Re:Monster Vol.2 (Day 61 - Day 90)

Day 71

Today, eight Goblins ranked up into Hobgoblins. Three Goblins became mages, one became a cleric, and for the first time a shaman Goblin was born; the other three became regular Hobgoblins.

I was honestly happy at the significant increase in the number of our mage-types, due to the ambush the other day; the increase of Shamans who could lengthen the lifespan of undead units during the day was an extremely useful asset for us.

In addition to that, today three Kobolds ranked up to Kobold Footmen.

When they rank up into Footmen, Kobolds are furnished with a weapon called an "Organic Spear" — an organic weapon which is made from the cells of the original body, so it seems that as the original body grows, the weapons grow with them - and the ones who became Footmen reported to me this morning, holding their spears.

Even though the three of them should be holding spears for the very first time in their lives, the Organic Spears that came from their own bodies could be said to be an extension of themselves. Their spear handling was quite something.

However, since they were still a far cry from mastery, the three Kobold Footmen planned to focus on training to handle their spears together with the Kobold Leader, who was the first to rank up into a Footman.

Even so, many ranked up because of the amount of experience points we gained in our battle against the human army. The increase of slaves in our labor and fighting forces is a boon for us.

It seems we are about to clear our first goal. Because we got our hands on some females from our enemy that we can use to breed, we should try to increase our numbers. However, if our group becomes too large, the amount of food we need and other difficulties will increase too, so we will have to coordinate the increase.

We have yet to find out how long it will take for a child who surpasses the rank of a Hobgoblin to be born. As expected, even Gobu-jii doesn't know the answer. However, it seems that when a human female is pregnant with a Goblin child it takes about 20 days and if a Goblin is pregnant it takes about 25 days. Then, if a human is pregnant with a Hobgoblin child it takes about 40 days, while a Hobgoblin is pregnant for about 50 days.

Although the birthing period varies, I couldn't hide my surprise about the speed. Now I understand why humans regularly hunt Goblins.

Just in case, I checked if anyone of them became a Variant that matches one of the magic items they've used. However, apart from Ogakichi, Dhammi and myself, no one else has become a Variant; as expected, the others don't meet the requirements to obtain a [Divine Protection].

I'll deal with this problem later.

After today's morning training, I questioned Rusty Iron Knight and the others that looked like commanding officers about the human army's purpose, whom I put [slave] collars on and threw into prison. I did this so as to gain information from multiple sources to supplement what I obtained from Female Knight and the others.

As a result, I understood the general idea behind this war.

What sparked this war was the Sternbild Kingdom ― because other countries haven't been mentioned yet, I'll simply call it "Kingdom" for now until others appear ― it started when their princess caught a terrible disease.

After infection, your internal organs would slowly rot away as the days passed by. More than 99% of the people who caught the disease would die within one year. There were a few cases where the patient survived for about 2 years, but as they also eventually died without being cured, there seems to have been no survivors so far.

Luckily, the disease can't spread by air or water vapor. The fact that there are few cases seems to be the only salvation. However, the lack of cases also means there were few chances to find a cure.