Chapter 87: Looming Threats!
What Kaiden wanted most in this moment was to ask Asra where exactly she'd found the crown shard. But when he turned to look at her, he found her panting, clearly exhausted. He immediately swallowed his curiosity and gently carried her back to the Lord's Hall.
...
Kaiden waited until Asra finished drinking an entire bucket of water, and before he had a chance to ask, she spoke up on her own, her tone carrying a noticeable edge of agitation.
"Sir, I don't know where to begin... I discovered so many major changes!" She hadn't been in this world for very long, so she had no prior frame of reference to compare things to. But her master had told her the general situation, and what she'd found was completely different from what she'd expected.
"Calm down, Asra, we have plenty of time. Tell me everything you went through in detail, starting from where you got this piece." Kaiden waved the crown shard in his hand, giving his pet beast a starting point to build her account around.
Asra's mind was mature enough that she calmed down immediately, realizing that the broken piece she'd stumbled upon was apparently far more valuable to her master than she'd assumed.
"Master, you asked me to scout the situation of the other lords, and that's what I focused on after leaving. The first place I headed to was the two-headed race's territory, whose shape you described to me. But when I arrived, I found nothing but ruins and chaos. Beasts were scattered among the destroyed buildings, fighting each other over small scraps of meat... I believe they belonged to members of the two-headed race." Asra took a deep breath before continuing: "I found this broken piece in the ruins of a destroyed building. While I was watching from above, I noticed something shining amid the rubble, so I dropped down quickly and grabbed it before the beasts scattered around the area noticed me."
As he listened to Asra's account, Kaiden could easily picture the tragic fate his neighbor had met — if he himself hadn't managed to repel the beast wave, something similar would have happened to him.
He wasn't surprised to learn that Lord Ashbel's story had come to an end. If anything, he would have been surprised had that lord survived. After all, Kaiden had besieged him and slaughtered his forces, which had stunted his growth to the absolute maximum. And throughout all that, that lord had never shown any particularly strong talent or anything of the sort, so his fate had been predictable.
In truth, Kaiden had wanted to seize the chance to finish off such an easy target and claim the rewards himself right after the protective barrier ended, but he'd ultimately let it go — he hadn't had any spare forces to send during the Beast Tide to exploit the chaos and eliminate his rival with one swift strike.
What he hadn't expected was that Asra would find the very crown shard that dropped when Ashbel died. This was a free gain, obtained without any effort at all, which erased his small regret as well.
Kaiden praised Asra without hesitation, then asked about the other lords' situations.
"Master, as for the goblin territory with the green-skinned inhabitants, they succeeded in repelling the beast wave. But it came at the cost of losing a great many of their fighters. I saw piles of goblin corpses and severed limbs scattered heavily outside their walls. What was strange was that the remaining goblins were celebrating inside, cooking beasts without even cleaning them, and paying no mind to their fallen comrades' bodies — they'd just been left where they fell, and the place reeked of a foul stench."
Asra spoke with a sour expression on her face. She clearly felt disgusted by the goblins' behavior.
"What about their remaining numbers? Roughly how many are there? And are there any differences among them, or are they all the same? Also, how does the size of the place compare to our Territory — is it the same size, or smaller? Also, what were the buildings like, and what were they doing when you arrived?" Kaiden pulled out paper and a pen, firing off several questions at once.
"Oh, sir, I was just about to get to that." Asra straightened up in her seat and continued: "Even though many goblins were killed, there are still two to three hundred remaining. Most of them, as I described to you, sir, were much shorter compared to the Master's race, barely wearing rags to cover themselves, and carrying crude weapons... but, sir, not all of them were like that." Asra's eyes turned serious, and she continued in a lower voice: "There are roughly fifteen that are clearly different. They were massive, each one standing about three meters tall. Their bodies were packed with muscle, and they carried extremely heavy, crude weapons with total ease."
Kaiden noted all this information down without showing any expression. He'd already known there were huge numbers of goblins, and now advanced goblins had appeared as well. It seemed he could no longer afford to wait around and develop peacefully much longer. With the goblins' unnatural breeding advantage, the longer he delayed acting, the higher the price he'd end up paying.
Kaiden listened to the rest of the details about the goblin race, and the paper quickly filled up with dense information about the size of the goblin territory, more traits of the advanced goblins, and their behaviors. He'd summarize it all later.
"What about the spiders?" Kaiden set aside his thoughts about the goblin race for the moment and asked about the spider race. Those two races worried him the most, especially the latter. Ever since their last battle, the spiders had never shown themselves again, as though they'd vanished completely. He hated not knowing, so he gripped his pen tightly and readied a fresh sheet of paper, eager to fill it with details. But his hopes were quickly dashed when Asra shook her head and began explaining.
"Master, I didn't discover anything about the spiders. When I arrived, the battlefield was already clean. In truth, if it weren't for the bloodstains and a few broken trees, there would have been no other sign a battle had even taken place." Asra paused for a moment, as though searching for the right words. "Also, sir, unlike the defensive walls of the Master's lands and the other lords' lands I've seen, the spiders' defensive walls had a strange shape. They weren't even, and they weren't made of stone."
Even for Asra, whose mind was mature, she found it difficult to give a precise description. "Umm... sir, they were made of a clay-like material mixed with tree bark, and had a membrane-like texture. Also, when I flew over their territory, I couldn't make out anything at all. The reason I couldn't see was that the entire area had been roofed over with a dense layer of spider webbing. All I could see were the shadowy outlines of strangely shaped buildings."
Asra took a deep breath, then spoke in a heavy tone: "The area was completely silent. I stayed over an hour watching the place, and there wasn't a single movement. I didn't want to linger too long, so I didn't keep watching beyond that."
Hearing Asra's account, Kaiden felt an even greater sense of threat. Those spiders were smarter and more cunning than he'd imagined. After their first defeat, they'd completely changed their routine. Kaiden didn't believe for a second that the spiders had simply never come out since then, so he suspected they'd become active at night instead, avoiding him temporarily. They'd even built a roof to block themselves from aerial view. Something was definitely off about those spiders!
At that moment, as Kaiden's thoughts began spiraling further, a system notification chimed, pulling him back to reality.
[Quest "News From the Neighbors!" completed. Reward sent: ×4 Tamed Plains Eagle (Common rank)]
A flash of light appeared in front of the Lord's Hall, and when it faded, four large gray eagles stood in its place, looking around curiously.
End of Chapter 87.
Author’s note: Hi everyone, today two new features have been added to my Patreon account. Firstly, I’ve set up a group chat where I’ll be available most of the time, as well as posting the carefully crafted videos related to the novel – of course, this is in addition to the existing features. I’d love for everyone to subscribe and support me – to be honest, it’s not easy for authors, haha. I love you all!