Every day with my son was filled with bliss, but I knew a day would come when someone would try to take that bliss away from me. I had lived in this world for over a year now, and whether they were humans or demons, they would take everything away if I gave them a chance. That’s why I had acted so ruthlessly with the goblins. I educated them, kept them in line, forced them to wear proper armor, and worked actively to keep them supplied with food, water, and women.

I encouraged the goblins to hunt for food, and even considering trying to push them into farming, but the thing about teaching them farming is that I would need to know how to do it as well. This meant that they had to raid the nearby villages for livestock every now and then. In time, I feared that this would draw attention to us. I considered using alchemy. Perhaps I could make some kind of fasting pill that could keep someone alive without food. Such a thing existed in this world. It was an emergency ration for powerful adventuring groups.

That was what had started my weekly trips to the village. I was looking for alchemy supplies. I had plenty of coins since we had robbed countless adventurers. Well, I couldn’t sell most of it. It would be pretty bad if I sold things that came off of dead adventurers from this village back to the village and were caught. However, it wasn’t like the goblins cared about material possessions, so I bought the usually alchemy supplies and got back to practicing.

{Potion Making, Poison Making, Mana Alchemy, Elemental Magic have been compiled into the art, Art of Alchemy.}

{Art of Alchemy has increased to level 32.}

I was shocked and satisfied to see my efforts pay off. Most people would never gain a single art in their lives. I had already unlocked my third. My tendency to gain new skills had lowered substantially. I didn’t foresee myself getting any other arts any time soon. That was probably because I wasn’t trying to do anything new. Beyond fucking, lying, and alchemy, there wasn’t much to me.

I hadn’t managed to make a fasting pill, but I did manage to make the opposite, a weight loss pill. Such a thing didn’t previously exist. I knew if I unveiled it that it would be quite popular, but I kept my little invention to myself. Goblins didn’t need to lose weight, and such a small village like this wouldn’t be able to give me much profit. I took a few myself, but that was just because of the baby weight. I didn’t want to get chubby, even if my boobs did seem to increase by a size.

Considering how I could contribute to this world, it was a shame that this world kept fucking me over. Perhaps, I should have just stuck with Pratter and Sandor when I had the chance. After I had died, I should have just stayed dead. I could have just worked with them. I could have invented Viagra and birth control, and live a wealthy life as an industrialist. Instead, I was the mother to a goblin king and lived with a horde of goblins. The directions that life took you sometimes.

Some of the ingredients I had wanted to work with weren’t available in the small excuse for an alchemy shop this village had. When you needed things, you couldn’t get anywhere else, you went to the adventurer’s guild. At that point, I’d hire someone to either fetch them from the wild or buy them from a store in a larger city and deliver them here. Both were options, and while you could specify which, I chose not to.

While hanging up my quest on the board, my eyes wandered over another paper that was hanging up, and that one was what caught my eye and caused me to grow quite frightened. It was a request to slay the goblins currently occupying the fort. It was a quest to destroy my home. It was an ‘A’ rank level request, just like the one that had brought me here in the first place.

After Bradrick’s party never returned, they must have increased the danger level. Since his party was originally a ‘B’ ranked party after I joined, they must have increased it to ‘A’ rank. How much were the life of my child and home? It was just two gold coins. How cheap. I think Bradrick was paid more, but first off, he was from a guild farther away, and second, it had been a deliberate lure from his brother to get him to die.

Just as I thought about this darkly, I heard a man behind me clear his throat. “Excuse me, ma’am.”

I took a step to the side and the man grabbed the request and pulled it off the board. My eyes widened. He was taking on this mission? He was going to try to kill my son?

He was a rugged man with scars on his face, but not necessarily ugly looking in that outdoorsman kind of way. He noticed me looking at him and responded with a smug look as if to say that there was no way I could take on the quest, so I shouldn’t mind if he snatched it. At that moment, I was using my Art of Manipulation to appear only average-looking and I suppressed my charm as well. At my current level, I could choose the person I appeared to be the outside world. Whether it was smell, appearance, or charm, I could change it all. If I was my normal self, this man would be drooling over himself to win my favor.

The man turned away from me without another look and walked up to the front receptionist desk where he was joined by two other men. I pretended to continue to look at random quests, but my attention was aimed at their conversation.

The three men were all demons. It was difficult to tell the race of different demons. The leader appeared to be derived from some kind of wolf creature. He had golden eyes and two triangle wolf ears on his head. There was also one that appeared with cat-like features including cat ears and a cat tail, and the final had snake-like features. At least, his eyes were reptilian and he had a bald head with spots.

“We’d like to take on this quest.” He asked the reception lady, showing her a far more flirtatious smile.

She was only a little pretty. For the girls in this village, she was above average. The fact he was fawning over her while snubbing me only caused me to snort silently in derision.

“You do realize this is an ‘A’ ranked quest, right? Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of money to pay right now.”

“That’s fine. We’re not doing it for the money.” He smiled.

The cat friend grabbed his shoulder and gave her an apologetic look. “The money would be nice though, nya?”

He let out a carefree laugh. “I suppose you’re right. My armor could use a polish. We are the S-ranked adventuring group Sliver.”

“S-S-S rank!” Her eyes widened, and I nearly jumped.

There were a few enough S ranks out there that they could be put on a list. They were almost national treasures. The men in them would all be third class! This was the group that was planning on attacking my son? This was bad! This was very bad. Thankfully, I was looking away from them, because otherwise, they would have seen the panic flash on my face. It only lasted a moment, but for anything to break my mask, it had to be shocking.

While the man has spoken nonchalantly, the woman had cried out so loudly that I wasn’t the only one that heard their rank. The entire guild hall seemed to go quiet for a moment as everyone turned to look at them.

“Isn’t that Sliver?” Someone whispered.

“That’s Sliver? Aren’t they on the top twenty for adventuring teams?”

“I heard they once took out a dragon.”

“No, it was just a drake, only SSS can handle a dragon, but still.”

The conversation seemed to open a floodgate and everyone started muttering excitedly. An S-class adventuring team suddenly appearing in a village this small would likely be the talk of the town for months to come. It also put the people at ease, because there would be no threat if they were on the case. The team seemed to almost be used to this kind of fame and gossip and took it all in stride.

This had given the woman behind the desk enough time to recover as well. She shook her head, her cheeks turning pink. Her looks no longer contained doubt, but a certain level of respect instead.

“If I may ask, sirs… why would you take on a request to defeat lowly goblins?” She asked, more quietly this time.

Technically, questions like this were a major no-no, but the woman was starstruck and this was a tiny village after all. The room only seemed crowded because it was so small, but in reality, there were only three tables that had been taken by adventurers numbering no more than ten. With his group and me included, there were only fourteen people here. Compared to the other adventuring guild which had closer to sixty, this was just a tiny place.

The man once again didn’t seem to mind. If anything, he seemed to like the attention this moderately attractive girl was giving him.

“Two reasons.” He grinned, holding up his fingers as if she needed them to count to two. “First off, I’ve heard there might be a Goblin King involved.”

“Th-that… is only a rumor.” She responded.

Hearing them refer to my son directly only caused my heart to skip a beat. We hadn’t been as stealthy as I originally had thought.

“Even so… if we catch him early on, it’d be much less of a headache for everyone involved. As for my second reason, many women have gone missing…”

“On with the women again…” The wolfkin rolled his eyes. “You know the girls taken by goblins are basically ruined.”

“Not ruined!” He lifted his finger. “Just less inhibited. Those little peckers are hardly knobs, right? Once you clean her up, she’ll probably jump right on your cock.”

“If she’s not pregnant with a goblin.”

“What are you saying? One good punch and that is taken care of.” He made a fist and laughed before his eyes fell on the secretary girl, whose face had seemed to be frozen from his words. “Although, you’re quite pretty too. What would I get if I killed a goblin for you?”

She snapped out of revelry, but her expression turned to one of disgust, and she covered her chest even though it was neither impressive nor was he leering.

“You will get nothing from me! I have a boyfriend! Pig!”

The guy’s head dropped, while the two behind him burst out laughing, slapping his shoulder.

“What did you expect after what you said?”

“You really are the worst with women. That’s why you can’t even score when you’re an S rank adventurer.”

“It’s my face… it’s too scary…” He muttered sadly.

“I’m pretty sure that’s not it.”

“Hey, don’t act like you guys aren’t interested in saving a damsel too…”

“Well, we are coming along, even though the pay is shit.”

They continued to speak jokingly as they finished taking the job and then went to drinking. Meanwhile, I had grown lost in my thoughts. He wanted to rescue and damsel and get his dick satisfied? That happened to be within my area of expertise. No one would lay a finger on my son, no matter what it took.