We didn't leave the old camp.
We were spat out of it.
The worg attack didn't end with some clean retreat call or orderly evacuation. It ended with blood soaking into moss, with huts abandoned half-packed, with goblins dragging injured bodies through roots while the forest listened and waited for the stragglers.
Boss said, "Move," and the tribe moved.
Not because they trusted him. Because the alternative was being the last scent on a worg's tongue.
We traveled under the canopy until the village-smell faded behind us. The trees grew thicker, the ground slicker, the air heavier. Rain had fallen sometime during the night—fine mist that clung to leaves and made everything shine faintly green. The world looked beautiful in the way a knife looks beautiful when it's clean.
Every few minutes someone whined or cursed in half-words. Someone else shoved them forward. No one spoke in full sentences. No one wanted attention.
Mogrin stayed close to me anyway, like my shadow was safer than the dark.
His headband had slipped crooked. He kept pushing it back up with muddy fingers. Each time he did, his hand trembled.
"Vark," he whispered, as if volume itself might summon teeth. "We… go far?"
"Far enough," I said.
Boss was ahead with the scouts, a compact shape moving like he knew every root by name. Ear-Torn walked near him, listening, sniffing, occasionally shooting looks back toward me like I was a bruise he couldn't stop touching.
Grub's body hadn't come with us.
No one had carried it.
That was the tribe's answer to anyone who thought they were too big to die.
My shoulder still ached from Mogrin's earlier tripwire accident, but the pain had dulled to a constant throb. My palms were scabbed over in small punctures. Every time I flexed my fingers, it pulled.
The system window hovered faintly when I looked for it—Level 1, EXP 15/50, small numbers like a joke compared to the size of the forest and the things that lived in it. My new skill—Snarecraft (Basic)—sat somewhere in the back of my mind, not visible unless I focused.
I tried not to focus too much.
Thinking too hard in front of goblins attracted teeth in a different way.
Hours passed. Or maybe it was minutes. Time in this place didn't feel like time. It felt like hunger between heartbeats.
Because hunger came.
Not politely.
It crept in at first—my belly tightening, saliva gathering in my mouth. Then it hit like a hammer. A deep, gnawing pull that made my hands shake and my vision sharpen.
The tribe slowed.
Goblins started glancing at each other with that look—less fear now, more calculation. Survival had layers, and once immediate death was slightly farther away, the next thing took its place.
Food.
A scavenger goblin muttered, "No meat. No good."
Another hissed, "Boss say move. Boss no feed."
Someone else spit. "Boss feed self."
Boss heard the murmurs. He didn't react at first. Then he raised a hand and the scouts halted.
The tribe compressed into a tight cluster under a set of ancient trees whose roots formed a natural wall. A small stream ran nearby, quiet and shallow.
Boss climbed onto a root and sniffed the air like a wolf.
He turned his head slowly.
Then he said one word that made every goblin's posture change.
"Boar."
Murmurs erupted immediately.
"Tuskboar?""Meat big!""Danger!""Need!"
Boss held up a hand and the noise died to a low buzz.
"Boar run," he said. "Herd move. Soon."
The words hit the tribe like a thrown bone. Desperation sharpened into excitement. Greed. Fear. Hunger.
Even I felt it, that hot pull behind the ribs.
A tuskboar herd. Meat. Fat. Hide. Bones. Enough food to stabilize the tribe for days, maybe longer, if they could preserve it.
If.
Boss's good eye swept over the goblins. "We hunt," he said. "Small. Fast. No stupid."
His gaze flicked, briefly, to Mogrin.
Mogrin stiffened like he'd been accused of a crime.
Boss turned toward the trappers. "You make bite."
Trappers shuffled forward, eager to regain pride after the worg disaster. They carried bundles of vine rope and sharpened stakes. One trapper with resin-stained fingers grinned.
"Forest bite," he muttered, happy.
Boss pointed toward the scouts. "You see. You call."
Scouts nodded, already climbing, disappearing into branches.
Then Boss's gaze landed on me.
"Vark," he said.
My gut tightened. I kept my face neutral.
"You talk clean," Boss said bluntly. "You think. You make pit before."
I didn't know if that was praise or a warning.
Boss jabbed his chin toward the stream and the open patch beyond the roots. "Boar run there," he said. "We ambush here."
Ear-Torn snorted. "Ambush? Goblins not fight boar. Boar too big. We take small scraps."
Boss's eye narrowed. "We need meat," he said.
Ear-Torn muttered something under his breath, but he didn't argue further.
I cleared my throat quietly, feeling every eye near me shift.
"I can help," I said, keeping it simple. "We need spear."
A few goblins laughed at the word.
"We have stick," someone said dismissively.
"No," I said. "Sharp stick. Long. Strong."
Boss watched me for a long moment. Then he jerked his chin once. Permission.
I moved to the edge of the cluster where fallen branches lay. I picked one that was straight, thick enough to be a weapon but light enough for my small body. My hands found a stone shard near the stream—a sharp piece of flint or broken rock—and I began scraping.
The work was oddly calming.
Scrape bark. Rotate. Scrape. Angle. A point emerged slowly, wood fibers tightening into a crude spear tip. Not elegant. Not a weapon that would impress a human soldier. But better than claws.
Mogrin hovered close, watching with wide eyes.
"Vark make tooth-stick," he whispered reverently.
"Spear," I corrected.
Mogrin nodded vigorously. "Spear. Tooth-stick good."
He glanced around, then leaned in like he was sharing a secret. "Mogrin want weapon too."
I looked at him. Small arms. Fast eyes. A scout apprentice—meant to see and call, not stand in front.
"You shouldn't be close to tuskboar," I said.
Mogrin puffed up. "Mogrin brave."
I sighed. "Brave is not same as alive."
Mogrin blinked, confused by the concept.
I scanned the ground and spotted something better than a spear for him—thin flexible branches, a forked stick, and scraps of elastic vine.
I grabbed a forked branch and began carving notches near the tips. Then I stripped a length of tough vine and twisted it, testing tension. It wasn't rubber, but it had spring.
Mogrin's eyes widened. "What that?"
"Thrower," I said. "For stones."
Mogrin's jaw dropped. "Like… like hand throw but more?"
"Yes," I said, and tied the vine tight across the fork. I made a crude pouch from leaf fiber, knotted it to the vine.
A slingshot. Makeshift, but functional.
I handed it to Mogrin. "You aim. You throw stone. You don't go close."
Mogrin held it like a holy relic. "Mogrin shoot rock!"
"Practice," I said, pointing toward a tree trunk. "Hit that. Not goblin."
Mogrin nodded very seriously and immediately fired a stone.
The stone whistled through the air and smacked the tree trunk dead center.
My eyebrows rose.
Mogrin fired again. Another solid hit.
He frowned in concentration, tongue peeking out slightly, then adjusted his grip and fired a third time.
The stone clipped a knot on the bark and bounced off.
Mogrin looked at me, proud. "Mogrin good?"
"Yeah," I admitted. "Mogrin good."
His whole face lit up like moth-light. "Big-think make Mogrin strong!"
I resisted the urge to tell him it was mostly his own coordination. Let him have the joy. Joy might be rare here.
Around us, trappers worked fast, setting crude pits and stake clusters near the anticipated boar run. Scouts returned with signals—hand gestures, clicks, low calls.
I watched the terrain with my old-world brain.
Boars would follow paths of least resistance. Trails. Flat ground. They'd avoid thick roots and steep slopes.
Boss's chosen ambush point was smart: a narrow lane between two root walls where the herd would compress. If you could spook them into that lane, you could pick off a straggler.
If.
I moved closer to Boss cautiously. "Boss," I said.
Boss's eye slid to me. "Speak."
"Boar run is fast," I said. "If we fight in open, we die. We should…" I searched for goblin-simple. "We should make boar go where we want."
A few goblins nearby snickered. Ear-Torn made a disgusted noise. "Weird-head want tell boar where go? Ha."
Boss didn't laugh. He watched me.
"Traps," I continued, gesturing to the narrow lane. "Hide. Make noise here." I pointed wide. "No noise there." I pointed toward the lane. "Push herd into trap."
Ear-Torn spit. "Vark think boar listen."
Some goblins laughed.
Boss's gaze sharpened. "You say… herd turn?"
"Yes," I said. "Like water. It flows. You put rock, it goes around."
That metaphor landed better. Goblins knew water. Goblins knew rocks.
Boss grunted once. "Good."
Ear-Torn looked annoyed that Boss had listened.
Boss barked at a few goblins. "You. You make noise. You scare from side. Not front. Front is die."
The goblins shuffled, some reluctant, some eager.
Mogrin scampered up to a root perch with the other scouts, slingshot tucked under his arm like a badge of honor. He looked down at me and gave a thumbs-up, not knowing what a thumbs-up was, just copying human gesture from something he'd seen on a corpse's glove, probably.
I shook my head. Idiot kid.
The forest held its breath again.
Then we heard it.
A dull, rhythmic pounding through the ground.
Not footsteps of one creature.
Many.
The undergrowth trembled. Birds burst from branches overhead. The stream rippled as if something huge moved nearby.
The scouts clicked warning signals.
"Boar," one hissed.
I lifted my spear and crouched behind a root, heart pounding.
Then the herd appeared.
Tuskboars weren't pigs.
They were nightmares with muscle.
They were the size of small cars, bodies thick and low, shoulders like boulders. Their hides were rough and scarred, plated in places like natural armor. Their tusks curved forward, huge and stained, some broken and regrown, some sharp as spears.
They ran like the ground belonged to them. Like the forest moved aside out of respect.
And the herd wasn't ten or twenty.
It was dozens.
A river of meat and tusk and fury.
The goblins' hunger turned into something frantic.
"Meat!" someone whispered, eyes wild.
Boss hissed, "Wait."
The herd thundered closer.
The plan required patience. Timing.
One goblin—too hungry, too stupid—lunged early from behind a root with a sharpened stick.
He aimed at a boar's flank.
The boar didn't even slow.
It slammed into him.
The impact folded the goblin in half. His body bent around the boar's shoulder like a rag. The goblin's scream ended in a crunch as ribs shattered. The boar kept running, dragging him for a moment before he tore free and rolled, leaving a smear of blood and broken limbs.
The herd didn't stop.
It ran over him.
Mud and hoof and tusk.
The goblin became a red stain.
A few goblins gasped. Some laughed nervously. Others looked away.
Boss snarled, "Stupid!"
He signaled sharply.
Now.
Goblins on the far side began shouting and throwing stones, darting out to make noise. They didn't charge the herd. They harassed it, striking flanks, aiming for eyes, screaming like pests.
The herd reacted instantly.
It shifted.
Not completely, not neatly—dozens of individual beasts didn't "turn" like a flock of birds. But the pressure moved. The herd's center flowed away from the noise, compressing toward the narrow lane.
Toward the trap zone.
For a moment, it worked.
The first boars hit the narrow lane, shoulders brushing roots. The herd compacted, slowing slightly due to terrain. Traps—hidden pits and stakes—waited under leaf cover.
One boar's front leg plunged into a pit and snapped with a loud crack. It shrieked, high and furious, and the boars behind it slammed into its side.
Chaos.
The herd bunched hard.
Boss barked, "Now! Take one! Not many!"
Goblins surged from hiding with spears and sharpened sticks, aiming for the trapped boar and a limping straggler.
I moved with them, spear held low, targeting weak points: behind the shoulder, under the jaw, the eye.
My human mind screamed don't get close.
My goblin body screamed meat.
The trapped boar thrashed, tusks carving furrows into soil. A goblin stabbed its flank. The spear point slid off hide, barely piercing.
The boar swung its head.
One tusk caught the goblin's stomach and opened him from hip to ribs in a single smooth arc. The goblin's guts spilled out, steaming, and he screamed once before his voice turned into wet gurgles.
Blood splashed the leaves.
The moths appeared almost instantly, drifting in from the distance, lights flickering brighter as if they'd been summoned by the scent.
No.
Not summoned.
Attracted.
A goblin behind me shouted in triumph and drove a spear into the boar's eye.
The boar shrieked and threw its head up.
The spear snapped.
The goblin clung to the broken shaft, screaming as the boar's tusk caught his chest and lifted him off the ground like a hooked fish.
The goblin kicked, flailing.
The boar shook him once.
His spine snapped with a sound I felt in my teeth.
He dangled for a heartbeat, then slid off, dropping limp into the mud.
The herd surged again.
The compressed lane broke. Boars shoved through each other, trampling the wounded, crushing traps, spilling out into the wider forest like a dam bursting.
Boss shouted, "Back! Back!"
But goblins were hungry. Greed didn't hear.
Two goblins chased a straggler boar that had broken away, thinking it was easy prey.
The boar stopped suddenly and turned.
Its eyes were small and furious.
It lowered its head and charged.
The goblins tried to dodge.
Too slow.
One was hit in the hip and thrown into a tree root hard enough to make his skull crack. He slid down, eyes rolling, still alive for a second—then the boar stomped him, hoof crushing his chest until ribs pierced lung.
The second goblin screamed and ran.
The boar chased for three steps, then swung its head and clipped him with a tusk, slicing his calf clean open. The goblin fell, screaming, and the herd's edge swept over him, hooves pounding his body into mud.
My stomach twisted.
This wasn't a hunt.
It was an argument with a moving wall.
I saw Boss's face tighten. He was calculating losses. Already deciding whether the meat was worth the blood.
I forced myself to think.
We needed one kill. One boar. Not the herd.
I scanned the chaos.
There—near the lane, a younger boar limping, leg scraped by a stake. It was slower, falling behind the main flow.
If we could pin it for seconds…
I shouted, "That one!" and immediately regretted shouting because goblins didn't shout full sentences.
Heads turned. Eyes narrowed. Weird-head talk clean.
Ear-Torn barked, "Vark shut!"
I ignored him and pointed, making it simple. "Small-boar. Hurt. Take."
Boss saw the limping boar too. He snapped orders fast. Three goblins moved to flank, trying to drive it toward a root wall.
The boar panicked, squealing, and charged the nearest goblin.
The goblin froze.
Died.
The boar's tusk punched through his ribs and ripped out. The goblin folded and fell, blood bubbling from his mouth.
Boss snarled in frustration.
Then Mogrin's voice rang out from above, sharp and urgent.
"LEFT! BIG BOAR LEFT! COMING!"
A warning call.
Perfect timing.
I looked left and saw a full-grown tuskboar barreling toward Boss's cluster, eyes locked, furious at the noise and pain.
Boss and two goblins were about to be trampled.
Without Mogrin's call, they'd have been dead.
Boss pivoted instantly, leaping behind a root. The boar slammed into the root wall instead, tusks biting into wood, splinters flying.
The impact slowed it just enough.
Mogrin fired.
A stone whistled down from the canopy and struck the boar's eye.
Not a glancing hit.
A perfect hit.
The boar shrieked, head jerking, one eye blinking blood.
Mogrin fired again.
Another stone hit the same spot, driving deeper, making the boar's head whip sideways.
The boar staggered.
Boss barked, "Now!"
Goblins surged in, spears aimed for the exposed throat and the wounded eye. I shoved forward too, spear tip steady despite my shaking arms.
The boar snapped its tusks, flailing, and one goblin was caught and tossed, landing in a wet heap with his neck bent wrong.
But enough spears found purchase this time.
One spear punched into the throat under the jaw.
Another into the eye socket Mogrin had softened.
I drove my spear in behind the shoulder, using my full weight, feeling the point pierce hide, then muscle, then something that gave like a wet sack.
The boar screamed, and the scream turned into a gurgle as blood filled its throat.
It thrashed.
A tusk grazed my leg, ripping skin and leaving a line of fire.
I bit back a scream and held on.
The boar's legs buckled.
It collapsed with a heavy, earth-shaking thud.
For a heartbeat, nobody moved.
Then goblins erupted in frantic relief.
"MEAT!""BOAR DOWN!""BOSS STRONG!"
Mogrin squealed from above, voice bright with triumph. "Mogrin hit! Mogrin hit!"
I looked up at him. He was grinning so wide his face looked too small to hold it.
Pride flared in my chest despite the blood and horror.
He'd saved Boss.
He'd helped kill the boar.
He'd proven he wasn't just naive. He had value.
The system window flickered faintly at the edge of my vision—no big reward, no level-up. Maybe because I hadn't delivered the final kill. Maybe because the system's rules were strict.
Fine.
Meat mattered more right now.
Boss didn't waste time celebrating. "Cut fast," he ordered. "Take only good. Herd still near."
Scavengers swarmed the corpse with bone knives and stone shards, slicing hide, pulling organs, stuffing meat into leaf bundles. Blood poured into the soil, thick and hot. The smell was overwhelming.
And the moths came.
Glimmer Moths drifted down like pale lanterns, drawn to the open blood, their light pulsing brighter and brighter.
The forest's quiet became charged.
Predators would smell this. Anything with a nose would smell this.
Boss's good eye narrowed as he watched the moths gather.
"Too bright," he muttered.
Ear-Torn glared at me suddenly, as if the moths were my fault just for existing. "Weird-head bring bad again," he spat.
I opened my mouth to argue, then shut it. Arguing was a luxury.
Mogrin climbed down, still clutching his slingshot. He bounced on his feet, excited, then stopped when he saw my face.
"Vark?" he whispered. "You… okay?"
I looked toward the open ground where the herd had passed. Hoofprints churned the mud into a wide, obvious trail. Blood splatters marked where goblins had died. A broken spear lay half-buried. A goblin hand—someone's hand—was stuck on a tusk spike like meat on a skewer.
This place screamed we were here.
Not just to predators.
To humans.
My stomach tightened as I imagined a human scout finding the churned ground, the blood, the cut-up boar remains, the moth-glow like a beacon.
"Not okay," I murmured.
Boss shouted, "Pack! Move now!"
Goblins hoisted meat bundles and stumbled into the trees, leaving behind bodies they couldn't carry, leaving behind blood they couldn't hide.
Mogrin pressed close to me again, eyes darting nervously now. "Vark… someone come?"
I stared at the moths, drifting higher, lights flickering like signals.
"Yeah," I said quietly. "Someone will notice."
Behind us, somewhere deeper in the forest, a low growl answered the scent—distant, not a worg this time, but something that heard "blood" the way a bell hears a hammer.
And far off, faint but real, came another sound.
A clink.
Metal on metal.
Humans, somewhere on the wind, turning their heads toward the bright moth-light and the fresh-cut trail.
The tribe vanished into the trees with stolen meat on their backs.
And the forest kept the evidence.