Author's Note: OK, so I may not have said this specifically, but I had thought it was heavily implied. I see that I will have to state it explicitly here though.

I am doing my best to make this story different to the original RE: Monster story. Gobujiji is the ONLY character that will be imported from RE: Monster. Rou and his crew DO NOT exist in this world and as last chapter definitely should have made clear, there is not going to be any appearance by Kazıklı Bey either, as it is a polearm and thus, not something that Gobuto likes to wield.

No, I am not going to change my mind here. My story, my rules. I will ask for opinions if necessary, but at the end of the day, it is my story to write and I cannot write something that I dislike and I dislike the idea of being so lazy as to just randomly include characters from RE: Monster in a totally different world.

With that said, enjoy the chapter.

Read and Review! Also, check out my other stories! Also, look at my profile for my update schedule before asking in a review or a PM!

"I'm a Goblin…" - Regular Speech.

'…So what?' - Thoughts.

{Is the Title} - Voice of Heaven Announcement.

Chapter 7: Orc Invasion

Things were not going according to plan for Dia. That was actually something of an understatement; Sapphira and Jadia were knocked out and missing respectively, Emrelda had been hit by one of Tayuya's [Sonic Arrows] and the pink-haired bitch had someone or something helping her take them down!

'Could this entire thing be some kind of setup?! Did that bitch plan this!? Did she goad me into attacking her?!' the crystalline harpy thought, sweating as the sound-user glared evilly at her, before shaking her head and trying to dispel the panic that was twinging on her thoughts. She could easily recall the look of shock that Tayuya had worn when they ambushed her at the village's outskirts and dismissed that notion.

No, they had managed to catch the pink-haired harpy completely off-guard with their attack. So the only other option was a spur-of-the-moment alliance with a being she had met when she pulled her disappearing act? That was more likely. A kobold? Something else?

"Dia! What do we do!?" Ambra called urgently from ahead. Emrelda was still shaking off the effects of the [Sonic Arrow] and was thus still dazed and groggy.

"'What do we do'?!" she snapped backed, practically roaring in her fury. "Kill her!" She would be damned before she let this offspring of common warriors outdo her again!

Uncertainly, Ambra narrowed her eyes at Tayuya. She may not have a powerful blessing from a god or demigod like Sapphira and Dia, nor did she not have access to a unique type of magic like Tayuya, but what Ambra did have was a skill called [Underdog]. It granted her extra TOU when facing an enemy that was more powerful than she was, as well as increasing her LUK. As the lone harpy was two levels higher than she was, it would doubtlessly activate.

What worried her was that Tayuya had developed at least three devastating sound-based spells during her time at the village. At the start, all the sound magic had been able to do was increase or decrease the amount of sound that she or another harpy could hear, but the pink harpy had practiced with that skill almost fanatically, eventually developing the Tier 1 spell [Sonic Arrow] as a result. Her two other spells, that the other harpies knew about at least, were a Tier 1 and Tier 2 respectively; which was an astonishingly amazing accomplishment for a harpy only six months old.

Ambra, like the other harpies of her little group, was head over talons in lust and possible love with Dia, but the prospect at being hit by [Sonic Shriek] or [Sonic Drill Arrow] would make the most ardent swain pause before leaping into the line of fire. Both of those hurt like hell and [Sonic Drill Arrow] was a Tier 2 spell and was thus a hell of a lot more powerful than either the basic [Sonic Arrow] or [Sonic Shriek]. Ambra had once seen Tayuya use the powerful spell to pierce straight through a boulder all the way to the other side.

"What's the matter, cunt-licker?" Tayuya sneered.

"Grrrr….!" Ambra was almost as hot-headed as her lover and having her orientation mocked was akin to a red flag to a bull. "[Underdog]!" with a snarl she activated her skill, and an orange glow instantly suffused her body as it activated successfully.

"Huh…so you had that up your sleeve." The pink-haired harpy noted absently as the yellow-feathered harpy shot toward her, though her smirk never wavered. "Not bad…but not good enough. [Sonic Shriek]!"

Tayuya opened her mouth and screamed, unleashing a large blast of sound at her enemies. It struck all three at once, making them wail and shriek in pain as their ears were assaulted by the powerful attack. Even Gobuto, stealthily climbing the tree near Dia, winced at the sound, although he was fortunately out of the Area of Effect, so his HP didn't drop.

Emrelda, having only just recovered from a [Sonic Arrow] to the head, was unable to handle the [Sonic Shriek], falling unconscious as the destructive sound wave pounded at her skull. She was, fortunately enough, hovering over a branch when that happened, so the fall likely wouldn't kill her.

"Emrelda!" Ambra yelled out in concern for her companion before whirling on Tayuya in a fury, "Why you…!"

She reengaged her charge, aiming her talons at the pink-haired bitch's neck. With a dismissive snort, Tayuya folded her wings and fell a sew feet to dodge the attack before flaring and flapping them to shoot up again, slamming the hardest portion of her skull into Ambra's solar plexus.

While they may have had close levels, it was important to note that in terms of combat experience Tayuya, with her memories of countless shinobi battles, had a near insurmountable edge. One that the younger harpies had little hope of overcoming with their number advantage curtailed.

"Gah!" the harpy choked out, almost falling from the powerful blow, but barely managing to flap herself away from her enemy.

"Huh…ain't that a shocker?" Tayuya smirked, "You're a bit tougher than I gave you credit for. Though, it's probably only thanks to that skill you used that you weren't knocked out. Lucky you, bitch."

"Ambra!" Dia shrieked as the pink-haired harpy calmly backhanded her yellow-winged lover and knocked her for six. Eyes rolled back and her stamina pushed beyond the limit of even her [Underdog] skill, Ambra collapsed like a puppet with cut strings, only stopped from falling by Tayuya grabbing her by her clothing using her leg talons before absently dropping her onto a nearby branch.

"And then there was one." Tayuya stated, a suitably evil grin spreading across her face as she started to crack her knuckles, "Oh, I have been waiting for this since you ambushed me, bitch!"

The crystalline harpy was beside herself with despair and fury. Why was this girl constantly getting in her way?! Dia was of strong bloodlines that dated back generations, while Tayuya was of a random coupling between a human soldier-turned-slave and a low-ranked harpy warrior! Even if she had a rare type of magic, there should have been no possible way for her to become so proficient with it so quickly!

"Damn you…damn yooooouuuu!" Dia shrieked. She had the blessing of the Lesser God of Jewels and Precious Stones, an unheard of blessing for a harpy. Her wings were not simply crystalline in appearance; they actually WERE crystal, a visible sign of her blessing, as well as a weapon for her to use.

"[Crystal Daggers]!" she snarled as she gave her wings a single strong beat, aiming them directly at Tayuya and launching a barrage of six-inch long, crystalline feathers at the Reincarnator.

"Get real. [Sonic Arrow]!" Tayuya snorted, blasting the crystalline missiles out of the air and destroying them. Sound, when attuned to a certain pitch, could shatter glass and crystal quite easily. Tayuya, as a former kunoichi who had specialised in sound and music-based attacks, knew this very well, which was why Dia was almost completely helpless against her. It didn't help that at her current level, the crystalline harpy was limited to using only a single form crystal for her attacks, so Tayuya only had to find and memorize a single frequency to destroy her crystals and thus neutralise Dia as a threat.

Gobuto winced as he noticed the almost broken look on Dia's face as she was confronted with a battle she could not win. He'd seen that look plenty of times when he was younger and some over-egoed jerkass had just realised a crazy kid with whiskers was about to ruin all their plans.

He decided to be merciful and put her out of her misery before her brain completely broke…by knocking her out. Wouldn't want to fail his quest, after all!

Dropping down from the tree he was in, Gobuto landed on a surprised Dia before slamming the hilt of his dirk into her jaw once, then twice. The diamond-coloured harpy went down like a pile of bricks after the second blow.

{You have knocked out Dia the Harpy! You gain 280 EXP!}

Grabbing onto a branch and keeping a hold on Dia at the same time was tough, but manageable. Lucky for him harpies were actually quite light for their size. Heaving the unconscious harpy onto the branch, Gobuto saw that Tayuya was glaring at him, looking quite dissatisfied.

"I wanted to take that bitch down!" she growled.

"Hey, she was about two seconds away from having a mental breakdown from realising that you'd managed to beat her!" he barked backed with a growl, "It was already over bar the kicking, and I highly doubt that bringing someone in broken would make your Elders happy, especially this one! We've got to be cautious about how we handle things here Tayuya, this place isn't like the Shinobi world!"

"Tch." The former kunoichi clicked her tongue but gave him a curt nod, "Fine. Guess you have a point, 'Hokage-sama'."

[Quest Complete!]

Plucking Feathers: You successfully disabled two of the five harpies pursuing Tayuya, with her taking down the remaining three. Well done!

Quest Reward: +1500 EXP, +50 SP, [Neutral] Relationship with Tayuya.

Bonus: Knocking Out Dia, the leader: +2 Levels to randomly selected skill.

Randomising…

Skill [Stench] has levelled up! LV1-LV3!

Well that was two wasted levels!

"Fuck yeah! I just levelled up!" the pink-haired harpy smirked.

"I didn't, but that's because I just levelled up this morning." Gobuto shrugged, "So what are you going to do with these five?"

"Tie 'em up and drag 'em back to the village." Tayuya said with a shrug, "No way am I strong enough to fly them up, so dragging them is the best I can do."

"I have rope." Gobuto held up some, "I'll want it back, though."

"Tch. OK." The former kunoichi frowned, "Dunno when I'll be able to get it back to you, though. Fuck knows when the old birds on the Council of Elders and the Chief will get through with this lot."

"Will there be any backlash on you?" the goblin asked in concern.

"Nah, there's a magic artefact that the council uses in cases like this that forces someone to tell the truth." Tayuya shrugged, "'Magic'…hah! Back in our world, magic was nothing more than an idiot fucktard's way of explaining chakra!"

Gobuto nodded ruefully, a small smirk crossing his lips. There had always been priests and priestesses claiming to have 'divine power bestowed upon them by the gods.' Half the time it had turned to be some type of particularly rare chakra or a Kekkei Genkai manifesting in someone several generations removed from a Clan. The other half it had usually turned out to be some act or stunt pulled a charlatan hoping to milk people for whatever they wanted.

Hell, a few times it had actually been the result of demonic chakra either from some remnant of the Tailed Beasts or some other malignant chakra manifestations, like Mōryō or the Reibi.

"Takes some getting used to, doesn't it?" he offered with a snort.

"You don't know the half of it pipsqueak." Tayuya shot back with a smirk

"Guess so." Gobuto conceded, ignoring the slightly insulting nickname. She did have six months experience over him, so it was likely she knew a lot more than he had managed to figure out.

The two were fairly quiet as they gathered up the scattered harpy girls and bound them in the lengths of rope that Gobuto had stashed in his [Bag of Holding]. The sight of the magic bag had raised an eyebrow from Tayuya.

"Where the fuck did you get a magic bag from?" she asked bluntly.

"Spoils from adventurers who were killed before I was born." Gobuto grunted as he tossed Sapphira down next to her fellow harpies, "The older generation either didn't know what it was or were too stupid to realise how useful it could be."

"Makes sense." Tayuya snorted, "From what I hear, ordinary gobs 're thicker than two short planks, with hobgoblins being only slightly less retarded."

He really wanted to defend his fellow goblins, but Gobuto had to admit that she was right. His fellow newborn Goblins hadn't even been able to figure out that Horned Rabbits attacked with their horns.

Sheesh. He had been born amidst a race of idiots.

"Later, shithead." Tayuya rose into the air and grabbed the lines of rope that were attached to the waists of the girls. "Dunno when I'll be back, but don't die before I make good on my side of our deal."

"Back atcha." Gobuto smirked, then winced as Tayuya flew off, dragging the five bound harpies behind her across the ground, uncaring of anything that they might hit on their way…such as rocks, boulders or even the occasional tree.

"[Analyse Creature]" he tried before he lost sight of the pink harpy.

[Your skill is of insufficient level to analyse this creature.]

"Figures." Gobuto sighed. He started to trudge back to the cave. He was now hungry again after all that running and climbing, so he decided to hunt a Horned Rabbit or two on the way back.

He was a growing goblin after all.

The Next Day

Gobuto had woken up early this morning and had decided to busy himself with making more spears. They were fairly popular with the other goblins since they kept any enemies at arm's length and gave them a bit of reach against anything bigger or stronger than them. Which, considering they were Goblins, was pretty much everything.

'Yesterday was a pain.' He thought irritably as he worked. The fuss and feathers (no pun intended) that had been kicked up by his group's run-in with the harpies had taken him an age to calm down. Some of the stupider goblins (which really said a lot for how stupid they were) wanted to go and kill them. Given that these idiots were barely Level 4, the only ones ending up dead would likely be those morons.

So Gobuto, being the kind and caring leader he was, had gently dissuaded them with several doses of percussive persuasion (read: he beat them up until they couldn't move).

Once he had made his thirtieth spear a pop-up made him smile.

[Crude Spear Making] has levelled up! LV1-LV2!

This meant that his spears would be made with better stats from here on out, which was good. What was bad was that it had taken thirty-plus spears to level it up and Gobuto wasn't sure that the skill was worth the hassle of levelling it up.

'Meh. I'll just keep making spears when I can and not worry about the level of the skill.' He decided. It wasn't as if the spears were going to be used against anything but Horned Rabbits. The goblins seemed to be very fond of Horned Rabbit meat for some reason, preferring it to almost any other meat when they could get it.

Speaking of meat, it was time to do the [Food for the Pot] quest and hunt some meat. Stacking his finished spears against the wall of the cave he had persuaded Gobujiji to make the goblin armoury, Gobuto set out to track down Goburyū and Goburimi.

After making a quick stop at the treasure room, he found Goburyū practicing with his club in an isolated area of the main cavern.

"Gobuto!" the big male goblin greeted him with a smile. The goblin was still dense, but also loyal, Gobuto's second in command over the others who had quickly become his precious minions. Saying it like that, even in his head, made Gobuto feel like some kind of villain. He'd have to refrain from doing that in the future.

"Ready to hunt, Goburyū?" he asked.

"Always!"

"Good. Then you can have this." Gobuto said as he reached into his [Bag of Holding] and drew out a short Warhammer that was around about the right size for a goblin to use. It had probably once belonged to either a Dwarf or Halfling warrior, but from now on this weapon belonged to the awestruck Goburyū.

[Steel Warhammer]

Average Quality Hand Weapon

A hammer designed to be used in combat first and foremost. In the hands of a skilled warrior, this weapon can smash skulls and rend armour with ease. Even a relatively unskilled warrior is a danger when carrying this weapon, as it can be turned over to use the spike on the opposite side of the hammerhead to pierce through armour and open it up for others to attack through.

Special Feature: [Armour Piercing Spike]: If flipped around, the user changes to the second damage profile shown below. Additionally, any armour struck by this weapon in either profile has its Durability reduced by an additional 5 points per hit.

Blunt Hammer Profile:

Slashing Damage: None

Piercing Damage: None

Concussive Damage: S+25

Armour Piercing Spike Profile:

Slashing Damage: None

Piercing Damage: S+30

Concussive Damage: S

Gobuto could see that this was the best weapon for Goburyū in case he ran into more heavily armoured opponents like the [Outcast Orc]. A basic wooden club wouldn't have helped him there, even if the idiot hadn't been paralyzed with fear.

"Th-thank you, Gobuto!" the other goblin said as he clumsily picked up the hammer by the handle.

"It'll take a while before you become used to it, so carry it around with you." Gobuto advised, "Where's Goburimi?"

"She's talking with Gobujiji about something." The other goblin replied, still fascinated by his plain, functional weapon.

Looking around, Gobuto spotted Goburimi, who was indeed talking to Gobujiji, waving her arms animatedly. The old goblin was stroking his beard as he listened and nodded slowly in agreement with whatever the female goblin was saying.

Walking on over, Gobuto hung back a bit so they could finish talking. It only took a couple more minutes before the old goblin shuffled off to leave and Gobuto approached his female teammate.

"Yo, Goburimi!" he called out from almost directly behind her, startling the female Gob.

"EH!? Gobuto?!" Goburimi leapt back in surprise, "When did you get here?!"

"Just a minute ago." He answered honestly, "What were you talking with Gobujiji about?"

"I was convincing him that we need a proper leader." Goburimi answered, looking down and scuffing her bare foot on the stone floor, "I mean, everyone knows that you're the strongest of us all and we usually do what you say, but some of the others are starting to act a bit…shady."

By that she meant that they were stealing food from other goblins rather than hunting it themselves. Again, it was the low-levelled morons doing this. Gobuto had already planned another round of gentle, disciplinary pummelling for those assholes.

"If you were our official leader, you could punish them if they keep on pulling this crap." She concluded, "It's getting to the point that some of the others are thinking about taking care of them."

Naruto nodded, it was a good idea to give him a bit of official authority to stop the others from doing something rash and stupid. Which was odd, though not in a bad way, since his species was, as he stated before, made up of idiots.

Curious, Gobuto activated his [Analyse Creature] skill and scanned her.

Goburimi – Level 7

S: 15

T: 10

D: 15

I: 17

W: 20

Well that explained that. She had allocated a lot of her points towards her mental skills rather than focus on improving her physical ones like Goburyū had. Goblins were usually dense as rocks, so it must have been his own example of using his brain that inspired her to do that.

"Good idea." he agreed, "Anyway, Goburyū and me are ready to go hunting. You want to come with?"

"Yes! Just let me load up on spears!" the female goblin said eagerly. She scurried off to grab her bag of the things.

'She really likes those things.' Gobuto thought in bemusement. They were weapons of only marginal usability, yet the female goblin was very fond of them, seen practicing with one at least some of the day when hunting, and quite a bit of the day if it was raining.

It was odd, but there had been worse fixations…Tenten's love of sharp, pointed objects used as projectiles, for example, or even Sakura's 'secret' BL fixation. Gods all above, the nosebleeds she got when one of Konohamaru's students had somehow learned the Reverse Harem Jutsu and featured several people that Sakura had been attracted to (Sai, Sasuke, a few other people) when she had used it in front of Tsunade's Second Apprentice had been both…entertaining and disgusting to some degree.

Shudder.

He quickly repressed that disturbing memory back into a dark corner of his mind and focused on checking his equipment. It was time to hunt.

Later

In the Forest

"Something's wrong here." Gobuto muttered as he looked around at the trees suspiciously, "We haven't seen a single Horned Rabbit since we started, and this area is usually thick with them."

"Yeah." Goburimi nodded, a spear clutched in her hand.

All that they got from Goburyū was the rumble of his stomach.

When he was wandering around the edge of a clearing a few minutes later, Gobuto was struck by a sense of wrongness. Looking down, he saw several broken branches on the closest bush, plus a familiar lingering scent.

"Shit!" he cursed, thanking whatever determined that he received the [Instinctual Tracking] skill the day before yesterday, because it had told him that someone had disturbed this area.

"What's the problem?" the female goblin asked in concern.

"Goburyū, do you smell that?" Gobuto demanded.

The burly goblin sniffed where Gobuto stood then recoiled. "Orc!"

"Yeah, and not just one or two either." The former Hokage said grimly, "There're signs of at least ten or twenty of the things passing through here. At a guess it was sometime last night."

"Th-this isn't good!" Goburimi gulped, "We only have thirty goblins! If that many Orcs come for us, we're finished!"

"We just have to make sure that they don't find our cave." Gobuto responded calmly, doing his best to reassure her, "You two head back and let Gobujiji know about the orcs, tell him to keep everyone back in the cave for now."

"Wh-what'll you be doing, Gobuto?" Goburyū asked with a gulp.

"I'll be finding the Orcs' main camp so we know to stay clear of that area." the former ninja answered and dashed into the bushes. He clambered up a tree and started to follow the clear signs of a group of large beings smashing through the foliage with little care as to who may be following them. Seriously, a half-blind gerbil with a concussion could follow these Orcs!

He took care to have all three of his concealment skills active as he travelled and, much to his surprise and delight, his [Instinctual Tracking] skill levelled up en-route. Because it was a passive skill, it automatically registered any incongruities in the surrounding area and brought them to his attention with a sense of wrongness about the area in question. And, as he kept following the trail, new things kept being discovered and thus feeling wrong to him, thus levelling his skill up pretty damn fast.

He paused at the edge of another clearing and carefully brushed a bundle of leaves aside to peer into the clearing. Fighting against some dog-like humanoids were the Orcs, and these guys far more intimidating than the [Outcast Orc] he had backstabbed recently. All of them were heavily-muscled walking walls that looked like they could the Akimichi back home a run for their money, although they did look as if they were a bit on the hungry side.

Orc Soldier – LV10

Orc Sergeant – LV12

Lesser Orc Lord – LV15

There were ten of them all told; eight [Orc Soldiers] at Level 10, dressed in leather armour and steel helmets and armed with large scimitars and round shields, an [Orc Sergeant] at Level 12, wearing slightly better quality leather armour and carrying a battle-axe of monstrous size that looked razor sharp, and a [Lesser Orc Lord] at Level 15, wearing steel armour, including greaves, gauntlets, pauldrons and a chainmail shirt, but no helmet. His weapon was an enormous greatsword that was three times the height of Goburyū, who was the tallest goblin in the cave.

The dog-things were wearing piecemeal pieces of armour; a chestplate, bracers and light greaves and that was it. They wielded spears for the most part, with one or two carrying longswords. There were roughly ten of them as well.

Kobold Warrior – LV10

Kobold Warrior Chief – LV14

So these were Kobolds? They looked like dogs or wolves standing on their hind legs. They were also fairly quick, a lot quicker than the Orcs, but the Orcs were able to tank a lot of hits from the Kobolds' spears and swords. Two of the Kobolds had been forced to fall back due to injuries compared to the single orc which had a bad stab wound in its left shoulder.

The growling and barking of the Kobolds didn't sound like any language to Gobuto, but he assumed that it had to be a language, as they were coordinating their attacks on the Orcs. The squeals and grunts of the porcine monsters were a bit more recognisable to him, but again, he had no clue what they were saying.

It didn't actually matter. The Orcs were the invaders here and this was east of the goblin cave system, so the Kobolds must belong to one of the tribes Gobujiji was talking about a couple of days ago.

What he was planning on doing was what one might call utterly foolish, but none of the orcs could reach him in the trees and they didn't exactly look like the sharpest knives in the drawer anyway.

"[Mana Bolt]!" he whispered, unleashing the magic attack at the injured Orc before tree-leaping away to the left.

The [Mana Bolt] slammed into the head of the [Orc Warrior] and made it squeal loudly in pain before slumping forwards slightly, stunned. The other Orcs ignored their wounded compatriot as it had been shrieking every so often and they were focussed on the enemy.

The Kobolds, however, did see the magic spell lance out and hit the Orc and didn't question the fact that they had an ally in the forest. So when a second [Mana Bolt] slammed into the almost comatose orc and killed it, they howled to cover up the death rattle of the Orc.

{You have successfully slain an [Orc Warrior]! You gain 250 EXP!}

Gobuto smiled grimly. Those were the only couple of free shots he was likely to get. Anything further would alert the other orcs that he was there. Now would be the prudent time for him to withdraw, but he wasn't going to do that. Naruto Uzumaki was never one to turn tail from a challenge and neither was Gobuto.

"[Mana Bolt]!" he snarled, "[Mana Bolt]!"

The two bolts of magic sped from his hand and struck the [Lesser Orc Lord] right in the back, making him wonder if the [Backstab] skill applied to magic or not.

The squeals of pain from their leader distracted the other Orcs enough for the Kobolds to redouble their efforts on them, scoring a good handful of blows against their attackers, with even the wounded Kobolds getting back in the action.

"[Mana Bolt]!" Gobuto fired another blast of magic at the [Lesser Orc Lord], scoring a hit on the monster's right wrist and blowing off its hand.

{You have successfully 'disarmed' the [Lesser Orc Lord]! You earn 50 EXP!}

Wincing at the appalling transparency of that dreadful pun, Gobuto sent out another [Mana Bolt], this time at the [Orc Sergeant], who was oinking at the [Orc Soldiers] and waving its large fatty arms in the general direction of where Gobuto was hiding. Once more, the bolt struck the Orc's head with a nice little explosion, staggering it with a porcine squeal of pain.

[Mana Bolt] has levelled up! LV1-LV2!

[Mana Channelling] has levelled up! LV1-LV2!

The [Lesser Orc Lord], clutching the stump of its wrist and having abandoned its broadsword, let loose a long and high-pitched squeal that made the other Orcs look around at him and then fall back to form up around him. Not even trying to recover their fallen comrade, they double-timed it to the far side of the clearing away from both Gobuto's position and the snarling Kobolds. They vanished into the trees with a chorus of triumphant howls from the Kobolds.

Job done, Gobuto slipped away and started heading back to the goblin caves. He had to make a plan to deal with these Orcs. He wanted to go out and grab the Orc corpse to chow down on them, but he had no idea if the Kobolds would attack him or not, so he decided, regretfully, to forgo that for once.

With the Kobolds

Rufus Lupus, Warrior Chief of the Broken Fang Tribe of Kobolds, huffed and sheathed his sword across his back. The damn Orcs had come close to overwhelming them before an unknown individual bombarded the Orcs with what looked like a [Mana Bolt] spell. That had allowed the Kobolds to rally and deal some damage before that foolish orc, who had been the fattest and had thus been the leader, had had his hand blown off by a lucky shot. Combined with the temporary incapacitation of the second in command of the group, that had prompted them to retreat…for today.

"Frey." He addressed his son.

"Father." He nodded. Like his father, Frey Lupus had brown fur with white splotches on his face. Unlike his father, he also had a black spot over his eye that came from his mother.

"Go and sniff out who it was that was aiding us against those damned Orcs." He ordered, "We owe a debt to them."

"Yes, father." Frey nodded and sped off to follow his father's orders.

"That was too close, Rufus." A grey-furred Kobold grunted as he shouldered his spear, wincing at the cut on his arm. He was lucky he was still so spry despite his age, otherwise he would have lost it.

"Agreed, old man." Rufus wasn't any happier than the old-timer about that, "Why would the Orcs choose now to send a raiding party here? There hasn't been war among the tribes here in two generations, and that was the last time that they tried…and failed."

"That's why, I'd wager." The old Kobold growled, "We may have been tired back then from war, but we were also at the top shape when it came to combat. We put aside our differences thanks to the Wood Elves' intervention and fought them off until they were less than a tenth of the number that started out. With two generations of peace, we're not as strong as we once were and the tribes have spaced out so as not to start a war again."

"In other words, the orcs think we've gone soft and can be defeated in detail." Rufus growled, "I think the elves should be made aware of this incursion."

"That will not make the Chief happy." The other Kobold warned his friend, "Nor the Matriarchs."

"The Chief is a pussy-whipped fool with his balls removed and decorating his mate's ears." The Warrior Chief sneered, "And those contrary old bitches can't have it both ways. We cannot be the strongest without proving it to others and we cannot prove it to others without interacting with them. The Iron Claw Tribe has risen in strength with their trading with the elves, while we languish in our isolation. These Orcs are a good excuse to make the matriarchs see reason."

"Matriarchs see what they want, not what is actually there." The old Kobold snorted, "By the way, that whelp of yours is coming back."

"He's not a whelp, old man." Rufus retorted as Frey approached, "He fought well for an unblooded warrior. Had his spear not snapped, he would have killed one, I am sure. My son, what word do you bring me?"

"Father, whoever it was hid in the branches of the trees and left no visible signs of their presence there." The young Kobold answered, "It was almost flawless, save for slight depression in some moss, as well as a scent trail. It was a goblin, father."

"A goblin?" the Warrior Chief repeated in confusion.

"A goblin." Frey confirmed, "Whoever he was, he arrived just as the tide turned against us and left moments after the Orcs. He wore items of steel, father. No rust on them that I could scent."

"A goblin…" Rufus shook his head, "Has to be the old Wailing Morn Cavern tribe. They're the only goblins in the area. Last I heard, most of their powerful members left on a raid though, over two weeks ago or so. Does this mean this is a new goblin? One that's got an inherent skill with magic?"

Monsters had an easier time of it when it came to skills compared to humans and the like. As with other races, they were either born with the skills or they learned them. What was different about monsters was that it was actually rarer for monsters to be born without a skill of some sort, rather than the other way around. Magical skills of any stripe were some of the rarer skills available, and it brought with it the basic [Mana Channelling] skill to allow its use, as well as the simple [Mana Bolt] spell. All magic casters could use [Mana Bolt], although not all magic casters chose to use it. It was useful, yes, but as it was so common, making a shield that could specifically negate it was child's play so long as another magic caster of any skill could experiment with it for a day or so.

"Looks like it." The old Kobold grunted, "What now?"

"We tend our wounded and grab that oversized sword." The Warrior Chief stated, gesturing at the broadsword, "Leave the Orc to rot. We have to convince the Elders and the Chief to call a Forest Council for the first time in two generations. Orcs are far worse than goblins; they breed like cockroaches with anything that's female and fertile and they have no ability to restrain themselves or their desires. At least goblins only go after human and elven women!"

A rumble of agreement came from the other Kobolds.

"A war again…che. These old bones aren't up for that kind of nonsense." The old grey Kobold grumbled.

"Oh, quit your complaining, Lykaon Moonscar." Frey snorted, "You'll outlive even my pups, once I have some."

"Cheeky pup." Lykaon snorted, "As you aren't carrying a weapon, you can carry the damn oversized hunting knife that orc was so kind as to leave behind."

Frey's tail and ears drooped. "Gods of the Moon, give me strength."

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Next Chapter: The Forest Council

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