The young Goblin's armor was clearly tailor-made for her, even if it wasn’t the highest quality. The black tunic she put on underneath had delicate lace work around the edges, and specially dyed leather covered the armor openings with a faded olive green.
Copper and bronze plates lined the leather, and out from under the jerkin came a frilly black skirt with more lace that covered over the belt line of her hardened leather-plated greaves, which connected to her tall boots.
It was a bit strange… Don’t get me wrong it was super cute, despite having a more adult charm to it from the black lace, but it was armor, not a princess's dress… Judging from the faded leather I could tell it had been in a couple of fights at least, but it still looked so elegant and decorative, especially for something made from low-grade materials like sky iron.
After a few moments, she let out a heavy breath as she finished strapping her daggers to her belt.
‘I have so many questions… But maybe none of them even matter… Should I just go on my way now?’ I lowered the wall of thorns.
“EH! W-wait I’m not done yet!” She quickly pulled her hood up, tightly holding it to her face to hide her ears.
“I’m starting to get the feeling you get easily embarrassed…”
Slowly lowering her hands, she tried to feign calmness, but the red still hadn’t fully left her cheeks as she cleared her throat. “It’s not like it matters right, it doesn’t make me fight any worse…”
‘Oh, she’s admitting it then? I would have just blamed the situation. Well, whatever.’ “Mochi, how’s he doing?”
She stood there blankly without saying a word. In the end, he had to respond for her, walking up to give me the knife back. “You have my thanks Bull Castrator.”
“Bull…” Suddenly I felt the same way the goblin did. ‘There's no way anyone actually calls me that right? Right? Please…’ I shook my head to snap myself out of it. “D-don’t mention it. Oh and… Don’t call me that. Chika is fine… Or… Anything else honestly…” ‘Even red streke was better…’
He grunted with confirmation, rubbing his wrist. “Very well then. To answer your question I am doing fine, the whip and handler were not strong enough to do anything but cause pain, something I am well acquainted with.”
“Ok, so… you want to explain what's going on? Because we need to decide if we're going to loot these guys and leave them in the street, or bring them into the district holding cells. And turn them in.”
He lifted a hand to his chin as he thought, slowly caressing one of his tusks that protruded out from his lower jaw. His eyes glanced over to the goblin, but she quickly turned away, pulling her hood even farther over her face. “We will loot them, and break their leader's hands. That experience was unpleasant… After that, we can bring them in. I don’t know how this city's court would handle their kind though, I admit.”
I had to back up and place a hand in his way to stop him from acting. Thankfully he stopped after his bare chest brushed up against me… And after an awkward moment of silence, I explained myself. “That’s not how it works. If they didn’t technically do much wrong, there’s no point in turning them in. And we can’t just break their hands now that we already won the fight…”
He snarled at me, sending chills down my spine as he stepped closer, towering over me by a couple of feet.
“I-I… I mean… That’s not that we can’t do anything. Just tell me what happened so I can figure out what the best course of action is. Otherwise, you two might end up in trouble.”
He took a long slow breath. “I am right.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
‘Freaking orcs…’ I turned back to the goblin, who was still hiding her face under her hood, and then to Mochi who was still too shy to say a word. ‘This is ridiculous…’ “Look, tell me what happened, and I’ll decide if you’re right.” ‘He might look intimidating… But I doubt he’s actually that strong if he ends up in that situation… Those guys weren’t hard to beat…
He grabbed my right shoulder and picked me up into the air until we were at eye level, making me a bit worried if not for the fact that there was no aggression present in his face. After staring directly into my eyes for a minute he put me back down. “Human females…” He grumbled. “It would seem Tooly is still too embarrassed to function outside of combat, so I will explain.”
‘What was that supposed to mean…’ I didn’t necessarily like how he said it… But it was strangely satisfying to be acknowledged as a girl. “Great, start with why they were after you.”
“I may have given a certain Human a lecture about honor while smashing his face in during a fighting tournament.”
‘That… Sounds about right…’ “The law probably won’t do anything to them, except maybe a misconduct charge and a fine of a few silvers.”
He started to snarl. “What…”
“Well… Explain how it went down.”
“They confronted us. Tooly became convinced to just pay them, we could always earn more money after all. But… The price they demanded was quite high, much more than we had. And so, they said they would deliver a warning… I… Lost… The fight… Tooly begged them to stop, and they told her they would if she took off her clothes.”
“You didn’t fight back?”
“If I accidentally killed one of them it would have caused more problems no? The whip didn’t hurt, it was the easier solution during that time… At least it would have been if my companion were more reasonable… And less willing to… Well, never mind…”
‘I can’t tell if he’s being serious… Or just being an orc…’ I sighed, rubbing my head. “In this case, the law won’t do anything, Let just take all the coin they have on them as penance for them attacking you, that should be fine.”
“You’re laws here… Are strange…”
I started looting the bodies, tapping Mochi on the shoulder and getting her to help as well. “True, but it works as well as any other system of law… Probably…”
“Fair enough…” He picked up a large polearm with a slightly curved blade, letting out a growl. A guandao, also called a horse killer. ‘That’s his weapon huh…’
I could tell by the sudden soft and distant look in his eyes this likely wasn’t his first time being disappointed in the system. “So you’re saying the law will not punish them for what he made Tooly do?”
I didn’t like it either, but it was a loophole of sorts. “Technically speaking, she removed her own clothes of her own free will… They didn’t actually make her do anything… They even told her she had the option not to… At most, they would get a small fine. Although that’s doubtful. She also never stripped naked, and from what I understand it’s relatively common for certain goblin tribes to wear very little in the first place. Legally speaking the only thing they would be in trouble for was assaulting you, but we resolved that on our own and having won the fight, we are allowed to just take their stuff as loot.” ‘I studied these laws pretty thoroughly after getting pissed off at my trial…’
After dusting off his bladed spear he walked over to the leader and spread his hand on the ground.
“What the, hey!” I shouted running over to stop him. “I just told you we can’t do that.”
“You’re saying we can rob them, but not break this man’s hand as penance?”
I lowered my head into one of my hands, pinching my temples between my thumb and middle finger. “You can’t claim self-defense if he’s unconscious…”
“Of course not, I would claim Thra’gor-gah’grim”
“What…”
“I believe you would call it something like an honor call. Taking back honor that was stolen.”
“How is breaking his hand going to get you you’re honor back?”
“You misunderstand. It’s not my honor I would be taking back. That is… That is long gone…”
I looked over to Tooly, who was now crouched down, and covering her face with her hands. She seemed embarrassed… Really embarrassed. I mean who wouldn’t be… She didn’t seem all that shaken up by it though, to be honest… If anything, she was only getting more flushed, rather than showing any signs of fear or trauma.
“You’re a female as well Does this not bother you?”
I felt a chill across my neck and let out a growl of my own tugging at the collar of my shirt. “I’m just saying it doesn’t make sense. If you’re going to break the law you should have a good reason for it. Shouldn’t she be the one to reclaim her honor, how can you take it back for her? Besides, they only made her do that because it would disgrace you for being unable to protect her from that situation, they didn’t care about her at all.” ‘It was obvious… Their eyes were on him the whole time…’
He took another deep breath. “You misunderstand. Honnor call is my claim… My excuse. I’m not doing this to somehow take revenge for my friend, nor am I doing this to somehow stop further wrongdoings of this man.”
“Then why even bother?”
“I’m doing it because he pissed me off, and I’m still angry. This may be about what he did, but my actions are purely for my own sake.”
“So… You’re saying this is about him whipping you?”
“You miss under–”
“Misunderstand yeah yeah whatever, I was just checking…” I looked back at his friend. I kind of understood what he was getting at… Even though she was a stranger I felt bad for Tooly, the same as him… ‘I mean… It’s not like anyone will ever know it wasn’t an injury sustained during the brawl right?’
I let out another sigh and stepped to the side. “It’s not like it’s my problem…” He grinned, and as he stomped the ground I heard the crackling of his bones turning to powder underneath the orcs iron boots. ‘He’s gonna be so pissed when he wakes up… And since we’re taking his money he won’t be able to get healed right away either… Well, serves him right…’