“I think that’s about the end for boars,” Shin remarked, tossing the rib he’d picked clean into the fire pit. “The Experience is too low now.”

Gero grumbled regretfully. “They taste so good though.”

Shin certainly agreed. There would absolutely be no going back to raw sparrows after discovering the miracle that was pork. The last two days had been a whirlwind, tracking boar through their little section of the forest at a breakneck pace and only stopping for ravenous meals and quick strategy discussions. As boring as it was, they’d discovered that the most efficient method was simply allowing Gero to confront and then pummel the dumb things to death. Momo’s Bless and Heal made things a lot safer, and Shin got in harrying fire when he could, but there was no question that the Brute was carrying them. Shin had a sneaking suspicion that Gero and her giant club were as close to a Universal Solution as existed in the world of strategy.

Not that Shin minded. He’d have certainly relished crafting some grand strategy, but he wasn’t going to turn his nose up at the first easy win any mongrel-adjacent being had ever gotten to enjoy.

“We can keep hunting them, but we’ll need a better Experience source if we want to make it further than Level Seven. Or is that enough? Should we head back to the cave now?”

“Hm.” Gero considered that, absentmindedly wiping down her club. “What do you think, Momo?”

The little cleric waved her off. “Gimme a sec; I’m still picking my new spells.”

Gero scoffed. “You guys are so indecisive. Every time I gain a level? I immediately know the best thing to pick.”

“Right, I can imagine.” Shin pantomimed scrolling through a Status Screen. “You look down. You see the words ‘Club’ or ‘Blunt’. You pick that one. Does that sound about right?”

“Yes exactly; you know me so…” Gero trailed off, her ears flattening. “...You’re making fun of me.”

“Maybe a little!”

Gero huffed, making a show of being busy with cleaning her obviously immaculate weapon. “You never made fun of me when we were still mongrels.”

“I was deeply intimidated by you when we were still mongrels.”

“Oh yeah?” Gero leaned over, ears shooting forward as she shifted next to Shin. “You’re not intimidated by me now?”

“Well no, but..” Shin cleared his throat in an attempt to cover the crack in his voice. “I’m maybe a little nervous. Sometimes.”

The big kobold stared at Shin for a moment longer, and he found himself inspecting her face a little more closely than was strictly polite. Gero had a light dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Shin never noticed that before. Not that he would have when she was still covered in fur. It looked as if that was yet another reason to appreciate their transformation into kobolds.

Gero abruptly straightened, a faint tinge of red flushing the freckles Shin had been so fascinated by. “Well good. Stay that way.” She began to fuss at her club again, but didn’t bother moving away from her new spot directly beside the other kobold. Shin found himself incredibly aware of the fact that their legs were dangerously close to touching.

This seemed like the perfect opportunity to bury himself in his Status Screen and just focus on that for a while, and nothing else. “Status.”

Shin quickly assigned his three stat points, his continued annoyance at the paltry amount they got each level nicely washing away his lingering embarrassment. At least he got to manually distribute them now. He’d put two points into Presence and one into Agility at Level Six, and decided the plan made as much sense now as it did then. Presence seemed to be his most important Stat and boosted his effective Intelligence was well, after all, and he needed to make some concessions to his Physical Stats if he wanted to keep up in combat.

Though that did mean his Agility was at thirteen now. Ugh. Odd numbers. Shin wasn’t exactly sure why, but looking at his Status and seeing an odd number drove him up the damn wall. Level Eight couldn’t come soon enough.

Blah, just stop looking at it. Shin flipped further down into his sheet, pleased to remember he still had a new Leadership Aura to choose from Level Six. They were grinding boars at too fast a clip then for much more than just assigning his Stat points; now he could really dig in and weigh all his options.

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Leadership (Level Six): Please choose from the following:

Reliable: Choose a Leadership Aura. Its effects are increased. Crafty: The Traits of allies are increased in efficacy. The Class Cooldowns of allies are modestly decreased. Callous: Nominate an ally. That ally takes increased damage. You take substantially decreased damage.

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What the hell. Callous?! That’s what the System thought of him? Sure, Gero was out front and center for most of the actual combat, but that wasn’t part of some plot to avoid having to take damage himself! Bluh. The world clearly thought Shin was a real asshole, and honestly? It wasn’t cute anymore.

At least the other two options seemed promising. Callous. Friggin’...whatever.

“Hey Gero. Do I want to take ‘Reliable’ or ‘Crafty’?”

She cocked an eyebrow. “Doesn’t ‘Crafty’ just mean ‘Smart’?”

“Pretty much.”

“And you didn’t select it so fast that you snapped your finger in half?”

“Ha. Ha.” He was already picking ‘Crafty’. “I’m Reliable too, you know. I’m so Reliable.”

“Oh sure. That’s you, Shin.” She sniffed at the air as the new Aura settled over the two of them, their Enhanced Senses Trait increasing in potency. “Good Old Reliable…”

She trailed off, ears dipping as she sniffed at the air again. Shin didn’t miss it either. The two kobolds shared a glance, then casually shifted even closer together, Shin slipping an arm around Gero as he kept his voice soft and guarded from the open air. “You noticed?”

Gero nodded, her eyes serious as she flicked an ear towards the tree directly behind her.

They had a guest. Someone hiding in the trees. Watching them.

Shin glanced over towards Momo, the little cleric pretending to still be deep in her Status Screen. But her face was a cold mask; she knew as well. Shin darted his eyes down towards the rocks that made up the firepit and back up to his companions, tightening his mouth when they both gave little ear-flick nods.

Okay. Time to see if that ugly thirteen in Agility was worth it.

Shin dipped forward, taking another deep sniff of the air to orient himself as he palmed one of the pit stones. Then he shot to his feet, whirling around to whip the rock straight for their hidden observer. The projectile crashed noisily through the foliage, followed immediately by a strangled yelp of surprise and pain and then the sound of a body crashing through branches to land on the soft loam with a solid thud.

The spy was slowly trying to struggle up to his hands and knees when the three of them came upon him, groaning in pain as he dizzily reached for the gear that had fallen down with him. He gave up on reaching it almost immediately, however, when Gero put her foot between his shoulder blades and carefully pushed him back down into the dirt, almost casually resting the head of her giant club against the back of his skull.

Alright. Who was this person?

He was an elf, for one. Shin had never actually seen an elf before, but he had no doubt all the same. Pointy ears, androgynously pretty face, slight build. That was an elf all day and twice on Sunday. He had clearly prepared to hide within the boughs of the forest that surrounded them, his clothing made from a cunning mix of browns and greens to blend in with the dense brush. And he was transparently terrified; there would be no mistaking that even if Shin couldn’t smell it all over him. And yet he was curiously still trying to project ‘haughty’.

Fascinating.

“Let me go y-you, you beasts!” The elf spat with rage, his furious tone somewhat undercut by the way he remained as still as possible to avoid provoking Gero into crushing his head. “You will all die a thousand deaths for this indignity to a proud Oaken Elf Ranger!”

He was either incredibly brave, or incredibly stupid.

Either way, they’d already gotten some valuable information. “So you’re a Wood Elf, then.” Shin mulled that over. It made sense, obviously; they were surrounded by woods after all. It was also a potential problem. Wood Elves were a Kingdom, and drawing the ire of a power like that was a guaranteed death sentence for the kobolds at this point.

But did that make sense? Shin would have sworn that the nearest Kingdom was human, and that it was a substantial distance away. Sure, he only had the freebie knowledge that had been dumped into his head upon evolving to go off of, but that wasn’t the sort of mistake Shin would usually make. Better find out more. “I hadn’t realized there was a Wood Elf outpost near this zone.”

The spy seemed utterly incensed by that remark, attempting to force his way back to his feet only to be effortlessly pinned down by Gero’s foot and club. Undeterred, he did his best to shoot Shin a glare of withering outrage while still face-first in the ground. And honestly, he made a pretty decent go of it. “Not Wood Elves, you idiot, OAKEN ELVES! The wisest, the bravest, the most honorable of elvenkind, so virtuous and true that our NOBLE FOREBEARS cast aside their previous ties and–”

Oh gross he’s going to give his peoples’ entire history. Shin already had the jist; he’s from some minor subspecies of elf. Even the kobold knew that elves were weird like that; put three of them somewhere and a few months later you’d have Somewhere Elves. Honestly, it was a massive relief. Dealing with Wood Elves would have been an issue, but Oaken Elves? That might be fine.

It might even be an opportunity.

The elf was still waxing pointlessly about the lineage of his incredibly dull people when he noticed Shin had begun to nose around in his gear. “--And it was AFTER the War Among Leaves when we CLAIMED the oh hey, hey! That stuff’s MINE, you slut! Keep your filthy paws OFF!”

Shin blinked. Did he just get called a slut? Whatever. The kobold continued to sift through the elf’s survival gear over his embittered protests, eventually spotting the ornate hilt of a sword. He lifted the weapon up, drawing it from its elaborately etched sheath to reveal a glittering silver blade. Gero spat, just barely missing the elf’s head. “Pretty.”

The elf sniffed arrogantly. “That’s a sword, you inbred mutt. Obviously you’ve never seen one before, because you’re apparently still hitting people with big sticks. That is a weapon for a civilized race!”

“Huh.” Shin let the sheath drop to the ground, handing the sword to a less-than-impressed looking Gero. “Is it now.”

The spy somehow managed to adopt an even more superior expression. “Obviously it is; the Oaken Elves are the MASTERS of metalcraft! The life' s work of High Shaper Teldran, that sword has, um…”

The elf trailed off as Gero shoved it point-first into the nearby tree, leaving it stuck there and wobbling.

He decided to take another swing at it. “Ahem, yes, passed down through generations, this supreme blade is the epitome of elven…”

Gero lifted her club from the elf’s head just long enough to lift the weapon overhead and slam it down into the sword, the masterwork of High Shaper Teldran snapping in half without the slightest bit of resistance.

After a long moment of silence, Shin decided to finish the elf’s thought for it. “Craftsmanship?” The spy could only avert his eyes, falling into a sullen silence as Gero smirked down at him.

Another moment passed, and then Momo spoke for the first time. “Why were you watching us?”

The elf let out a deeply held breath, even still unable to hold back his contempt. “It is my duty to scout these woods for any threat,” the elf sneered, his eyes scornful as they beheld the little cleric. “AND to weed out those unworthy of sharing our lands. And after a full day of watching you three gorge yourselves on pig, a-and fucking cavort, I can say without question that I have never met a more disgusting race. What ARE you?!”

Momo folded her hands, her response possessing a quiet strength that was unfamiliar yet entirely fitting. “We’re kobolds.”

The elf stared up at Momo for a brief second, then slowly craned his head around to take in his other two captors as well. It almost seemed as if, having been directly told what they were, the system was connecting the rest of the dots for him. “Kobolds! Kobolds she says!” The spy couldn’t hold back a peal of braying laughter. “You’re nothing but up-jumped mongrels! We know you, you worthless little hamsters! Oh Gods, it will be a delight when my people come and slaughter you all!”

Shin tilted his head, dropping the elf’s emptied pack. “It’s not just you?”

“Not a CHANCE, you morons! When I don’t make my report tonight, the waystation captain will send the rest of the Rangers to hunt you beasts down! You think one Oaken Ranger is frightening? Just wait until a HALF-DOZEN are after your hides!”

“Interesting.” Shin unfolded the map he’d pulled from the ranger’s gear, immediately noticing the helpfully marked waystation at the south end of the zone. “Wasn’t I just saying we were at the end for boars, Gero?”

The Brute nodded, giving the rapidly paling elf a toothy grin as Momo looked on in resolved silence. “You sure were.”

“It sure was nice of our new friend to point out our next batch of Experience then, wasn’t it?”

Gero leaned her head closer to the now whimpering elf. “It sure was.”

Shin hadn’t planned for this, but the opportunity was too fitting to pass up. The force the spy had described was significantly smaller than the one they’d face at the outpost. Getting a practice run and perhaps an extra Level or two could only be helpful. And if it was too much, and they lost? Well at least they’d learn they weren’t up to the task without personally getting the rest of the pack killed.

He spared the stricken elf a final cold glance before Gero knocked him out with a sharp blow, Momo moving to bind him with his own rope. Oaken Elves, huh?

Shin liked those odds.