When we finally made it back to our little village, a few things had changed. First off, there was a giant turtle shell above the central campfire. They were using it for hot pot. As for Rigurd, he immediately found us and spirited Big Bro away. Later, I'd learn that we had five hundred or so more goblin residents in our village for Big Bro to name. Four tribes in all.
In the end, a couple of things happened. Firstly, we ended up deciding to move our village to the spot right outside of the Sealed Cave. It was simply too good of a spot to ignore. Close enough to walk there in a few minutes or so, full of magicules, and the vast majority of the forest's residents considered the area completely off-limits, so there wasn't anything there, and it'd also act as a small breakwater, so that people won't mess with us. Even the terrain was perfect, basically entirely flat and perfect for building upon.
Secondly, Big Bro ended up naming all 500 of our new goblins, evolving them into hobgoblin equivalents. From there, he classed them. Rigurd was the new Goblin King. The four village elders underneath him were now Goblin Lords, and Rigur was the Goblin General. From there, the 'head warrior' from each village, as well as three or four of our Goblin Riders who'd taken charge while Rigur was gone, and Gobta, became Goblin Captains.
…
So, in the end, we began working with the dwarves to build a real town outside the sealed cave. Apparently, Big Bro had experience doing this sort of thing, so with the dwarves' skills, the town would end up pretty high-quality. Eventually. For now, we were living in tents.
As for my days, they were beyond full. Fuller than Big Bro's, in fact, even though he had to deal with just about everything.
I spent my mornings in the woods, hunting and practicing my skills, and learning new ones. Shadow Motion was my favorite, but Control Elements (which I'd only managed to teach myself recently) and Sticky Steel thread were close seconds, for their versatility.
Meanwhile, my afternoons were spent in the empty lot where the new town would be. With my Processor, I had a great mind for engineering, apparently, and it was fun, too. Mostly. So, the dwarves were taking me under their wings and teaching me about it. Currently, we were busy laying the water and septic systems. I'd actually designed the water system myself. The idea was that it took water from the river, used air pumps to get it to the highest point in the village, right above the mouth of the Sealed Cave, then flowed it all throughout the city from above as needed, before flowing back out of the river through a handful of turbines that'd help to power the pumps that brought the water up, anyways.
With how complicated it was, it required four parts to function: the main part that took the water to and from the river, a secondary power source that used the flow of the river to help power the air pumps that pumped water through the village, a basin at the highest point of the village, from which the water would be distributed, and a basin to collect the used water and send it back to the main part, so that it could be sent back through the city. The system was mainly made out of magisteel and concrete, but Big Bro and I had needed to build the whole thing ourselves over the course of a few days, just to make sure that everything went smoothly with it. We had plans to build a few more as well, for redundancy's sake, but those were on hold for now.
As for the septic end of things, it'd run underground along the same lines as the water system, to a big, treated wood chamber, reinforced with concrete. There was also gonna be a waste-processing plant outside of town, where we'd make fertilizer.
We'd also had them make a large building near the river, where the crew could sleep during construction, but it was built to be temporary. We'd run the first water-line by it as a test, so the crew had access to basic amenities at least, but we had plans to eventually demolish the building and rebuild it as a sort of general-use building once the town was beginning to form.
As an aside, classing our hobgoblins was absolutely the right thing to do. Somewhere along the way, Rigurd, for instance, had broken through the wall to B-rank, after his promotion to Goblin King. According to Kaijin, the muscle-bound freak of nature was bigger than ogres, even.
…
A few weeks after we began building the town, it was just a few days after Big Bro and I had set the water system down, when I sensed something strange while hunting. People running from a group of giant ants? No. They've stopped to battle it, but I could tell that they were desperate.
Immediately, I shadow-motioned to the people, to find-
Humans?
Huh. I recognized three of them. They were the first humans I'd ever seen, in fact. The idiots who'd opened the Sealed Cave door for Big Bro and I.
"Huh?! A child!!?" The blonde girl exclaimed.
"Run!" The lady in the mask yelled.
In response, I turned to face them, cocking my head. "Why?"
"Kid, don't you see those giant-!"
"Wait, I'd better get rid of these things, first." I decided, turning around half-way and raising my hand. From my palm, I released a fair-sized dose of the centipede's paralysis breath, interspersed with a highly diluted version of the snake's poison breath. Immediately, all five ants collapsed, breathing their last breath within seconds. "Huh." Well, that was a problem that I hadn't thought of.
"Whaaaaaaa….?" The humans were all completely dumbfounded.
'Umm, Rigur… I need some help…' I immediately contacted someone who could help me, via Thought Communication.