Kuzai snorted audibly.
Malkyr passed a hand through his blood-drenched hair. “I know, it’s just–”
“I know, it’s hard seeing the failed result,” I said soothingly. “But it doesn’t happen often. There’s very little chance of that happening to the next guy.” I hoped I hadn’t just jinxed it. As far as I knew, Shiva had the sort of twisted personality that lived to throw that back in my face.
“Alright,” Malkyr grunted and motioned for the next hob in line. “That one’s name is Cecil, since he kinda reminds me of an old friend.”
Cecil’s naming ceremony went off without a hitch, and the newly minted, thinking NPC left the shrine to stand and wait for the rest of the squad.
The large man and I quickly ran through the rest of his soldiers. Only one other hob failed to adapt to his new name, but this time I sacrificed him before the explosion. His body melted into liquid darkness that quickly solidified into a void crystal.
“That was actually pretty good,” I told Malkyr as he turned to face his 16-hob squad. “Losing only two out of 18.”
“If you say so,” he said. “I still don’t like it.”
“Me neither, but it had to be done.”
“If you say so.”
“Call in the next squad on your way out.”
Hoshisu came next, followed by her soldiers. The white-haired woman didn’t bat an eyelash when two of her squad failed to receive the skill and had to be sacrificed.
“You’re taking it much better than your brother,” I complimented her.
She rolled her eyes. “Malkyr is too emotional sometimes. He needs to be more realistic. Nothing here is really real; so as long as it benefits us, everything’s a go as far as I’m concerned.”
I smirked at her. “That was almost supervillain logic right there.”
She made a sour face. “I’d love to play an evil overlord villain. Too bad things didn’t go my way. I’m really hating our lives here.”
I put a hand on her shoulder. “I promise I’ll do everything in my power to get you guys out,” I said, meeting her gaze. “What we’re doing now is just the first step.”
She gave me a crooked grin. “Don’t get all emotional on me too, Oren. I’ve got Malkyr for that.”
I withdrew my hand and smiled at her. The woman had a strong personality, and inside NEO, it was easy to forget she was actually a young handicapped girl who shared a small apartment with her handicapped brother. “Call in the next group?”
“You got it, Chief.”
The rest of the players and their squads came in one by one. It was a long and tedious process. The majority of the players took the occasionally sacrificed soldier in stride. I guessed the harsh reality of the past year had steeled them to those kinds of horrors.
In the end, of the 295 hobs we named, 30 expired. It was the best death ratio I’d ever had.
Vic yawned in my mind.
Then maybe I should give all new recruits more time to roam around before naming them, I mused.
He had a point.
“Kuzai,” I called out.
The demented dwarf glided into the open without a sound. Becoming a tier 2 boss had really increased his creep factor. “Yes, High Priest?”
“I need ancestral bones. Can you arrange for that?”
A disturbing grin spread over his lips. “I shall conduct the required rituals immediately.”
He was taking the assignment a little too well for my taste. “You’re not going to kill anyone for the bones, right?”
He frowned. “They wouldn’t be as potent without a proper offering.”
“Don’t kill anyone,” I cautioned. “I’ll make do with substandard … bones.” I winced, expecting Vic’s snappy comeback.
Kuzai looked at me grudgingly. “Very well, High Priest.”
I still didn’t like his attitude, but I didn’t have time to pursue it any longer.
It was time to talk strategy.
***
The 20 players and I just barely managed to squeeze into the war room at my house. A large map was stretched over the conference table. Thanks to the ‘players’ network,’ it was pretty accurate, detailing the latest geographical changes.
“This is our main obstacle,” Sullivan Tucker said. The once-annoying player who spoke against me when we first met turned out to have quite a strategist’s mind. He was pointing at a dot just outside the area known as ‘The Badlands’ that included our forest.
“What’s the name of that town again?” I asked.
“Novenguard,” Sullivan replied. “It’s a frontier town, one of the last stops for expeditions venturing into the Badlands.”
“They have a decent population,” Aly added. “About 2,000 and a relatively large garrison.”
Sullivan nodded. “We can’t go around them. That will leave a dangerous enemy at our backs. They might cut off our escape route or worse – attack our flank when we least expect it. We have to conquer them before we can proceed deeper toward Everance. We can also turn the town into our staging area.”
“How big is their garrison?” I asked.
Kyth shuffled through a few pages the other players put together. “Latest player report put it at around 500 guards and soldiers.”
“That’s not too bad,” I said. “We’ve already matched that number, and I plan on recruiting many more soldiers. Besides, town guards aren’t that high-level to begin with.”
The gnomblin shook his head. “You’re thinking of normal towns in civilized areas. Novenguard is a frontier settlement, meaning they get a lot of monster encounters coming out of the Badlands. Their guards are all experienced warriors. Levels 30 to 50, as far as we can determine. They probably also have several high-level officers. They’ll cut through our lower-level soldiers like they aren’t even there.”
“Their civilian population is also battle-hardened and can be drafted as militia to bolster their standing garrison,” Sullivan added. “In which case, we might find ourselves facing nearly 2,000 warriors.”
“They will fall before our just cause,” Nero added with a confident tone.
“The low-level civilians might, but the professional soldiers will put up a fight,” Sullivan countered. “Also, the town has uncommonly high walls for its size, and I don’t think the walls give a crap about our cause – just or otherwise.”
A player with glowing crimson hair scowled. “This is crazy; we can’t face those odds. They’ll just hide behind their walls and rain arrows at us until we’re all dead. Maybe if we had another 500 soldiers.”
“We can and we will,” I said with determination. “We’ll build war machines to take down their walls, and we’ll train the troops in urban combat tactics. We’ll hit them hard and take over the town before they’ve had a chance to mobilize their entire population against us.”
“How?” Malkyr demanded. “You know me, I’m all for a frontal assault, but this one seems too big, even for you, Chief.”
“We have more resources at our disposal than you know,” I said. “I have a few ideas on how to make use of our unique advantages, not the least of which is the minds of 20 highly intelligent players. I’m sure that, putting our heads together, we can come up with creative ways to win this with what we have.”
Hoshisu nodded. “I like the sound of that. And I have an idea, the kobold assassins can be really useful here.”
I stared at her. “How do you know I can summon assassins now?”
She smirked at me then turned to the other players. “What if we use the kobolds to sneak in and take out their sentries, then we can …”
&
nbsp; The other players leaned forward, and soon, ideas and tactics started surfacing around the room.
I leaned back and smiled as I looked at them. They were no longer the cowering, hopeless people I’d rescued from the clutches of the kobolds. They were active, intelligent individuals working toward a mutual goal, pulling their impressive collective IQ together to help us become stronger.
This was my kingdom. Our string of conquests was about to begin.
I yawned as I took in the time. This was going to be a long night.
***
I left my house the next morning and stretched. I felt good. The meeting had gone well. The players and I had made plans, contingencies, and had come up with dozens of possible problems and how to deal with them.
I stood, basking in the glorious Eternal Darkness that saturated my clan. To my Shadow-Touched eyes, the darkness wasn’t gloomy or oppressive. It shimmered with energy, invigorating me to face a brand new day in monster land.
All around me, goblins were rushing to their jobs or going into the inn for their well-deserved upkeep – unlike my two girls who were late sleepers. I was just about to go inside for my morning meal when Kaedric intercepted me, a grave expression on his mandibled face.
“Oh, come on, at least let me address the latest pitfalls on a full stomach,” I complained.
The fat hob bowed his head. “I apologize, my lord, but our food situation is the very thing I wish to bring to your attention.”
“There’s no way we’re running out,” I said. “We still have tens of thousands of ingredients in store.”
“That is correct. And on top of that, the Breeder’s Den holds over 50,000 units of prepared food, but I’m afraid our prosperity won’t hold for long.”
I sighed. “Alright, lay it on me.”
“Following the latest recruitments, our current standing population has soared, causing our daily upkeep to increase significantly. I’m afraid that at the moment, meat and gathered ingredients yield has zeroed out, and the yield of most other types of ingredients has dropped considerably.”
“Damn. We reached that point sooner than I expected.” Having enough food to summon new troops via the Breeder’s Den wasn’t the only consideration. I also had to ‘pay’ the food upkeep for my workers and soldiers to optimize their performance. Though they could survive without it, an underfed worker didn’t perform well, and soldiers’ training speed would suffer. “You’re not counting the foblins, right?”
He scoffed. “Of course not. Those useless critters find sufficient sustenance on their own.”
“So why are you telling me this just now? It’s been … what – three days since I summoned the new soldiers?”
“I was waiting for the naming ceremony to conclude, my lord, to be able to give you exact numbers.”
There was no way around it. I already had ample hints that I was hitting the valley’s upper limit in terms of what it could provide.
“How many individuals are we currently feeding?”
“Not counting the foblins, 656, my lord. And might I remind you that the blessing you purchased for the clan reduces upkeep by 50 percent. Without that boon, we would have only been able to support half our current population.”
“So what you’re saying is that as long as I don’t summon any more soldiers, we can get by feeding everyone without drawing on our stockpiles.”
My seneschal nodded. “Our farmers are still providing us with ample amounts of mushrooms, and our existing gathered edible stores are especially high. We can make do with another slight increase to the population before zeroing out all daily yields.”
“I see …” I said, rubbing my chin. “Looks like we’ve nearly outgrown the valley.”
“Yes, my lord.”
I contemplated possible solutions then shook my head. “It doesn’t really change our plans. We still have a lot of stored food to raise an even bigger army. We’ll soon set out for conquest, and that means new pastures.” The camps I had already conquered offered various resources but not food.
“In that case, Gandork will exhaust our ingredient stores within three days. Might I suggest waiting until that point to set out?”
“You have a point,” I said slowly. “Ideally, I’d like more time to train up the newest recruits, but delaying too much will cost us.” I opened the settlement inventory and started browsing through the various menus.
“My lord?”
“Just a second,” I said distractedly as I went through the list of existing resources.
Kaedric was right. The quantities of food ingredients had dropped to a quarter of the stores we had when I’d first gotten back to the clan. I briefly considered using the Export Office to trade for more food. I sorted the resource list by size and studied the top.
● Energy Points: 537,568
● Lumber: 73,400
● Mushrooms: 31,295
● Gathered edibles: 32,107
● Kobold scales: 26,000
● Leather: 17,160
Lumber could be traded with the gremlins, but I was already using it to bring in large amounts of iron each day, which slowly ate away our supply. At the current rate, lumber would last us for about a year, and I didn’t want to jeopardize that by using it to purchase large amounts of food. Instead, my eyes were drawn to the biggest number on the list, giving me an idea.
“We’ll wait the three days,” I said. “We’ll train up the existing soldiers as much as possible. Before setting out, I’ll use all our food to summon more troops, then we’ll use energy to bring their levels up to match.”
“Very efficient, my lord,” the hob said admiringly.
“What about those kobold scales? Can we do anything with them.”
“I will make some inquiries. Shall we resume the clan’s survey in the meantime?”
“After breakfast,” I said, turning toward the inn.
New building upgrade added to your settlement: Beast Holding [Barracks]
I waved the notification away. “Food first.”
***
Sullivan Tucker brushed past me when I entered the inn. Several of the players who hadn’t joined our raid followed, leading their squads of level 4 soldiers outside. The soldiers were fully equipped and seemed eager for battle.
“Hey there,” I said. “Where are you going?”
“The sewers,” Tenchi, a half-snake player, said with distaste.
Sullivan nodded. “Malkyr and the rest of the hotshots are taking their higher-level soldiers to hunt some sort of lizard-bulls.”
“Oxsaurians,” I filled in.
“Yes. According to your lieutenant, Borbarabsus, it’s dangerous for the level 4 soldiers, so we’re starting them off easy. We’ve heard some of the goblins encountered aggressive moles down in the sewers, so we’re heading out to clean up the place. Hopefully, we’ll gain enough XP to raise everyone’s level.”
“Good thinking,” I said. I was happy to see the players saddling up and taking initiative. “Happy hunting.”
“Why does it always gotta be sewers?” one of the new squad leaders complained as they filtered out of the building.
“At least it’s not rats in the sewers,” another player replied.
“Are you kidding me?” a third said. “You know that moles are basically just blind rats, right?”
I sat at an empty table and smiled as the players continued to bicker good-naturedly on their way out.
“Good morning, Chief,” Daimmen said as he brought over a pot of stew.
“Morning?” I asked with a half-smile, indicating the darkness.
He scrunched his nose. “I’m still finding it hard to adjust to constant darkness, even if I can see clearly. As far as I’m concerned, the start of the day counts as morning.”
“Gotcha,” I said. “Any chance you got any of that wine left?”
He shook his head. “I ran out, but at the pace the travelers are placing orders, I should have enough gold soon to place a large order from the gre
mlins. I’m planning to stock up on ale and spirits as well as wine.”
“If you need a loan …”
“No, it’s more a question of timing. I’ll have everything sorted out soon; the low tax rate you’ve set for the clan is very helpful.”
I nearly forgot that as chief I was entitled to a portion of the profits from every deal struck with the clan. That was a good thing. I was now spending gold every day to purchase spices from our new gremlin spice trader. Exquisite food was not easy to get, and I could use all the gold I could bring in.
***
“Welcome to the war machine workshop, my lord,” Kaedric said proudly as we entered the workshop. The place almost looked like a warehouse with its large open space. A system of pulleys and cranes were fastened to the roof and walls. Four goblin engineers were busily working at a central raised platform building a complex contraption of wood and metal. A quick whiff of their information tendrils revealed that all four engineers were highly intelligent individuals.
“What are you building?” I asked curiously.
One of the goblins turned to face me, his eyes distant as if deep in thought. “Ah, Chief, what can we do for you?”
“Well, siege engines, preferably,” I said. “What are you working on over there?”
“We only have the blueprints for a small ballista and a small catapult,” the goblin replied. “Since we didn’t know what you wanted us to build, we decided to start with the base frame that is used by both.”
“That’s all? What about something more sophisticated?”
“We’ll need additional blueprints, Chief.”
“I believe that as the engineers grow more experienced in their job, new blueprint projects will become available at the Research Center,” Kaedric put in helpfully.
“Alright.” I moved closer to inspect the frame, which was about the size of a double bed. “How are we going to move it?”
Life Reset: Human Resource (New Era Online Book 4) Page 32
