[Slimy Slime] Chapter 53: A new day, a new tower!

Alright! New day! I was truly excited today! I’d spent the morning playing with Tilia, going over some final designs with Sandra, and saying hello to Michael. That man was a machine, honestly… he was always cutting down trees and the results were extremely noticeable. I’d even seen a bunch of goblins trying to copy him… with their hands. Well, if one of them develops the [Karate] skill, maybe I’ll get to see it one day…

Anyway! The morning had flown by. Daily eye and hand exercises, Astra control training, and now my new teleportation training, had all gone down great! Progress was slowing for now but I’d grabbed most of the available easy fruit. Well, as far as I knew at least.

And now! The goblins had all donated their mana and It. Is. Time! For a Tower!

Focusing on dungeon building, I focused on the four ‘diagonal’ sides of my circle. It took all the daily mana but that was fine. Because soon, they appeared. Rising out of the masonry, seemingly by magic, four stone towers connected to the wall rose up and up and up! The inner wall had stairs to lead up to and now those towers had doors at the bottom and stairs leading up and throughout. As well as doors that connected out into the walls on either side. The higher floor led to a mostly flat vantage point, with a flat open floor. There were four sturdy pillars holding up the roof, but it allowed someone to see almost all around for miles and miles. Next came the bells. Loud, brass bells. They would be rung if any enemies were seen on the horizon!

I stared at what I’d created in awe. The walls were impressive enough but… holy crap. I might have made them a bit taller than… strictly necessary. But god they looked so awesome.

“King Slime?” Someone called out to me.

“Huh?!”

“You’ve been staring at the towers for a while. Is there something wrong with them?” Sandra said. She was stretching, standing up from the table and chair she’d basically taken as her workbench. Honestly, she was going to get sore sitting and drawing all the time.

“Nope… but look how big they are!” I said, practically jumping up and down in joy.

Sandra nodded slightly, smile on her face. “They are impressive. I still can’t believe you can do this… that we have done this…” She said, looking back down at our blueprints.

I understood that magical feeling. We were literally recreating our somewhat crude drawings into a fully fleshed out three dimensional creation. It was… it was exactly what I thought of when I thought of a god. Not destruction, not even miracles, but pure and unfettered instant creation out of nearly thin air. It got my slimy heart beating. I had never considered myself much an architect and still didn’t, not even much of an artist! But… I could feel the… sense of pride and awe that came with the pure acts of creation. I would definitely need to make sure my Kingdom, city, empire, whatever, was made fully aware of how awesome art was. I could already imagine it, goblin artists. It’d be amazing.

“What about Guards?” Sandra asked. We’d already gone over this, so I knew what she was really asking.

“I already spawned them in. Just a pair of dungeon goblins for now.”

I had to make sure to keep those away from the regular goblins. I had spawned them in earlier this morning and learned quickly just how much the regular goblins hated them. They seemed to find them very, very creepy as well if their shouts were anything to go by. I’d had them waiting by the tower locations ever since.

“They should already be at the top of the towers.”

“Can they really act as scouts?”

“Well… their vision isn’t the best. There’s a reason I want Hob-Goblins dungeon mobs. But it should be plenty. Besides, there’s not exactly enough of a clearing for them to see much anyway.”

Sandra pursed her lips. “Michael is working hard.”

“Of course he is! We have so much wood… I have no idea what to do with it.” At least the goblins seemed to be having fun with it. If there was a winter here, we had firewood for decades. Actually… wait a minute. That gives me an idea. I’ll have to test it later.

“What are you going to do now?” Sandra asked and I felt my little slimy heart quake.

“I… don’t know.” The words hurt. They really hurt.

The mana was being saved up to spawn a dungeon army, I’d fully given up on stats for now, and I could think of nothing to do but train, train, and do more training. It didn’t feel like enough. Well, there was one thing I needed to do first.

“I guess I’ll start by giving Krrrgg, damn, nearly 500 spears. The bows will take a little longer. String is more expensive than wood, for some reason. Either way, it’ll take till nighttime probably for just the spears. Everyone’s mana needs to regen after all.”

“You could probably make a mountain of wood…” Sandra said.

I nodded, well, bobbed. The dungeon was odd on mana. Some things were so cheap that I felt like I could flood the earth with it. It was stupid that ‘only’ 500 or so goblins mana was enough for all this after around a week. Utterly insane. A mountain was funny enough, fully possible in material alone. Multiple mountains. The only problem was the fifteen mile dungeon radius. That made me think of a fifteen mile sphere of stone. That’d be incredible. With enough time, this place would be more than just a fortress. It’d probably be one of the strongest cities in this world.

“I can see why fighting Demon Kings must be so hard…”

Imagining millions of monsters, all with high tiers and higher mana pools and regen, with years worth of gathering it… god, how did anyone ever defeat them? Monsters. This world is full of absolute monsters.

“Why don’t you take a break?” Sandra said.

What?!

“A break?! Sandra, we’re at war! A hundred thousand goblins could come over through the treeline at any moment! Do you know how many that is?!”

Sandra rolled her eyes at me. “I doubt they can even organize that many. When was the last time you took a break?”

“I rested after I took care of the [Black Eyed Wolf].”

“Un huh. For how long?”

I coughed. That wasn’t important! This was no time for breaks. I may not have a great idea on what to do but-

“Wait! I can work on my evolution! Of course, how could I forget?! I was going to summon a bunch of acids and try to eat them. Though the mana cost might be high… can the dungeon even summon acids? It should be able to. But I need to save up the mana… Maybe I can-”

“King Slime.” Sandra interrupted. “Please take a break. Go see the village, talk to Krrrgg, take a nap, just anything that isn’t training or work.”

Sandra stared me down… and so did Tilia in her arms. Dang it! Two against one is unfair!

“Okay okay!” I grumbled.

Stupid mean lady and her cute mean little baby. You’re teaching her terrible things! A break… I marched my way towards the village, feeling sour. There was work that needed to be done. Every moment is a threat. We were at war. And she wants me to take a break. I’d love to! I’d love to never work again in fact! But… bah! Fine, fine, a small little break and then back to training. I’ll set aside some mana for acid experiments later…

I approached the goblin village, well, the village ‘slice’, and suddenly had a new emotion dawn on me as I got closer. Hmm. Yes. Yes I see.

That would be horror.

I had never really… interacted with the goblins much. They were mostly a Krrrgg thing. They followed me and I still felt terrible that I’d nearly just throw them into a war machine. I’d basically kidnapped them all. Now they were all staring at me with awe in their eyes, stopping whatever they were doing. The children playing with a ball made of leaves and twigs dropped it, looking at me in shock with their mouths hanging open.

W-what was I supposed to do now?! Come on slimy slime, think, think!

“Hello?” I said, scrounging up as much confidence as I could.

“King! King!” A goblin called out and the word spread like wildfire. My slimy eyes widened as a tidal wave of goblins came running at me. What the heck?! Am I under attack?! Betrayal already! What did I do?!

“”“King! King! King!””” Chanted an absolute ocean of goblins all around me. The children were jumping around, edging closer but not too close. It was like there was an invisible aura around me… one that had nothing to do with the actual invisible aura around me from Astra.

“Um. Hi! Just… saying hi! Thought I’d, uh, check in on you all? Yeah, that’s it! So, how, how are you?” I asked in fluent goblin. Well, goblin didn’t exactly have all those words but close enough!

“Food. Good!” One goblin yelled out.

“Warm!” Said a clearly pregnant goblin.

“Bed! Bed! Bed” screamed another.

“Play!” Screamed a goblin child.

All around me, an ocean of goblin and surprisingly some words in Common slammed into me. They were simple but direct. More than that, they were all… positive. All of the goblins seemed more than happy. Then things seemed to shift.

“Good Chief!” One Goblin said and that seemed to really piss off another.

“King!” He shouted. The goblins stirred at that.

“King Good! Chief bad!”

“Bad Chief!”

“Stupid Chief!”

“Coward Chief!”

“Take Food!”

“Eat Goblin!”

“Bad!”

My mouth dropped open as it turned from awe and happiness into what sounded like a group roasting session. I had never done a lot of things and apparently one of them was considering what the goblins thought of their past chief…

The next few hours became a blur as I ‘talked’ to the goblins. They were more than happy to do the talking, telling me about anything and everything. It was mostly single words but I caught a few smarter goblins who could say three. The children wanted to play so eventually… I started giving rides on my hands. They seemed to love it with their small bodies. It was adorable…

Until the adults also wanted to try. I only have so many hands! What are you trying to do, turn me into an amusement park ride?!

I’d always heard goblins were evil… and honestly I could still see that. Goblins were just so… direct. If they wanted to eat, they ate. Bite, they bit. Sex… I’d had to tell five different groups to go inside their house. My eyes… you had houses for a reason! And I meant ‘groups’...

Beyond losing my innocence once again, this was… great. No matter what, I played a part in this. In creating this happiness. Krrrgg did almost all of it, the [Dungeon Core] was the real mvp, the mana came from the goblins themselves mostly, Sandra designed the houses, my part was small. The awe and affection very unearned… but it still felt good.

This wasn’t what I wanted, when I wanted to be a king. That desire deep in my heart just wanted to be on top, to rule, to be the most powerful around. To have legions under my command and control, willing to do anything I asked.

But this was better. Just having and seeing my citizens be happy… it was worth everything. I imagined the day they evolved, all of them. They’d grow smarter, bigger, stronger. It might take time and maybe another evolution after… but they’d become just as smart as humans sooner or later. I wonder what that would be like…. One day I would make sure they all-

“King Slime!” Came a voice, strongly in common. One I knew very, very well. One that sounded excited and panicked.

“Krrrgg?!”

“Come! Come! Quickly!” She said and then zoomed away. What on earth is your Agility stat at?! Quickly, I followed after her, worried horribly. Was it already time?! But I hadn’t heard the bells! Did my goblin scouts not work?!

She led me to the training yard where-

I blinked. I looked out over fifteen people… the Elites like Krrrgg. Some were strong. Some were fast. Some were oddly spry and dexterous. They were all powerful in their own rights. They all looked dazed.

They were people for sure… but they were no longer goblins.

Fifteen [Hob-goblins] stood before me. Krrrgg had a massive smile on her face.

“Your King is here!” Krrrgg shouted.

As one, the [Hob-Goblin’s] seemed to snap out of it… and then all kneel at the same time in front of me.

“”“We Serve King Slime!”””

Oh boy. Things were heating up.