As night fell, a small shape appeared on the ridge.
It wasn’t the system.
It was a real stray.
A Goblin, skinny even for a Goblin, missing two front teeth.
He was bouncing on the back of a fat, red Squig – a ball of muscle, teeth and legs with a saddle crudely strapped on.
The Squig was trying to bite its own rider.
When he saw Marcus – a full, real Orc, twice his height, holding a choppa – the Goblin’s face went from cocky to pure terror.
He fell off the Squig.
“Boss!
Big boss!
Don’t eat me!
Don’t eat Squig!”
Marcus picked him up by the scruff like a kitten.
“Name?
Where you from?
Where you think you’re goin’?”
“Gaptooth!
Name’s Gaptooth, boss!
I come from da south, from Mudfang Tribe!
Boss there got et by a Chaos Dwarf!
I runned!
I heard dere wuz no big boss here, so I come to…
to join, boss!”
Marcus interrogated him for ten minutes.
Gaptooth’s babbling was useful.
Marcus was indeed in the shit.
They were in a narrow valley at the southern tip of the Badlands, where it bleeds into the Dark Lands – right at the bottom of the Worlds Edge Mountains.
Gaptooth’s words chilled him: “Bad place, boss.
Chaos Dwarfs come from east with big hats, take grots.
Badlands boyz come from north to fight.
Sometimes stunty ghosts come from mountains.”[Dwarfs]
This was no place to “farm in peace and hide to be king.” This was a highway for every monster in the world.
If he stayed weak, he’d be a slave or a snack in a month.
“Gaptooth, you iz my grot now.
You run fast, you know dese lands.
You iz my scout.
Understand?”
Gaptooth nodded so fast his head almost fell off, staring at Marcus’s choppa.
“Yez boss!
You iz biggest!
I listens!”
> **QUEST COMPLETE: RECRUIT DA STRAYS (1/1)**
> **QUEST CHAIN COMPLETE: MAKE IRONHEADS GREAT AGAIN**
> **TRIBE STATUS: 1 Orc Boss, 27 Goblins, 61 Snotlings, 1 Goblin Squig Rider**
> **SYSTEM UPGRADED: Territory Interface Unlocked**
The system changed.
The old RTS menu disappeared and became something more Orky.
**[DA TRIBE]**
– Boyz: Who can fight
– Grots: Who do work
– Fungus: How fast we grow
– Boss’s Authority: 65/100 – They fear you, for now.
Marcus ignored the golden-light instant house.
That’s not Orky.
He pointed at an empty space.
“Iron Egg!
Gaptooth!
Dis iz where MY hut goes!
You lot build it!
Big!
Use rocks, use logs!
Make it so I can stand in it!
If it’s small, I krump you!”
The Goblins jumped.
Orks don’t build.
Goblins build for the Boss, because if they don’t, they get eaten.
He then looked at the Goblins.
“We need choppas.
Not dese shitty sticks.
Real choppas.”
He grabbed a sharp rock and a branch and tied them together with squig-gut.
A crude axe.
He tossed it to a Goblin.
“Make like dis.
Make many.”
He expected to have to teach them for an hour.
The Goblin looked at it, sniffed it, and his eyes lit up.
Something clicked in his tiny fungal brain.
“Oh!
Axe!
I know dis!”
Within an hour, a dozen Goblins were making stone axes BETTER than Marcus’s.
One was already trying to add a second sharp rock “to make it choppa betta.”
Marcus stared.
“WAAAGH!
field knowledge…
it’s real.”
He sent them east to the scrub forest.
Not a “Lumber Mill”.
Just “Go cut trees, bring wood, or I use you for firewood.”
A few dozen Snotlings were sent to pull branches.
As for the Mushroom Field – the system was right about one thing.
It was slow.
But it wasn’t about water and manure.
It was about blood and spores.
His tribe was bleeding on it daily now, it would grow.
Marcus went to his half-built hut.
It was just rocks and logs, but it was his.
Inside was just a pile of squig-skins.
Before he could sleep, Iron Egg arrived, dragging a sack.
“Boss!
We dig dis when we brawl!
Old tribe’s stuff!”
Marcus dumped it out.
Useless rags, animal skins chewed by squigs.
Then something glinted.
A set of leather armor, human-made, 70% new, probably stolen from a dead Border Prince soldier.
Too small for an Orc, but a Goblin could wear it.
And a short iron dagger, 20cm, sharp.
In Fantasy, this is treasure.
Orks don’t make leather armor this good.
Marcus strapped the dagger to his own belt.
“Good.
Go tell da boyz – tomorrow, we don’t just brawl each other.
We go hunt.
We need meat, and we need to make da valley bleed so da fungus grows.”
He needed to be an Orc boss now.
Not a farmer hiding behind walls.