Nhatduongg

I'm sorry if this chapter feels kind of rushed. I have some business to attend to and I won't be able to write for about 5 days. I promise to post new chapters as soon as I can when I'm done with them.

Again, any help is very appreciated.

The Gashol plain, just like the name implied, is a plain situated on the far western part of the Eilgsue. One notable feature about the place was its extremely large size, to the point that fully occupation of all the area by one faction was considered almost impossible because the forces of the occupying party must be spread throughout the plain to be able to hold grounds effectively and it would cost a tremendous amount of resources in order to do so.

The location used to be shared by three different kingdoms but now it had become a massive military theater between the Demon and the Defense Pact. Events ranging from small skirmishes to battles with thousands of casualties happened across the plain every day, gradually turning the once green landscapes into the bright scarlet color of blood.

One of such battles took place on a certain morning, the weather that day was clear. Two armies fought each other, one belonged to the Demon and consisted of some four thousand goblins and five hundred orcs, and the other belonged to the Pact and had five thousand soldiers.

Apparently, the goblins and orcs were marching through the plain towards a big battle that was taking place nearby and accidentally ran into an army from the Pact with the same intention while on the move. Two sides immediately engaged in battle after some quick scouting, to the worries of the goblins. They objected to the decision of attacking by their orc general, stating that they were outnumbered by their opponent and that they should instead retreat and regroup with the forces at the big battle.

The orcs were famous for their bad attitudes towards races of weaker strength and goblins were considered by them to be one of the weakest races. The orc general completely ignored the goblins’ suggestion and ordered to attack anyway.

While on the surface it might look like a pretty fair fight with just a gap of some hundred fighters, the fact that goblins were considered to be one of the weakest races needed to be taken into consideration. In combat, a trained human soldier could challenge two goblins by themselves with no trouble, bringing the actual fighting capability of the goblins far below what their number had told.

The orc general did not take that into consideration. Aside from their discriminatory nature, orcs were also known for their low intellect. They were the textbook example of ‘muscle brain’, always beating their way through trouble instead of actually thinking of a solution. The general being able to even count the number of each side this time was a miracle in itself.

Despite being discontent with the order, the goblins still complied nonetheless. That was because things would get really ugly if they were to disobey.

And it had resulted in disaster.

Blades clashed with each other but the goblins were quickly overwhelmed by their foes. The first lines of the green-skinned creatures fell in just a minute and soon were also followed by the lines behind them. They all fell like waves, one after another, while the swords and spears of the humans tore through the flesh of the weak and unfortunate monsters with relative ease.

Not even five minutes into the battle, the goblins that still remained decided that they could not hope to survive if they kept fighting like this. If seen from a high above perspective, the majority of them appeared to have suddenly turned their backs around and dashed to wherever that did not already stand either a human or an orc.

The goblins had fled the battlefield, leaving the business to the orcs to deal with themselves.

A group of goblins could be seen walking through the foliage of a forest.

After they pulled that retreat earlier, which seemed to be less a retreat and more a mass running away, the surviving goblins were separated from each other into small groups as they were initially running in every direction.

A shameful display indeed, but they had no choice, either they did that and live or stayed behind and die without any meaningful purposes.

Looking at their current situation, it had been a few days since they pretty much deserted. The goblins did not regret their choice at all as they were basically forced into the Demon's army against their will, and that time when the orcs would be too busy dealing with the humans was quite the perfect chance to escape.

They just hoped that they and their fellow kin had realized that before many of them perished at the hands of the humans.

Food was not exactly a top priority. The goblins did not have any provisions on them, but they could hunt for meat and gather fruits, and the forest was generous to them in that aspect as to provide them with plenty of animals and fruiting plants.

For now, they didn’t have any goal in mind and were wandering aimlessly in this forest. They didn’t even know in which direction were they heading. Stumbling into a goblin village would be good, but they doubt that they could find one since they heard that goblin villages were being burned to the grounds, by now a lot of them should be gone already. If so then they would keep wandering like this until they ran into more of their kin, the goblins guessed.

This forest they were in had some kind of mist that lowered their visibility. A curious detail was that the mist hadn’t dissipated one bit in all the days they had been walking in here. Occasionally they felt like there was some presence lurking somewhere in the thick mist, hiding in one of the small bushes by the road or on the branches of trees, watching their every movement. These presences were probably not hostile since none of them had attacked but being monitored by someone or something unknown was still very creepy for them.

The group continued on their way and before they noticed it, their front had changed from that filled with trees to that of a grassland, with a big lake not far away. The thick mist from the forest remained, though, making it hard to see even half of the lake.

They had stopped in their tracks to observe the scenery for about a minute then decided to make their way towards the lake. They felt the air getting colder the more they moved closer to the supposed shore of the lake. Peculiar, the temperature when they were in or just outside of the forest was already pretty cool, most likely due to the mist, but here it was as if they were standing outside in the middle of the winter.

Ice and snow appeared on patches of grass, getting thicker and more frequent as the group was about to reach the shore of the lake. They shivered from the cold, the fact that almost none of them were wearing what could be considered ‘actual’ clothes did not help. Some of them turned around and questioned their companions about the season but the only reply they received was that they were in the middle of spring.

One goblin suddenly called out, pointing somewhere, everyone else in the group quickly got to its position and looked at the place it was pointing at.

There was, along the shore, in a spot fully surrounded by a thick layer of snow, a large dome made out of ice. The goblins didn’t know for what purpose did the ice dome serve, but there was an opening that would fit a small person. An entrance? Perhaps. So was this some kind of house that is made out of ice?

Their theory proved to be true. While the goblins were pondering, the figure of a small girl emerged from the opening on the ice dome. She was wearing a blue dress; a blue ribbon was tied on her aqua-colored hair and six icicle wings floated behind her back.

“Ugh… Who’s there making such loud noises and disturbing my sleep…” Cirno groaned as she exited her house through the opening.

The ice fairy looked at the front to see… strange green people? Yes, ‘strange’ was the only word she could if she were to describe those people, they were all quite short, slightly shorter than her, and had this unnatural green skin. Cirno did not recall ever meeting any human or youkai like them before.

“Who are you guys? Why do you have green skin?” Cirno asked.

Apparently, her question startled some of those green people. Was she too loud? Maybe, but then they all began speaking in a language she could not understand.

“Hey! What are you guys saying?”

The green people didn’t seem to get what she was saying either. They continued talking in their mysterious language and the conversation was getting nowhere. Cirno got more and more frustrated by these strange people as the seconds dragged on.

“Alright! I think that you are too dumb to understand me! I will just beat you up!” The fairy declared before unleashing a barrage of icicles at the group of green people.

It seemed that her sudden attack had taken the strange people by surprise. They ducked to avoid her bullets but some of them still managed to graze those people.

Regaining their posture after the initial barrage, the green people stood up and faced her with their weapons.

“Oh? Just come at me if you want! You don’t have a chance of beating me anyway!” Cirno proudly boasted as she started preparing for her next move.

“Damn it! Why is this small girl so strong! Is she even a human?” One goblin shouted out as it barely dodged five consecutive bullets. The fight had been going on for a while but they hadn’t managed to deal any damage to that blue-haired girl and most of their group had already fallen.

“No, are you an idiot? Can’t you see that she is literally flying?” Another one mocked as it was also busy evading the icicles.

“Of course I know already! I was just saying!” The goblin said before it was hit by a yellow glowing bullet directly to the stomach. “Ack!” It screamed out painfully as the force of the bullet knocked it onto the ground.

“Hey! Are you okay-“ The other goblin tried running to help but then it got hit by a big icicle to the back, falling face-first on the grass. “Ahhh!”

“Noooo! Please don’t die!”

“Don’t worry… I’m still alive… And so is everyone else…”

Now that it had noticed, the entire group had fallen but there were no obvious wounds at all on any of their body. Despite being hit by giant energy balls and sharp icicles, the most serious damages that had been inflicted by that small girl were non-lethal injuries like small bruises on the skin or shallow scratches. The goblin was glad that its friends were still alive, but it wondered how the girl fired bullets that inflicted so much pain upon being hit whilst staying non-lethal and why did she do that in the first place.

After defeating the whole group, the girl who was in the air started descending. As her feet touched the ground, one of the goblins suddenly pulled out something.

“Hey guys! I had just remembered that I have a language scroll on me!” It said.

“If only you remembered that sooner! Use it now!”

The goblin quickly chanted a spell to activate the scroll in its hand and then threw it to the blue-haired girl. The object then hit the girl right in the forehead. A stream of magical letters flew out from the scroll and was absorbed into the girl before the scroll lost all its magical properties and unceremoniously fell onto the ground.

“Ouch! Why did you throw that thing at me? I have beaten you already!” The girl complained but this time it could be perfectly understood by the goblins.

“Sorry, that was my mistake. Can you forgive me?” The goblin that had just thrown the scroll said politely.

“Okay then! If you didn’t mean it then I can forgive you!” The girl said, her voice now filled with cheerfulness. “Now that you can understand what I am saying, do you mind telling me who you are?”

“Not at all, my name is Fekal and as you can see, we are goblins.”

“My name is Cirno! I’m an ice fairy and I’m also the strongest!” The girl introduced herself like she had been waiting for this moment the whole time. “Nice to meet you!”

“We’re glad to be of acquaintance, too. Though, we would prefer it more you didn’t attack us earlier…”