Goblins(1)

In the calm of the night, walking calmly are two figures. One of them is observing the other and the other is eating what looks like a giant grape-like fruit as if this person had spent at least a week without eating.

"Shalia, are you sure you can take them on?"

This person devouring the giant grape is obviously me, I'm eating the wine's fruit that Shalia gave me earlier, while we head towards the goblin town.

"Of course master, I might not like it but I'm a magic knight and a pretty strong one, I can take care of goblins very easily even if it was an army of 100,000.", Shalia said it as if the most normal thing ever.

"100,000!!! Isn't that a little too much..... Also, Miayra said these goblins are stronger than the normal ones.", I who was completely thrown back by Shalia's confidence said to make sure she's not being overconfident.

Shalia smiled and said.

"You don't have to worry master, I'll protect you."

Hearing this from beauty I don't know how to feel, I'm happy she's this positive towards me but I'm also embarrassed that I'm the one being protected. It's not that I don't believe Shalia is strong, the thing is my man pride will die out if this keeps happening!

I might have to train.... with my current body it shouldn't be impossible and this world has both magic and special powers like perks..... Actually, perks might be a form of magic.... I better think of this later.

"But master, that was a good move of you, now Miayra is bound to do her part and can no longer scam us.", Shalia said with an even brighter smile, she really seems to be happy we got the best of Miayra.

"I think it's something closer to pranks rather than scams, she seems to be the type to do so.", I said my thoughts to Shalia.

"Maybe.... But those so-called 'Pranks' might get someone killed.", Shalia answered.

"...."

I said no more since Shalia is absolutely correct about it, but I still believe in my words and think she's more of a prankster than a scammer.

Right now, I don't know but later I will. The reason I accepted Miayra's request. We made a soul contract!

******

-Sometime before-

"Your shamelessness has not decreased in one bit Miayra, how can you say such things so calmly and naturally? I'll never understand that.", Shalia said while sighing, it seems she gave up on something.

"Fine, fine, I'm shameless but that doesn't matter. I really need you to solve this.", Miayra said insisting.

"Can't you do it yourself?", I asked despite not expecting a positive answer.

"Of course not! If I could do it myself I would have taken care of it, but I'm bound by regulations to not interfere directly..... There's also something else I have to take care of, so I really need a hand.", Miayra said with a slightly worried expression.

"If that's the case we could work things under my conditions, of course, if Shalia allows it.", I said with a smirk that unknown to me was very present then I turned to Shalia who remained silent as if considering things.

Miayra turned to Shalia and said with puppy eyes.

"You know I wouldn't ask for help if I didn't need it, do it for the old times."

Seeing Miayra act this way towards Shalia despite my presence only confirms it..... she's shameless to the core.

I ignored shameless Miayra and focused on Shalia who will choose if this happens or not, I think it's only fair considering she's going to fight monsters, I can't even imagine how it's going to be but I thought of it and running away now is only delaying the inevitable if I'm going to live in a world full of monsters sooner or later, I'll end in a situation where I'll have to fight and maybe even kill someone..... So, I decided sooner is much better than later.

".... *sigh* I don't trust you Miayra, but if master insists on doing this I'll give her a chance.", Shalia said with a sigh, as it's obvious that she didn't intend to get involved at all.

I now feel a little sorry for pulling her into this but regardless of how weird Miayra is, she's a demigod and will definitely be helpful sooner or later, so I'll have to ask her to bear with it this time.

"Great! I knew my little dryad wouldn't let me down!", Miayra said excitedly as if she had already won.

I obviously brought her back to reality.

"You still have to listen to my conditions.", I said surprised by how relaxed she was even though it's supposedly a serious situation.

"Ok and what are those conditions?", Miayra asked me.

She doesn't look worried at all right now, I can see her change in mood is pretty fast.

"It's pretty simple, you have to make a 50%/50% soul contract with the condition that you have to answer all my questions honestly and without hiding anything, in exchange, we will destroy the goblin town that's causing you trouble.", I said my conditions.

I'm aware that I could have pushed it a little more since she seems to be corned, but I don't have enough knowledge to ask for anything useful. So, I'll do it later, considering what she said she'll most likely look for us again and I don't plan to throw myself into the world with the little knowledge I have when there are alternatives right here.

"Well.... If you change it to "I'll tell you everything I'm allowed to by the rules without hiding anything" then I can easily answer your questions if I know the answer that is, and since I'm not trustworthy I'll let you set the contract yourself.", Miayra said and with obvious dissatisfaction present when she talked about trust.

"It's your fault for leaving such an impression on people.", I said to her.

Once I said that she started laughing.

"Hahaha! You really are weird to know soul contract so soon after reincarnating... Unless you were here for long and only got teleported to a new place or.... It was Shalia, wasn't it?", Miayra said her guesses about how I know this until she reached the obvious answer.

Miayra smiled after saying it, I probably let it show on my expression or something cause she became sure of it. I couldn't care less if she knows how I got the information, that doesn't change anything but I must say that she was most likely underestimating me because of my lack of knowledge.

That doesn't matter anymore anyway, I'll get what I want after I and Shalia take those goblins down.

******

-Back to the present-

"Hum.... Shalia, I know there are intelligent monsters, but how do others see them?", I ask.

Since we are walking in the forest at night surrounded by trees and bushes with silence as our company, I decided to ask one of the questions in the back of my mind. Of course, I have more urgent questions but I want to save them for Miayra. It's not a question of trust, Miayra has not only lived over 100 years more than Shalia but she's also a demigod and we have a soul contract, even if she somehow cheats the soul contract I can just confirm with Shalia, so I will save the most important questions for later.

"That..... It's a bit complicated, so let me explain how this world was divided. There are two parts or wording it better, I believe saying there are two types of creatures in this world is more accurate. First, are the ones known as monsters, all the monsters that have not registered themselves in the church of the 12 Gods are considered a threat and sinners, those are referred to as {The wild ones} and right now.... I believe master is classified as a wild one.....", Shalia said with a complicated expression.

Seeing how Shalia is reacting to this I can only conclude that it's a tough subject for her.

From what I understood, she's saying that all monsters that don't follow the gods of this world are treated as an enemy, and for some reason, I don't think I'm religious person since I don't remember much about religion and don't feel anything towards it no matter how much I try, so I can only be even more worried about getting hunted down...

What intrigued me was the words she used when she said {The wild ones}, I could understand what she said but it was obviously in a weird language. Now, that I think about it, how can I understand Shalia and Miayra perfectly and they also understand me..... Do they speak one of the languages I know? But I don't feel like their speaking the language I know and I feel like I'm the one speaking in a language they understand.

This only gets weirder the more I think, I'll ask about the special words, gods, monsters and the language later, now let's learn more about what Shalia was saying.

"I see, you don't have to say anymore about monsters.... So what is the other type of creature found in this world?", I asked trying to not make Shalia too uncomfortable.

Shalia nodded and continued.

"Well, the other type of creature to be found in this world are {the Intellectual ones}, which is where all races including monsters that work under the 12 gods stand, so it is what you other worlders call soaciety.", Shalia said explaining it in a very simple way.

So, everyone is welcome as long as they follow the 12 gods huh....

"hehe... Hum.... Shalia, it's society and not soaciety and I think it's pretty different even though they obviously have similarities.", I could only laugh at Shalia's cute attempt at saying this word, I think she even faintly spoke english.

Shalia immediately became embarrassed and apologized.

"I'm truly sorry master, I didn't intend to make fun of your culture....", Shalia seems to have assumed I'm mad at her.

I shake my head and say.

"Don't worry, I don't think you're making fun of my culture. I actually think it was nice of you to try that, you looked cute.", I said my thoughts as they were to not leave a misunderstanding.

"Oh! Really?!.... Can a woman my age still be called cute?", Shalia was surprised by my words then blushed and murmured something I could not listen after she said "really?!".

"Of course, having such beauty as my servant. I'll probably say these kinds of things pretty often.", I said it naturally as if it was nothing, I did not feel any embarrassment because of my words.

I'm actually proud to have a knowledgeable and beautiful woman as my servant, who wouldn't?

"... Master if you keep saying such nonsense, I'll actually start believing it.", at this point, Shalia was covering her face with her hands while walking beside me.

(Isn't this girl too weak to compliments?), I thought seeing how she reacted to such simple things.

From that moment on, I decided to no longer say anything and let things get down on their own.

******

-Upon reaching the goblin town-

We reached the goblin town not very long after I discovered how weak to compliments Shalia is.

As we approach we started moving stealthily or at least trying to do so, it's not easy for me who has no experience but Shalia seems to be going at it just fine, as she moved through the shadows leaving no gaps for one to see her.

If I didn't know she's there, I would never be able to find her, for someone that said she's a knight I feel like I'm following a high-rank spy or a professional assassin, her stealth is absurd, I can feel it in my soul that if I stop looking for a single instance I'll completely lose track of her. I could also feel a familiar scent lingering in the air but for some reason, it's a very faint smell, so I could not differentiate it easily, then decided to ignore it.

I'm having a hard time not blinking, luckily for me, I have night vision it seems as I can see perfectly despite it being night. This only adds to how absurd Shalia's ability to conceal herself is, maybe someday I'll get to this crazy level. The worst part is that I feel like it would be the same during day time, but that's just too crazy to be true.

While I was focused on Shalia and trying to follow her movements with my very messy ones, I felt something wet under my foot, so I ended up looking to see what it was out of reflex.... It's a BODY!!

I could see it right in front of me a dead green body that was not much different from that of a child in size but had long arms and medium-sized legs.

My reaction was to check the body for some reason, it was like something was attracting me towards it, I turned the body that had its back turned upwards around and could now see its ugly face full of wrinkles, a couple of scars it had a long shin with it's oddly shaped face, it's mouth was opened so I could see the sharp teeth and even feel the rotten smell coming from it, rather than smelling bad because it's a corpse, it's still warm meaning it died not long ago, in that case, the smell was its natural smell that almost made me vomit.

Containing my vomit, I look at the cut the goblins had in its neck, not only it was deep it was actually pretty close to severing the whole head and then it hit me, the smell I was feeling since a while ago is none other than blood!

I was sure of it now, I'm surrounded by a field of goblin bodies made by Shalia... She's terrifying to have done all this while I followed all her movements as much as I could. I would not have noticed if not for this, the more I see the less I believe it's possible.

While I try to organize my chocked self, a hand grabs my shoulder from behind. I felt immense pressure and even though logically an enemy would have attacked me the moment they found me, I couldn't think of that, I could only fell one thing at this moment.... Fear! I'm afraid of dying! Even if things aren't perfect for me no one really wants to die and right now, I'm realizing just how much I treasure my life, I want to turn around but my body is completely frozen.... If the one behind me is by any chance not Shalia, I'm dead!

After starting to breathe deeply I start to turn around, regardless of what I find I don't want to cower away. I finally turn around to find...