“So, what is our plan of action?” Agnes asked.

Both Abigail and Edith remained dead silent.

“Ah… maybe it was a mistake to agree to this.”

Abigail cleared her throat and peered towards Agnes, still maintaining her sly smile.

“Well, for now I think we should begin to travel to a town nearby. Since it’s somewhat close to where I live, I know there is quite a dense forest with caves here and there. We can even use the town to rest and spread our influence,” Abigail suggested.

Agnes focused her attention on the goblin before responding to Abigail. That thing is oddly well behaved for a creature of mischief. Maybe it’s under Edith’s spell, she has always been good at manipulation, she thought to herself before focusing back on the conversation at hand.

“Shouldn’t we clear out the goblins here first before moving on? I also live in quite a dense forest, plus it will help prevent any possible harm that may come to my grandchildren.” Agnes’ cold eyes drifted about the room as she spoke.

Abigail’s smile wavered slightly.

“Ah.. yes, you’re right, that makes sense. Then we can move on to the forest in the nearby town.”

So suspicious, Agnes commented within her mind.

With the plan somewhat settled, the three stood up to exit the cabin. Agnes made sure to grab her knitting needles before they left and placed them inside a pocket of the large brown coat she was wearing. As the trio went through the front door, the goblin obediently followed in tow.

The cool autumn breeze was the first thing to hit Agnes’ face. The changing leaves on the trees blew in the wind, sometimes breaking off of the tree and gracefully floating to the ground.

“So, should we split up or-” Agnes began but was interrupted by a snap of Edith’s fingers.

The goblin’s eyes swirled like a vortex with a purplish hue to them. It lifted its malformed head to the sky as it began to vigorously sniff. After a few moments it began to nimbly walk in a direction. Edith gestured to follow the creature and so the three did.

“Convenient,” Agnes mumbled to herself.

Amidst the crunching of leaves, there wasn’t much conversation between the three. Even though they decided not to use their powers when not together unless absolutely necessary, they never really gathered in one place very often. It was a stretch to call them any more than acquaintances or work colleagues.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

After quite a while, Edith was the one to finally break the silence.

“There are some close by. Get ready for a fight.”

Just then, a group of three goblins holding makeshift wooden clubs emerged from behind some trees. They didn’t all three look exactly the same; one was a darker green than the others, one had a bulkier body, and the other was a bit taller and skinnier. A commonality they did share was an extreme look of both bloodlust and a slight bit of caution in their lizard-like eyes.

The three goblins began to approach somewhat tactfully, clearly showing that they had the ability to act strategically.

“I’ll handle this,” Agnes said in a low voice.

With a wave of her hand, the knitting needles came floating out of her coat pocket. With haste, the tips of the needles began to intertwine with each other, forming a long line of knitted baby blue yarn.

Before the goblins could lunge and commence their attack, the knitted yarn twisted itself to form large spikes. Even though they didn’t seem like they could hurt anything, when they shot towards the goblins, the yarn easily impaled them.

Thud. The three goblins fell immediately as their hearts had been pierced by the abnormally sharp yarn spikes.

Just as Agnes was slowly making her way over to inspect the corpses, they suddenly broke into pieces and turned to ash.

“Hmm, it seems their souls aren’t quite complete. That’s pretty shoddy craftsmanship, but needed if one would want to create a whole race,” Agnes remarked as she bent down and felt the ash.

“That also means that they’re just as unpredictable, we need to exercise the utmost caution,” Edith said as she walked up beside Agnes.

From what the three could tell, the goblins were released recently. They knew that by the simple fact that the goblins seemed to prefer staying in packs, so a group of only three meant that there were likely very few around and they hadn’t yet set up any type of civilization to reproduce efficiently.

The knitting needles halted their knitting and quietly returned to the pocket of Agnes. Soon after, the blue yarn disintegrated into dark green particles.

“There shouldn’t be too many more around here, right?” Agnes asked, already seeming to know the answer.

Edith glanced towards their pet goblin which was once again sniffing the air. After only a few moments, the four set off again to locate more of the little vermin.

Once again, the journey was met with not much but silence. At least, that was until Abigail asked a question that interested Agnes.

“So, I assume that death is the proper punishment for what Evelynn has done?”

Agnes turned towards Abigail before saying calmly, “Yes, that will be the punishment. After all, creating souls is the ultimate crime and has been forbidden by The Devil himself.”

“Since it's so forbidden, how come you were so reluctant to do it?” Edith questioned.

Agnes chuckled slightly before explaining, “The Devil is pretty slow to act, therefore it would’ve taken years before he even bothered to assign us a mission ‘officially’, so why act if I am not forced to?”

Both Edith and Abigail had more questions, but didn’t ask them due to the sudden pause of the goblin.

“There’s more around here,” Edith mentioned.

The three surveyed their surroundings, unfortunately for them, trees covered most of their view.

Suddenly, Agnes noticed Edith’s eyes widen as she exclaimed, “Watch out!”

Glancing behind her, she noticed a large green and hulking beast raising its fists in an attempt to crush her.