After I woke up as usual, my[Intuition]sprung into action. It's telling me that I should stay inside mine and hide myself quietly and that if I leave, I'll regret it. I activated[Job-Assassin]which gives a high correction for[Hiding]and overlapped it with[Conceal Presence]as I headed to the back of the mine where Blacksmith-san's, the Sisters' and Alchemist-san's quarters are located and spent my time relaxing there.
T/N:[Hiding]is not an ability that he learnt by eating, rather he learned it by practicing the action of hiding in his daily hunting, it's like how Gobumi-chan and Gobue-chan learned[Dismantling]in the earlier days.
Lately it has become my hobby to fill in the unexplored area in my mental map, so it's just my main body that's relaxing, yesterday I created a clone of myself that was as tall as my waist using small meat pieces and blood - compared to me its overall abilities are halved, because I'm not controlling it directly it behaves under the instructions I imparted on it, it also has some self-awareness — and sent it out.
This clone have the ability[[Infused Liquid Restoration]that I got from the Grey Slimes, so even if it receives an attack that costed it its limbs or it got a large hole pounded through its stomach by a monster, it can restore itself to a certain degree by absorbing the necessary amount of water.
Its current combat ability is rather low compared to me, but it is still reasonably strong, so it won't get killed easily. It can also run fast. Using[Metamorphosis]the clone changed its appearance to that of a large wolf and sprinted outside. After seeing it off I went back inside.
I assigned some goblins of my generation from the logistical support group[Pleasure]to assist Blacksmith-san, because it would be inconvenient all by herself. Went to the Sisters' kitchen and brainstormed for ideas for new dishes together and successfully created one. Analyzed the old medicine that for some reason hadn't degraded at all which we secured from Velvet's inheritance with Alchemist-san at her workshop. After doing all these things, time passed.
Then it happened. The place where Gobukichi-kun and the others were training is linked to the cave's entrance, it's called the « Great Hall ». It's the largest space within the mine.
At that time my[Sense Presence]detected some enemy contacts approaching the entrance. The species name was[Elf]. Furthermore, the name of the man I drove out the other day was mixed in among them. Even I didn't expect that they would turn up this soon.
I went to the « Great Hall » where the goblins were training and made preparations. Luckily, since they were already in the middle of training, they already had their equipment on, so they finished preparing quickly.
After a simple inspection of the equipment, we hid ourselves in the trenches we made beforehand on both sides of the entrance. We simply waited in the trenches where it's easy to conduct a surprise attack against the intruding elves. I had Gobue-chan increase the number of miners and raise her mining efficiency, the resulting sound of mining that can be heard throughout the cave will be used for cover.
A short time later, the armed group of elves entered the cave. Hobgoblins like Gobukichi-kun notwithstanding, for the goblins to win against the 25 quiet and swift elves armed with high-quality weapons even when facing them 3 to 1 would be quite difficult. The atmosphere is already full of hostility, but still, I wanted to capture them and hear their story first.
Alone, I jumped out from the trench and used my[Intimidating Roar]and[Scaled Horse's Neigh]together to issue a strong roar that made them flinch, furthermore I immediately activated[Intimidating Glare]and[[Evil Eye]which gave me the chance to easily capture them with my threads.
After lining up the captured elves, I had a quick talk with the elf who was the next clan chief while roughly patting his face with my vermillion spear. According to him, I seem to have deeply injured his pride the other day.
After 2 days had passed, his fear of me faded a little bit. Once he became capable of thinking a little clearly he determined that he had no choice but to kill me, the one who looked down on him thinking "Why does a noble Elf such as myself bla bla bla…, why do I have to feel afraid of the likes of an ogre? I'll kill anyone who looks down on me…", so he took along elite level elves from among his subordinates, allowing himself to be controlled by his emotions and attacked. As a result, they arrived at the current predicament having had the tables turned on them.
I pity the other elves for having to work under such a boss. The 2 escorts from the other day were hanging their heads down before my eyes. I asked them why they didn't stop him, then they said that they did but he refused to listen to their argument.
I pitied the elves because they had to pay the price for their incompetent boss's foolish actions and due to that the idea of killing them did not sit well with me, so I did the following more or less out of sympathy.
Give up on the next clan chief candidate, he's dead.
Fight in mock battles with goblins and hobgoblins without killing your opponents. To win you have to either make them faint, incapable of fighting or force them to give up. If you kill you opponent then you'll be killed and eaten.
If you win the mock battle, you won't be killed, if you lose, you will be killed and eaten.
That was the gist of it. After I finished explaining, I untied the threads for all of them except for the next clan chief candidate. When I did that, one highly loyal elf tried to attack me, I crushed his chin with a punch which sent him into a concussion. Then I grabbed the unsteady elf by his head and shoulders and killed him by twisting his neck until his cervical spine broke.
I've already told Redhead, Blacksmith-san, and the other girls to stay inside until I come back, so I devoured the fresh corpse without reservation, heart and all.
[Ability learned: Elf Language]
The elves bodies started trembling without stop. Because their bodies were frozen in fear and they started losing hope I said "Your war with the humans is close and yet you're fine with dying unseemly deaths in this kind of place? Don't you want to live?", to put some fighting spirit in them.
Those were my own words, yet they sounded shameless - because I knew what I will do with the winners. Nonetheless, it had an effect, they became motivated. Then the mock battles began. The final result, out of the 23 elves who participated in the mock battles, 17 survived.
I had to offer my condolences before the battle even started for those who got Gobukichi-kun, Gobumi-chan, Hobusato-san and other hobgoblins as their opponents. If they were average hobgoblins it'd usually end up with the elves winning 9 out of 10 battles, but the strength of Gobukichi-kun and the others who have continued to train daily already greatly surpassed that of an average hobgoblin.
Though the figures and circumstances of the defeated elves who begged for their lives were pitiful, but they came with the intentions to kill us so there's no way something too convenient like getting spared after I gave them a chance can happen, I'm not that merciful for my enemies to spare the elves even after they lost their mock battles, I killed them after saying that.
They're pitiful, but this is how things are in war. Besides that, it was the other side that pulled the trigger first. There's no need for excessive sympathy.
The 6 who lost all were men. Well, it became this way after I set up the matches so that the ones who lost their battles will be only men because I didn't want to needlessly waste beautiful women. They were all delicious.
[Ability learned: Inhabitant of the Forest]
[Ability learned: Elemental]
[Ability learned: Archery Proficiency]
[Ability learned: Tracking]
[Ability learned: Hiding]
After I finished eating the losers, I turned to the winning elves who were staring at me blankly in a dazed state, after putting all their equipped magical items in one place, I tied them up with threads again. They complained about not being released, but I pointed out that I didn't say they'd be "released" - that's why I thought my earlier words were shameless - .
I only said that they wouldn't be killed, it's not my fault if they misunderstood. Although I help those who are one-sidedly oppressed like Redhead, I'm not interested in helping "Enemies" who attack us. Although I pity them, it doesn't mean that I'll release them, my pity is just to the extent of not wanting to kill them. That's how it is.
Breaking it down, there are 10 men and 7 women, let's cooperate to increase the number. Ah, doing it by force will just make them rebellious and build their resentment against us, that's why I administered an aphrodisiac prepared by adjusting the properties of my bodily fluids with[Self-Body Fluid Property Manipulation]to them.
I had them thrown in jail and gave a strict order that nobody is allowed to touch them unless they ask for it. Because they may relieve each other if they were put in the same cell, they were placed in their own separate prison cells. Although the male elves can't bear children, they will contribute greatly to controlling the libido of the female goblins. All of them without exception are good-looking after all.
But, to be honest I'm really grateful for their timing. The goblins of the same generation as me who didn't have any experience in sexual relationships aside, the older goblins could no longer satisfy themselves with the female goblins and a lot of stress has accumulated. Because of our harsh training, they've somehow been distracted from this issue, but they've gotten used to the training so their limit is fast approaching.
That's why I am grateful for this. You're saying I'm acting like a villain? Nope, it's troubling me that you've gotten the wrong idea. In the first place, it was the other side who started it. They lost while trying to kill us and yet you tell us who were attacked to release the prisoners peacefully? That's just not possible, we were unreasonably attacked, so if we strike back there's no way that would count as being villains.
We don't even have rules regarding prisoners of war as of now to begin with, so even doing things like this is no problem. The idea that what I'm doing with them is evil is only your personal feelings.
Also, although I'm judging the rules that will be passed down by my personally, I'm planning to pass down upstanding rules to regulate the elves' night activities. For me, the elves are too valuable to break down and be waste over something like libido management after all. The ringleader behind the attack who was watching me administering the aphrodisiac to the 17 surviving elves from the side was saying something, but I ignored him.
After the 17 Elves had been taken to jail, the ringleader who was left behind became the teaching material for various things like lectures about new torture methods other than the ones I used with the former hobgoblin leader and his underlings, and lectures on the vitals of humanoids. Of course he ended up in my stomach in the end.
[Ability learned: Overcharge]
[Ability learned: Discount]
Because I ate a fair number of elves and their individual abilities were high and because they held similar abilities I managed to secure a good number of useful abilities, I was so thankful to them that I could even pray for them.