49：Goblins, Timber, and Treehouses

Soren hadn't removed his armor. He hadn't even washed the dried blood from his hands.

Without taking so much as half a second to rest, he walked straight to the patch of hard, dry dirt in the center of the village.

"Kyle," Soren called out coldly.

Kyle, who was busy directing the villagers as they hauled supplies, shuddered. He immediately jogged over, gripping his heavy halberd, and snapped to attention.

"My Lord! What are your orders? Do we need to reposition the perimeter sentries?"

The bloodlust from the recent slaughter hadn't yet faded from his eyes. He looked ready to march back out and skewer a few more orcs at a moment's notice.

"Put down your weapon."

Kyle froze.

Soren raised his head, looking Kyle dead in the eye. "From today onward, you are no longer required to march on the front lines."

The moment those words left Soren's mouth, the rugged veteran's face drained of color.

He dropped heavily to one knee, panic creeping into his voice. "My Lord! Was I too slow during last night's charge at the pass?"

"I can still fight! I have the strength to hold off two orcs by myself! I'm not afraid of death! Please, I beg you, don't kick me out of the vanguard!"

Several nearby veterans exchanged shocked glances. Kyle was one of Lord Soren's four most trusted men. His combat record was stellar. Why was he suddenly being stripped of his command?

"Stand up!"

Soren's gaze swept across their dilapidated surroundings. "We captured Shatterbone Pass today. Warchief Blackstone will inevitably react. If he deploys an army of thousands to blockade us, he won't even need to attack—he can just trap us here to rot."

"If that happens, what will we eat? What will we drink? When our soldiers suffer blade wounds or festering poisons, how will we treat them?!"

"You have thirty years of survival experience in the mire. You know better than anyone here—even me—how to forage for edible plants and filter fresh water in this toxic swamp!"

"For the front lines, we have Ein, Gary, and Meyer. That is enough!"

"But our rear base camp now has nearly five hundred mouths to feed. Not to mention the blacksmith forge and the potato fields we are about to establish. They all need someone to manage them!"

"You aren't being demoted from the combat roster. You are taking over the logistics for my entire territory in this swamp!"

"I am putting my trust in you!"

Kyle was stunned speechless.

His heavy, ragged breathing slowly steadied. As Soren laid out the harsh reality, Kyle finally understood the sheer, terrifying weight of the responsibility being handed to him.

No matter how fierce their vanguard was, if their supply lines snapped, the entire army would be annihilated in an instant.

The Lord was entrusting him with the very lifeblood of their forces!

"Do you understand?" Soren demanded, his voice cooling.

"Understood!" Kyle’s eyes reddened. He shot to his feet, slamming the shaft of his heavy halberd deep into the mud. "As long as I still draw breath, I guarantee your men will have hot meals waiting for them when they return!"

Soren nodded in satisfaction. "Step one: settle the labor force."

He turned and pointed toward the rear of the Greywater Village base camp, toward the deep, seemingly bottomless expanse of the primeval forest.

"Our timber supply is practically inexhaustible."

Next, Soren shifted his finger toward the dozens of towering ancient trees within the village itself. Deep within their massive canopies, a few stilted wooden cabins could be seen suspended in mid-air.

These were unique defensive structures built by the ancestors of Greywater Village when they first settled here a century ago. By building upon the sturdy branches, they avoided the toxic miasma on the ground and the vicious attacks of the Two-Headed Demon Crocodiles.

Soren issued his command. "You will spearhead this."

"Organize the goblins and the exiles. I want stilted treehouses built following the village's original architectural blueprint."

"Within three days, I want every single new villager off the mud and living up in the canopy!"

Clatter!

Following Soren's order, several soldiers threw back the tarp covering a nearby flatbed cart. Beneath it lay a pile of everyday tools scavenged from the orc camp at Shatterbone Pass.

Long-handled felling axes, dark-iron two-man crosscut saws, barbed steel spikes as thick as a man's forearm, and heavy iron sledgehammers normally used by Orc Centurions to repair their war chariots.

These incredibly durable dark-iron tools were perfect for construction—especially in the hands of someone with Kyle's [Brute Force] trait, or the goblins with their innate engineering instincts.

Kyle turned around, wiping the dried blood from his cheek, and roared at the massed group of goblins and exiles.

"Listen up!" he bellowed. "Lord Soren has given you food to eat! Now, it's time to bust your asses and work!"

"Exiles! Men, grab the crosscut saws! I want the straightest birch trees chopped down and hauled back here! Women, get the resin boiling for glue, and get the cooking fires started while you're at it!"

"Goblins! Grab these metal tools!"

An elderly goblin named Cook tremblingly picked up an orcish steel long-chisel from the dirt. The heavy weight and the cold gleam of the metal brought immediate tears to the old goblin's eyes.

For the past several decades of living in the orc encampments, these pitiful vassals had been forced to chip away slowly with jagged rocks and dig up mud with their bare fingernails to plaster walls. They hadn't been allowed to own so much as a single intact piece of iron scrap, as the orcs feared they might craft weapons and rebel.

They had toiled like beasts of burden for their captors, only to be forced to sleep in open-air mud pits that flooded with sewage whenever it rained.

But now, this human Lord was handing them premium dark-iron tools without a second thought!

"Kee-hee-hee! Great Lord! Generous Lord!"

Old Cook shrieked, kowtowing madly into the dirt. Then, snatching up a leather whip, he charged at his flock of scrawny kin.

"No slacking! If any of you don't give it your all, I'll crack your skulls open and use 'em for the foundations!!"

An unprecedented frenzy of construction exploded within the century-old, stagnant Greywater Village.

Over the next few days...

Deep within the primeval forests of the Misty Swamp, sawdust flew through the air like a blizzard.

Over a hundred able-bodied exiles worked in pairs, gritting their teeth as they rhythmically pulled the massive orcish crosscut saws. Massive ironwood trees were felled, their thick branches swiftly chopped away.

None of them voiced a single complaint. Why? Because every four hours, the women assigned to camp duty would arrive hauling massive wooden vats, doling out heaping ladles of white flour and dried meat porridge, complete with rich, glistening drops of fat floating on top.

It was a savory delicacy they hadn't dared to even dream about back in the dreary prisons of the Silvermoon Kingdom.

Meanwhile, the goblins were fully unleashing their latent architectural genius.

The green-skinned runts didn't even bother with shoes. Clutching hammers and tools, they padded lightly through the slick mud and scaled the rough bark of the ancient trees, ascending dozens of feet into the air as nimbly as monkeys.

Rope nets were woven back and forth, and crude pulley systems were rigged onto thick, sturdy branches. Heavy wooden planks were hoisted into the canopy with surprising ease.

"Cut the mortise and tenon! Lock it tight!" Old Cook commanded, hanging from a trunk and screaming at the top of his lungs.

Foregoing the use of iron nails entirely, the goblins utilized primitive yet brilliant mortise and tenon joinery. They expertly locked massive wooden crossbeams directly into the natural forks and branches of the giant trees.

They didn't just perfectly replicate the original blueprints of Greywater Village; they incorporated their own ingenious ideas.

To better ward off the fierce winds and driving rain, they added a secondary, steeply pitched, sixty-degree outer roof designed to shed debris and water. To prevent venomous insects from crawling up the trunks and infiltrating the cabins, they slathered a thick, hardened ring of boiled pine resin around the underside of the floorboards.

Soren had given them his complete trust. As long as they met the deadline, the goblins were free to design and build however they pleased.

This unprecedented freedom fully ignited the manic love for construction deeply buried within the goblins' blood.

In just four days and three nights...

Over thirty brand-new stilted treehouses were erected. Built in a tiered, terraced layout, they hugged the massive trunks of the ancient trees, hovering safely several meters above the treacherous ground. Tightly woven vine-and-plank suspension bridges connected the elevated structures, transforming the canopy into a breathtaking, three-dimensional village.

As dusk settled on the fourth day.

The biting chill of the winter winds howled through the swamp, whipping fiercely below the treehouses.

But inside the cabins...

"Haa... it's so warm."

The young noble girl—still disguised under layers of grime like a mud-caked urchin—leaned against the dry wooden wall, holding out her blue, frost-nipped hands toward the heat in sheer disbelief.

A sunken fire pit crackled merrily in the center of the room. Thanks to the old goblin's brilliant ventilation design, all the smoke drafted cleanly up through hollow bamboo pipes set in the roof. Only the pleasant, earthy aroma of burning pine filled the interior.

They no longer had to sleep in freezing mud. They no longer had to lay awake, terrified that a Demon Crocodile would emerge from the muck to snap off their toes in the middle of the night.

Elsewhere, the old scribe sat cross-legged by his own fire, cradling a chipped clay bowl in his trembling hands.

Inside the bowl was a steaming portion of thick, meaty porridge.

The old man's tears fell silently into the gruel. Covering his face with his free hand, he let out a muffled, trembling sob.

This wasn't merely the long-lost comfort of warmth and food. This was the dignity of living like a human being again.

They were considered utter trash by the Silvermoon Kingdom. Yet here, under the banner of this man, they had been granted a level of stability and security that even commoners in the Kingdom could barely hope for.

As for the dozens of goblins who had been working themselves to the bone just hours prior, they were now crammed into the largest of the newly built treehouses.

They sprawled out around a massive hearth. Some patted the draft-proof wooden walls in awe, while others enthusiastically stomped their feet to test the solid wooden floorboards. Several younger goblins were gleefully rolling around on the floor.

This was their home! They didn't have to fight dogs and pigs for a dry patch of dirt. They didn't have to worry about a passing orc kicking their hovel over for fun!

"Master Soren is a man of his word. He is worthy of our loyalty until our dying breaths..." Old Cook murmured, his wrinkled green face illuminated by the fire and ablaze with absolute, fanatical devotion.

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