Hobgoblins

Leon looked at the group and asked plainly.

"Do y'all want to follow them? Or should we just report the strange incident to the guilds and Bureau?"

The three of them looked at each other, but instead of answering the question, they looked towards Leon to make the decision like a leader.

With a surprised look on his face, Leon had been defaulted the leadership position and role, however before he could truly think it out something within him called him and gently pulled him towards the other side of the road.

"I..I think we should at least follow and see what happened."

The rest of them decided to follow Leon no matter what, so they went along. The group made sure no goblins were left behind just in case it was a trap. After finding out that, there were indeed no goblins left and no trap set.

All four of them ran into the forest on the other side, with Tomoe's sharp senses. The group slowly followed where the goblins had run to and after a couple of minutes of jogging through the forest, a notable sight was ahead.

Motioning to stop with his hand, Leon pointed up towards the sky, where a very minute smoke trail was apparent. Normally it was so small that people from outside the forest couldn't see it due to the sparse amounts of smoke and thick vegetation.

They slowly crept towards the smoke and as they got closer they heard a peculiar noise, it was sounds of battle. The clangs of shields and swords being hit, with grunts and screams, fueled with desperation and misery.

The three kept themselves hidden in a bush but peaked through the gaps in between the leaves to see what was going on at the location of the smoke.

Leon, Tomoe, and Arwin suddenly thrust their hands onto Tecia's mouth, because they knew she would make noise once she realized what was going on in front of the group since even they almost fell over from shock.

In front of them lay what seemed like the tribe's base of location, huts made of make-shift logs tied together to provide shelter and there was even a small campfire that was producing the smoke.

However the smoke is not what was surprising the group, it was what was happening inside the small tribal village which shocked the adventurers.

In front of them a battered group of goblins, which was the group that had left the road earlier, they stood tall protecting what seemed like female goblins, from the fact that the goblins were extremely protective and the fact that there were so few females.

It was common knowledge that most monsters reproduced like humans and humanoids especially followed this philosophy. So obviously goblins also reproduced like humans, however, due to the incredibly short time it took for females to give birth. It seems like nature made it so female goblins were birthed at a much rarer rate than male goblins.

Due to this fact, female goblins never left the safety of some sort of settlement or protection and male goblins would sacrifice themselves just for the female ones to live on. Which explained why the group of male goblins stood in front of the female goblins, clad in their oversized gear from killing humans that had unfortunately passed by.

The main shock was what were they guarding against. In front of the group on the opposite side of the campfire was what looked like a bigger and bulkier form of a goblin which also appeared a lighter shade of green. It was a hobgoblin.

A hobgoblin was a branch of the goblin family, however, they usually are very selfish and looked down on goblins. The fact that they are stronger and better in combat made them feel superior.

While goblins were effectively one of the weakest mobs possible a hobgoblin with lots of strength and experience could easily match and perhaps defeat a D-Tier adventurer. This is why you usually never see hobgoblins unless you are a D-Tier and above or something abnormals happens like what was going on now.

The hobgoblin, however, wasn't alone as another one appeared by its side and they both looked at the female goblins. Although they looked down on hobgoblins, they still lusted after female goblins, which is why these two were attacking this small tribe.

Normally the tribe might be able to stand a chance or bide for enough time with their original numbers. However, much of their fighting power had disappeared when Leon and the group assassinated the group of goblins waiting in ambush.

This made it virtually impossible for the remaining goblins to fight two hobgoblins. The two hobgoblins moved towards the group and they each had a decently sized tree trunk in each hand and smashed it down towards the goblins. With just that hit, the goblins had to hide under a shield that looked like it had been looted off of a poor traveler.

The shield however dented quite easily as it seemed like it was rusted and not the greatest of shields. The goblins with their oversized tools tried to fight back but the hobgoblins crushed the first four goblins that got close to them. With just that half the goblins were dead and the females cried in sadness and in fear at being left to the two hobgoblins.

At this point, the group who were still hiding in the bush had gotten the gist of what was happening, Leon knew Tecia was unpredictable sometimes and didn't wish to take chances even if the things suffering were cold-blooded monsters like goblins.

"We shouldn't do anything, even if we were sympathetic towards those monsters. They would most likely turn on us and we would be targeted by both of the monsters."

Arwin and Tomoe remained silent but nodded at the statement. Wild monsters like these would go directly after humans, even if they tried to help one side. If the goblins were humans, the group at this point would have been charging from the bush to help, however, reality wasn't always so kind.

Life isn't like a fairytale all the time, that was something Leon had realized every day since the day his parents had died and the idea was only ever reinforced since that fateful day at the innocent-looking F-Tier quest.

The world was a cold-hearted place sometimes.