The next morning, Mike woke the goblins slightly earlier than the day before, around 5AM, and began warming them up with a brisk jog and some stretches. Once loose, they again set off for outside the valley. Mike pulled the anvil out of his spatial storage bag and carried it in front of him. He wasn’t expecting to get a skill or anything from the exercise, but he could at least use this time to train Beast of Burden, and he had always been a big proponent of progressive overload when it came to increasing one’s strength.

The anvil was quite large, and having some experience with anvils in the past when he shod horses on a friend's ranch, he guessed it weighed around 400 pounds. It was unwieldy to carry across his shoulders like he had with the logs, so instead he decided to carry it in his arms. This extra burden made it so that he struggled with the jogging pace as much as the goblins, especially since he wanted to set a good example of form and technique, and he forced himself to go through the motions of jogging even though he could have kept the pace by hobbling along.

They reached the point where they had stopped the day before, but he had them keep going for 5 more minutes, at which point he called for a break. Dropping the anvil back into his bag, he bent at the waist and wrested his hands on his knees, forcing his hamstrings to stretch out as he surveyed his collapsed soldiers.

Pushing past his exhaustion, he tried to impersonate Joe, his seal-team training officer. He made his voice as gruff as possible, “All right you ladies, everyone on your feet. You think you are going to make any progress by lazing about all day? Everyone up or there will be no breakfast!”

Creeanth gave him a particular kind of loathsome look that Mike had only ever seen on the faces of his fellow cadets in boot camp, but the small creature conveyed the message to the others, who all struggled to their feet.

“You should have heard the way Joe would say it, Creeanth. I cut out all the cursing that was usually in that sentence. Don’t want to poison your delicate minds or anything.” If Mike had learned one thing about maintaining the upper hand over cadets from Joe, it was to never let a look or word go unrequited. If someone was giving you lip, you had to show them that you were aware of it. His arms started to ache at the memory of all the pushups he had been forced to do because of his big mouth.

“Now, today I am going to show you some edible plants, and the basics of tracking.” He said aloud, brushing aside the memory as he led the hobgoblins about the forest.

…………………………………………………………………………………………

They got back to camp earlier than they had the day before, having left earlier and their speed being just the slightest bit faster, the result being that the hobgoblins were able to enjoy the last bit of breakfast with everyone else.

Mike gathered the 30 fishing hobgoblins from the day before and took them back to the lake. He was dismayed to find that only 7 of them still had their arrows. Despite his best attempts, he had no way to find out what had happened to the other 23. Sighing in frustration, he pulled out some more from his bag. If they kept this up, he wouldn’t have arrows for the bows he planned to make.

Despite the hobgoblins losing their tools, they had retained some of what he taught them yesterday, which meant that he only had to spend around 2 hours with them, refreshing the basics of fishing and also improving technique. After catching a few fish for himself, which was incredibly easy with his level of Dexterity, he went off to check on his mine.

The assigned hobgoblins were already in attendance, doing their best to dig a hole. It was clear to Mike that they had never tried any kind of large excavation before. Their progress was a half crater in the side of the mountain, the loose rubble a sign that the side had caved in multiple times already. He would eventually need to spend more time with this group, mining was dangerous after all, but for today, he decided he would just teach them the basics of trussing up the sides to prevent a cave in. Going back to camp, he gathered a few Beast of Burden hobgoblins and got them some fresh axes from the Smithing crew. He then gathered up another 100 hobgoblins who would support the Beast of Burden hobgoblins in their new task.

Bringing them to the site of the mine, he taught the Beast of Burden hobgoblins how to properly fell a tree, if left to their own devices he was quite sure it would have fallen on them. Once the tree was felled, he showed the remainder of the hobgoblins how to segment it, and then how to drive extra ax heads down the length of the log. These acted like wedges, and allowed him to split the logs so that there was a straight edge that could be pushed flush against the dirt, shoring up the mine wall. The whole demonstration would have taken much longer if it wasn’t for his high stats and hours of experience using the rebounding axes for training. He was pretty sure he could do the whole process in around 15 minutes, but he spent close to 90 minutes so that he could be sure the hobgoblins were able to digest the entirety of the process.

It was well past noon, so he returned to camp to eat some lunch and check in on the clay structure. He was surprised to see Creeanth leading the efforts, correcting the hobgoblins with willow rush to their backs when they laid a brick incorrectly.

There were more construction workers than there had been the day before, and the pile of bricks was dwindling with the whole structure only being around 4 feet high. As big as the kiln was, it couldn’t keep up with the current needs of the camp, so Mike gathered some hobgoblins lazing about and took them over to the potters, instructing those with experience to guide the new residents in their craft. He also did the same for the smiths, gardners, and smelters. They would need more tools if they wanted to sustain their growth.

Despite his best efforts, in the late afternoon, Mike couldn’t help but notice that there were still a few thousand hobgoblins milling about. He didn’t know about hobgoblins, but in his experience, idle hands were the devil’s playthings. He couldn’t afford any kind of major delay in the camp if he wanted this outpost to survive the upcoming winter, so he decided to move up his plan of training a hobgoblin army.

Gathering together the remaining hobgoblins and Creeanth, he brought them west of camp, where he had cleared out a large area of forest. His instructions for the day were simple, get rid of every stump and bush in the area so that the ground was flat. Creeanth relaid the message and MIke watched in amusement as Creeagle bandied about with his hands and feet, marshaling the troops into action while not deigning to do any actual work himself.

Satisfied with the initial movement, Mike used the rest of the day helping in the garden.

…………………………………………………………………………………………

The next three days were more of the same, with only a few notable variations. On the fourth day of running, his small team got the Endurance ability, which gave them bonus Strength and Toughness after they had been running a certain duration–this directly translated into actual endurance while running. Endurance, combined with the Jog abiliity, allowed them to go further afield, and on the fifth day, they encountered their first roving band of adventurers. Mike stowed away his anvil and attempted to instruct his team sufficiently so as to ambush the group of 5 humans, but stealth wasn’t a skill native to hobgoblins. Luckily, the humans didn’t see Mike as they ran to kill the hobgoblins, who had always been easy meat in times past, so the fight was pretty one sided. His axes maimed the humans and the hobgoblins finished them off. He tried to be as quick and efficient as possible, not wanting to cause undo pain, but teaching killing strokes to hobgoblins on squirming targets fell short of precision.

On the way back from the encounter, the group found what he had been searching for, an oak tree. Not only was the wood perfect for most household furniture, but acorns were the perfect avenue for making flour in lieu of actual wheat, which took too much room to grow. Gathering as many acorns as they could, the group made it back to the valley.

After running, he had been consistently checking on the fishers and miners, but decided to gather up his army from the parade ground to help with his new project.

“I need two acres of oaks, he said aloud. That means clearing the trees, roots and all, and planting. Gardeners, with your ability to make things grow faster, I need you to come behind and plant as many trees as you can. Space them about 6 feet apart.” He said to the assembled body, Creeanth once again acting as translator.

Some of the hobgoblins who had been going through training exercises shared haughty looks, apparently they already felt themselves above manual labor after only a few days of some light soldiering maneuvers. Taking out some rebounding axes from his bag, Mike distributed them to the hobgoblins who felt self important.

“You lot will help me with felling the trees.” He said with a knowing smile. He was well acquainted with the methods of humbling a lofty brow.

…………………………………………………………………………………………

It took three days to clear the plot of land, during which time, Mike allowed his other teams to continue training in his absence. At the end of clearing the land, he was pleased to see that some of the earliest oaks planted were already up to his waist, a testament to the gardeners, who had achieved level 3 in their trade Skill now that they provided food for so many mouths. He hadn’t spent enough time in the garden to get the level up, which he had mixed feelings about. On the one hand, speed-growing a garden seemed like the perfect way to survive if he had to roam in the future. On the other hand, he already had so many skills to manage that he was beginning to realize he needed to be choosy with what he focused his time on.

He had hoped that the three days of deforestation would have granted him some points towards Dodge and Hardened skin, but he encountered very few rebounds and got hit only once. He had a crazy plan in the back of his mind, but it required some initial investment and would have to wait at least another week, by which time he hoped that the teams would be self regulating.

Mike walked back to the center of the camp to the clay building, which was now about a foot taller than his head. He had been stunned when he saw the hobgoblins standing on eachothers shoulders, up to 4 high to do the last layer of bricks. Their balance had stumped him until he analyzed the builders and found that the System had rewarded them with skills like Body Stacking, Balance, and Precision. That was the second time he had seen a body-centric ability, and it was just as weird as the first time.

The cleared land had provided a bunch of wood, which some of the hobgoblins had been working on planking together. In an act of foresight that wasn’t always his strength, he had carved a few nails the day before and made a mold for about 50 of them, which he had had the smiths cast the day before. Using those nails and some planks, Mike helped construct an A-frame roof for the building, which was 7 feet high, and about 10 feet to a side. Using some more boards, they were able to put a roof on the building, it wasn’t watertight yet, but it was a good start.

…………………………………………………………………………………………

Mike ran again with the hobgoblins the next day, and they came across two bands of adventurers. He fell back to see how his team would fare and was pleasantly surprised at their progress. He still had to step in, but they were coming along. Their skills had multiplied as they continued to acrew training at his hands, and their stats were coming closer to those of a normal adventurer.

He held no illusions that all of the hobgoblins could get to this level, but if he could grow this core group, it might be enough to help the hobgoblins survive on their own should he ever have to leave them.

When they got back to camp, he went straight over to the lake to check on the progress of his fishers, and also to resupply fish for himself. He had thought that they would have started catching something by now, but everyone other than himself had continued to eat sweet potatoes and berries for most meals.

Arriving at the lake, he was immediately struck by the lack of hobgoblins. And the shore of the lake sat a surprisingly large pile of fish bones. As he stood there trying to riddle out what was going on, a hobgoblin emerged from the lake, wielding an arrow that had two fishes skewered on it. The hobgoblin got to the shore without noticing his presence and began devouring the fish, its ravenous bites swallowing meat and bones alike.

It had been overly optimistic to assume that the hobgoblins would share their spoils with the camp, especially when he himself had stashed away fish rather than eating the constant vegetables, but he had to put a stop to this behavior now. He approached the hobgoblin and began instructing it relative to the social obligation to provide for its fellows, during which discourse, the other hobgoblins emerged from the lake, each of them carrying fishes on their arrows. Not understanding how they had been underwater for that long, he Analyzed the group and found that all of them had developed the Skill, Lungs of Sea, which sounded completely moronic to him since fish don’t in fact have lungs.

After once again instructing the fishers that they needed to bring their catch back to camp, he himself returned to camp and was immediately approached by the smelters and smiths, who gesticulated wildly as they tried to communicate with him. Calling over Creeanth, he was able to puzzle together the bad news, the riverbed was mostly out of iron. This would be devastating to the horde as a whole. The needed tools to continue to develop, farming, fighting, building, and pretty much all other activities require iron tools.

The day was almost over already, but Mike decided it was imperative to go check on the mine with what little daylight remained. It had been some time since he had been here, and he was pleasantly surprised with the small tunnel he could see from a hundred yards away. His pleasure turned to worry as smoke and gas began to belch out of the mine, a sure sign of a cave-in.