Chapter 2

The smoke hadn't even cleared when the questions started.

"Why'd they leave?"

"What did Soft-Skin do?"

"Is he a spirit?"

"Is it true he pooped out lightning?"

That last one was from Bonk. I chose not to respond.

We'd survived, somehow. The adventurers turned tail and vanished into the trees after I fed them a healthy stew of lies, theatrics, and implied explosions. But survival wasn't victory. Not when half the palisade was scorched, two huts were flattened, and Old Gribble was still missing half an ear.

The goblins whispered my name like it was holy. Some feared me. Others praised me. A few asked if I could curse their in-laws.

I just wanted a nap.

Instead, I stood in the center of the village, facing a half-circle of confused, injured, and increasingly impatient goblins.

"Listen," I said, voice cracking. "I'm not a god."

Murmurs.

"I'm not a hero. I don't have magic. I don't even know how to hold a sword without stabbing myself."

Now they were muttering louder.

"But I know how humans think. I was one. I still am, technically. And I know this: They'll come back. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not next month. But they will."

"Then we kill them!" Guk shouted, pumping a massive fist.

"With what?" I pointed to his stick. "Your noble club of termite-infested destiny?"

"...Yes?"

I sighed and rubbed my temples. "Guk, I love your enthusiasm. But we're not going to win with muscles."

I crouched, dragging a stick through the dirt, sketching a crude map of our village.

"We win by making this place impossible to destroy. We win by making them think we're more trouble than we're worth. Not with swords, but with strategy. Planning. Preparation."

"Like… traps?" Bonk offered, hopefully.

"Traps. Architecture. Food storage. Guard schedules. Reinforced walls. A society."

Blank stares.

"You mean like humans?" someone said quietly.

I looked up. It was Riri, eyes wide, arms wrapped around her knees.

"No," I said. "Better than humans."

…

The next day, I formed a council.

The first goblin council in recorded history.

There were no robes, no thrones, no ceremonial bugles. Just a tree stump and five very confused goblins who thought "council" was a new type of stew.

Bonk sat upside down on a log. Guk brought a squirrel he thought was a bribe. Riri held a stick like it was a wand. Two elders stared at me like I'd grown a second head.

Grak wasn't among them.

I'd offered him a seat, of course. He declined.

"Too old for new seats," he'd said. "And the wind doesn't tell the river where to flow."

I think that was goblin for "Do what you want, kid."

"What's this meeting for?" asked Elder Sho, adjusting his mossy shawl.

"We're going to plan," I said, rolling out a piece of bark I'd flattened and scribbled on with charcoal. "This village has survived off instinct. Now we're going to evolve. Step one: build something that doesn't collapse if a strong breeze sneezes at it."

Guk scratched his chin. "So… not made of grass?"

"Exactly."

…

We worked for three days straight.

We cleared land near the center of the village. Dug trenches for future drainage. Moved rocks. Burned vines. Guk tried to eat a centipede the size of a shoe.

I nearly cried when I found a deposit of decent clay near the river.

"With this, we can make bricks," I told the others.

"Magic bricks?" Bonk asked, reverently.

"No. Just… bricks."

"So magic."

I gave up.

I showed them how to mix clay with straw, mold it into blocks, and bake them in a kiln I jerry-rigged out of stone and fire-hardened logs.

The first time one didn't explode in the fire, the goblins lost their minds.

"He made fire stones!" Riri shouted, bouncing.

"Can we eat them?" Guk asked.

"Please don't," I begged.

…

At night, I collapsed onto my bedroll, every muscle screaming, hands blistered, hair full of ash. I stared at the stars and thought about Tokyo. My old desk. The maps. The simulation games. How easy everything had felt in those controlled environments.

Here? Nothing was controlled. Nothing was guaranteed.

And yet, for the first time, I felt something stronger than safety.

I felt purpose.

…

On the fourth day, trouble arrived in the form of a mudslide.

It rained all night. The kind of rain that soaks through fur, bones, and hope. When morning came, half the eastern hill had collapsed.

Two storage huts? Gone.

Our woodpile? Floating downriver.

Three goblins? Covered head-to-toe in mud and now convinced the hill was angry at them.

"The earth spirits are mad," Elder Sho declared, solemn.

"No," I said, knee-deep in sludge. "We just didn't reinforce the slope."

Sho squinted at me. "...So the spirits are mad because we didn't reinforce it?"

I took a breath. "Sure. Let's go with that."

…

I called another meeting that afternoon.

"We can't just rebuild the same way and expect different results," I said. "We need structure. Stronger foundations. Smarter layouts. Elevated storage. Trenches that direct runoff. This"—I gestured around—"this is not just a village anymore. This is the beginning of a nation."

They looked at me like I'd just announced I was pregnant with a dragon.

"A nation?" Riri echoed. "Like the big human ones?"

"Yes. But ours."

"With laws?" Bonk asked.

"Eventually."

"With crowns?" Guk asked.

"Hopefully not."

"With snacks?" Riri asked.

"...Definitely."

That got cheers.

…

That evening, we laid the first brick.

It was still warm from the kiln, coarse and ugly, but real. Guk placed it in the ground at the edge of the cleared plaza. Riri carved something into it with a stick.

I crouched beside her to read it.

"Taku's House of Tricks."

I blinked.

"That's what we're calling it?"

"You tricked the humans. You tricked the bricks into not breaking. And you tricked us into working."

I opened my mouth to argue… then closed it.

Fair enough.

Grak watched it all from his usual log.

He hadn't said much since the humans left. Just observed. Listened. Occasionally grunted.

As the goblins sang their weird, off-key work chant and placed the second brick, he shuffled over and stood beside me.

"You soft. Still soft," he said.

"Thanks," I muttered.

"But now... also sharp. Sharp soft. Like moss with teeth."

"That's… poetic?"

"No. Just weird image I had."

He looked up at the half-built frame.

"You build with no fire. No fear. No god's voice. Just thoughts."

"Is that bad?"

"No," he said. "That is strongest thing."

He walked off, whistling a tune I'd never heard before.

I stared at the bricks. At the goblins stacking them. At Bonk dropping one on his foot and cursing in five languages.

We were a long way from a kingdom.

But we were building something.

And maybe—just maybe—it would last.