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The king agreed. It was up to Yeoman to integrate the goblins into the human kingdom. His party decided to continue questing on their own, leaving him to save a species by himself. He didn’t blame them; saving the goblins was a bit of a foolish endeavor. It was as difficult as it was foolish too. Yeoman had no idea how he was going to get the goblins to speak English. They couldn’t formulate words, and according to Cody, all they could do was hoot and click their tongues. Yeoman didn’t know why chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans couldn’t speak English, but he guessed the goblins shared the same reason. Since that was the case, Yeoman could only do the next best thing: teach the goblins how to read, write, and communicate in sign language. He was pretty sure researchers had been able to do that on Earth, but he didn’t follow any scientific journals about great apes too closely. Unfortunately, Yeoman didn’t know sign language. Fortunately, the adventurers’ guild offered their help in this near-impossible endeavor, which was why Yeoman was carrying a goblin chieftain and a panicked receptionist a mile up in the sky.
Flying was faster than traveling by caravan, and Yeoman greatly enjoyed the feeling of the sun shining on his back as he flew. The sight down below wasn’t that interesting. He had flown on airplanes a few times, and the lights he saw at night when the plane passed over cities were much more interesting than the sea of green underneath him. Since Yeoman had flown before, it was understandable he wasn’t too interested in the view; however, the chieftain and the receptionist were different. They’ve never flown, but they weren’t interested in the new sight at all. They had their eyes tightly shut as if they were somehow protected from falling if they couldn’t see the ground. Yeoman was a little tempted to play a prank on them, but since they were going to be working together, he decided not to. All he could do was fly a little faster, get their feet back on the ground sooner.
It took half a day to reach the goblin encampment, and all the goblins gathered around Yeoman once he landed. Most of the goblins were looking at the chieftain, confirming whether or not his head was still attached. “I made a deal!” the goblin chieftain said, tilting its head back and hooting. The paleness on its face from the flight was nowhere to be seen. “We will work for the humans, and they will give us food.”
“Work for the humans?”
“What do we have to do?”
“What is work?”
“Work is fetching water. Work is finding food.”
Yeoman looked around. It didn’t seem like any of the goblins disapproved. Then again, even if they did disapprove, it wasn’t like he’d be able to see it. He had no idea what half of their facial expressions even meant. Yeoman looked to his side and was a bit surprised to see the receptionist taking everything in with a calm expression. “What are your thoughts about this?”
The receptionist swept her gaze over the celebrating goblins. They were cheering and hooting, pounding their chests with their hands. The receptionist exhaled through her nose, her shoulders shrinking a little. “When I signed up to be a receptionist, this was not part of the job description.”
“You could’ve said no.”
“Impossible,” the receptionist said, tilting her chin up. “The guild master offered to triple my salary, and if we succeed, he’ll add on a bonus. How could I possibly say no to an offer like that?”
Yeoman understood. Triple the salary with a bonus? He’d take on any task his boss assigned him at a rate like that. “Great. There are only a few things we have to do to integrate goblins into human society. We have to make sure they can communicate with humans. We also have to make sure all the goblins are on board. Lastly, we have to get humans on board as well.”
“The king already agreed,” the receptionist said. “As long as the goblins can communicate, you won’t have to worry about humans accepting them. Uniting the goblins isn’t difficult either; all you have to do is beat their clan chieftains and force them to follow you. The most difficult part is teaching the goblins how to communicate; until you showed up, it was basically an impossible task.”
Yeoman nodded and waved his hand, grabbing the goblin chieftain’s attention. “You need to send your clan members out, alert the nearby goblin clans about this plan. If there are some that don’t agree, let me know.” The receptionist was right. The goblins followed a chieftain, usually the strongest or wisest goblin, to survive. If the chieftain was defeated, the goblins would attach themselves to a new pillar of support—the one who defeated the chieftain. “The rest of the goblins, they can forget about finding food and water. For now, all they have to do is learn.”
The goblin chieftain blinked. “If they don’t get food and water, won’t we starve?”
Yeoman shook his head. “The humans are going to provide food for you.” Having the support of the adventurers’ guild meant more than sending Yeoman one receptionist capable of reading, writing, and signing; they were going to support him financially too. “Learning is part of working, and we agreed that the humans would feed you if you worked.”
The goblin chieftain stared at Yeoman as if it were in a daze. A moment later, its eyes lit up. “This is even better than I thought. Where’s the food?”
Yeoman turned towards the receptionist. “When is the food caravan arriving?”
“Roughly two days,” the receptionist said. “You said the goblins had enough food to last themselves until then.”
“In two days, the caravan with food will be here,” Yeoman said to the chieftain. “More food will come regularly after that. Now, what are you standing around for? Get some people to alert the nearby goblin clans.”
“Yes, yes,” the goblin chieftain said, bobbing its head up and down. “Right away. You, go to the Stinky Feet Clan. You, go to the Running Nose Clan. You, go to the Droopy Ear Clan. Tell them we tricked the humans into giving us food. If they want food, they have to come here and submit to me. I’ll teach them how to trick the humans too if they follow me.”
Yeoman scratched his head. It was a good thing the receptionist couldn’t understand goblin. “What do you mean by trick?” Yeoman whispered to the chieftain.
“Only a foolish person would give up food for work. Taking food from someone like that, isn’t it tricking them?” The goblin chieftain puffed its chest out. “Food is the most important thing in the world. Only idiots don’t know its value!”
“What’s he saying?” the receptionist asked, raising an eyebrow. “He seems a bit proud.”
“He’s excited about the arrangement,” Yeoman said, clearing his throat. “Anyway, let’s get the school set up. The more goblins we teach, the more helpers we’ll have. I don’t think goblins are stupid; they’ll learn fast, and we’ll probably be able to appoint one as a teacher within a month.”
A month wasn’t a long time, certainly not long enough to learn the whole English language. However, Yeoman didn’t need to teach them everything. He just needed to teach them how to communicate. There were a few cellphone apps back on Earth that did just that; rather than teaching grammar and syntax, they taught helpful phrases for people to barely get by while vacationing in a different country.
“Where do we start?” the receptionist asked with a frown. “Should we build something more … hospitable?”
Yeoman scratched his head. “I don’t have much construction experience,” he said. “We can just find a clearing to teach them. All we need is a large slab of rock and some charcoal to write with. I saw a piece on the way here.”
The receptionist looked around, but Yeoman ignored her and leapt into the air. There was a boulder not too far away with a relatively flat surface. In fact, there were two boulders, and Yeoman suspected they were originally a single boulder that had been split in half with a sword. Would it ever be possible for humans to copy feats like that without the use of magic if they continued doing the aliens’ missions? Yeoman wasn’t sure. There were some insects that could produce chemicals, but he didn’t know if any of them could melt rock. Yeoman picked up one of the boulders with relative ease. He was a bit surprised by his wings’ strength since crows weren’t known for carrying large things.
When Yeoman got back to the goblin encampment, he was baffled. The goblins were sitting in neat rows in front of the receptionist, each of them holding onto a slate and piece of charcoal. Yeoman blinked. How had the receptionist done it? “If you could get them to sit like this, did you even need me to teach them?”
“Help us.”
“She’s so scary.”
“Terrifying.”
The receptionist glared at the goblins, and they shut their mouths. “There are some gestures that are universal amongst humans and goblins,” she said and raised her arm. She closed her hand into a fist, but left her thumb sticking out, and drew a line across her neck. “This is one of them.”
“I just peed,” a goblin whispered.
Yeoman stared at the goblins. Were they that cowardly, or was the receptionist that scary? He didn’t think she was frightening at all; however, different species should have different aesthetics. What he thought was scary might look cute to goblins. “Well, I brought this,” Yeoman said. “We can use it as the main board. Let’s start with the alphabet.”
The receptionist took a glance at the boulder’s flat surface and nodded. There was a little bit of green on it, but other than that, it was clean. She grabbed a piece of charcoal from her bag and wrote out a few letters. “If this is going to work, we’ll need to increase the literacy rate for our civilization as well,” the receptionist muttered as she wrote. “If this is going to work at all, that is.” Once she was done writing the alphabet, she nodded at Yeoman. “Your turn.”
Yeoman nodded and took in a breath. He had never taught a class before, but he had given presentations to board members. Most of the people on that board could decide his salary. Compared to them, these goblins were nothing. Yeoman gestured at the rock. “This is the alphabet. There are fifty-two symbols you have to remember.”
“The alphabet? Isn’t that a boulder?”
“Fifty-two? How many is that?”
“Are you dumb? Just count them. Then you’ll know how many there are!”
“One, two, three, one-zero, one-one, one-two, one-three, two-zero, two-one, two-two—”
Yeoman blinked hard. Were the goblins counting in base four? The last time he learned anything about mathematical bases was back in college, and that was over a decade ago; in other words, he didn’t remember shit. Well, he was here to teach them English, not how to count. Yeoman pointed at the letter A. “This is the letter A; repeat after her.” He gestured towards the receptionist.
“A,” the receptionist said, loud and clear.
“A.”
“A.”
“A.”
A chorus of goblins saying the letter A rang out. Yeoman nodded. To him, it sounded like they were right on track. He looked at the receptionist, who was staring at him with a blank expression. “How was it?” Yeoman asked. He wasn’t sure how the aliens translated for him.
“It was horrible,” the receptionist said. “It sounds like my bonus slipping out of my fingers.”
“There’s probably no chance they’ll be able to speak English,” Yeoman said and sighed. “It seems like the main form of communication is going to be sign language and the occasional bits of writing.”
The receptionist nodded. “Well, the fate of these goblins depends on you teaching them. You can use that to motivate them.”
Yeoman thought about it. It was a pretty decent idea. He clapped his hands, attracting the goblins’ attentions. “If you don’t memorize these symbols, the humans will continue killing you. Your lives will never change. Memorize them as if your life depends on it because, in a sense, it does.”
The goblins stared at Yeoman, then they exchanged glances with each other. The goblin chieftain raised its hand and asked, “If we learn these symbols, will we get food?”
“As expected of the chieftain!”
“He knows the best questions.”
“Yes,” Yeoman said. “Learning these symbols will get you food.”
“Then we’ll do it!” the goblin chieftain said. “A! What’s next?”
Yeoman pointed at the lowercase A. “This is also A.”
“A! A! This is super easy! What’s next? Is it also A?”
“No, it’s B.”
“B!” The goblin chieftain nodded and pointed at the lowercase B. “Is that an A?”
“That’s a B,” Yeoman said.
“A, B! A, A, B, A, B.”
“No.” Yeoman pointed at the letters. “A, A, B, B.”
The goblin chieftain tilted its head. “Didn’t you say that was A, B?”
“Is it going well?” the receptionist asked.
“We’re getting somewhere,” Yeoman said. They already learned four letters. At this rate, they’d learn them all in no time.
However, contrary to Yeoman’s expectation, the goblins did not learn all the letters in no time.
“That’s G.”
“No, that’s C.”
“You’re both dumb. That’s O!”
“O sounds nothing like G or C!”
“Chieftain, I have a question. Why don’t the letters look like what they sound like?”
Yeoman sighed. If only there were one goblin who’d get all the letters right, then he could hand off the work to that fellow instead. However, it didn’t seem like he’d get that lucky. At least, he had it easier than the receptionist. She was standing next to the slate, pointing at each letter, saying them out loud in English over and over. Once she strung the letters together to make words, would the goblins be able to understand them if someone said them out loud? Yeoman wasn’t sure, but other than sign language, this was the only method.
A sigh escaped from Yeoman’s mouth. He hadn’t expected the third stage to be like this. The first stage was terrifying; it was his first time sleeping outside in the elements with the threat of zombies hanging all around. The second stage was exhausting and mind-numbing. It was hell following Lucia’s routine. However, the third stage was quite … lacking in action. He thought he’d be in life-or-death fights, but here he was, stuck teaching goblins English. He wasn’t even that good at English in the first place; it definitely didn’t belong in his top three subjects at school.
“Don’t look so glum,” the goblin chieftain said. “We’ll figure it out. I’ve already memorized all the symbols from A to fee.”
“…Fee isn’t part of the alphabet.”
“Eh?” The goblin chieftain furrowed its brows. “That can’t be right. If it isn’t fee, then what’s the one that comes after li?”
“There isn’t a li either.”
The goblin chieftain blinked twice. “I’m going back to the ugly lady,” it said and took a seat in front of the receptionist. It was really a good thing she couldn’t understand him; Yeoman was sure she would’ve beheaded the goblin if she had heard what it said.
Yeoman exhaled and took a seat, clapping his hands to draw the goblins’ attentions again. “When you’re done memorizing, come here and take a test.” Should he add an incentive? There wasn’t really much to reward the goblins with; the food caravan would still take a couple of days to arrive. As for punishing the goblins for failing to learn, Yeoman wasn’t one for negative reinforcement. The threat of death was already a great incentive for the goblins to work hard. Coming to think of it, wasn’t he like a goblin? Everything on Earth was evolving. If Yeoman wanted to survive, he’d have to work hard to accomplish tasks assigned by aliens as well. His fate wasn’t that much different from these goblins here, but what exactly was he doing? Sitting around and waiting? Were his teammates right? Was he wasting his time? His principles, was he willing to die for them?