idiots.
“Wow, they’re really similar, don’t you think Ryu?”
Bob said without any malicious intent, but both Bardun and Luke were enraged by his remark.
Bardun wanted to speak to me about his experience after getting caught, at first he seemed reluctant on speaking in front of the others, but as he said later, his findings on the matter of magical beasts were something that concerned everyone.
The magical beast outburst wasn’t a natural occurrence and, despite not knowing the cause behind it, he was certain it had something to do with the strange lights in the sky.
I asked him what did he meant by that, and he told me that sometimes and for really short periods, the lights in the sky that would appear yearly, appeared on random occasions.
He said they looked just like a thunder in the sky and, although I never noticed something like that, I couldn’t distrust him.
The results of his investigation were disheartening. It wasn’t that beasts were simply acting in a strange manner, these were magical beasts that weren’t supposed to be common in this land and they invaded every place. It was a sudden outburst of powerful beasts that lasted for a few hours, but caused great damage to the forest ecosystem.
To make matters worse, they were feeding on literally everything. He even witnessed a creature ‘taller than a mountain’ that fed on whole trees.
Although the reason behind the beast’s strange behavior might be related to the lights in the sky, it’s the human’s fault for keeping so many different strong magical beasts locked up for their own benefit.
As Bardun’s recount became more interesting, everyone gathered around to listen to him.
Lea, who was born and raised in the sacred empire, seemed to have an idea of what was happening but she didn’t say a thing. At least until Bardun mentioned that the lights in the sky seemed to come off from the obelisk.
“That’s impossible! The obelisk is a sacred place, there’s no way the gods are involved in something like this. It sounds like the beast kin finally made their move, we’ve been warned for centuries!”
Lea then proceeded to explain her own theory, born from both what was taught to her and her own suspicions.
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