Chapter 172: Anpbi

In the old tomb, now teeming with goblins, Yelena was unbound and began searching everywhere for any possible trace of a demon.

"This is completely useless," Yelena said, looking up with a bitter smile. "Your goblins have already turned this place upside down. Even if there were traces of a demon here before, they’d be impossible to find now!"

Although Klade had yet to return, there were still quite a few goblins in the lair. With a stable home and living environment, many of the female goblins had quickly become pregnant. It was estimated that in a few more days, the place would be crawling with goblin young.

Even now, their constant renovations and expansions in and around the tomb made it difficult for Yelena to find any trace of her Sect Leader.

"Then we’ll go to the other two places," Ron said, hauling a goblin out of Saran Lane’s sarcophagus, where it had been using the stone coffin as a bed. "Go on, play somewhere else. Aren’t you afraid of summoning skeletons sleeping in there?"

The goblin, whose sweet dream had been interrupted, was quite cranky. It bared its teeth at Ron, but fortunately, it hadn’t forgotten who Ron was and didn’t dare try to claw his face to shreds.

"I’m afraid you won’t find what you’re looking for here," a goblin leaning on a wooden staff said as he approached. "Lord Ron, there haven’t been any demons here since we first arrived."

"And you are?" Ron asked, sizing up the goblin before him. His attire made him look like some kind of Shaman. "If I recall correctly, Klade said he didn’t have any Priests under his command."

"That was before," the goblin said with a smile. "My name is Anpbi. I was once just an ordinary, unknown goblin. But one day, not long ago, I found my calling in a book discarded by passing merchants. I was born to serve our supreme queen!"

"...Huh?" Ron was a bit dumbfounded. "What queen? Your leader is Klade, and your god should be Maghreb..."

"No, no, no," Anpbi said, straightening his back. "I thought so too, before I learned about the outside world by reading a book. But then I discovered that Maghreb is a liar, a butcher, and an executioner!"

"He is a savage and cruel false god, not our god at all!"

Victoria’s mouth twitched. "While I’m glad he’s had this realization, hearing it come out of a goblin’s mouth still feels weird."

"Weird? Not at all," Anpbi said, launching into his tale with confidence. "Long, long ago, we goblins, like our earth goblin and bear goblin cousins, originally lived in the Fairy Wilderness, not the Material Plane. In the early days, we served a supreme demon of the Fairy Wilderness, the Queen of Void and Darkness. From her, we received the supernatural ability to find the weaknesses of larger enemies and slip away from all sorts of trouble."

"If Maghreb hadn’t forcibly conquered and enslaved us, driving us out of the Fairy Wilderness, how would we have ended up in this sorry state? That’s why the one we goblins should truly serve is Her Majesty, the Queen of Void and Darkness of the Dusk Royal Court!"

Anpbi gesticulated wildly in his fanaticism. The other goblins clearly couldn’t stand him, and upon seeing his display, they all scurried away in disgust.

If Ron and the others hadn’t been there, Anpbi would almost certainly have been spat on, and possibly even beaten. Ron noticed whip marks on his body.

"I think it’s all a load of crap, but he makes it sound pretty convincing," Delaford said with a yawn, grinning. "Anyway, if that... queen of his is willing to take us back, I certainly wouldn’t mind."

Unlike his fellow goblins here, Delaford was a worldly goblin. He could tell at a glance whether Anpbi was just spouting nonsense from his own imagination or if such a story actually existed.

Whether or not the story itself was true, however, was beyond his knowledge.

"If you want to keep serving a supreme demon, you’d better be more careful about preaching your ideas," Yelena reminded him with a purse of her lips. "Otherwise, your own kind will just send you to meet Maghreb."

Among Evil Mages, or Contractors, there were some who served supreme demons, so this was not an unfamiliar concept to Yelena.

She had also personally experienced what it was like to worship a completely different leader within a community. In these two respects, she and Anpbi were very much alike.

"As for what you said earlier," the Shadow Spirit said, turning to Ron, "we probably don’t need to go to the waterfall. We just came from there. If there were any trace of my Sect Leader, I would have known."

"I have no intention of prolonging my life this way. I am willing to help you in exchange for the chance to see Green Swamp Town."

"Why are you so insistent on this?" Aive asked, confused. "Was the Baron Green Swamp some good person worth mourning?"

"I’m not mourning him," Yelena said with a miserable, bitter smile. "I’m mourning the Elf I created in my mind—even if he’s worlds apart from the real person."

"Knowledge, power, and bloodline—all three are indispensable to our family. One should never compromise one for the sake of the others. In that respect, Saran has completely turned his back on his family—even if his name is Laine."

"But the Elf I imagined wasn’t like that. I want to go and see."

"Do whatever you want," Ron said, waving his hand. "First, let’s get back to the main road. There’s a village up ahead where we need to pick someone up."

The locations of the village and the main road had been deliberately chosen to be far from the goblin lair. To get back to the road, they had to cross a vast, muddy stretch, but everyone agreed it was worth it.

The goblins’ nature was certainly difficult to tame, and they would still harass nearby villagers and merchants if given the chance. That was precisely why Ron and his group couldn’t put the village and road right under their noses and give them that opportunity.

That wouldn’t be "training" to make the goblins turn over a new leaf; it would be entrapment. What’s the difference between that and letting a fox guard the henhouse?

"Picking someone up? Isn’t everyone already here?" Sera, like Delaford, had drunk quite a bit last night. Although she had immediately responded to Ron’s summons and set out, she was still feeling sluggish.

She counted the people present but didn’t see anyone missing.

"Constance. It was Aive’s idea," Silvia said. As a Vampire Descendant who didn’t require sleep, she was quite energetic. "We’re just walking back and forth in a safe area this time anyway, so it’s a good opportunity to give her some training."