Gobba tribe [2]

"-Gob?!"

"-Gob, gob..."

"-Gob!"

Looking down at the now lifeless corpse on the ground, whose purple blood was still streaming out of its mutilated body, I was desperately trying to repress the nausea and the panic inside of me. Because the goblins that had been led by Gobbu had begun to stir, talking amongst themselves while trying to make out what actually happened during our 'duel'.

'I killed him... I killed a living being...'

I had no idea why killing Gobbu was so different from hunting slimes, with the only guess I had being the fact that I probably hadn't regarded slimes as living beings due to their peculiar characteristics.

Now, however, my stomach twisted and turned as if I had just ridden a giant rollercoaster, and it took everything I had not to puke right here and now.

'Fuck... I need to focus unless I want to die!'

Realizing that I still hadn't fully viewed this world as reality, I could only blame my own naivety as I bit my bottom lip in an attempt to overshadow the nausea with pain, while at the same time breathing in deeply.

It didn't make much sense for a demon to take a deep breath as we didn't need oxygen, but it was still enough for me to somehow regain my senses, enough for me to be able to straighten my gaze towards the enemy goblins.

Flaring my wings up once again, showing the grandeur and elegance of the current demon king, I believed that I could see some slight hesitation in our enemies eyes. Even if not all of them, a part of the army were still scared. Scared of the being that had instantly brought down their commander, the strongest one amongst them.

'Fake it till you make it, Aldric!'

"Goblins of the Gobba tribe! I am Aldric the demon king, the future ruler of this world!"

They stared at me in silence, not knowing what to do. Therefore, I stretched out my hand, a symbol for the grace that I was about to gift them, the symbol of my mercy, and spoke straight out of my ass.

"Join me if you want to live, or die a dog's death just like your leader!"

"Gob... gob, gob?"

"Gob?!"

"Gob, gob!"

It didn't take long until a loud murmur could be heard coming from the army of goblins, with a lot of them seemingly discussing their options. During all this time, I could feel my heart beating erratically, with stress consuming each and every part of my being.

'Please work, please work, please work, please work...'

Then, a miracle happened.

One of the goblins took a step forward, looked back, and then broke into a dash toward me. However, just as he was about to get close to me, he slowed down, only to then kneel in front of me.

"Gob!"

"Gob..?"

After this, it didn't take long for a hoard of goblins to follow, seemingly more than half of the remaining ones, all taking a similar stance as the first one, kneeling down in front of me.

'God, goddess... whatever thing you are up there, thank you.'

I wasn't sure what kind of extraterrestrial being I had to thank for this, but I knew that I would never stop being grateful for getting to live another day.

Noticing what was happening, my own troops also drew closer, now taking their stand behind me with all of them looking so extremely proud of their leader. Everyone except for Gob who mostly looked like he couldn't believe it.

This was our victory, a massive victory that was attained thanks to my uneducated mind as well as my total disregard for honor and pride.

Raising my arm once again, pointing it at the goblins who had decided to stay and fight, unwilling to let their leader's death go to waste, knowing that he had died unjustly.

"Kill them all."

*GOBGOB!*

*Pii!*

With that, my forces rushed and flew forward, ready to end the war once and for all. To be honest, it had been so very anticlimactic that it was hard to even call it a war at this point, but for the sake of my own pride, I still decided to view it as such.

It didn't take long until the two forces clashed, and as the deserters of the Gobba tribe now fought on my side, the victor was clear even before the combat began.

That being said, it was still very interesting to see my underlings fight, no matter how sick I felt to my stomach seeing the blood paint the dry fields red underneath the cloudy sky.

First of all was the birds of prey, who skillfully used their wings to fight with hit-and-run tactics, waiting patiently in the air until they found an opening. When they found one, they would swoop down and rip as much flesh as possible with their sharp talons, only to then quickly return to the air again.

The two fairies, on the other hand, were standing as far back as possible, shooting razer sharp gusts of wind at their enemies, slicing limbs and gouging flesh when their spells made contact.

Lastly, we had the goblins, which should have been divided into two different groups.

The first group was the melee combatants, all swinging their clubs wildly, and with the addition of the Gobba forces, their iron weapons as well. There wasn't a lot of coordination to their way of fighting, as they simply fought without any sort of regard for their enemies' life, but also not their own.

Unfortunately, the other group of goblins, the ones I had equipped with bows, had a very large flaw in their way of fighting.

'I forgot to give them arrows...'

Yes, I had somehow in my stress about this upcoming fight forgotten that bows on their own are pretty useless. A fact that still made me commend my little green buddies for doing the best of the situation.

As they didn't have any other way of fighting, they had also joined the melee combatants, simply using their bows as very inefficient clubs as they didn't have anything to shoot with them.

Did it look stupid? Absolutely.

Did it work? Sort of. Thanks to our numbers advantage, as well as the fact that we still had the birds of prey and the fairies as the game changers, I could at least not see a world where we would lose, despite my ranged-damage dealers looking like complete fools.

Within the next twenty minutes, the battle was over, as my troops returned to me, with everyone except for Gob kneeling to show their respect.

This was the first victory of Aldric the demon king, a victory that would be forever etched into my mind as it made me realize just what kind of world I had arrived in. A world where only the strong are allowed to survive.

'I hate this world... So much...'

****

[Selene's Pov]

"Selene!"

"I'm on it, Harry! [Ice Bolt]!"

"Gob?!"

As the last goblin was now trying to run away, as his friends had already fallen to our hands, I had already prepared my spell, now launching a frosty spike of ice at it.

*Bam!*

With blood spewing out of its small, green back, the final remaining enemy fell to the ground, struggling while taking its last few breaths before going over to the other side.

"Good job, Selene!"

"Oh, thank you."

Currently, we were practicing real-life combat for the third time, looking for evil monsters on the outskirts of Laowh, who had infiltrated the elven forest, while at the same time eradicating the invaders that were causing damage to the environment.

And by we I meant me, Olivia, and Harry, who was an extremely energetic young man acting as the vanguard, wielding a sword and shield.

Then we had Peter, who was our shy ranger, Matthew, who was fighting with Harry in the front using a spear, and Lissy, who was also fighting at close range with her two daggers.

It was still hard to get used to the fact that everyone now had almost platinum blonde hair, which together with our pointy ears made it show what kind of race we had become.

What was even harder to get used to was the fact that even though we were now killing living things, none of us felt even a slight tinge of guilt or disgust. Almost as if we had been created for this sole purpose, created just to kill.

And that scared me. A lot.

Even though we had asked Beldroth about it, and he had told me that it probably had something to do with the trait that we all had, I still couldn't help but feel like something was incredibly wrong.

In spite of this, I had no choice but to try my best and accept things for what they were.

Because no matter what I thought about things, we couldn't direct the wind. We could only adjust our sails. Even if that meant accepting that I had become someone else entirely.