I woke up thinking how lucky we were yesterday. At least, we were lucky enough to not lose any more members to a beast attack and find enough food to feed the entire group. Nonetheless, the group had to keep working and find food every day, with the same determination without failing. Perhaps it would be a good idea to permanently assign groups to their tasks of hunting and toolmaking. To have some of the goblins specialize in hunting or crafting sounds much smarter than changing their tasks every day. We do not have many members. So, we need skills.

About this magic I feel raging inside me every day or so, I do not know what to do. If I keep opening up gates, I would be able to gather more goblins. More goblins, of course, means more workforce and better development. But I should not forget that it also means more mouths to feed. We will need to develop a sustainable way for food production if our population keeps increasing like this. For now, we should be in good shape. At least until we have couple hundred goblins, that is. Still, discovering a different way of using this magic would be useful so as to prevent overpopulation. Just as a precaution.

I exit the cave and concentrate my magic on my fingertips. I think I am getting very accustomed to this feeling of manipulating magic at this point, although I have created a gate only two times so far. Well… Here comes the third time.

My magic feeds the gate as it allows the new goblins march into this world. This time, differently than others, my power is sucked out. I feel mentally exhausted to the core. Damn… I just woke up… I should regain my energy throughout the day, but at least for a little while I do not want to do anything.

The goblin group that marches in is no doubt the biggest one I was able to bring through that gate. To be exact, there were 46 new goblins, making our population 103. Maybe I should really start considering developing some food production methods. But before that, I will ask half of these new goblins to take the axes crafted yesterday and do some logging. Accommodation will definitely be a necessity considering our numbers. Meanwhile, the other half can collect materials and food.

I called in the sharp jawline goblin and asked him to make a group of 6 goblins to bring in live animals. While agriculture might be a little difficult to manage without the necessary tools and knowledge in this forest (especially since goblins are not very bright), husbandry should not be that difficult. If we can catch some wild animals and feed them for a while, they will surely procreate.

This reminds me…

“Do you have names?”

“Yes.”

“….”

“….”

“What is your name?”

“Gobi.”

So, they do have names... I guess I can start asking and learning some of their names later today. I doubt I can remember all 102 goblin names though.

Unfortunately, none of the new goblins remembered where they came from, or why they passed through the gate. Next time I open up a gate, I will ask one of the goblins to try and go inside. Maybe, we will be able to collect some information.

As the night approached and the sun set, the goblin groups in the forest came back with enough food to feed everyone. They brought back a deer, berries, fruits, couple wild hares. They were able to catch some rabbits as well. Fortunately, we only had couple losses this time. Unfortunately, though, one of them was the leader of the hunting group, Gobi.

Another thing caught my attention in the hunting group as I was counting them. The group had a new member. Among the crowd of short, green, and bald goblins stood a blue-skinned, five-fingered, crimson haired… goblin? Blue goblin’s ears were much shorter than the others but was still as pointy. He was wearing a loincloth just like the others and carried a spear made by our craftspeople. And he was much taller than the rest, probably around my height. What’s more, instead of lower canine teeth, he had small fangs that darted out of his mouth. After I counted the 6 losses, I approached blue goblin.

“Who are you?”

“Chief, you have already forgotten?”

Oh… what an elaborate speech. But… I forgot we had a blue goblin?

“You were surely not a part of this group.”

“You are hurting my feelings Chief. I am Gobi. I just grew up a bit.”

“Gobi? Gobi was green.”

Now that I look at him, his jawline did resemble Gobi’s. His face too.

“I grew up after I took down the deer Chief.”

“So, you are telling me, you killed the deer, and then you sprout, change color, start to speak coherently, grow hair, fangs, and an extra finger on each hand?”

“Yes. I evolved.”

Evolution! Goblins can evolve! Does that mean all of these goblins will be able to speak like this. Oh… I will not feel like talking to myself every time I ask a question now!

“Also Chief, we were able to catch some rabbits like you ordered. But we killed the hares. They take longer to give birth and drive out rabbits. If we can decrease the hare population in the nearby area, we can snatch more rabbits. Rabbits also taste better and give birth in couple weeks.”

Good – I am not the only one with higher order thinking skills anymore. This really makes me happy.

“Good job Gobi.”

Surprised, I go back to lead the logging. Since I made an interval sleeping schedule for the entire group, which has 98 members now, we can keep logging throughout the night as long as the logging group stays close to the cave. You know, just in case. I also ordered for the construction of lodging. Couple small huts for now would do. That will be our priority. Assuming I will need to keep opening up gates for a while at least, they should keep building huts for the future residents as well. Luckily, we have more workforce now for everything.