Part Fourteen

Hours after the Kobold nest had gone on high alert, night had fully settled in. The monsters, who’d spent the last few hours unsuccessfully searching for the humans responsible for killing their own, had reluctantly turned in for the last hours of the night. They’d maintained a light guard just in case though. Unfortunately, they couldn’t have planned for one of their enemies to be a skilled sharpshooter.

One-by-one, the dozen or so Kobolds on guard found themselves falling to the ground as arrows buried themselves into their throats, an attack that was both lethal and silent. The slain guards didn’t even have a chance to make a noise.

It’s a good thing the sky's clear and the moon's out, or I’d miss at least one shot for sure. Even if Accuracy makes this easier, it’s not like the maximum range of a bow changes all that much. At least, not yet.

Alicia was perched on one of the neighboring buildings, blending into the darkness with Stealth. Combined with the Fairy’s Whisper’s silencing effect, it was extremely difficult for an unobservant target to even notice her, much less dodge her arrows. In a way, she was the most dangerous person in her group.

With her task done, she gave a short, sharp whistle, before slinking away into the dark.

***

[Kobold Shaman's POV]

“BARRRROOOOO!?” (WHHHHHHAAAAATTTTT!?)

“Baro, bar.” (I’m sorry Shaman, but all of last night's guards were just found dead.)

The Shaman often awoke with the dawn, as he believed that one must firmly grasp every opportunity provided by the day. Sleeping during daylight hours was the height of sloth, and something he’d never permit. And so it came as no great shock that the rest of the tribe awoke then as well, which caused the dead guards to be quickly discovered.

“Bawoo?? Graow!” (What? But how? The humans! Those bastards tricked us into thinking they’d fled, when they were really lurking around, just waiting for us to drop our guards. Grrr, alert the warriors! I’ll use my magic to track them down this time!)

“Graow!” (Yes Shaman! Right away!)

The Shaman watched as its protégé ran from the room, before returning to its chambers. Ordinarily, the leader of a Kobold tribe would never purposely endanger them self, but his son had been among the guards, and the pain of knowing it was his decision that cost him his life was eating away at him. The boy had only taken the post because his father had said it was safe.

I swear, I will find those humans, and tear them limb-from-fucking-limb! I will make them beg for mercy. I will use my magic to twist their minds into-.

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!*

“Bawrororo!?” (Incomprehensible babbling.)

Just before the Shaman could fully visualize his revenge, a powerful explosion shook the den, and he could hear the other members of the tribe screaming.

“””””“Baow! Baow! Baow!”””””” ((((((Bees! Bees! Bees!)))))

Bees? Bees. Bees!

There could only be one kind of bee that would cause such fear and panic within the tribe, and it was one that instilled terror into the heart of the Shaman. For these were one of the worst kinds of bees you could encounter.

Giant Bees.

The Shaman’s dog-like face did the Kobold equivalent of paling when it heard the sound of buzzing wings.

***

“Wow, I already knew those things were horrible, but this takes it to a new level.”

“Damn, fuckin' dogs don’t stand a chance.”

“Mn, good work Michael. This is by far easier than clearing the nest ourselves.”

“Haaah….haaaah…..haaaaah…fuck…….you……..all. I’m…..never….doing…that…again.”

“Oh dear, oh dear. Here, [Rejuvenate]!”

Ah Kalia, you’re the only person who cares. Which is kinda sad now that I think about it. Damn those three. Shouldn’t they be worried about me? I just ran a freakin' mile with a shit-ton of giant ass bees after me. The least they could do is ask me if I’m okay.

The bees, if you could really call them that, were a kind of insect-type monster creatively called Vespoids. Gigantic (by bee standards), fast and highly territorial, the damn things were an utter nightmare to encounter. Alicia, Cameron and I had accidentally gotten too close to one of their hives before, and had spent the better part of that day running from them. Thankfully that run-in had also taught us how to deal with the damn things. Let them be someone else's problem.

Vespoids were incredibly single-minded, and would literally follow their target miles away from their nest. But they were also very, very stupid. If you could somehow divert their attention to someone or something else, they’d attack that while leaving you alone.

Just before dawn, I’d gone to the Vespoid hive we’d discovered yesterday, and had set off a Combustion bomb near the hive. As you might imagine, a swarm of bees had begun chasing me. I’d brought them back into town, Alicia had used a barrel of fuel we’d set by the wall last night to set off an explosion, and I’d used the confusion and the Cloak of Shadows to slip away unnoticed. Thus the angry bees were left only with the Kobolds to vent their rage on.

“Hm, I kind of thought the explosion would’ve made a bugger hole than that. The bees are having a hard time getting into the building.”

“Well, it was an improvised explosion. Plus it seems as if the Kobolds reinforced the walls. But I don’t think it’ll matter much. They’ve found the entrances to the air vents on the roof.”

“Ooohh, look at that guy go. He’s just cuttin' ‘em in half one after another. He’d be a tough son of a bitch to take down.”

“Was that a dog joke, or just more of your normal vulgarity?”

“Heh? Why does it matter?”

“Because if it was a joke, I’d find it rather amusing.”

“Ouch! Oh, they got him. Yeesh, those bees are way too vindictive.”

“You know, I’m glad you guys are enjoying yourselves, but I’d appreciate if you at least asked me if I was okay.”

“I mean, Kalia’s here, so if you weren’t okay, you would be. Plus it’s you. I bet you’re secretly thrilled that you just outran an entire horde of bees.”

“No I’m not! That was terrifying, not exhilarating! I had to kill at least five bees that got too close, and I’m nearly out of mana. If it weren’t for Kalia being the angel that she is, I’d be collapsed on the floor right now. Or bee chow.”

“A-a-angel? Michael! Don’t say such things out of nowhere!”

“Aaah, I just can’t win, can I?”

***

It took roughly twenty minutes for the bees to finish their grisly work, but by the end, every single Kobold had been carried off back to their hive. We’d watched the whole thing from the safety of a nearby house, and were thus ready for the mount when the bees cleared off.

Also, you may wonder why we weren’t worried that the bees would steal the food and supplies we were after. Well, there was a very good reason. Vespoids proffered preferred prey alive. While they may take some of it, the majority of the food should have been left alone.

“Phew, they sure cleaned up here, didn’t they?”

“Yeah. There isn’t even any blood. Heck, they even took the corpses of their own with them. If only they weren’t such a pain in the neck, I’d actually appreciate their efforts. They might be more conscientious than most humans.”

“Careful everyone. There could still be a few stragglers left behind.”

The Kobolds had done a decent amount of renovations to this place, using makeshift wooden walls to section off different spaces. They’d also torn the store's shelves apart, though it didn’t look like they’d gotten to use them yet.

Hm, there’s quite a few beds and stuff in here. Did they drag them in from the nearby houses? Just how smart are Kobolds. I figured that they were more intelligent than other monsters based on the modifications they made to this place, but knowing how to take apart and rebuild beds? Huh, I learn new things every day.

For the most part, the storefront was where most of the living spaces were at, and the backrooms were where the Kobolds had stored their supplies. It didn’t take us long to find it, but boy were we in for a surprise.

“Wow, that is a lot of food. There’s got to be enough here to feed us for a few months.”

Most of it was non-perishable items, like dried or canned goods, but there was also stuff that had a shorter shelf life, like juices and some prepackaged baked goods. Looking through it all, it appeared that the Kobolds had focused on eating the easily spoiled foods first and kept this stuff for later. And they’d also gone to the effort of drying and salting some of the meat, turning it into jerky. So again, those Kobolds were clearly more intelligent than I gave them credit for, but all their efforts were in vain. Only we would benefit from everything they’d done.

“Hey guys? Come check this out!”

Alicia had yelled something from an office, so we all gathered there to see what she’d found.

“That’s… Mana Steel, isn’t it? I recognize it from when we cleared that spider nest. It’s unprocessed, but there’s a decent bit here.”

“Mn-hm. But there’s more! Analyze says that these two are called Flaudicite and Coracite. They’re both magical metals.”

“I’ve heard about the first one before. There was apparently some research being done into it shortly after the System first appeared, but I don’t know if it ever went anywhere.”

“Hm, interesting. Hey Alicia? Didn’t you get some sort of metal back in the Siege Dungeon? Whatever happened with that?”

“Oh, uh, Cameron took it with him.”

“…”

“Uh, uh! It was just, it was one of the materials he needed to upgrade his axe, so I thought that if maybe he ever wanted to rejoin us in the future, that would remind him. Uh, don’t be angry?”

“I’m not. Just…thinking. I wonder what he’s doing?”

I missed the big guy. While I’d been angry when he left, time had caused me to cool off. He’d clearly been struggling with something back then, and hadn’t wanted to burden us with it. Maybe I should’ve tried talking to him about it?

“Ahem. Anyway, there’s got to be close to thirty pounds of ore here, but why did the Kobolds have this stuff? You don’t think they were mining somewhere, do you?”

“It’s possible, but I’d imagine that there’d be more if that was the case. Plus it should be all one kind of ore, instead of mixed like this. They might have just brought this with them when they came from wherever monsters come from. Like their weapons.”

“Ah, that makes sense.”

I’d never put too much thought into the whole ‘monsters appearing from nothing thing' before, but that made some sense. They clearly came from somewhere, especially since many had weapons and armor.

“Hey, are we done here? I’m starting to feel creeped out the longer we’re here, and I’d like to go take a nap.”

We had all stayed up most of the night in order to deal with the Kobolds, so a nap sounded pretty good. Though I didn’t know what Kalia was talking about. I didn’t feel a thing.

***

It watched as the humans finished their pillaging. Having been newly-born, it was still too weak to exact revenge. It would need to prey upon those weaker than it if it wanted to satisfy its hunger. The thing flew upwards, disappearing from sight quickly, never even giving the humans a chance to spot it.

And yet, an extra pair of eyes hiding in the shadows had done just that. Though unlike the other watcher, these eyes were filled with fear and joy, not wrath and hate.