Not them

After another hour they had gathered as many as 12 Vivingeer Roots, surpassing the target amount and assuring themselves 12 gold coins once they handed them over. But obviously they could only get more on the way back, so the reward was sure to keep inflating on the way back...

The group was quite happy with their harvest and while the lack of enemies to fight was a bit disappointing, it was a great result to finish this quest with no actual danger involved.
So they thought, till they suddenly heard a muffled scream from afar.

The group immediately went alert, shifting their formation as to point Ryu towards the sound as to be ready to intercept anything that came their way... but apparently it was a needless concern, as nothing seemed to be approaching. At least not towards them...

They could in fact still hear some muffled sounds from time to time, along some noises and clashing... was there a fight around here?
Ryu looked back at Lia, which nodded and motioned to move forward, obviously hinting they'd sneak towards the source of the sound and then act depending on the situation.

With such a tentative plan, the group slowly made their way forward towards the sounds. The closer they got the clearer it was that this was a fight... or rather, a brawl. A brawl among sub-humans. They heard about goblins and babooches warring each other in this forest, could it be them?

The realization made the group slow down, worried about the opponents numbers. What if they got overwhelmed?
It was a reasonable concern and any other adventurer would have made themself scarce when noticing a scuffle involving an unknown amount of monsters, but our group was noob enough to let curiosity lead them forward.

Maybe they didn't know the proverb about curiosity killing the cat, or maybe they just didn't care... but exactly thanks to this, the cat actually got her life saved this time. The cat-girl to be precise.

In fact, once the group reached a decent vantage point to hide in while peeking on the fight, they indeed noticed a brawl among babooches and goblins.

Tens of them where fighting each other... but as short and physically weak as they were, it looked more like children punching each other than sub-humans fighting over a girl. Well, very ugly and green children against baboons? No, scratch the children, how were those faces of children? Those goblins ugly mugs could rivals a veteran's warrior, scars and all, whereas the baboon were... well, baboons. Nothing child-like about them, aside from their height. But such height was taller than the average for both races so... if their height was translated in human standard, they'd all be around one meter and ninety. Feetly speaking, 6 feet.

But 6 goblin feet were actually 3 human ones, so those beefy goblin warriors all looked like children if you ignored the face and green skin. How pitiful to be a goblin. Same thing for the babooches... no, those guys had it even worst.
While goblins still got treated as humanoids, the babooches were directly treated as beasts...

...no, wait, the one who treated them as sacred beasts were Ta'mah believers, weren't they? And Ta'mah is an elven goddess. Namely, she's worshipped by elves. And elves think of most races as animals anyway. Weren't the humans compared to monkeys?
Ryu thought about it and shivered. Humans were monkeys and babooches were baboons, in elven eyes. But babooches were sacred beasts so... did that mean the elves though that humans were lower than babooches?

He quickly whispered his question to Niah'la, and the silent mysterious smile he got back made him shiver even more. Enough to vow he'd never talk about races and whatever any more, not with elves at least.