The goblin menace pushed forward on their march regardless of whether they had a scout or not. A certain little bunny was shadowing their advance. Bi Yuan was not so knowledgeable that she knew the concept of numbers which meant that she could not count and even do simple addition. However, that would not mean she would not know what 'many' meant.

In this green forest, the goblins possessed almost camouflage-like abilities in them as their skin was green.

If not for the ruckus that their movements raised, it would be hard for someone to notice their presence.

As if to prove the enormity of their contingent, plenty of beasts were escaping left and right clearly rattled by this menacing army.

Although Bi Yuan did not know how to count, she knew that there were a lot of goblins! The significance of this was enough to send Bi Yuan into a panic, especially when she realized that the trajectory of the marching army of goblins was directed at her own home.

The more familiar the landmarks appeared around her, the more anxious Bi Yuan became. 

In the end, the little bunny decided to cease shadowing such a big group and ran off to the Desolate Cave Abode for the Game Master. The complicated emotions that were born out of her defeat by the Great Crocodilian was replaced by fear for the life of people important to her.

The Game Master was important to her... and even her fellow disciples... No. Her fellow players! The thought of having her compatriots' levels halved horrified her. She imagined that if it was her levels which was getting halved, then she might just go crazy. She would not know about the Game Master though if his level was going to be halved, but this should concern him too!

Bi Yuan pounced and ran from trees to branches with haste. She must arrive before the goblins did!

~~~

I was in the middle of creating an NPC for this particular Beta Expansion Pack to act as a moderator ruling over the Goblin Map... when I noticed big movements from the Butterberry Forest. It was such a surprise that I almost made a mistake in embedding data into my NPC!

When I took a look through my Mind's Eye and checked up on my goblin subjects, I was surprised to see a big movement. The goblins were moving with almost militaristic precision. I counted a total of a hundred goblins! They were led by a HobGoblin Spearman, and followed by more than two dozen elite goblins with modifiers in their name, and lastly, the rest were pretty much normal goblin grunts.

I was curious as to what was the source of this commotion, and what were the goblins' motivations. Currently, the biggest goblin force in the Butterberry Forest was the Goblin Fortress from the easternmost part which was led by a Goblin Shaman.

I read the Goblin Shaman Groque's memories through Telepathy. Normally, I would not be able to read minds, but because the goblins were my creation, they were at my complete mercy. The thought of having full control over a single race chilled me, and in a sense, I was their creator god.

If I was their god, I should at least try to be responsible. For example, after my project of building my NPC for this territory, I was planning on creating a Virtual Space where the dead goblins could go and rest, and when they were ready to fight again, they would be reborn either through the goblin respawn or goblin rebirth.

I already had a theme in mind. I thought of creating the Virtual Space with the Valhalla Theme. The monsters that I would be personally creating could come to this Virtual Space after their glorious battles! Oh gosh, what was I thinking? Though the idea was intriguing, I feared that a religion might abruptly pop off in my face.

My mind had gone astray to somewhere else. I returned to my task of checking the Goblin Shaman Groque's memories, and I learned that the reason for the goblins forming an army was to subjugate and kill a pair of humans namely Nee Chen and Xiang Ya. Apparently, the duo had caused a tizzy last night that they killed their way through the forest from the far end to the other end. It provoked the goblins' desire for bloodshed.

I did not program the goblins to be so bloodthirsty, but instead, this must be the manifestation of their inherent cruelty which desired to take revenge for their kin. The goblins were a monster race that I first created, and they were quite close to humans in terms of sentience despite being limited by cognition For instance, they were able to create a society of their own quickly.

I made my observations, and I was duly taking notes as this could be a good reference for my future projects. The one important thing I learned from the goblins was that they were a... menace. A true fucking menace. I made the goblins too flawed!

The thing was I programmed the goblins in a way that they would be greedy, lustful, petty, and cruel. I made every human flaw I could think of and compressed them into a single creature. That was the basis of my goblin blueprint. I was hoping to create monsters that could be fodder for my players to grow so that they could kill without conscience. I would not want my players to become demons from killing too many innocent souls, and while beasts were hardly sentient, they still had souls! This was also why I made the goblins ugly so they could become more hittable.

I had many ways to go before becoming a successful Game Developer... Nay, to become a successful Game Master of Life, Death, and Fate!

And then I realized... didn't I nerfed my players too much?

They had become less reckless since the patch update. I still would not know the extent of the mutation of their souls since becoming my players, but I felt like my players were against quite high odds. Maybe I made my fodder too strong, those goblins might even have more potential than my players.

I refused to believe this!

I believed in my players!

If it came to the worst-case scenario, I could just make my entrance and turn it into a cut-scene... while at it, wiping out lots of goblins... oh... shoot... Forget becoming a tyrannical evil lord, I might actually become an Evil God instead that needed to be taken down. The mischief was there, but if I was to think of these goblins as simply cattle, then I might feel better.

"..."

No. It only made me feel worse.

Ha ha ha ha~

I glanced at my work, the current NPC that I was building should be able to substitute for me in regulating the goblins and also giving players quests on my behalf. 

~~~

The little bunny finally arrived at the familiar foot of the Desolate Mountain where she saw Humble Blade and Lady Luck preparing themselves for an incursion.

"Ya, could we take this many?" Nee Chen asked his compatriot feeling bad from taking quite an amount of beef jerky from the supply depot.

Xiang Ya softly replied. "This should be for the best. It would be inefficient if we went back and forth. We could not hunt for prey to eat in the forest anymore considering the goblins... and goblin meat was not tasty at all..."

Nee Chen grimaced at being reminded of trying goblin meat last night. He could not be blamed though. Because of too much work-out, he felt peckish and wanted a midnight snack, and that was when he taste-tested goblin meat. "How about our water supply?"

"A single jug should suffice for the both of us. I have memorized the river pathways around the Butterberry Forest."

"Wow," Nee Chen exclaimed sincerely feeling amazed by Xiang Ya's claim. "You memorized all of that. That was awesome."

Abashed, Xiang Ya reasoned that it was not a big deal. "The river used to be a good hunting ground for Exp Points since most beasts congregate there. It was Lu Gao who taught me that when we were still at a lower level. I helped him memorize the rivers to cover more ground."

Nee Chen nodded appreciatively. "That was amazing... When I was hunting with senior Bi Yuan, we were randomly springing off to predator territory, and then that was it... Sigh... I wondered how the little bunny was... I really hoped she agreed to party with us, but she ejected our invitation." 

That was when Xiang Ya saw from the corner of her eyes the aforementioned little bunny angrily gesticulating about something. Nee Chen and Xiang Ya were so immersed in their conversation that they did not notice the little white furball.

"Nee Chen, there-" Before Xiang Ya could fully utter her thoughts about the ignored bunny, Bi Yuan's foot came crashing at Nee Chen's cheek.

"Fuk kyu~!!" The little bunny strangely cussed at Nee Chen, feeling indignant for being ignored.