I woke up to chaos. Again.
The cave echoed with shouting as ogres and goblins bickered loudly. This was becoming a pattern, and it was already exhausting.
"What's it about this ti?!" I muttered, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes as I dragged myself toward the noise.
At the center of the cave, Grumpy stood nose-to-nose—well, more like chest-to-face—with the goblin leader, who looked like he'd bitten into sothing sour.
"You cheated us!" Grumpy roared, jabbing a finger at the goblin leader. "This at is smaller than yesterday's!"
The goblin leader crossed his arms. "Maybe it's because you ate most of it, ogre!"
"Oh great," I sighed, stepping between them. "What's going on now?"
Grumpy turned to , his face red with anger. "They're trying to rip us off! That deer we hunted yesterday? They gave us the scrawny pieces!"
The goblin leader scowled. "You think we don't notice when your kind takes the biggest chunks? You think we're stupid?"
This wasn't the first argunt between the two groups, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. The goblins thought the ogres were greedy, and the ogres thought the goblins were sneaky. To be fair, both were technically correct.
But it's human nature or well, monster nature as well(?) to be greedy so I sighed, raising my hands. "Alright, everyone calm down. Let's sort this out like adults."
Grumpy growled. "I don't need a runt like you telling what to do."
"Really?" I shot back. "Because last I checked, I was the only one who managed to stop you from getting skewered by a goblin spear."
When will this guy learn?（￣～￣;）
Grumpy opened his mouth to argue, but the goblin leader beat him to it.
"She's got a point," he said, smirking. "Maybe you should listen to her, ogre."
That, of course, only made Grumpy angrier.
It was clear I needed to co up with a solution fast before this argunt turned into an all-out brawl between them and beco a pain in the ass to deal with.
"Alright," I said, clapping my hands. "From now on, we're dividing everything equally. at, Glowshrooms, loot—everything. No exceptions."
The goblins grumbled. The ogres grumbled louder.
"But how do we know it's fair?" one of the goblins asked.
"Yeah," Grumpy added, crossing his arms. "What if they try to trick us?"
I sighed again, pinching the bridge of my nose. "Fine. Then we'll have a diator. Soone neutral to oversee the division."
The goblin leader raised an eyebrow. "And who's that supposed to be? You?"
"Obviously," I said, giving him a deadpan look.
Who else will when all they wanna do is take more? I can just go hunt for myself and I don't see the reason why I should even bother wirh stealing these anyway.
Maybe the goblins thought that as well but they did agree
So the next hour was spent hashing out the details of our new "equal distribution system."
It wasn't perfect—far from it actually—but it was better than them constantly annoying the shit out of .
I set up a system where everything was divided into even portions, and the goblins and ogres took turns picking what they wanted. If either side complained, they forfeited their next pick.
It worked. Kind of.
Just as the dust was settling, one of the goblin scouts burst into the cave, panting and wide-eyed.
"Boss! There's sothing... sothing in the forest!"
The goblin leader frowned. "What kind of 'sothing'?"
The scout shook his head. "I don't know. It's big. And it's heading this way."
The cave went silent.
"Big how?" I asked, already dreading the answer.
"Big like... bigger than you," the scout said, pointing at Grumpy.
Grumpy snorted. "Hah! Nothing's bigger than !"
A low, guttural growl echoed from the forest, making everyone freeze.
"I think it's ti we find out," I said, grabbing my weapon.
We didn't have to wait long.
A massive figure lumbered into the clearing, its hulking fra blotting out the sunlight. Its skin was a sickly green-gray, its eyes glowing faintly in the shadows.
"That's a troll," the goblin leader whispered, his voice trembling.
"No kidding," I muttered.
The troll let out a deafening roar, slamming its fists into the ground. The shockwave sent a few goblins tumbling, and even the ogres looked uneasy.
Grumpy, of course, was the first to step forward.
"I'll handle this!" he shouted, hefting his club.
"Wait!" I called after him, but it was too late.
Grumpy charged at the troll with all the subtlety of a battering ram. He swung his club with a roar, aiming for the troll's knee.
The troll didn't even flinch.
Instead, it swatted Grumpy aside like a fly, sending him crashing into a tree.
"Okay, Plan B," I muttered, activating my Spore Cloud skill.
The clearing filled with a golden mist, obscuring the troll's vision.
The goblins and ogres worked together surprisingly well after that. The goblins darted in and out of the mist, stabbing at the troll's legs and distracting it, while the ogres hurled rocks and branches from a safe distance.
I focused on keeping the Spore Cloud active, making sure the troll couldn't see where the attacks were coming from.
It wasn't easy, but eventually, the combined efforts paid off. The troll let out a final roar before collapsing to the ground, shaking the earth beneath it.
As the dust settled, the goblin leader let out a low whistle. "Well, I'll be damned. We actually did it."
Grumpy staggered back into the clearing, covered in dirt and looking more annoyed than hurt. "Told you I could handle it."
I rolled my eyes. "Sure you did, Grumpy. Sure you did."
For all their argunts these guys work well together.
The ogres and goblins exchanged uneasy glances, but there was a newfound respect between them. It finally felt like this alliance might actually work.
"Let's carve this thing up and see what we can use," I said, already thinking about what kind of loot a troll might drop.
As the others got to work, I leaned against a tree, letting out a long sigh.
"One day at a ti," I muttered.
If nothing else, life in the forest was never boring.
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