Grendal walked back into his clearing with the two husks, his gaze scanning the area. He found the two blond-haired sisters sitting on the same stumps he had left them on. Stumps placed outside the base.
The women hadn't moved—not that they needed to. And that was perhaps for the best. "I'm back!" he said, walking over to the two and gesturing for the husk to place the berries in the HQ.
Wordless commands were something he had learned on his way back to the base—more of an accident than intuition. But it seemed that when he pictured a goal for the husks, they would complete it without him saying.
It was like in those stories where a wizard could learn to cast magic without chanting it.
"How much food did you find?" Tia asked, brushing a loose strand of hair from her eye and walking over to him.
Grendel shook his head and frowned. "Not much. I only found more berries—and we have another problem."
"What happened?" Lucy asked, her face filled with concern.
"Nothing happened," Grendel said. "But I stumbled onto a goblin camp. They've got some prisoners, and I need to rescue them. The system gave me a quest."
"You got a quest to rescue people from goblins," Tia asked, glancing back at her sister and then at Grendel. "How did they get captured?"
"Probably the same way you almost did," Grendel said, walking past Tia and heading to his stump. "But no. The system didn't give me a quest to rescue people—it was to raid the goblin camp."
"And you are going to do it?" Lucy asked, adjusting herself on the stump. "Were there many goblins?"
Grindel fell silent, his gaze wandering around the clearing. The mines were almost complete—one husk sat before each of them, harmonising. When they finished, he would focus on producing more workers. But then he ran into another problem.
The CI had stated that the HQ had a maximum capacity of ten worker husk, so how would he get more? He had a hunch that the research facility would allow him to produce new buildings—one of them would no doubt increase the capacity—and perhaps allow for a new unit.
"Grendel," Tia said, standing before him and combing a hand through her hair. "The goblins, how many of them were there?"
"Sorry, I zoned out." Grendel rested his chin on the back of his hand and tapped his foot. "There were twelve goblins—at least, that's all I could see from where I stood."
Lucy gasped and covered her mouth. But was there any need? Sure, their numbers were high, but it was not insurmountable. At their core, the goblins were stupid and could not plan—they could, so they had the advantage.
Slumping onto her stump and sighing, Tia locked eyes with Grendel. "When are you going to raid them?"
"It's not right to leave those people with the goblins," Grendel said. "I could have left you to be taken by them when I first spotted you, but I didn't, and I won't now."
Lucy opened her mouth to speak but closed it a second later. Grendal doubted she would have said anything that would have convinced him and was glad she didn't waste her time.
Standing, Grendal looked between the two girls and then glanced at the sky. "It's going to start getting dark soon. Let's head inside, even if the tower is here. I'd rather not risk anything."
"Sure," Tia said, nodding to her sister. "Let's go, Lucy."
Walking along the dirt-patched floor, the three of them entered the Bunker. Once inside, Grendal's Orb CI shot off towards the seat in a blue arc, slotting itself into the armrest and opening up the map and several other screens.
"What the heck is this place?" Lucy asked as she followed the floor lights around the room.
"It's my HQ," Grendel said, walking over to the chair. He needed to get some worker units for the night assault and get the research facility up and running. "You two can sit in the corner over there, and don't go near that." Pointing at the gestation vat for the workers, Grendel locked his gaze onto Lucy.
She was walking around far too much for his liking.
"Do you have any chairs?" Lucy asked.
"CI, does this base have any chairs these two can sit on?"
As Grendal sat in the chair, the Orb flashed. "USER: ID 2244. The base has generated two chairs for your guest." A couple of chairs popped out of the stage behind Grendel's seat.
"There you go," he said. He turned towards the screen and focused his attention on them. He had serious work to do, and the losses incurred from raiding a goblin camp could be high. But what would he do first?
Grendel glanced over his shoulder as the two women sat in their seats, and their mouths fell open. "I can see your screen," Tia said, looking at Lucy."
"Same here. Grendal wh—is that a map of the area?" Lucy said, sitting up in her seat. "So that's how you could find us."
"Can you two keep it down for a second?" Grendel said. "I'm trying to focus." He turned back to the screen, ignoring the quiet conversation behind him. First, he needed to get the research facility seed—then he would spam out all the workers he could and devise a plan from there.
Grendel raised a hand, summoning the facilities tab and moved to the research facility. He frowned as he brought up the building's information.
///: Teir 0 Research Facility | Cost: 25 Flowrium, 15 Metal, 5 Purple Mana.
Frowning, Grendel moved his attention from his facilities tab to the resource tab, which sat above the other screens. He didn't have enough resources to build it—Metal, specifically. "Damn, I'm going to have to wait until the mines finish growing, then asses their output."
But what if they didn't produce enough in the time needed? He couldn't even create one Husk worker, let alone base's ten Husk limit. Something else needed to happen.
"CI, is there any other way to gain resources?" he said, glancing down at his armrest. "I'm a little low on resources.
"USER: 2244. There is indeed another way to gain resources other than the mines," the CI orb said, flashing to life. "You can bring back biological matter and place it inside a vat to be processed into Flowrium. Your base can also convert captured or abandoned buildings into Metal."
A smile crept onto Grendal's lips. "So basically, if I conquer the goblin camp, I can turn them and their base into resources for my consumption."
"Yes."
Grendal chuckled. It was good news, but he still had the problem that he had no resources to make more Husks. Without the extra husks, his army was underpowered when going against a hoard of twelve goblins.
Though I don't necessarily need to fight them head-on—If I can lure a few away, I could kill them out of sight, Grendel thought. Or I can bring them back to the base and have the tower assist with taking them out.
"That's the plan then," Grendel said, adjusting his chair. "I'll have to use gorilla tactics."
"What are you talking about?" Lucy said as Grendal summoned the map screen before him.
"I'm going to attack the goblin base—Well, not attack, more like poke." Grendel zoomed out on the map until he could see the entirety of his growing base before selecting all the Husks on the map.
There was no point stopping the growth of facilities as it would jeopardise his plan to amass resources—he deselected the two Husk workers harmonising the mines. "You two can also be a last line of defence if anything goes wrong."
"Are you sure just three will be enough?" Tia said from behind. "Also, don't you have to go with them?"
"No," Grendel said, glancing back at the blond-haired woman as she scrutinised his map screen. "I only did that so you wouldn't think more monsters had come to kill you."
Tia glanced at her sister before focusing back on the screen. "I see. Is there anything we can do to help?"
"Get onto the chat log and see if you can find out who those people are," Grendel said while directing the three husks on the map further into the forest and towards the goblin camp. "I did hear one screaming. If the other are smart enough and have some hope, they may have asked for help in the chat."
"Would they even know how to use the chat log?" Lucy asked. "Some may have gotten captured from the get-go and not had time to talk with their CI."
Grendel massaged his forehead. She was right—there was no guarantee that these people had the same experience as them. But they still needed to try. "Give it a shot—some information is better than no information."
The room then settled into a comfortable silence as the chat log on the far right of the stage flickered by as the minutes crunched. From time to time, Grendel would pop a Red-ball berry into his mouth, enjoying the flavour explosion and the little moisture it provided.
Swallowing deeply, Grendal sighed. After over thirty minutes of running, the Husk workers had reached the edge of the goblin camp's clearing and rested among the bushes and trees. "Okay, now comes the hard part."
"Grendel, I have some information on the captives," Tia said, sharing her screen with Grendal. A small screen opened above his left armrest—on it was a private chat log between Tia and an unknown individual.
"And this is one of the captives?" Grendal asked, clenching his jaw.
"Yes," Tia said with a sigh.