"Me? Big Brother?"
The werewolf's face then lit up seeing that he is finally getting a response after being ignored for about a whole 2 minutes when he tried talking to Matthew.
"Yes, you brother! You are also a kobold, right? I'm sorry if I'm being rude for calling you big brother, but you should be past level 10 right? I'm still level 9 so it's only appropriate to call you big brother!"
'Kobolds? Aren't they werewolves? I guess I jumped into conclusion too fast and just assumed he was a werewolf.' Matthew thought to himself.
"Yes, you are correct that I'm above level 10, but that doesn't mean that I'm older than you, how old are you?"
The kobold then tilted its head and looked at Matthew in confusion before saying,
"I don't know...?"
"You don't even know the day you were born, but you remember your level? How is that supposed to work?"
"I'm sorry, but I really don't remember brother, we never remember such things as the day that we were born, but we did a little celebration every time we went up a level, and we also did a big one every time we evolved!"
"We?"
"Yes brother, I had never seen big brother before, but we are from the kobold village not far away from here. I know that big brother had also noticed my friends that tagged along with me." After saying that, the kobold called out to the bushes and soon, 2 other kobolds came out of the bushes and started walking towards Matthew.
The two kobolds stood behind the first kobold before slightly bowing their heads then the kobold on the left said,
"Hello big brother"
The second kobold's voice was also a boyish voice, quite similar to the first one, but it was slightly more childish and it had a more carefree tone than the first kobold.
The third kobold then also greeted Matthew,
"Hello big brother"
Although the third kobold said the exact same thing as the second kobold, it was totally different when the third kobold actually had to take a few deep breaths and almost stuttered when saying the greetings. But more importantly, the voice that came out of the third's kobold mouth was a girlish voice.
Matthew looked at the three kobolds that are currently standing directly in front of him. Matthew returned their greetings by nodding and saying,
"Hello, it's weird being called big brother so you can just call me Matthews. What are your names?"
The three kobolds then looked at each other in confusion before finally the first kobold who stood nearest to Matthew said,
"Big brother, we don't know where big brother is from, but in our village, kobolds that had reached level 10 and had evolved to an adult are the ones that have names, since we are still kids and haven't reached level 10, we still haven't been given our names yet."
"Alright, I understand. But what are you three doing here alone and why did you decide to speak to me even though you had never seen me before? Don't the adults in your village tell you about how dangerous this forest is?"
"Yes big brother, we sneaked out because…" the first kobold answered, but before he finished his sentence, the first kobold suddenly bowed his head 60 degrees down before saying his next sentence aloud,
"Big brother, please help our village!"
Seeing and hearing their friend did that, the 2 other kobolds also bowed their heads and said simultaneously,
"Please help, big brother!"
Matthew was startled seeing their sudden behavior and didn't know what to do. But after seeing they were unbudging in their place with their head still in a bowing position, Matthew then decided to say,
"Please wait a minute, I don't know what your problems are and I don't even know if I could help you or not. I haven't been here for too long and the help I may provide you guys might be useless. And where did you even get the idea to ask for my help?"
After finally hearing Matthew's response, the three kobolds finally lifted up their heads and looked at Matthew.
Looking at the kobolds children begging him for help, Matthew decided that he wanted to hear them out first before deciding to make any decisions.
"Why don't you tell me first what happened."
The three kobolds then finally got up from their bowing position and the first kobold started talking.
"Actually, our village had been suddenly attacked by the humans for the past three days. We have been holding out so far, but many of our kind had to sacrifice their lives to do it. And for these three days, our village's population has dwindled by more than half."
While listening to the kobold's story, Matthew decided to hold in any questions that he got regarding the humans and many other questions that had popped up inside his head and let the kobold finish his story first.
"The humans have been attacking us for three consecutive days and I don't think they will suddenly stop attacking tomorrow. I asked my grandfather about it and he said that we will still hold out fine and just let the adults take care of it."
The kobold then looked at Matthew's eyes and said clearly,
"But I know that with the village's current condition, there's no way that we will be able to defend against the humans. If three days had already taken half of our population, then what the other half can do without any change or help? We will just be waiting for our certain demise."
"After I found out about that, I decided that I needed to do something to change our fate, and the twins tagged along with me since they feel the same as me. We know that we won't be much of help even if we decided to fight against the humans directly. We aren't even a fully-grown adult yet, we would just be a burden if we decided to do so."
"I was trying to think of a solution, something that can buy us more time and maybe turn the tides of the battle. So I remembered that my grandfather had always forbidden me, and the same goes for all the parents that forbid their children to not go near this part of the forest because there is a very strong and powerful beast living in this part of the forest."
Matthew then took a glance at the giant brown bear that is currently lying lifelessly on the ground behind him and thought…
'Could it be…?'
"Grandfather said that the beast has a big body, twice or thrice as the adults in our village, the beast's body is covered in brown fur from its round head to its back. The beast is also said to have sharp claws that could chop down trees with a couple of swings, maybe even with only one swing if the beast was angry."
Hearing the beast's description from the kobold, Matthew gulped and took another glance at the bear that he had just killed, but this time he kept his gaze at the bear and wondered,
'Did I just do something that I shouldn't have done…? From the kid's description, the beast is certainly or 99% is the brown bear lying there. And while the bear's power might have been exaggerated a little, I do think that with that yellow aura ability, then the bear could probably achieve cutting down a tree with one swing. But what are these kids trying to do with the bear though?' Matthew wondered.
But soon the first kobold answered Matthew's question even without Matthew getting the chance to ask it.
"So we thought that we could ask the mighty beast for help to defend our village against the humans."
Hearing that last sentence, Matthew suddenly blurted out cutting the kobold mid-sentence,
"Excuse me, you want to do what?"