I stared at the praying Tirka for a few seconds before slowly opening my mouth.

“So…does this mean that we’re in the clear?”

Tirka stopped the prayer and buried his face in his hands.

“Yes, it seems that I was mistaken. To think that a Highblade would be born…we’re heading toward our doom.”

“Yeah, I can see what you mean.”

After all, I had experience fighting a Coldsape Highblade… Well, not really. I only ever observed other people doing it since I was a mere baggage boy at the time.

But, the impression of the fight never left my mind.

‘Brutal, a bloodthirsty creature that doesn’t stop mutilating their enemies even after their deaths… this is going to be troublesome.’

Not just that, the minimum strength of a Coldsape Highblade was 4-star. The 3-star Hobgoblin Berserker would have a hard time fighting it.

However, that wasn’t the most dangerous aspect of the Highblade.

“How many Coldsapes do you think it will bring?” I asked.

“Oh, it seems like you’ve encountered a Highblade before.” Tirka raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“Stuff happened.” I shrugged. “Now, are you going to answer my question or not?”

“Well, around a hundred of them will show up.”

“What’s the number of your soldiers then?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that. What I can tell you, however, is that we’re slightly weaker than the Coldsape horde.”

“I see…”

Although it was definitely concerning that the Goblins were weaker, this could be a great chance.

‘If I make it so that the Goblins would just barely win the battle, maybe I can pick both sides off while they’re weakened.’

After all, my goal stayed the same: Clear the Dungeon and get the rewards. The reward was displayed as a bunch of question marks in Status, but I knew that it just meant that it would vary based on my performance.

‘At least that’s what the Otherworlders in my past life said…’

Then, I turned toward the soldier and addressed him with the pride and arrogance of a Swordsmaster.

“How many days do we have until the attack?”

As if on instinct, he straightened his back and said,

“Sir, our scout estimated that it would take around twenty days for them to get here!”

I nodded. “Soldier, fetch me a map of the surrounding area.”

“Yes, sir!”

Tirka, although surprised that his soldier listened to me as if I was his commander, still asked me,

“Boy, what do you want the map for?”

“To discuss the strategy, of course. We only have twenty days left, so let’s hurry up.”

.

.

.

“Hmmm…so the surroundings look like this…”

Currently, I was sitting at some kind of roundtable with Tirka sitting opposite of me.

On my right was Jaxt. Apparently, she was the Lieutenant of the Goblin militia. Right next to her was Noxt, the Berserker and chief of this settlement.

To my right was kid Ihwa, who looked disinterested in this meeting as she was focusing on patting Fenris instead.

The rest of the seats were filled with Goblins that I didn’t know the name of. Though, they were important…probably.

Tirka pointed at the Southeast of the map.

“The Coldsapes will come from this direction. We should fortify the walls there.”

Another Goblin spoke up.

“The siege will most likely be long. We should send out more men to hunt for food before the attack.”

And another.

“We should conscript more men! Our forces aren’t enough!”

“Are you stupid? There’s only twenty days! How are we supposed to train them in time?”

“Can’t we just ask our Chief to train them?”

“He only knows how to fight, not train!”

“Why are you badmouthing me while I’m sitting here?”

Before a fight could break out amongst the Goblins, I joined the discussion with a loud cough.

“Ehem, I’m sure that every of your proposals is valid, but they’re unnecessary when we can finish the fight within a day.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“...What do you mean?” Tirka warily asked.

“Exactly what I said. We should go on the offensive instead of a drawn-out siege.”

While the other Goblins laughed straight at my face, Tirka remained impartial and continued inquiring me.

“Are you sure about the chance of success?”

“Of course, but it heavily depends on one factor.”

“And that is?”

“What the Coldsapes are after.”

“...”

As Tirka was left speechless, I continued. “Have you ever wondered why the Coldsape bothered to attack Goblins despite fully being able to sustain themselves?”

“...Isn’t it because they’re evil?” A Goblin innocently raised his hand.

“Evil? Wild beasts can’t be evil.” I said as if it was a matter of fact. “They only fight for survival, not for entertainment or sport. So, you must have something that they want.”

“...What might that be?” Noxt finally spoke after staying silent for so long.

In response, I pointed at the Shaman.

“M-Me?!” Tirka stammered.

“No, not you. It’s your staff.”

Or, more specifically, the core of his staff—a Mana gem.

“Monsters are naturally drawn toward Mana and Aura.”

Goblins were the same. Though, this case was an exception.

“So, items like your staff are just drawing them to this settlement.”

“Y-You’re saying that I just give them my staff?”

“No.” I shook my head. Wasn’t this Shaman supposed to be smart? “The Coldsapes would just get stronger after acquiring the staff. If they get strong enough, they’ll start hunting you Goblins for food.”

“T-Then what should we do?”

Reading over the map one more time, I pointed at a location Northeast of the town.

“The Volcanic cave. We shall fight them there.”

Tirka looked confused, but upon seeing the mountain slope towering over the forest on the map, his eyes lit up.

“Aha! I see! That’s genius!”

‘Looks like he’s still smarter than I thought.’

All that was left was one question.

“Tirka, are there any water source nearby?”

“...Why are you asking that?”

I’d learned a lot of things in my past life from the Assassin of the Hero’s party—Hana Ito.

Among the things that she’d taught me, there was one lesson that was useful in this situation, and it was that…

“We must weaken them as much as possible.”

…Use anything to your advantage. Throw away your pride and use dirty tricks. There was no place for arrogance in this situation. If I die here, Ihwa could never be revived.

And so, I devised a plan,

“Do you raise cows here?”

A devious one,

“Yes, why do you ask?”

Based on the fact that,

“Coldsapes…are quite lactose intolerant.”

.

.

.

Yes, my plan revolved around making the enemies shit themselves so much that they’d be exhausted by the time they reached their target.

It would be messy…and smelly, but I was sure that the Goblin wouldn’t mind it if they could live.

Though, it was annoying to explain the concept of lactose intolerance to the Goblins. Luckily, Tirka managed to understand it quite fast.

A day after the meeting, the plan was announced to the whole militia of the settlement. Then, we marched toward the Volcanic cave, which took another day.

Sitting on a carriage pulled by a furry cow, I checked the supplies.

‘Who would’ve known that these Goblins had explosive?’

Dungeons were truly absurd. Even with all of my past life’s experiences, I’d never imagined a day that I’d fight alongside Goblins in a war against Coldsapes.

‘Well, I’m going to backstab them later anyway, so…’

Shaking my head to discard such thoughts from my mind, I ordered a few Goblins to place the explosives on the mountain slope and cover them with snow.

After the Goblins got to work, I hopped off the carriage and made my way to the entrance of the Volcanic cave, which was being fortified with logs. Around me, I could see Goblins running around, either pushing the logs into place or cutting down trees for more logs.

‘It’s all useless anyway. A Highblade’s slash can cut even stone.’

And yet a mere wooden wall dared to try and stop it? Simply absurd.

However, I didn’t try to stop them. With my plan, our chance of winning was basically guaranteed. So, I needed to find a way to exhaust the Goblins and weaken them as much as possible.

A little further away from the cave, but not quite as far away as the mountain slope, several Goblins were digging the ground with zeal. They were making a classic trap—oil pits that would be lit on fire. Although this was a common trap, I was sure that these Goblins only came up with the idea after seeing the lava pit.

A few steps away from the fortress of logs, a few dozen Goblins were standing in a circle, cheering loudly for something. Intrigued, I pushed through the crowd to see what it was.

Kwang—!

The sound of metal clashing gave me an idea of what was going on.

‘A fight? Must be between kid Ihwa and Noxt.’

I’d asked him to train her after all.

The way they exchanged blows with each other made it look like they were fighting on equal terms, but to me, a Swordsmaster, I could tell that Noxt was going really easy on her.

Though, the Goblins around me didn’t seem to notice this.

-”Wow, that hairless Coldsape is amazing!”

-”I know! She’s fighting on equal terms with the Chief!”

-”The hairless Coldsape’s hideous. But…I wouldn’t wan’ the Chief to taint her…”

‘...What?’

I pulled the Goblin that said that and asked him immediately,

“What do you mean by ‘tainting?’”

The Goblin looked over at the Chief to make sure that he was still immersed in fighting before whispering,

“Hairless Coldsape, don’t tell the Chief that I tol’ you this. There’s rumors that the Chief has been sleepin’ with our women.”

“...”

“We kno’ it’s true. Advisor Tirka showed us with his magic. The Chief stuffed Anika’s hole with his thick rod—”

“Stop! You don’t need to go into details! Thanks for telling me, though.”

As the Goblin came back to watch the battle, I plopped down to the snowy ground and buried my face in my hands with a sigh.

‘This is bad, really bad.’

Not the “tainting” part, of course. During these past few days, I’ve found out that apart from the abnormal increase in intelligence, physically, the Goblins were the same as the ones outside this Dungeon. So, it shouldn’t be possible for a Hobgoblin to fuck anything other than its chosen mate.

‘Because of something about sustainability. I forgot. Should’ve paid more attention to the lectures the Hero made me take about Monsters behavior and all that.’

But the important thing was that I knew Jaxt was Noxt’s chosen mate. So, he couldn’t have fucked Anika or whatever that was that the Goblin was talking about.

‘That means Tirka’s planning something. There’s only one thing tainting the Chief’s image would achieve.’

And that was taking the role of the leader of the settlement.

But it didn’t matter to me. They were both going to die anyways.

“Boy.”

‘Speaks of the devil…’

“Tirka, what’s up?”

Tirka plopped to the snow beside me and said,

“I’ve been thinking about this for a while now.”

I kept silent, waiting for him to continue.

Then, he looked at me with eyes that seemingly pierced my soul.

“Why are you helping us?”