CHAPTER 254: PEST CONTROL

Dominic had just left the house when he heard grunting in the distance, then grunting in a guttural language.

He had found Goblins, almost guaranteed.

The Princess would be overjoyed when she found out that there were monsters to hunt in the region.

The Baron and his farmers? Probably not as much.

At least he was a Natural Sons’ Officer, and he would be travelling with a magitech rifle on top of the rest of his gear.

Perfect for defending the farms.

Dominic followed the sounds toward the river, but what he found was not what he had expected. There were Goblins. But they were not here hunting for the newly arrived humans, or even for wildlife.

They were engaged in a vicious argument with a small water troll, who had clearly drowned their Shaman when he came to the river to get a drink.

The little Troll thought that the whole situation was hilarious, and he was doing his best to bait more of the Goblins into the water, where he could drag them under.

Like many other species of monsters, Goblins were too muscle dense to float, so they were atrocious swimmers.

Once that Troll got them, they were unlikely to survive.

So, Dominic made a plan.

There was a Hobgoblin near the water’s edge carrying a long spear that he was thrusting at the Troll every time that it got close. That would be the priority target.

Magic crackled as a shot from Dominic’s Mana Revolver hit the hobgoblin in the back of the head, dropping it into the river. The troll began to laugh hysterically as it pulled the oversized goblin away from the shore, triggering the others to follow and try to rescue their leader.

That gave the Troll the chance to drown two more of them, using water magic to pull them into the depths, while Dominic took out the rest with his pistol.

Then, Dominic sat and waited for the screaming and thrashing to stop, marking the final demise of the Goblins, and leaving only him and the Troll.

"Little man, there will be humans coming soon, moving into the house on the hill. I would appreciate it if you didn’t try to drown them when they come to wash their clothes or get water." Dominic commented quietly.

The Troll stared at him for a few seconds, then shrugged and disappeared beneath the surface.

It made no promises.

However, an angry dragonkin was bad news, and it knew that Dominic might make it move if it was trying to drown his servants.

In the Troll’s mind, that was the only role that humans could have for a dragonkin. Dominic would be the boss, and they would do what he told them and bring him food. It was a good arrangement.

He wished that he had underlings like that.

He wouldn’t have had to wait for the Goblins to come to the river on their own.

Dominic turned and left, allowing the Troll to eat in peace. He had intended to head straight back home, but now that he knew that there was a water troll in the river, he was curious about what other sorts of monsters had taken refuge in the cursed area.

Following the scent of the Goblins, Dominic searched for any survivors, but only found an abandoned campfire.

That was a good sign. It meant that they had only been a small travelling pack, and there wasn’t likely to be any more of them nearby, or they would have teamed up.

But one thing that Dominic didn’t scent was anything cooked over the fire.

Goblins didn’t clean up after themselves. At most, they might bring a cook pot with them from site to site. But this site didn’t even have signs of sticks to roast meat, or any inedible parts of gathered plants.

They must not have stayed long enough to get hungry.

Which wasn’t long. They were goblins, and they were nearly always hungry. Yet, Dominic also didn’t sense any other monsters in the area. Nothing that might have chased them into operating in a small enough group to be ambushed by a water Troll.

At a casual jog, Dominic circled the territory on the west side of the river, looking for signs of monsters.

He picked up signs of many deer, Axbridge Antelope, and their local Blink Cat, but nothing that overly concerned him.

That left only one more thing to do. Leave a welcoming gift for the new Baron.

Dominic returned to the top of the hill and used the [Transmute Stone] spell that he was gifted by the Techno Wizard in town.

With little effort, it turned the slick mud road up the hillside nearest the Ducal Manor into a rough stone pathway. That would make it much easier to get the wagons up and down the hill.

The path wasn’t wide, but it wasn’t much easier to do than the [Fieldstone Wall] spell, and still took Dominic hours to finish. The moon was high in the sky by the time that he started heading back toward the manor, letting his dragon blood enhanced vision guide him down the paths between fields.

The whole region was silent, and the farm families long in their beds before he made it back. But when he approached the village, Dominic noticed that there was a Royal Guard on duty at the manor, as well as one of the Khalil Family members watching their compound.

Just enough of a watch to ensure that nothing major would happen at night without an alarm being raised.

Assuming that it wasn’t assassins approaching, or a Dragonkin in a black robe, with his hood up in the dark. Because Dominic was almost inside the Manor when movement in the porch light finally alerted the guard that he had returned.

"You are entirely too good at that." Julio complained as Dominic walked into the house.

"Thank you. But what are you doing up after midnight?" Dominic asked the Castellan.

"Getting budget paperwork ready for the morning. Since the house has magitech lights, I can work late into the night, and be prepared for the caravans.

If the schedule is on track, according to standard travel days, we should have a convoy coming from Cygnia some time tomorrow, and I suspect that it will be early.

Then, either late tomorrow or the day after, we should expect another convoy from Stansia Province. One that started somewhere in Axbridge, and is working its way to Cygnia City." Julio explained.

"That should be perfect for our needs. Axbridge might have something good for us. Something that nobody else along the route would have thought to try to purchase." Dominic replied with a smile.

Having the Merchants Guild on their side was making life so much easier.