Lucien sat cross-legged beside the central fire, flames crackling low and steady. Shadows danced across the goblin village as night settled.
He watched them work.
A young goblin ground a stone edge against another rock, sparks flying in tiny bursts. An older one bound bone points to wooden shafts with twisted vines, fingers moving quick and sure. Their tools chipped easily. Their shelters sagged after heavy rain. Bridges over narrow streams snapped under too much weight.
Yet no one cursed the gods.
No one begged for mana.
They simply fixed what broke and tried again.
Something stirred in Lucien—familiar, like a half-remembered dream.
In Yard's memories, men built without spells. They measured twice. They planned load paths. They asked why a beam bent, why a wall cracked, why one shape held when another fell.
Construction.
Yard had never read books or solved equations. He'd learned with his hands—calluses earned pouring concrete, framing walls, balancing loads on shaky scaffolding. His body remembered what his mind never fully grasped.
Lucien reached for two thin branches lying nearby.
He leaned them together like an upside-down V.
They collapsed at once.
He tried again, driving one end deeper into the soft earth, angling the other against it.
This time it held.
"…So that's it," he whispered.
Not magic.
Just law.
Weight. Force. Balance.
From that moment, he watched everything with new eyes.
Why certain huts crumpled in storms while others stood. Why vine lashings loosened over time. Why flat wooden bridges bowed and snapped under a goblin's weight.
At night, alone in the small hut they'd given him, he sank into Yard's memories again.
Scaffolding. Cross-bracing. The strength of triangles—how three sides locked force in place, refusing to collapse under pressure.
So simple.
His eyes snapped open in the dark.
The next morning, he approached a group of goblins stripping bark from straight saplings.
"Bring me more wood," he said. "Straight pieces. Long ones."
A wiry goblin with a missing ear tilted his head. "What for, human-not-human?"
"I'm building."
They laughed—short, rasping barks of amusement.
But curiosity won. They dragged the wood anyway.
Lucien knelt in the dirt and scratched lines with a sharp stick.
Angles. Supports. Triangles.
The goblins crowded closer, confused but silent.
He stacked the poles, lashing them into triangular frames first, then layering walls against them. He set vertical posts deep, packed earth and stone around their bases. He added diagonal braces inside.
When he stepped back, the small hut stood—taller, straighter, unyielding.
A goblin poked the wall cautiously.
It didn't sway.
The chief, Grash'kar, limped forward on his staff. He pressed a gnarled hand against the frame, pushed harder.
Nothing moved.
"…No magic," the old goblin muttered, almost to himself.
Lucien shook his head. "No gods."
For a long moment, the only sound was the wind in the high branches.
Then one goblin whispered something. Another touched the smooth lashings. Eyes widened. Mouths hung open.
They had seen human villages with stone walls raised by spells. Tall, perfect, effortless.
This was different.
This was stronger—and built by hands that held no mana at all.
A quiet ache bloomed in Lucien's chest.
If my parents had known this…
If our village had built like this instead of trusting prayers and flimsy wood…
He pushed the thought down before it could swallow him.
There was no time for what-ifs.
That day, he didn't stop.
He showed them how to dig foundation trenches and pack them with stone. How to distribute weight across multiple supports. How to weave vines in patterns that gripped tighter under strain.
He didn't know the proper names.
He only knew the *feel*—the way a structure settled when it was right, the subtle shift when it was wrong.
Days blurred into weeks.
The village transformed.
Huts stood firm through rain and wind. Raised storage platforms kept food dry and safe from scavengers. Simple watchtowers rose above the canopy, giving sentries clear sightlines.
Hunting parties returned with more meat and fewer injuries. Children played without roofs caving in on them.
The goblins began to look at Lucien differently.
Not with fear.
Not even with simple gratitude.
With something closer to awe.
One night, Lucien sat alone outside his hut, staring at his hands in the firelight.
Calluses were forming—new ones over the soft skin of a child's palms.
"These hands…" he murmured.
Yard's muscle memory guiding Lucien's smaller fingers.
Two lives. One purpose.
"If I can change a village," he thought, gaze lifting to the dark wall of trees beyond the clearing,
"then I can change a forest."
His eyes hardened, reflecting the flames.
"And if I can change a forest…"
He trailed off, but the promise hung in the air, sharp as any blade.
"…then I can change the world."
Deep inside his mind, the voice stayed silent.
But Lucien felt it all the same.
It was smiling.