Homesteading in a fantasy world

When Goose and I landed near the goblin settlement, I genuinely took a few minutes to just look at it all. There were now more proper buildings, and I even saw a few humans walking around. It looked like a bustling village, but all those changes were nothing compared to the goblins themselves.

All of them seemed taller, and their proportions were a lot different from what I was used to. All of their stomachs were also smaller, but it was still a noticeable racial trait.

Those changes, however, were magnified in one singular individual. Stebs, the former scout now goblin leader, looked nothing like I remember. His stomach was flat, his frame was incredibly well proportioned to being nimble while still providing strength.

He still seemed to be able to keep the strength of the goblin muscles, and I was certain that he was capable of fighting monsters who would have torn him apart just a year ago.

"It has been a long time, Rich, but it’s amazing, isn't it, how much I’ve changed. Just two months ago, I finally received confirmation that this is what the original goblins looked like. We are shorter than even dwarves on average, but our bodies were meant for the forest. Unfortunately, I do not think we will ever find out who we used to be."

There was sadness in his voice as he said the last sentence, but he was still radiating happiness. "This is a moment to truly revel in. Perhaps it’s not the first time in history, but you have achieved something incredible. More importantly, from the looks of it, you will not be the only one. This, I think, calls for celebration. Let us catch up before we talk about any business."

I didn’t think it possible, but the smile on his face grew even larger. He led me to his home, and I was surprised to find two kids waiting for Stebs alongside a wife, for lack of a better word. Perhaps ‘partner’ would be better as they didn’t have marriages. "This is Vi and this is Guop. They are twins, something we didn’t even know was possible. So, you could guess how surprised we both were."

Stebs introduced me to his partner and the three servants they had, after which we talked about random things, mostly stories of interesting and funny things that happened.

The food served was excellent, but I was certain there would be some humans who would not like it. I was never that picky with how food tasted, but it seems that every meal tasted a little bit earthy or woody, if that was even a word.

Eventually, however, it was time for business. "It has been truly great catching up with you. Now, however, about the letter I sent. Do you really think you could domesticate woolly rhinoceroses so even humans could use them as draft animals?" Gupta sat back in his chair, thinking about it for a few minutes, but I was fine with the room being filled with silence for so long.

"It might be possible, but we truly won't know before we try it. We currently have three working for us, but it would not be hard to devote more resources into developing a larger industry around them. The problem is that we are rarely seeing them in the wild. During the winter, we only saw one mating pair, but there used to be many coming down south during the winter."

"We do not know what's going on there, but even with your scouts, it's hard to get any reliable information about what's further north. It's dangerous ground, and while our population has stabilized, we cannot take such risks in exploring further. We’re also not seeing any goblin tribes moving around who we could get more information."

"These are worrying signs that usually point to a goblin horde, but your scouts are certain that there isn't any within a 1000 kilometers. So it’s most likely some powerful monster messing with the ecosystem. Or there might be a horde further away, but for its influence to spread so far, it would need to be a big one with at least rank two breeders. Those hordes would still be difficult to spot."

This was all quite worrying, but our scouts were trained, and I refuse to believe that with all the training and how we operated, we could miss something like that. "Why would you say that hordes with rank two breeders would still be difficult to spot? Is there a horde that is easy to spot?" Stebs chuckled at that.

"When you get close enough, any horde is easy to spot, but most of our rangers use birds to see further away. Trees limit the visibility quite a lot, but any horde that has a rank three breeder will be easily seen because those breeders can use even trees as fuel to create new goblins."

"Those hordes leave nothing behind but black dirt. So, they would simply be easy to see because of the huge black spot that they would leave, and that would continue to grow as they got bigger.

That was mildly scary. "What about rank four or five?" Gupta simply shrugged his shoulders. "I have no idea, but there was a reason this continent was dominated by goblins for so long, even when we started to fight each other. Old forests, like in the north, are a rarity on this continent, mostly because we don’t really like the cold that much. However, let’s get back to the business of woolly rhinoceroses."

A few hours later, Goose was soaring away from the goblin settlement. Everything would work if there were simply woolly rhinoceroses in this area.

"Fly north," I said to Goose, and he immediately turned that way. It became obvious that we couldn’t find any woolly rhinoceroses, or basically any creature, from up high, simply because of the thick tree canopy that blocked the majority of the sight onto the forest floor.

When I was about to turn Goose around, he, however, sent me some images he saw towards the north and east. His sight was a lot better than mine, at least in terms of distance, but even so, the image was quite unclear because of the distance.

Both of us could, however, recognize an anomaly when we saw one. Immediately, Goose took off towards there, even without me having to say anything.

Ten minutes later, we had a better idea of what was going on, and another half an hour later, I could see the utter devastation. It was further north and east than any of our scouts would dare to go.

For some reason some goblins had fled this far north, most likely because of some monster chasing them. But whether it gave up or they finally defeated it didn't matter. They had set up shop, and from the looks of it, they had done tremendously well for themselves.

"Get closer, but don't let them see us." It took us a while to get close enough that I could properly see what was going on. The news was not good.

Obviously, there were rank three breeders, as a huge swath of land was completely black, with even the tree stumps being pulled out. There was a wave of green moving around; there must have been a million or more of them.

Most of them seemed half-starved, while others seemed to be eating meat that looked awfully like other goblins. The worrying part was that they were slowly making their way back towards the South.

It seems that the stronger monsters and beasts of this area, not to speak of the whole forest, fueled the growth of stronger goblins. And while almost all of them were the same strength as the creatures I fought so long ago, there were clearly individuals who were a lot stronger. Near what I assumed to be the leaders' camp, I could feel many rank three beings, and there was no sign that breeders were there.

If they were to march south, I think the first thing to halt their progress would be the Breach itself, but they would simply walk past it and continue further South, most likely destroying all the petty kingdoms off the eastern coast.

There was one bright side, or perhaps two, but the World Council would divert resources to exterminate this horde.

Most likely, however, quite conveniently for some, they would not be able to gather up a decent force before the goblins reached the queen's lands. The goblin horde would be stopped and exterminated, but United Freeholds would be gone. It seems like a few strategic strikes on the breeder facilities are called for.