That was where my problems began.
As I looked over the teeming crowds of goblins, I thought to myself, This is…kind of too many, isn’t it? Far too many to house within the village’s space.
Why did this have to be my problem, anyway?
✦ ✦ ✦
Over the past few days, we’d been stuck building axes, using them to chop down trees for wood, and so on. We hadn’t even started on houses yet. There was just too much to work on.
Kaijin was handling wood duties, while the three dwarven brothers worked on processing the animal pelts into hobgoblin clothing. The looks they had been giving the females were less than savory. I figured it was best to set them on that job before anything else.
We were in the midst of this when the goblins showed up. Four tribes, about five hundred of ’em in total. The rest were still in the villages with the elders who opted to stay put.
Well, time for a move. It wouldn’t make much difference work-wise, assuming we did it right now. I checked my mental map of the area. Preferably I’d have liked something with nearby water and some cleared land suitable for farming. As I walked around, I realized that the most ideal location was…the area right nearby the cave I’d popped out of. Hmm.
I decided to ask Rigurd about the state of things over there. “It was regarded as a forbidden zone,” he reported. “Unlike the forest, it was a veritable den of powerful monsters…”
“No problem there, then. I mean, I lived there.”
“Y-you what?!”
“Like, I guess I was born around there, so…it oughta be fine.”
“…You constantly impress me, Sir Rimuru. I am astounded.”
Funny thing for him to say. What’s so astounding about being born in a cave? If he was cool with it, then fine.
I then called for Mildo, youngest of the three brothers, and told him as much as I could about how architecture worked in the world I came from. Surveying and measurement in this world were actually fairly accurate, thanks to magic. That, plus the amateur-hour knowledge I brought to the table, helped us decide to hatch a surveying project for the local area.
The wolves didn’t need it much, but for the goblins and dwarves a waste-management facility would be a necessity. I thought it’d be nice if we could set up a pseudo–septic system that could store waste and turn it into fertilizer. We’d need something to keep infectious diseases at bay, besides. That was another thing I added to Mildo’s list.
Do goblins get sick, though? I wondered. The answer was yes—they were susceptible to disease like anyone else. Pretty wimpy monsters, if you asked me. Though given the kind of filth they lived in before I showed up, no wonder…
They lost a lot of people but made up for it with an abundance of babies. Simple math. Although that wasn’t so much the case with hobgoblins—they gave birth to fewer offspring at a time, which was another reason I assumed their life spans were longer.
Either way, if we lost too many to illness, we wouldn’t be able to keep our numbers up. I had zero knowledge of medicine; anything a potion couldn’t handle was beyond me, and we didn’t have any magic healers.
So while we were in a building frenzy, I decided we might as well go all the way with hygiene. Mildo, for his part, actually had considerable knowledge about waste systems like this. I must not have been the only otherworlder to talk about this with people.
This world, for its part, had something called “spirit engineering,” a unique field of study that led to all sorts of weird discoveries. What it didn’t offer, however, was a way to make fertilizer out of people’s dumps. Mildo was amazed to hear the idea from me.
Regardless, though, after some deliberation, I named him head of building operations for our village and left everything up to him.
Another classic tossing-off of responsibility, if I do say so myself.
After having Rigurd assign a few people to Mildo’s detail, I sent them all off to survey our potential new home. Ranga joined them, just in case. I didn’t think monsters would go swarming out of the cave at them, but you never know. Ranga ought to have been able to handle whatever popped up, so better safe than sorry.
✦ ✦ ✦
That took care of one issue, but I had something bigger on my plate—naming. Just thinking about it depressed me. I had the sinking feeling that by the time I got halfway through the five hundred or so goblins, I’d just be running through the alphabet. “Abcdef” would be a little hard to pronounce, though.
Still, I had to get started. It took around four days to get through them all, with a quick bit of sleep mode in between, and I really had to hand it to myself—I stuck it out to the end. Not quite as exhausting as last time, but not a process I wanted to repeat anytime soon.
I called the tribal elders over. They knelt down in their stately hobgob way. Rigurd was there, and following in his footsteps were three others I had just named: Rugurd, Regurd, and Rogurd.
Put all the leaders together, and yep! You’ve got all five vowels!
Ranga being the a was a coincidence.
So maybe it wasn’t my best, but it was okay! They’d never know. Don’t forget how much work I put into this.
I’ve always been very good at making that excuse.
That left one unnamed elder, and she was a woman. Something feminine sounding was best, I thought, so I picked Lilina. One advantage of everyone being hobgobs was that I could actually tell ’em apart by gender. Magic Sense could help me do that with the regular gobs, but to the naked eye, it was a challenge.
Could I turn “Lilina” into another name series, maybe? I thought about it but decided not to worry about the future too much. No time for it.
✦ ✦ ✦
So here we were. A few hundred hobgobs. Maybe it was time we built a class system for them? With these numbers, I couldn’t tell them “Let’s all be pals and get along” and expect them to follow that. There needed to be a clear chain of command, especially given how much monsters valued strength.
“All right,” I declared, “I’m giving all of you ranks!”
Rigurd received a nice upgrade to goblin king; the other four elders became goblin lords. The rest of the goblins in the village immediately bowed to them, which was a spine-tingling sight to see.
“““Y-yes, our lord!!””” the elders parroted. The ensuing cheers were deafening. I had just inadvertently penned a new chapter in goblin history.
✦ ✦ ✦
Kaijin was kind enough to bring along all the carpentry tools he needed. Garm and Dold were proving to be able commanders on the clothing-production front. We were building a miniature tower of wood lumber in an empty space in the village. Preparations were going along smoothly.
By the time I had evolved all the goblins and made sure I hadn’t missed anyone, Mildo came back to the village. The surveying work was done without a hitch. All systems go. I looked over the different blocks in the village he’d planned out. It was really more of a town than a simple village. A new home for all of us.
✦ ✦ ✦
After making sure everything was in place, we set off. It was our first step toward a new land. Toward a new nation for us!
✦ ✦ ✦
The man’s name was Fuze, and he was the guild master at the Free Guild branch in the kingdom of Blumund.
His competence at his post was unquestioned, and even before then, his prowess as an adventurer had brought him all the way to the rank of A-minus.
And as he’d promised the Baron of Veryard, he quickly set off to conduct an investigation of his own. What his assorted intelligence contacts told him, however, was that the Empire was currently making no moves at all. It might stay that way, of course—that was Fuze’s hunch—but there was no room for error.
He continued to have his people watch the Empire. It wasn’t his usual line of work, but for now, at least, he was willing to make an exception.