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The Goblin Chief and the Goblin Elder are two good leaders, better than me. They lack social anxiety and are good at leading people, and they know their way with words as well, unlike me, who is a total nutjob that only gains courage when I go completely insane and kill people. Aside from that, I am very shy with a lot of people. I am really not good with big crowds, and I am used to interacting more with my small group of people…
But there were almost 80 Goblins here, males and females, without discrimination of gender, as females can be just as strong as males if they’re not pregnant. They were all kneeling in the cold snow. Of course, Goblins usually barely wear many clothes as they always lived in hot places, but now they all were wearing pants, coats, and covering most of their body in fluffy pelt-made clothes.
The rats also give out a nice and warm pelt, so we’ll be making more clothes out of them, which will be mostly black colored too… Maybe that could be our Kingdom’s colors, black! How edgy, I like it.
“Thank you, guys… I-I am very happy… T-To have such cooperative people….” I said nervously.
The Goblin’s eyes shone brightly as they looked at me with admiration as if I had said some brilliant words despite how nervously I spoke. They all seemed happy to be thanked.
“Lady Maria, you look beautiful today!”
“We’ll gladly try to make anything we can for you….”
“Yes, our queen!”
“We are forever in debt with you….”
They were a very grateful race of people.
The Goblin Elder said that they were not particularly talented at anything because they had been mostly living as a wild tribe, living out of hunting and gathering while building tents and all of that. They were not farming or anything. They had some artisans, crafters, and chefs, but nothing too extraordinary aside from the basics.
Due to that, they need someone talented in these fields to guide them well, or they will only do a mediocre job, but they can do the heavy lifting if they cooperate and do some basic work as well, so they’re a useful bunch. They’re quite not as talented as humans and other races, but they got their “jack of all trades” kind of ability to learn things quickly but never mastered them.
With such amazing talent, what was needed now was someone to guide them and teach them, and I wasn’t good for that job. I was terrible at it, in fact! Don’t look at me, please. I swear I am not that good!
“Anyways, these are the people that were left with us which we had grown up fond of. This is the dwarf we spoke about. The other two said they didn’t want to help for whatever reason and were very grumpy about it. One of them even threw a hammer at me…” sighed the Goblin Chief.
“Hahaha… I-I apologize for my friends… But they had been in a bad mood lately. They refuse to work for other things than doing artisan things and little crafting…” said the dwarf, a small man no bigger than the goblins, only about a meter and a few centimeters tall.
He had small yet very muscular legs and large arms that could probably lift more than his size made up to be. He had a long brown bear below his chin and sharp gray eyes, with a bald head he covered with a yarn hat.
“Name’s Darfu, I used to be the owner of a small shop in a faraway town until I got robbed by a group of bandits, and they even enslaved me and sold me off as a blacksmith slave… My two other friends there were the same…” said the gentle dwarf.
“You got robbed?! How long have you been a slave?” I asked.
“Around… four or five years… I had been going from master to master. They often treated me well, just gave me a lot of work… I always wished to rebel, but the damn slave collar would kill you if you took it out forcefully or rebelled against your master.” Sighed Darfu.
“I see… Well, I am glad you seem to be fine now….” I said.
“Well yeah, it’s all thanks to you, missy, for helping me out become a free person again. I didn’t want to go back to that accursed town that sold me off, so I stayed with the humble goblin folk. They’re nice people and totally not what the society always says about them…” said the dwarf while nodding.
“Haha, Darfu is good at crafting clothes mostly. He made most of these clothes we are wearing.” Said the Goblin Chief.
“Yeah, he made this comfortable poncho for me too.” Said the Goblin Elder.
“Oh, so you’re more of a tailor?” I asked.
“Yeah, a blacksmith is my side job. I am actually better at tailoring stuff. This job is just as important for a dwarf. Where I come from, we valued tailors as much as a blacksmith.” Said Darfu.
“You come from somewhere else than that town?” I asked.
“Of course! I came from the small Dwarf Nation at the Gray Peak Mountains. I went out and well… I should have obeyed my parents when they told me that the outside world was unforgiving…” sighed Darfu.
“W-Wait… the Gray Peak Mountains?” asked Lucifer.
“Yeah, sir dragon, do you know it?” asked Darfu.
“That’s… where my family and I used to live… Are there any dragons in there?” asked Lucifer.
“A lot of them! Wyrms, Drakes, and a whole lot more of those… They’re deadly, but they got their own areas, so we try to not bother them…” said Darfu.
“Oh… Those are lesser races… I wonder if some descendant is alive living between those wilder races of dragons…” sighed Lucifer.
“We’ll find out eventually,” I said while petting his back.
“Anyways, what’s wrong with those two dwarves?” I asked.
“Hmm… W-Well, they’re grumpy…” said the Goblin Chief.
“Is that it? We give them shelter, food, and all, and they throw a hammer at you?” I asked angrily.
“W-Well, it is complicated, miss, don’t be so mean…” said Darfu.
“They’re the mean ones! Why don’t they want to work?” I asked.
“Well, the thing is… they need… something… I am not really that reliant on it, but they really want that, or they won’t work,” said Darfu.
“What do they want?” I asked again.
“Well… Booze.” Said Darfu.
“…”
“…”
Seriously?!”
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