71 The Goblin Queen In The Goblin Trap

"You made out!?!" Natalia screamed, almost breaking her poker face. 

"Heavens no! I said we made up!" Haley immediately retorted, her face even redder than before. 

"Oh, sorry, I misheard…" Natalia said in an apologetic tone, scratching her right cheek. 

"Oh! Natalia! I have something to tell you! Moby here got an ability randomly from a cave in the forest! He is now the second strongest person on the team! The teams were supposed to be balanced but now ours clearly has an edge over the competition! Even though we are missing a member! That weak slut was useless anyways! To be honest I even forgot her name!" Haley said with a loud laugh. 

"First of all! Neia was a very important part of the team! And second, Moby has an ability!?! Please explain!!" Natalia said in an extremely surprised tone that seemed completely out of character. 

At that moment, Moby had a lot to say. But, he fought the urge and calmly held everything inside. 

********************************

10 minutes later…

"I see… I think I have a better grasp of the situation… sure everything turned out fine by the end but, I can't say I agree with your methods!" 

"Why did you let Moby keep watch all night!? You should have switched every few hours! Even if this all ended well and Moby luckily got the ability and survived. What he did was a 1 in a million thing. Without it, he would have easily died! I don't know what I would do if I lost him!" Natalia said with clear passion and concern in her voice. 

"Uh, I mean another teammate! Not "him" " Natalia added, immediately and nervously correcting herself.

"Yes… I understand… I'm so sorry… It was my idea for him to keep watch as he was the weakest and would be useless in a fight. If our useful fighters are tired, then we would have a worse chance of survival." Haley nervously explained. 

"I understand your point of view. But, you need to realize that we are all people with feelings. Don't just go around treating everyone like they are worthless and as a bother!" Natalia explained. 

'You should probably take your own advice.' Moby thought, scoffing at her comment.

"Moby, I am really happy that you now have an ability! But don't get reckless just because you are now a lot stronger! You are still much weaker than I am! You can count on me to lead and keep you safe!" Natalia said with a smile. 

"Yes! Of course team leader! I will take those words to heart!" Moby replied.

'Am I going crazy!? Or is Moby even hotter now than before!? Is it because I haven't seen him in a long time? Am I just imagining things and he always looked like this!?' Is what Natalia was thinking about during her entire conversation with Moby. That and how she plans to get rid of Haley. 

None of his other teammates noticed anything different about Moby as they did not pay much if not any attention to him or his appearance before. This also included Haley. 

"This bear monster also looks pretty impressive! I think I saw that it was a C rank when I was looking at the bestiary! Nice catch! That's an easy 125 points!" Natalia said, pulling out her magic rod and teleporting the beast away.

"Anyways, I want to see all this evidence you've been talking about, including that strong Lycan, it might be worth a lot of points!" 

"I'm going to go exploring the forest to see if I can find the battlefield and scout around for any monster in the area. It shouldn't take too long! In the meantime, you guys call Travis and Jay and tell them to get ready and wait with you guys until my arrival!" Natalia said, jumping into the dark forest.

"Hey! Natalia! Don't you need a flashlight! It's still really dark outside! I'm scared that you would get lost!" Haley asked with evident concern in her voice. 

"It's fine! My armour gives me night vision! It won't be a problem at all!" Natalia replied before completely disappearing into the forest. 

"While you go wake up the guys, I'm going to do my daily exercise. Sorry, at this point it's a habit I can't get rid of," Moby casually said before running into the forest. 

"Sure thing! You can count on me!" Haley cheerfully replied. 

'Such a hard worker!' She thought, looking at the sprinting Moby in the distance.

Moby had planned to run after Natalia to see what she was doing. He doubted that she was just "scouting". However, he lost her track as she was too fast for him to keep up. So, he decided to do his daily quest and gain his 3 stat points. He immediately assigned the new stat points to his agility, raising it from a base of 259 to 262. After his evolution, his strength stat was now higher than his agility when armour is added. So, he wants to change it back to around the same proportions as his pre-evolution stats. He decided to assign the points he gained from levelling up into mind and his daily quest stats into agility. He will do this at least until he reaches a base of 100 mind.

When Moby returned to his base, he found that his team was already prepared and was waiting for his arrival, Natalia included. 

She said that she had explored most of the forest and found the battlefield, the broken and withered plants, and the cave. She said she saw a lot of beasts in the area and that she laid out a safe path.  

She insisted that the group should not use a strong light source as it would attract the attention of the many beasts in the forest. So, everyone just had to rely on the small light that their watches provided which only emitted a faint light that was only strong enough for them to be able to barely see their own feet. 

The group then entered the dark forest in a single file line, Natalia leading the way. She was the only one in the group that knew the correct path to the evidence and the only one that had night vision. So, she was the obvious choice to lead.

The second person in the line was very obscure. Instead of Moby who was now the second strongest in the group. Natalia insisted to have Haley right behind her while Moby was in the middle of the line, in between Travis who was in front of him, and Jay that was behind him which was arguably one of the safest parts of the line.

Natalia explained this decision by saying that Haley's healing is a lot more effective when she is closer. She said that in the fight with the worm, when Haley was at a distance, she felt almost no healing and whenever she got closer, the healing greatly multiplied in strength. 

Everyone in the group understood the explanation and thought nothing suspicious of it. Natalia has been so nice and caring to them and even saved their lives in the fight with the worm. They had absolutely no reason to doubt her words or find her even the least bit untrustworthy. 

Everyone except for Moby who knew that she must have an ulterior motive. 

Every few seconds, the sound of animal screams and cries could be heard in the forest, startling Jay and Haley. This also included whenever someone would step on a twig making a sound. 

After a few minutes of walking in the darkness of the forest, Moby noticed that Natalia made a slightly unnatural movement. She walked a bit farther in front of the group, making her body out of the group's field of vision before performing a casual looking small hop.

At first, Moby thought that it was nothing too significant. Then, he noticed an unnaturally large clump of leaves on the path straight ahead of Haley.  

As soon as Moby saw the leaves, he knew exactly what was going on. He immediately reacted by using his "devil's hand" to hold onto Haley's leg, slightly off-putting her movements making her step off the side of the clump of leaves instead of straight on it, revealing a deep hole where the leaves once were. 

"Hey! What the fuck was that! Did someone push me? Or Did I trip on a twig?? I just ruined my favourite armour! It's all muddy now!" Haley angrily complained. 

As soon as Natalia noticed that Haley was completely unharmed, she bit her lower lip almost strong enough to draw blood before a massive, ugly scowl appeared on her face. She thought that she was safe to act natural as it is completely dark and no one could properly see her face. 

Unlucky for her, Moby saw everything. 

It was the first time he saw Natalia go all out on a natural facial expression. Every other time was a minor, barely noticeable slip up in her poker face.

'I see what game you are now playing. Well played indeed. If I did not notice the leaves, your plan would have worked. Sucks to be you! I will be the one that kills Haley! I've never killed a C rank human before! I bet that it will give a shit ton of XP!' Moby excitedly thought, his competitive spirit surfacing into his mind.

Suddenly, Haley screamed a loud, piercing, high pitch scream that startled everyone in the group. 

"AHHHHHH!! WHAT IS THAT!! I ALMOST FELL DOWN THERE!!" Haley screamed, dropping down on her ass and pointing at the deep hole right beside her with horrified eyes.

The hole was at least 20 feet deep with sharp tree branch-like spikes at the bottom. The branches had a purple tip on them which was most likely some sort of poison.

"Haley! Are you ok! Are you hurt? " Jay asked with clear worry and concern. 

"Does it look like I'm okay you big oaf! I almost died a second ago!!" Haley screamed once more.

"Shhh!! Please be quiet! I am scared that you might alert any beasts in the forest with your screams!" Jay whispered.

"I agree with Jay, you should be a little quieter. This right here is a goblin trap. I forgot to tell you guys before but, there are goblins that live on this planet. A semi-intelligent species of magical beasts. Their power levels range all the way from F- to D. I am fairly sure that this was a goblin trap. I am not sure how fresh this trap is. But, depending on that, it means that a goblin village might be near here. When I chose this path, I did not know of these traps as I was jumping from the tree branches to move around. There might be more traps ahead. So, I recommend you all keep an eye out. I'll notify you guys if I see another one ahead. However, I will tell you now that I am not very good at identifying traps. So, don't put all your hopes in me because I will most likely disappoint you guys." Natalia calmly explained. 

'That's bullshit!!' Moby thought in outrage, immediately catching her lies.