The journey back toward Noah’s territory had already begun.

Noah walked at the front of the group alongside Ailetta and Arachne, while the surviving goblins followed several paces behind.

Not a single one dared to walk any closer.

Even after swearing their loyalty, every goblin remained painfully aware that the Oni leading them had wiped out most of their tribe with little more than a thought.

Yet despite the fear Noah inspired, their attention rarely remained on him for long.

More often than not, their wary gazes drifted toward the darkness surrounding them instead.

The predators that called the forest home became far more active once the sun disappeared, forcing goblin tribes to prepare for their arrival every single night.

A large portion of their warriors had to remain behind to defend the camp.

Otherwise, all it took was a single predator slipping through their defenses for the weaker goblins to quickly become prey.

That left fewer warriors available to hunt.

Unfortunately, that carried dangers of its own.

Pack hunters, particularly wolves, possessed enough intelligence to recognize when a hunting party lacked the numbers to defend itself.

Rather than rushing in recklessly, they patiently surrounded the goblins before wearing them down one by one.

Because of that, goblins rarely ventured far from their camps after nightfall unless they absolutely had to.

Even then, attacks against an entire hunting party were uncommon.

Predators understood that hunting goblins came with risks of their own.

A successful hunt often came at the cost of serious injuries, something few creatures could afford within the unforgiving forest.

Recently, however... Those risks seemed to matter less and less.

The predators had become noticeably bolder. And their strength was increasing at a rate that couldn’t be ignored.

The goblins couldn’t explain why. They only knew that trying to hunt at night had become more difficult with each passing day.

The answer, however, lay with the territory they were now walking toward.

Ever since Noah claimed this territory as his own, the creatures living at the outermost edge of his influence had gradually begun to change.

Each passing day strengthened them. Their mana grew richer than that of others of their own species, while their bloodlines steadily became purer through small, unnoticeable mutations and constant exposure to the territory itself.

That influence didn’t stop with the creatures who called Noah’s territory home.

Even the land itself had begun changing.

The grass growing throughout the territory had gradually become saturated with mana, allowing herbivores that fed upon it to strengthen simply by grazing.

Those herbivores eventually became prey. And the predators that hunted them inherited that same growth.

Like ripples spreading, Noah’s influence continued expanding farther into the surrounding forest with every passing day.

It wasn’t enough to drastically transform every creature overnight, but it was enough to make the forest noticeably different from what it had been before.

But for now, the goblins were oblivious to this. They only knew that the creatures no longer felt like the ones they had grown accustomed to.

That growing danger was precisely why the youngest members of the tribe remained gathered around Genghis.

—

The group returning to Noah’s territory had more members compared to the one Noah had confronted earlier.

Before departing, the fourteen children Genghis had risked his life to protect had been gathered together, and now they remained clustered tightly around him as though afraid to let him leave their sight.

These children didn’t make a sound. And even while afraid, there was no attempt to look for those who had given birth to them. They simply walked wherever Genghis walked.

Among goblin children, that behavior wasn’t unusual. The role of a parent held very little meaning within a tribe.

Neither the males nor the females claimed children as their own after they were born. Once an infant was old enough to leave its mother’s arms, it simply became another member of the tribe.

And even before that, goblin mothers didn’t feed babies milk. The role of feeding them was placed on another, while milk was replaced with blood.

Goblins never receive an ounce of love or emotional bonding the moment they are conceived.

Whether they survived afterward depended almost entirely upon itself.

Because of that, the children naturally gravitated toward the one goblin who could make them feel safe.

To them, Genghis held far more meaning than the goblins who had given them life.

Walking among the children were two elderly female goblins. The only adults who walked within Genghis’s group.

Age had long since robbed them of the strength expected from the rest of the tribe, leaving them with little value as hunters, warriors, or childbearers.

Instead, they had become caretakers.

They watched over the infants until they became capable of feeding themselves, and kept the younger children together until they were old enough to fend for themselves.

This act was never done out of affection.

Someone simply had to stop them from wandering into danger or interfering with the older goblins.

Otherwise, the children rarely survived for long.

A young goblin that inconvenienced an adult could easily be beaten to death without anyone questioning it.

Likewise, a female who hadn’t yet reached adulthood possessed no protection beyond her own ability to avoid those stronger than herself.

Such things weren’t viewed as cruelty within a goblin tribe. They were simply another part of life.

—

The children continued walking in silence.

Several paces farther behind them walked the remainder of the tribe.

No one dared approach Genghis without permission.

At the front of that group walked the former chieftain beside the three shamans, all of them keeping enough distance to show that they understood their place.

The former chieftain continued to watch the back that spared it. Its eyes remained clouded with indecision.

Genghis’ position should’ve been where it stood. Before it went out to meet the Oni, it had already prepared to surrender the tribe if that was what it took to survive.

If Genghis had never appeared, that power, that authority, would’ve been given to it.

With those thoughts, it couldn’t deny that it was enticed to try to take Genghis’ place.

The goblins around them still hadn’t completely forgotten who their former chieftain was. There was still hesitation whenever they looked at it, and as long as it remained alive, there would always be a chance to reclaim the position it had lost.

Yet those thoughts no longer carried the same conviction they once had.

Each thought conspiring against the one who spared it only made it feel a rare sense of guilt.

It didn’t know what it was supposed to do anymore.

Unable to come to an answer, its attention gradually shifted away from Genghis and toward the path ahead.

The towering wall of trees slowly came into view.

That place...

Only days ago, it had fled through those very trees with no intention of ever returning.

If it had been given the choice back then, it would’ve rather wandered the forest alone than willingly step foot inside that territory ever again.

The life waiting beyond those trees had become impossible to predict.

If anything, it could only believe that whatever awaited them beyond those trees would be far harsher than the life they once knew.

—

"Can you two stop looking at me like that?"

Meanwhile, Noah was complaining to the two women alongside him.

Arachne was staring at him with overly prideful eyes. Her gaze didn’t elicit the reaction one might expect because that pride was for an embarrassing reason.

While Ailetta’s gaze further instigated that reason.

"Darling, we can’t help it. The way you were back there was just so... Devilishly charming."

And there it was again.

Noah should’ve known this was going to happen someday. The title was something that he wasn’t against having anymore. There were even times when he openly referred to himself as a devil.

But that and this were two different things.

He embraced the title because, at least then, it was something he chose for himself. It represented the lengths he was willing to go to protect those he cared about, even if others believed those actions were malevolent in nature.

That didn’t mean he wanted the women he loved looking at him as though manipulating an entire tribe somehow made him more attractive.

Worse still...

They weren’t calling him devilish because he had frightened the goblins.

It was because, from Ailetta and Arachne’s perspective, every action he had taken since entering the camp now appeared as though it had been planned from the very beginning.

Saving Genghis no longer looked like a spur-of-the-moment decision.

Instead, it appeared as though he had deliberately chosen one goblin to manipulate from the start.

Even sparing the children had taken on an entirely different meaning.

Rather than an act of mercy, it now looked like another calculated step used to bind Genghis even more tightly to him.

Then came the former chieftain.

By tearing down its authority while simultaneously elevating Genghis before the eyes of the entire tribe, the contrast between the two became impossible to ignore.

And in the end, the surviving goblins had all been led to believe the only reason they still lived was because of the one goblin the Oni had chosen from the very beginning.

Looking back on it...

Noah had to admit that if there truly were a devil somewhere in this world...

Even if it would probably appreciate the performance.