Becoming a Monster

Chapter 578: Chapter 577: Submission

The newly appointed chieftain remained kneeling where it was.

Its head stayed lowered, yet its thoughts couldn’t settle with even the simplest of actions.

Who...

Who was it supposed to address? The answer should have been obvious.

The Oni.

No creature present could possibly deserve acknowledgment before the being capable of bringing entire tribes to its knees.

Yet, the Oni hadn’t stepped forward.

Instead, it remained quietly behind the two monstrous women, allowing them to stand at the forefront.

The chieftain couldn’t understand what that meant.

Were they its generals?

Its mates?

Or were they beings whose status stood high enough that even the Oni permitted them to speak first?

The longer it thought about it, the more convinced it became that approaching the Oni directly would be the greatest disrespect.

After all, why would a being as exalted as the Oni lower itself to speak with something like it?

Its trembling gaze slowly shifted toward the two women instead.

If it wished to beg for the tribe’s survival, then perhaps they were the ones it first needed to convince.

—

"Ex-excuse me... mighty Oni’s..."

The words left the chieftain’s mouth slowly, as though it feared every syllable might become the one that condemned the rest of the tribe.

It quickly lowered its head even further. Even after speaking, it didn’t dare lift its eyes.

"We... we misunderstood your intentions."

"We thought eyes only watched us."

"We thought only...if we stayed inside camp, knew our place... then mighty Oni let us live."

"But... eyes were warning."

"We not know they tell us to leave."

"We no understand. We should listen. Bu-but we know now."

The chieftain swallowed hard before forcing itself to continue.

"We sorry, mighty Oni come here... because tribe no listen."

The chieftain’s words gradually slowed before stopping altogether. Its heart pounded harder with every passing moment.

It had spoken too long, and now the silence was daunting; it didn’t dare to continue, and it was too afraid to look to see if the Oni was offended.

Had it said too much?

Had it spoken out of turn?

Or perhaps...

Had it insulted the Oni by assuming it had been giving the tribe a chance to leave?

Unable to endure the uncertainty any longer, the chieftain cautiously raised its head.

The two monstrous women were looking at one another.

One found its words amusing, judging by the smile slowly spreading across her face.

The other revealed almost nothing, making it impossible for the chieftain to guess what she was thinking.

If anything, she appeared displeased with what it said.

If that wasn’t unsettling enough...

Both of them turned toward the Oni.

The chieftain’s heart nearly stopped. Was what it said so wrong that they had to get the Oni to interfere personally?

It searched desperately for even the slightest change in the Oni’s expression.

Yet the Oni remained as unreadable as ever.

No, everything about the Oni screamed that it didn’t care for them. If the decision were left to the Oni, it would have probably decided to kill them all without a second thought.

The silence only made the chieftain more reluctant to continue.

It didn’t know that neither of the two women had the slightest idea what it was talking about.

Ailetta, however, only needed another moment before the pieces gradually fell into place.

The goblins believed the eyes had been used to give them a chance to leave.

And now, she found herself wondering whether she should correct that misunderstanding...

It was too tempting for her to go along with it.

She realized that this kind of job wasn’t to her taste. And perhaps both she and Arachne weren’t ready to lead over this particular group of creatures.

It was hard for her to take anything outside of Noah seriously, while...

She glanced back towards Arachne.

The Queen took everything a little bit too seriously. If Arachne treated these goblins the same way she did her spiders, she would work them to the bones until they begged to die, and she would be stuck wondering what was wrong.

Ailetta almost laughed to herself.

Noah had only spent a few minutes explaining what made a leader.

Yet somehow, he had already managed to make her realize just how much she still had left to learn.

No... Not just her.

Ailetta felt that both she and Arachne still had a long way to go before they could stand where Noah was.

—

Behind his composed expression, Noah quietly sighed to himself.

It wasn’t because of the goblin’s misunderstanding.

Honestly... If he were standing in their position, he might have arrived at a similar conclusion.

The eyes had watched them every night without attacking.

If anything, Noah had expected them to reach the exact opposite conclusion, that the eyes were watching to make sure none of them escaped.

Either conclusion was understandable.

What left him feeling exasperated were the two women standing in front of him.

Why...

Why were they both looking at him like that?

They were the ones who insisted on handling the goblins themselves. His only responsibility here had been creating the next chieftain.

Everything afterward was supposed to be left to them.

There was no need for Noah to ask what they wanted. Ailetta had already answered him through their soul connection.

"Darling..."

The moment she started with that single word, Noah already knew that whatever came next wasn’t going to be what they originally agreed upon.

In short...

Ailetta wanted him to handle the goblins instead.

She would continue to oversee the cats and dogs while Arachne focused on her spiders.

Neither of them believed their personalities were ready to properly lead creatures they didn’t already have some attachment toward.

"..."

"That’s exactly why I said we should’ve killed them all."

Noah’s grumble echoed directly back through the connection.

Ailetta could only laugh awkwardly. She knew exactly how terrible that sounded.

Both she and Arachne had been completely against that idea before. They had insisted they could handle this themselves.

Yet now that the responsibility had actually arrived, they found themselves pushing it back onto Noah.

Still...

Noah didn’t press the issue further.

If this conversation had happened before the attack began, then he probably would’ve gone back to his original decision and exterminated the entire tribe.

But things had changed.

He had already involved himself. And once Noah involved himself in something, he rarely left it half-finished.

His promises were something that he would never go back on. And he had already promised the hobgoblin that he would let the rest of them live as long as they diligently served him.

Since things had reached this point, he would simply make sure these goblins became better than they had ever dreamed possible.

"Since it’s come to this..."

Noah stepped toward the kneeling chieftain.

Almost immediately, hurried footsteps followed behind him as the trembling hobgoblin instinctively kept pace. Until Noah told it otherwise, it would always stay by his side, like he told it to.

Noah’s gaze settled upon the kneeling chieftain. The chieftain quivered in place. Its body nearly froze over when Noah stepped away from it without reason.

But Noah couldn’t stand being near it. The stink coming off it was more disturbing than he would have expected a non-hygienic goblin to smell.

Unknown to the chieftain’s nightly activities, Noah could only believe that this one in particular just smelled worse than the rest.

"You no longer have a chance to leave."

"By every right, I should kill every last one of you for invading my territory."

The surviving goblins immediately became deathly pale.

The chieftain felt its vision blur.

This...

This was exactly what it had feared ever since surviving that day.

"W-we serve you, mighty Oni!"

The words burst from its mouth before it even realized it had spoken. It no longer cared about speaking out of turn.

More than anything else, it wanted to live.

"We work hard!"

"We fight!"

"You have warriors!"

"You have women!"

"You have tribe!"

"We serve only mighty Oni!"

The moment the words left the chieftain’s mouth, both women frowned almost simultaneously.

Neither of them cared that the goblins treated their women as disposable goods.

What bothered them was something else entirely.

The chieftain had just tried to offer another female...

...to their Noah.

Neither of them bothered correcting it, but their aura’s said otherwise.

The chieftain quickly sensed that something had gone wrong.

It couldn’t understand what it had said.

Yet the subtle change in the two women’s expressions was enough to send another wave of panic through its body.

Without another word, it immediately threw itself forward until its forehead struck the dirt.

The sight was so utterly dishonorable that many of the remaining goblins instinctively lowered their own heads in shame.

Only the shamans reacted differently.

They immediately recognized that the chieftain had found the tribe’s only remaining path to survival.

Without saying another word, they hurried beside their chieftain before lowering themselves as well.

"Oni..."

"We serve..."

"Oni..."

"We serve..."

One voice became four, four became ten, and ten became dozens.

One by one, every remaining goblin lowered themselves until not a single one remained standing.

Only a single chant echoed throughout what remained of the camp.