Without a wloria slung the archer’s arm over her shoulder and looped her own arm around the girl’s waist for support. Together, they navigated the cluttered cave, careful not to tahe bound to Gloria’s shackles.

  “You seem to be… well-informed about what’s happening here,” accused Mana. “Who are you, exactly?”

  “As I mentioned before,” reiterated Gloria, her voice steady. “I’m just another prisoner, like yourself.”

  Mana frowned, skeptical.

  “However,” tinued Gloria, “since I’ve been here a while, I’ve had plenty of time to piece together the nature of the operation happening in this cave.”

  “Operations?” Mana’s frown deepened in disbelief. “But they’re just goblins! How could—”

  “You said it yourself, didn’t you?” Gloria interjected calmly. “The goblin chief is far from ordinary; it possesses frightening intelligehe truth is… this pce is being used as a base for dug geic experiments, with young girls serving as unwilling hosts for these tests.”

  The color drained from Mana’s face as the woman’s words sank in. Acc to Gloria, the siing operation had been ongoing for well over a year. During that time, it became evident that the goblin chief was a rare and anomalous monster. It had somehhat ceiving offspring with human womeed in smarter and stroblins.

  Using transformation magic, the goblin chief cleverly assumed the guise of an old man to submit job requests at the guild, luring in weak and unsuspeg adventurers. This method served a dual purpose: not only did it provide a means of acquiring young, fertile hosts to bear offspring, but it also ensured a steady supply of easy prey as the male adventurers were often hunted for sport before being devoured.

  The chief reized the risks of stealing livestock, which could provoke the ire of farmers and draw unwatention from the guild or bounty hunters. However, when adventurers went missing, no one seemed to e looking for them.

  Gloria observed Mana’s gaze lingering on a group of goblins toiling over a hot stove. “It was essential to ehey kept the hosts properly fed and nourished throughout their pregnancy.”

  Mana frowned, unimpressed. So that’s why they were bringing back all the mohey had hunted.

  Apparently, the goblins and bandits shared a symbiotic retionship, with each party capitalizing orengths of the other. The bandits imparted their knowledge of cooking and shelter-building to the goblins. Iurn, the bandits ehe goblins’ formidable numbers and cimed ownership of any valuables acquired from their victims.

  Mana’s expression had turned ashen as she listened, a mixture of pain, despair, and rage washing over her as they approached the campsite where the goblins were busy preparing a rge pot of stew.

  “Be careful,” Gloria cautioned. “These goblins may ao the chief, but that doesn’t mean they’re rational. Whatever you do, avoid provoking them.”

  Mana’s gaze swept over them with disdain. Nearby, four young girls sat at the front of their tents, their clothes ragged, their bodies motionless. Mana couldn’t bring herself to meet their eyes. She khat the loss of her leg and her pce as an adventurer seemed trivial pared to the anguish and hopelesshese girls endured.

  Her pt fred as she regarded the byproduct of the monsters’ geic experiments. Foblin toddlers frolicked and pyed in the heart of the campsite, the raging fire from the primitive stove casting a warm glow on their features.

  Uypical goblins with round bellies, crooked teeth, and disproportionate limbs, these children looked different. Their pale green skin was smooth as silk, their eyes round and i, and a pair of tiny horns protruded from their foreheads. Their skin was so pale that the green pigmentation was barely visible.

  “…They look so human,” Mana’s voice quivered.

  Gloria looked on with a bittersweet expression.

  As Mana tio observe the children, gradually, the unfounded accusations—her own misery, the loss of her friends, and the plight of the surrogate mothers—that she had projected onto them began to fade away.

  As she gazed at the toddlers, who now cowered in fear from her icy stare, their uny resembo human children struck her deeply. They hadn’t chosen this life, nor had they asked for any of it. They were i beings born into a cruel world, just like any other baby.

  Finally, Mana swallowed her nervousness, her gaze drifting to the women by the tents. Like Gloria, they were all bound by shackles and long s, but unlike herself, they hadn’t surreo despair.

  Instead, their eyes shimmered with a blend of tenderness and resilience as they watched the children. It was evident that they didn’t view the toddlers as monsters, but rather as precious extensions of themselves. These i beings served as their rays of hope, the unwavering source of strength that sustaihem through their harrowience.

  As if sensing the softening of her tension, one of the toddlers timidly approached her, cheeks flushed with anticipation, its round eyes gleaming with hope. Just as their fiips were about to meet—

  BOOOOM!

  An explosioed at the entrance of the cave, hurling a goblin’s body into the air, its form cleaved in twain. Blood sprayed like a fountain, painting the cavern walls in crimsohrough the veil of gore emerged the bandits, their faces twisted in sadistic glee.

  “I hereby decre the an of our alliance!” bellowed the bandit leader, his voice ced with venomous i. “Prepare to taste the steel of our bdes, you wretched bastards!”

  With a menag smirk, he signaled his rades, and the cavern desded into chaos as swords cshed and screams pierced the air.

  A bandit, his face torted in a mask e, lu a goblin with his sword raised high. With a savage roar, he brought the bde down, cleaving through the creature’s shoulder and sending it crashing to the ground in a pool of its own blood.

  A savage cry tore from the lungs of another man as he charged into the midst of the monsters, his axe swinging in a deadly arc. The on bit deep into the flesh of the creature, ripping through bone and sinew with siing ease.

  A burly bandit wielding a massive warhammer waded into the fray. With each swing of his on, bones shattered and bodies crumpled uhe force of his blows. Goblins screamed in agony as the warhammer desded upon them, crushing skulls and pulverizing flesh with brutal effectiveness.

  Suddenly, amidst the frenzied melee, the goblin chief emerged from the shadows, perched upon a lofty rock, its silhouette looming ominously. With a malevolent grin, it raised its staff, unleashing a dark miasma that engulfed the battlefield.

  The bandits, caught in the suffog embrace of the foul magic, found themselves paralyzed, their limbs rendered useless as the goblins seized the opportunity to close in for the kill.

  Battle cries echoed off the cavern walls as the goblins desded upon their helpless prey, their vengeful ons sshing and hag with ruthless efficy. Limbs were severed, blood spattered the ground, and the air was thick with the siing st of death.

  The toddlers scurried back to their mothers in fear while Mana watched the bloodbath unfold from the pteau, horror etched on her face.

  In the heart of the chaos, the bandit leader fought desperately against the onsught, ued by the incapacitating magic that paralyzed his rades. With hate burning in his eyes, he gnced up at the goblin chief, his bde stained with the blood of his enemies. But it was a futile struggle, for in the end, darkness cimed them all, leaving nothing but age in its wake.