NOVEL SIMPLE [Vol-2] Ch.7 Plans for the Future
Shortly after killing the lizard, the goblin climbs down from the tree, and the other goblins cheer and run out from the surroundings. They seem more excited than I am that I beat the lizard, although my body is aching like crazy now, and I'm physically exhausted. The goblin I saved comes over to me with tears in its eyes. Seems the little thing thought it'd been left for dead. I wonder if I hadn't been here if it might have actually been left by the other goblins to die. It doesn't seem unreasonable considering their inability to actually fight the lizards in any real way. Either way, I give the goblin a pat on the head, and it seems happy. Looking closely at its face, it does seem to be the goblin that I gave the numbered rocks to from before.
Despite the excess food already back in the village, the goblins in the group seem intent on hauling the whole lizard back to the village. Well, whatever, I guess I'll try to make a few drying racks to show them how to preserve meat for longer. Although they'll need to smoke the meat out here for a long period of time. Actually, on second thought, given the persistent rain here, they'd need a proper building to smoke and dry meat in, which means we'll just have to eat what we can and hope for the best. If the water nearby is salty, maybe in the future they could evaporate the water to use salt as a curing method. All of that is unavailable for now though.
When we get back to the village, it seems that we're the first group back. I suppose that isn't a big surprise, since we found the goblin. It is mid-afternoon now, and it looks like some clouds are starting to gather on the horizon. The goblins leave the lizard on the ground and start going about to collect wood, and I sit down to start the butchering process. Thankfully most of the skewers from last night are still usable, so I start cutting the meat. While I'm working, the goblin we saved comes over and sits down next to me, and just watches me cut the meat. Not one to let an opportunity go to waste, I decide to go make a second carving knife, and try to teach the goblin how to butcher the lizard.
I decide to try to teach it how to butcher a leg, instructing it on one leg, then leaving the goblin to work on a leg next to me while I butcher other parts of the lizard. Even if the goblin fails to recover half the meat, it'll be fine because there is so much excess. When the goblin finishes one leg, I attempt to give it some pointers for the next leg. Considering we don't speak the same language, I honestly think it went alright. The downside of the ordeal is that it starts to rain on us again while we work.
Not long after the rain starts, the other two search parties make it back. Each comes back in a bad mood, but their spirits quickly lift when they see the missing goblin has returned. Many take turns coming over to the goblin as they help me butcher and celebrate with it, but the goblin quickly returns to working, which I find to be an admirable trait. It's good that it's choosing to finish a task it set out to do before celebrating, although given the circumstances, I think it'd be fine if it decided to celebrate.
Soon the goblin finishes the final leg, and I'm just finishing up the rest of the lizard at the same time. The goblin goes to hand me the knife back, but I gesture for it to keep the knife. After all, what good would two butchering knives do for me? It seems very grateful for the knife and takes it to put in its hut.
Actually, other than the goblin leader, I haven't noticed any other goblins using magic, which makes me wonder if any of the goblins are prestiged. I mean, if I wasn't killing those lizards, I'd be leveling much slower, but even then I'd still prestige occasionally. Although I've got zero idea of how to even describe what I'm talking about to the goblins, and their answer would likely be even more unintelligible to me. While I contemplate that issue, I go back to using my mana to work on my house. With plenty of food about, all the goblins are happily just relaxing and eating food.
Well, they were for a while at least. I came out of my basement with newly cut stone for my house, and I see the leader goblin showing them an unfinished spear, and shortly after, they all head out into the forest in groups, and the leader goblin comes over to me. Yup, seems he wants another spear made. I mean, I'm glad I can help give them some tools to survive, but I don't have a roof over my head yet... I mean, I guess if I sleep in my basement I do, but I'd much rather have my actual house that I can make a bed in.
The last few days I've fallen into a bit of a pattern, I get a little bit of work on my house done, and then the rest of the day I'm either making spears or teaching goblins to hunt. The rain hasn't really let up either, so all of this has been relatively miserable. All the goblins seem to appreciate me being around now though. Thankfully, there haven't been any more lizard incidents either. I'm actually relatively close to finishing my house now, with just part of the roof left, then the door, and the window shutters. I also had to put in some small holes in the wall to allow water to drain from the inside of the house due to the rain.
Most of the goblins have their own spears now, and I've ended up having to repair a few of them when a couple of the goblins got over enthusiastic and broke them. I don't know how exactly they broke the spear head, but I suspect it had to do with throwing the spears. I didn't want to encourage bad behavior, so I made them wait a day for me to repair them, and no one else has broken them yet. I'm sure damage will be done to them in the future through normal wear and tear, but I'd like to keep the amount of work I need to do on these to a minimum.
Today though, I'm going to dedicate my time to finishing the building part of my house. I'll still need to make a bed and shelves later, but I'm tired of sleeping in the basement. Goblins turn up throughout the day wanting things, but I turn them down to focus on finishing my house, and by the evening, I've gotten it done.
I wake up the next day finally sleeping in the upper part of the house, rather than the basement. I'll be honest, the basement has ended up a little deeper than I meant it to due to the other crafts I've been making for the goblins. The basement is going to end up even deeper as well because I need to make crafts for myself as well, unless I start a new project for the goblins here, which I do have one thing in mind. Mainly, they could use a warehouse of sorts with a roofed in pavilion above a storage basement, so they can cook within cover from the rain.
Of course, that whole project can't even get worked on without the goblin's help if this rain doesn't stop. The area I would want to make this would be so large that it'd end up filling with water. The only downside to the pavilion and storage area is that it'll take a long time to build. On the scale of months, and I'd like to be going back to my cave before then. On the other hand though, if I leave the goblins as they are now, they'll probably slowly be wiped out by the lizards, and any hazardous weather that might happen, and I'd rather not just let the goblin leader use my cave to just summon imps to make replacement goblins all the time.
Which means I guess I'll be starting construction on a pavilion and storage area for the goblins. The next most important question is, where will I build it? I doubt the goblins want me to disrupt their daily lives as they currently sit. I scan the area, and decide on one place to build, but it'll require me to build something else first. Namely, across the stream, which would require me to build a bridge. A lot of the time, the goblins can just walk through the stream, but right now, given the rain, the stream is actually a nuisance to cross, so having a bridge would probably be useful to the goblins. The stone will probably have to come from the eventual basement as well though, so I'll still have to dig the pit first, anyway...