Johanna followed the narrow tunnels, ducking and crawling for what seemed like an hour, but it was only a few minutes before they reached a small room where she could stand up straight again. She looked around the room, and because she had crawled through the dark tunnels for a while, her eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness, allowing her to see around even without the torch being lit. She accidentally stumbled upon the female adventurer who was exploring the tunnels after accidentally falling through one of the openings, which are spread all around the forest.
She instantly summoned her whip and pointed it at the goblin.
"What are you doing with the boss?"
The goblin, who of course couldn't understand her, stepped between Johanna and the female adventurer to shield Johanna from the potential enemy. Johanna tried to deescalate the situation through calming words, but she wasn't able to calm both of them down instantly.
"So what you are saying is that you, Johanna, took over a goblin settlement with your half-hobgoblin, half-human children and were rescued by one of your villagers just now?"
"Yes, I know it sounds crazy, but there is nothing you can do except accept it as it is."
"Well, you are the boss, and this will help us quite a bit since we will be wanted by every guild member in the human realm."
"Thank you for understanding me being this way, but anyway, we still have to get back to the goblin village, so let's go."
The three of them departed, and the goblin explained that there are multiple resting rooms throughout the whole tunnel system but that they couldn't sleep in them since the oxygen would be running out. They continued to walk through the tunnels until they reached a hatch where they could get out. The goblin explained that they were far enough from the city to not be caught anymore. So the two women deemed it safe enough since they both found it very exhausting to duck and crawl through tight tunnels for more than an hour.
After they exited the tunnel, they arrived in the deep and dark night. The situation still wasn't ideal since Johanna felt it was getting colder fairly quickly. The three of them continued on without saying a word because they were now in the hunting grounds of very dangerous beasts that could kill them all in the darkness of night if they made a single sound. They arrived at a huge hollow tree stump and decided that they would rest there until the morning. Johanna was the first to fall asleep, with the female adventurer following soon, but the goblin knew that he had to keep watch to alert the others of any threats. The two of them could both sleep on the inside of the tree stump, and even though the rodding wood wasn't much of a protection, it still gave a little feeling of safety.
The night went uneventful, with only the goblin and the female adventurer taking guard while Johanna slept the whole night. It may not have been the most efficient way, but Johanna didn't want to miss out on sleep. The three of them departed with only a little bit of preparation time since they couldn't prepare anything, but since they were running low on food, they needed to get back to the cave fast or they would starve to death.
They continued walking through the forest for a while until they suddenly heard wood being snapped by something unknown. The three of them pushed each other back against their backs to form a triangular defence position, each of them looking around with intense caution. Every single leaf moving was detected in an instant, until suddenly a dark-furred wolf jumped at the little goblin. The wolf was pretty big since his shoulder height alone was 5 feet, so the goblin had no real chance to survive if he was alone, but luckily for him, it was just a common beast for the female adventurer, so it was of no real threat to the two women. Johanna stepped in front of the goblin to intercept the wolf, and she was successful. The wolf was about to bite down on her, but she held his large jaw open, making him unable to make any move. She slammed the wolf on the ground and let him go since she didn't want to kill him, but to her absolute surprise, even though the wolf saw that she treated him like a toy, he kept on attacking. Johanna smacked him through trees and against huge rock boulders, but he just wasn't ready to give up.
At some point, Johanna got annoyed and punched him on the shoulder. She could hear the bones within the wolf's shoulder cracking, which disgusted her a bit, not because the wolf looked very bad now but rather at how disgustingly powerful she had become to play around with life like that; it was like swatting a fly but with something that could easily kill a regular human. Johanna was scared of her powers now, but there was nothing she could do to revert to her old self except to pull this thing through.
The wolf had finally given up; he wasn't even able to attack her anymore; he was just limping away with its tail tucked between its legs, and even though this monster tried to kill her, Johanna still felt kind of bad for it.
The trio commenced back to wandering to the village, and even though the goblin said it wasn't far away multiple times, they still had to travel through rigorous terrain like mountains and raging rivers. Finally, after travelling through a whole mountain range, they arrived back at the cave.
Johanna could see that Noah was giving orders to a few of the goblins, but once he spotted her, he immediately left behind the goblins and rushed at her to give her a big hug. Johanna, as any mother would in this situation, embraced her son in a soft, warm, and comforting hug.