After a quick wash of the blood's filth, Mordred reappeared with Melantha while Clux stayed to accompany his pregnant Aleges in the underground.
"You sure your head doesn't hurt?"
From her rear, an iron-gray humanoid skeleton one foot taller than the couple guarded them like a dependable soldier. Its silvery blazes were flaring out of its eye sockets, surveying the rainforest. Close to normalcy until the living was horrified by its thin curved blade, almost scraping the ground from its arm's olecranon.
"It doesn't even tingle." He taps his head's occiput, wrapped in clothing from the ripped black robes, and flashes her a reassuring smile to lessen her worried frowns.
"I should be the one asking, aren't you cold?" he added.
"Just a little." At most, the misty colds were shielded by the drape of her gothic robes. Salvaging what remains, the cloth retains very little of its former elegance.
He seized her naked arm from the loose sleeves and with a prolonged huff, he tried to wipe away the chill on her pale palm with his cozy wind.
"M'Love, there's so much meat. I'm afraid they'll rot before we can eat them all." In her voice, he could hear her smile.
She clicked her tongue, and like a switch, in her next words, her tone became annoyed by the mere thought of resources turning into waste. "And we've been focused on creating products to improve our battle prowess that we have lack cargos to transport and store these."
His wife sure is moody sometimes, nope, often. But he does not dislike it, for he solely garners her sweet spots.
"We shall just collect the utilizable parts and let's just let nature take its course then." He shrugged his shoulder with his carefree answer.
He could not force things. As an experienced man, he knows life sometimes gives them a bigger-than-themselves opportunity, even bigger than their greed can devour. Turning her into a frustrated wife when she could not take 'em all.
But why stress themselves over events they cannot control? He'd rather not.
"And I bet the carcass won't last for long with those little critters around," he added.
A scattered batch of three-legged carnivorous fish was preying under the crawling fogs on their toes. Their head's fins protruding in the fog, and their dead eyes occasionally peering have comically given away their anchorage.
They were now out in hiding. Like a switch up of roles between the oppressed and the oppressors, once the predator has breathed its last breath, those under its food chain have finally had their chance to feast on their old predator.
To prove the critters' diligence. By his return from fetching Melantha to recoup the carcass, they had taken all the opportunity to tear off bloody holes on the serpent's body. Those legged fish must've such sharp teeth to penetrate its hard scale.
Judging from how weak the hardness of the scales could be, they can only be fancy clothing for him. At least, they would be great for Aleges and Clux who favor mobility over the heavy metal's protection, much better than leather armor too. As for his wife, Melantha, she has her own plan.
Speaking of production, they are severely lacking in manpower. That was all fine in the past when they had no complicated materials to process.
Now, in their settlement, they had to smelt iron and remold it to equipment; tan leather then sew it into clothes; build furniture and expand the tunnels; take care of the mushroom farm, and prepare a future meat farm. Not to mention the daily hunting, cooking, and Melantha's iron skeleton project that kept her occupied.
His eyebrow could not help but twitch from all the workload they had to do. The startup was the hardest step to take during the establishment of their household. Oh, how he wishes it would be as easy as life on their old world, Earth.
Lacking manpower and labor? Hire them! Needing essential items? Buy them! Throwing money has always been the answer! Sadly, those easy times were dwindling as the end of their planet approached.
He pulled out his sword to scrape the skin off the snake and passed it to the soul-driven mud golem. The passing of the old world and their reconnection to this magical one doesn't seem too bad, so much better if only fewer dangers lurk.
This damnable rainforest is the best example, the giant serpent can obliterate a town of normal humans without the military's interference. No wonder he has not seen a shadow of a goblin here, the Jilted Sap Forest was all sunshine and rainbows in comparison, except there was no sunshine but dark clouds in a literal sense.
A puppy-size walking fish here can swarm on goblins like piranhas in the movies. The reason why they had not attacked Mordred and his wife, Melantha? Is a dreadful reason too if you thought deeply, they instinctively knew if they could take on their target. Factual sense when the fishies hid during his fight with the serpent.
Journeying halfway back to their home, an unwanted party had blocked the four golem's column at their front.
"Who are these hindrances?" She muttered, quite an irritated tone, how can she not if they could delay their transport of goods?
From the row of humans in full battle equipment, a towering 7-foot human has been inspecting the golem at the very front. He could not tell the individual's gender due to their thick spiky full armor, and any stranger would be filled with apprehension from the metallic armor's aggressive contor. To say nothing of the giant saw-like sword on the armored individual's back.
But who are they to mess with him and his wife, Melantha? His lungs have been filled with arrogance since his soul sense had not provided him feedback of danger. Perhaps because this group has no ill intent?
'Here we go again, this body of mine being driven by the goblin's chaotic emotions,' he exhales out the animalistic arrogance through his nose and walks hand in hand with Melantha to confront these slight inconveniences on the road.
An aged man full of pointed yellow-grain hair, in his elegant silver caped robe he caught their approaching royal-green figures. He tightened his grip on his crystal staff when the alluring couple donned in black and nature halted before them.
His visage hardened not because of the allure, but for knowing that these beings of beauty are dangerously thorny.
"Greetings, dignified Natuzrh—" He paused when he caught a quick glimpse of Melantha's eerie skeleton and Mordred's crude claymore. "Forsadin, forgive us for not knowing these golems were the great beings' summons."
With politeness, he slightly bent his neck for a bow using his shorter stature than the spike armor individual, smaller he may be yet Mordred can tell he calls the shot. The only man who stepped forward with an unquavering gaze, his speech without being interrupted, and his glance that made his group follow suit in paying a gesture of respect. The leader.
When was Kerleun when he needed her the most? The man's pronunciation was clear and confident. Regretfully, not a single word has he understood.
The man seemed respectful yet he could infer that they were professing pretense, it was more of fear than respect. What can he say? Is it a sin to possess such beauty that these sapient races had always mistaken them as powerful elves?
Scanning them for a brief inspection, his fingers itch in greed for wanting to grab the glistering gemstones on the wands of the two teen adults at the aged man's rear, the whole group was dressed fashionably like they were drawn out from a fairytale book.
Pinching Melantha's rough hand, he reigns down his goblin's avaricious emotion. He was not out of rationale to fight a group of 10 battle-equipped humans for shinies.
Not only were they outnumbered, but five members of their team were mechanical-thinking golems. Undoubtedly, he's confident in his strength and resistance, then again, what about Melantha's safety? He knows what to do.
He blows his nose in contempt, similar to Tuilën's carrying herself when she saw a filthy goblin. No words were spoken as he and Melantha's raised chin paraded their full-blown haughtiness.
They marched in like untouchables royals, pushing through between the crowd of stiffed resentful civilians. Even their ridiculous mismatching attire of leaf and undainty robe seems majestic, escorted by their golem attendants as the group was left behind without having a chance to follow an utterance.
"Those hateful elves!" A one-eyed bald man punches off the molds of a tree. "They think they're superior just because their whole race was the Giftee of Nature Parados."
"Nature Parados? Is that a sentient Giftor?" A teen adult girl asked curiously.
"No one knows." In all navy blue ranger leather attire, the curvaceous black brunette locked her crossbow's tips to the couple's departing figure and imitated the sound of an arrow shot with her whistle. "But I know the elves deserve to be shot at."
"Hey-hey! Paulina, quit playing will ya? Once they know one of their kind was killed, y'all be chased at the end of the continent." The rough man in bulky armor and shoulder shield nudges the ranger's crossbow off the target.
"Why were they wearing different attire? By his outfit, the man looks like a Natuzrhels."
"Move out, we have no time for chit-chat."
In resume, the group marches in, drawn and swallowed by the looming cloudy shadows and cold drizzles of the rainforest.
Behind the thick veins of a tree, a round object embracing a bamboo container pops out. It splatters on the damp ground with its tiny steps, following the unsuspecting group.
------
Unto the underground of 4th Room Tunnel.
Mordred who was before empty-handed, now held on a pile of loot. With a plop, pieces of serpent's carcass drip on the stone floor. Melantha comes after and commands her four summons to dispense their loot withholdings to the same dropout area.
"That mercenary-looking group seems ordered or paid by the town to clean out stray wilds," she said.
"Doesn't matter much, just keep their troubles away from our peace."
"Hoping that same trouble was enough to warrant their deaths." Her mouth paused into a surprise 'o', for what she just said seems unbecoming of her character.
His watchful eyes turned into a happy slit while he chuckles in amusement as he finds her surprise silly. "What's the matter my little tigress? Getting fiercer now?"
She invades his space and embraces his neck. "I'll show you how fierce I am later at night," she whispered.
A soft yet jarring whisper sends chills to his nerves, down to his legs as they rally and birl into his flames of desire. For a few, he lightly stomped his leg rapidly, extinguishing the flames by converting them to pure thoughts of anticipation.
"See that M'Love? We have great reigns in our barbaric emotions no matter how toxic these goblin traits are." Her every word was bathing his nostrils with her wild scent.
She was correct, for them, emotions were tools to be used and not a controller of actions. In their past lives, many humans and their territories were ruined by the pettiness of their own narrow minds.
He picks up a wood carving knife and wood materials. Sizing a sturdy thick tree branch, he envisions four-legged dining tables and chairs with simplistic designs.
Or perhaps for their future loot transport, he should work on a wood cart instead? He scratches his short emerald hair with ambivalence. "Clux, come here, I'll teach you some wood crafting."
Come to think of it, after they reached 152 collections of souls of each, Melantha has once again increased the number of her summons. His has a huge impact on the toughness of his body, but he has fallen short when it comes to utilities.
Kickstarting his brain, he intertwines his astral projection ability with Soul Disruption. Like a seed watered with boundless possibilities, multiple ideas sprouted in his mind.
What could lie ahead in this mind-taxing endeavor?