In the morning of the day after their arrival in the Goblin Village, Eiro was sitting on his 'throne' and looked at the arena that had been constructed in front of him. Gobo stood on one side, and Kitsue stood on the other.
Gobo stared back at the Kitbold, who seemed to be more than just confident that she was going to win this fight and make Eiro hers, although the Demon thought he made it more than just clear he wouldn't be with her even if she managed to beat Gobo with just a single hand. Obviously, Eiro could have made such a promise to give Kitsue more motivation and stop her from complaining for now.
After all, there was literally no way for Gobo to lose against her. Only if he just sat there the whole time would she be able to beat him. But even then, even if there was no way Gobo was going to lose, Eiro knew that he had to make sure Kitsue figured out who was the Lord here. Who it was that held the power, that held the right to command.
It was Eiro. Kitsue herself didn't have any rights unless Eiro specifically gave them to her. With a broad grin on her face, the Kitbold looked at her opponent, "Kitsue will kill Goblin, and make Red Goblin her mate!"
"Did you hit your head last night? Master already told you that he is not a mere Goblin. He is a glorious Demon. Do you not understand that?" Gobo asked with a deep glare, but Kitsue just tilted her head to the side.
Eiro appreciated that Gobo spoke about him like that, but at the same time... His race was amongst the weakest monsters there was. A regular Imp was at the level of a regular Goblin. And Eiro was a lesser Imp, which meant that he was even weaker. On top of that, due to the way that Eiro started out... He didn't even have any stats, meaning that he was weaker than even a regular lesser Imp back then. Eiro wasn't sure if that could be called all too 'glorious'. But he let it slide. He liked being complimented.
"Kitsue not know what Demon! Demon just Red Goblin, yes?" She asked with a dumb expression, and Eiro stared at her annoyedly. It seemed like Gobo was getting a bit more riled up again as well. Eiro had helped him calm down after the way that he reacted last night after they all got here, but it seemed like Gobo really wasn't able to do this by himself yet.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇt"Gobo. Concentrate." Eiro instructed him, and the Hobgoblin slowly turned around before nodding his head. He took a deep breath and then looked back at Kitsue, "I'm going to make you regret ever coming here, Cat." Gobo said in an angry tone, and Kitsue just grinned broadly, not taking him serious in the slgihtest.
Seeing that this was the case, Gobo said something that Eiro didn't really expect. Of course he saw the possibility, but he figured that the probability was rather low... Well, since there was a chance this might happen it didn't really matter that much. This was actually a rather positive route. It would allow Gobo to assert his dominance over the Kobolds through absolute supremacy, while showing the other Goblins that he didn't leave for no reason, and came back stronger than any of them could have ever hoped.
Gobo held his hand forward and showed three fingers to Kitsue, "My foot will be pressing your head into the dirt within three seconds."
Kitsue stared back at Gobo before forming a rather excited expression. She didn't expect such an announcement, but she didn′t seem opposed to making such a 'bet'.
"Hehe... Kitsue will kill you before you even get a chance to act!" She exclaimed. And thinking that this was a good time, Eiro snapped his fingers to make a proper announcement. Eiro had Vent translate what he said into the Goblin Language, and then a relatively strong Kobold translate it into the Kobold language. It was important that they all understood what he was telling them. Even if some of them roughly knew the Common Language already, it was important that they all knew what was going on.
"This fight will be the decider for the Leader of this Village. Of course, they will just work under me, but they will make all decisions while I am away. They will be the one that will actually be here to care for you and keep this Village going." Eiro exclaimed, waiting for a few moments to let Vent and the Kobolt catch up with their translation.
Once they had finished, the Demon continued, "If there is anyone here that wishes to object, I'll gladly hear it."
All of the monsters in the area stayed quiet, so Eiro figured they could get started, "Alright then. I will throw this coin into the sky, and the moment that it hits the ground, the two of you will start fighting. Got it?" Eiro asked. Both Gobo and Kitsue nodded their heads, so the Demon quickly chose to throw the coin into the air.
Kitsue was glancing at the coin the whole time, while Gobo was focused on Kitsue herself. And then, the moment that the coin hit the rock ground, Kitsue kicked off the ground and jumped toward the Goblin in front of her.
She swung her claw toward Gobo, but the Hobgoblin quickly reacted. He had his weapon strapped to his hip, but it didn't seem like he would need it. He didn't even try to use magic at all either.
Instead, he simply caught Kitsue's arm and pulled it further toward him so that she would lose her balance as the Hobgoblin kicked his foot into her stomach for as much force as possible.
Then, he threw her down onto the ground and watched as she tried to catch a breath, which was basically impossible for her with the way Gobo threw her down. And then, the Hobgoblin pressed his foot down onto Kitsue's face, rubbing it around a bit and pushing it into the ground as hard as he could without directly damaging Kitsue with this. Just enough so that she couldn't escape.
"Three seconds. As I said." Gobo pointed out as he locked eyes with Kitsue. Eiro had to say, he was rather proud of Gobo's performance. He should probably give him some form of gift. Maybe he could ask Armodeus to make some items for Gobo. That seemed like a pretty good idea, at least.
But either way, even though Gobo was pressing Kitsue's head into the ground, that didn't mean that the fight was over. There were only two ways to win. One, if either of the two was clearly unable to continue fighting as per Eiro's judgement, or if either one of them gave up.
Eiro watched as Kitsue held up her arms and tried to burry her claws in Gobo's leg, but all that the Hobgoblin had to do was slightly slip his foot away from right on her face and press his toes onto the underside of Kitsue's chin. And then, he basically kicked her to the other side of the arena before Kitsue's claws were able to even touch Gobo.
"Hm, you're weaker than I thought. You know, I will do something that my Master always does when he gives me the honor to spar with him." Gobo said, and Eiro figured that this was getting more and more interesting by the second.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmGobo pushed his toes into the dirt and drew a circle around himself, "I will not move outside of this circle, nor will I use my legs to attack you at all. If you manage to push me outside of the circle, then this is your win, and I will become your subordinate. The conditions for my win, your loss, will stay the same as before."
The Kitbold heard Gobo's words before turning her head toward Eiro, who was just grinning broadly with his legs crossed excitedly. Kitsue ground her teeth and then nodded her head, "You will regret underestimating Kitsue."
"Hm, now will I?" Gobo asked. Immediately, the Kitbold ran toward Gobo and jumped at him like a wild animal. But all Gobo had to do was evade her arms during her attack and press his palm onto her stomach while grapping her throat with his other hand. Immediately, Gobo twisted her over and once more slammed her into the ground onto her back with ease.
Kitsue ground her teeth once more as she jumped off the ground again, and just started to randomly swing her arms at Gobo, as if she was some small kid throwing a tantrum. Of course, Gobo was able to deflect all of these hits with absolute ease, to the point where Kitsue was getting more and more desperate.
But Gobo didn't even change his expression. She was starting to realize something. Kitsue realized that she made an immense mistake in trying to take over this village. It seemed quite simple at first, but now these two came here and completely flipped it over.
It wasn't only Eiro, but Gobo as well. Both of them were overwhelmingly strong to her. Kitsue stared at the Hobgoblin she was supposed to fight with desperation. But in the end, this wasn't even a fight. It was Gobo simply taking pity on Kitsue by not killing her immediately. He was toying with her, and that thought absolutely terrified her.
Through all of this, Eiro was able to figure out a lot of things about Kitsue. The most important one being that she couldn't use whatever ability she used to take over this village at first without consequences, or that it couldn't be used whenever Kitsue wanted to use it.
Beside that, it was more than just clear what kind of creature Kitsue was. Her fur was well-treated, albeit in a crude way. She was able to speak Common, and acted pampered in a way that annoyed Eiro more than just a little.
"Hm... So she was someone's pet, I see..?" Eiro muttered quietly to himself, and Bavet, sitting on his shoulder as a spider, muttered confused, "A pet? Doesn't she seem kinda dumb for that?"
"Well, not all pets are smart. You in particular should know that." Eiro told the shapeshifted slime, before he grumbled quietly to himself, annoyed at what Eiro said, before Bavet replied to the Demon nervously, although he was still unable to say what he wanted to, "I'll ignore that for now..."
"Good. Because you should pay attention to this fight, it's going to get a good bit more interesting now.." Eiro smirked.