The New Babylon

At the end of the day the dead bodies were successfully delivered to the enemies.  Nathan was seated on a makeshift watchtower, overlooking his subordinates coming back to Alesia as he thought.

‘I hope the bodies will attract the predators around to the surrounding rival groups around … Anyway, now we just have to train and prepare …’

When everybody was back inside Alesia, Nathan asked the hobgoblins to come to a meeting.

As Nathan looked at the hobgoblin grouped in his tent, he thought

‘Apart from Grom, two other goblins evolved in the last battle with this number of hobgoblins inside my home we can’t even walk around’

“ _ Ok, mates first thing first, I want someone to supervise the construction of a bigger tent for our future meetings ! Who wants to do it ?”

One of the new hobgoblin stood up eagerly while the other one looked nervous as for the rest of Nathan’s group they were all averting their eyes, counting the number of hair on the animal skin covering the ground or trying to look at the clouds through the entrance of the tent.

Nathan sighted as he looked at them before resuming the meeting as he pointed his index to the hobgoblin that stood up.

“ _ Then you will do it, if you have some questions consult the others … or me”

The last part was said almost in a whisper

“_ Yes, Boss if I need help, I will consult you, boss !!”

*sigh*

*snickers*

Nathan sighted while the others were smirking at him and the overeager goblin

“_ Yeah, do so  … Now for the rest of the meeting I want you guys to organize your classes between yourselves so we can train ourselves and the goblins for battle. I will also teach them some group strategy and discipline.”

After a few hours of bickering the training program of Alesia , as Nathan proudly called it was ready.

The goblins were to be divided in groups that will have to do :

_ Muscles training with Vorya

_ Polearm training with Stevie

_ Individual combat training with Mourzuk

_ First aid with Yesus

_ Tracking with Grom

_  Group combat training with Nathan

Meanwhile the hobgoblins were mostly learning from each other.

A week later, Nathan who spared with Mourzuk, Vorya and Stevie, he was the one who showed the most progress in fight after Stevie.

As he was resting while Mourzuk was fighting Vorya he thought

‘Perfect memory has it’s perks, I always have been a fast learner but now … It’s like day and night. Even without a fighting-oriented blessing I’m clearly stronger than the average hobgoblin, well if you don’t count their evil aura …

Stevie is impressive too, with a spear in hand even if you don’t take into account the range advantage she is as strong as Mourzuk. As for Vorya … the bastard look like he has almost unlimited stamina, when I first met him, he already had some muscles, but he is looking more and more intimidating.

Hell, even Grom and Yesus are quite good, even if they are our weakest members.’

Nathan interrupted by Grom who came back with a proud smile while yelling

“_ Boss ! Boss !

_ What is it ? Did  Something good happen ?

_ Yes boss ! As you asked me, I continued to spy on the other goblins group around us and today I saw something good ! You know the camps where we dropped the bodies from the battle ?

_ Yeah what happened ? Are they sick or something ?

_ No, but they have been attacked by the beast in the forest multiple times and the closest group to us is preparing to move out !

_ Nice, but did they at least managed kill the beast ?

_ Yes ! It was some kind of very big lizard ! With extremely hard scales, I’m sure we could’ve used it to make some good armours.

_ We can still do it”

Said Nathan with an ominous smile as he stood up, he called Vorya, Mourzuk and Stevie for a meeting in the new tent.

When they arrived the hobgoblin in charge of the new tent for their meetings was waiting in front of the entrance with a proud smile as he bowed.

“_ Look boss ! The tent is at least thrice as big as yours !!

_ Yeah good job”

The hobgoblin looked a bit disappointed as everyone was just entering the tent without any sign of excitement.

When everyone was seated, Nathan pointed at Grom who explained what he saw in the camp he spied on.

“_ So, as you heard from Grom, they have some valuable materials and as the proud hobgoblins we are we must show our soon to be dead neighbours how eager we are to plunder them. We will plan our attack the same way we did last time, a frontline group will slowly advance while goblins with ranged weapons will make arrows and javelin rain on the enemies, simple and efficient against those disorganized groups.”

Mourzuk nodded as he smiled , clearly eager for battle while Vorya spoke up in excitation

“_ When will we attack ? Tomorrow ?”

Nathan smiled back as he answered

“_ I think that everyone is eager to try out what they learned in training, it is only midday, is anyone tired today ?”

Everyone shook their head from side to side

“_ Then why would we wait for tomorrow, tell the goblins to prepare for battle ! we will move out after eating !”

All the hobgoblins cheered while Nathans stood up to prepare his own weapons.

Looking at his dumbslayer which was chipped here and there with a sad smile he thought

‘You served well … this will probably be your last battle my friend’

After a not so hearty meal Nathan thought about a problem that will soon become urgent.

‘There is not enough food, our numbers a growing quickly and since they train hard every day they also eat more, Nubian already have almost a hundred goblin in the forest outpost two third of them are hunting for our food, it is not sustainable. Fortunately this little plunder session will help us for a while, I need a new way to produce food … maybe rearing some animals could do the trick, but even like this it will take a while before we can really sustain ourselves.

Well there are many hobgoblins group here, and if there is one thing I learned in this world it’s that plunder is always an answer.