"Found them!"
"Hush!"
"Sorry boss… They are right in front of us." It was the archer speaking.
Kerius squinted his eyes at him, "I can see that… But…what are they doing?"
Six people all stretched their necks from behind the bushes to see better.
"It looks like they are picking flowers." It was the Spellcaster that broke the silence.
"And digging for roots…" the archer added. He had the best eyesight among the six.
"Hmm…" Kerius frowned. "Am I wrong or are they collecting those worthless plants? Did they take a mission to gather food for the animals?" he looked around with a questioning gaze.
His teammates just shrugged their shoulders.
"Never mind that. Look!" The archer's hushed voice sounded from behind. The others turned around and looked towards where he was pointing. Soon, they all smiled with a weird grin.
"Well, well, well! Looks like we got quite lucky this time. Our target almost threw itself into our lap! Hahaha!" Kerius laughed and placed his hand on the handle of his sword.
About a hundred meters from them there was a group of Goblins. They were not easy to see because of the thick undergrowth in the forest. The Goblins were small creatures, grayish-brown in color with short and thin fur. With the height of a ten-year-old child, they were extremely easy to miss.
"The wind is blowing from them to us. They didn't notice use yet, but those two youngsters are going straight toward them. Should we make our move now or…?" one of the two big guys with shields asked.
Before he finished the question, he stopped. Kerius lifted his hand and indicated to be quiet. 'Go forward, slowly and quietly. We will observe for now.' That's what he indicated with his hand signs.
The group of six then slowly proceeded towards the group of Goblins. They were walking bent down and crouching, trying to make themselves small while making the least noise possible.
"Haha… I never imagined we would get such a big harvest. These herbs are everywhere!" Gerald was grinning from ear to ear. He was carrying a big sack on his back, full of 'worthless' plants. Sera, on the other hand, seemed quite bored. Her sack was just over half full.
She obviously put much less effort into the collection. She was also more alert, standing high and looking around, searching for danger just like any good hunter should.
Suddenly, her eyes enlarged when she saw something not far away. She quickly jumped forward and pulled Gerald down to the ground. In case he would scream, she quickly covered his mouth with her small, soft hand.
Gerald was taken by surprise, but he quickly calmed down when he noticed Sera's worried face. She indicated him to be quiet and then withdrew her hand.
"What's going on?" Gerald asked in a low voice.
Sera furrowed her brows and pointed through the bushes, "Goblins."
Gerald followed her finger with his eyes. It was true. There was an actual group of Goblins, a small humanoid creature covered in sparse fur, only a few dozen meters away. They appeared to be feasting on something that looked like a wild boar or some similar wild animal. As he listened more intently, he even heard the sounds they were making.
At first, he thought he was imagining things, but he soon found out he wasn't. He actually heard them speaking. He couldn't understand anything though, that's why he slowly crawled closer.
"What are you doing? We need to go further away not closer!" Sera angrily protested with whispers and tried to pull Gerald back by his shirt.
"It's fine, just come with me," Gerald said and kept crawling forward. He stopped when he was only about a dozen meters away. It was just far enough, so he could barely make out what the Goblins were saying.
"Meat!"
"Eat meat!"
"Good feast."
"Meat!"
"Hyehaha!"
"Meat, meat."
It appeared they didn't really have a large vocabulary, but Gerald understood. They were just happy about the meal. No interesting information. What got his attention was a Goblin that appeared to be a bit bigger than the rest, aggressively stabbing and scratching the animal's head.
It went like that for a while until it finally broke the skull and got what it wanted. It was a small brown crystal, just like the ones Gerald got from the wolves more than a week ago. Then it made something Gerald did not expect. The little monster actually bit on the crystal and started chewing it with a crunch.
"What the fuck!"
"What's happening?" Sera crawled closer just now, so she didn't see what happened.
Gerald, still in shock, pointed at the big Goblin, "That… That Goblin guy just ate the crystal from the dead animal…"
Sera nodded in understanding. "Yes, he would probably evolve into a Hobgoblin if left alone for a few more months." She said that like it was common knowledge. Well, maybe it was.
Gerald looked at her sideways, "Evolve?"
"Right, sorry. I forgot that you don't know. How should I say this? Basically, if a Goblin eats a lot of Etherium Crystals, it can grow bigger and stronger. Actually, many of the animals can do that," Sera explained. "At least that's true for the carnivores. I don't know about others."
"What?! Those lucky bastards have an extremely useful ability!"
The wind slowly changed without them noticing, and it soon brought an end to the peaceful meal. The Goblins started acting strange.
"Sniff."
"Sniff!"
"Sniff, sniff!"
They started sniffing the air aggressively.
"Woman."
"Woman?"
"Gehahyaha!"
"Woman!"
Gerald heard them loudly sniffing and screaming while looking around wildly. "Is there a reason why Goblins would get excited and crazy for a woman?" he turned to Sera for an explanation.
What he heard next was not pretty. Sera frowned and he could see strong hate and anger in her eyes. She said, "It's actually a taboo to speak about this, but I guess you will have to learn about it sooner or later.
"Goblins don't have a biological female, at least as far as we are aware. They, however, still reproduce bisexually, and for some reason, Goblins are compatible with human females. You can see where I'm going with this…"
Gerald was shocked, his eyes and mouth wide open, "No way! You mean…those things…?" he was too disgusted to even speak properly.
"Yes." Sera nodded and Gerald could almost see flames of anger coming from her eyes. "They kidnap human women…but that is not the worst of it. Once those monsters are ready to be born, they eat their way out! They actually devour their mother as the first thing they do!"
She took a big breath to calm herself down somewhat. "If there is anything I really hate in this world it's those filthy things! If I could, I would kill every single one of them until they are completely wiped from this world, forever!"
After hearing the truth, Gerald felt like he was going to be sick just thinking about it. Unfortunately, he didn't have much time to think. The wind completely turned and it was now blowing from those two straight to the agitated Goblins.
Suddenly, dozens of eyes turned in their direction. Then the screams started, "Woman!"
"Woman, capture!"
"Capture!"
"Capture, capture!"
They started screaming and banging on their chests like crazy. They looked like they were going to blow up from the pressure at any second.
"Time to go!" Gerald quickly stood up and pulled Sera with him. "They found us out, run!"
"What…?" Sera was shocked but she was already running before she knew what happened. As she looked back, her face drained of color. Dozens of black eyes were staring straight at her, not moving at all. It was the calm before the storm.
In the next instant, the forest was filled with demonic screams, as the horde of Goblins started to chase their prey.