"Mhm, I did." Eiro replied bluntly, "The village that the Kobolds lived in was attacked by the Highland Orcs, which is why they're now here. I think it might be worth it to try and get at least a couple of the Orcs here. I heard that they're supposed to be rather impressive craftsmen. As impressive as a Monster Craftsman can be, at least."
"...Yeah... Normal Orcs aren't anything special. They're pretty strong, sure, but they're complete idiots that only fight on instinct. If they use weapons, they were either stolen from people they killed, or they're just heavy branches that they wildly swing around. Highland Orcs are to a regular Orc, what a regular Orc is to a Goblin, basically. They're insanely superior in intelligence, but the most impressive part about them is that they have surprisingly strong socail connections... And on top of that..." Armodeus muttered quietly, before he smiled broadly, "They're basically the Dwarves of the Monster World. And many of them have a special ability as well that causes this fact to be indubitably true to anyone that knows about it."
Eiro crossed his legs as he sat down and thought about what Armodeus was saying, "'Complete Tool Proficiency'."
"Exactly! They're able to use every tool to its fullest extent! Not weapons, but tools! They're not amazing hunters, but in return, they're one of the few sorts of monsters that would be capable of creating whole cities!" Rather excited, Armodeus went on to speak about these special monsters. And Eiro definitely understood where he came from. It was a rather interesting thing to think about, after all.
But the fact that they would be able to create a city themselves didn't really matter to Eiro at all. He just wanted to make use of the few Orcs that had that 'Complete Tool Proficiency'. Usually, this 'proficiency' was restricted to one specific set of tools that was related to an extent. Weirdly enough, it was split up amongst production-based skills, usually.
One Orc with this skill could be a Blacksmith, another one could be a Farmer. But no matter what, through their skill, they had all the knowledge that they needed to use their tools to the fullest extent, including different techniques and general knowledge about the field their skill would allow them to work in.
But at the same time, that made everything just weirder, "Why would Highland Orcs attack the Kobold Village? Did they do something to upset the Orcs..?" Eiro muttered quietly to himself. It simply wasn't the sort of thing that Highland Orcs would do, but there was no other possibility of what those monsters could be.
If it had been just one, then Eiro might have simply said that it was possibly a random regular Orc that got lost, or maybe some other random Monster that didn't have its normal habitat here, so Eiro wouldn't know all that much about it.
But since it was a large group, as well as the few details that Eiro saw on the Kobolds and the Kitbold, like a few strands of Orc-hair stuck to their clothes, Eiro was positive that they were this special sub-species of Monster.
"Huh... That's true. Maybe they simply have to expand? Or some sort of trouble hit them so that they're quite desperate to get materials, provisions, or new places to live?" Armodeus suggested to Eiro immediately. The Demon slowly nodded his head, "It might be last few of those things combined. Most likeley, there is something that makes it impossible, or at least quite tough, for them to keep living the way that they used to. Hm... Gondos, you're pretty strongly connected to this mountain-range, right?"
The Earth Spirit slowly appeared next to Eiro with a smile on his face, "Indeed. I matured here, through the life of these mountains. Is there anything you want me to do?"
"Mhm, there is. Nelli told me that Spirits are able to sense basically everything that's going on in their 'birthplace'. Can you sense what's going on in this mountain-range if you try?"
"Most likely, yes. Although, I would not be able to sense things that are far away... Except if we fuse, that is. We should be able to retain my ability to sense the life of the mountains." Gondos explained to Eiro, who slowly nodded his head with his chin cupped on his fingers.
"Then let's do that later tonight. For now, I want the Goblins to gather up the unrefined Magic Stones for me."
"Hm?" Armodeus replied confused, "Unrefined Magic Stones? What do you mean?"
"Oh, didn't we tell you?" Eiro asked, "This is a mine."
"...I figured, I saw the high-concentration strains of iron ore when we came in, but what does that have to do with Magic Stones?"
"Oh, right, this place has Iron Ore as well. That might make it even better if we can get the Highland Orcs here... With a blacksmith, this place would turn self-sufficient rather easily." The Demon muttered quietly, but Armodeus was worried about something completely different, "Eiro, is this a Magic Stone mine?"
"It is, yeah. It's where I got the Gravity Magic stone." Eiro explained, and Armodeus stared back at him with a deep glare, "If you're trying to tell me that the magic is so concentrated here that Gravity Magic stones are created, and you didn't tell me that you had one, I'm going to punch you."
"...I don't think that's a good idea, you might hurt yourself."
"...Just show me one of the Gravity Magic stones." Armodeus grumbled quietly, and Eiro swiftly pulled it out of his treasury before throwing it over to the Elder Dwarf. Suddenly, the craftsman's eye slowly changed. It seemed like his iris was suddenly twisting around in circles, and the pupil was growing incredibly small as the Dwarf's eye started to flash up for just a moment.
And immediately after this happened, after Armodeus used his incredibly well-trained and -practiced 'Inspection' skill, the Elder Dwarf looked at Eiro with a deep sigh, "I swear, you cold have told me this earlier and it would have made a lot of things easier. I ain't Johann, but I still know my way around Artificing. If this is a Magic Stone mine... If it's here, it should have Earth Magic Stones and maybe some Metal Magic stones on top of these Gravity Magic stones, right?"
"I don't think they found any Metal Magic stones the last time I was here, so I wouldn't count on those. But at the very least, there are quite a lot of Earth Magic Stones."
"Aye, should be enough." Armodeus said with a slightly excited grin on his face, "We planned on staying here for one more full day, right?"
Immediately understanding why Armodeus was asking, Eiro nodded his head "Yes, but we can't stay any longer than that, sorry."
"No need to apologize. I only need a day. Do you have any more Gravity Magic stones?" Armodeus inquired, and the Demon slowly turned around to the Hobgoblins. The five of them were catching up with each other using the Goblin Language, so Eiro didn't understand them fully and perfectly, but he got the gist of it. Well, he basically understood them completely although he didn't know the meaning of some of the words they said yet. This was probably just his Knight of Pentacles interacting with the Goblin Language Comprehension skill that Eiro already had to let him understand what they said.
"You guys, can you go and gather up the Magic Stones that you gathered since I was last here?"
Slowly, Vent stepped forward toward the Demon and dropped onto his knee, "Can get Magic Stones, yes, Master. But hard to get all. Kobolds take many."
"I saw that. So? Just get them back. Those aren't theirs." Eiro sighed. Vent raised his head and nodded with a grin on his face. Honestly, Eiro was a bit surprised to see Vent like this. Amongst all of the Goblins Eiro had seen so far, Vent was by far the most attractive, at least in the standards of humans. Eiro obviously didn't care for things such as beauty, but he could still appreciate good looks in others.
And Vent was so good-looking, for a Goblin's standards, that he might be able to pass as a human. And not even a particularly ugly one. Below average, but not repulsive.
"We make Master proud." Vent said with a broad smile as he properly stood up, nodding at the other Hobgoblins. Clypt, Glat and Sagit, the other three Mountain Hobgoblin 'Generals' that had been by Gobo's side for a while now, walked to the entrance of the cave, while Gobo himself just sat down on the ground, still angry at how that Kitbold Kitsue had treated everyone here in the village.
The Demon understood his sentiment, really. Having people that you cared about treated this way was something that hurt even more than if you yourself were treated that way. And Gobo was a naturally-born leader, honestly. He connected with other Goblins at a deeper level. Before Eiro came to this village, Gobo confused those emotions with hunger or greed, causing him to start those duels where the winner fed on the loser's heart, trying to sate that jealous hunger through any means possible.
But now, through Eiro's guidance, that had turned into a leader's compassion for those that followed him. There was no way that Gobo would let his people be treated that way by someone like Kitsue for no reason
Eiro smiled at Gobo, happy to see that he had started thinking this way. It was nice to see, honestly, although it was still kind of weird to think that such a dumb, weak Hobgoblin had turned into such a fine young warrior. The Demon was quite proud, if he had to be honest.
Now that his mood had been lifted a bit again after meeting Kitsue and having it completely be ruined for a while, Eiro pushed himself off the slab of rock he was sitting on. He stepped into the center of the room and waved his hands around as he started his Magic Practice.
Eiro was trying his best to figure out how to properly make use of his grimoire, and was attempting to create new spells with its help, using peculiar aspects from other magic systems that Eiro had never thought about before. And there was a particular reason for this. For one, it couldn't hurt to improve oneself like that, especially if you were going to meet a literal Dragon soon.
And two... Once Eiro came back to town, he would slaughter every member of the Organization, so he had to learn new large-range attacks. Possibly, the Highland Orcs could be some good target-practice for now.
