Chapter 41: Returning troubles

I'm the middle of the day, when the sun was at its most highest, a creature could be seen crossing the forest. Barefooted it walked with only Its loincloth to cover its crotch. In it's right hand, it held a makeshift large club. Likely just taken from a random tree. As it looked no different from a mere branch that was found lying around.

As for its left hand, it held what seems like the left over body of a dead rodent. The upper part was only a bloody stump with the rest missing.

Swallowing whatever was in its mouth, the creature looked towards the left over rodent and dumped it it all in its mouth. With its strong jaws, it started chewing. The bones and all the parts of the rodent were soon turned into digestible bits in no time.

The creature then noticed that a bit of blood had dripped on its green skin. So it used its arm to clean it off. But it failed to notice that it was using its bloody left arm. Thus smeering itself with more blood. After seeing that that it could not remove the blood quickly with a mere wipe, it gave up cleaning itself. As After five day of not cleaning itself up, the creature has long got accustomed to the filth on its body.

Plus, with more blood on its body, it might attract another meal if it was lucky. So why should it care?

Within these past five days, the creature or rather, the hobgoblin, has seen and experienced quite a lot. After it woke up in that mushroom forest five days ago, it had experienced true mature at its hardest.

The days were long and arduous while the nights were short and cold. Unlike when sleeping in the dungeon, the hobgoblin had to be careful where it slept in the wild. The best places were already taken, while the in the worst placed, safety could not be assured.

Luckily for the hobgoblin though, with its body, it could be considered to be high up at the food chain. In the forest, there wasn't too many creatures that could pick it as a meal. But even then, the hob-goblins still struggled to survive. The many scars that patterned its body were proof enough o the struggles in went trough.

Most of these marks were drawn by predators not looking for its body though, but battles against others for food. Out in the forest, finding food was quite hard. Even more so for the hob-goblin that was not specifically evolved to survive in the forest.

With each bite of the raw meat and weird fruits it forces into its stomach, the hobgoblin constantly thinks of the pool of life within the dungeon. With just a sip it could never be afraid of hunger, while if it works out just a little, it can get tasty treats.

Plus, with the gremlins around, the goblins can get to eat cooked foods every now and then after a successful hunt. Now all it ate wa raw food. And with all the raw foods it has eaten, the hobgoblin would have passed out from indigestion if it wasn't made with a strong stomach. It's a good thing the child had thought to upgrade its stomach when making their sub-race otherwise there would be no need to speak of the hob-goblin.

The hob-goblin could only dream, wish and sigh as it goes foward. As the times spent at the dungeon seemed to have long passed. But suddenly, the hobgoblin stopped. For some reason, the hobgoblin didn't feel like going foward anymore. It thus turned and walked towards a different direction.

The hob-goblin didn't put much thought to its detour, but little did it know that it had actually saved itself from a pressure trap set just where it was supposed to step on.

...

Whilst the hobgoblin trekked the forest towards home, it failed to noticed a certain creature stalking it from behind.

Hidden by the misty forest and its silent steps, the creature went unnoticed as it watched the hobgoblin from afar. Even the child who gazed at the world with the hob-goblin's senses failed to capture the creature.

After very few minutes of walking, kobold squatted down a for a second and released a little bit of its urine to the ground. This was done so that it's kobold pack members would find it once they notice that it had gone missing for a long time.

But with each stop it makes, the kobold's bladder dries up slightly. So it wondered what it's next actions should be.

Should it stop after it ran out of urine and go back to the pack? After all, it should be able to come back to the this very spot as long as it wants to. But would the hobgoblin still be there after it returned? Will it be able to track it again once lost?

Or should it continue shadowing the hobgoblin? Soon enough, the hobgoblin is surely going to get reach its lair. If it can find out where their lair is, it would be a great contribution to the pack.

While it was still contemplating on its next action, something else of interest finally happened.

Another goblin appeared. Unlike the hobgoblin it had been shadowing all this time, this goblin was short and had a tail begind it. It ran on all fours and walked with two feet. From the kobolds estimates, this was likely a youngling. But it was surprised as this goblin looked much smaller than the one that was shown at the pack gathering. The kobold wondered if this goblin was younger than the one that was shown before.

When the hobgoblin saw the gremlin, or small goblins as the kobold saw it, It smiled happily. It then ran over making weird grunts that seem anything but intelligent towards the kobold.

So the kobold grew a level of distain towards these weird looking creatures. But although it didn't see these creatures in a good light, it still stood silently without a sound. It was always better to "overestimate the enemy than yourself" as the alpha usually says.

The two then seemingly spoke to each other for quite a while. But they soon started walking further east of the forest. Seeing this, the kobold grew excited. As where they were going was likely their lair.

But in its excitement, the kobold stepped on something. Said thing suddenly caved down on to the ground with a 'click.' Then, something from the left seemed to have activated. The kobold didn't even have much time to see what what said thing was before...

Sho! Chuk!

An arrow lodged itself on its left stomach.

"Awhhhh."

The kobold screamed in pain as the arrows stuck out of its sides. The kobold didn't keep on screaming forever though, not long after, it stopped screaming and noticed that it had blown its cover. Without thinking any longer, the kobold darted towards it's home.

From afar, the child watched the kobold as it ran with an arrow stuck in its side.

"Too bad, It fell into a trap too quickly, if only it waited a little longer, I could have gotten more of my goblins to group up."

"Attack!" an order was sent towards the many goblins that have already gathered under his orders. A hunt has begun, one that is awfully reminiscent of what happened five days ago.

...