"Give me the battle report on our soldiers." Aldritch already knew the casualties would not be much since only those who had eaten fought, and those who had eaten were all hobgoblins. Really, hobs versus regular goblins, anyone who sustained an injury was supposed to be executed. Good thing Aldritch wasn't a bloody emperor type character.
"Yes, master. We have no casualties, and the goblins were taken care of the way you ordered." Lina answered respectfully. Aldritch was satisfied with her behavior.
"Bring them to me." He commanded.
"Yes, master."
The five goblins were brought before Aldritch. Unlike what he was told before the attack, the goblins were very tame and fearful.
'This should be easy.' He could have used his minor compulsion skill to interrogate them, but he also planned to add them to his numbers, so he needed something more long term, and something that wouldn't turn them into near mindless puppets.
Maybe it was not a good idea to allow the other goblins apart from Lina to be present when he did the brainwashing, so only Aldritch and Lina were with the captured goblins during the process.
"This should do it. Now, tell me where you came from, who your leader is and how many of you are in your camp."
Of course, there was no way the goblins would know things like how many of them were in the camp, they didn't care for things like this after all. Either way, Aldritch milked out every useful information he could from them until he felt a bit satisfied with the results.
Luckily for them, there were no hobs on the other goblin camps, because they had been taken away by two ogres. The goblins also stated that their clan was under the ogres' rule. Though, there was just one problem.
"A goblin that knows magic, have you heard of such a goblin?" Aldritch asked Lina, but even she had no knowledge of such a goblin existing, at least not before her and her tribe of goblins left the forest.
'Not so surprising, goblin shamans are not common after all.'
The fear here was that Aldritch was yet to encounter magic in this world, and Lance has no knowledge of any magic at all. 'Is it a rare thing in this world?' He wondered. It reminded him of the portal mentioned before, but that was information he needed to take from the humans.
'I don't know how strong the shaman will be, but it shouldn't be a problem...'
'Also, the ogres... I have to adjust may plans once again.' it was stressful to keep changing his master plan so often. But, maybe it isn't so master if it needed so many adjustments.
"Don't kill them, they'll lead the way."
"Yes, master."
Aldritch watched as Lina walked away in her exposed clothing. He needed to do something about that. It sure was nice getting such satisfying sight 24/7, but she needed protective clothing for defense, it was necessary, normally.
'Our friends should be able to provide us with something to remedy this situation.'
After packing up, the captured goblins led Aldritch and the rest to the location of the other goblin tribe. Aldritch still had the daggers with him, so that was good enough. He would prefer something else, something with more reach, but in this case, the daggers were the best option.
"Lord, this is it."
The path was rather crooked and they would have surely gotten lost if they didn't have the two goblins to lead the way. Maybe that or Lina and the goblins would have eventually remember the forest enough to figure out where the goblins might be based.
'This sure makes things convenient.'
Around the perimeters of the little tribe were large rocks the size of regular humans, but obviously taller than normal goblins. The rocks were also spaced out so they probably only served to mark the territory, after all, the spaces in between them was enough for one to pass through easily.
"This is it, huh? Alright, Lina, execute the plan." They were still some distance away, so Aldritch ordered Lina to proceed with his initial plan. It would be easy to simply step in and kill all the goblins present including the shaman; after all, he didn't believe the shaman would be that amazing. As long as he was not the one testing the waters, it was ok.
'My real ways are to control from behind. I can't just act every time…' Then what was the need to be able to control pawns everywhere?
The plan Aldritch made was simple, it was to make his own men surround the settlement to make an encirclement that would close gradually, giving their enemies no chance to escape. When this was done, the goblins within the perimeters became trapped and it happened so fast that they didn't have enough time to react and would have been killed extremely easily, if Aldritch wished.
Lina who was still with Aldritch away from the encircling goblins took several steps forward to pass the message that Aldritch had given her.
"Let the leader of this tribe come out at once!!" She shouted the order. After about a minute, the goblin shaman came out of the little tent built for the chief of the tribe.
'So that's the shaman…' Looking at the goblin shaman, Aldritch could tell that it looked fierce.
The goblin wore some arm guards and a set of clothes to cover its lower parts while the top remained exposed. It also held a staff in its right hand that had attached to it two feathers from an unknown animal, and the same feathers covered the top part of its back, attached to a small leather cloth around its neck. Perhaps, the major difference between this goblin and the rest was the set of horns coming out of its head. From the unusually long ears also hung large rings on each side and smaller ones at the edge of the ear.
'Decorating itself with skulls huh? A shaman indeed.' Aldritch also noticed the purple gem around its neck that had several teeth hung on the same rope.
"There's no need for us to kill each other today, hehe, let us discuss."