Chương 14: Construction

"I said it before: every scrap of prey you catch must be brought back for me to distribute. You think you're clever, sneaking bites? You think you can play mind games with me?!" Li Qinwu tightened his grip on the goblin's throat until the creature's face turned a deep shade of purple. He had smelled the fresh blood on them—this hunting squad had gorged themselves on their catch before returning to report. He would not tolerate disobedience.

Goblins were monsters devoid of humanity or family bonds; the only thing keeping them in line was the raw power of their ruler. If his martial authority slipped even an inch, his reign would collapse. Any spark of rebellion had to be snuffed out instantly and mercilessly. Li Qinwu didn't give the creature a chance to beg. He pulled the iron hatchet from his waist and buried it in the goblin's skull—a perfect "Golden Headshot."

Pointing the blood-dripping axe at the trembling hunting squad, he barked an order to his spearmen: "Execute decimation! One out of every three dies!" The spearmen moved in, surrounding the terrified hunters, but then they paused, scratching their heads. Decimation? One out of three? What kind of human-speak is that? Li Qinwu sighed in frustration and held up three fingers.

"These are three goblins!" He folded one finger down.

"Out of these three, kill one!" The spearmen finally understood. They leveled their spears and began the slaughter. Screams filled the air as one hunter after another was skewered. Li Qinwu watched with satisfaction. The other goblins were paralyzed with fear, which was exactly what he wanted. To rule monsters like these, one had to rule through terror. However, as the killing went on, Li Qinwu noticed something was wrong. His thirty-man hunting squad was rapidly shrinking to fewer than ten survivors.

Dammit, was their math teacher a gym coach?! He hurriedly called a halt. He wanted decimation, not total annihilation! But since the order had been carried out, he couldn't lose face by admitting a mistake. He simply moved on to the next point of business. He pointed at the corpses and roared at the crowd: "Look closely! This is the price of disobedience! Follow my orders and you eat meat until you're full. Disobey, and you die!" With his authority firmly re-established, he moved to the final hunting squad.

The leader of this group had only one ear. Seeing Li Qinwu approach, the creature dropped to its knees immediately.

"Did you sneak any food?" Li Qinwu asked. One-Ear shook his head violently.

"N-no... never!" Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"Then you have nothing to fear. As long as you don't break the rules, kneeling won't even be necessary." Li Qinwu inspected their catch. It was a solid haul: rabbits, wild pheasants, bird eggs, berries, and various unidentifiable fruits. There was no smell of fresh blood on the hunters. Li Qinwu was very pleased. He was about to dismiss them to bathe when something caught his eye. A familiar shape. A potato.

"Holy crap!" Li Qinwu snatched the tuber up, holding it inches from his eyes.

"It looks like a potato!" He scraped the skin with a fingernail and sniffed it.

"It smells like a potato!" He took a bite, chewing carefully.

"It tastes like a potato! This is a damn potato!" He grabbed One-Ear by the shoulders and shook him frantically.

"Where did you find this?! Are there more?!"

"N-near the Cave Spider nest! There are lots... the whole mountainside is covered in these roots!" Li Qinwu's breath grew heavy. His face contorted with predatory joy. Potatoes! A high-starch, high-yield crop that could grow almost anywhere. This was the foundation of an empire!

"Good! You've done excellently!" Li Qinwu patted the goblin's shoulder.

"I name you One-Ear. From today, you are the permanent captain of this squad, and you will receive double rations. Now, take your men to wash up and eat as much jerky as you want!" One-Ear was ecstatic. He had "made it"—he was officially a middle-manager now! Seeing the envious looks of the other goblins, Li Qinwu decided to formalize the hierarchy. He held up a piece of jerky large enough to fill a goblin's belly.

"Listen up! From now on: Work Detail gets one piece of meat a day. Hunting Squads, because of the danger, get one and a half. Captains get two. Combat Soldiers get three pieces. If you achieve a great feat, you get ten pieces at once! One-Ear found a new crop; that counts as a feat. Reward him with ten pieces of jerky!" Since goblin brains couldn't process numbers well, Li Qinwu physically piled the jerky into mounds to show them exactly what each rank earned. The goblins stared at the pile of ten pieces.

A single thought formed in their tiny minds: Great feat = Pile of meat. Over the following days, the tribe developed steadily. Li Qinwu assigned several major projects. First, he built a Livestock Pen for the "Wood Rats." Wood Rats were large, rodent-like creatures. They were docile and cared for nothing but eating; they could survive on grass or even bark. They were the only animals the goblins hadn't previously eaten into extinction for one reason: they bred like crazy.

Under the previous Chief, they were just tied to trees. Li Qinwu implemented "scientific management," decreeing that only goblins who performed well could use them for breeding. The second project was a Nursery —a long hut made of wood and leaves with a crude heated earthen floor (kang). In his own infancy, Li Qinwu had faced death every day. The tribe's "sink or swim" attitude toward pups resulted in an 80% mortality rate. That had to change.

This wasn't out of some moral "I suffered so they shouldn't" sentiment—it was pure pragmatism. Population was the key to development. To get enough adult goblins, he had to protect the pups during their most vulnerable stage. Finally, he had them build a Chieftain's House. It was a 40-square-meter wooden cabin, infinitely more refined than the old grass shack. While everyone else slept on the dirt, he had a house. It looked a bit corrupt, but so what? He was the High Chief.

He carried the weight of the tribe's destiny on his shoulders. Why shouldn't he enjoy some perks? The tribe was thriving, but Li Qinwu hit a wall: the lack of iron. Without metal tools, the speed of development was glacial. If he didn't solve this, they would stay in the Stone Age forever. Li Qinwu stood at the door of his cabin, looking toward the horizon.

"That human village... it's time to pay them a visit."