Chương 17

A bipedal, scaled reptilian creature tentatively made its way towards the dead bird. I felt the shift within me as Stealth took effect. Is that a Kobold? The creature was about the same size as the goblins, barely reaching my waist. Its body was lean and covered in dull brown scales. Its arms looked a bit too long for its body, ending in clawed fingers stained with dirt. Its narrow snout twitched constantly while its slit-pupiled yellow eyes constantly darted around.

It moved in a twitching manner, taking half a step then freezing up, looking around and sniffing constantly. It's afraid of something. I joined it in looking around, making sure to check above me as well, but everything seemed normal. My side still ached a bit, but thankfully the small wound had stopped bleeding by now. I looked back down as finally the kobold reached the bird, sniffed it, then clutched it in its hand and started scurrying away.

Caught by surprise at its swift retreat, I hastily made my way down and used Quick Step to get closer to its rapidly disappearing back. Once I was close enough, I kept pace with it easily due to its constant stopping, sniffing, and looking around routine. I followed along, silently marking trees to make the journey back easier. I was getting deep into the forest now and I didn't fancy my chances of making my way back without directions. The kobold suddenly stilled, its snout twitching much harder.

It suddenly jumped into a bush at the base of a tree and stilled, somehow blending in perfectly within the short twigs and leaves of the undergrowth. Is that a skill? I wondered idly, looking around trying to see what had spooked my small companion. Finding nothing amiss, but trusting the senses of someone presumably raised in this environment, I climbed up a tree and settled amongst its canopy, Stealth doing an amazing job at erasing any sounds of my movement. A couple minutes passed with nothing happening.

I was wondering whether the kobold had somehow been mistaken, or if it had caught my scent despite stealth, when I caught movement far to the left amongst the underbrush. It was another group of boars, this time four in number. They padded along silently, sniffing one bush after another, but moving along at a much faster pace than the ones I had seen earlier. They looked as if they weren't interested in grazing amongst the undergrowth. Instead, they seemed focused on going somewhere.

They swiftly moved across, not even sparing the bush the kobold was hiding within a glance. I kept my eyes on the boars, noting they didn't pay attention to any of the bushes that looked similar to the one which hid the kobold. It knows where to hide. Mentally increasing the perceived intelligence level of the kobold, I kept watch while mentally logging the appearance of the bush with the purplish berries the kobold was using to hide.

I was reasonably confident that the kobold wouldn't spot me amongst the canopy, and even if it did, I backed myself in a fight against the small lizard, so I mentally released stealth. More importantly, my mana had just dipped below 50%, and I wasn't comfortable having low mana this deep in the forest.

Luckily, despite the boars increased speed when compared to the morning, they still meandered in the area for a few minutes before leaving, with the kobold waiting an extra couple minutes before finally poking its small snout out of the bush. More than enough time for me to get back to comfortable levels of mana. The kobold resumed its slow movement across the forest, satisfied at no more threats being in the vicinity. I returned to the ground, Stealth back active, and followed along.

Soon, the kobold started clicking its tongue and made chirping noises, and the surrounding forest answered. Bewildered, I saw kobolds emerge from all around the undergrowth, converging to the one carrying the bird. There must have been a few dozen kobolds all together, and all of them seemed excited at the dead bird being proudly held up by my unaware companion for the past half an hour. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

That won't feed them all, not even close. Though I sympathized with these small lizards, remembering the pushing and desperate scramble of getting a few more spoons of stew from this morning clearly. The kobolds turned as a group and moved to a bush much larger than normal. Two kobolds went ahead and pulled apart the bush, revealing a hole going underground, through which the kobolds all started descending. Now that I was aware of the hole, I noticed a few smaller holes amongst the surrounding bushes.

This must have been how they suddenly appeared from all around this place. I kept watch while the kobolds continued disappearing into their burrow, noting the location of the smaller holes around. Once they had all disappeared, I went close to the entrance of the burrow and looked inside, but all I could see was darkness. I carefully stepped a bit further, heart hammering, and once I had reached completely inside the burrow I could see that the hole immediately shrank in size just a couple feet away.

I could just about make out a few shapes moving about further in, and I noticed a light breeze flowing from the entrance of the burrow to deeper inside. Interesting. I turned around and made my way back to our camp, a basic plan forming in my mind.

It kept watch on the Dark One, as it had been instructed. It had been a bit worried that it would be noticed, but it seems the Dark One was still too weak to see. This was a nice assignment. Most times when the ones with their skillset were sent out, they died. But these new pink and brown skinned tall creatures were blind. It made its job much easier, and even fun at times. Earlier, it had even had the chance to join two of its friends as they followed along with their targets.

They had enjoyed working together as the creatures hunted the beasts for food. They had taken note of how even the Big One had failed to do much damage to the beasts. It meant that these creatures won't even be able to scratch their leaders. Its mouth had watered at the thought. The taste of these creatures was wonderful. It had only been allowed a small bite as a reward for its detailed reporting, but that bite still played in its mind. It couldn't wait till they captured them all and raised them for feed.

It hadn't seen any young among their kind, so maybe they quickly grew to be so big? The three friends had even played games when they met. Daring each other to see who could go closest to these creatures without being noticed had been fun. It had naturally won, jumping on top of the pig-beasts' body as it was being carried by the group had been the winning move. None of the creatures even noticed. They had all kept their games out of their reports to the leaders. The Dark One was now making its way back.

It had noted the location of the lizards' home carefully. Maybe revealing the lizard's location would mean another bite as a reward? Its mouth started watering again. It wanted to taste all of them. It followed behind the Dark One, unseen and unheard, and thought about how this one would taste. But it didn't understand one thing. Why were the bosses waiting? It knew it had no place in making decisions, but if it had been on that throne, it would have attacked and captured them by now.

Even it could see that these creatures were getting stronger. Why were the bosses waiting for them to get stronger? It didn't understand. Perhaps these creatures tasted better when they were stronger? That made sense. It kept following the Dark One, its mind imagining the different tastes of these creatures. It couldn't wait to devour them. It had another exciting thought! Maybe eating them would allow it to evolve? Finally becoming one of the large bosses too!

It hated waiting. Waiting here. Listening to the small imbeciles reporting was exhausting. The reports were useful, and these small reporters had useful skills that made them amazing at information gathering. Still, it was getting impatient. It munched on a human leg as it paced around its throne room. Supplies were running low; they had only captured eight of these humans and just three remained now. It needed more. If only it could go out by itself, it would crush these humans and have a buffet for the village.

Even if its lieutenants could go, they would be enough too. Instead, it was only the inferior ones that could leave the village. Even if it threw all the inferior ones at the humans, chances were that they would all die. It had learned that lesson the hard way. For some reason it didn't understand, any evolved brethren couldn't leave. It had thrown out one of the newest evolved by force over the gate to see what happened, and it had just dropped dead as soon as it crossed the gate.

It was sad that it had lost an evolved one, but sacrifices were necessary. They had roasted it and eaten it in honour of its sacrifice. Earlier, it only had a feeling that it couldn't leave, and if he tried, he would die. Now it knew that was true. It had another feeling as well. This restriction was temporary. Soon.