บท 16: Skirmish
After gathering the necessary information, he began to make preparation for his plan.
"And that is another one," he exclaimed, looking at the subjugated goblinin front of him with a smile.
He had sent the rest of the rodents in his disposal to die to make space for the new arrival, and it is a good decision. He now have 40 Demonic Goblins and 60 Normal Goblins in his forces, filling up the system space's space limit.
"Hopefully, this will be enough," he muttered.
[ What are you planning, Master? ]
"A little skirmish. I want to see what the settlement can do and if they possess any powerful people inside, which is highly unlikely but one can never know," he explained.
[ Is that why you subjugate a lot of goblins this time, without demonifying them? ]
"Yes. I afrain if we attack them using the Demonic Goblins there will be some questions and they might just report this to a nearby force," he told the system space.
[ That seem to make sense. But what will you be doing during the skirmish? ]
"I will do a little espionage and grabbed as many books and records as I can. If necessary, I will even record it for further use," he answered, as he make one last preparation before the night skirmish.
-x-
"Hhmm, what is that?"
"What, do you have too much to drink two days ago?"
"Dammit, it's not like that! I feel like something big is about to happen. Something dangerous,"
"Yeah sure, lets not talk about your delusi-"
A raspy gasp replaced the energetic order, as the two other guards looked at their fallen friends with a shock look on their faces. They squinted at the origin of the arrow before their eyes found something of interest, goblins did not wear human's armor and equipment.
"Goblins!" one of the guards yelled while the other headed towards the other location of the war horn, only to be sounded during emergency. Yet, their current situation warrant it as the goblins coming numbered more than 20.
"Every able men, to do the front! Grab the weapons and then set up the perimeter!" the leader, hearing the horn, immediately bark orders, his men following it to the best of their abilities.
He scowled, the number of people in the settlement is around 150, yet not all of them are able fighters. He is lucky this is a recently formed settlements so there are no children yet, but they still need to protect the women, who while could fight, can still be overwhelmed by the goblins.
He had hear enough horror tales of what happen to women captured by the green monsters and he has no desire to allow them to do as their please.
"Make sure the women are all at the center, and armed them," he reminded. "I also want 20 men protecting the warehouse!" he added.
After all, there is a chance that the monsters are after their food. A hungry goblin's tribes would brazenly attack a settlement to feed themselves, or so he heard.
As if to confirm his thought, one of his men shouted, "There are 5 goblins heading towards the warehouse but we managed to repel them!"
"So they are after food," he talked to himself. Which is both bad and good news. Bad because they will not run after many of them being killed, forcing them to kill to the last monsters. But good because they will be running on instinct, making them easier to kill.
Still, he expected casualties, maybe even deaths from the amount of goblins. While they are in a defensive position, they have to spread their forces in case they created a diversion to just get into the settlement.
So, he has to be vigilant for any sign of trouble. The goblins seemed to be gathering, their numbers rising to 50. When it seem their numbers did not rise, the leading goblin roared, the entire tribe bearing their entire force on the northern side.
"I want the rest of the men, except for five at each sides to go to the northern palisade!" the leader ordered. The settlers all headed towards the north.
"Gave the women weapons and order them to head to the warehouse!" he gave another order, this time for the women.
The settlers did what their leader commanded, showing great discipline though there is a lot of mistakes they make.
However, they still arrive first than the goblins, who all worked on destroying the barricades. "Superman to the front!" the spear militia all pointed their spears to the front as they began to move forward, their spears ready to impale the goblins.
For their credits, the goblins seemed to realize this as they back away, with some began to pelt the militia with stones. Thankfully, they also have slingers at the back who return the favor, with greater force and accuracy.
The goblins number began to go down but they also brought them makeshift shield, namely tree barks they rips of from decaying logs which did not serve as much protection but still enough for now.
As they began to push the goblins back, some managed to sneak past and attack his men. Their claws could do significant harm and they also wield bone daggers and stone daggers.
With their smaller size, it is hard for the spear man to kill them when they get to close, resulting in some loses in their numbers. Yet, they still have the advantage especially when the leader barked another order.
"Spearman to the back! Swordsmen to the front!" the spearmen quickly exchange places with the sword militia, who began to overpower and slaughter the goblins.
Yet even as their numbers dropped, the goblins did not retreat, charging like a bunch of lunatic as they seemed to spout out curses in their language.
This confirms the hungry theory and so, the leader keep giving orders to his men to attack the goblins, preparing to exterminate them.
-x-
"Looks like this is the last of them, leader," his right hand man stabbed a goblin at it's head before looking at the leader, who was busy scouring the place while grabbing the mana core of the goblins.
"Seems that way. Send our messenger to go to a nearby town and sell all the mana core. The money should be enough to allow us to expend some more," the leader said.
The right-hand man nodded before leaving, as the leader pondered over something.
"Does another more powerful creatures appear, scaring away all the prey of the goblins and forcing them to attack us? I better tell the man to prepare, though hopefully the creature, whatever it is, will not target us,"
-x-
"Looks like I get a bunch of good loot," Alros said happily. He looked at the document he had copied along with some books. Thankfully, he had bought some books, all of the blank of course, and replace it with the one he get from the settlement.
"With this, we will understand more of the world, or at least this area,"
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