Chapter 14 – Danger.

In the town mayor manor.

"Did you confirm it?" – asked Marquis Brownbear.

"Yes sir. All squads reported the same thing about their situation." – replied knight Evan Velon.

"God damned. First parasite players and now goblin armies?! Are you joking right now….What about the villages that got evacuated, did you already dealt with goblins there?"

"About that sir….we were only able to reclaim single village."

"What?! What happened!?"

"The goblin turned each village into war camps and now are heavily defended and not only that, but there are quiet a number of high-level goblins as well, including a chief rank goblins in each village.

"Chief goblins in each village?! Are you certain of that?"

"Yes, our scouts confirmed their existence."

"Fuck me…." – said Marquis Brownbear.

During the purge of Savage Shield guild, some of the members attempted to escape and hide in the forest, the hunting parts that consists mostly of mercenaries found their trail and decided to fallow them. Unexpectancy for them, the players they were hunting were nowhere to be found and later on the hunting party would go missing while looking for them in the forest. One of the members of hunting party that was a player, returned two days ago and informed us what had happened. Apparently, all the members of both hunting party and Savage Shield were massacreated by goblins including him. The goblins that did that apparently were high level ones including some Goblin Chief with level 150. The reason why he only came right now is because of penalty: [Dying in hostile territory], that's the reason why he was gone for 8 days instead of 4.

"From what I know [Dying in hostile territory] that applies to the players if they die in territory ruled by hostile being be it either by people or intelligent monsters and is full controlled under them.

"The knight that we dispatched confirmed his story and eliminated the goblins as well as their base. They succeeded in eliminating them, but after investigating their base, we found out about larger base with even bigger army. The enemy noticed the knight and dispatched an army to get rid off them, in the end knight were forced to retreat." – replied knight.

"The knight we dispatched had levels around 170, right?"

"Yes sir….and less than half returned alive. As you know sir those were polished fighters that could fight on equal ground with enemies with 30 level advantage."

"From what I heard from the survivors, not only they were overpowered but outnumbers as well…. How many soldiers do we have right now?"

"3000 veteran soldiers with average level of 200 and 1000 elite soldiers with average level of 350. Do you wish to dispatch them to deal with goblins?"

"No, there is high chance that goblins would attack us from many directions, the goblins will launch the attack on people the moment knights leaves their stations."

The both man stared in silence, filling the room with silence.

"Sir with all due respect, I don't think that a goblin king, the highest ruler type class of goblins would be able to not only train this many goblin, but have that many goblins chiefs working under him. Something is definitely wrong, is this perhaps another scheme made by queen?" – asked knight.

"I doubt it. The current situation is too uncontrollable and that control freak queen would never allow goblin king to be born in the first place. She rather destroy the pawn she can't fully control rather that let them roam free, like me for example, she is trying nonstop to weaken both my actual and political power when she got a chance. There is a zero chance that's it's her doing in any way."

"….! Sir I just remember something." – knight suddenly spoke up.

"What is it?"

"Do you remember during the emergentist meeting between you sir and villages representative, Ergon was one who informed us about goblin in the first place. By the look of things he held some knowledge about goblins that even we didn't know about, there is possibility that he may or may not know what is going on sir!"

"Hmm, it's true that there is possibility of him knowing something. Get him to me now." – replied noble.

"Yes sir!"

Somewhere in the town.

"Another round!" – shouted one of the drunkard.

The blacksmiths both players and NPCs were having party.

"I told you they will come back crawling to us!" – says Ergon.

The players that deemed crafting type jobs as useless came back crawling to them after they had run out of the items and equipment. They got taste of brutal reality and were forced to buy everything blacksmiths had to offer, even trash equipment.

"They couldn't even talk back when we offered them defects since they needed equipment badly, ha!" – said old blacksmith.

"We are filthy rich right now! Drunk until you pass out ya bastards!"

The group of knights suddenly entered a tavern. The people of inside the tavern instantly noticed them and got suddenly quiet, whisper could be heard, wondering why they appeared.

The knights approached table where Ergon was located.

"Hm? Is something wrong officer? – asked Ergon.

The knights suddenly grabbed both of his hands and started dragging him towards exist.

"…What?"

Knights throwed Ergon in caravan standing outside the tavern and drove off.

"…" – the drunkards watched in silence as Ergon got kidnaped by the knights right in front of them.

"…Any idea what he did wrong?"

"Nope." – everyone replied with same answers.

Some time later in the manor.

"Ugh!" – Ergon made a sound as he got picked up and throwed out from carriage.

"I apologize for that mister Aran, but the lord requires your presence urgently." – said Evan Velon as he stood above Ergon.

"Say that before kidnaping me next time, okay?" – replied Ergon while laying face flat on ground beneath sir knight feet.

Sir Velon took Ergon to meet Marquis Brownbear in his private room.

"We meet again young….why do you stick with alcohol?" – asked Marquis Brownbear.

"I was literally in middle of the party until I got kidnaped out of the blue by knights!"

"S-sorry for inconveniency then, but we got urgent matter to discuss."

Marquis Brownbear explained entire situation about goblins to Ergon in details.

"…And that's a reason why I wanted to meet you urgently. Do you know…anything…thing….are you alright? You are sweating like crazy." – asked Marquis Brownbear after noticing Ergon with pale skin sweating nonstop.

(Oy, oy, oy, oy, you got to be joking me. If what are there are saying it's true, if what are they saying is happening right now, that means the situation is totally fucked. An average level of goblins depends mostly who leads them: capitan, commander, general, chief, king and the most powerful variant emperor goblin. Everything he says fit with goblin emperor army, there is no possible other explanation. Why the f*ck is he appearing now?! He should appears later on, so why he is active now?!) – panicked Ergon.

"…Ergon!" – shouted Marquis Brownbear while grabbing Ergon.

"W-what?!"

"Are you alright? You were not responding when we were calling out to you."

"S-sorry, it's complicated." – responded Ergon.

"…So you know something. Please tell us, any information is valuable in our current situation."

Ergon stayed silence for few seconds until he decided to speak up.

"Before I was hunted and lived ordinally life, I once came across a book in an old library, in it there was records about goblins. The book was written ages ago, probably before you were even born. Inside the book there was a record as well data regarding the goblins, how they live, how their work and how they function as well as who leads them. I found that book interesting and decided to read it, my entire knowledge about goblins came from it. From the information you gather I can only think about one individual that was written in that book, "Goblin Emperor", the most powerful goblin leader type variant."

"Goblin Emperor you say? First time hearing about it." – said noble.

(No shit! This the first-time goblin emperor appears though the history.) – "Yes, sir and honestly speaking we may or may not be royalty fucked."

"Is the that situation that dire?"

"Depends how many soldiers you have, how much soldiers you currently have?

"4000 soldiers, is that enough?"

"Not enough. In book it was written that goblin emperor army had at least 11000 goblins and each of them had around level 125 as well as included other leader type species of goblins: capitan, commander, general, chief and king."

Marquis Brownbear bend backwards while smoking from his pipe.

"Are you absolutely certain about that?"

"Unfortunately yes. I wish I could say something else about the situation, but the evidence are clear as day." – replied Ergon.

"…You could at least lie to me and give me some hope."

"Sorry, can't"

"You bastard."

Both man stayed silence for few seconds and looked at each other eyes.

"We are fucked." – both of the man said the same thing.