Sleep was like a gentle tide, when my eyes closed my consciousness faded second after second. When I felt myself falling into the abyss of sleep my eyes snapped open in utter failure as my body felt refreshed. I knew that several hours had passed, my body nor my mind was able to keep myself awake for days at a time.
Touching my body, then my weapons, then my backpack I noted everything was still where I left it before I slept. William was chatting cheerfully with Wide Jaw, as I gathered my stuff the goblins coming from their tents to see the commotion that started ever since I started moving.
Letting my body stretch out, my eyes fell upon hopeful stares as the warriors had told their stories of battle to those around them. This startled me, but meant that I didn't have to rouse their spirits any higher to attack the other outposts.
"How's the situation William?" Yawning heavily I was glad for the mask over my face.
"All the goblins are ready to fight, I took the liberty to assign those that are archers to the last of the geckos." A thermos came from his ring appearing from nowhere. With a hint of mana the runes around it lit to warm the liquid as he poured me a full cup. "Fireworm extract helps keep the mind active, it has great effect when the body is just waking up."
'Basically coffee?' Thinking to myself I nearly gagged at the harsh bitterness that filled my mouth and throat, but swallowed it down. 'Definitely coffee.'
I let the effects slowly take effect as I swallowed mouthfuls of it with a grimace on my face, my body shaking as it wanted to reject the fluids. I was exactly the same when the doctors gave me medication, this brought flashbacks of those times.
"Hey they might find a cure for whatever you have!" A bright smile of a bald boy flashed through my mind, he hugged his stuffed tiger against him.
We were both only five at the time, and he was always so optimistic of others. He had seen people come and go, most of them being cured over time. We were the only ones left of the original 15 that once stayed there, and only a quarter of them actually left without saying goodbye.
We all knew what that meant by then, and we all feared that we would be one of the four that didn't come back. Sadly, he was one of the four, he told me that next time we saw each other me might actually be a superhero.
With as much radiation that they pumped into them, instead of gaining powers his body just collapsed with a multi organ failure. When I heard the news I was clutching his stuffed tiger, and cried all night.
"Hey Sammy, if you were reincarnated into a world like me I hope you gained powers like I have." With a sigh I looked at the goblins again, the hope in their eyes were the same. One where despair and death hung like a rope waiting for their hope to disappear.
This might have been the true reason why I chose to help them, they reminded me of the children that disappeared week by week. I would not give them false hope, I will not feed them lies like the doctors did. Every time a promise wasn't kept the child came back a little more broken.
"This will be the last treatment of this."
"Don't worry, so and so will be back."
So instead of giving them false hope, and empty promises their blood and bones will make a pathway to live. If they truly want it they will rip apart throats, and claw apart bellies to live. If not the only person they can blame is themselves for dying.
I clenched my first hard to force the memories back into the abyss of my mind, breathing out heavily as the sadness was replaced by determination. Looking to the goblins around us I yelled out to them, "Gather up, we set out in two hours to carve the fear of death into the ratfolk and the kobolds."
My original group yelled back to me, "BLOOD FOR THE SMILING KING!"
Startled by the new title, I looked to William, he shrugged and explained, "Some are taking you as the reincarnation of the goblin king, and your mask.. Well, your shaman friend kind of fanned the flames as well, saying no human would save the goblins from their fate as humans only care about human affairs."
Groaning a bit at the resent happenings, I shook my head and went into the village to see if there was anything useful. Gathering raw resources from the goblins I stocked a large amount of arrows for myself and the archers.
Moving over to the other shaman that I didn't speak to, I asked him about his spells. His healing, and enhancement spells seemed to be out of my scope of spells I could cast. He focused on each based spells to keep his allies alive, and make fortifications.
Making a shield of stone was something I could do but it would be a stone shield, his would be a magical stone that protected the person. It just wouldn't be an efficient use of my mana at all.
Eventually his mana would drain out of the earth and it would crumble to dust where as mine would stay forever, but his would get more powerful as he became more powerful. Mine would become more powerful with more powerful stones, designs, and mixture ratios creating hybrid materials.
This was one of the flaws of a creation mage that made people call them useless as all of their creations couldn't amount to simple spells in efficiency. This discrepancy only continued with higher tiered spells, where creation wizards would gain mass creation spells, and learn automation usually.
This gave me an idea, but I didn't have the resources nor the amount of mana I would need to try that out yet.
This next camp will be another test to train the goblins though, I needed their numbers to decrease and their quality to increase if I am to win this war. I knew what was waiting for the final confrontation, which is why I haven't touched the ratfolk yet.
Gaining as much as I could out of the village, the goblins and I abandoned it as we headed east. I didn't even have to start a cadence as the original goblins ran through the ranks of the hundred and four goblins that were with us shouting at the top of their lungs.
Within an hour even the geckos were in step with the group as we went forward. This time though we were in for a surprise, as the village we were attacking had three ratfolk sitting at towers. On their shoulders were long poles with sacks at the end to throw their alchemical items forward.
It seemed as though the villages are allying up and bunkering down to defend against the goblin hordes that have been attacking. Sadly for them since I had never directly attacked during an assault their information was lacking.
Taking the bow from around my body I knocked it with an arrow that had a surprise at its tip, and pulled back. "Get ready to charge at my signal!"
"BLOOD FOR THE SMILING KING!"
Releasing the string a single arrow crossed the distance between the encampment and my small army. When the arrow struck the ratfolk laughed since none of them were even grazed by it.
*BOOOM*
The tower lit up in a grand display of light and fire, and the goblin tide rushed forward without hesitation.