Grey remained near the edge of the clearing while the translucent interface hovered before his eyes, its newest set of requirements making the miserable collection of shelters around him considerably more interesting than they had been only moments earlier.
[Authority System — Locked.]
[Unlock Requirements:]
[Establish recognized territory.]
[Obtain willing followers: 0/5.]
[Evolution Requirement: Unknown.]
The requirements sounded straightforward until Grey actually considered what they meant. Claiming territory in a forest where Level 5 monsters wandered around looking for meals was already dangerous enough, but convincing five intelligent creatures to willingly follow him presented an entirely different problem.
Grey could kill something stronger than himself because monsters were predictable once he understood how they fought. People, even goblins, were considerably more complicated.
He dismissed the interface and looked toward the small group surrounding the Bloodhorn Boar.
Krag sat beside the fire while another goblin finished wrapping his injured side, the two younger goblins worked together to cut manageable pieces of meat from the corpse, and the Hobgoblin remained several steps away with its metal-tipped spear resting against one shoulder.
None of them looked particularly interested in becoming Grey’s followers.
"Yeah, figured it wouldn’t be that easy."
The Hobgoblin glanced toward him after hearing the unfamiliar words but quickly returned its attention to the others, giving Grey the opportunity to observe the settlement without having a spear pointed at him for once.
There were only four goblins here besides himself, which immediately created a problem considering the system wanted five willing followers.
Even if Grey somehow convinced everyone in the clearing to follow him, he would still be one short, and that assumed the older Hobgoblin was willing to surrender whatever authority it currently possessed.
Grey doubted that very much.
More importantly, he wasn’t interested in walking into somebody else’s home and announcing that a magical blue screen had told him to take over.
If he intended to build something capable of lasting longer than a few days, then he needed creatures willing to follow because doing so benefited them rather than because he happened to be stronger.
The smell of roasting meat gradually spread through the clearing as pieces of the Bloodhorn Boar were placed over the fire, and Grey’s attention shifted when he noticed how carefully the goblins divided everything.
Almost nothing was wasted; meat was separated into small portions, bones were placed in their own pile, strips of hide were scraped clean, and even several internal organs Grey would have happily thrown away were collected.
Krag received one of the first cooked portions.
The injured goblin stared at the meat for a moment before unexpectedly tearing it in half and offering part to the younger goblin sitting nearby. The smaller creature accepted without hesitation, and the exchange made Grey glance toward the wooden frame where several pitifully thin strips of dried meat remained hanging.
"So that’s why you were willing to fight that thing alone."
Krag looked toward him while chewing.
Grey pointed toward the Bloodhorn Boar and then toward the tiny amount of stored food. "Hungry?"
Krag seemed to understand that word because his expression changed slightly before he nodded.
"Always?"
Another nod followed.
The forest certainly wasn’t lacking animals, considering how many things had attempted to kill him since his arrival, so a group of goblins living here shouldn’t have been starving unless something prevented them from hunting successfully.
Their equipment offered one obvious explanation.
Grey looked toward the weapons resting nearby and found little more than crude stone axes, bone-tipped spears, and sharpened branches.
Krag had nearly died fighting the Bloodhorn Boar despite being Level 4, and without Grey’s intervention, the settlement would have lost one of its hunters while gaining nothing in return.
The Hobgoblin’s metal spear was the only decent weapon Grey had seen among them.
Grey pushed himself away from the root and approached the older creature, stopping far enough away that his movement wouldn’t be mistaken for aggression. "Where did you get that?"
The Hobgoblin stared at him without understanding until Grey pointed toward the metal spearhead.
Recognition appeared in its eyes.
"Human."
Grey had expected that answer, although hearing it confirmed another suspicion. "You made it?"
The Hobgoblin frowned, forcing Grey to point toward the weapon before mimicking the motion of shaping something with his hands.
The older goblin shook its head.
Then it dragged one finger across an old scar near its stomach before pointing toward the spear.
Grey understood.
"You took it from a human."
The Hobgoblin nodded.
That meant the goblins didn’t know how to work metal, which wasn’t particularly surprising considering their shelters barely qualified as construction. Grey didn’t know how to forge a sword either, but he possessed something they didn’t.
Knowledge.
Not the convenient kind where he remembered every engineering diagram humanity had ever created, unfortunately. Grey had been an ordinary person before dying, and being reincarnated hadn’t suddenly filled his head with instructions for constructing blast furnaces or producing perfect steel.
He did, however, understand basic things these goblins apparently hadn’t discovered yet.
Better traps.
Stronger shelters.
Improved weapons.
Food preservation.
Organized hunting.
Even something as simple as assigning specific responsibilities could improve their survival chances.
Grey glanced toward the Authority System notification he had dismissed earlier and couldn’t prevent a faint smile from appearing.
Perhaps earning followers wouldn’t require anything particularly dramatic.
He simply needed to make following him more attractive than continuing without him.
A sudden argument near the Bloodhorn Boar interrupted his thoughts as one of the younger goblins shouted and pointed toward the remaining meat.
The other immediately responded with an irritated growl, and within seconds both had grabbed the same strip of flesh while pulling in opposite directions. New chapters come out on g.com first.
The Hobgoblin barked a command that silenced them immediately.
Grey watched as the meat was separated and stored before looking toward the older creature. "How many?"
The Hobgoblin tilted its head.
Grey pointed toward the four goblins in the clearing and then spread his hands toward the forest. "Goblin. More."
The older creature understood after several seconds and raised both hands, displaying its fingers before lowering three.
Grey frowned as he counted. "Seven?"
The Hobgoblin nodded.
That caught his attention.
There were only four other goblins in the clearing.
"Where are the other three?"
The sentence was too complicated, so Grey pointed toward the empty shelters and then toward the forest.
The Hobgoblin’s expression immediately darkened.
"Taken."
Grey’s amusement disappeared. "Taken by what?"
The older creature struggled with the words before eventually pointing toward the northern side of the clearing.
"Red... teeth."
Grey frowned. "Red teeth?"
Krag reacted to the phrase from beside the fire, his expression becoming noticeably hostile as he said something in the goblin language. The Hobgoblin answered before crouching and using the end of its spear to draw something in the dirt.
The drawing was terrible, but Grey could make out a large body supported by four legs and what appeared to be an oversized mouth.
Then the Hobgoblin added several figures around it.
Not one creature.
Several.
Grey crouched opposite him. "A pack?"
The Hobgoblin didn’t understand the word, so Grey drew several more of the creatures beside the first.
The older goblin nodded immediately.
That explained the shortage of hunters far better than Grey had expected.
Whatever these Red Teeth were, they had apparently taken three members of the settlement and forced the survivors into a situation where Krag needed to hunt creatures above what he could safely handle. If the problem continued, this settlement wasn’t merely struggling.
It was dying.