Chapter 359 - 303: Vice Commander of the Holy Order Army

Chapter 359: Chapter 303: Vice Commander of the Holy Order Army

In the early morning, the underground Fortress was still chilly. Red Eyes awoke from his slumber and, with great difficulty, pushed off the thick fur blanket covering him.

The three goblins sharing his stone house were still fast asleep, snoring away. He, however, was already quietly getting dressed. These clothes offered good insulation, but they were far more complicated to put on than the old way of just draping a few scraps of cloth over his body.

’"This side’s left, this side’s right."’ He had to confirm which was which before he started getting dressed every time. When the Chief first brought clothes for the goblins, many of them had made fools of themselves by wearing them backward. Red Eyes recalled how uncomfortable his own clothes had felt back then, as if something were constantly choking him. It was only after the Chief had kicked him a few times that he realized he, too, had been wearing them backward.

Once dressed, he saw that the other goblins were still asleep. One was even muttering in his sleep from under a blanket. It sounded like he was running for his life; Red Eyes could see the goblin’s legs kicking restlessly beneath the covers, chased by something in his dreams.

He shook his head, pulled on his shoes, then picked up the Longsword resting on his low cabinet and walked out of the stone house.

Many goblins now had their own wooden beds and low cabinets. The Chief had said they could keep their favorite things in them—things that were theirs alone. Stealing another goblin’s property was forbidden; any offender caught would be exiled from the tribe. Inside Red Eyes’s own low cabinet was just a single wood carving he had asked One-Eyed to make for him. It was shaped like a fist-sized Brain-Eating Monster. When he’d gone to find One-Eyed, he had found him carving a small wooden man, using the Little Tin Soldier on the Chief’s desk as a model.

The morning air was cold. After leaving the stone house, Red Eyes took a deep breath, and the frigid air that rushed into his lungs made him cough a few times. ’This damn, damn weather.’

After a few curses, Red Eyes shouldered his Longsword and made his way down the corridors of the underground Fortress. He was up much earlier than the others because he had things to do. Soon, he was carefully passing through a stone chamber crowded with elephants and exiting the Fortress.

The elephants were a curious lot. They even seemed to dream, making soft noises in their sleep. Just a few days ago, he had seen one of them, for no apparent reason, kick a companion while deep in slumber.

The Chief had once said that when wild animals sleep, they always leave a few of their own to stand guard. Yet, ever since this massive herd of elephants had arrived, Red Eyes had never seen a single one on sentry duty. It was as if they had forgotten all about it.

The stone chamber wasn’t particularly large—the herd could just barely squeeze inside. Its original occupant, the "Big Golden Fur" Unicorn, was now forced to huddle in a corner. Before, it had used to wander freely around the chamber.

Outside the Fortress, Red Eyes stretched his back. He then followed a familiar path to a wooden hut. The door was not shut, but left ajar. Red Eyes gently pushed it open and reached inside to grab a sealed clay pot from beside the door.

Inside the clay pot was what he had specifically asked the centaurs to leave for him: deer brains, as well as the brains of other prey.

The centaurs would kill several Big-horned Deer each day, and they made sure to leave the brains for Red Eyes. They also hunted often in the vicinity, and they would scoop out the brains of their other kills and toss them into the pot as well.

The pot’s contents were food for the Brain-Eating Monsters. Red Eyes came to collect it every morning, after which he would return to a semi-enclosed stone room inside the Fortress to feed them.

He was very fond of these little pale things and would often pick them up for a cuddle. He just didn’t understand why the Chief wouldn’t let the goblins allow the Brain-Eating Monsters to roam free. As the Chief put it, "There are too many members in this tribe, and not all of them are brainless."

He had volunteered for the task of feeding the Brain-Eating Monsters. He much preferred the role of their caretaker to his old job of leading the Hunting Team on training exercises and patrols.

As the reddish-white organs from the clay pot were poured into a feeding trough, the few Brain-Eating Monsters resting on the hay immediately got to their feet. ’These little guys don’t even have noses,’ Red Eyes mused. ’How can they tell when there’s food?’

Red Eyes scratched his head. He watched as the Brain-Eating Monsters swarmed the trough, extended the sharp proboscises from beneath their bodies, and plunged them into the organs. They began to feed with a series of loud SLURPS.

He squatted down, stroking one of the Brain-Eating Monsters. The creature’s round body felt firm to the touch, yet elastic. If you pressed down with a little force, you could feel a satisfying, springy resilience. The Brain-Eating Monsters, however, didn’t much like being prodded. Whenever he tried, the creature would just duck down and scuttle away.

’"You all grow up, quick quick,"’ Red Eyes said, patting each Brain-Eating Monster in turn. He used to have a huge swarm of the round little things, but after that hateful band of humans attacked, only these few survived. He had no idea how to raise them, and when he asked the Chief, the Chief had simply said, "Never heard of anyone trying to raise these things." So, Red Eyes and a few other goblins were left to figure out how to care for the little creatures through trial and error.

After feeding the Brain-Eating Monsters, Red Eyes returned the clay pot. By the time his morning chore was done, other goblins in the Fortress were beginning to stir. In twos and threes, they headed to the banks of the underground river to wash their faces.

The Chief was a strange one. He demanded that every single goblin go to the river to wash their face and brush their teeth each morning. He had even issued every goblin a wooden-handled toothbrush and a washcloth. This was despite the fact that less than a third of the entire tribe had their own clothes, and fewer still owned shoes. And yet, everyone was fully equipped with a toothbrush and a washcloth.