章 23: Plotting

Rhyuku explained to Aldritch all he knew from why the ogres kept the goblins as slaves to where they lived, the internal structure of the place and everything in between. In just under an hour, Aldritch had learned plenty about his enemies. Surely, information is power.

Aldritch had an idea immediately and shared it with Rhyuku, after all he was the one to execute it.

"You will contact the ogres and tell them of our presence."

"About this, lord, I have already done so from the first day you arrived."

"..."

'This two faced...' He couldn't be blamed...

'There's no way to get them to mobilise their army the way I want.' This was simply because the goblins weren't a threat. Maybe the hobgoblins would be, but just a bunch of the ogres could take care of the entire goblin tribe.

After some thoughts, Aldritch decided. "Send another report saying that this time a warrior tribe has arrived and taken over the area. They are all powerful hobgoblin warriors numbering about 30, and more are set to come in a week's time, taking their numbers up to 60. They have decided that in a week's time also, they will set out to conquer more of the other territories around them. Tell them this, exactly as I have said."

The ogres were close in proximity and were definitely a bordering territory to the small goblin tribe. Now even, the goblin tribe was within their territory.

With that, Aldritch discussed a little bit more before leaving. The massage would reach the ogres in less than half a day since their village was a day's journey away on foot, the same could not be said on a mount. With this, Aldritch waited patiently for a few days before making his move.

The plan was simple, get the ogres to make a drastic move towards the goblin village. It was true that the goblins were weak, but a hobgoblin was an evolved monster and was far stronger than a goblin. A goblin would only have the physical strength of an early teenage humans around 13 years old, while a hobgoblin could be comparable to a human that has undergone some training. Even then, a hobgoblin warrior was another story. They were even more powerful than the normal hobgoblins. One of these guys may even be able to take down two regular ogres and give trouble to warrior ogres enough to tire them out, even though they lose in the end.

The main problem was that, warrior goblins were not monsters that simply crawled out of wells. After this message reach the ogres, they will probably take it an over-exaggeration and therefore will not believe it, after all, how can a monster type that has lower than a 0.001 percent chance of appearing suddenly show as an army no less, simply unthinkable.

For this very reason however, Aldritch was counting on one of the elders of the ogres that Rhyuku assured him would definitely insist they send a scout to see if it's true.

For this scout, Aldritch waited outside the village perimeters in the trees to hide and ambush the scout to be sent. The message would have reached them towards the evening of the first day, and the next day a scout would be dispatched, on the third day or the night of the second day, the scout would have reached the goblin village, so Aldritch looked at all this and made his plans accordingly.

For this, he actually didn't require any help; he was strong enough to run away. He stationed at his position that very night after having an early dinner. He expected the ogres to at least take this somewhat serious, since if the news was true, it would be their territory that would be in danger.

Just as expected, the scout was there late into the night, surprisingly, on foot. It was possible that he had left his mount far away as to carry out the operation as stealthily as possible, so that was no problem. The last thing these kinds of monsters would were assassins, maybe the goblins had some chances, but not the likes of the ogres, 'unless some kind of a mutation happens during evolution and that particular one becomes different.'

That was an 'if' anyway; the ogre who had been sent to scout was anything but an assassin. He did move silently for the most part, but his huge size would give him away at first sight like an elephant trying to hide behind a needle.

Aldritch waited patiently until the ogre was right beneath him, then he let himself fall from the tree unto the ogre's back, making a rustling sound from the leaves on the floor as his feet landed. He did this intentionally.

Hearing the sound behind him, the ogre immediately turned around with his hands balled into a fist, coming in with a strike using his back hand.

Strange enough, there was nothing behind him and his hand had only caught air. He thought it was strange, but he was only lucky since Aldritch would not play any games with him.

In that very moment before he could panic, he saw two pairs of red eyes that almost looked like they shone with a dull hue in them.

Knowing that the ogres might have a better mental immunity, Aldritch first used Minor Compulsion, which would first put the target in a trance before instructions would be given, and to make sure nothing happened and the ogre couldn't resist, he topped it off with hypnosis, Aldritch infiltrated the ogre's mind with just a single word.

"Sleep."

Unable to even retaliate, the ogre fell face first into a hypnotic sleep, just as he had been told to.

"Surely, information is power. "

For the ogre, the command was simple. He was to return and inform his people that there were indeed such monsters. For it to be even more convincing, Aldritch prepared a perfect script long before the ogre arrived. He was going to perform a very complex process of erasing and replacing memories after all.

As things would happen, once the ogre got close to the goblin camp, he was attacked by one hobgoblin warrior who immediately overpowered him because he didn't expect the attack and was given no chance to recollect himself, forced into defence.

He fought with the hob warrior for a while, but all along it was as if he was being played with. In the end, the gob warrior purposefully let him go so that he would tell his people of the warrior's power and that they should come and submit themselves as slaves before a week's time, if not, they would suffer the consequences.

After Aldritch was done crafting the false image of a battle that never happened, he needed clear physical proof to be seen on the one telling the story himself, so he drew out his daggers and carved the ogre up, making the cuts appear as though they were done by bigger blades. Of course, he didn't forget to also input a command in there that would turn the particular ogre into his puppet if he wished.

With that, Aldritch jumped back into the three and after making a signal sound by snapping his finger, the ogre woke up.

Completely drenched in terror, the ogre dragged itself back where it came from, with the sole mission of delivering the message to his superiors.

'I just hope he doesn't die on the way there, the smell of blood is thick after all.'

...

A/N: Hi everyone, how are you all doing?

I have some updates to share with you guys concerning bonus chapters.

After every week;

100 power stones - 1 bonus chapter

200 power stones - 2 bonus chapters

300 power stones - 3 bonus chapters... And so on.

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50 Golden Tickets - 1 bonus chapter