The Goblin Scout was a truly ugly creature. It had the typical green skin you''d expect from a goblin. It was not like those cute, fantasy-themed goblins you would see in some stories. It was half a normal man in height, with thin arms and legs. Its stomach and torso were bulky, and all over its body it had thick black hairs. Its nose was long and crooked with a pointy tip. Its ears were pointy as well, and hair came out like the end of a brush out of both the nose and the ears. It wielded a stone dagger and wore some sort of animal hide to obscure its lower body, thankfully. When I focused on it, it revealed it to be a Level 8 goblin, with the skills [Quick Movement] and [Enhanced Senses].
It reacted as it entered my territory, as if it sensed something different about this ground specifically. It looked directly towards my central firecap and made a grunting noise. No, it was somewhere between a grunt and a growl. Its mouth was filled with cracked, blackened, sharp fangs that I suspected were once white.
It started moving closer but was cautious. It knew that something was different here. Maybe it sensed my mana? Or it just hadn''t seen any mushrooms with my particular color before. I ordered my workers to hide and prepared for combat. One particularity about my mushrooms is that they take near to no time to grow. In a few seconds, I could grow any of my mushrooms as long as I had the mana for them.
I assumed the goblin did not have human intelligence; it was the only way I could win this fight. If it was that intelligent, I would die. This was a fact in my mind. I focused on a spot maybe two meters ahead of the goblin and spawned three small puffcaps in a cluster. The goblin stopped in its tracks as the mushrooms grew to their full size in a couple of seconds.
The goblin laughed an ugly, crude laugh. It sounded like something was stuck in its throat. My hope was that it would move to the side, towards two firecaps closeby. It would be even better if it went close enough to the puffcaps that their skill [Irritating Sporecloud] would activate. If it was of low intelligence, it might. It looked at the mushrooms in a defiant manner, lifted its right foot, and stomped on them. I did not expect it would be that stupid.
The sporecloud released out of all three puffcaps at the same time, covering the goblin''s entire body with the irritant. The goblin screamed, a shrieking sound that made me want to cover my ears. If I had ears. It stumbled forward to the right while clawing at its face, tears and snot streaming from its eyes and nose. It moved away from the two firecaps I had planned to lure it to, but into range of one other firecap. I didn''t wait for another opportunity.
[Firespike]
[Firespike]
[Firespike]
[Firespike]
[Firespike]
Five firespikes, one after the other, flew at the goblin; three of them hit the animal''s hide and just barely pierced the skin. They were rendered ineffective. The other two, though, hit the goblin in the right arm and its right shoulder. The black and greasy hair sizzled as they burned. The spikes were stuck in its body but had only gone halfway in. It wasn''t enough, and the goblin now stumbled backwards outside of my attack range again. It fell down on its ass and sat there, making different disgusting noises. The spikes had almost dissipated already.
It sat there outside of my range and waited for its eyesight to return to normal. It took a few minutes and then it stood up. I prepared myself for another round of spikes. One firecap could only release 5 spikes before it had to recover for an hour or so. My central firewall had no such restriction, but the normal ones did. I prayed that the goblin would move towards another firecap. The goblin growled and then turned around and left. I waited, minute after minute, until at least 30 minutes had gone by.
I finally relaxed as I assumed it was gone. I collected my thoughts and checked on my workers. Bobby and Ricky were hiding in their quarters, and a quick mental ping told me that Freddy was somewhere outside of my mycelium. He was hiding in some kind of brush. I called Freddy back and told Bobby and Ricky to come out.
Alright, we desperately need defenses. That goblin could come back with backup. My [Resource Extractor] had managed to get a fair bit of different elements, but iron was what it got most of. That was good now, as both the warrior barracks and the archery range cost iron. I could only choose one though. It was not much of a choice really; I already had my firespikes for range, and what I needed were warriors that I could sadly sacrifice to lure the enemy into certain areas. I had the wood, iron, and mana for the barracks, and so I ordered their construction.
Bobby went to work at the designated location for the barracks, and I ordered Freddy to go find more wood. No more decomposables or fiber. We had quite a lot of fiber already, and we needed wood to start constructing defenses. The reason wood was hard to come by was because Freddy could only pick up loose pieces of wood off of the ground. We had no lumberjack axe or lumberjack worker, and I doubt I would have the mana to make them even if I had unlocked them right now. What was good about Freddy, though, was that even if he picked woodchips and slightly rotten wood, it would still count as normal wood when deposited into the storage mushroom. I don''t know how that worked, but the system seemed to at least have some leniency with our little fungal fief.
The construction would take three hours for the warrior barracks. I was nearly out of wood and hoped Freddy would find a great deal of it somewhere. I had about 40 mana left and could fire 8 firespikes before being completely dry. That was far too few if the goblin brought friends and came back. Five of them might not have killed it even if they all hit its body directly. If I aimed them at the eyes, they might kill. But then it was much more likely that they would miss completely, leaving me in a much more precarious situation.
I started looking into upgrading my firewalls again. More firepower would make me feel much more safe. If I could pierce that animal''s hide with my firespikes, I was sure I could kill the goblins. The requirement to upgrade the firecap is ashes. I have thought about it over the past few days, and my second ability is probably made for that. The furnace would emit high temperatures downward through my pores beneath my cap. I hoped they would be enough to set some materials on fire, thus giving me ashes. I withdrew half of the fiber I had in my storage mushroom and tasked Bobby to come over and place it under my mushroom. I then ordered him to continue construction.
I was a little bit reprehensive about wasting half of my fiber, but Freddy was good at gathering fiber more than any other material. He used his sickle to extract fiber out of some of the vegetation that was around the nearby forest. I suspected the system assisted in making it actual fiber, as I doubted we had cotton or flax nearby. I had only really seen leafy plants without anything that made them stand out from my vision. Freddy did travel outside my area of vision regularly, so he might have found some special plants somewhere. Unfortunately, Freddy could not speak, and I could not see what they had seen through our mental connection.
I shrugged my head mentally. It was time to try to upgrade my mushroom, and if I waited, I would not live long enough to regret it. I activated my furnace, and it roared alive as if a small jet engine were placed under my cap. It quickly burned the fiber into ashes but strangely left the ground untouched. I had expected some sort of fire to start when using this skill, but it seemed it was similar to my spikes. The fire and the heat of the abilities seemed to be made up of mana and thus did not set things aflame that I did not intend to set aflame.
I got a prompt from the system.
Do you wish to use the ashes to upgrade a firecap?Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
I mentally agreed to the question and was then asked which firecap I would like to upgrade. That surprised me, as I for some reason assumed that I would have to use the firecap I wanted to upgrade to burn the materials. Not that it matters; I chose to upgrade my central firecap.
Upgrade process: 62%.
Shit. I used all of the ashes, and it is at 62%. I had more fiber, but it was a few days worth of foraging, and I did not want to part with all of it. But I had to. I quickly ordered Bobby to place more fiber under my mushroom and burned it again. 95%. I repeated this process a few more times to make sure I did not burn more fiber than I needed to.
Central Firecap has ranked up! Current rank: 2.
All firecaps on your mycelium have gained toughness, and their abilities are now enhanced to rank 2.
[Fire Mana] resource has been unlocked and can now be stored in the central firecap and any other rank 2 firecap.
Choose an aura for your central firecap. The options available are:
[Growth Aura] An aura that helps your mycelium expand and makes any plants nearby grow faster and bigger.
[Flame Weapons] An aura that uses fire mana to empower weapons of your subordinates and summons with flame damage. In the case fire mana is insufficient, the aura will deactivate for an hour.
[Heated Ground] An aura that makes the ground temperature rise throughout your mycelium. It is useful for some plants and fungi to survive the different seasons.
I would love to have both the growth aura and the heated ground. Unfortunately, I cannot choose what I want this time, as I am still thinking the goblins will be back. So I chose the flame weapons without any further thought. Both the firespike and the furnace gained a 50% increase in power, and their cost remained the same. I now only needed to wait until Bobby finished the barracks and I would be ready to face the goblins again.
But I had miscalculated. Bobby had been active for too long, and with 23 minutes left on the construction time, he went to his quarters to recharge. It was me trying to minimize the fiber consumption that made him go overtime. I feel about as stupid as a goblin right now.
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Bobby should finish recharging his energy in half an hour. So in 53 minutes, the barracks would be complete. I was tense. I was quietly praying the goblins weren''t on the way. Maybe the goblin who ran was so ashamed to lose to a mushroom that he didn''t mention it to his friends?
Bobby exited the workers quarters, and I immediately ordered him to continue constructing the barracks. I counted the minutes as I was watching out for any goblins nearby. With 9 minutes left on the construction, they arrived. The first goblin I saw was the one from yesterday. As his left shoulder was burned and injured, he carried a dagger in his right hand. Behind him, two other goblins appeared. One of them was bigger than the other two, and the inspection informed me it was a [Goblin Brute]. Other than his size, he looked very similar to the other two. The other new goblin was a [Goblin Thief] and also wielded a dagger. The thief also had a pouch tied to a rope he used as a belt to keep his animal hide in place.
I swore internally. 9 minutes. I had to hold them for 9 minutes the best I could and just hope that the warriors from the barracks were strong enough to push them away. I had regenerated a bit of mana since yesterday, so I spawned more small puffcaps randomly scattered in front of the goblins, 12 of them. The injured goblin reacted and said some crude words that I did not understand to his friends. Their language had growls and snarling sounds mixed into what sounded like a primitive caveman language. The goblin pointed towards the puffcaps, and his meaning was clear. The thief opened the pouch and removed many small round pebbles from it. He started throwing them at the puffcaps. He only hit one out of two throws, but he had many pebbles. The puffcaps exploded in spore clouds one by one.
I was running out of puffcaps, and if I wanted to conserve my mana for firespikes, I could not spawn much more than I already had. I wanted at least 15 firespikes, and I have enough mana for 18 currently. I had not retasked Freddy to find decomposables. I had been too focused on the construction of the barracks and the rank-up for my firecap. Once Bobby went to recharge, so did Freddy, as I had them on the same schedule. I assumed the barracks would be done and that I then would need wood for more defenses, but I should have gotten more mana instead. It was now too late to order Freddy to do anything. He had to hide in his quarters with Ricky.
The last puffcap released its spores, and the thief had more pebbles ready. I looked at the brute and realized that firespikes might not be enough to kill him. His skin seemed tougher, and there was an air about him that told me he could take 20 spikes and still keep on going. Maybe I can trick them again? I only have puffcaps and firecaps for my defense, though. But hang on, they don''t know that.
I spawned a storage mushroom with its entrance facing towards the goblins. It was the largest mushroom I could spawn, but it took most of my mana. I still had the firemana, but I needed the warriors to use my flame weapon aura. The goblin scout and brute looked confused about the large mushroom they now faced. Unfortunately, the thief did not. I suddenly realized that when I inspected the brute and the thief, all I got was their class. I could not even see their level. Shit. The thief might have a skill to detect if my mushroom is a trap.
1 minute until Bobby finishes the barracks. Without anything else to do, I connected my mind to my new storage mushroom and started to withdraw everything that was in there. Iron, wood, and fiber all came gushing out of it. I disconnected my mind from the storage mushroom, and now even the thief looked confused. Good, 40 seconds to go. The thief threw a pebble at the hole in the mushroom, and I quickly thought "deposit," and the pebble disappeared. The thief said something in their language. It sounded like a surprised statement.
20 seconds. The thief stood up straight and pushed the brute to walk forwards towards the storage.
10 second. The brute took out a club from behind his back and smashed the storage.
5 seconds. The brute laughed disgustingly as nothing happened, and the two other goblins started walking towards the brute.
Complete. Choose which warriors to spawn. The choices are:
[Fungal Spearman] A spearwielding warrior with medium armor. Good at fighting at midrange and has average agility.
[Fungal Soldier] Wielding both a sword and a shield, this warrior comes equipped with heavy iron armor. Slow but good at defense.
[Fungal Axeman] A warrior wielding a two-handed great axe. Comes with medium armor but has low agility due to the heavy axe. It makes up for it with its heavy attack power.
You can choose up to five warriors.
"Two spearmen, one soldier, and two axemen," I blurted out in panic. The goblins had just started approaching my central firecap. They were about 4 meters away.
The warriors came sprinting out of the barracks. They were larger than me, which I had assumed when I saw the size of the barracks. They were about 50 cm tall and were built more humanlikely than the other mushrooms. The main difference was their stalk body, which was still perfectly cylindrical and larger proportionately compared to humans. They had almost human arms and legs, and their caps were not much bigger than their stalk. The soldier wore a full plate set of armor, which stunned me. I did not even spend a kilogram of iron on the upgrade, yet the soldier alone must have had multiple kilograms of iron in his armor, not to mention his sword and shield.
The system seems quite generous with resources. The soldier raised his shield and started walking at the goblins. The brute did not wait and swung his club in a wide swing. The soldier angled his shield, and the club deflected upwards, making the brute lose his balance. The axemen came up on either side of the soldier, and each swung their axes horizontally at the brutes legs. They both got halfway through each leg, and the brute screamed in pain. Black blood spurted out of his legs, and the soldier used his shield to push him back until the brute stumbled and fell on his back. Meanwhile, the spearmen had been keeping the daggerwielders occupied. The spearman facing the thief seemed evenly matched, but the spearman facing the scout was winning. As I watched the fight, it only took a couple of seconds until the scout was stabbed through his throat. He gurgled a bit and then fell to his knees. The thief had started panicking and took the rest of his pebbles and chucked them at the spearman.
As the spearman easily dodged the pebbles, the thief had already turned to run. He got about two meters until a spear came flying, impaling him through the back and out through the stomach. The spear stuck in the ground, and the thief slowly died, gurgling just like the scout. One of the axemen walked over to the brute, who was still alive but unable to get up, and decapitated him. The five warriors wiped their weapons off and walked to my central firecap.
All of them kneeled in front of it, and I could feel a link forming in my mind. This was probably the [telepathic link] I had gotten when I got my class. I allowed the link to form and was greeted by the soldier''s voice.
"Hail sire, we have dispatched the intruders. What are your orders?" The soldier had a deep voice. He sounded like a man in his 40s. Although I was a little bit weirded out by his use of the word "sire" I decided to let it pass for now.
"Lay the corpses at the central mushroom, and then patrol the border of the territory." I spoke with a little bit of uncertainty. After all, I was not expecting the warriors to be able to speak.
"Understood, sire, as you command." The warriors all stood up, bowed slightly, and started doing what I told them.
It only now set in that I had lived, and I finally relaxed.
Maybe tomorrow I can actually relax for once.