The goblin was hanging loosely at my wolf scout’s mouth. There was fear in its eyes, as it nervously checked its surroundings, seeing the various species before it and realizing right away it was outmatched. It folded its hands together as a sign that it was harmless as it spoke.

  “P-please spare me, I’m no threat!!” The sound of its plea honestly sounding rather pathetic as it continued “I-I was just passing by. I don’t mean any harm!!”

  Just the sight of his begging was draining any sense of caution from us, even from my fellow kobolds who are usually cowardly seem brave by comparison. Though after the initial first impression I started to realize a potential from this encounter. I approached the goblin who didn’t notice me at first, so I had to clear my throat to get its attention. It looked at me with confusion as I presented myself and extended my hand with extra motion.

  “Greetings and welcome to my domain. I am quite curious if there were more of you that live in this area~”

  The goblin could only give a confused look, an expression I was getting quite used to at this point. Rather I puff up my chest with my arms at my shoulders, doing my best to intimidate it.

  Meanwhile, Mordred stood behind me, axe at his shoulder as he glares at the goblin in silence as if to say ‘Answer the question’

  Feeling the pressure, the goblin was quick to answer. “Y-yes yes there are!! They’re not too far from here! I can show you if you want just, please let me go!!”

  I nodded to the wolf, he understood and let him go. The goblin was dropped down to the ground. It definitely looked like it was ready to escape but unfortunately for it I had already considered it and had it surrounded. Seeing its situation, it laughed nervously with its arm over its head.

  “I-it’s not what you think! I was just…. Leading the way yeah that’s it!! Just follow me!!” The goblin immediately turned in a different direction. It was clear it was lying but so long as it didn’t hinder me, I chose to ignore it. As we let the three stooges talk among themselves.

  “Welp there he goes again…. How long till you think he recruits them…”

  “I give it three maybe two days….”

  “My guts saying one…. I can’t believe how used to it we’re getting to this…”

  For this operation I thought it best to go small. So, I decided only to bring Mordred, one orc, and two wolves with me. If I bring my whole group, it will only scare them to death, and I can’t recruit them dead. And this time I made sure to hammer in it hard to Mordred he must not under any circumstance take any hostile action unless I order it! After all those blunders, I realized I’ve been too lenient with my henchman, and I needed to remind him who was in charge.

  “Y-yes boss…” The towering minotaur nervously replies, his body standing upright and slightly shaking. It must have been an interesting sight to see such a huge and powerful creature like him intimidated by a small creature like me. It certainly got the goblin’s attention, probably thinking the same things as everyone else, wondering how I could possibly be in charge.

  It didn’t take too long before we reached our destination. What we saw before us a bit different than what I expected. I was assuming I would see a small settlement, but it turned out it was larger in size than anticipated. There were so many little huts made from branches and at the center a bunch of stones neatly placed in a large circle with multiple burnt branches scattered at the middle. I imagine it was their campfire centerpiece.

  There were multiple goblins of different ages and gender scattered around. They were all doing various menial tasks with the few younger ones playing with one another. It was an actually pleasant sight, after all the depressing and dangerous things I saw within the cavern it was a nice change of pace.

  It didn’t take long though till they noticed us and immediately froze in fear. I nudged at the goblin with us, and it quickly went over to the others, waving its hands to them to prevent them from doing something too hasty, it began informing them of what happened, and I decided to let them chat.

  “What the Inferno have you done?! Why did you bring all these deadly creatures back here?!” one of them yelled at the goblin we encountered, while nervously eyeing us.

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  “What else was I supposed to do?! There’s a lot more of them surrounding me and they demanded me to take them to the settlement! What’s crazier was the one in charge was that weird kobold over there!! I- eehhh!!!” the little goblin was going to continue to talk when a loud growl could be heard,

  The growl was coming off of Mordred, whose muscles were tensing up and his arm was inching to grab his weapon, only stopping after I angrily spoke up.

  “Mordred…” That was enough to get him to stop, his body jumping from hearing me call him out as he managed to calm himself down.

  “S-see?! He has that crazy beast under a strict leash! I don’t know what kind of demands they have but I’d rather not piss them off by saying no!”

  The other goblins started to join in the argument while giving a safe distance away from us. Their conversations started to bore me a bit as they drone on, I was partially tempted to just stop it right there and declare my dominance before I suddenly felt a tug at my garments, trying to get my attention. I checked to see and found that it was one of the smaller goblins. It seemed slightly smaller to even my size, so I imagine it was a bit younger than the others, unlike the others who had fears in their eyes this one instead was giving a curious expression instead.

  The others noticed, with the goblins panicking seeing one of their kind approaching me while my own followers were on the defensive. I quickly signaled them to stop as I looked down and started to speak with the young goblin.

  “Is there something you wanted to ask me?” I asked curiously, wanting to know what it wanted.

  The little goblin took a moment as if wanting to figure out what it wanted to say until it finally spoke “Are you really the strongest one here mister?”

  Before I could even speak Mordred suddenly came into view in lightning speed, his eyes beaming with excitement “You bet the boss is the strongest one here!! He even managed to beat me!!”

  I should reprimand him for that but that admiring look he gives always makes it hard for me to deny. Surprisingly, the goblin responded in the same reaction, almost mirroring the Minotaur’s expression.

  “Really?! That’s sooo cool!! I never knew a kobold could become so strong!! I thought they were supposed to be as weak as us!! Are you special or something?!”

  Mordred didn’t seem to notice that as he continued to join with the goblin in praising me. Honestly it kind of felt a little embarrassing to hear all that. The other goblins were a little dumbstruck, seeing one of their own casually chatting it up with the ferocious Minotaur.

  They chatted for a bit more, almost losing themselves in their conversations when the little goblin began to speak with me.

  “Do you think I could also become as cool as you mister?” It asked, eyes gazing full of unbridled hope that it practically was piercing right through me. It was starting to dawn on me how cute this little fella was. To be honest, they were starting to grow on me a little, so I decided to answer their question.

  “I’m sure you’re capable of that. I look forward to seeing that happened.” The little goblin smiled in response to my answer. They were practically giddy with excitement, and I couldn’t help but watch. I so invested in watching them that I almost didn’t notice a notification appear.

  Now that was certainly a surprise, not only for the fact of already getting one of the goblins to join me, but as a henchman at that. The only other one that was registered as my henchman was Mordred and I hadn’t been able to acquire another since. So, I had to wonder what was the condition that was needed to register as my henchman, I doubt it was because of personal strength as this goblin probably wasn’t much of a fighter. As I was pondering this the young goblin got my attention.

  “Mister, did something happen just now? I feel different somehow, though I don’t know what though.”

  “Well, it seems you decided you wanted to become my henchman and my skill recognized that. It even lets me give you a name, so what do you say would you like a new name? I’m willing to let you pick it out.” I asked sincerely, even if they aren’t going to be that strong, I was already looking forward to working with the little goblin.

  Their eyes were beaming with excitement, “Really, I get to be your henchman and I get a new name?! That’s so cool, uhm can I ask what your name is mister?”

  “It’s Vladimir why, think it would help you decide on a name?” I asked, curious on their response.

  The goblin was struggling to pronounce my name “V-vladi… uhm Mr. Vlad…. Then I think my new name should be V!!”

  As the new notification appeared I noticed that they seemed rather happy with their new name, and I couldn’t help but smile. On the other side the goblins could only look in confusion, seeing the weird young goblin of their settlement apparently joining the even weirder kobold’s group, still wondering what I wanted.