007

I want to make Red chief. He's smarter than me, wiser than me, braver than me, more benevolent than me. I might be smarter than your average goblin but that doesn't make me a genius like him, nor does it change the fact that I'm quite the coward. Red is the perfect leader save for his relative weakness. That's why I'll be his muscle. He'll be the sun and I'll be the moon. I need an army. An army I can trust.

As I approach the relatively isolated corner my personal squad is located in, one of its members notices me and salutes. "Captain!" Following Red's advice, I've trained them. I've trained them to follow my personal tactics, I've trained them to fight together in groups, I've trained them to be loyal, and I have most importantly trained them to be disciplined fighters. They listen to my commands above all. I just hope they're truly as loyal to me as I think. I wouldn't want to have to kill them after putting so much time and effort into them.

"Gather everyone. Tell them war is coming." I say in human tongue. I had Red teach them how to understand it. It's much more convenient than my native language and although most of them don't speak it, they understand it. That's most important.

"Yes, Sir!" He leaves to do as I asked.

...

Once my entire squad has been assembled, I ask a simple question "Who do you follow?"

"Ko-ga!" They all begin shouting.

Of course they'd say that. How am I supposed to ask this? Do I just trust them? Why does this have to be so complicated? "We'll be going to war with the Bloodletter tribe," I shout. I begin a mantra I taught them. Red said it'd help instill loyalty but I don't really get it. "What are we?"

"The coward squad!"

"What will we do?"

"Kill!"

"Who will we kill?"

"The enemy!"

How will we do it?"

"Like cowards!" They all shout and begin raucously cheering. They love it. The chief named this the coward squad and Red made it a badge of honor. We're cowards and we kill. We kill cowardly.

"Go prepare for battle. Knowing the chief, it'll be soon." I tell my second in command, Grak, before leaving. I find the chief and give him a silent nod before shadowing him as he assembles all of the goblins. Once they're all gathered, we head back to his tent for a private meeting. A strategy meeting of sorts. As far as goblins strategize, anyways.

...

A debate rages on in the chief's silence. Grognik wants to just rush the bloodletters while I suggest utilizing strategy. Right now, I'm arguing in favor of swooping in, assassinating the chief, and taking over the entire tribe in one swift move.

"We bigger tribe! We strong! We just need rush in and beat gobs senseless! Show who's stronger! Show who's boss!" Grognik, Chief's right hand, says.

"We sneak, we--"

"Sneak! Coward!" Grognik shouts as he stomps the floor.

"But if ambush--"

"We no coward!" Grognik grabs me by the throat, raises me to his eye level, and snarls. His massive tusks nearly impaling me and spit dribbling as he breathes heavily out of anger... Wack! The chief punches him in the stomach, forcing him to double over in pain and drop me.

"You no speak for me. We no coward, though, true. We do as Grognik says. We no need 'strategy.' We no cowards like you." Perfect. Perfect! My plan is going so smoothly. I don't quite understand my power yet but its obvious that a war can benefit me greatly. I plan to take advantage of the vast amount of corpses to both develop a proper understanding of my abilities and potentially grow my undead army.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get another link somehow. If not, I'll at the very least get a few brutes to control. Once again, I'm so glad the chief is predictable and easy to manipulate. I knew he'd never go for my ideas. I knew he'd want to go with simple brute strength. He always does. Because of that, there'll be way more deaths. Way more potential for me.