Chapter 28: Elsewhere – Cooper Clay

Cooper sat upon his throne in the Great Hall of his settlement. He had a bored look as he listened to his advisor drone on about the issues that his people were facing. He was an average looking human who would not stand out in a crowd. With brown hair and hazel eyes his 5'6" (168 cm) frame made him look small as he only weighed around 150 pounds (168 kilograms).

"Oh God, I don't care! I. DON'T. FU**ING. CARE!"

Standing up while yelling at his advisor Cooper began heading for the entry way to the hall. He signaled his guards as he walked out blowing the advisor off.

"Make a new law anyone who speaks out against the goblins will be arrested and given to them as slaves. That should get them to shut up and work like they are supposed to."

With that he stormed out of the Hall with some Hobgoblin guards trailing behind him.

His advisor sighed heavily after the man stormed out of the throne room, he didn't bother asking where the idiot was going, he was sure he would be told to clean up the mess later that his "king" created.

Soto knew that things could not continue as they were, he had been Coopers first summon and he had seen Coopers cruelty immediately. Now a month later all he could do was secretly help the humans in the settlement while he acted like a loyal dog to cooper.

It had been about a week after Cooper had summoned his first summons when he had stumbled across a goblin hunting party. Cooper had decimated the Goblins with his War Axe and had left one alive. He had followed the last one back to the goblin camp where he found about 100 of them.

Soto had wanted to retreat immediately but Cooper was too stupid to understand the danger he was in. He had waited till night to sneak into the camp, making his way to the largest tent he had found the Hobgoblin chieftain and had cut off his head. Walking back outside the tent without concealing himself Cooper had then held the head to the sky declaring he had killed their Chief in combat, and he was their new chief. He also promised they would have all the food and drink they wanted and all the women they could ever need.

That had been enough to earn the loyalty of the tribe and he had brought them back to his settlement that night.

Soto and 4 others had been sent to scout another area and when they had gotten back to camp near midnight they heard the goblins before they could see them. When they had walked into camp they had found Cooper watching the over 100 goblins eating the remains of the 2 male compatriots and having their way with the 3 women that had been left behind at the camp. Before Soto or the other could register what they were seeing the one woman who had been in their scouting party turned and sprinted into the forest.

Cooper, who had looked at them saw this and with a sneer on his face yelled for the goblins to chase her down. The 3 men left with Soto went to block the goblins path and while rushing past Soto he was bumped into so roughly that he ended up falling. Before he could even get up off the ground he had been knocked out by a hobgoblin. When he had woken he learned that the 3 men had been killed and were eaten as breakfast the next day while apparently the woman got away if Coopers mood was any indicator. As Soto had been knocked down he had never been able to make a move against Cooper and thus Cooper had him left alive thinking Soto was there to support him no matter what.

When Soto found out he wanted to jump the boy right then and there, but Coopers next words had held him back.

"I have over 200 summoning vellums that the goblins gave me, I am going to have the goblins be the guards of the settlement while I will summon the humans as my manual labor."

Handing Soto the vellums Cooper had continued. "Go summon another 50 people for now."

Soto had gone to the portal and with the Goblins watching him he summoned another 50 citizens. Unfortunately, right as they would step through the portal they would be captured and rounded up by the Goblins.

Thankfully the Goblins listened to Soto when he said to leave the summons unharmed ever since, but by that night already a couple of the better-looking women had "disappeared" from the village. Since that time Soto had been told to summon close to another 1000 people. It said a lot that their current population was only 950 including the 100 goblins.

Soto had come to speak with Cooper today as he found that the normal citizens were running low on water and the goblins wouldn't let any of them go get more at the river that was a couple miles from their encampment. In fact, he had argued almost every day for Cooper to let the summons level up, but Cooper refused saying that they are peasants and should know their place. Which was supposedly to serve him and his wishes.

Soto knew the citizens were sick of being under the cruel thumb of Cooper, currently he didn't know what he could do other than wait for a perfect time to revolt against the man. He had this fantasy that the young lady who had run away the day they found the goblins had somehow survived and had found help.

Of course, he would then remember that in her eyes they had been the only remaining summons so she might not ever return, either that or since she had run into a forest at night she never made it out alive.

Staring at the doors that had slammed shut Soto stood in the eerily quiet great hall alone. He guessed that Cooper was out to cause more issues with his people. Cooper liked to go around and take from others claiming as he gave them a second chance at life their lives were his to do with as he pleased. Many times, had he kidnapped women or ordered the goblins to kill someone he felt offended him in some way.

Heaving a heavy sigh Soto turned and went back to his mini office space, he needed to have a plan for the day they would kill Cooper Clay.

(In Coopers Town)

Cooper stood up straight after venting out his anger on the middle-aged man in front of him. The man was held between two hobgoblins completely listless after being hit over and over. To the side of him a woman sobbed as she had just watched as the Settlement leader had declared that her husband had sneered at him and then beat him to death in front of her.

Looking over at the sobbing woman and the limp form of her husband he motioned to his goblin subordinates.

"Take him to the kitchen, and her to the barracks. Lets remind these pieces of shit who their betters are."

After giving his order and walking away to the terrified screams of the lady, Cooper glanced at his second in command, a goblin by the name Gorbin. The Hobgoblin stood 6'6"(198cm) tall with bog pitch black eyes that sat upon a bulbous nose. His skin was sickly yellowish green, and his teeth all seemed to be rotting.

"Explain what you had seen earlier."

Nodding the Goblin explained what he had heard from his scouts that reported that morning.

"Apparently the scouts came across a hunting group, it wasn't a group of our people though, these were not humans but a different species. The scouts tried following them home but lost the group suddenly. They were not able to find any trace of the group in the area."

"That's because those dumb fu**ers were noticed by the group. God da**, dumb goblins. Cant your scouts do anything right?! Make sure those idiots are punished severely."

After seeing the Hobgoblin nod and move off to do his bidding Cooper, walked while he thought about who that group could be. Could it be another noble or was it part of a native kingdom. Either way he needed to have his scouts start searching for where the group came from because it would mean more loot for him.