"I don't think I want to know, but why do you say that, Mrs. Sofi?"
Ivan asked in an apprehensive, irritated and fearful tone. He never seems to stop being irritated.
"The depth of the marks, and the amount of excrement he left serve as an indication that he was in a hurry. He wanted to get back as quickly as possible to his tribe to report on the food source he found, but he probably wanted to get something to eat before. And that's how it ended."
He said pointing to the black mark on the floor.
"But that just confirms that he was excited about the new food source doesn't it? How can that help us know how many there are and can you be so sure we're in trouble?" The hunter replied.
"His haste indicates that they urgently need new food, and look at the feces he left here, do you see these small, whitish dots?"
She pointed to the crevice where the goblin spread its own excrement without reacting to the smell, something that Ivan has never managed to do, much less Gerard and the guide. Fortunately, Ivan didn't need to get closer to see the points they were referring to.
"Yes, what about them?"
"That's digested goblin skin, meaning that they are both desperate for food to the point of resorting to cannibalism and that they still have enough population to be thinned out without affecting the strength of the tribe as a whole." The woman spoke in a decisive tone.
"B-but Lady Sofi, isn't it possible that the goblins are simply preying on each other simply to satisfy their hunger and decide the strongest? They've been known to do that too, haven't they?" The villager who led them to the field said.
And he wasn't wrong, goblins are as fertile as rabbits or rats, a female goblin can have up to 10 offspring in one pregnancy, and they only take 1 week to mature into minimally productive members of the tribe, a young adult so to speak.
Soon they established a law of the strong over the weakest, when the fastest and strongest are born, they are able to breastfeed, those who cannot are more and more and at the end of the week, if they do not find a way to get stronger, the weakest are eaten by their brothers, this is something that all goblins do according to what was known.
"True, they do that, but only with the youngest to separate the fittest, if they continued with this even as adults, their tribe would have problems remaining active and they wouldn't even have the need to hunt, they would simply devour each other." She said calmly but decidedly.
"As they themselves are aware that consuming other members of the tribe will only weaken them in the long term, they do not encourage cannibalism, only when they are desperate, and seeing the size of these footprints—"
"—He was probably already an adult who was hunting and by chance found our village. And as there are remains of goblins in their own excrement, they are desperate and seeing the quantity, there weren't a few that he ate, right?"
"No, they weren't, and if they can afford such waste..."
"They have enough members to make up for the loss."
Gerard finished their thoughts.
They really were in trouble.
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"How are we supposed to deal with this?? How are we supposed to deal with this???!!!"
Gerard walked back and forth to the village chief's house. Soon after they returned from the field, they heard that the chief had woken up and went to tell him what they had discovered. He passed out again when they finished.
"First we have to arm everyone who is physically capable, fill in the gaps in the wall, place barricades and obstacles along the way. Personally, I think a tower would be good to have more vision and power, we can hit them more easily, but as we don't know when they will come, we don't know if I would have time to do it."
"Even if we did it would hardly be useful, we only have 4 archers in the village and only 30 arrows per quiver in the warehouse."
The chief's wife, Gertrude, said even at 70 she still had a sharp mind for numbers.
"You know that I'm the best archer in this entire region, right? Surely I alone in a tower could handle a good number of goblins even with 10 arrows."
It was an exaggeration of course, but in fact Ivan was the best archer in the region, how many people could shoot a hare from almost 200 meters with just their eyes.
"Humility is a virtue, little Van"
The elderly woman responded with a wave of her hand.
"But it's true that we must maximize our chances, a tower is impossible, but a post with a platform wouldn't be so difficult."
Sofi said looking through her herb bag to see if she had anything useful.
"Hmmm, it's possible but we would have to separate a lot of people to do this and we are not the largest community."
The elderly woman said, and she was also right, their village could have two of the most beautiful and kind young people in the region, the best archer and even the best herbologist and witch (never confirmed but now accepted as true by everyone).
But seeming to want to maintain a certain balance, the gods ensured that they had a population that never exceeded 100 individuals, including adults and children, when the village was founded.
At least also with the lack of labor they always had excellent harvests and severe famines have hardly ever happened, there have been periods of famine but not to the point where people died.
"Then we'd better go ask the redwood village for help?"
Gerard asked, remembering the young woodcutter and son of the chief of the "relative" village, that even though it was close, it still took a little more than a day on foot to get there.
An interesting point to highlight there is that both initial settlements were founded at the same time by two brothers, one stayed on this plain with fertile hills for cultivation and the other founded another village further away in a forest full of sequoias, one of the largest trees that they produced some of the best wood in the entire kingdom, with an almost total dominance of this type of wood, the "relative" village developed quickly and soon became a village while their settlement could only become a village.
But again as a balancing point, in exchange for the forest providing high quality wood, the soil for cultivation was very restricted. So they developed a mutual relationship of interdependence, wood and services in exchange for food and meat, as the woodcutters' work drove away most of the animals from their forest. Ironically, most of them settled in the forest near their village.
"It's possible but how much would we have to pay them?"
"We could melt down some of the knights' armor and give them the ingots for use in axes."
"Don't you think they would ask questions about where these ingots came from?" Retorted Gertrude to the two men.
"Hardly we all know that when you have an essential item at your disposal, you rarely ask questions about where it came from." Sofi said in a tone of certainty that left no room for discussion, something that the others also knew was true.
"Very well, I'll talk to Horan about this, maybe it will take him longer to melt the chain mail so let's start as soon as possible."
"It's the best."
With a course of action ready, everyone prepares for their respective tasks.
Ivan would patrol the forest looking for tracks of more goblins and if possible the nest site, Sofi would return to her cabin and prepare more medicine and hemostasis for the confrontation and if she had time to study some of the potion she had discreetly collected the night before, Gerard would oversee the reinforcement of the small wall, as well as the redistribution of weapons. And Gertrude would be responsible for the village chief as always.
When they were about to leave, the same villager who had guided them to the black mark on the plantation appeared again, and again with a face that showed agitation, surprise and suspicion.
"Do we honestly have to ask?" Ivan said looking at the middle aged man catching his breath.
"No... Huff...But they'll want to come... Affff... Especially you Gerard."
"Why?"
After taking a breath, the villager responded.
"There's a big train coming from the direction of the redwood village.... Affff... Everyone looks tired and devastated... Several women and children... Huuuff... And in front is Dan... Very hurt ..."