Andrew's report hung heavy in the air, but Jordan only nodded, his gaze steady. "I expected this. Sooner or later they'd notice. That's why we have a second plan."
He scraped a rough map into the dirt and spread it out. "The goblins' food stores are near the military outpost. Tonight we strike there. We'll burn their stockpiles and their fields as well."
A cruel, necessary blow: starve the enemy before they can strike.
Andrew let out a slow breath. "It'll take the cavalry days to sweep this dungeon. It's too vast for them to find us right away."
"Then we use that time," Jordan said. "Rest now. Conserve your strength and your mana we'll need both when the sun goes down."
Reluctantly, the group leaned back against the cave's cold stone and forced themselves into uneasy sleep.
The cavalry scoured the entire north side of the forest where the village had vanished without a trace but they found no corpses.
On the second day of the campaign,
the goblin cavalry captain was growing uneasy. Hundreds of goblins had vanished no corpses, no signs of a fight, nothing.
He couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.
While his men rested in the village, he noticed something a footprint pressed into the dirt, and beside it, a long mark, as if something had been dragged toward the riverbank.
"Attention, men! Arm yourselves and follow me!" barked the hobgoblin captain.
They scanned the area carefully, but there was nothing out of place no bodies, no blood, no scent of battle. Eventually, the captain sighed and gave up the search on the north side of the river.
One of the cavalrymen, parched from the heat, knelt by the water to drink. Then he froze. Something beneath the surface caught his eye.
He leaned closer… and his face went pale.
"A–A corpse! A corpse!" he screamed, stumbling backward in horror.
"What?" The captain rushed over and peered into the river. There, just beneath the surface, lay a goblin's corpse weighed down with heavy stones anchored so it wouldn't float.
A few meters downstream, a massive log rested across the river. The captain narrowed his eyes, then drew his blade and cleaved the log in half.
What he saw beneath made his stomach twist.
Hundreds of goblin corpses, stacked and hidden beneath the wood, their lifeless eyes staring upward through the current.
The scene was grotesque no goblin would ever do this to their own kind. He felt a chill crawl down his spine. There were no intelligent monsters in this forest capable of such planning…
Then it struck him.
The bodies weren't hidden to be forgotten they were placed there to poison the river.
"Men! Pack your things we're heading back to the city!" the captain shouted.
But before they could move, a thunderous boom erupted in the distance. Even from tens of kilometers away, they could see the rising plume of smoke.
"Men charge! We're heading back now!"
Fear gripped the captain's chest. His instincts screamed danger.
A hobgoblin cavalryman was roughly equivalent to a B-rank on Earth
and their captain… was A-rank.
Eiro, the hobgoblin captain, was known as the fourth strongest goblin in the kiEarth outranked only by the king and the two generals.
Once hailed as a hero, he had fought valiantly during the great wars against the orcs and kobolds. But age was catching up with him now. Even so, his authority as captain of the cavalry was nearly equal to that of a general.
He was the one who had personally beheaded the Tarkan Empire's kobold general a feat that had cemented his name in goblin history.
The First General, Nodas, was a battle-hungry warrior who commanded the cavalry. Wielding a greatsword almost as tall as himself, he stood a massive eight feet tall, his muscular frame a testament to countless wars.
The Second General, Harud, commanded the entire army. His main weapon was a massive battle axe, and he towered above all others ten feet of raw muscle and strength, said to be the largest hobgoblin in the kingdom.
An hour earlier…
Andrew, the most agile member of the team, had slipped silently through the castle gates under the cover of night.
Their plan was simple create fear, confusion, and cut off the enemy's food supply.
They quickly located the goblins' main storage depot.
Andrew nocked a fire arrow, drew his bow, and released. Flames burst to life as the arrow struck. The storage began to burn, and soon he turned his aim toward nearby houses. He planted dynamite across the facility to ensure complete destruction.
He hesitated for a moment. He knew the goblins were intelligent beings much like humans. Perhaps they, too, were being forced by unseen powers to kill and conquer. But he forced himself to act.
This is war, he reminded himself.
Like Jordan said… they have families back on Earth too.
He loosed another flaming arrow this time toward the civilians' homes.
The fire spread fast. Panic echoed through the castle walls.
"The storage is burning!" someone screamed.
Hundreds of goblins rushed in with buckets of water, desperate to stop the blaze. But before they could, the dynamite went off.
The explosion tore through the courtyard an ear-splitting boom that turned night into day. Hundreds of goblins were killed instantly. The ground shook. Fear spread like wildfire through the city.
Andrew slipped back through the gates, his face grim and his heart heavy.
Outside the walls, Liam and Paul were already at work torches in hand, setting the wheat fields ablaze.
Flames devoured the crops that fed thousands. Any goblin farmers who tried to stop them were cut down. It was brutal, but necessary.
Every stalk burned was one more day their team might live.
Inside the castle, chaos reigned.
A noble goblin rushed into the throne room, breathless. "Your Majesty! The entire food storage it's gone! Burned to ashes!"
The king's expression darkened. "What did you say? Our kingdom's entire food supply… destroyed?"
He clenched his fists. "How are we to survive the coming months? Even if we hunt every monster in the forest, it won't be enough to feed the people!"
Another noble stepped forward nervously. "Your Majesty, the fields it's harvest season. We can still protect what remains."
"Then send soldiers immediately!" the king ordered. "Guard the fields at all cost!"
Before anyone could move, a soldier burst into the chamber, gasping for air.
"Hey! Have some respect when addressing His Majesty!" Nodas barked, his greatsword pointed at the soldier's throat.
The king raised his hand. "Stand down, Nodas. Let him speak."
The soldier fell to his knees, trembling. "Your Majesty… the fields…" He swallowed hard. "They've been burned. All of it. Every last crop… gone."
The throne room fell silent. The king's face twisted in disbelief.
The soldier broke down, tears streaming as he bowed low to the ground. He knew what this meant.
Without their food, the kingdom wouldn't last the winter.