Chapter 27: Kabuto's Helplessness

Philo, Kabuto, and Bernardo pounced at me, seeing them in the air, I immediately grabbed them by the waist using the ever-so-handy sand tentacles and gently placed them on the ground.

"Master! You're fine!"

But it was no use as they proceeded to run towards me and used their hands to toss me in the air.

"Hey stop! Stop! Listen to me!"

I protested but it took another five minutes of tossing me into the air like frantic idiots with numerous close calls as I almost bumped my head into the ceiling of the cave until they finally stopped and softly placed me on land.

"What... Is... Huff... Wrong... Wheeze... With you... Lot..."

I said in between exhausted pants and gasps while stopping the urge to puke, I then, after much difficulty, straightened my back and then looked at them.

"Master, I am sorry for being too weak and being unworthy of your trust. I shall wor-"

Kabuto kneeled in front of me and said words that I should be saying, thus I used both my hands to stop his speech and proceeded to be the one to give an apology.

"I should be the one to say sorry... I don't trust you enough that's why I got into that bad situation, I thought that with what I am doing, I am protecting all of you, but the truth is, I am just making you feel bad and also endangering your lives."

I paused for a moment and smiled.

"But I promise that... From now on, I will know the boundaries between lack of trust and protection."

Looking at them having teary expressions as I say this, I can't help but feel bad. Sometimes, good intentions lead to bad results.

Lyra who is being silent the whole time and did not even participate in tossing me around earlier suddenly emerged at my back and tugged my robe that got most of it ripped like mad.

"You... you should have at least called for my help you know... I'm so worried..."

She said while floods of tears kept falling from her eye, yeah eye, she have a bandage on her other one, remember? She is still taller than me despite me evolving into a toddler, so I can't pat her head, thus I just smiled again.

"I know, I'm sorry okay? Anyway, I want to know what happened to the wolves."

With what I said, all of them quickly regained their professional look and then went to show me the way to the corpse of the dead wolves first, with a "Then I shall lead the way!" by Kabuto, we started walking.

Philo is instructing the goats to be able to run fast despite having a heavy body. You see he has quite the weight despite him not looking like it, so he is fit for the role, Lyra on the other hand is guiding the construction squad to repair the fences and to hasten the construction of houses so that the people will have better protection if ever something like an invasion happened once again.

I am quite worried about whether or not the lumber they are using is sufficient when blocking fire-type attacks, but because the wolves are here, they have become a temporary scouting unit while they are yet to be put to full use. Also, the houses were cramped into the entrance, so cramped that the people living from one house to another can hold hands without a problem.

The goblins are not really that tall with Lyra's height being the average so there is not that much of a problem with that.

After one week of probing and staying cautious, they will relocate the houses with the technique I thought them. It's called "Bayanihan" search it, it's cool. Now, Bayanihan is supposed to be used for huts, but because this world has magic and strange things, two soldiers in this world can lift battering rams with ease, so why is a pair of logs used to lift regular houses a challenge right?

But still, that's a lot of work, even though I don't personally see houses being transferred that often because I only got special permission to regularly enter the private school and the church in which my orphanage is situated. After all, I am... well an asset to the Philippines, so except for the occasional field trips and the not-so-occasional sneaking out of the orphanage, I am confined in the orphanage most of the time.

I sighed in my heart remembering the past and shook my head as I looked at the goblins scurrying about with a pale face, avoiding eye contact with me.

"They sure are busy."

I said so while looking around, I have been long used to the fear in the eyes of my slaves so I did not mind it. Kabuto is in my front and we started to converse about the cave and all and after five minutes or so, we arrived at the section designated to be the food storage.

"I see, so that's how I evolved just after a day of my last evolution."

I smiled awkwardly, looking at the high ceiling of the storage that still failed to contain the corpse of the wolves into a single pile as two mountains of the invaders' corpses is visible in my eyes. I gulped a little.

[Guide], how many soldiers died?

I asked about my unique skill.

[Master, about 47.]

That's quite low for goblins who have weaker complexion than the wolves, there's still 253 left...

[Master, that's because the wolves did not plan this attack at all while the goblins were trained, even for a short time on how to gang up on stronger opponents, thus not only the wolves were utterly destroyed, they even became EXP. bags for the warriors to evolve.]

I see, that makes sense, now that I think about it, I can see some soldiers like Bard and Orm over there are a little more muscular and taller than before, their bloated tummies disappeared, and also, Bernardo evolved recently, I can tell as he became more muscular, I mean in his standards that's just a little bit but for others, it's already too much.

I nodded in satisfaction at this and immediately looked at the mountain of corpses once again, oh now This is the perfect time to produce leather and teach them how to wear armor, it also a good thing that the goblins have some knowledge of magic as they become more intelligent, so they made a modified salt pan site in the underground river that can produce salt, though lower in quality than the one's soaked in the sun.

Anyway, I can use this salt they made that they are yet to present to me as a gift for my successful return from the hero's test (they are coerced by Kabuto) to make them dry age half the meat of the wolves.

Anyway, the command will go like this: First, all of the wolf corpses will have their pelts removed and then all the crafter of the settlement will make leather armor and clothing a priority, second, the skinned half and half of the wolf corpse will be distributed to be dry age using salt and the other half to be fed to the wolves.

I already asked [Guide] and according to her, the wolves have a tradition of eating their deceased companions and brethren. So I thought that if I let them eat it now, then they will remember their reckless action and me killing their leader that became a mush of unrecognizable blood and flesh pool in the far distance of the forest.

[You're evil.]

Eh... I call it practical.

Anyway, I ignored [Guide] and as I instructed this enforcement to the one who is managing the food storage house, I proceeded to make Kabuto guide me into the area in which the wolves are detained. The wolves are gigantic like the goats, so they got contained in a fence that will surely not hold them.

But because goats don't have any wills to fight back even in this world it seems and the wolves have their wills destroyed as they hear the dying howl of their leader, they don't have any intentions of going out of the fence.

"Nice work."

I said to Kabuto as I looked at the pathetic look on the wolves' faces.

"Hmph, such praise is not to be wasted on people insignificant such as ourselves. But indeed, the goblins seem to hold resentments, even cutting a part of the fur of this broken pack of wolves to make their still existing pride vanish..."

I looked at him in confusion, what does cutting fur have to do with anything? It seems like Kabuto noticed my gaze and smiled a little before explaining.

"The goblins, though weak are still the greatest predator of this first layer, this is to say that orcs are stronger than them and other creatures that have strength that should belong to the fourth layer are in this layer, why is that?"

He paused for a moment and caressed the bald head of a wolf. The wolf lowered his head with its dead-fish eyes and looked at me with fear for a second before looking back to the ground.

"It's because of their custom of cutting a part of the defeated's hair or fur and making it their trophy, and as you should know, goblins are not that strong thus being defeated by one is the greatest humiliation."

I looked at the wolves and can see that several bald parts are visible in their fur as I nodded, damn that's some bizarre culture I must say. Personally, having your hair cut off by the person that defeated you is not that big of a deal, but they are monsters and have different thinking processes than humans, so I guess it is understandable.

I looked at Kabuto once again and smiled.

"You're proud of being a goblin huh?"

Kabuto also smiled and did not answer for a while, he let go of the dignity-deprived wolf and said "Yeah..."

And for the first time in a while, he slouched his back showing some kind of motion similar to lowering his guard.

"But master... You also love them right?"

I also went and slumped my head on one of the fences' pillars as I smiled a bitter one remembering how they look at me with fear.

"Yes, I guess so."

Kabuto immediately lowered his head having a more downcast expression than me as he replied.

"That's why you give their crooked society an overhaul, and yet just how they look at you..."

I can feel him gritting his teeth as he says those words, It's quite painful to have people whom you want to take care of look at you like you are a monster or something, but that's what the consequences of my actions are and I have a great idea on how should I reverse that so it's fine.

But in the eyes of other people, it seems painful huh... Well I mean it is.

"Eh... It's fine, I bet their attitude towards me is just because of the skill I used to them, you see people don't appreciate their leader being killed so I went and took drastic measures."

Kabuto once again straightened his back and sighed.

"Master, even the goblins feels bad about how they feel about you, on one side you gave them a proper path to take and on the other, your skill restricts them from showing their gratitude... It's just sad, both as a former goblin and as your servant."

I patted his back which I can barely reach and said.

"It's fine, I have a way around it you see, I just need a few tweaks to it."

I said as I touched a wolf's bald part, all of their lips have blood coming out of it as well as mine, the process took longer than I have expected because some of the wolves are scouting the area, so after two minutes of waiting for all the blood to unite in front of me, a notification appeared.

Notice[Blood Contract to the [177 Unnamed Crimson Wolf Slaves] has been established.

From now on, your will shall be forced into them.]

Eh... That's a lot, I thought so and decided to not use the militia to create another specialized unit, you see the heavy cavalry(goats) will be formed from the 100-foot goblins, so that would leave me with only 153, so if I make another light cavalry out of the goblins, the numbers of the foot soldiers and the specialized unit will not be even, I shall find a humanoid race to enslave for now.

Anyway, that business is finished for now because I did not name any of them. After all, they are stronger than goblins so I'll exhaust my mana, so I looked for the goat that Kabuto mentioned and, yup, he's gigantic all right, he is as tall as that wolf king and have diamonds for horns, so I named him Ruphas, it's a fictional character who loves jewelry.

"How's that, do you like the name?"

"Well... I... But isn't Ruphas a girl's name?"

"Oh... That's right, well don't think too much about it, anyway, for now, you have to lay low. I have some uses for you for the later parts of the Hero's Test you see."

I put a thumbs up and thought back to the threat the wolf king said, the monkeys will retaliate huh?

I thought so as I looked at the distance of the second layer.

Hmm, let's prepare for a possible war.