As one of the goblins I summoned spoke and introduced himself, the jaws of village goblins dropped. It was as if the goblin had a story to tell. That he in fact was not born just here in this moment, but had a life before being summoned. He had a name, a profession, and an understanding of the goblin tongue at the adult level. He, however, was unable to unearth any memories about his past. Nor did you have any interests or hobbies. It was as if he had an unrecoverable amnesia.

I thought to myself: Maybe the summoning skill creates a being rather than actually summoning a being. The monsters I had summoned so far did have their own professions and names. Regardless, they were not complete. They had no experience of life. It was as if they were manufactured in the moment I summoned them and were uploaded with the skills of their own profession and the knowledge of their names. They knew how to speak, how to move, how to eat, how to sleep, and how to work. But they still had things to learn. Most of the monsters I summoned needed to be thought to do different things. For instance, they had to see another monster mine to understand how to mine. They lacked any intrinsic knowledge besides the basic functions.

Nonetheless, by the end of the small chat and whispers ignited by the talking summoned goblin, it was as if all the goblins came into the agreement. Chief once again opened his mouth.

“Are there more goblins in your dungeon?”

“In fact, there are many.”

The forest, for once again succumbed into a short silence. The Goblin chief opened his mouth undisturbed by any voice.

“We are willing to trade.”

Now this is what I came here for.

“It is relieving for me to hear you say this. I came prepared for a trade, but we were unsure of what you would be willing to trade livestock and resources for.”

I directed my eyes towards Lilith to signal her to show the goblins the goods be brought with us. Lilith shook off the shock off me expanding the dungeon to the outer world and casted magic to open an dimensional storage. According to her remarks, this dimensional storage that she was able to use was a rare spell that many could not even see being used in their entire lifetime. Especially the monsters. It was not very big, but it was big enough for us to bring with us some pick axes some shovels and many shiny stones. The reason for bringing shiny stones was that I discovered many races of monsters including orcs and goblins to be amazed by them as they were dug up in our efforts to manually expand the dungeon with using labor force. According to Lilith, these stones were not particularly valuable as they were not useful and were trashed by many races. Never not durable, not able to store magic, nor were they rare. However, some monsters still had an instinctive attraction to these stones which only had the trait of being shiny on top of being normal.

Goblins’ initial amazement at Lilith’s dimensional storage, was now directed at these shiny stones. I felt proud to be able to figure out a good trade item that is of so little value to me. If the goblins decide to exchange livestock and resources for these shiny stones, we would be in a very good position.

“We are interested in trading with these items. Would you like to come and see for yourself what we have for trade?”

I nodded. Merely microscopically. Lilith followed suit. Soon we were following the footsteps of the goblin chief as he paved the way into the goblin village. There were young goblins, adolescent goblins, elderly goblins, women and men goblins. They were neither building a castle nor a fortress. They were just villagers. ‘Monster’, I thought to myself for the first time in the most straightforward words, is not a word fit for these folks.

The village was populated, I would say. Of course, not as populated as my dungeon, but it still had many more goblins that I had imagined. Perhaps, if I were more careful with my magic to sense blood, I would be able to get a better grasp of their population. Is it possible that my magic was unable to detect exactly how many goblins live in this village? Maybe if I keep practicing, I would be able to improve my magic skills, I think to myself.