A strident shout cracked the silence that has been settled in Goblin Village.
A child's scream was something noteworthy, but Matila should be congratulated; few children had such a potent voice. Jel covered Matila mouth and told her to shut up.
Not a child's person is our angered Jel, the huntress. I once again cast a soothing spell over Matila, and this time, however, she simply stopped her scene.
We sighed in relief. Matila's silence gave us a moment to think. Jel, afraid that the child could scream again, went ahead and answered the question about where her mother was.
"She was not in the village. She escaped with others to a safe place."
"Why she leave me behind?" Her voice was filled with suspiciousness. I didn't blame her; after all, I am a potential slaver from her standpoint.
When I was about to say something, Jel signed me off not to speak. Then she kept speaking with Matila: "She was probably scared and was near you."
"But she was with me. I woke up here, and no one was here." She lamented.
The huntress got uneasy, and she looked at me as if something were wrong. I forgot her previous advice and talked to Matila: "Little girl, why were you alone?"
For a second, I believe a new round of scream shows is about to start. But her reaction, which was cute, was very much like the one that Jel demonstrated at first with me.
"Human knows how to speak Goblin."
"I am Rufus, a cleric."
"Rufus, you know how to speak. And don't use complicated words."
"Yes, you sound a lot simpler now." Jel stepped in.
Maybe that was another feature of my Authority of Languages, my voice sounded comfortable for my listener. Or is it adjusted online? I was absentmindedly using it, so I was not sure about it.
"I am speaking naturally." I answered back to Jel.
"Your tone modifies when you speak to me." The huntress seemed to be dissatisfied by the difference. Sincerely, I could understand why.
"I am glad that you are not nervous anymore, Matila. We are going to take you to your mother." I promised her.
"Have you captured moma too?" she was about to cry again.
"No dear. He rescued us from the monster." The huntress came to the rescue.
I barely could hold back my laugh, as Matila was confused. She didn't know where to look.
"And you, Rufus, should avoid promising impossible things like that!" I got admonished, but for why?
"Sorry, I could not follow."
"How are you going to find her? When they find a new place, the tribe shaman will cast a protection spell against invaders."
I love how she was holding back vital information and leaking it like nothing. The plot got complicated again.
"If the tribe had a protective spell, how did the undead find you?"
"The spell does not work on these creatures. They lacked functional brains to be tricked."
A reasonable argument. "Basically, they are simply wandering around, and when they find you, they gather as a horde to attack."
"Yes! Moma says, If I see anything rotting in the forest, I need to run to the west, then discreetly come back to the village." Matila answered in Jel's place.
"I suppose that Moma is your mother." Matila nodded.
"Usually hunters were assigned to bring game to the tribe, and I still do that. However, most of my time is spent burying corpses or destroying zombies and skeletons." The older goblin completed the younger's answer.
I was amazed by the complexity of this zombie plan. Living people are tricked by the shaman's spell, while unliving ones aren't. However, the undead were not wise, so the humans required a lot of them to flesh out the goblins. The number of resources for this task was impressive. I have purified at least fifteen to twelve undead, and the number of deceased people that they need should amount to hundreds.
This operation appears to have been running for three years so far. But to destroy goblins seemed a little overkill and ineffective. However, there is something more to this, and I will dig into it later.
Suddenly, my Authority of Healing picked up an awful presence coming to the village. The presence of several undead made me dizzy, but this was a grade above. I barely noticed it, but there are two more minor presences along with the bigger one. One thing was clear: all of them were living beings, not undead, but they reek of death.
I shushed the girls. They stop talking. "There are three things here."
I don't understand why I refer to people as things, but for some reason I feel too forced to call them living beings.
For the first time, my Authority of Justice kicked in. The feeling was wholly different from the other ones. While Language was more of a natural reaction to speech, Healing reacted to living and dead things, while the Justice was screaming that I should take action.
Hercules, when he was training me, made me use this particular Authority every so often. Justice had a tricky set of rules to be employed, and its principles are similar to those of Causality. But while the latter aims to avoid gods' interference, the former's goal was to avoid oppression.
The delightful feeling of Justice is that it empowers me or my target to overwhelm injustice. And the nicest part is that it is ambiguous as it seemed. What does injustice mean? One might believe that is the gap of power between two forces, but one could not be more wrong. Justice means that there is a set of rules that should be respected by everyone everywhere. Natural law could be another term for it.
Mindless destruction, pure evil acts, and enforced benevolence over others are all examples of acts of injustice. In all of these cases, the Authority of Justice provides me with additional powers, thus enhancing my abilities to a whole new degree.
I kept the door barely closed and was watching the trio entering the village from that small space.
"Where are my toys? Where are the disgusting green things?" The tallest individual shouted. The language used was unlikely to be the one used by the goblins. I knew that was the same as where the unknown word domestication came from.
"Master, this place is smelling bad. It is infused with holy magic." A tiny humanoid with horns and wings, wearing chain mail armor, was flying beside the tall one. He was an imp, the mythological one that I read on Earth's books.
"A powerful one." Another tiny creature, but with more monstrous features, was crawling on the ground. When it spoke, its head that was on the ground rise, an awful appearance of a mouth filled with teeth appear. Unlikely the first creature, when it spoke the mouth didn't make any motion, just the sound left it. It was very disturbing.
The tall guy, who was wearing a dark robe and had a plain, expressionless face, crouched and took a small bit of ground in his hand.
"Argh!" he screamed, and then he released all the earth that was in his hand. I could not be sure from where I was, but I believe he got a burn in his hand.
"Master, master!" both the creatures hurried toward him.
He grabbed his hurt hand's wrist with the healthy hand, and started to look around, searching for something. "A holy priest had been here. A powerful one." the master guy sentenced.
I tensed up. I am not used to measuring someone else's abilities. However, I should be prepared to face them, I could not let him take the green ones.
"The toys are buried. They were purified, master." The worm-like creature said it in that bizarre way again.
The imp started to cast something that I could recognize from where I was, but by the flow of mana, it seemed to be a detection spell.
"Get ready, Jel. Please protect Matila. They are going to find us soon." I said it quietly, with a serious voice.
Jel embraced Matila and brought her to the room's back. "The cleric Rufus will protect us." she reassured the child.
The imp's spell was a localization one, and I should have cast a barrier spell. Once again, one month was not enough to get ready.
"There is a human and two goblins over there, master." The imp pointed in our direction.
I stepped out of the small hut. "Who are you?" I spoke in the language of those humans. But the way that it sounded was as if they were harsh and hateful.
"Master, escape. He is too strong." The tall guy studied me for a second and began to cast something.
I was empowered by Justice, literally, I became a champion of justice. The imp and the worm creatures were probably devils, so they would be subject to all of my overpowered mighty. The Healing component was not useful, but I could heal myself to an extended degree.
And the cherry on top is that this is my first real use of Authority of Speed, while buffed by Justice. This was going to be a piece of cake.
I didn't have any swords or anything at all, but I can always summon a rod to bash my enemies. Perks of being Asclepius's apostle.
The robe guy cast something over me, I think that it was a debuff spell. For his misfortune, I believe it was a slow spell, my Authority of Speed prevents any kind of debuff, unless you have a rule of cursing above my Authority. His spell simply vanished when it reached me.
I was fueled by speed and justice, I feel like everything was in slow motion. The imp was starting to cast a fire spell, and the worm was building a earth magic attack.
I bashed both creatures with my magical staff. I am not a brute of strength, but even so, the hits will hurt a lot. For onlookers, they might see me moving fast as if I were teleporting. The bashes on the imp and the worm made them go astray, as well as their spells, which led them to explode in their faces.
The slow magic caster noticed that things went south, so he chose to flee. It was a bad call, as it was pretty easy to reach him. I went toward him and knocked him out with my staff.
I slowed down a bit, and the spellcaster passed out with my hit. While the worm impaled itself with its earth spell—a gruesome view, by the way. The imp, on the other hand, was casting a fire and ended up getting some burns. I guess it had some resistance against fire, as it remained unfazed by the damage. However, he noticed the situation got out of their control and started to cast something.
The burden of using several Authorities was starting to build up on me. I could use them again, but I opt to cast an arcane, a magic arrow made of made, the simplest spell that any spell caster could use.
The imp was faster than me, and he used an invisibility spell. Clever creature. As I was no longer seeing him, my spell obviously missed its target. I think letting the devil escape was not a promising thing. Well, at least I found a human; unfortunately, it was the greatest monster that I have met until now.