“What? You can’t!” Anastasia shouts.

“What? Do they have some guards?”

“No. I mean, why would you want to kill them?”

I frown. “Why would you want to not kill them? You said they were refugees, so probably they don’t have much food. They are going to hunt on our territory, which means less food for us. If they settle down, their next course of action will be to eliminate local threats, like me." I take a look at Axi and correct myself, “and the rest of the goblins here.”

Anastasia bites her lip. “There are advantages, though. We can use them to trade with the rest of the world.”

I shrug and go to pick up my spear. “This would bring more humans here to kill us. Remember, both mine and Axi’s cores are valuable.” I don’t mention how much. A health potion costs silver coins. My core can be made into a healing tool. For all I know, there’s no expiration to a core, so you could heal thousands more with my core than with a potion. The price is going to be in gold at the minimum, likely platinum coins. That’s a fortune. Even if I could create another vitality mana core, I wouldn't dare to sell it. This means that I don’t want humans to know I can heal, and especially how effective it is. Although the basic order mana core should be way cheaper, it could also convince some adventurers that killing me would be very profitable.

“You don’t need to meet them. It’s just ridiculous!” She starts shouting.

“Not good enough.”

“There are women there.” She says this after a moment of silence.

“So? You want me to capture and rape them?” I roll my eyes.

“No, but we can trade.”

I sigh. It’s something I've considered before. Prostitutes are hired for hours, maybe a night. Two weeks is considerably longer, but there were surrogate mothers on Earth. So, it has the possibility of working. I would also rather have willing breeders. I may be a monster now, but destroying their minds feels like needless torture. There are hardly any benefits to a forceful approach. Hiring won’t be considerably more expensive; we need to feed the women anyway. Having broken slaves means they can’t escape, but there are ways to make sure the women will want to continue the deal. There’s no lack of desperate women in the world.

“Let’s go!” Axi jumps into the conversation.

“What?” I ask.

“I don’t want to be pregnant. Let’s get them.”

I frown. That shrinks my ability to maneuver. “Would they even agree?”

“I think so.” Anastasia nods.

I sigh. “Fine, but we are taking most of our tribe. If the negotiations fail, we will kill them.” We haven’t recovered our numbers yet, so it’s best to destroy any threat in its infancy.

Anastasia reluctantly nods and tells us to gather some food and more used weapons. Shields, especially, as they would need them to hunt hedgehogs. I don’t like that, but Axi made those shields, and she is fine with that, so I roll with it.

An hour later, Anastasia leads us to humans’ encampment.

[Adam’s POV]

We are all afraid. Uncertain about our future. What does a witch want from us? That’s uncertain. We all know what a goblin tribe would want. I take a look at Annie. Are we waiting for our deaths? Maybe for something even worse. Do we have a choice, though? We can’t even become bandits. We are too weak.

We unpacked and ate a meal, but nobody is eager to do anything more. We are just waiting in mournful silence. After a few hours, Anastasia returns. On her right, there is a hobgoblin, while on her left, there is only a regular goblin. Both of them are different. Both sweep their eyes, analyzing our camp. Both have high-quality weapons. The hobgoblin has a nice sword, while the goblin holds an ax.

“Hello!” Anastasia greets us cheerfully. It’s uncanny. “So, you are the leader of this group, right? It’s time to negotiate.” She says. More goblins follow after her, bringing food and weapons. Could this be real? I hope so. Nicole grits her teeth and steps forward.

“Let’s sit.” The witch sits on the ground, and the two goblins sit behind her, protecting her. I take a better look at them and notice the goblin with the ax is looking at girls. I place my girls behind me.

“I have food, supplies, and weapons with me. I can also teach you about hunting around here. This is my offer.” The witch starts.

“We don’t have much.” Nicole replies.

“I know. I want only a few things. First, I want a truce between us, so there’s no fighting between our groups. Is that acceptable?”

That has to be a joke. Like we can attack them.

“Naturally. It’s a given.” Nicole responds. I think she tries to be respectful.

“Good. The second thing is that we want you to only hunt in the north direction from here. Our village is to the south from here. We don’t want you to know where we are or to hunt on our land. Is that acceptable?”

We can’t even hunt on our own. This is some game.

“Yes. We will need you to teach us, so we naturally won’t give offense for your kindness.”

I frown. The witch keeps saying ‘we’. Does she speak for goblins as well? No, that’s unlikely. Maybe there are more witches? I want to cry, but I stop myself. It doesn’t matter. It’s like encountering a 6th tier monster and then figuring it’s actually 8th tier. We are at their mercy anyway.

“The third point is that we would like to trade with the rest of the world, but I may not be welcome in nearby towns. We would like you to facilitate trade.”

“We are exhausted, but we can try to get to Roheb tomorrow.”

“No, no…“ Anastasia shakes her hand dismissively. “I don’t mean right now. Honestly, it would probably be in a week at least, likely longer.”

“We can do it," Nicole replies.

“Good. So the last point.” She stops for a moment. This is it. “We need a few women from you to help us increase goblin numbers.”

“That…”

“Wait! Let me explain. First, we only need two or three girls.” I sigh in relief. This means we will likely have to decide ourselves, which means three girls with the weakest social status are going to be fucked. Both literally and figuratively. Annie and Maia have me and each other. There are a few girls in the group that lost everyone. Nobody is going to protect them. I take a look, and several of them are deadly pale.

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“Second, we don’t need them to follow us. It’s fine for them to stay here. Obviously, they are not going to lose their minds or anything like that. Just two weeks of pregnancy, and then someone will come and pick up goblins.”

Nobody speaks anymore. Nicole lowers her head. “We agree.” Someone starts to cry. “I volunteer myself. I’m old, but I can still have children.” Nicole says. I’m surprised. Probably like everyone else.

“Good. You won’t regret it.” Anastasia says. “Before you decide, let me heal anyone injured.” She stands up, the hobgoblin following after her. She comes to a girl and says something quietly. I observe as a wound disappears. The witch moves around healing both scratches, which are numerous, and serious wounds, which are not, mostly because people with serious wounds are already dead.

After that, she speaks in some foreign language, and goblins respond to that and place food on the ground.

Meanwhile, a few boys walk around and try to force lone girls into the deal. The witch notices, but before she can say something, the hobgoblin speaks. She frowns before speaking to us.

“By the way, you are going to take care of the mothers, like making sure they are well fed and secure. After all, this is part of the deal.”

I think she wants to reassure girls, but none seem very keen.

“I will do it.” A girl volunteers. I remember her. She is thin like a twig. She doesn’t have anybody left, and other girls bullied and stole her food on the way. I suppose it means a half-decent life for her. Assuming the witch spoke the truth.

.

[Smag’s POV]

I tell Anastasia to ask them why they are even here. They speak of raiders and war, though they are confused. Apparently, their kingdom is fighting some distant foe, so there should be no enemy forces nearby. They don’t know much, even about their own country. Their only interactions with officials were during taxation and conscription, which didn’t make them very patriotic. News travels with merchants, and their villages being dirt poor means there were not many merchants. Either way, I don’t think it’s something I need to worry about, excluding more refugees. Armies have no reason to travel through the forest.

After discussion, it’s time to honor the deal. I don’t really fancy breeding those girls. I don’t have time for visits here. If I want sex, I have Axi and even Anastasia back in my goblin village. I need to delegate to one of the hobs. Hm… I suppose Windy can get a reward.

“Windy, come here.”

“Yes, shaman.”

“Those humans, knowing their inferiority, decided to offer a few of their females to us for breeding, but since we don’t have much food, we will leave them here.”

“Eat them!”

“No, no. That’s not a good idea.” That’s untrue, but Anastasia won’t like it. "It is better to make humans serve us so they will be useful for longer. Anyway, I can’t be bothered to make trips here and back, so I decided to grant you fucking rights to those women.”

Windy swells with pride. “Good! I stay and breed!”

“No, no! I can’t have you stay. I need you back home. You are too powerful a warrior to lose.” I snicker under my nose. If I were to leave him here, he would rape the rest of the girls and then feed men to goblins. After that, he will declare himself a chieftain, practically rebelling against me. Hobs seem stupid, but that is actually because of their inexperience. Intelligence gives thinking speed. I would say hobs are around stupider humans in that regard, but all my hobs are only a few months old. There’s no wisdom stat to raise in the system to become smarter; you need to do it on your own, and that requires time and real-life experiences.

Anyway, I will send Anastasia with him in two weeks. She wants the deal so she can take responsibility. For now, Windy, Anastasia, Nicole, and I go inside a leather tent. It’s to get some privacy. That’s because I need to coach Windy a bit. This leads to a strange experience: me standing above Windy and giving him advice while he fucks Nicole. I sometimes hit him, while Anastasia kneels near Nicole and reassures her. I obviously did my magic and made Nicole ovulate.

After a minute, Windy is fast like a wind, Nicole leaves the tent and we invite the second girl over. She is way more nervous.

“It’s okay. You saw Nicole. She was fine.”

The girl nods.

“Can you tell us your name?”

“Samantha.”

“Ok, Samantha. Come, lay here.” Anastasia guides her down. Samantha closes her eyes. She is scared.

Windy goes to work, and Samantha winces in pain. She must have been a virgin. Lucky Windy. I hit him in the head and tell him to stop for a while. I send a trickle of vitality to the girl. I don’t really care that much about her, but I would rather make her not hate the whole experience. She doesn’t need to like it, but if she hates it, she could try to kill Windy, or worse, Anastasia.

Windy lasts a whole two minutes this time, and the girl leaves.

“Well, that’s it. We can go home now.” I announce.

“I think I will stay here for now.”

I raise an eyebrow at Anastasia.

“Part of the deal is to teach them how to hunt. No point in procrastinating.”

“Fine. I will send Windy in two weeks?" I make a statement, but my tone suggests I ask a question.

“Yeah. That’s the plan.”

“Good. Well, make sure to visit us from time to time. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye”

Axi hugs Anastasia to say goodbye, and we leave.

“Finally! No more children. I can finally concentrate on leveling up!” Axi raises her hands in celebration.

“It’s not that good. The region we are in is not very abundant in food. Ants were great, effective at devouring plants without devastating the forest while reproducing rapidly. No such luck with hedgehogs. The deal means we will need to send hunting parties farther from the tribe. This means more time lost traveling, and hunting is becoming more dangerous.”

Axi waves her hand dismissively. “I could practice smithing too. Better than laying pregnant.”

I chuckle. “That’s only the last few days of pregnancy. Besides, it’s not like you were pregnant all the time. Increasing the population this fast requires a lot of food. That’s why I didn’t inseminate you so often. The current situation is actually problematic because there is no time for crafting non-essential tools. We need to make haste and hunt more, since we are currently low on food.

“Can’t you just not send Windy?”

“Sure, but we promised to provide some food for refugees as well. It will be less of a burden with a larger population. Humans are not going to reproduce that fast. Their children stay in women nine months.

“What?! That long? How have they not gone extinct by now?!”

I shrug. “Most of them don’t hunt and eat plants instead.”

“Meat is too delicious. I’m fine with eating plants, but I would never stop hunting for meat.” Axi declares.

“They have delicious dishes made out of plants too. It’s just that we eat everything raw. Maybe in the future we will be able to eat some of their food.” Axi doesn’t seem convinced, so I change the topic. “By the way, we need to be wary of these humans.”

“They are weak.”

“For now. But Anastasia is going to train them. Also, how can you be sure Anastasia won’t betray us and join them?”

“She wouldn't do that!”

“Can you be sure? She is a human, just like them.”

Axi frowns.

“I’m not saying she will fight us over them for sure, but keep it in mind.” I plant a seed of doubt. Axi considers Anastasia a friend, so she isn’t going to believe me outright anyway. Besides, I don’t know either. My monster instincts tell me not to trust Anastasia, but I can recognize that now. I just need to prepare for both situations.

The deal with humans favors them a lot, but my two strongest subordinates are Anastasia and Axi. What would Anastasia do if I were to kill all those humans? Maybe it would be fine. What would Axi do if I were forced to kill Anastasia? What if Anastasia were to leave? Axi would probably leave with her, but it would be too problematic for me. Breaking their friendship is going to be advantageous to me.

I look at the sky. Winter is coming. I have been moving north the whole time, which may be bad in the long run. The winter will be more severe. I chuckle. At least I think so. I make a few assumptions about that. The sun travels in the sky as on Earth. I know in which direction the pole is and in which the equator. I assumed I’m on the north hemisphere, but ultimately, it doesn’t matter. It’s just a naming convention. However, I don’t know if this world is even a sphere. For all I know, it could be flat and carried by four elephants standing on the top of a gigantic turtle. Magic is a game-changer. Anything is possible.

"Axi, we need to massacre hedgehogs. After they fall asleep, they are only going to lose weight. Best to collect their meat and fat now.”