“What are you doing?” I asked hoarsely. I couldn’t tear my eyes from her unveiled body.
Tika was completely naked underneath the covers. Her lithe body looked like it was sculpted by master artists; toned and tight, with just the right amount of feminine curves.
Instead of answering, she simply held my gaze, waiting for me to act.
I felt both my human and goblin sides purr in unison at the sight. I sighed and let go of my fears. Goblin or not, this was my woman, goddammit. And I was the chief.
I let her pull me into the bed and surrendered to my desires.
10 - Back in Business
I didn’t get much sleep that night. Tika was both demanding and attentive, and our lovemaking took the better part of the night. Still, I got a couple of hours of sleep, our bodies anchored together.
When I got up, I felt more like my old self again. I knew who I was. I was Oren. I was a goblin chief. And I had a monster kingdom to build.
Despite a year having passed for her, Tika hadn’t changed much. The devilish goblinette was still a late sleeper. I kissed her lightly on the cheek, put on my armor, and walked quietly out of the room.
Lirian was already awake. She was hanging from the ceiling’s beams on the first floor when I walked in.
I looked up at her in amazement as she nimbly swung from one beam to another. She finally jumped to a support column, grabbed it with only her thighs, and slid down to the floor.
“Good morning, Father,” she said as I approached.
“Lirian,” I said. “That was pretty impressive.”
She gave me a coy smile. “I enjoy climbing. It’s thrilling.”
“Still, that couldn’t have been easy. How long have you been practicing?”
“I started this morning,” she admitted. “I felt like doing it so I did.”
I blinked at her. Characters inside the game didn’t gain the advanced Climbing skill overnight. They also didn’t learn spells by simply watching them being cast once.
I reached for her character information, hoping to glean more knowledge about her, but the message box looked just as it had the last time I checked.
Name: Lirian
Level: 12
Attributes: n/a
Skills: n/a
Spells: n/a
Traits:
● Shadow-Touched
● Child of Fate
Her talents were unprecedented. Her information tendrils didn’t shed any more light. They were colorful, unlike any I’d seen before, and they possessed tight packets of data that were undecipherable.
Vic, what do you make of it?
He yawned in my mind.
Chiefing?
I shook my head. My twisted companion wasn’t going to be much help here. I let go of trying to figure Lirian out and decided to simply try to get to know her better. “What are you planning to do today?”
She stared at me. “I can choose what I want to do?”
“Well … yeah.”
“I want to learn how to fight,” she said quickly. “I want to join the soldiers in the arena.”
I frowned. “They are trained warriors. It could be difficult. And painful.”
She crossed her arms. “I’m not afraid.”
I hesitated, wanting to keep her out of harm’s way. But the arena’s safety features prevented death, and if she got hurt, she could be healed quickly. The vow I had made to protect her wasn’t a concern, as it only pertained to being hurt by enemies. There was no real harm in letting her train, and with the way she was picking up skills, I felt confident that pretty soon the others wouldn’t even be able to lay a hand on her.
“Tell you what,” I said. “Tenragan is overseeing the arena. Tell him I want an adept around at all times to heal any injuries. Then you can train.” Game or not, I was still supposed to be her father.
She pouted a little but nodded obediently. “Yes, Father.”
“I’ll walk you outside, I need to talk to Kaedric anyway.”
We moved toward the door, and I opened it just as my seneschal’s hand was about to knock.
“How did you know he was coming?”
I smiled at her. “Simple. He’s always there when it’s time to manage the clan.”
***
I stood next to the fat hob, watching as Lirian disappeared behind the barracks’ gates toward the arena. “So you mentioned there is something we need to discuss?”
“Yes, my lord. Starting with some good news: I’m happy to report that along with your return and the elimination of the kobold threat, the clan’s morale and efficiency are back to usual standards – current lodging shortage notwithstanding, of course.”
“That’s good news. Now hit me with the bad.”
“Not bad, so much as decisions that have to be made,” my mandibled seneschal replied. “Might I suggest that we discuss them while we inspect the clan?”
“Lead the way.”
We walked a short distance from my house and stopped when we arrived at the rabbit warren. From here, I could see the dark blob covering the Outrider’s sword, which was still glowing underneath.
Following Kaedric’s gesture, I looked more closely at the rabbit warren. The structure was pretty rudimentary. A low wooden fence surrounded the rabbits’ breeding grounds, and a small open shed stood within. Two goblins were working inside.
One was a builder, and he was hammering at the fence, fixing a small hole. The other goblin was apparently the breeder. As we watched, he picked up two of the rabbits and carried them to the shed. A few hard chops later, he was busily skinning the carcasses and filling a small basket with chunks of meat.
“The warren was mostly undamaged during our ordeal,” Kaedric said. “As you can see, disregarding the morale and efficiency loss, the process of meat and skin production has continued mostly undisturbed.”
“Hold on.” I blinked as I realized something. “Are you telling me that for over a year the warren has been producing meat?”
“Yes, my lord. With a mediocre penalty. The warehouse currently holds a surplus of exactly 50,120 units of raw meat.”
My jaw dropped. “Fifty thousand …”
“And 120,” Kaedric confirmed. “This a good example of what we can expect from–”
“Hold on.” I raised my hand. “Have our other food production workers kept on working too?”
He nodded. “To a somewhat lesser capacity, my lord.”
“And the other resource gathering efforts?”
“We have a significant surplus in most of our produce, my lord.”
“Hang on, I’ve got to see this.” I accessed the clan’s inventory through the Settlement Interface, set the filter to food, and gasped as the results appeared on my view.
Food
● 50,120 raw meat
● 15,210 raw fish
● 41,128 gathered edibles
● 9,360 gathered ingredients
● 40,090 mushrooms
● 9 purple salt
● 943 magmashrooms
● 50 spices [rank 2]
“Holy crap!” I exclaimed. That was enough food to instantly summon thousands of soldiers from the Breeder’s Den. My plans for sweeping the world with an army of monsters at my back suddenly seemed a lot more feasible.
I changed the filter to crafting components.
Crafting
● 10 snake skins
● 16,960 processed leather
● 1,501 copper ingots
● 1,520 tin ingots
● 757 iron ingots
● 11 Pyrolith scales
● 40 oxsaurian hide
● 200 glassteel ingots
● 24 mana-imbued webcrystals
● 26,000 kobold scales
The amount of leather and ingots we’d accumulate
d was staggering, though I wasn’t sure it was enough to equip the army I planned to summon with all the food. What was sure though: I was going to need a hell of a lot more crafters and workers to fulfill the quota.
“My lord …” Kaedric said haltingly.
“Hang on a second.” I changed the filter to construction materials.
Construction
● Lumber: 75,655
● Limestone: 7,590
● Obsidian: 5,679
● Bones: 119
“Well, well,” I said, feeling my grin spread from ear to ear.
“Yes, my lord. My apologies.”
“Huh?”
“Our gathered foodstuff should have been 18 percent greater. We could have easily harvested more than a thousand magmashrooms had I been able to devote more attention to the everyday affairs of the workers.”
“You did an amazing job keeping things together while I was away, Kaedric. If anything, you have my thanks, not my anger.”
The tension in his mandibles eased, and for a moment, I thought he was going to blush. “So what were you going to say earlier?”
“I intended to bring up the situation of the oxsaurian pen.”
“Oh?”
“Much like the rabbit warren, the pen can significantly increase our daily meat production. It already holds a sustainable population of the beasts.”
“I like the sound of that. So what’s the holdup?”
My seneschal pointed at the small goblin who was mindlessly working in the warren. “I’m afraid a simple goblin breeder isn’t up to the task of butchering beasts as powerful as oxsaurians.”
“What do we need then?”
“Two breeders to tend the beasts, and a butcher, which is an advanced worker, to produce the meat.”
With the amount of food I had at my disposal, summoning three new workers was a drop in the bucket.
“You got it,” I said. “As soon as the Breeder’s Den is up and running, I’ll summon those workers.”
“Very well, my lord.” Kaedric’s mandibles spread, making his smile look especially monstrous.
We continued toward the center of the valley, passing my house, and stopped next at the Breeder’s Den.
Eight goblins were crawling all over the partially destroyed walls. Zuban was standing on the road shouting orders at them. The builders worked incredibly quickly, and I caught sight of Bargush, his four arms a blur as he stacked bricks to fill a gap in the wall. The entire building almost looked like a living entity that was slowly healing itself in front of my eyes.
“Ah, Dire Totem,” Zuban greeted me as we approached. “Repairs are going very well. I believe we’ll finish reconstruction tomorrow.”
“Why don’t you use all the builders, then?” I gestured at the goblins. “Wouldn’t it go faster?”
Zuban coughed, embarrassed. “I’m afraid I’m unable to direct any more builders efficiently. The Breeder’s Den is incredibly complex to repair, and my skill level is just barely sufficient to lead the work. For the time being, I put Wolrig and the other three builders on fixing the rest of the damage to the clan.”
“Alright,” I said. “I guess you made the right call. I just want to make sure there are no bottlenecks.”
“Of course, Dire Totem.”
We walked on, trudging along the pebbled road leading up to the small pond at the center of the valley. Two goblin fishers sat on a small wooden wharf, holding fishing poles. A couple of trout were jumping in large baskets next to them.
The scene was peaceful. A memory of Tika and me sneaking in for a late-night swim came to my mind. I smiled.
Kaedric shifted next to me, and his mandibles clicked a couple of times.
“Alright, get on with it,” I said, noticing his discomfort. “By now you should be able to say anything directly to my face. I won’t be angry with you if it comes out wrong.”
“My lord,” he said delicately, “the surplus of material is not the only abundant resource we have at our disposal.”
“Oh?” So far, it wasn’t sounding too bad.
“You are already familiar with the quantity of our energy stores, but not that of our research points.”
I frowned. “How could we have a surplus of RP? Don’t the researchers simply produce them by researching new projects?”
“They usually do, my lord. However, after having finished their allotted projects, without you or me to guide them, the researchers switched over to generic research mode.”
“Okay …” I said slowly. “Which means?”
“Instead of researching new blueprints, designs, or technologies, they simply amassed RP in its generic form,” Kaedric said with a heavy sigh. “Working this way halves their output.”
“Wait,” I said. “Are you telling me we have half the amount of research points that would otherwise take a year to produce? And we can use it to instantly complete new research projects?”
“Yes, to both questions, my lord.” Kaedric looked down, his mandibles slacking.
I chuckled. “That’s amazing. So how much do we have?”
He looked up. “At the moment, our RP surplus stands at 20,460.”
I grinned. “And most of the buildings we’ve researched so far have taken no more than a thousand RP each.”
“Yes, my lord.”
That meant I could pretty much instantly complete every research project we had. “Don’t worry about it, Kaedric. We’ll sort it out when we reach the Research Center.”
“There’s also our energy point supply, my lord.”
“What about it?”
“At the moment, the entire amount sits idly without contributing to the clan. I suggest using it to make an investment.”
“Oh? Do we have a stock market for EP?”
Kaedric looked puzzled. “My lord?”
I waved my hand dismissively. “Just a joke. What do you suggest?”
“Having defeated multiple invaders, many of the clan’s workers have surpassed level 10,” he said. “Fifty-seven of them, to be exact.”
I nodded. “I remember. I added the more crucial workers to my war party toward the end so they could get a share of the experience.”
“That is correct, my lord. As fortuitous as that action was, it has caused quite a disparity among the workers. We currently have 73 workers between levels 1 to 8. Or 143, if you take into account the ones you’ve brought from Akzar. Bringing all workers to level 10 would help streamline our work chains and increase our clan’s efficiency dramatically. I suggest using our excess energy to that end.”
“How much energy would that take,” I asked.
“Roughly 357,000 EP, my lord.”
That was a large amount but less than half of our current reserves. And Kaedric was right; investing it in the clan was far better than letting it sit idle. “How much energy will it take to resurrect the entire army in case they all die?”
“Roughly 15,000. Depending on the levels they gained before dying.”
“Alright,” I said. “Go ahead and level up the workers. From now on, every new worker instantly gets raised to level 10.”
“Yes, my lord.”
I pursed my lips. “How much would it cost to raise the new workers’ skill level to the maximum so they’re always working at peak efficiency?”
“Between 500 and 600 EP, depending on the attribute their chosen skill relies on.”
“Alright, that’s not too bad considering the cost for leveling them up. Buy them the skill boost as well.”
“Very clever, my lord, I shall take care of it at once.”
“But,” I continued, “I want us to always have a reserve of at least a hundred thousand EP at all times for cases of emergencies.” I was planning on summoning a lot more soldiers in the near future, after all.
“Of course, my lord.”
“Any other issues we should discuss before continuing with the survey?”
“Yes, my lord. There’s another problem regarding the workers.”<
br />
“Go ahead.”
“We currently house 70 of Akzar’s goblins. Those with beneficial professions have already been assigned work, but most of them hold skills less suited for our clan’s needs.”
“Oh?”
“Most were employed as cleaning crews at Akzar’s houses – maids, servers, shovellers, and so forth.”
“I take it you have a suggestion for what to do with them?”
“I have already taken the liberty of assigning several of them to attend the Chief’s Haunt.”
“I noticed. They did a good job. The place looked spotless.”
“But the others, I’m afraid to report, are wasted. Normally, only higher-tier buildings require such specialized workers. I suggest assigning them to the general workforce until we have buildings that require their skills. They can help haul equipment and resources, albeit at a lower efficiency than a dedicated gofer. That should slightly contribute to overall efficiency.”
“Good, do that then.”
Kaedric coughed in embarrassment. “There's also the question of the … new workers who were born to the clan.”
Vic chuckled in my mind.
I ignored his comment and addressed Kaedric. “What about them? Can’t they also be used to haul stuff around?”
“It is certainly possible, my lord. However, as newly born workers, they were never assigned a specific field of work. We should address that as quickly as possible.”
“Wait … Are you telling me we have over 30 generic workers that we can assign to whatever job we’d like?”
“Any job in a simple worker capacity, my lord.”
“That’s great! In that case, we don’t need to summon two new breeders. Why didn’t you mention it before?”
Kaedric coughed again. “I was … hesitant to broach the subject. It does present … an example of my …. shortcomings.”
I rolled my eyes. “Kaedric, for the last time, you did what you could to keep everything together, and I fully approve. I don’t want to hear any more apologies, and I don’t want you to be ashamed to tell me the truth. That’s an order.”
Life Reset: Human Resource (New Era Online Book 4) Page 18