It didn’t take them much longer to find the alleged non-stranger, the aforementioned man in a relaxed pose leaning against a tree. He looked a lot less shambling now that they were alone, or as alone as anyone was while in a forest filled with wildlife. And bugs. Those horrible, horrible bugs.

“I appreciate the meeting on such short notice. Now, I’ll waste no time here being vague, so let us get straight to the point. Your restaurant’s location is obviously compromised if I was able to follow you here. This is of concern since an incredibly strong and motivated person is currently on the hunt for you. In the best interest of my employer and the elongation of your life, I was requested to provide the option to you of moving to his manor in the countryside posthaste. Such a relocation would start your work early but doubtlessly improve your odds of survival considerably.”

Chef was quiet for a little while before pulling on Nerick’s attire. The man looked at him questioningly as he jerked his head in a direction away from the stranger. His underling begrudgingly followed him away from the man a dozen feet or so before he whispered to him.

“I have no idea what he just said.”

Nerick and the stranger gave him flat stares for some reason. He’d like to see these humans with their inflated egos stumble through a complicated conversation in goblin speak. Not that he’d ever had a complicated conversation in goblin speak either, but he attributed that to the general stupidity of the goblins he used to live with.

“What? Villagers don’t talk in such a, what’s the word in human speak?”

His buddy cracked a smile at the implication and helped him fill the gap.

“Self-indulgent. It means to do something for yourself rather than for anyone else, like a more extreme version of selfish where the person only considers what they want.”

He nodded, smiling back at the one person who understood him in this world.

“Yes, that! So what’s going on exactly, my faithful translator?”

Nerick sighed at him and wasted valuable time with awkward mannerisms before finally doing his job. This experience taught Chef that he really needed to find some grunts better suited to these kinds of tasks. As helpful as the man was, he obviously wasn’t doing as good of a job as he could be. Nerick really needed to apply himself.

“He says that our location will be found out soon by someone very strong that wants your head. Apparently, our future employer wants us to move to someplace in the countryside right now to escape them.”

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Chef could think of so many reasons not to follow the creepy guy’s whims that he ended up just standing there, speechless. But as soon as he opened his mouth to share his first point, his ruthless underling cut him off.

“No, don’t even think about it.”

“But it would be self-defense!”

The grown man groaned at Chef while lowering his face into his hands. His next words were spoken towards the ground and between fingers, but the goblin had exceptional hearing. It was just his attention span and vocabulary that needed work.

“No killing people. That was the deal, remember? Either we believe him and run away or we don’t believe him.”

The last half of that sentence caused the goblin to pause in his grumbling complaints which were mainly about how unfair it was that his grunt gave him orders rather than the other way around.

“What do we do if we don’t believe him though?”

The man lifted his face from his hands just enough to cock an eyebrow at the goblin. Chef really didn’t appreciate the look.

“Run away, obviously. We haven’t exactly been subtle, and one way or another, the man was right. This location has been found already and will be again.”

That actually made him feel things. He’d grown to like his little restaurant in the woods along with his customers. They weren’t much, but they were his. He’d built this place himself with nothing but gumption and hard work, so giving it up without a fight just felt wrong to him. But if he fought this super strong invader, it was a lose-lose scenario. If he lost, he died. If he won, he’d lose all the humans as allies.

“I hate this.”

Frustration filled his voice, preventing him from maintaining control over his tone as he talked. The unusual display of emotion caused his faithful companion to look at him seriously and consider his next words for a while before speaking.

“Remember what I said about responsibility? I may have been trying to save the mead at the time, but I really did mean it. If you want to obtain things truly worth having, you’re going to be forced to do things you’d really rather not do. Maybe in the future that will mean fighting, but today it means avoiding the battle altogether.”

Chef wasn’t sure what bothered him more, the fact that he understood what Nerick was saying or that he actually followed along the entire time. Was spending all of this time with the humans making him less of a goblin as time went on? Maybe, but he’d always been willing to do whatever it took to reach those fabled heights of peak cooking. If he wanted to taste the best flavors that this world had to offer, he would always have to sacrifice some things just like his companion had said. After all, was it not a loss on the road to mastery that brought him to their city in the first place?

He knew that agreeing with Nerick was the most infuriating thing that he could possibly do at this moment, but Chef had already understood him. It didn’t matter what he said at this point, the concession already happened within his mind. There was no longer any point denying it, no matter how much he personally hated it.

“Fine. We run away. Mr. Creepy Cloak!”

He shouted the name towards the mysterious not-quite-stranger that had delivered the message in the first place. If the man was bothered or confused by the nickname then he didn’t let it show, simply turning to look in their direction.

“We need to grab some stuff and then we’ll be right back to follow you.”

The man nodded at them once, but Chef was already turning around to leave. Once he’d made up his mind, there was no point in wasting time.