That time I was reincarnated as a snake (Tensura)

-???-

I don't know why things started to go wrong for me.

Everything was going according to my master's plan.

As requested, after leaving his care I wandered around the periphery of this forest, which most humans dare not approach. It is said that the owner is an incredibly strong dragon, which can destroy kingdoms when disturbed.

An invincible being.

My master made fun of how everyone saw the dragon, in his words, it was all made-up stories. If it was so strong, why didn't it conquer the whole world? If it was so strong, why did humans still exist? This proved that the dragon feared humans and only dared to attack small kingdoms, but it never bothered the human empire in the east of the continent.

This proved that humans are the superior race of this world.

Following his instructions, I searched for some settlement of my kind.

Although I encountered dangers along the way, it was thanks to the power granted to me by my master that I was able to emerge from them, each time with only minor injuries.

When I found the first settlement I was filled with happiness, I would soon be able to complete the mission that my master had entrusted to me.

And to do that I had to find a way to bring the settlement under my command. It might take a long time, but I was determined to achieve it.

The days passed.

Getting accepted was not difficult, I just showed my strength by carrying out the tasks they entrusted to me, some gathering, hunting prey to feed the settlement, among others.

I soon gained his recognition and admiration, I was the strongest and as such enjoyed the best treatment, second only to the leader. He saw me as a valuable asset that he could use.

He was a fool to believe that I would settle for that status, I was just waiting for the best moment.

Moment that would be presented as a hunt led by the leader.

The target: a horned bear.

Apparently the leader believed that the two of us together, plus the best hunters in the settlement, would be able to defeat it and obtain its meat, which would make us stronger.

The ravings of an ignorant fool.

I was different, my teacher had shared with me his knowledge about this vast world.

I knew we were no match for a horned bear, we were just a small group of goblins.

Yes, goblins, beings that according to my master were at the bottom of this world, creatures that only continued to exist because of our high fertility.

But still, my master saw something in me and gave me power, gave me knowledge and entrusted me with a very important task for him.

Even though I knew we were no match for the horned bear, I didn't say anything, this was my chance.

During the hunt, I revealed our hiding place to the horned bear.

This triggered an unfavorable battle for us, but it was what I wanted.

Taking advantage of the chaos I escaped.

It didn't take long for the horned bear to eliminate the group, including the leader.

When I was sure that no one survived, I hurried to the settlement.

In panic I told everyone how the group was eliminated, only in the end following the leader's orders I escaped to leave a future for the settlement.

How stupid they were to believe me, I was finally the leader.

Using the knowledge taught by my teacher, I taught them simple tactics for hunting.

This increased the number of prey, which gained more adoration.

Over time, a small settlement of a dozen goblins, under my planning, had grown into a group of dozens of individuals.

Others might be content with this life, but not me, I had to complete my mission.

With my order, my subordinates and I set out on a journey deeper into the forest, where we could hunt more monsters, allowing us to increase our strength.

This is how we arrived at our current village.

At first it was difficult, monsters stronger than us attacked us, but with each victory our numbers increased.

From a few dozen at the beginning to hundreds, we were no longer something a slightly stronger monster would dare to face.

Following my master's plan, what I should do was create a large force of monsters under my command.

I would use the goblin tribe to annex other tribes and when my master gave the order we would attack the dragon in this forest, thus my master would become the ruler of all these lands.

Everything was going according to plan, after countless fights and eating the flesh of numerous monsters, I evolved. According to my master, my new race was hobgoblin, I was now several times stronger than a goblin, something that excited me.

But at some point everything started to fall apart.

It began with the loss of a small harvesting group.

At first I didn't care about this, I knew there were a lot of monsters around us, the loss of a few goblins wasn't a problem, we would soon replenish them.

But this continued, several hunting groups were lost.

Death while hunting monsters is a common occurrence, but I had warned everyone which monsters were very strong and they should escape upon encountering them.

That had made it so that even if the group was attacked, some could survive.

But now something was happening, no one had survived from those groups.

That just made me think they encountered some very strong or intelligent monster.

Confirmation did not take long to arrive, apparently under cover of night a monster infiltrated the village without the guards noticing and ate the goblins from several houses.

From what I saw, I could tell that it was some kind of snake monster from the tracks found, a very intelligent one, because it was able to do all this without being detected.

I thought the goblins he ate would be enough for a while.

Along with the fact that he shouldn't be too strong because he always acted secretly, he should avoid coming into conflict with us.

I was wrong, it didn't stop, the groups continued to disappear.

I knew it was the same monster, but I couldn't do much about it, it was too good at hiding.

He could only hope that he was already at his limit, it was common sense that a monster couldn't resist so many magics in a short period of time.

If he continued, he was sure to hurt himself.

But it was not like that, he attacked us again at night.

To my surprise, this time he attacked the guards.

After killing some goblins and seeing the rest preparing to lay siege to him, he escaped, taking some bodies with him.

Furious at such provocations, I took eighty of the strongest goblins and went in search of him.

I thought I found his tracks, tracks that I followed to a cave.

By the time I remembered where I was, it was too late, the owner attacked us.

It was the storm serpent I had been avoiding disturbing for so long, I could only watch as it devoured my subordinates.

With a quick thought I made the decision to abandon my men and flee.

As I ran I could hear the miserable screams.

I couldn't recover from the loss of so many subordinates in a short time, which filled me with bitterness.

I thought that was the worst, but it was nothing compared to the news that one of my subordinates brought me the next day.

The snake monster had attacked another hunting party.

It wasn't strange, the shocking thing was that the monster was now bigger than the night before and was no longer cautious as before.

That told me that he no longer considered us threats and seeing as he continued to devour goblins it was certain that he would target the village.

In preparation for battle, I ordered them to stop hunting, start cutting down trees, and build defenses, to prevent any sneaking in.

I knew he was coming and I was waiting for him.

He had enough food for several months, in preparation for conquering a neighboring tribe. If he thought we were too difficult and retreated, that would be for the best.

So I waited for several days, not daring to relax. But, contrary to my predictions, he did not come. Suspecting a trap, I ordered that the surveillance be doubled.

But he still didn't come. So the days went by.

Two weeks after the last attack, I finally think he went somewhere else.

If nothing happens today, I will send new groups tomorrow to continue hunting.

I must replace the lost subordinates.

With a sigh I relaxed into my seat to rest. When I leaned my head back, I saw something that filled me with horror. Out of nowhere, appeared the monster I had been hoping to fight.

Without wasting any time, I screamed for support and tried to jump out of my seat, only to be caught by the monster.

-??? MC-

In front of me I see the hobgoblin leader. He seems to be thinking about something, so out of courtesy I decided to wait for him to finish. After all, "manners make the man."

Wondering how I got to the village leader's house?

It's not surprising at all. As you know, after I got the stealth skill, I decided to try it out on some prey, they didn't even notice when they entered my stomach.

After that, I thought it was time to finish off the goblin village, so, using stealth, I sneaked past the guard patrols. They seemed to know how to make a good defense, maybe because of the leader, but they say:

'With enough strength, problems are not a problem.'

In my case, with stealth I didn't have to worry about being discovered. It only took me a few minutes to get to the Hobgoblin's house, and this is where we are currently.

'Looks like he's done with his thing.' I walk over behind the chair he sat in.

Wanting to scare him, I turned off the stealth visual camouflage. You should see his face when he saw me, it's hilarious.

In order to prevent him from creating a commotion, I caught him when I saw him scream. It doesn't matter if he continues to scream, he is within my silence range, the goblins outside won't hear him.

Seeing that I didn't panic at the sight of him screaming, he knew it was useless, so he stopped.

Waiting for his death he closed his eyes. To his surprise I didn't eat him.

Having a test subject for an idea I was thinking about I decided to give it a try.

Did you know that there are many races in this world?

Exactly, there are many and that is why there are many languages in this world.

What?! Don't they all speak the same language?

Nooooo, although there is a language that we can call common, it is the common language of humans.

So how can beings of different races establish communication?

Magic, yes, it is magic, there are magics and skills that can help to communicate in different languages and understand them.

That's what I'm going to try to do.

The operation is simple, charge magiculas with the intention of what you want to transmit, then throw them to the receiver, and voila, the other individual should understand what you want to say, since you are not transmitting words, but ideas.

Following the steps above, I tried to send a simple thought, while looking into his eyes.

[Are you tasty?]

[…] The hobgoblin stared at me with a fool's eyes.

Not knowing if my attempt was successful, I decided to try again.

[Can you understand me?]

[…]

Although he didn't answer me, I could see the surprise in his eyes; I knew that I had succeeded.

[If you don't answer me, you will die.] To make it more convincing, I increased the pressure.

Seeing that he was serious, he quickly answered me.

[Yes, I can understand you.] Seeing that he was speaking, I withdrew the force.

[I ask you, you answer, is that clear?] I gave him a murderous look.

He just nodded quickly.

[How did you come to command so many goblins? Normally thirty is considered a lot.]

Seeing that he had no intention of killing him for now, he replied.

[It started out as a group of less than twenty including myself. It was after hunting many monsters that our group started to grow. To prevent a mutiny when someone started to disobey me, I would find a way to make them disappear. After the others saw that, they gave up on those ideas. That was how I was able to keep them under my command.]

[Why did you settle here? Don't you know there is a storm serpent nearby?] I asked to remove my doubt.

[I know about it, but it doesn't attack us if we don't disturb it. I settled here because of the number of monsters living there. If we hunt them, we'll have plenty of food.]

I was suspicious because of the easy cooperation, coupled with the fact that this guy was smart. I had my doubts, if he was lying to me.

Wanting to try it,

[Enough lies! I know your true goal.] I gave him a death glare.

His expression stiffened, something I didn't miss.

[That's the truth], he said in a panic.

Searching for flaws, I continued:

[I've been watching you for a long time, you're not normal, a hobgoblin shouldn't know what you know. If you don't tell me the truth, I'll take you to my master Veldora and he'll read all your memories. When that happens, someone will pay.] Wearing Veldora's tiger skin can scare a lot of people.

He was right, when he heard that his panic intensified. I did it just to try, I didn't expect that this guy actually had something to hide.

That was how he told me about his master's plan to conquer Jura Forest. Obviously, he didn't mention his master's identity. Seeing how cooperative he was, I didn't force him.

Having finished listening to his story, I proceeded to eat him. He, seeing that he would die without revealing the identity of his master, showed a relieved face and did not resist.

'Who knew that a mere human magician had ideas about Jura Forest? Ha, ignorant. Even if I gathered all the monsters in this forest against Veldora, it wouldn't even tickle his fancy.' I shook my head at this absurd plan.

'What amuses me the most, is that he thinks Veldora doesn't dare to conquer or destroy humans because he's afraid of them. It's the fear of his sisters that makes him not dare.' I laughed at the thought of Velzard or Velgrynd beating him up after destroying a kingdom.

'What can I say? There will always be ignorant people who do not know the immensity of heaven and earth.'

Having finished with the leader, it was time to finish off the rest.

'This will be a good lunch.' A smile appeared on my face.

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Author's notes:

So, we can conclude the goblin arc.

What did you think of the chapter?

This is my first attempt at creating a personality for an original character. I wanted him to be a bit like the Demon Lord's subordinates, showing loyalty, but not something on the level of fanaticism. Somewhat intelligent from being educated, but not cunning.

If you feel like this chapter is short, it's because I didn't want to drag out the goblin arc any longer. I've already given them plenty of screen time. It's time for new stuff. Although I already have the next arcs in mind, feel free to make suggestions.

If they catch my attention, I might incorporate them.