Two days after Gaius Beldarus’s coronation, Sashalia called a meeting in the Kobold Kingdom’s assembly hall. Before the meeting, Gaius, Sashalia, Darke, and Dwaemon waited in the storage hut for the kobold men to join them. Soon, five little kobold girls came to bestow Gaius with his new crown.
“Your crown for today, Your Majesty!”
“Thank you, but, ah... You don’t need to make me a new one every day, though,” Gaius said bashfully as the flowery wreath was placed on his head. They’d even hung a chain of white flowers around his neck. His companions struggled valiantly not to laugh at the mismatch between his grizzled features and the cute ornamentation.
“But we want to! In fact, we’d like to make one in the morning and one at night! Everyone’s fighting over who gets to make them!”
“A-Are they? Well, I don’t want you fighting.”
“It’s okay! We’re way stronger than the boys!” The girl flexed her muscles, as if to prove the point that the issue had already been decided.
The Kobold King hurriedly chided them not to use violence.
“Oh? You’re putting wreaths around his ankles, too? That’s a lot,” Sashalia remarked to the fluffballs clinging to Gaius’s legs.
“Yeah! These flowers smell really good!”
“They do have a very strong scent, don’t they?”
“Uh huh! You know how the king’s feet smell really bad, right? We all felt sorry for him, so we came up with the idea of putting flowers that smell good on him!”
“Well, the king’s about to cry from how considerate you’re all being, so maybe you should stop with what you’ve already put on him, okay?”
“Okaaay,” the girls all said and shuffled out, though they didn’t seem to understand what was wrong with what they’d said. They were replaced by the men, led by Red Eye and Rain Grass, as well as the elder and his granddaughter Hopping Rabbit.
“Sorry for the wait, little lady... Hm? Why does our king look like his spirit has left him?”
＊
“Release the humans we captured?!” The shrill shout came from Rain Grass.
In contrast to him, the elder, who normally would have been the first to object, was sipping on boiled water, not looking the least bit perturbed.
“That’s right. We don’t have the resources to hold them and we can’t spare anyone to guard them, either. We also can’t afford to fight them if they get violent. Plus, we’re not likely to get any more useful information out of simple adventurers.”
“Then let’s kill them! Some of them went after our women and children!” Rain Grass’s hackles were up.
But Sashalia merely went on, calmly: “If there had been casualties among the non-combatants, we would execute them, but technically they only attempted them harm. We’ll call it a royal pardon from our new king. Those we captured in combat will be released as prisoners of war, not criminals. We’ll have them pledge in writing never to harm the Kobold Kingdom again. Of course, we can’t count on them to hold to any such promises, so we don’t need to hold on to the documents afterward.”
Rain Grass opened his mouth to shout again, but Red Eye yanked on his tail to shut him up and asked, “There’s a reason for this, right, Sashalia?”
“Yes. It’s important for our future.”
“All right. Keep going.”
As the one who often took charge out in the fields, Red Eye commanded respect. The rest of the men all nodded in agreement. And Rain Grass had somehow ended up in Gaius’s arms at some point during this, so he was behaving himself as well.
“As I explained before, compared to our humble kingdom, the outside world has an almost infinite population and resilience to match. The scale is just too different. Even if we win the next battle, or the one after that... It won’t be easy to keep winning forever.” Sashalia spread out a map of Igris and indicated the territory of the Kobold Kingdom, laying out the situation to the men. “That’s why our end goal is to have the humans give up on invading our kingdom altogether. We want their opinion of us to be ‘We can take some kobolds down, but it’s not worth the losses. They don’t have useful resources or land, so let’s just leave them be.’”
The group listened to the red-haired half-elf, looking back and forth between her and the map.
“And to make that happen, we’ll have to engage in dialogue with the humans and find common ground between us. And there may come a time when we need to negotiate with our enemies. We need to make sure they don’t think of us as vicious beasts that can’t be reasoned with.” Sashalia went on. “What I’d really like to do is demand a ransom for any prisoners of war who are nobility, which would conform to the human world’s notion of post-battle behavior, but... the people who attacked us were adventurers, so we can’t do that, unfortunately.”
Most of the men were cocking their heads, unable to get a good grasp on Sashalia’s logic. That was only natural, considering they’d spent their whole lives in the forest.
Sashalia was at a loss as to how to convince them, when...
“So basically, we want them to think, ‘if we fight with the Kobold Kingdom, we’ll get hurt, and there’s no benefit to taking them out, but they’re not monsters, and we can reason with them, so we should just leave them alone.’ So we have to make sure they know we’re easy to talk to,” Gaius broke it down for them.
At this, the men began nodding along as the light dawned. “I get it!”
“Right... That’s what I should have said...” Sashalia was a little ashamed that she’d gone on for so long without considering who she was talking to, but she soon pulled herself together with a quiet, “ahem.”
“I understand that you’re thinking about the future now, Sashalia. I think we should do as you say with the prisoners,” Red Eye agreed.
“Yeah!” the others chorused.
“Thank you, Red Eye, everyone.”
“But if we don’t get through their next attack, we’re not gonna be able to get them to give up, right?” Rain Grass asked, getting down off of Gaius’s knee.
“You’re exactly right. Which is why I’d also like to discuss our next battle here. I put the plan together rather quickly, so I’m sure it still has flaws, but I believe I’ve come up with a practical strategy we can use.”
“‘Practical?’” The kobolds all exchanged glances.
“Elder, Hopping Rabbit, could you come here, please?”
The elder and his granddaughter sat down on either side of Sashalia. Looking over the crowd, the old shaman took a deep breath and scratched behind his ear before starting: “Well, before we get into that, how about we start with a bit of a history lesson?”
＊
“I’ve told you before that we’re descended from goblins, yes? D’you remember that?”
A commotion went through the kobolds at the elder’s words.
“What?! Really?!”
“I kinda feel like I’ve heard that... maybe...”
The old kobold sighed. “Yes, that’s what I figured... Well, no matter.” After grumbling to himself for a moment, the elder began his tale: “Once upon a time, there was a goblin who met a divine beast in the Greatwood and fell in love.”
“Ooh,” the group stirred.
“The divine beast had beautiful silver fur, like a wolf god. After a great love affair, the two ran off together, their love producing a child. That child was our ancestor. That is why we kobolds have the form we do.”
“Aah...”
While Gaius and the kobolds oohed and aahed in wonder, the dwarf Dwaemon crossed his arms and marveled in a slightly different way.
“Got it on with a wolf, eh? Yer ancestor had interesting taste, fer sure.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Those proclivities are a lot more common than you’re thinking, young man.” Darke’s face appeared at the young dwarf’s shoulder, her movements like a snake.