Poison.

  A substance that can be fatal to animals and plants. Often causing harm to the main body and at times resulting in death.

  It was a term that Rowan had heard before, but only briefly. Knights frown upon the use of poison as it is one of the main tools used by one of the knight’s main enemies, assassins. Poison is often used unseen and very difficult to heal from. Knights prefer to face something more head on.

  Rowan hadn’t thought about using poison before in the forest. It only dawned on him after seeing the goblins had applied it to their weapons.

  There were only two problems.

  The first problem was that it wasn’t very knight-like. Despite his current situation, Rowan still had the aspirations of becoming a knight. A short argument warred in Rowan's mind about the usage of poison. That argument came to a swift conclusion in his mind after a few moments.

  Using a bow and arrow was already not considered knightly, so what difference would using poison make? If anything, he could just not use poison whenever he escaped the Forest of Death. Besides, the monsters didn’t really care about ‘fairness’. That was a luxury when facing matters of life and death. Let’s not forget that the first day he left the camp, he was ambushed by a pack of wolves. Poison was just another tool in his arsenal.

  A very useful tool if used properly.

  Rowan needed all the help he could get and poison would be very helpful against the stronger monsters.

  There was only one problem which was the second issue.

  Now that Rowan decided to use poisons, he didn’t know the methods to acquire them. Certainly the forest had many plants that were poisonous, as it was evident by the goblin’s weapons. The issue was that he had no idea what plants were classified as poisonous and what were not. There was also a matter of extracting the poisonous substance from plants.

  How was poison created in the first place?

  This was a completely new field for Rowan and he didn’t know how to start. It wasn’t as if he could just grab a random plant and test it on himself. This would be a very time consuming learning process.

  Wait a moment. Rowan paused and thought about it some more as he looked at all the bodies on the floor. While he could just start randomly testing plants since his wooden arms seem immune to poisonous effects, there was a much better way to learn.

  Why start from scratch when there were already people who already started the process?

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  There were already some good people, or rather ‘monster’ who could act as teachers and test subjects.

  That was how Rowan found himself observing different groups of goblins over the next few days.

  If anyone ever told Rowan that he would learn from goblins one day, then he would only laugh at them and call them crazy. Goblins were amongst the stupidest creatures on the planet, what was there to learn from them?

  Now that he was stuck in the Forest of Death, he had to learn everything he could; even if it meant learning from goblins.

  Of course he did not go up to the goblin village and ask them to teach him how to use poisons. No, that would be suicidal. Rowan merely decided to shadow different groups of goblins and see what they collected. He would first observe through the Mother Tree mana network and when a group of goblins left, the teenage boy would chase after them and shadow the group once he caught up. Goblins were the easiest monsters to follow and he could easily observe what they collected. If they collected plants, then Rowan would take a note in his mind and remember for future reference. He would then collect the plant on his own and see if the plant was actually poisonous or could be used for food.

  Sometimes, it was obvious as a goblins would put the plant in their mouth for a bit before spitting it out. Sometimes it wasn't as the goblin would immediately collect the plant and put it away. Goblins were not particularly hard monsters to follow as they never look around and only paid attention to what was in front of them.

  Plus Rowan always stayed at least fifty feet away from the goblins that he followed.

  Not that it was always smooth sailing for the goblin groups that Rowan followed.

  Rowan wasn't surprised when a group of goblins he was secretly following would be eliminated from a sudden encounter with a powerful monster, or a sudden act of stupidity. If the goblins were about to be slaughtered and the monster was too powerful, Rowan immediately made himself scarce and fled. If the monster was something he could handle such as a wolf or a deer, then he would take care of it and bring it back to his camp.

  The other way goblins eliminated themselves was by testing out the plants. They would often poke a plant they had no clue about with a stick or their own hands without regard for their own life. More often than not, a nasty surprise rewarded the goblins for their bravery. On more than one occasion, Rowan had witnessed a goblin fall prey to a plant they had gotten too close to. He had seen goblins suddenly collapse, get entangled by roots, or eaten, and various other means of death by vegetation.

  It was clear that sometimes not even the goblins knew what they were getting into. While they were as clueless as Rowan was, they were fearless. The little green monsters were not afraid to test out a strange plant for themselves, even if it meant their end. That didn’t stop them the other goblins from continuing to repeat the same experimental actions even after witnessing the their own member’s death.

  How the goblins' population never dwindled was a great mystery to Rowan. Everyday a large number of goblins would be sent out and while Rowan didn’t personally count every returning party, he knew very few goblins actually returned. Rowan had observed that at least forty goblins leave the hidden entrance everyday. However of all the goblin groups that he followed, only two squads made it back out of the ten groups he already had followed before, and these groups had not returned home without at least losing one goblin. As befitting its name, the Forest of Death made sure of their name was appropriate. Rowan was actually grateful for the fact that very few goblins returned. If the goblin population increased as rapidly as they sent patrols, then the capital would have been in big trouble.

  Needless to say, Rowan was learning a lot just by observing the goblins in action.