Husband of the Goblin Tribe

[Interludes Vol. 1.5] In which some merged magic involves a prenatal panic

~~** Interlude | Ebony **~~

When Mint and I arrived at Old One’s cave-hole, we weren’t the only ones there. My big sister, Button, was the one to tell me I needed to go to Old One’s cave-hole and keep it a secret, but neither she nor Glace were there. It was just Old One, and another that made Mint shake and go pee right there on the ground next to me.

“Do you recognize me, little goblin?”

The voice coming from the tall one with dark skin and horns growing out of their head and wings out of their back that were tucked away had a really strong voice that made all of the bones around me, even the ones still inside bodies, shake.

The question wasn’t aimed at me, but rather, Mint.

“Y-y-y-y-y-yx….”

Mint nodded but couldn’t answer yes.

“And what about you?”

This time the question was aimed at me.

“I don’t know! You look like a really strong goblin. Maybe Old One’s big sister goblin?”

They let out a deep rumbling laugh that made the entire cave-hole feel like it was squishing me, but only for a moment.

“My apologies, Great Protector, this is the first time you have met our new Bone Lord. She’s a bit…”

Looking around the room, I saw something that interested me immediately. I was quick to ask Old One about it.

“What’s that pile of bones for?”

“Why, they’re for you. Do you remember hearing the story of Huntress and your Husband going on the hunt to kill the Black-claws?”

“Everyone knows the story!” I replied happily.  It was a good story!

“Well, these bones belonged to Beast-talker, who died at that time.”

“She collected bones?”

“She didn’t collect these bones. These are the bones from inside her dead body.”

My eyes opened wide. Before I could ask why the bones of Beast-talker were being kept in Old One’s room, because Ivory didn’t have a single one of them, Old One began talking about the reason for it.

“I was holding on to them in case a Bone Lord should appear in our tribe. I expected one eventually, but not so soon.”

“Did you want me to do something with the bones? Listen to what they say? I can already tell you that those bones are happy to be in same cave-hole as Ebony and want to see Husband. They like Old One too, but not as much.”

“Do you think you can make them move, as you do with your spider?” Old One asked me.

“Like Bitey? I think so. Might take a little while to figure out how. There are a lot of bones!”

“Take your time then and show the Great Protector here what you can do with your bone-magic.”

Using bone-magic for me was like talking to bones in my head. I’d ask them to do something, or they’d ask me to do something, and we’d come to an agreement. But there were way too many bones all trying to talk at once and trying to talk to each of them at once was tricky. It was like that when I lived in Ivory’s cave-hole. And she had many many more bones than this!

“Hmm… I’m not actually sure how to do it on my own. Iggy helped me when Bitey was made.”

“Iggy?” The tall strong goblin with horns and wings called the Great Protector spoke from next to Old One.

I pulled out my wand to show them.

“Iggy! It used to belong to Husband, but now it belongs to Ebony!”

“Hoh~? That isn’t just a wand. I can feel the aura of the Spirit Tree coming from it.”

The voice of Iggy began to enter my mind.

<<Little Lord. Let’s be careful in what we tell that one.>>

“Why?”

<<They don’t have the best relationship with the Spirit Tree.>>

“They don’t?”

<<How about we get right to making our new friend?>>

“Okay!”

I pushed my mana into Iggy, and the pile of bones began to move themselves into all the right spots before settling down.

<<Little Lord. While your magic is strong, I’m not sure that you have enough of it to raise all the bones into a friend.>>

“We can’t do it?”

<<There is a way, but we would need to borrow mana from another.>>

“Mint?”

<<She would be acceptable to borrow mana from. Her mana is compatible enough with mine, since it comes from a similar source.>>

“Husband?”

<<That’s right.>>

“Makes sense, we’re sisters. What does Mint need to do?”

<<The same as you, Little Lord. Just have her hold me together with you and have her focus her mana into me at the same time you do. I’ll handle the rest.>>

“Okay.”

I relayed to Mint what Iggy wanted her to do and she agreed to help. As we held on to Iggy together, Mint’s tree-magic and my bone-magic pushed into Iggy at the same time and the bones began to rise up of the ground starting from the feet and settle on top of each other until after a long while, there was a complete bone-goblin standing up right next to Old One!

<<Little Lord… there... might be a problem.>>

“What’s the problem, Iggy?”

Before Iggy could answer, everything exploded into a bright light…

 

~~** Interlude | Stella **~~

“Mmmmh~, yes! Keep licking right there, Ark… don’t slow down either~!”

The trickiest part of having an idiot Husband with thirteen other needy goblin wives is finding the right time to corner him into taking care of my needs first. As I’m the only goblin who he can enjoy certain things from, such as tongue kissing and using my mouth devoid of razor-sharp teeth to pleasure him in a certain way, he is usually willing to go along with whatever I want, with the end goal of making sure I’m left as satisfied as he is.

While I’m still not sure if Ark genuinely loves me now that he’s made me a goblin, he seems to be tied up in enough guilt at least to make sure that I’m taken care of excessively well. And that’s really all that I wanted anyway. I suppose him having a tool that can leave both my body and mind the same consistency as that weird meat thing his daughter Melon makes that Old One can’t stop talking about… is not a bad thing either.

“Ahhn~♥”

As my body rocked from its second orgasm, Ark removed his face from between my legs and came up onto the elaborate straw bed he made for me, pressing his warm body against mine from behind and slid himself into my wetness immediately. That would only be for a little while, though, until I coerced him to the position I preferred.

I had already hunted, eaten, and freed up anything inside of me that might cut short the time I had available to hog Ark all to myself. It’s not that I minded sharing him sometimes with the pretty one, Jewel, or even that weird one, Vera, who seems to think of me as a sister. But same as all the other goblins feel on the matter, there’s nothing better than having him all to yourself.

Mostly because he’s thorough. Not a single one of his wives has walked away dissatisfied once he gets going. And sometimes not a single one of his wives can walk away… if he gets serious.

Which is why we have all learned at this point that it is wise to get everything done that needs to be done, just in case of the latter occurring.

When it comes to mating with Ark, my preference is when he has me on my side and lifts one of my legs up to rest against his chest or on his shoulder while he goes at me that way. It’s one of the most pleasurable positions I’ve found when doing it with him, and by a stroke of luck it also gives him access to play with the rest of my body in interesting ways. Rubbing my already sensitive ladybits with his fingers or thumb, caressing and squeezing my butt, reaching for my breasts to grope as he plunges that damnable thing of his all the way inside me…

The problem with having goblin instincts overwriting my old human ones is that I’m wholly in need of attentive mating. All of his wives are. I asked Prima about it, but she said it’s just the goblin way. Old One was able to give me a better answer, which I wasn’t all too keen on accepting.

Males with big-seed emit some kind of scent that trigger a mating instinct within a female Bloodmaw ready to create strong-ones. It acts as a deterrent as well, for those without big-seed. To use an appropriate metaphor… it’s like eating fire-meat all your life before realizing how delicious bloody meat is, and never wanting to sully your sense of taste with anything fire-meat ever again. We can furiously hate Ark at times, but we can’t deny our body’s desire to claim his seed. For lack of a better way of saying it, some of the best sex to be had with him is pure hatefucking.

Ark joked about it once saying how unfair something like that was, Darwinian cuckolding, he called it. Talked about some historian named Darwin and how the Bloodmaw were perfect executioners of some concept called survival of the fittest.

Were it not for the massacre that happened which led to Ark being the one taken as the first candidate for repopulating the tribe since then, goblins like Vera, Lily, and Berry would most likely never be allowed to go near big-seed before the ones most worthy of it; ones like Prima, Jewel, and Doll. And at the very least, a goblin like Berry who could barely hunt anything bigger than a rabbit would have never had an elite strong-one such as Diana Artemis.

Ark, being possessed of such a vast amount of what they consider to be big-seed, has no idea the lengths the Bloodmaw are willing to go to make sure he never leaves in order to secure the impressive future of their tribe, from his loins. I wonder if he realizes yet that, unlike me, he can never escape from here?

“It’s okay to mess me up today, Ark.”

“Are you… sure?”

“Mhm~♥”

Giving him the okay, Ark’s handiwork that melts both brain and body had begun. As his member dug deep inside of me, constantly reminding my guts that maintaining any shape other than his member was obstinate foolishness, he was not beyond being playfully immature by biting my leg just below the calf when he filled me full of his first round of seed.

But, this time, something strange happened as he let it out inside of me.

The whole of Goblinhome shook as he did, and then something like a wave of bright piercing light fell over us, robbing us both of our consciousness… And me of my last remaining bits of maidenhood.

 

~~** Interlude | Button **~~

 

<<Button, something has happened.>>

Glace, who was sleeping lazily on top of me had used her magic to put some kind of see-through bubble around us.

“What’s going on?”

<<I don’t know. Can you carry me quickly to where Papa is?>>

While getting up, I felt the entirety of Goblinhome suddenly shake.

“Did Tricky Husband do that?”

<<No. That came from the direction of Old One’s cave-hole. Right now, I’m feeling the same sensation I did when Prima began her Blood Fury. Which is why we need to find Papa right now!>>

I squatted down to let Glace wrap her arms around my neck from the back.

I was glad I learned the feeling of the tree-magic that Husband had taught Mint a few days ago. Thanks to that, I was able to merge it with one of the special martial arts he had been teaching me recently, called the Steps of the World-Ruler. It involved him drawing his picture-magic on the ground and putting a certain one in the center that grew bigger the more we practiced. I showed Glace what picture-magic Husband had drawn and she said it was called gravity. That it could make things lighter or heavier when used. That matched up with what Husband told me, about how if I trained with a strong force pressing against me and pulling me down, when it finally wasn’t, I’d be able to move my body faster and all of my punches and kicks would hit harder.

The training wasn’t more than just having me be able to stand up, walk a few steps slowly, and throw out a few punches and kicks. That was it. I just did it for a short while each morning. I already know how to touch the Rune in the stone bath in Husband’s cave-hole that makes the water get hot. I can train on my own, and Husband comes to check on my progress every couple of days, making an adjustment into the formula on the ground whenever he thinks I’m ready to feel more gravity.

So far, I’m almost at something called two-times gravity. Which, according to Husband, means it’s like I’m trying to move while also carrying another Button. One thing I learned while training in the gravity magic formation was how it felt when the gravity Rune was in use. While I can’t use the picture-magic that Glace can, or the stone-magic that Husband can, I can use some kind of body-magic that lets me copy an effect I can remember as long as it’s limited to my body.

I haven’t mastered the Wolf Wind all the way yet, but I can simulate the feeling a little bit and I am noticeably faster now. When I copy the feeling of gravity on the bottom of my feet, I became able to do things I’ve never seen even Prima or Diana Artemis do before.

Instead of only running on the ground, I can step onto the walls and it feels just the same as if I’m running on the ground. I can also run up trees without needing to use my arms and hands to dig into the trunk. I can do it without running, but it’s way more difficult and it doesn’t last long before I wind up falling.

I haven’t had a chance to show Glace what I can do yet, which is why I’m excited to do so now!

I dashed out of Husband’s cave-hole, since we were being lazy together in his cave-hole in the corner, and Glace was already clinging to me tightly with her legs as well.

<<Button, you’re going way too fast!>>

“I need to go fast, or I can’t do this!”

As soon as I cleared the entrance to Husband’s cave hole, I leapt at the wall and twisted my body so that as soon as my feet hit the stone, it became like the ground. Then I continued running as fast as I could, leaping over the entrances to the other cave-holes along the way between where we were, and where the scent of Husband was coming from—near the front of Goblinhome, at either Prima or Stella’s cave-hole.

<<AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!>>

In no time at all, we had arrived, with me leaping from the wall to the ground lightly and making sure my hands were behind me and holding onto Glace’s butt so she didn’t fall off, just in case. It was smart of me to do so because she began to lose her grip and slipped off of me.

“Look! Husband and Stella…?”

I pointed at both of them who were lying on the ground in positions that would not be comfortable at all to sleep in.

Glace, who was now standing up on the ground moved slowly towards Stella.

<<It’s Stella.>>

Glace had put her hand on Stella’s belly.

<<The strong-one inside of her… Is having a Blood Fury! Or… something like it! I’ll stay here and keep an eye on these two. Button, you need to go get Old One and Berry, quickly!>>

“Is the strong-one coming?”

<<I don’t know for sure, but it’s best to believe for now that’s exactly what’s happening.>>

“I’ll be back as fast as I can.”

I turned my body in place and prepared to run to the back of Goblinhome when something crazy was standing right at the entrance to Stella’s cave-hole, staring right at us.

“Glace! What’s that!?”

Glace turned around and she saw what I saw.

<<A Skeleton?>>

I wasn’t usually scared of anything, having hunted most of the creatures in the forest outside Goblinhome, with the exception of a Black-claw, but right now everything was telling me that thing was something to be scared of!

<<Button, be careful! I don’t know why, but that thing… is strong!>>

I was already ahead of her in assessing that threat.

“Do we need to fight it?”

<<I don’t know. Forget going to get Old One, we need to stay here to protect Papa and Stella.>>

 

~~** Interlude | Mint **~~

 

Ugh.

I felt sore all over.

Looking around, I saw Old One and Ebony both lying unconscious on the floor. There was no sign of any of the bones Ebony and I had tried to raise, and the only other body in here was that of…

“Little goblin, you seem to have endured it well.”

“Uh… w-what happened?”

“Something that I would have stopped had I realized what you were. A fucking Bloody Druid!”

I was terrified that I was about to make an enemy out of Yx for something I had no control over. Yeah, the being that carried the name Great Protector was none other than the infamous NPC Yx!

“I… I didn’t know this would happen!”

“I’m not blaming you, little goblin. But your existence is strange. To have a Bloody Druid and a Bone Lord born in the same generation… I had expectations, but that damn human breaks every single one of them every time!”

Yx walked over to me and picked me up as if I was a sack of onions.

“What’s going on?”

“From the magic in the air, and with how quick that skeleton took off with the Bone Lord’s pet spider, I imagine it can be both nothing good and something splendid.”

That assessment didn’t help anything at all.

“What about Ebony and Old One?”

“They’ll be fine. It was just magical reverberation. There’s a reason nature magic and decay magic should never be combined. It encroaches on the realm of the Divine, and the Gods really don’t like mortals doing that.”

“Gods?”

“Yes, little goblin. Gods. Nasty beings who have far too much power, time, and boredom on their hands. Pray you never meet another in your lifetime.”

Another?

“You… are Yx… aren’t you?”

Before we had reached the shit-pit, Yx stopped moving.

“A name you shouldn’t know. Who are you? You are recently born, yet you know who I am, when the others here do not.”

“Uh… w-well, I sort of know you… in the future…”

“The future?”

“Y-yeah…”

“Interesting. And how am I in the future?”

“Busy… looking for someone.”

“Who?”

“T-the last Bloodmaw…”

I was dropped, unceremoniously, onto the floor.

“Are you saying my children have been slain once more?”

“S-something like that? I’ve met you many times, whenever I’ve come across goblin encampments. But…”

“But what?”

“There were no remaining true Bloodmaw Goblins left… I was the one to find the last Bloodmaw.”

“You speak in riddles. I have no patience for such things!”

“Ark Wyze!” I squeaked out in terror.

“What about the human? Did he somehow kill them?”

The anger on the face of Yx was damning. I did not think I was going to live after this.

“He said so, but not directly…”

I clambered back to my feet and began explaining everything from the storyline I knew about the Bloodmaw Goblins to Yx.

“Hoh. So, you claim to be from a future timeline of this world, and that after meeting both Ark and I, he had passed the Origin Blood to you, and that was when you were reborn here in the present... your past as you are now?”

“Pretty much. According to what I saw in that place in the future, I was supposed to die today. I thought I was going to earlier, but Ebony…”

“Bah. Fate changes as often as a goblin takes a shit. I can feel the life force inside of you, little goblin. You will not be dying anytime soon… unless you choose to seek it out yourself.”

“That’s good. Ebony might be sad if I died.”

“Can you walk?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Then let’s continue our talk as we do.”

Both Yx and I continued walking, and it asked me more question about Ark Wyze.

“So, in the future he has become a Bloodmaw in body?”

“Green skin and all. It seems like he can change his appearance with magic. He was deeply mournful at having lost everyone and he blamed himself…”

“Did he mention how the Bloodmaw met their end?”

“He only touched on it, I’m afraid. Something about how enemies came on three sides, Orcs, Shadow Wolves, and Adventurers…”

Yx stopped walking again for a moment and appeared to be pondering something.

“The current state of the tribe should be able to fend off the Black-claws, but if the Orcs dare disobey my benevolence and cross the eastern stream, that may be an issue. Should the older children band together with the Guardian, Stone-seeker, and Tree-chopper, they should be enough to handle them. But Adventurers coming through the night forest… that may pose a problem. It seems like I will have to pay attention to the movements of the human settlements outside of my domain from now on…”

Sounds of fighting were coming from up ahead. The shrill scream of goblin could be heard.

“Little goblin… Mint, was it? I trust you are wise enough to keep what we have spoken about secret. Never let my name escape your lips as anything other than Great Protector, and tell no-one of your future knowledge, not your sisters, not Old One, and not Ark. Live freely as a Bloodmaw, and enjoy the… story that will unfold.”

I nodded profusely.

“Good. Now that our conversation has ended, let’s see what troubles come to the wonderful Husband I’ve gone through so much trouble to procure for my children…”

~~** Interlude | ??? **~~

 

Friend.

Husband… friend…

Danger!

Bitey! Friend! Come!

I was in Goblinhome, but I don’t remember anything after the Black-claws ambushed me in the forest. All I knew was that I felt there was something dangerous around Husband. I knew right where he was, too, for some reason. He was in Stupid-one’s room, and the dangerous thing was there with him!

I moved with lightness I never knew I had, ran without feeling the tightness in my legs, and felt no need to draw breath.

When I arrived at the Stupid-one’s room, I saw three goblins and Husband inside.

The two were strong-ones I hadn’t seen before. Husband I recognized, but not the adult goblin on the ground, which was the source of my worry. I wanted to say to the strong-ones to step aside so I could deal with the problem, but words wouldn’t escape my lips.

The two strong-ones were wary of me, and both of them felt as dangerous as the thing inside the adult goblin’s body.

Friend. Small. Glace. Bitey… friend!

I could hear Bitey telling me that the smaller goblin strong-one was a friend.

Other… friend?

I tried asking Bitey if the other one who looked to be ready to take action against me was also a friend.

Ebony… big sister. Friend!

Ebony?

Ebony…?

I clutched my head and felt a sharp pain as the name Ebony kept repeating.

I had never heard it before, yet I knew it was the most important thing I needed to protect… as important as Husband is.

I might not be as strong a hunter as Guardian, Stone-seeker, and Tree-chopper are, but there’s no better beast tamer and stalker in the tribe than me! I’m sorry if both of these strong-ones are friends, but I must stop what’s coming and protect Husband!

Protect Husband? Important Friend! Bitey help!

Bitey, who had been clinging to my back climbed onto my shoulder and leapt a far distance, right into the top hair of the little strong-one. She immediately screamed and began running around slapping the top of her head with her little hands.

“Glace! It’s only Bitey! Bitey would never hurt you!!”

The bigger strong-one understood, but still remained in my way.

“I don’t know what you are, but I can’t let you hurt Husband or Stella.”

I raised my hand and pointed at the one she called Stella.

In response, the strong-one who spoke to me had stepped forward and spread her legs, balling up her fists like she was going to fight.

So be it.

I didn’t want to harm her, so I would just throw her out of the way. As long as I could prevent what was inside of the one called Stella from escaping…

I rushed forward and aimed to grab the strong-one, only to find that though I could grab her, I couldn’t budge her an inch from where she stood.

I felt a powerful blow right to my chest that rattled my body.

She was strong!

But she was still just a strong-one. I, however, am an adult goblin!

I leapt at her with the intention of pinning her down, only to find her squatting down quickly and then leaping up at me with her fist rising upwards, shouting something unintelligible, possibly one of Husband’s human words…

“Shoutakeken!” (「昇茸拳」Rising-mushroom-fist!)

I felt the impact on my bones again and found myself flying backwards—upwards!—until my back collided into the rough stone ceiling of the cave-hole. At which point I began to fall face-first towards the ground.

I saw her preparing to do something with her hands. I managed to orient myself somehow so I’d land on my feed and I crossed my arms in front of me as I felt a blue light hit me harder than a readboar’s charge.

“Kinokokikouhou!” (「茸気功法」Mushroom-spirit-flow!)

Even with my toes digging into the dirt, I was still blown back almost to the entrance of the cave-hole.

Was she using some kind of goblin magic that Old One spoke of?

Shit, was she even stronger than Guardian!?

“Hissatsu!!” (「必殺」Final attack!!)

I felt a familiar energy building up within her, like when I had taken a particularly tasty mushroom from Truffle and realized she was not going to forgive me for it.

“Kinokoakumahouhou!!” (「茸（子）悪魔（方）法」Way of the Magic-Mushroom-Goblin!!)

A whirlwind of punches and kicks came at me faster than I could see, and far faster than I could hope to block. With as much damage as I was receiving, I was surprisingly not feeling the pain I was expecting to. In fact, aside from being knocked around, I really didn’t feel any pain at all from any of her attacks. They just rattled me. But, she was faster than I was and I just couldn’t find a single opening to counterattack anywhere.

Having lost sight of her, by the time I realized she was behind me, she swept her foot out and tripped me, then hopped onto my chest and began punching me in the face repeatedly. It only stopped when a familiar face had grabbed her by the back of her neck and pulled her off of me.

It was the Great Protector!

“Beast-talker… is what you came to find in here?”

I couldn’t answer with words, so I just sat up and nodded, pointing to the inside of the cave-hole.

“Ah, the strong-one of the mushroom-picker… Button, I believe. You have gotten much stronger as of late.”

“G-Great Protector! The skeleton…” she pointed at me.

“Is a friend of your sister, the Bone Lord.”

“It is?”

“She is. Tell me, is your Husband inside? Is he safe?”

“He is, but… Glace says something is wrong with Stella. Her strong-one may be coming… but also having a Blood Fury inside of her…”

A loud boom came from inside the room and Bitey came scurrying out, its bones just a little darker in color than when it leapt off of me and onto the small strong-one.

Bitey began climbing up the new strong-one who had appeared with the Great Protector.

Mint important friend!

Bitey relayed what he could to me.

I rose to my feet and recognized the one it called Mint as being important to me as well.

“No more fighting for now. Go and calm the Shaman so we can make sense of what is happening.”

“Okay.”

The strong-one that the Great Protector called Button reached a hand outward to me, which I accepted, and was pulled back onto my feet easily enough.

“You strong skeleton. Want fight more later.”

Button then turned around and went back into the cave-hole. I followed, with the Great Protector and the other strong-one who had Bitey sitting on her head right behind me…

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