Searching For the Goblins

Ariel arched an eyebrow, "A tribe?"

"Yeah. Why would a random group of goblins like that have warpaint and be so coordinated if they weren't part of a larger group? Usually war paint and things like that would indicate a sort of tribal culture. It may be different amongst the goblins, but I don't think so." Ky explained.

Ariel nodded her head, "Okay, that makes sense, but how do we find them?"

"That part I'm not sure of." Ky said.

"Hmm."

The duo started thinking of how to find the remaining goblins if there were any.

Neither one had much experience if any with hunting or camping.

They didn't know the first thing to start with when tracking an animal, so they would have to just rely on their intuition and instincts.

Humans have animalistic instincts that were used to help them with things like hunting and survival before things were industrialized.

These instincts may have faded over time because they were no longer needed, but humans could still develop those instincts again if they tried.

Some of these instincts are still within most humans, such as the fight or flight response.

When faced with a problem, the two instant reactions are to either run or fight.

Ariel and Ky would need to work on these instincts and increase their knowledge about hunting and tracking to find monsters successfully in the future, but they didn't have the time or resources at the moment for that.

"Why don't we go back to where we found the goblins yesterday and just head in the direction they came from?" Ariel suggested.

"Yes! Good job Ariel, I don't know why I didn't think of that."

With that they packed up their camp and started to move.

It didn't take long to get from the river to the place where the goblins were slain as it did to go the opposite way yesterday.

This is because they were roaming aimlessly to find the river, but they had a clear destination today.

They had to go east by slightly southeast.

Ariel and Ky didn't talk much on the way there because they didn't want another ambush like last time. They were also much smarter this time and used their mana sense periodically to detect any monsters.

Ky found many normal animals like deer, squirrels, and birds but there were no goblins on the way.

Even though they weren't talking, Ky made sure to steal plenty of glances at Ariel throughout the two hour journey.

He would often find himself thinking, 'I can't believe someone that pretty is dating me…'

Ky had almost no self confidence when it came to romantic matters.

He was almost completely inexperienced because of the incidents in the past with both women and men just wanting to be with him because of his parents.

This led him to stay away from most people or to just keep a polite distance from them.

He wasn't a complete loner, but he never really had any real friends either.

Ariel could be considered his first real friend.

She treated him well before she knew who he was, and even after she learned who he was she continued to treat him the same way.

That was how he knew her intentions weren't bad, and even if they were it was stupid because there was no telling if he still had all of his money and his parents company or not.

The world was in a semi apocalypse situation at the moment, so nothing was guaranteed in life anymore.

Ky was slowly starting to learn that and maturing because of it.

Ky wasn't the only one stealing glances.

There were a few times when the couple found themselves sending glances at the other.

This caused them to break out in silent giggles every time, before they continued their journey.

Once Ky and Ariel reached their destination they found a problem.

"Ummm, Ariel, do you remember which direction they came from?"

Ky asked while scratching his neck.

Ariel had an apologetic grin on her face and shook her head no.

Ky put his hand on his chin and started to stroke his invisible beard while looking around for clues.

After a few minutes he finally remembered, "Ah! I think we came from that direction." He pointed to the south.

"So, I think they came from that way." He then pointed to the north.

"Are you sure?" Ariel asked skeptically.

"Hell nah." Ky replied with a smile.

Ariel giggled while shaking her head in defeat.

"Well, it's not like I have any ideas either so let's just try going north then." She replied.

The two changed direction slightly and headed in a northern direction, towards the mountain range that was their current end goal.

~

"Ariel, this way!" Ky suddenly whispered.

After hours of traveling silently, they finally found what they were looking for.

About ten meters ahead, the trees finally stopped.

Ky couldn't tell how far the clearing went back, but he knew it was no small distance.

The goblin village was surrounded by a three meter tall wooden fence.

There were guard towers near the fence opening that told Ky that it was in fact a goblin settlement.

He dragged Ariel behind a few bushes after whispering.

"Let's see how many there are." He said.

Ky peered through the entrance to the village, hoping to see what lay past it.

He could see many huts, built out of wood with straw roofs.

There was no way to tell just how many there were from here, but Ky could already see ten to fifteen huts.

The huts were situated in a half circle formation and there was a well in the open space in the middle of the half circle.

Looking back towards the guard towers, Ky counted the goblins in each one.

There were two guard towers beside the entrance and more towers every 25 meters.

Each guard in sight had four goblins each. They were spacious enough to allow the guards to walk around without bumping into their comrades.

There were only six towers that Ky could see, including the entrance towers, but he assumed there were more as the wall went around.

'What are they guarding? There were literally no other monsters in this forest but them.' Ky wondered.

In a lapse of judgment, Ky didn't think about the fact that these monsters were within a tower that other humans would soon be entering.

Humans may be the monster that these goblins were defending against.

"Let's climb the trees again, so we can see over the wall." Ariel suggested.

"Good idea."

The two picked a tree each and began their climb.

'Sigh. We're going to turn into monkeys if we keep climbing trees so often like this.'

After reaching the top of his tree, Ky continued his surveillance over the goblin village.

What he saw surprised him once again.

The goblin village spanned much farther than it seemed.

That half circle of huts was just the first row of houses.

There were ten rows of huts, with most rows containing 50 or so huts each.

After the seventh row, the huts turned into houses.

The houses were slightly bigger, and had wooden roofs instead of straw.

There were also a few other buildings scattered throughout the village that didn't look like huts.

One of the buildings Ky could tell was a stable.

There were large pigs roaming in a fenced area that was connected to a building.

It was more accurate to call these animals boars, because these pigs had brown fur and some had tusks.

'Is that a hobgoblin?'

Ky was able to see a goblin that looked much bigger than the rest.

The height of the tree made it hard to notice at first, but its massive size eventually made it stand out from the rest.

Looking closer, Ky saw that there were a few more hobgoblins in sight.

They were all closer to the back rows, where the houses were located.

Ky then waved towards Ariel to get her attention.

She looked in his direction with a look of surprise still visible on her face as well.

Ky pointed down to indicate that they should meet on the ground.

When they both reached the ground he didn't say anything, but walked away and Ariel followed.

After walking for about fifteen minutes in silence, Ky finally stopped and turned towards Ariel.

"What should we do?" Ariel asked quickly.

"I want to fight." Ky responded.

"Why? Aren't there way too many enemies?" She asked with a frown.

"Hmmm. There are indeed a lot of them, but I think we can take them. We did just fine against the hobgoblins on earth and the goblins here as well."

"Still, we have no clue how many hobgoblins they have." Ariel argued.

"True, that's why I think we should use stealth to take them out."

"Okay, that might work." Ariel was still skeptical, but decided to trust Ky.

The couple began planning their ambush of the goblin village and set the ambush date for tomorrow once the sun went down.

Ky would soon realize the importance of staying humble and not biting off more than you could chew.

And both Ky and Ariel would learn just how cruel, unforgiving, and unfair this new world could be…

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Thank you to JoJo_Black for the power stones!!!

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