At the campsite on the edge of the Great Zasa jungle after lunch, a battalion of Zarba's summoned units could be seen standing silently in four columns before the yellowish jungle—four hundred Gay-Bros and four hundred Zar-Bros awaiting their order—as Zarba, standing in front of them in his black armor but without the metal mask equipped, and Nadia, who was standing beside him, also in her armor but with a proper cuirass and chainmail underneath the armor this time instead of her very vulnerable and exposed bikini armor that she usually wears.
Zarba had to strip off the equipment from one of the Zar-Bros for Nadia, as he doesn't want her to get hurt unnecessarily, which ended up making the muscular woman secretly feel a little happy that he showed care towards her.
While the extermination party gathered outside the camp and got ready to march to the goblin nest, Xin chose to stay behind, as she would rather watch over her husband with a clairvoyance spell inside the comfort of the carriage instead of marching with them, as the half-elf doesn't really want to walk through the jungle just to go fight with a bunch of savage goblins after all.
"Such a mysterious ability…" Xin muttered as she confirmed that Zarba's ridiculous summon ability can spam the summons as much as he wants without any strain on the user while she watched the battalion of summoned units through the window lazily with her droopy eyes.
"Alright, folks, listen up; we all will go on an adventure today." Zarba starts pacing back and forth with his hands behind his back while he addresses his summoned troops, and even if they were just going to stay silent and not going to react to his word, he doesn't care, as he just wanted to hype himself up a bit by making a little speech before they march.
"We're going to have a lot of fun exterminating a goblin nest deep in the jungle before they become a problem for the other people. What good guys we are, am I right?" Zarba speaks with a friendly smile as Nadia and Xin, who were watching them in the carriage, snort at him in unison. They feel him being quite silly, making a speech to his summoned constructs.
Not wanting to look like an idiot, Zarba mentally commanded the Zar-Bros to straighten their posture and salute in unison; their black armor clicked softly as their fists hit their chests while they looked at him. Beside the saluting ranger knights, the Gay-Bros—dressed in their signature kilts—simply raised their swords like they were also hyped up by Zarba's speech, successfully helping Zarba not look like a total idiot to the two women.
"I'm glad you all are so eager!" Zarba smirked as he nodded his head at the warm, enthusiastic reception to his speech.
"Now then…" Zarba trails off as he turns towards the jungle, but before he could say anything, someone interrupts him first.
"Is this too excessive for just goblins?" Nadia muttered, eyeing the sheer number of summoned soldiers with a skeptical look. She doesn't think they need this many, to be honest. The opponents are just goblins, so they should only need one or two platoons to exterminate them.
"There's no such thing as excessive when crushing the enemy." Zarba replied firmly without looking at her, his fingers tracing the bowstring hanging on his belt. He has the SSS; of course he is going to abuse it without any shame. Why should he care about fairness when he could die in a real battle, especially when he has these summons that don't require food and salary to throw at his enemy?
"Hmph, it doesn't matter, I guess…" Nadia huffed before she also turned around to face the jungle, indicating that she doesn't have anything more to say.
"Alright, we march!" Zarba then mentally commanded his summoned army to advance into the jungle, and immediately the entire battalion moved with their uniform and synchronous footsteps crunching through dirt and grasses as they moved into a single column before going towards the jungle.
÷×÷×÷
The yellowish jungle swallowed the advancing battalion with ease as they moved deeper into the jungle, cutting through the thick bushes and foliage with their swords, the sound of their footsteps amplified by decades of thick dried leaf layers on the ground.
Zarba and Nadia were walking behind the column of summoned soldiers as they scanned the surrounding area for ambush—but instead of goblins, the first sign of trouble was the thick bushes and vines that obstructed their path, slowing their army's advance to a crawl as their armor and clothes got caught on thorns and vines. The jungle itself was resisting them.
"Make a path; cut everything down if you can!" Zarba ordered, watching as his Zar-Bros hacked at the dense foliage in their surroundings with short swords while the Gay-Bros widened the path ahead even further, severing any obstacle with their swords in powerful swings.
This, of course, caused quite a ruckus—too much noise for a stealth approach, but fortunately stealth wasn't the plan, as Zarba knows that the goblins will not be able to run away, as the brood mothers who probably reside deep inside the nest are too bloated and immobile to escape anywhere on their own, and the goblins can't even carry them away quickly since they are too heavy, so the realistic option is just doing their best to defend the brood mothers from any threat.
The stench of rot and musk clinging to the jungle air grows thicker the deeper Zarba and his summoned units push in, a sure sign that they're nearing the goblin nest. He glances sideways at Nadia, who has also noticed the smell, her grip on her greatsword shifting subtly—not from nerves, but anticipation. She's itching for a fight.
Then a faint rustle in the canopy above makes Zarba halt mid-step. He raises a fist—silence ripples through the battalion instantly as they stop in unison. Above the army, a lone goblin scout crouches on a thick branch, its beady eyes widening in horror as it meets Zarba's gaze. Before it can screech a warning, three arrows from three Zar-Bros embed themselves in its body, but it still manages to release a loud warning shriek before its body drops from the branch, and seconds later, like a chain reaction, the deep jungle quickly erupts with the distant cacophony of goblin shrieks.
'You just triggered their alarm, so expect some ambush, my husband.' Xin, who was watching from the carriage, warned Zarba telepathically as the reincarnated prince just smiled and mentally commanded his summoned units to resume marching forward.
"The ambush is only effective when the target is not aware of them." Zarba said as Xin hummed in agreement in his head since she can just look around for ambushes with her clairvoyance spell for him. And even if they succeed in ambushing and killing some of his summoned units, it's not going to help them much when he can just summon more and replace the lost units effortlessly.
÷×÷×÷
At the goblin settlement outside of the cave where the goblin brood mothers reside deep within, the crude barricades of log and animal bones were piled up and placed around the settlement, as beyond them, inside the settlement, is filled with the frenzied scrambling of goblins getting in position or reinforcing the barricades with whatever they can grab and throw at the piles of junk they called the barricades.
The green-skinned creatures snarled and snapped at each other amidst the chaos, their crude spears and improvised weapons clattering against one another as they formed defensive lines as best as they could.
Not far away from the settlement, the cloaked figure stood unmoved on top of the tall tree, overlooking the goblins below, their leaf-covered silhouette barely visible amidst the foliage.
"Ah-ah, this is just great," the cloaked figure muttered in exasperation, watching some of the goblin defenders trip over their own traps and fight each other over a misunderstanding. The figure's small fingers tapped rhythmically against the tree bark as they watched the chaos unfold beneath them that did not inspire hope for the future. "Would I be called ungrateful if I just... let them all die horribly?"
"Nope, I might as well assist the invader rather than these monsters..." The cloaked figure snorted as they remembered that the goblins did not really treat them well anyway, and they survive to this day on their own because the goblins tend to ignore them because the figure was born different than the typical goblins.
And then with one hand they held their cloak firmly—revealing nothing underneath—before they leaped silently to another branch of the tree nearby, then to another; the figure continued moving towards the approaching army that the goblins prepared to face. Their feet barely disturbed the trees' branches as they navigated the canopy with practiced ease.
"Hope they are reasonable enough to listen to me at least..." The cloaked figure muttered again as they finally spotted the advancing battalion through a gap in the leaves—hundreds of identical armored and unarmored figures moving with eerie synchronicity, followed by a brown-skinned man in black armor and a woman with a greatsword.
"You guys are my only ticket back to civilization…" The small cloaked figure mumbles quietly with longing and anxiety in their tone, as what they are about to do is very dangerous, but the figure really has no choice but to risk it since if they don't, who knows how long they can survive alone in this jungle after the human army exterminates the nest?
"Please, fortune smile upon me…" They pray while looking for a way to approach the marching soldiers without getting killed…