Don watched the sun falling down. The past events had been chaotic, but now she was relaxing.
Walking throughout the city, her movements were careful and discreet, but she knew that even with her attempts to be elegant, the lumbering form she possessed demanded her clumsiness and hard-hitting attacks.
Soon, she met one of her friends, a goblin named "Bata." He was sitting down silently and not even giving her attention. He was bored because his younger brother was not here.
"How are you?" Don said, her voice quiet and brooding. It was a troll's voice, that of a terrifying nature. She kept her emotions under the surface, unable to communicate herself effectively with facial expressions and body language.
Bata raised his head, and then his eyes began darting around with hesitation before he lowered his head again, ignoring Don.
Confusedly, she said, "What do you want?"
Bata looked around. "Where's Ritand? He hasn't come back in a while."
Don had began taking care of Bata and Ritand a long time ago, and even after becoming a more established part of the city, she still cared about them. She wanted them to be okay, and she didn't care about the many other people who had become a part of her life recently all that much. But if Ritand and Bata died, she would move on, because she was a monster. And monsters didn't feel anything.
"He's with my workers, as per usual." She was surprised he didn't know that.
After conversing for a while, Bata joined Don in heading to her new settlement.
Moving on to Don's current goals in mind, they included arranging the people under her authority, having equipped herself with various sources of power. Indeed, her next goal now was to expand through the dungeons.
Being a monster, it wouldn't be that hard to engage in warfare.
She wore a hermit's red and blue clothes and went out to the fields within the forest. Here, Don saw beauty in the moment. To name one example, the sun danced like lillies leaping with joy at the sight of the glorious light. Second, the sky moved along a narrow path, creating clouds that beamed magically to the horizon, casting magical shadowy effects upon the region.
Shifting focus to her people, they were goblins, and they were her workers, collecting resources slowly, providing her a gradual approach to understanding how to control her environment. But she didn't just have workers.
Relevantly, she marshalled her goblin soldiers, making sure they were paying attention in case a human adventurer party attacked them.
Zooming to a broader level, as a troll powerful enough to shake forests, her goal here was to complete her quest of understanding this world.
Currently, she was a level 15 warlock, one that had a lack of soldiers and still struggled to make ends meet. Indeed, despite her status as a powerful troll, her past decisions of betraying her former contractors had left her only with herself and a group of trusted companions to rely on.
Her goals for now were to recruit more goblin workers and soldiers and slowly level them up.
She went to a small lumberer's hut and told the goblin workers to sit down and relax here while she surveyed the area. In fact, she got the workers to survey as well eventually.
She selected two goblin workers in one direction and three goblins in another, having the rest in a third direction toward a giant mountain cave. She kept them in groups in case something or someone attacked them.
So when it came to her overall strategy or plan, it consisted of three aspects needing explanation. First, she had 26 goblin workers right now and 15 goblin soldiers, so in order to maintain tehse goblins, she had to have food resources and housing for them. The good thing was that goblins could sleep anywhere on cave floor. Second, she was a level 15 warlock, but her goblins all had different simple skills and levels. Therefore, she needed to check them periodically in order to have them distribute their unused stat points gained from leveling effectively. Naturally, this checking would also involve everything else about the stat [System]. When it came to the third aspect, she also had certain buildings and locations within her control, and sustaining them took effort on her own part. This was why she couldn't just progress without examining her encompassing operation and upholding its accompanying demands.
She checked the status page of one of the goblins by using [Identify].
Level 1
Range - 300 (1 meter)
Weapon - Sword (Wooden)
Money - 5$
Health - 50/50
Mana - 20/20
Spells - Fire Blast, Ice shot
Armor - N/A
Strength (STR) - 10
Dexterity (DEX) - 10
Constitution (CON) - 10
Intelligence (INT) - 10
Wisdom (WIS) - 10
Charisma (CHA) - 10
Luck (LUK) - 10
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Description - Gobby the Goblin. They found a spellbook one day and learned fire and ice spells. Now, armed with a wooden sword, Gobby protects the forest from Shadow Sprites, spreading joy on their adventures.
This was her goal. This was her purpose.
She might have had a long history that she couldn't explain in a day.
But that did not matter. What mattered was that she could continue to create new generations that had it better.
The goblins were the troops, and they would be leveling up by themselves and growing like they were tycoons. Don would be the tycoon owner of tycoons in this metaphor then.
Anyway, after her goblins completed their search, Don moved to engage in slash-and-burn agriculture due to the density of the forest. With the help of her giant, powerful body, she looked to the mountainsides and wondered if she could create terraces due to the heavy rainfall found naturally in this tropcial region. She had learned about this from smart friends like Sam, someone who had sadly passed away some time ago.
Now that her goblin workers were slashing and burning, she selected her goblin warriors and had them continue patrolling around to gain vision and control of the area. This place had already been vision-checked before, but now that they were here. The goal was to clean up and establish more permanent control, which took a long time to start laying the foundations for facilities and various elements of infrastructure. This would pave the way for creating a small, budding tycoon community that would slowly accrue her money and influence while also leveling the community members.
Currently, she was thinking of obtaining a totem that was known to scare pests and critters away. But that would take a long time because it was deep in a dungeon.
However, she was strong, so she decided to delegate her role as leader of the community to one of her goblins and began visiting the cave.
The morning was quiet, enough to signal a new start, and diseases and damages from the day before were cured.
Despite already being healthy and missing the timing for this morning benefit, Don continued down the first floor of the cave, scaring off most wild goblins. But when it came to larger creatures like slimes and giant bats, she fought them for a while and gained XP toward her next level.
Level 15 | 2/37 XP
Killing a slime or a giant bat only gave 1 XP for her since she was already very strong as a troll and very high in level. The [System] penalized her for farming XP without looking for novel and more challenging fights, resulting in her only getting 1 XP.
But she was in the cave for a totem.
After locating the totem, she ran all the way back to the base because it had to be placed immediately, or else it would disintegrate.
After placing it down, the new community was immediately recognized by the [System].
You have established a new community. For your efforts, you will now be shown a new panel to control and monitor your community status better.
Attribute Status Settlement Name [Insert Name] Population Overview Goblin Workers 26 Goblin Warriors 15 Goblins 2 Troll (Leader) 1 Resource Status Food Limited provisions Water Limited supply Shelter Simple settlement housing Defensive Measures Walls None Guard Posts None Infrastructure Housing Basic shelters for inhabitants Markets None Farms None Community Welfare Health Facilities None Education None Economic Activities Trade None Crafting None Current Events Recent Attacks None Diplomatic Relations None Upcoming Events None scheduled
She called the settlement "Dontown."
Afterwards, she returned to her settlement and discovered many risks that needed addressing.
No. Tropical Rainforest Challenge 1. Harsh Environment 2. Disease Outbreaks 3. Limited Clean Water 4. Resource Scarcity 5. Infrastructure Challenges 6. Wildlife Encounters 7. Isolation and Connectivity 8. Cultural Integration 9. Sustainability Practices 10. Natural Hazards
Her goal was to mitigate these risks and hopefully solve them before her community bit the dust.
As she began helping the goblins work, a man wearing a purple and yellow outfit scurried to the village before placing a bomb.
It exploded, shocking the rest of the camp.
Don began moving her reinforcements forward.
The bomb was followed by the emergence of a giant army. They wanted to rid this world of the Don, a threat that had showed signs of budding growth in the east of the human empire. So this was their hello, a way of greeting a potential threat from amassing enough strength.
Don did not feel anything.
Skills castrated her power, and they began attacking her, chipping at her health bar slowly, as she struggled.
A party of human adventurers entered the scene, being friends of Don. She had expressed indifference toward them, but she needed their help now.
Among them, Jared, Kloe, and Algae began shouting in chorus.
Moreover, a large number of goblins belonging to the extended family of Birdie, one of Don's former members, joined as well. They were here for Twerp, a friend of Birdie.
Furthermore, Exterme and his party were there as well, even if Don had a complicated history with him after he killed Birdie.
Two fishmen public servants, Kyra and Cali were also there. Kyra grabbed a weighty, disproportionate magical instrument from her pouch and activated it, buffing her fellow fighters with increased speed.
They swiftly frustrated the enemy attack and fended them off, forcing them to make a strategic retreat.
But they would soon return.
After the fight, Matthew and his friends who had come to save him had a feast to celebrate, as the night came to close. When it was morning, everyone's sicknesses, diseases, and wounds healed, encouraging them to keep growing as a team.
Exterme said: "So what's going on, boys? I know it's been a long while, but let's just say that this has been the best time ever. I finally was able to use my [Rasungun]. Powerful skill really. Should've given it to Mr. Martine, but hey, this is fine too."
The personality switch weirded out the group, but they already knew Exterme was a horrible, disgusting weird person. The fact that he had helped them made that feel this side of him was more like a front than anything, but it was still hard to look at. But at least he was trying maybe.
In the end, the group, despite having gotten over a large barrier, still had to navigate the challenges and confusions inherent in their different personalities, goals, and styles of communication, among other things.
But it was nice to get together every once in a while.
Ultimately, Don's new settlement, since it blocked human adventurers' path to the sea, was going to be targeted no matter what. That was why the friends that had come would stay, because they could get a lot out of this. The adjacent city would eventually begin showing support for Don's decision.
Moving forward, Don would have to hurry up, because the many issues and unknowns in the background were creeping closer like minor enemies becoming stronger overtime when left unchecked. That was also the reason she was attacked today, because they wanted to check and test her, hoping to eliminate her at her weakest.