Chapter 195: Mutation?

Red blinked his eyes, his head slowly moving. The first thing he checked was the stump on his forehead, the pointy stump. That weirded him out because it felt weird when he touched it. That confirmed that he was not seeing things. Then his hand moved toward his hair.

He already knew about his hair before, but back then his hair was thin, barely growing out. It changed overnight. Now his hair reached a quarter of his finger length, and his hair’s color was gray, not the black that he often saw on the other hobgoblins.

He tried to recall his awakening, trying to recall what the other Heradin looked like. Now he thought about it; they didn’t grow horns, but they did have hair. He had seen the one with short hair and also long hair. He even remembered the bald one as well.

The real concern was the horn because he didn’t remember any Heradin having a pair of horns like him. Not even a single one with one horn.

’Am I not Heradin?’

No, he was Heradin. The Status proved it; his race was Heradin. The real question was why he had a pair of horns. The horn bothered him.

"Don’t worry about your horns. You are a mutated hobgoblin. There are other cases where a Hobgoblin or a Goblin Champion grows a horn or a pair. That case often happened on mutated goblins," The Chief said, amused by Red’s troubled look. It was rare to see the mutated hobgoblin, or maybe Goblin Champion now.

He was not wrong about seeing other hobgoblins and Goblin Champions with a horn. That happened because a goblin was born from a race with a horn. The King’s tribe managed to kidnap a demon slave or beast-kin slave.

Red looked up with a frown. That was another thing that bothered him. It was because he was not a goblin; he was Heradin. The Chief’s explanation didn’t answer his confusion. But then again, there was nothing he could do about it for now. He just nodded at the Chief.

"Do you have an order for me, Chief?" He put aside the horn matter for now, though it bothered him more than he expected. Worse, it didn’t trigger Levelheaded.

"Not really an order, but I want you to fortify our defense further. We will get outnumbered if the reinforcement doesn’t arrive in time. We need to think another way if we want to survive the next attack. Maybe you have a new idea like those pits."

Red expected the Chief to want a new idea, but they didn’t need a new idea. They just needed to be creative with what they had right now.

"We don’t need new ideas. We just need to dig more pits and expand our pit. First, we need to widen the pit outside the village. They could jump over it before, so we made sure that they couldn’t jump over the pit this time. That way, we can isolate the elite kobold if they decide to use their ridiculous jump skill."

Red could see the shine in Chief’s eyes, growing excited over his simple idea.

"Second, we need to dig more pits inside the village as well, especially near the wall. We don’t need to dig a deep pit, just a shallow one that would be enough to make them lose their balance once they stepped through the hole. You can take that chance to kill them, killing them before they could fight back."

The Chief and the other Goblin Champions looked confused for a moment, but they quickly understood his idea after hearing the later explanation.

The Chief’s gaze locked onto him, clearly expecting more. That was when he shot down the expectation. Even if he had more ideas, they might not have enough manpower to execute them. They only had fifty-five hobgoblins now, with three evolved into Goblin Champions.

Giving them extra work would exhaust them, and that would be bad if the kobolds come attacking them the following day.

"We also need to send one or two hobgoblins to the jungle to watch over our reinforcement. I don’t want them to step into our trap."

Red quickly brought that up before he forgot. He remembered this because the Chief mentioned the reinforcement earlier.

The Chief went with "ah," as it would be a disaster if their own people fell into the trap they dug. "You pick two and tell them where to wait since you know the path."

The Chief stood up and did the unexpected: "We need to help dig the pit as well. We need the trap ready before the kobolds come again. The trap must be ready in case they come tonight!"

Red was surprised because the Chief was willing to do the labor work. That was actually for the better. Not only would the work finish quicker, but that would reduce the hobgoblins’ workload.

He could see the Fool and Reasonable didn’t like the idea of labor work, but they couldn’t complain because the Chief also volunteered. He started to feel the change in the Chief, starting to feel like an actual leader.

The Observer’s expression didn’t say anything, and the three newbie Goblin Champions seemed to be in agreement. They didn’t have the arrogance of the Goblin Champion he imagined.

"Ah, I need to borrow three or four goblins for loot. I killed more than forty Kobold Scouts in the jungle. I need low-level hobgoblins to get the loot." He didn’t forget the Kobold Scouts. If his memory was correct, he killed fifty-one Kobold Scouts. Back then, he kept going instead of taking the loot because he was afraid they might be ambushing the village.

"Go ahead. Might as well pick the two hobs to watch for the reinforcements’ arrival while you are at it!"

Red nodded and left the hall. He picked four hobgoblins, and sure enough, the bodies were still there. With the beast wiped out, nothing came to eat their bodies. Though the bodies started to rot as the bad smell permeated the area.

The drops from the loot were all Might Cores. That was the minimum asked for hobgoblins to get the loot for him. Another was that their drop rate was abysmal compared to his. Only thirteen bodies dropped two cores; the rest dropped one core.

Sixty-four Inferior Might Cores from fifty-one Kobold Scouts. That was an abysmal drop rate, but better than nothing. He couldn’t loot them because he was now higher level than these Kobold Scouts.

Red took thirty Might Cores for himself and gave the four hobgoblins the remaining thirty-four cores. Afraid that they might be fighting for the extra cores, he threw another two cores so they could split the cores evenly. That left him with twenty-eight Might Cores. He planned to keep them, saving them for Tob and Darla. He needed to feed Tob just to keep Darla safe while he was away.