Hands Reaching for the Female Knight
My subordinates lost their fucking minds at the hands reaching for the female knight. These lunatics, whose sanity I'd always questioned even on a good day, had been sitting tight until they finally tasted the human blood they'd craved so badly—and now they were rampaging like they wouldn't recognize their own parents.
"You like it that much?"
I asked Goju—the castrated goblin shaman—because I genuinely wondered what the hell was up with them. The guy, who moments ago had been messing around with human corpses, screeched back at me.
"The boss doesn't get it! How hard human hunting is!"
"Huh?"
"Humans! They're smart! It takes a whole pack of us goblins to take down one armed human!"
"You guys were that worthless?"
Orcs are middling as far as monster races go, but goblins? They're just cannon fodder with numbers on their side, right?
"That's why the boss is amazing!"
"What is?"
"Just like the boss said, we killed humans without even moving! The boss is a heaven-sent genius!"
Fair enough. Routing two thousand troops with just four hundred of ours—nearly wiping them out—isn't history-book material, but it's a massive win in our book for sure.
"Hey, hey, Sir Knight, take a look at this. See them ripping into your comrade's corpse? Look!"
"Omnomnom! Tasty!"
The knight—Kandor or whatever his name was, I could never keep it straight—was tied up near the campfire, forced to watch my minions toy with him by devouring the soldiers we'd smashed earlier that day.
"Now we finally look like the Demon King's army."
My troops had finally shaped up into the Demon King's forces from my wildest imaginings. I felt a swell of pride, nearly tearing up, when a sudden curiosity hit me. I turned to Goju.
"But... is human tasty?"
"Humans! Normally, yeah, tasty! Especially the females and young ones—even more so! Their meat's nice and tender compared to males!"
Less muscle means softer flesh, huh? Makes sense. If you're used to eating domesticated pork and then try wild boar, it's tough as hell for a reason. Pigs are bred for fat and meat; boars toughen up in the wild. Probably the same principle here.
"Hey, can you do disguise spells or anything like that?"
Silveryia Isis from earlier that day popped into my head, so I asked. Goju clutched his head, pondering hard, then hopped up and screeched at me.
"Yes! Yes! Disguise magic!"
"How good is it?"
"I snuck into a human village, stole shit, and they thought I was a human kid!"
"Ho ho?"
Impressive.
"But it doesn't last long. Wears off quick! Touch from anyone breaks it! It just changes perception, not the real thing!"
Hmm... I'd been planning to disguise myself as a human and sneak in there. Guess I'll have to revise that.
"Do you trust me?"
My out-of-left-field question made Goju think long and hard. He bit into one of his own well-ripened forearms and said,
"In the wild, trusting anyone but yourself is for idiots! We don't even trust our own kind!"
"Oh, yeah?"
"But!"
"?"
"Feed us like this, and we'll follow! If the boss says do it, we do it—no trust involved! Fill our bellies, we obey. Don't, we don't. That's it!"
"Oho... So, am I worth following?"
Honestly, I don't trust goblins either. Call it prejudice if you want, but put me in front of ten, and I'd want to beat every last one to death. So why test this one? Eh... he's a bit different from the rest. Just probing.
Whether he sensed my intent or not, Goju crunched away at his arm and said,
"Boss! Follow you, and even if I hate it, I get scraps at least! Boss never does shit without reason!"
Hmm. So it's purely business? With backstabbers like goblins, they usually say they'll follow to your face while plotting behind your back. A guy who straight-up admits "no free rides, no following" is more trustworthy, in my book.
I recalled locking eyes with Silveryia earlier that day. The moment our gazes met—probably invisible to others—a pink thread connected us in our vision alone. From the back of my hand to her belly. Even without it, per Goju, that eye contact would've instinctively told us we were linked.
Hell, my body reacted the second I saw her.
Got hard from the female knight and pretending otherwise? Fuck yeah I did, but that wasn't why. My soul reacted. Goju said it's like being linked. Like Theseus's thread in the Daedalus labyrinth—you can find each other anywhere, doing anything.
Why mention my hand now? It was burning hot. Right then. And with it, some unknown sensation flooded my mind—like someone projecting a movie straight into my brain. A weird vision played out.
—Wh-what... my body... haa! I c-can't... like this...!
"Ooh yeah."
"Boss?"
Was this a green light I didn't know about? Or does my face just hit different in this world? How else is she masturbating while thinking of me?
Self-absorbed? Maybe... but it felt real. Instinctively, I knew someone was pleasuring herself to thoughts of me. How? Don't ask. It hit me like that baseless confidence you get hammered—pure, vague certainty.
"Hey, cast that disguise spell on me."
"Why!"
"Gonna head into the human camp."
"Boss! You're insane!"
"Shut it!"
Yeah, even a goblin would freak at "straight into human territory." I clamped his mouth shut and thought. How to get him to cast it willingly? Just be straight—beating around the bush won't change shit.
"Wanna go fuck that female knight. Need it for that."
"Should've led with that! Boss is an idiot!"
Castrated or not, he's still a goblin. Mention pussy, and he's foaming at the mouth with excitement. Plus, he usually doesn't give a shit about my safety, but now...
"Boss! Me too! Take me!"
"You're nuts. Can't even protect myself—how the hell am I dragging you?"
He tilted his head, pondering alone, then lit up and screeched again.
"Me! Me! I pretend to be prisoner! Boss disguises as human, I act captured!"
"Oh."
Not bad. I told him to elaborate. He dragged over a random corpse rolling on the ground and showed me.
"Put this guy's look on boss!"
"Hey! Even if you grab one, why this piece of shit?"
Face smashed to pulp—good luck passing that off. Who'd attack an undead or something?
Goju dove into the corpse pile, rummaging wildly.
"Not this, not that—gobgob! Found it!"
And what he shows me...
"Low-rank officer who led the humans!"
He hauled out a corpse in armor slightly fancier than the grunts'. Dragged it right to me. Dude's guts are MIA, though.
"Anyway, this'll do?"
"Yes! Yes!"
"This could go wrong and get us killed. You cool?"
That's my real worry. Business is business, but if shit hits the fan from him being reckless, will he bail? I just called him trustworthy, yeah, but goblins gonna goblin!
But Goju laughed gobgob like it was hilarious, eyes gleaming maniacally as he said,
"Boss! I love tormenting human bitches! I'd give my life for it!"
Saying that, he hiked up the rag on his lower half. Where his jalapeño should've been? A full-on skewer jammed in there. No lie.
"I don't forgive any human bitch who shot arrows at me just for being goblin! Even if she didn't shoot me!"
"Uh, uh... got it, so back off a bit, yeah?"
"And this bitch ain't just any—it's a hero! I wanna see! The hero broken by boss's hands!"
His eyes burned with fiery zeal. Couldn't tell him to knock it off now. I'd thought it was reckless and considered scrapping it, but this goblin fanned the flames higher.
"But boss! Disguise aside, how we passing human inspections?"
"Hm? Oh... I got something in mind."
Honestly, anywhere humans live is all the same, right?