After completing these tasks and finding the wolves who were staying within the cave, Johanna decided to depart and start searching for the goblin army, while Aiko and Amanda would stay in the cave to watch and guard it. She took her own wolf with her since he had the closest bond with her and was also able to track them down with their smell. and after saying goodbye to Aiko and Amanda Johanna, they departed, travelling back to the cave that they raided at the beginning of yesterday, since they could track the army down from there on.
Johanna and the wolf rushed through the forest at very high speeds, but the wolf couldn't keep up with her for long, so she decided that even though she didn't like it, she had to slow down. And after arriving at the cave and entering it, the only goblin she saw was the one who she sold the slaves to; sadly for her, he didn't know a thing about the army's whereabouts either. So Johannas last option of letting the wolf track the army had to begin.
She tried to explain to the wolf that he should track the whole army, which wasn't a big problem for the wolf at all since the army left a lot of their senses behind. But it still took way longer than just regular walking, since the army at some point decided not to follow a regular path any longer but decided to walk straight through the forest. Tracking down the army, they walked past a few empty mines that had already been raided by the goblins, and as they walked past another mine, Johanna noticed that there were humans looking through the mines. Johanna snook up to them to listen to their conversation while the wolf had to hide away in the bush.
"Isn't this the third mine that has been destroyed in the past two days?"
"Well, that's what is confirmed; we don't know the actual number since the Lord only sent our small group of soldiers to check up on the problem, while it looks like our enemy has the strength and size of a regular army."
"Well, if it continues like this, the whole duchy will not have a single mine in it anymore."
"Yeah, you are right. Do you think we should report this to the duke?"
"It probably is the best option, but, to be honest, I don't want to report it to him since he will only get angry at us for our incompetence."
"Yeah, you are right, but I think it's too important of a matter if a hostile duke is invading our territory."
"You are right; let's report this to the duke. Men, let's go!"
Johanna, who was in a nearby bush and listened to all of that, knew that she had to eliminate these scouts since otherwise the duke would send an army after ours, and she knew that this encounter could be fatal. And as the men were departing, she counted them up, and since there were only seven soldiers, she decided that she and her wolf could easily take care of them. Her wolf charged at the first man in the group, killing him immediately. While the distracted men were now focusing on the wolf, Johanna attacked them from behind, punching them, and even though they wore helmets, their heads just sort of popped, and they died and collapsed instantly.
The last men knew that their opponents were out of their league and just gave up; Johanna, respecting their wishes, killed them painlessly. Johanna and the wolf had to return to the location where the wolf smelled the army's last scent and had to follow it again. And after stumbling on three more empty mines, Johanna was about to give up, but then she realised that maybe the dukes men weren't talking about the mines she came from but the ones she was walking to right now. And if her idea was right, then that would mean that the goblin army was at the next mine or the mine after, so with new energy and motivation, she hurried her wolf up in hopes of finding them soon.
The next mine was empty already, but Johanna did see some still warm human corpses, so the only thing that this meant was that the army was close. And finally, on the way to the next mine, she found the goblin army celebrating the capture of all the slaves and also the pickaxes. Johanna walked towards Noah and Ethan with a furious expression, and once they noticed her, the smile on their faces froze.
"What do you think you are doing here? Did you know that the kingdom has already sent scouts because of you? Do you have enough pickaxes already?"
Noah and Ethan tried to answer the barrage of questions thrown at them, but that didn't help at all since Johanna only wanted to let her steam out. It didn't seem like the chores helped her calm down at all. But after baraging them for a while, she calmed down and was happy that they were fine, and since they had completed their task, Johanna soon joined in on their celebration.