When I woke up, I was still nestled up against the wall near the door. The sun still hadn't quite risen, but there was some light in the small entryway. I quietly opened the door so the girls could get out once they woke up, then headed off outside.

The first thing I did was shoot the rat that was trying to reach the for the bottom of the now-finished hide. There is no way in hell that a rat is going to waste 3 days of my work. I dismantled the rat and ate the new hide with my wolf-hand-, seeing as I wouldn't have time to tan it. After finishing up, I gathered some twigs, branches, and dried grass into the fire pit.

Now, all I have to do is start a fire, for which I have an ingenious solution. I moved a bunch of iron to my thumb and middle finger, making it rough like sandpaper, then snapped my fingers.

There was a tiny spark, but really, hardly anything at all.

I had a better ingenious solution.

I floated one of the bricks that were mostly iron over to me, broke it into 2 pieces and flattened one of them into a circle. I started the circular one spinning towards the firepit, and then brought the other piece over to touch it.

A shower of spark shot out towards the fire with a rather loud grinding noise. I immediately stopped the spinning, which had thankfully started the dried grass burning.

I planted one of the potatoes that I didn't peel for last night's dinner and pulled out the new fully grown ones.

I quickly sliced the rat meat and threw it into a makeshift stone frying pan, squeezed some juice onto it and sprinkled a little salt on top. I created a full-sized table with 3 chairs, along with some plates and forks. While the meat was cooking, I cleaned the potatoes, peeled them, and sliced them. After the meat was done, I divided it into three portions and then threw the potatoes into the pan to fry them. I also cut and sliced some fruit and added it to the plates, before finally placing the fried potatoes on as well.

It was at that point that one cute sleepy redhead and a nervous floating green fae came out from the entryway.

"Uhm, Raak?" Nyssa said, as nervously as she looked.

"Mm? What's wrong Nyssa?" I asked while knowing full-well what she was going to say.

"I uh, have something to show you." She said, shortly afterwards a bright light flashed from where she was floating. After the light cleared enough for me to see, standing there in front of me was a beautiful young woman, about 175cm tall. She still had bright green hair and slightly pointed ears, her wings were gone, however. The nervous look hadn't left her face and only seemed to intensify under my gaze.

"Nn, you look really good. Breakfast is ready," I said, pointing towards the table.

Nyssa's jaw dropped and her eyes went wide as she just stood there staring at me. Soon after, however, Clara poked her in the side and directed her attention to the table. Of course, the table was built for three adults, with no place for a small fae.

"You- How?" Nyssa sputtered out, finally realizing why I didn't react in the slightest.

I scratched the back of my head. "Weeeell, just assume that if you say anything within 20 meters of me, no matter how quietly, I'll hear it."

"Grrrrr, stupid Raak," Nyssa grumbled under her breath, which I of course pointedly ignored.

"Well, shall we eat then?" Clara helpfully changed the subject. "It smells delicious."

We finally sat down and began eating our breakfast. Nyssa calmed down as soon as she took her first bite of the tender, juicy meat.

Clara looked delighted, but also puzzled as she asked, "What kind of meat is this, it tastes kinda like rabbit."

Nyssa nearly choked on her food as I looked over at her. "Told you."

"Hm? What's going on?" Clara asked.

"It's rat," I said simply.

Clara did choke on her food. "Rat? Really?" she sputtered out. As she looked at Nyssa and me, both of us still calmly eating, she shrugged and went back to her meal.

All of us ate quickly and finished our breakfast before Nyssa and I started moving around and packing everything up. The carriage was back in Nyssa's storage along with Clara's chest. Nyssa also packed up the tanned rat hide, stone and iron bricks as well as a large number of river pears.

"Alright, should we get started then? It's about 3 hours to the road from here and I want to be on the road and out of goblin territory before nightfall," I spoke once we had finished packing and the girls nodded.

While I was speaking, I grabbed Thud with my right hand and swung it behind me so the head was above my left shoulder. I then grasped it with some of my extra mass, which almost felt like having a third hand coming out from between my shoulder blades.

"Not that I don't think you can protect me, considering what I saw during the fight with the goblins, but did either of you grab my sword?" Clara suddenly asked.

Nyssa looked thoughtful for a moment, "What does it look like?"

"It's a silver rapier, with a red monster core embedded in the hilt," Clara spoke, hopeful.

Nyssa tilted her head to the side and then a small portal opened up. Out of the portal fell a thin silver blade, with a blue and white sheath, a beautifully cut red gemstone sat in the base of the hilt looking like a glowing ruby.

Clara caught the rapier before it fell, hugging it to her chest enthusiastically. "Thank you, Nyssa."

Nyssa just shrugged. "Raak asked me to store the weapons so the goblins don't get them, but really I think he just wants to eat them."

"Ahem, let's head out shall we." I brushed off the very true insinuation, before starting to walk into the forest.

The two followed behind me as we headed back north along the mountains. It was a fairly boring trip, honestly speaking. There are barely any animals, a few rats and birds mostly. The rats run as they hear us coming and we simply ignore the birds.

Clara and Nyssa spent most of the trip just chatting with each other, mostly about dresses and shoes. After a while, I just tuned them out to focus on the forest to our right, listening for any larger predators that might actually attack.

We reached the road about mid-morning since we had headed out shortly after dawn.

"From here we have to head east, past where the goblins ambushed our carriage," Clara said, solemnly.

I nodded and started walking in that direction. Even as far as we were from the battlefield, I could smell the blood and sewage in the air. The closer we got, the stronger the smell. Eventually, it got so bad that Nyssa had to take a pair of cloths out from her storage so the girls could cover their face.

When we got to the ambush point, everything had been cleaned out. All of the corpses were gone, along with any remaining weapons or armour. The only things that even told of a battle were the bloodstains on the dirt road and the overpowering smell.

Nobody spoke a word as we hurried along, past the gruesome battlefield. We continued walking until the sun was at its zenith when we decided to have a small break and some lunch. The meal of hard bread and smoked wolf meat was eaten in relative silence.

Right as we were finishing, Clara asked me, "Raak, what is death like?"

I was stunned for a bit before answering, "I'm not really sure. I doubt my own death is what could be counted as anything resembling normal. I was dead and in a room with the goddess before I had even realized what was happening. From what I imagine, most souls would be born again just as I was, but without their previous memories. Still, this is mostly just speculation on my part, I didn't really ask when I met Sulira."

Clara just nodded sadly. After that, she sat up straight and said, "We should hurry, the sooner we get back to the capital, the sooner we can get the army out here to deal with the goblins. Unless something is done about them, there will only be more victims."

I nodded and got to my feet, before raising a hand to tell the girls to stay quiet.

"Something is coming from behind us," I said quietly. "It isn't goblins unless they learned how to ride horses since we last saw them."

I stood in front of the two and waited. It only took about 10 minutes for two dozen armoured men on horseback to show up. The men were wearing leather with a bow and arrow emblazoned on the right chest. Each of the men carried a bow and quiver with a short sword at their waist.

One of the men, who was much larger with slightly nicer armour, came to the front of the group and stared down at the three of us before asking, "Do you know what happened at the battlefield on the road west of here?"

"Yes. Eighteen courageous guardsmen died protecting a young woman from almost a hundred goblins." I stated simply.

The horsemen looked a bit nervous at that, it seems even they didn't favour those odds much.

"And what, you just stood there and watched it happen?" He spoke derisively, causing the nearby men to glare coldly.

"NO!" Clara shouted from behind me. "Raak killed more than 30 goblins by himself and saved my life!"

All of the horsemen looked surprised, even the man leading them looked a bit less cold.

"Is this true?" The man asked, looking back towards me.

I shook my head and spoke, "I only killed 28 of them before the last 7 ran away, but by that time the rest of the guards had fallen."

The man nodded and leapt off his horse, at the sudden movement my hand instinctively moved towards Thud's haft. All of the horsemen in the area reached for their bows at the same moment.

"Calm down you lot," The leader said towards the men behind him as he took off his helmet. "Sorry about that. I don't really want to get into a fight with my niece's saviour after all." He said after placing his helmet on his saddle and turning towards us.

"U-Uncle Garret!" Clara yelled and ran forwards to hug the man. He looked to be in his early 50's with greying short hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He was more than 2 meters tall and was definitely not lanky. The man almost looked like a bear as he returned the hug to the much smaller woman, you could clearly tell this man did not spend his days sitting at a desk.

The two of them spoke quietly for a short time, of course, I heard all of it but it was mostly just about what happened over the last 2 days. Afterwards, they both walked towards Nyssa and myself who were sitting at a stone table with four chairs drinking some tea we got from the carriage.

I took a sip of my tea and nodded towards the other side of the table, indicating for the two to have a seat. Garret made some hand gestures towards his men, that I assumed meant to take a break, seeing as they all started getting out dried rations and water while still on horseback. I created 2 more smooth stone cups and poured some tea into them for the pair.

"First of all," Garret said after sitting and taking a sip of tea. "I'd like to thank you for rescuing little Clarabelle from the goblins. Secondly, I would like you to tell me any information you have on the numbers and location of the goblin village."

Garret waved over one of his men who brought with him a map of the forest. Nyssa provided him with the location of the goblin village and the approximate range of the scavenging parties we had encountered.

"As for their numbers, after the fight where we found Clara, we were chased by at least 150 more. We don't know exactly how many were left in the village or how many were out hunting but I would guess they didn't bring all of them." I spoke seriously.

"This is a more serious problem than I thought. The reason I came out here in the first place was that a group of merchants and their guards returned to Holt yesterday, saying they were attacked by a large number of goblins and only barely escaped. I was really worried Clarabelle might have been attacked, considering she only had half as many guards as the merchants did." Garret looked at the map, pondering for a short while. "We'll have to order a large scale subjugation group to come here once we reach Ostentius, Holt is only a small village and simply doesn't have the manpower to take care of something like this."

A sudden breeze from the west brought the smell of sewage into my nose, causing me to twitch slightly.

"We need to leave, now, do you have spare horses for Clara and Nyssa?" I suddenly asked.

Garret looked surprised for only a short time, before hurriedly making a few more hand signals to one of his men. Three already saddled horses were brought towards the front of the group.

"I can't ride a horse," I said quickly. "With my weight, the thing would probably die long before we made it to Ostus." Garret nodded while a couple of the men helped the girls onto their horses. "Don't worry about me, I should be able to keep up," I said with a small smile.

Suddenly, out of the forest near the road, came a loud screeching noise as goblins started pouring in our direction, kicking and pushing each other out of the way in an attempt to be the first to reach us.

"GO!" Garret shouted as he leapt onto his horse and took the lead with the girls right behind him. After all of the other horsemen had fallen in behind, I was left alone facing almost 200 goblins by myself.

Of course, there was no way in hell I was going to try fighting them. I turned around and ran after the horseman.

Shortly after we had started moving, however, a group of more than 40 goblins shot out of the forest in front of the horsemen. These goblins seemed to be somewhat stronger than average, as they were all fairly well armoured and carried real weapons. There was also a strangely dressed goblin at the back of the pack, wearing what seemed to be a robe with the bottom cut off, he was also carrying a staff with a red gem embedded in the top. He was also guarded by two slightly larger goblins holding metal bucklers.

'Is that what a goblin mage looks like?' I thought to myself, right as the goblin lifted his staff and started waving it in the air.

When the goblin waved his staff, a large fireball came into existence right in front of him before launching towards the front of the group.

"INCOMING!" Garret shouted, but when the fireball was still 15 meters away, it suddenly slammed into an invisible wall and burst, torching goblins that it was passing over.

"Good work!" I shouted to Nyssa, before breaking off from the group and heading towards the goblin mage.

The horsemen were making quick work of the goblin foot soldiers but every time they fired at the mage, the arrows would be blocked by the shield bearers. Three goblins split from the main pack to try and get in my way, which they would soon realize was a bad idea, as I just kept going. The goblin in the middle was crushed as I simply ran him over, the goblin to my right only managed a small scratch on my side before Thud went through his head. That only left one of the hideous green creatures, so I simply took my left hand off Thud and quickly turned it into a wolf and bit the goblins neck.

I reformed my hand and continued charging towards the goblin mage, the two shield bearing goblins had noticed me by now and started screeching and clicking at me. I had no idea what they were saying, but they seemed to be quite angry.

And then I got shot in the eye.

"FUCK!" I pulled out the crude arrow and reformed my eye, just in time to see a goblin with a bow hiding in one of the trees behind the mage. The goblin was grinning like an idiot, but as my eye grew back his smile dropped and he started screeching at me as he removed another arrow from his quiver. Of course, he didn't get a chance to fire another shot. The tree branch above the goblin suddenly writhed and caught him by the neck, dangling him 20 feet in the air by his throat.

Neither the goblin shield bearers nor the goblin mage seemed to notice the fate of their companion, as I hadn't even stopped my charge to deal with him. I created two stone bullets and fired them towards the goblin mage, causing him to flinch. The bullets were slightly faster than arrows, but the two goblins with shields were ready long before they arrived. I had kind of hoped they wouldn't react in time, but I only wanted to close the distance without the mage being able to hit me with a fireball.

Now, bearing down on the goblins, I lifted Thud above my head and swung towards the nearest goblin.

The poor stupid creature. He actually tried to block me with his shield.

*SPLCRUNCH*

Thud slammed into the shield, the shield slammed into the goblin, the goblin slammed into the ground. My weight and the weight of my weapon had broken both of the goblins arms as it tried to guard against me. The other two goblins went wide-eyed. I turned towards the second goblin shield bearer and grinned. The goblin looked at me, then at his pancake- I mean companion.

He threw his shield at me in terror, missed, and ran into the forest.

I shot him in the back of the head.

The goblin mage was watching as his guard ran into the forest and then keeled over. Then, as if his neck was a rusty hinge, he turned to face me.

Too late, of course. A Wolf head, larger than I usually make, bit down and removed everything from the neck up.

You have gained the skill: Novice Fire Manipulation

Active: create, shape, and manipulate fire

Mana cost: Dependent on use

'Forest Goblin Mage' has been ingested

Due to the Glutton skill, you have gained

1 Dexterity 5 Intelligence 2 Wisdom

1 Level in Fire Manipulation

'Forest Goblin Mage core' has been ingested

Due to the Glutton skill, you have gained

2 Intelligence 1 Wisdom

4 Levels in Fire Manipulation

I quickly dismissed the barrage of popups and reformed my hand back to normal, reabsorbing the large amount of mass I had used on it.

The horsemen had managed to finish off the rest of the goblin ambush squad, however, the large swarm of goblins was much closer than when we had started. The horsemen in the back were firing into the mass of green flesh but no matter how many arrows they fired, the number did not seem to dwindle.

I ran back to the road, shouting at Garret to get his men moving. Thankfully, he agreed with that thought and we began outpacing the short-legged goblins.

About twenty minutes later, I could no longer hear nor smell the goblins, they seemed to have finally given up the chase when they could no longer see us.

"They gave up," I informed Garret, and he motioned for his men to slow down.

"Any losses?" I asked, taking a look around.

"None, thanks to your little miss there," Garret spoke and pointed towards Nyssa, who blushed. "Some of the men got a little singed when one of the fireballs came a bit close. Honestly, I was more worried about you, I saw you take that arrow right to the face."

"As you can see, a lost eye is hardly a problem when you can just make a new one," I said and winked with my new eye.

The large man chuckled slightly and nodded, before going back to watching the edge of the forest. All of the horsemen were far more guarded after the goblins tried to pincer us.

That thought, of course, brought a question from me. "Do goblins usually use proper tactics like that, attempting to ambush us in order for the larger force to catch up?"

Garret's eyebrows scrunched together before he answered. "No, they don't, and their numbers are unusual as well. Normally the other creatures in the forest keep the population of goblins down. Even if they don't, the goblins usually start killing each other when they run low on food, which quells their numbers enough that they don't get out of hand."

"It could be a chieftain," Nyssa interjected. "A chieftain could keep the goblins organized and stop them from fighting each other."

Garrent grunted in assent. "I agree, but all that does is make the subjugation even more important. With how fast goblins breed, the entire forest could be taken over in less than a month. Without this trade route, Holt and the other small villages over the mountain would be hard pressed to survive the winter."

We continued on for another 3 hours, bringing us out of the forested area and into a large area of empty grasslands. On the trip, I had eaten 6 swords out of Nyssa's storage, much to the surprise of everyone nearby.

I noticed after the third sword, but it seems I can't infinitely condense the stone in my body. As I was eating, some of the compacted stone started to shed off, replaced by iron. I could probably keep all of the stone if I allowed my body to grow larger, but seeing as how the only person here who was even as tall as me happened to be Clara's bear of an uncle, I decided against it.

A 2 meter tall mass of stone would be intimidating no matter how human it looked, and I didn't really want to terrify all the humans I came across.

"Make camp!" Garret shouted to his men as we approached a small river with a large area of packed dirt near it. It seems this is a common place to spend the night when travelling this road.

I wasn't really sure what I should do, if anything, until I noticed that none of the men were cooking. It seems all they brought to eat were travel rations.

I waved Nyssa over as I created a large cauldron held slightly above the ground by four stone legs. Nyssa instantly understood and began creating a fire underneath the cauldron as I filled it by floating some stone buckets from the river.

I grew some potatoes, and then used those to grow some more and began washing, peeling and dicing them into the pot. When I was on my second of the many potatoes, Clara joined me, and soon enough a large boiling pot of wolf meat and potato stew was cooking.

While the stew simmered, I went off to the side of the clearing and planted a seed obtained from Nyssa's storage.

"Clara, watch," Nyssa said excitedly and pointed towards where I was. Many of the nearby men also seemed curious, wondering what I was doing.

Shortly after, a small sapling grew out of the ground, and the scene from back at our home repeated itself. A large tree erupted from the ground in minutes, causing flower petals to fall and fruit to grow on the tree.

"Help yourselves," I said simply and walked back over to the pot, where I began to create plenty of bowls and spoons.

The camp was silent.

Well, except for Nyssa, she was clapping.

Name Raak Race Alloy Elemental Mass 247kg Str 49 Vit 53 Dex 38 Int 27 Wis 22 Hp 775 Mp 355 Skill List - Passive Level Glutton 1(MAX) Crystal Core 1(MAX) Journeyman Photosynthesis 6 Novice Hand to Hand Fighting 8 Apprentice Two-Handed Weapon Mastery 8 Novice Dismantling 8 Novice Cooking 10 Novice Leatherworking 4 Apprentice Enhanced Senses 2 Apprentice Sneak 3 Skill List - Active Level Glow 1(MAX) Journeyman Earth Manipulation 4 Apprentice Space Manipulation 2 Apprentice Plant Manipulation 1 Novice Fire Manipulation 5 Appraisal 1(MAX)