I lowered my posture and then advanced through the tall grass while trying not to make much noise in the area. I figured out that if some enemy set those traps for humans, they should come eventually to check their traps and when that happens, I could attack them. I was pretty certain that the best moment to attack the prey is when they are about to attack another prey as well.

  ‘I want to change my position in order for the wind not to spread my smell, but I guess I should be fine. Maybe rolling on the ground and covering my body with leaves and plants can do something about that.’

  I didn’t know what kind of enemies I would find ahead, I didn’t know if they had a good sense of smell, so perhaps I was worrying too much, but I still decided to cut some of the grass around to cover some parts of my clothes while I remained hidden.

  I didn’t move an inch while I watched the rabbit trying to free itself from the trap. For a while, I wondered if I would have to remain here for long, but at least I didn’t move that much while my patience was being tested. I was only worried if the others would come here and approach and ruin my reverse trap.

  Fortunately, I only had to wait for half an hour before I noticed the atmosphere changing. The sound of birds chirping stopped and I could see them flying away in the sky as well. Eventually, I was able to hear some snarling sounds and then words.

  “Set traps again. Enemies coming, soon.”

  The words came a bit off… for a moment. I wondered if I didn’t hear all of them, but soon I understood why that was the case. When the net began to be lowered, I slowly raised my head and then I saw three small green humans there. Two of them were grabbing the rabbit and lowering the net while another was looking around. They were short and had pointy ears with bead eyes as well. Their weapons were short wooden spears and while they looked skinny and weak, I could sense some savagery in them.

  ‘Goblins?’

  For a moment, I didn’t think too much about that… but why did I know that word? Something was off, but I didn’t have time to worry about that. I silently nocked an arrow and raised my bow when the enemy looked to the side instead of my direction. They were thirty meters away from me, the best of my range, at least it was the case in the guild, so I should be fine hitting them. However, at this distance, they could also reach me in no time, so I couldn’t miss my shots.

  To make sure that I wouldn’t miss, I aimed at the torso of the one checking the surroundings and used Power Shot as well. When I felt confident in my aim, I fired the arrow. The creature fell on its butt in confusion as the arrow pierced its belly and then soon began to grunt before shouting in pain.

  “Grrraaagh!”

  I heard it well… the sound of flesh being pierced and damaged beyond repair. A lot of blood gushed from the wound as the monster shook violently on the ground. The surprising feeling made me flinch for a moment, but that had been a mistake. Fortunately, the other goblins were caught off guard as well. They looked at their ally in surprise before they looked in my direction. I was already standing and ready to fire another arrow before they could think of charging at me.

  “I’ll tear yer throat out, ya filthy human!”

  The one who shouted got hit in the stomach as well when I unleashed another Power Shot. The final one had the chance to charge at me and it was pretty fast, despite being short. Thanks to that, I only had the chance to fire one more arrow. I aimed and didn’t release it… only when the monster jumped and prepared to throw the spear was when my arrow was released since it was only five meters away and I could tell its movements in the air with precision.

  The third flew and then pierced the forehead of the monster, and the creature never had the chance to throw the spear. Its body fell and rolled a few times before stopping in front of me. I took a deep breath and then realized that I could have used the power of the gem to gain some distance, but that hadn’t been necessary, anyway.

  I stared at the dead monster and for a moment, I felt something like a cold hand in my chest, but soon the feeling vanished and then I decided to recover my arrows and check the bodies of the monsters. Aside from a dirty piece of cloth that covered their parts at their waist, they only had a single dirty bag that was filled with fruits and other two rabbits inside.

  ‘I can use these as provisions in case of an emergency, but I should really wash them up… this bag can be useful too if I wash it a lot.’

  I checked the surroundings one more time, and I wondered what I should do with the bodies… it was better to hide them somewhere where their allies couldn’t find them and raise their guards. Still, I couldn’t waste too much time with that, so I put them together and hid them inside a bush.

  I let out another sigh and then decided to move on. That encounter alone made me learn a few things about the monsters… at least the goblins didn’t have a good sense of smell enough to find me thirty meters away, but that could change if I don’t bathe often.

  I checked the footprints of the goblins and then confirmed that they indeed came from the south. Matilda said that there were other human fortresses in the area, but it didn’t seem that there were others in the south, so finding people wasn’t possible if I kept going on this path. I decided to still head south despite that.

  ‘The smell of blood is strong since the arrows pierced them deeply…’

  I tried to clean the arrows as much as possible, but that was quite annoying. I looked around and then used some plants and rubbed them against the arrowhead to mask the smell, but it was better if I found some sort of solution to decrease their odor. I shouldn’t be the only person who had to worry about that before, so other hunters or perhaps the people of the special or crafters guild came up with a solution.

  Using the same arrows wasn’t a good idea, so I kept the clean ones ready to be used as I headed further south. Still, I soon stopped when I saw something odd ahead… There was an area where the grass wasn’t as tall and it looked like a decent path to follow, but the area close to the nearest tree was covered in leaves. I looked around and then tossed a stone on the area that I was heading to a few times, until the stone suddenly sunk on the ground, revealing a half meter hole with spikes at the end and on of the sides.

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  ‘They sure are nasty… It is a trap not to kill, but to destroy the legs of a person. A hole big enough to kill a person would take too long, but this is a lot faster to make.’

  The goblins are savage, but they aren’t stupid. It makes sense that is the case since they can even speak and they speak quite well. That makes things a lot more troublesome since smart enemies are obviously harder to deal with than stupid ones that rely only on savagery and instincts.

  Still, it made me wonder why Matilda didn’t teach me that much. Was it my fault that I hadn’t asked? Or was that one of the rules of the place? Matilda told me that I could buy some lessons to get some skills, but what about knowledge? I didn’t interact with enough people in the fortress to tell that or not, but I had the feeling that a lot of stuff was being hidden from us. We were brought here to help, by force, but we weren’t given enough information, just some basic training to do things.

  ‘Maybe that is the stuff above proving our worth and stuff that the redhead said.’

  “Hehehe.”

  “Gahahaha.”

  “Hihihi.”

  While I was in deep thought, I felt that I had heard something and immediately lowered my stance and hid behind the closest tree. After checking the surroundings, I checked my eyes for a bit and then focused on my hearing… It didn’t take long for me to hear the sound of grass being smashed and a bit of laughter in the distance.

  I turned to my left side and assumed that the sound was coming from there… Since I couldn’t see anything, and I could hear it, it was safe to assume that the wind was helping me with my hearing.

  ‘Is it coming from the beach?’

  That was a bit odd… why would anyone or anything go to the beach? It would be too easy to be exposed and surrounded since there weren’t many options to run away and running on the sand would make people get more tired. Something was clearly off, and I decided to check it since the sound of the laughter seemed to come from the goblins.

  Still, I took my time since I didn’t want to fall for any traps. Thanks to that, it took a good part of one hour to finally reach the targets and see what had happened… I could see three goblins pulling something from behind toward the south. Their base should be there. When I focused my eyes a bit more… I saw two of them grabbing legs. The legs didn’t have boots or anything on them, and it was a bit early for anyone to have come this far as I had. The legs seemed a bit tanned as well.

  Thinking about it would change nothing… The targets were busy, and this was a good chance to eliminate them. I decided to head toward the goblins while slowly approaching and heading south as well. Since the wind was in my favor, the small sounds that I made didn’t reveal my position. The sound of them pulling their prisoners also made it difficult for them to hear anything and they were relaxed, too.

  Once again, I only stopped when I was thirty meters away from them. Thanks to the direction that they were heading and their positions that they didn’t change away from each other, things were a bit more difficult than before. I also could only see them from their side, so the area to hit was smaller. If I wanted to dispose of them, I had to hit their heads. Their arms had muscles and bones that would make the arrows not pierce deep enough, after all.

  I took a deep breath… it was better to use the skill as much as possible, but my aim was a bit better when I didn’t use Power Shot. Not like I needed, since the arrows could easily pierce their skulls as long as they hit the right spot. Without using Power Shot for a moment, the bow was a lot more steady, and I felt more confident with my aim.

  I released the arrow, and it flew straight at the ear of the first target and pierced it. The creature didn’t have the chance to react at all and it just fell to the side like a puppet which had its strings cut. The other two goblins frowned and then saw the arrow on the head of their ally, but at this point in time, my second arrow was already in the air and then pierced the throat of the next beast. It was always useful when they stopped moving thanks to the surprise… that was something I had to learn from, to keep moving even when something caught me off guard.

  When the third beast began to move, it tried to move to a nearby tree to hide. It was pretty smart, but it was too obvious. When the creature reached the tree, an arrow pierced its right leg and then the monster tripped. It tried to get up, but soon it got hit by another arrow, this time on the back that pierced its head.

  As the last goblin collapsed, its body still twitching for a moment before going completely still, I stepped forward and planted my foot firmly on its chest, pushing down just enough to confirm it was truly dead. The stillness that followed, along with my relieved sigh, confirmed the end of the fight. But as I turned my attention to the prisoners, my relief quickly faded.

  My gaze fell upon their bodies, and I felt a cold grip tighten around my chest. These weren’t just any captured people. They weren’t alive, their throats marred by multiple deep gashes, their bodies drenched in blood.

  ‘Why would they try to drag the bodies of their victims to their base?’

  They had no equipment on them, no signs of being affiliated with any guild. It was clear they were not from the fortress, and from the state they were in, I could only guess what had happened. My suspicion was confirmed as I pieced it together: they must have been the ones who refused to join the fortress, the ones who tried to make a desperate escape, setting up a small base near the beach in hopes of finding a way out.

  I crouched down, inspecting them further, but there was little I could do in their current state. The realization that I had stumbled across another group struggling to survive hit me with a strange mix of frustration and empathy. They hadn’t had a chance.

  ‘They shouldn’t have any idea where to go or what to do… but they knew that they didn’t want to be here.’

  They didn’t have any possessions and their clothes had been cut here and there for some reason. Leaving their bodies there wasn’t a good idea, but then the possibility of using their bodies to bait more goblins came to mind.

  ‘Maybe I am not a very good person…’

  Using those who had fallen like that, it clearly wasn’t the right thing to do. I decided not to proceed with that plan and just head in the direction the goblins were heading, but thinking like that still showed some signs of how my mind operated. I decided to leave the bodies in a place that could be easily seen. Other groups could find them or cremate them. For now, I was in enemy’s territory and I couldn’t afford to spend several hours digging graves. I didn’t even have the tools for that.

  I proceeded further south while keeping my guard up. Thanks to that, I managed to ambush two more groups of three goblins just fine, but I was forced to stop my progress when I saw something in the distance… it was like the fortress of the humans, but there was a walled base ahead too. I could see some goblins walking on the walls with bows and keeping their eyes on their surroundings.

  ‘It is around two hundred meters long and I can’t tell how wide it is, but it can probably house more than a few hundred of them.’

  Still, that wasn’t the most troublesome thing that I could see… on the sides of the gate of the goblin fortresses, I could see some bodies impaled on stakes and I felt that some of them looked familiar… they were probably some of the people that came to this place with me, but they didn’t decide to join the human fortress.

  ‘That would explain why they were pulling the bodies… Regardless, I guess I don’t have to show any mercy to them.’

  I could tell that the humans were the ones invading their territory, but I didn’t see any of us until now doing something like that to the enemy. It made me wonder if there was any point in thinking about that. Now that one side had done it, the other side didn’t have any reasons aside from the moral ones not to do the same thing.