After I left the rabbit girl with her father, I ran into the forest, but stayed close enough to them to make sure that they returned to their home safely.
Watching their family re-union for a few moments, I returned into the forest, and returned the body I was using to its usual job while slowly cycling through the senses of each of my bodies within the forest to see what they were doing.
Doing so wasn’t entirely necessary as they were still my bodies, and I could see, hear, and feel through their bodies, but, unless I consciously focused on them, their senses felt distant.
There wasn’t something like a ping to the connection between me and my lesser bodies, at least none that I could detect, but it almost felt like there was one.
“But even though my lesser bodies may feel somewhat distant, that’s no excuse for my sloppy work...” I muttered to myself, and got to work on making sure that no man, woman or child would ever just stumble on my lesser bodies again.
I had a few dedicated “safe areas” within the forest that didn’t have a lot of dangerous wildlife, but some of them were near settlements, or in places that people rarely visited.
But even if they were rarely visited, they were still visited, so they were no longer acceptable safe areas.
The undead I had made last night would be arriving soon, in an hour or two at most, and while I had initially planned to simply send them to other villages, roads, and junctions with a lot of traffic, they would be better used to clear out the parts of the forests from predators, and turning them into new safe areas.
And I also needed to start constructing some buildings that could house a few people for a night or two for when I started taking action to evacuate people from their villages.
I already had a few people in mind that I could potentially convince to leave their communities, as they didn’t seem to be living the greatest lives, but until I talked to them, I couldn’t be sure if they were actually living a bad life they’d like to leave behind, or just having a bad week.
But, even though the new safe areas I’d be clearing out in the forest would be isolated from people, the safe houses and supply points I’d need to build would need to be built deeper into the forest, and with constant surveillance to make sure that no one discovered it, and if someone ever did discover it, make sure that they were detained, and sent back to Lublin as prisoners.
As, I couldn’t exactly let them go.
Maybe I’d build a POW camp for any people I’d captured or rescued that didn’t want anything to do with me, as if I’d let them go, I’d suddenly find myself facing the full might of Prady’s local forces.
Which would actually be the best outcome as, if they ever discovered I was a deity and not just some hobo living in their forests, in a few days, I’d face the combined forces of the nearby nobles, and in a few weeks, probably an army sent from the capital as, without their goddess present to defend them, I’d assume they’d treat any sightings of a foreign deity with extreme prejudice.
Though before an army from their kingdom’s capital, wherever that may be, would arrive, either Rifu or Ojciec Lasu would step in and bail me out.
Not that I would be letting things get to that point, mind you.
I wasn’t planning on letting anyone see me, and if I played my cards right, I’d have around a month before the locals realised that something shady was going on with all the disappearances in their villages, and sent guards and priests to sniff out what was going on.
Though, if I were ever to just nick an entire village’s population, and sent them back to the goblin village, they’d notice something was wrong in at most 3-4 days.
I wasn’t planning on doing that, as firstly: I didn’t have a village’s worth of people to just steal and, secondly: I wanted to take with me as many people as possible both due to just wanting to save them from the shitty kingdom they found themselves in and for personal benefit, though the saving people part was more important than the personal benefit part.
“But where should I build the supply points to channel the people through? The end point is obviously going to be Lublin, as the followers of Ojciec Lasu have already started clearing out a part of the forest in preparation of the tent town they’d be building up there, where people I’d be saving would life for a few days before they were sent further south to the goblin village.
Stolen story; please report.
“But deciding where to build the supply points that will come before Lublin is going to be a problem... especially seeing as I have no experience in this field of military/espionage logistics.
“I may not be planning on charging down the gates of Prady, or any city or village for that matter anytime soon, but even then I know that good logistics and supply routes are what wins wars, both modern and medieval wars back on Earth, and most likely wars on this world as, if we purely focus on pure stats rather than battle experience, spells and skills, 30 G ranked soldiers are easier to train than a peak F ranked soldier, and while 20 of those soldiers are going to easily die while fighting an F ranked soldier, they are, like I said, easy to train, and easily replaceable, assuming you’ve got the manpower for it of course.
“An F ranked soldier on the other hand? It takes years to get a normal person to that level! So, even if the F ranker manages to kill all 30 G ranked soldiers you sent at him, which is not unlikely to happen, the 31st soldier is going to kill him, and you’ve lost your enemy enough resources to train a 100 G ranked soldiers!
“Of course, I do not plan on ever sending actual people to the meat grinder—that’s what my undead are for—but the idea still stands, so, if I ever want to wage wars in the future, and win with minimal losses, I need to overwhelm my enemies with both quality and quantity, which I can’t do if any soldier I sent to the battle field dies, not in battle, but due to starvation and hypothermia.
“And, luckily, I can solve this gap in my knowledge through the help of a few people I know. Ojciec Lasu, Rifu-san and Gram are my allies with much, much more military knowledge than me but... asking help from Ojciec Lasu is going to make me owe to him more, which will end badly for me in the future I reckon.
“Rifu-san would most definitely help me if I asked for it, and I am not ashamed to ask her for help as any help she gives me just increases the chances of me completing her favour, and bringing help from the Pantheon of the Sun for her in the future, but she doesn’t have an exact overview of my situation, and even if she did, she’d probably just guide me to discovering the answer my self instead of relying on her help.
“Which is not a bad thing, its great even! But I want someone that I can brainstorm with, and absorb their knowledge through that way rather than having to figure out everything myself, so, she is a no go... for now.
“And, as for Gram... I don’t have a way to actually talk with him...
“Sure, I have golems near him, but those golems can’t actually talk, and my goblin is still a bit lacking in some aspects so, while I can somewhat write a few sentences, I don’t want to embarrass myself by showing him my bad writing, and making him, and potentially others that may see my writing, lose respect towards me.
“Afterall, this deity hood business feels a lot like an eternal con art and, while I wouldn’t exactly call myself the best con artists, or a con artists at all, I have to, and will act like the best con artists I can until it is detrimental to me as making it ‘till I make it is just the way to go in my current situation.” I thought to myself, and hummed calmy to myself thinking if there were other people I could ask for help or advice from.
Definitely not the Mayor or any of the followers of Ojciec Lasu as they’d just rat me out to their god, and while I didn’t have a negative view of Ojciec Lasu, like I said, I didn’t want to owe more to him than I had to.
Ryuji was another option, but he’d at best sell me something like The Art Of War, which was written for dumb nobles rather than actual generals, so, that wouldn’t be useful in any way, shape or form... well, other than just being a fun thing to read and pass the time with, but I had quite a few pieces of Ent literature provided to me by Rifu-san, so, no need for that... for now.
“...Haah... do I really have to subject my self to Rifu’s advices once more? Is there really no one else that could help me...” I muttered to myself as I walked through the mayor’s mansion aimlessly, hoping that the movement would help my nearly non-existent blood to flow to my brain that wasn’t even really mine.
The butler that the mayor had assigned me asked me if I was searching for anything, but I wasn’t. Not really anyways.
Just relying on the instincts from my past life to perhaps find a solution for this problem of mine.
And, as I continued to walk through the many corridors of the mansion, walked a familiar face, seemingly exploring the mansion like I was.
“Hello, Grok.” I told the familiar goblin as I stopped for a moment, and he bowed lightly as he greeted me back.
“Hello, Eternal One.” He said, and for a moment a thought struck me, wasn’t Grok an experienced fighter?
Sure, I had no idea if he had ever led any men in any type of battle, but his father, Krone, was the shaman of his tribe and, while there may be some bad blood between us due to me ordering a not so moral surgery on his father, and cutting him off from using his mana, he was still under my orders, and while I didn’t trust him, and he probably didn’t trust me, there was no reason to not at least try and take advantage of him.
“Grok, raise your head, I have a question for you...” I started speaking, and Grok was clearly surprised, but tried not to show it on his face much as he raised himself up.
“Yes, Eternal One?”
“Did your father ever teach you how to run an army?”
“...Run an army as in?”
“Train it, lead it, keep it fed and equipped. Basic things really.”
“I... didn’t have the time to go through most of the steps that it would take to raise a proper war chief but, yes, he did teach me the basics of most things, and I have lead small forces in battle, with the biggest of them being a force of 30 goblins. Why did you ask?” Grok said, and while through this little conversation it was clear he wasn’t exactly happy that I had brought up his father, he didn’t seem that negatively affected by it either.
My lips then curled into a smile behind my bass helmet, and I turned towards the butler behind me.
“Could you prepare a place for me and my acolyte to talk in private? The faster you prepare it, the better.”