Chapter 302

For a while, I stuck half of my face out and watched. Of course, Presence Detection was still activated. What it told me was that this abandoned city… Well, I had to call it that, because I didn’t know what the official name was. In any case, it was the current home of these goblins. But they didn’t live here in a way that humans might have. I was able to see quite a lot with Eyes of the God Wolf.

“Uhh…over there as well…”

There were so many of them. And they were eating. Chomp-chomp. Crunch-crunch. Splat-splat. Hands, feet, bellies, heads. They tore each other apart, limb from limb as if moved by an insatiable appetite.

They were eating each other.

Even if they had the intelligence to go out and hunt, there were too many to feed. Of course. There could be as many as thirty new goblins every week. How could they continue to feed all of them? It was quite obvious that something like this would happen.

Currently, I was only able to see as far as two kilometers around me. But that was enough to cover everything. In other words, all of the goblins were inside of my range. And they were eating each other.

“No… No, that’s not right…”

I used Eyes of the God Wolf to look inside a certain building. Several armed goblins appeared to be trapping other goblins inside. The unarmed goblins shouted behind bars, their mouths open wide. In reply, spears were thrust in their direction.

They imprisoned their own as well.

After wondering about this for a while, I felt a chill go down my spine. I had goosebumps.

“I see… Who would have thought of such a thing…?”

They were being imprisoned for food. They raised them until they were grown enough to eat. And if that still wasn’t enough, they would go out and hunt. Hunting was just to supplement their diet, it wasn’t their primary food source. They ate goblins. Animals were a side-dish.

This city that overflowed with goblins, was a cannibalistic hell.

□ □ □ □

I continued to observe them, but then my eyes started to get tired. It was becoming harder to focus on anything. And so I was about to turn around and head back, when I detected a human through Presence Detection.

And so I quietly deactivated Eyes of the God Wolf, unsheathed my sword, and spun around. After a while, a small light began to spread out. It started illuminating the passage. Then I saw the magic light appear as the person turned the corner. It was Anis.

“Why are you here?”

“You were taking so long…”

Now that I thought about it, it had been quite some time since I descended. It was easy to forget the passage of time when it was so dark.

“Sorry about that. But it’s too dangerous here for carrying torches. Put it out. We’ll return at once.”

“Understood.”

She put the magic illumination tool out and then smiled at me. I probably looked like a nocturnal animal with my glowing eyes. She nodded and took my hand. I did mean to take her back, but this way would take too much time.

“This will be faster.”

“Huh? Oh…”

I picked her up and used Legs of the God Wolf to rush through the passage. As I was very cautious, it had taken a while to come down here, but it was just a few minutes to return.

I stepped on air and jumped up the slope at the end, and then flew out of the hollow and into the light. For a second, my vision was nothing but white. This was because I still had Nighteyes on. I frantically turned it off and looked around me. I quickly detected the presence of Igeldo and Ulgio.

“Mister Asagi.”

Igeldo ran up to us. I put Anis down and raised a hand in his direction. Ulgio also started to run towards us.

“How was it inside…?”

“Awful. Let’s go back. I’ll tell you on the way.”

I answered when Ulgio asked hesitantly. And so we started back to the camp. I needed to talk to Adlus as soon as possible so we could adjust things. This would be a lot harder than we had thought.

□ □ □ □

There wasn’t much in the way of arguing during the third war council. There wasn’t much of a discussion either. In fact, it was a lot of silence. Everyone seemed to be too deep in thought to say anything.

“…I do have one question.”

Daniela was the first to speak up.

“Why do the goblins stay down there?”

“I’ve been wondering the same thing.”

If you had nothing in the fridge, leave the house. It should be the same for humans and monsters. And yet they stayed in that underground space and ate each other.

“I watched them for quite a while, but there was nothing that really gave me a hint.”

“Hmm…”

That was no good. We would have to investigate further if we wanted to know the answer.

“Asagi.”

“What?”

Now it was Adlus who spoke up.

“Did you catch sight of this queen?”

“About that…”

I had spread out Presence Detection and carefully scanned the place with Eyes of the God Wolf, but…

“I didn’t see any goblin that would fit the description.”

“What?”

Perhaps we had made a mistake. The appearance of the Queen’s Knight Goblin had made us assume. What if there was no queen?

That city was made by the ancient elves. No one else could have made it.

“Perhaps there is some facility down there that is still running and having some kind of ill-effect on them?”

“Ill-effect?”

I tilted my head at Manger’s suggestion.

“Remember Reserentrible, Asagi? What happened there?”

“Reserentrible… Well, there was the dungeon…and the defense mechanism…and Karma…Karma was managing… Ah.”

The strange monsters that were there. They were manmade.

“They were performing experiments that involved interbreeding. Now, what if such a facility exists down there as well?”

“…Manager. Are you saying they’re experimenting on the goblins?”

“I am saying that it is a possibility.”

It was quite an idea. Indeed, the ancient elves had been conducting the experiments in an attempt to end a food crisis. Perhaps it wasn’t such a strange idea after all.

And if they were creating hybrid goblins… For instance, goblins with advanced breeding abilities? Perhaps these hybrids had resulted in terribly powerful monsters? Regardless, if they were goblins, there may not be much a difference for Presence Detection. It was less about power and more about their size.

“Well, I am only speculating here. We can’t be sure unless we see it. I was just saying what was on my mind.”

“Still, it was something that I hadn’t even thought about.”

Manager shrugged at me. Was she embarrassed?

“We still don’t have enough information. If the goblins have no intention of coming out, that gives us more time to investigate. What do the rest of you think?”

Adlus felt that it was too dangerous to move based on what we currently knew. The others didn’t answer. They just looked at me. Well, it was no wonder, since I was the one that would be going.

“I have no choice, clearly.”

I answered.

□ □ □ □

It was now the fifth day of the investigation. I relied on the food in my hollow bag as I traveled in and out of the abandoned city. I spent the nights in the branches of the Nise Yggdra Tree. It had been a while since I last slept in a tree.

“Hahhh…”

I hung a magic illumination tool on a branch as I made a written record of the things I saw during the day. Once that was done, I drank some water.

It was decided that I would have as little contact with the main camp as possible. There were several reasons for this, but the most important one was that it could result in the goblins finding the campsite. The place was surrounded by a wall of trees and snow, which offered a high level of concealment.

And so it would be no good if someone like me constantly moved back and forth. All it would take was one goblin to witness it and report to the others. Then it would be war.

And so I sat there, watching the flapping white cloth that I tied to the branches to protect me from the cold wind. And I thought back on what I had learned.

First, while those goblins had been the ones to start the stampede, it seemed like they had no intention now of attacking anywhere else. After all, there was no Queen’s Knight Goblin. He had been the strongest monster in the city. Now that they had lost their leader, they were more focused on their own survival.

However, there were limits to what their home could support. There was the problem of food, for one. The more their numbers increased, the more food they would need.

And it was the facility that helped them.

“So, Manager was right…”

She was a smart one. She always had been. And things hadn’t changed once she came here.

I was able to find the facility with Eyes of the God Wolf, and infiltrate it. I had never seen anything like it before, but apparently the Queen’s Knight Goblin had fiddled around with it until he understood the controls. There was even a written memo.

In Japanese.

I was overwhelmed with a feeling that was hard to describe when I found it. But it was no time to let that slow me down. I used Presence Block to the fullest and investigated the facility.

What I found there, were goblins that had their reproductive abilities raised to the limit. They were terrible to look at and far exceeded ordinary goblins in size. I think they were at least three times the height of a human.

However, at least seventy percent of them were their stomachs. I nearly vomited when I saw the moaning goblin give birth.

There were five of them in all. Perhaps they were not the same as a Queen Goblin, but they still bred at an astonishing rate. I considered killing them all then and there, but it was quite obvious what the starving goblins would do if I did. It would be better to do it once we were fully prepared. And so I left the place.

There was another thing that I noticed. There were stray goblins. A small portion of the goblins that were born and kept for food were able to escape. They had been able to outrun the goblins and escape to the surface. I saw this happen myself. Well, the one I saw was eventually caught and eaten.

“Also…”

I investigated their fighting force. Aside from the normal goblins, were there others that could mutate and turn into Queen’s Knight Goblins?

As for the result, I was not able to find any. However, there were a lot that looked very strong. They were similar to humans in size. They had black skin and took command of the smaller goblins.

Regardless, I didn’t feel like they were that great a threat, and so I ended the investigation there. The bigger problem was their numbers… And I couldn’t count them. There were a lot, that was all I could say. How would we deal with them? That was something we’d have to discuss when I returned to the camp tomorrow.

The plan was to attack the abandoned city on the following day. And so I had to get an early rest. But it was hard to sleep when such thoughts ruled my mind.

I stared at the night sky through the cracks in the sheets. The weather had been rather good recently. Thanks to that, sleeping up in the tree wasn’t too bad. I turned the light off and looked down. I sensed someone. Goblins were running desperately through the snow. They weren’t wearing any armor.

“Gaagraaahh!”

“Gggaa….Graahhh!”

The one in the lead turned and shouted at the one that was lagging behind. The goblin answered just as an arrow caught it in the shoulder. A goblin with a bow had just come out of the hollow in the tree. Its movements were awkward compared to Daniela. Still, it prepared a second arrow and unleashed it. The other goblin went down.

The rest was a familiar scene. The archer goblin began to eat its prey. I could hear it chewing from up in the tree. I grimaced and sunk into my winter clothes.

They would all be dead come the day after tomorrow. I didn’t feel sorry for the goblins that were eaten. Still, they wouldn’t have been eaten had they gotten away.

This sad goblin country would be better once it ended. It was with such thought that I forced myself to sleep.