章 23: 23. The path to evolution

Five months later.

City of Aurgrad. About three days away from the desolated lands.

{{Carl: Lord of the City of Aurgrad

Ada: Secretary of Carl

Alfred: adventure and explorer guild master of the City of Aurgrad.}}

"My lord, you need to see this." Ada banged open the door of the city lord's office and slammed the paper on the table. "It's an emergency."

*Khakkk*Khakkk*

Carl, the lord of Aurgrad, coughed out the smoke that had entered the wrong pipe from the shock.

"Ada, a little knock would be preferable next time."

"My Lord, we don't have the time for that. Please look at this first. It had come here a moment ago. They will be here within a week."

"Who will it be?" Carl put his pipe down on the table with a frown on his face. However, his expression changed as soon as he saw the seal on the top of the page. "It is an imperial decree!"

Ada nodded, adding, "They are sending an expedition to the desolated land. They had decided to send one expedition every year, so the number of the beast tide wouldn't increase to the point that it would create another devastating beast wave."

"Good for them. But what do they want from me?" Carl ran his eyes through the page, exclaiming, "200 soldiers!? Are they mad? They squeezed our resources dry when they were fighting a war. They did not do a good job or send any help when we reported those beasts hiding in the forest. And now they are…"

Carl didn't read the entire thing and threw it away. "Please calm down, my Lord." Ada grabbed the paper from the floor. "What should we do? Should we send in the recruits?"

Carl smoked the pipe and let out a few puffs of smoke. The war had taken a toll on the number of soldiers in the city. Maintaining order in the city was becoming hard for the remaining soldiers.

Luckily, three months ago, the imperial court allowed new soldiers to be recruited. Although they had finished their basic training, they had no experience. Sending them to desolate land would be the same as sending them to their death.

"How about hiring a few adventurers or mercenaries?"

"Don't you know the situation of the Treasury? If it weren't for the fact that the war had increased the number of merchants in the area, do you think we could even sustain the city?" Carl sighed, adding, "Only this month, I could pay Alfred back everything I owed. Do you want me to borrow more from him?"

"Then?" Ada was well aware of how dire the situation was.

"I am thinking about it." Carl thought momentarily before asking, "What are the numbers?"

"152 soldiers and about 400 recruits."

"Does anyone know about it?"

"I ran straight here." Ada hesitated but added, "Even if they knew that an order came from the court, they didn't know what it was about."

"Okay, don't spread any news."

"But we need to welcome those important nobles."

"Important, my ass. Prepare what you need to."

"What about the troops?"

"Tell them to test every aspect of the recruits over three days thoroughly. We will send the best 50, the weakest 100, and the 50 veterans. Tell them to prioritize their safety over anything else."

Ada was about to respond, but Carl jumped up from his seat, "Forget about it. I will talk to them myself; you take care of their supply and provisions."

***********

[Hilda]

Age: 1/34

Race: Gnoll

Grade: Violet

Level: 21 (0.01/22)

Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Virtue: <Patience>

Sin: <Lust>. <Gluttony>.

Condition: <Cursed>

Strength: 25.9

Dexterity: 34.2

Constitution: 45.8

Intelligence: 100

Wisdom: 100

Charm: 19.1

Free point: 2

Element: Earth/Water/Arbor/*****

Skill: [Fortitude]. [*****]. [Bite]. [Claw]. [Night Vision]. [Dominance]. [Mana perception (Violet)]. [Ancient language knowledge (19.6%)]. [Breathe of Bodhi]. [Tangle]. [Vine Armor]. [Floral Limb(II)]. [Light Healing (III)]. [Herding]. [Bloom(I)].

Prrrr

Prrrrrrrr

The whistles all over the place woke Hilda up. And the first thing she saw in front of her eyes was her status. She didn't get to indulge in it, as the status soon got replaced with the three bars.

[HP: 144.25/144.25

SP: 85.4/85.4

MP: 159.55/159.55]

Although there was not a single enemy in view, the bar was still there. That was because it was her subordinate who was fighting the enemies.

The desolated land wasn't entirely void of trees. However, green is a highly sought-after and limited commodity. Hilda's tree species was nearly unable to thrive in the barren landscape.

And it wasn't just one of them. There were quite a few of them in the area. It was the same kind of tree Hilda had woken up to after creating her core.

She has experimented a lot over the last six months with her ability. Now, Hilda could grow such a big tree in a week with her new ability, [Bloom(I)].

"I think with [Bloom (V)], I might be able to create a forest in a matter of days." However, Hilda had no chance to think about it as the black spots at a distance started to grow.

Prrrr

Prrrrrrrr

"Okay, I understand. You can stop it now." The pair of goblins hiding in the tree stopped blowing the whistle. It wasn't just this tree. All the trees they could see had goblins hiding in them. This was the best security system Hilda could think of.

Unfortunately, other goblin and kobold groups ended up preying on the trees. They didn't pose much of a challenge to Hilda, but they were a hassle.

Now that Hilda had almost subdued all the groups in the area, the raid became less common. "It looks like I have to move to a new area to increase the number. Let's do that after Mia gives birth."

The shadows had taken the shape of a goblin warrior. They were riding wolves.

Hilda's wolf pack also increased to more than fifty. A few of her wolves were guarding them, with Mia at the front.

As soon as Mia noticed Hilda, she ran towards her. Even with her pregnant stomach, she was really fast.

"It is really surprising to believe it was the same doe I had fucked." When Hilda was still hunting at the human settlement, Mia gave birth to their first children in one of those empty houses.

When Hilda discovered that Mia had transformed into a deerkin, she was astounded beyond belief. She possessed the head and legs of a deer, but her body and hand were shaped like a human. Hilda appreciated the fact that Mia had only one pair of human boobs instead of multiple deer nipples.

However, the most prominent feature of her body was her fur-covered white ass with her small tail and the small tattoo right above her abdomen.

Mia ran past Hilda to the tree and returned with human skin. It was a replica of the spell Knir had used on her. Hilda didn't remember clearly at first and had to go through trial and error to find the right one.

The only thing that could sustain the mana circle was the human skin. The end product could change her language, but for only 5 minutes compared to Knir's, which had a time duration of more than 15 minutes.

Hilda tore off the human skin containing the mana circle and turned to the wolf-riding goblins.

[Domincance activated.

Subordinate: 29

Adversaries: 16

Time limit: 04:59]

*Awwwwoooo*

With the flood of energies flowing into their bodies, Hilda's wolves started to howl. Even the goblins at the top of the tree bared their teeth at the guest.

The wolves the guest was riding hung their heads low, not daring to look at Hilda. The goblins were trying their hardest to keep their ride steady.

"Are you the leader?" The goblin warrior asked in a shaky voice. "You are not even a gnoll yet. Our lord is a true gnoll."

"Oh! Really?" Hilda had been looking for a gnoll for a long time. The reason was that she wanted to become a true gnoll as soon as possible.

She wondered whether eating the flesh of a strong beast of darkness would be enough. Alas! The flesh of a goblin lord with a violet aura didn't work.

She realized it might have something to do with her age as she was a couple of months away from turning two years old, or gnoll meat was a real catalyst.

"I have been waiting to meet a 'true gnoll' for a long time." Hilda's smile looked anything but reassuring to the goblin lord. "So, what did your true gnoll have said?"

"The Lord had said if you are willing to submit your land and willing to listen to his order…" The goblin Lord didn't get the chance to complete his sentence before one of his subordinates' cries attracted his attention.

At first, he thought those were snakes or worms. However, they didn't have any mouths. Instead, those things squeezed the goblin and its wolf so hard that their bodies popped like balloons, spreading blood everywhere.

[Level: 21 (0.12/22)]

"What are you doing?"

"What are you expecting?"

"If you kill me here…" Again, the goblin lord failed to complete his sentence before another two of his subordinates were squeezed like a lemon and pulled beneath the ground.

[Level: 21 (0.34/22)]

"I can't help it. These trees also need nutrition. There is nothing better for trees than dead bodies."

The goblin lord dared not wait anymore, so he turned his wolves around and tried to run away.

"Don't catch him. Follow him from a distance, find out about their troops, and hideout." With his words, the wolf pack followed him from a distance.

The rest of the troops were squeezed till they had no blood left in their bodies before the roots of the tree pulled the bodies into the ground.

"Didn't I tell you not to run around?"

Mia looked at Hilda while continuing to chew on the leaf. She showed her red tongue to Hilda before returning to the shade of the tree.

Typically, the deer only mate once a season and wait until the children are big enough before mating with a male again.

That would have been the case if Mia had still been a deer. Their children were also something between deer kin and gnolls.

More importantly, even if she was still breastfeeding her twin deer-kin children, she didn't hesitate to respond to Hilda's advancement. Hence, she was pregnant again.

Hilda wasn't sure what had triggered the change but knew it had something to do with her, like the tattoo on their abdomen. She had first noticed Wani, the first human woman she had mated with.

When Mia became a beastkin, she also had it. And it wasn't just them; even the female goblin and Kobold she had mated with also had the marks.

Although Hilda had never checked, she was sure that even Black Mane and the other hyena she had mated with had this mark.

Another thing she noticed was that all her mates didn't just have tattoos. Having sex and bearing her children triggered an evolution in them.

Like Mia, who had become deer-kin, quite a few female goblins had transformed into goblin mages or warriors, while it was identical for the kobolds.

However, it was Wani who had changed the most. She didn't just become stronger; her mentality changed, too.

"Where is Wani?" Hilda looked around to find her. Wani and Mia are the ones who stick to Hilda the most. Although other mates wanted to come close to her, none dared to fight Mia or Wani for Hilda.

"She went to hunt at the new settlement of the humans. The food was running low."

"Alone?"

"Scar and his pack followed her."

"Only Scar?"

"Do you think humans who could fight against the dire wolves like Scar are that common?"

"Still…" Hilda couldn't help but be worried. All five wolves in her first pack had become dire wolves, a form almost three or four times stronger than ordinary wolves. But she couldn't help but worry a little.

"Boros also with them too."

"Okay." Boros was the only goblin warrior who had survived the visit to the human territory. He had become a kobold lord a long time ago. Hilda felt that he might evolve again soon. "Everybody is evolving except me."

Mia rubbed her face against her fur, adding, "This is so soft."

"But it is so hard to have sex in this form." Feeling Mia's glare, Hilda showed her teeth, mumbling, "I wonder if she would find a good one this time."