[Elise’s POV]

I groan. There’s no space here as well. Being a scout is annoying. All those annoying idiots took the best places for camping, leaving me only outskirts among trees. I suppose the payment of ten bronze coins is too good for many layabouts. They just need to show around and stay in the back while professionals do the job, and they are going to get ten coins for a three-day trip. Bastards. At least I should be able to get more by killing a bunch of goblins, but obviously, nobody pays me for tracking.

“Stev, let’s just camp here. It’s not like any monster is going to attack a camp of one hundred and fifty people.” I hear a loud laugh from the camp. “They are more likely to escape from it.”

“Fine.” Stev and the rest of my teammates agree. I would rather camp in the clearing, but whatever. We should be there tomorrow around noon. One, or even a few teams could move swiftly through the forest, but the whole army is slower. Farmers are complaining about the march and heavy luggage. It’s not like we can have a supply train or take carts with us to travel the forest with them.

While the whole subjugation expedition should take only three days total, we need supplies for at least another day or two for emergencies. I was never in an army, but I can tell this is not an army. Just a bunch of greedy adventurers and laborers who are being held in check by the guild master. I observe the man. He stands in the center of the clearing and gives orders. He isn’t incompetent; Gods forbid that be the case! It’s just that most of us are not soldiers.

After we finish placing the tent, it’s obvious that everyone is going to sleep late this evening. Half the men are drinking and laughing. I groan. This is going to be my first huge subjugation quest. It’s not how I imagined it.

“Let’s just drink a bit,” Daniele says.

“Really?”

“I don’t mean getting drunk. Just one or two sips. I don’t want to fight with a hangover as well.”

We join a circle and drink a little. I thank the gods as the guild master ends the night after only two hours. People protest, but I and several more experienced adventurers support him, and the night ends, at least in theory. I go to sleep, but there are still occasional laughs and drunken talks in the tents and around fires. I place my hand over my ears.

The next day, we march west. A quarter of us have a hangover, though I notice the rest don’t mind. More monsters and money for them. As we are getting close to the tribe, I and a few other adventurers with the right skills to serve as scouts are sent to monitor the tribe, while the group will divide and try to encircle the goblins’ camp.

I sneak ahead. I notice the camp, and it’s quiet. I can’t spot any goblins inside. Something strange. Could the witch notice us? Actually, it’s probable. It’s not like the army is sneaky. Do they hide? Maybe they wait for an ambush. Regardless, there’s no activity, and one of the scouts goes back to report. After another hour, the tribe is encircled, and adventurers move forward. We are cautious of traps and sorcery, so nobody is rushing. Especially since there’s no return fire.

We enter the tribe, but nobody is there.

“What the fuck?” Somebody complain.

“They left. This morning or a bit earlier. There are tracks here.” One of the scouts shouts. I go over there as well, and sure. There are tracks of a large group of goblins and hobs leaving.

“They must have noticed us.”

“Fuck.” “So much for the money.” People complain. The guild master claps loudly.

“Everyone! Listen to me! We can’t play cat and mouse with the witch. She fled, but if we go back, nothing is stopping her from returning. We are going to chase after them.”

We split into two groups. A fast group and a slow group. Both are going to chase after goblins, but the fast group’s goal is to tie them with fighting, then allow the slower group to catch up. In practice, all hangover guys landed in the slow group, just like opportunists. The fast group is now fifty people strong and consists of the best adventures. Frankly, I doubt the slower group will see any fighting. Some of their members may even split to kill goblins elsewhere to bring some trophies for the bounty. It’s not a big problem, but that means the fight will be deadlier without the support of the slow group.

I and a few other trackers are leading, and we set a fast march. After a few minutes, I hear a shout from behind.

“What?” The group slows down as well. I groan. This is not how you chase someone. It’s not about military strategy; it’s common sense! You need to be fast, idiots! Anyway, I go to check the commotion as well. I’m not going to push ahead alone. I find a pit with spikes inside. One guy walked into the trap and died.

“Fuck. Goblins left traps.”

“We are still close to their former camp. It’s probably an old trap.”

We continue, but I hear another shout after several minutes. Another trap.

“We need to spread scouts so they can look for traps as well.”

We started to find traps, but this slowed the march. Goblins tried to destroy their traces, so we have to both track them and look for traps. Simply put, you can’t do that while running. Or at least not at my tier.

After two more hours, the track split.

“One group went north, while another went south.”

“What now?”

People look at the guild master. He is our formal leader, after all.

“Check the track. Where did the witch go?

I and the rest of the trackers check them.

“I think a small group of mostly hobs went north, while the rest went south.” Someone says.

“So, the witch went with her elites while leaving the rest to confuse us?”

“Or she went with the larger group, leaving elites as bait.” Blah, blah, typical politics. This starts a discussion while the witch is moving away.

“It’s simple, really. Let’s just split as well. One person will stay here to tell the second group to split as well.”

“That’s probably the best choice to make sure we will find the witch.”

And so, we split up. I go north. There are no more traps, at least, so we can speed up a bit. After around two hours, there’s another change.

“They stopped moving as a group. See there? The whole group split into several small groups of a few goblins.”

He is right. I groan. This probably means the witch will escape. We split again into teams, but we stayed within shouting range of each other. The goal is now to look for goblins. After another two hours, we find two groups of goblins. In the end, four hobs and three goblins died. Unfortunately, I wasn’t lucky enough.

The day ends, and we are not going to keep looking in the night. I and my team can hunt for food and stay longer in the forest, but not the whole group. Proviant is going to end soon, so unless we find them tomorrow, the expedition is going home. Simply put, there’s not enough game for us all. We would have to create hunting parties and disperse the group. I mean, this already happened, but we are still somehow near each other. We can reinforce each group in a reasonable time, so a horde of goblins is not necessarily a death sentence. We obviously keep watch at night.

The next day, we merge again. There’s no way we are going further north, looking for the witch. If she is smart, and I bet she is, she continued to flee in the night. There’s no way we can still find her. Maybe the second group had more luck. We march back to the goblin’s camp. After a few hours, we find the guild master and the second group there. The slower group also turned back at some point, so it seems we pursued the farthest.

“It’s good you are back. It seems they were back here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look.”

There are new tracks on the ground. I groan again. The witch outmaneuvered us. They somehow returned to their camp.

“But why? I thought they wanted to escape."

“No idea. Maybe the witch is too bent on revenge or something like that. Look in which direction they went.”

“East. They went to our land. Fuck.” Someone’s shout.

“Yeah. We are regrouping and chasing after them.”

“Regrouping?”

“Some people didn’t return. Most of them probably deserted, but we confirmed three deaths."

There are still fighters in the town, so hopefully they can slow down the horde until we arrive. There’s also the governor. He can probably kill half of the horde by himself. It should be fine. My family lives in the town, not the villages, and it should be impossible for a goblin tribe this small to siege the walls of Fikeral.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

[Smag’s POV, one day before]

There’s a fire in the forest. It’s hard to mistake the glow. I suppose it could be some magic glow, but that is less probable.

“What do you think?” I ask Anastasia.

“If it’s fire, then it’s a big one.”

“Adventurers? Or a natural fire?”

“Or a fire monster, though there should be none in our region. This shouldn’t be a natural fire, though. It was raining only three days ago.”

“Fire monster?” I frown. “You mean a monster with a fire core?”

“Yes, but there are some races that have cores from birth. They only have weak mana types, though.”

That’s interesting, but less than the problem on the horizon.

“We need to investigate.”

“It’s rather far.”

“I would rather tackle the problem head-on than wait until it comes to me. Especially since I’m not busy right now.”

“Fine.”

Me, Anastasia, and two other hobs move to investigate. Goblins see in the dark only a bit better than humans. The night is rather dark, with the moon being covered by clouds. Anastasia has a perk that gives her better night vision, but it only makes it as good as ours. This means we are not as fast as during the day. There’s also danger from nocturnal predators.

After a few hours, we get close. I don’t want to get too close, so I climb a tree. Those are campfires. Damn. There are also tents visible, but it’s hard to count them in the fire’s light. I know there are many of them.

“There’s a large group there. Do you think they came here for you?” I ask.

“How large?”

“I don’t know. At least dozens. Maybe more.” I reply.

“I doubt it. I’m not that important.” Anastasia dismisses.

“So, why are they here?”

She shrugs. I lead us in a circle around the camp. I want to check from where they are coming. After half an hour, we find it. It’s a bit hard to orientate in the dark, but I think they are going straight in our direction.

“This doesn’t look good.”

Anastasia doesn’t know what to say. We move back in silence while I think about our next move. We should be back before dawn, but that won’t leave much time. I guess they will move just after dawn.

“What now?”

I’m pulled out of my thoughts by Anastasia’s question.

“We had two options. Do you think we can fight them?”

She frowns. “No. Maybe we could defend our camp, but… they should be stronger.”

“I think so too. There’s no point in defending, though. Actually, bunkering up is the worst possible choice. It’s only fine when you know there are going to be reinforcements for you. There are none for us. If we let them encircle us, they can just starve us out and build their own fortifications. Then, we will be forced to attack their own defensive positions. It’s better to meet them in the open field.” I say.

“I didn’t think you were a commander in the past.”

I frown. “Not really. It’s more from…… Well, it’s mostly from games and reading books like Sun Tzu’s. “You could say I commanded some small mock fights. I’m self-taught, though.”

She nods. “So, what’s the best strategy?”

“It’s to not get killed. We need to flee.” The most famous Sun Tzu’s quote, I think, is that you need to know your enemy and yourself. I don’t know both. I have hardly any information about adventurers. While I know more about my own forces, it’s only about individual strength. I don’t know how good goblins would fight in formations. I don’t know how effective our weapons are. I don’t know how quick goblins are to flee from humans. There’s no way we can win.

At least this battle. How do I fight a war? You need to have a plan. I don't, really. Well, I have an idea. There’s no point in fighting that army. But that means, since the army is here, that army is not somewhere else. And that is the place I should strike. The only problem is that the army is between that place and my forces. How annoying.

We come back to the tribe not too long before dawn. I kick goblins and shout for them to wake up. We need to move. I tell Axi to make me a hook. Maybe it won’t be needed, but it’s essential for my idea to succeed. Meanwhile, I pack all the remaining food and order the goblins to take all the weapons lying around. There's no point in leaving things to enemies. After an hour, soon after dawn, we start to move west.

“Axi, is it done?”

“Yeah, but I just hit an old sword a few times. It’s not going to be durable.” She gives me the hook. It should be fine for my purpose.

“Ok. Now, I need you to dig a big hole with your magic. I want to create a few pits.”

“That’s tiring.”

“Would you rather fight in the battle?" I snap.

“Fine.” She sighs and helps me. I place pre-made spikes at the bottom and cover them with branches. Then, I pick an insect, bind it to branches, and use my Vitality Bank skill slot on it. I grab Axi over my shoulder and run ahead. Vitality isn’t very good at recovering stamina, but it still helps; therefore, I can be more mobile than the rest of the tribe. I repeat this until Axi is dead tired and can’t use magic anymore.

We continue to move east. After a few hours, I order to slow down.

“What’s happening?” Anastasia asks me.

“None of the traps have been triggered.”

“How do you know?”

“I placed insects with my Vitality Bank skill. The insect should die when the trap is triggered. That should tell me that I lost a slot.”

She frowns. “Isn’t there a range limit?”

“There is. I can’t use the skill from our current distance, and runes on insects should be deteriorating rapidly, but I should still notice a lost connection on my side. I tested it before. It worked just like that. There are two other possible options. Either the army hadn’t reached our camp yet, either because they are slow or it’s not their target, or they decided not to chase after us.”

“What do you think?”

“No idea, but they should have triggered at least one trap. There is no point in fleeing when nobody is chasing after us. We can slow down.”

Not long after noon, one of my traps is triggered. Soon after, another. So I either know where they are or someone figured out my plan and stayed behind to fool me. The first option is more probable, but I still worry for a second. Who knows what competent mages can accomplish?

“Ok. It’s time for us to split.”

“What?”

“I will take half the tribe south, while you will take the rest north.”

“Why?”

“To outmaneuver them. After two hours, you will disperse the group in the east and south directions while hiding tracks. We will meet back at our camp. Hopefully, they will try to pursue us in the wrong direction.”

“Some adventurers could be still there.” Anastasia frowns.

“I know. I would rather pick another place, but goblins are too stupid. They won’t be able to find it on their own. Besides, if it’s a small group of adventurers, we can just kill them.” I explain. “Right! If that’s a failure, let’s meet in the tunnels of the old spider’s den. Do you know where it is?”

“Yeah. I know, I think.”

“Fine. Good luck," I say.

We split. I let her take most of the hobs; she may need them. I take Axi with me. We march for two hours and then disperse, just like the second group should have done. I take Axi to my small team. I travel a bit east first and then back north. I expected to encounter some adventurers—maybe not the whole army, but some scouting groups. There were none.

Regardless, we arrive at our camp in the evening. I smile seeing Anastasia.

“You are fine.” Anastasia rushes to us and hugs… Axi. Oh well.

“How about me?” I ask.

“Sure.” She replies, and she hugs me as well. I look around, and less than half of the goblins are here. We wait until the twilight. After that, I can’t wait any longer. Two-thirds of goblins are back. I suppose that’s a fine amount.

“We march east.”

Goblins groan. I guess they are tired after a whole day of marching. Unfortunately, this is only the start.

“We are going to force march the whole night,” I tell them. Most goblins are too stupid to understand, but both Axi and Anastasia groan. It’s not like I’m going to enjoy it. I hadn’t slept for over 36 hours already.

The march is as unpleasant as expected. Some goblins are too tired and have slowed down. Whatever. I leave them behind. During the whole night, we got attacked two times. Fortunately, only two goblins died due to this. I killed three goblins myself. I ordered them to be silent during the march. Some of them decided to ignore it. Not for long. A few severed heads quickly enforced my rules.

After we leave the forest, we march a bit quicker. I ignore farms and houses. I kill another goblin who thought it could investigate those houses. No. I need to be fast. An hour before dawn, only with half of the tribe’s original numbers, we see the town. Now, it’s time for one last effort.