December 14, 6:45 PM JST / Eldora, Northern Lunarest Border, The Camp (Dawn)
Markers pulsed in the northern block of his minimap.
The war tent icon sat at the top of the ridge, bright enough that it felt like the game was jabbing a finger in his chest.
Rin dragged in a slow breath through his goblin nose and let it out.
“Alright,” he thought. “We do the talk first. Panic later.”
Aria’s voice crackled in his ear, wired straight from Sakura’s ops deck.
“You breathing, goblin boy?” she asked. “Heart rate’s spiking a little, but you are not flatlining, so that is a W in my book.”
Rin started up the slope.
His short goblin boots sank into damp earth. Ash puffed around his feet in little grey halos with every step, mixing into the thin white mist that still clung to the Hollow.
“I am good,” Rin said. “Sevish and Wyx are waiting in the war tent. Camp is shifting. They pulled the palisade up the ridge while I was logged out.”
“Yeah, I see it,” Aria said. He could hear keys ticking faintly under her words as she flipped between UI windows on her monitors. “Defense markers moved. Totems repositioned. They are not pretending that the little barbecue did not happen. That is actual adaptation. I am kind of jealous I am not in there myself.”
Rin’s HUD still showed Nalli’s icon circling the outer edge of Thrash territory. The garrison ring glowed faintly where her patrol traced the road, fog peeling back into revealed terrain behind her.
[UNIT ASSIGNED]
Nalli – Thrash Scout – Lvl 19
Status: Active Deployment – Perimeter Patrol
Garrison Slots: 1 / 25
He did not stare at it long. There was a bigger problem waiting up top.
The slope leveled out near the ridgeline. Mist thinned into ribbons that drifted between tents and bone totems. From here, he could see how much the rally had changed.
They had not abandoned the camp.
They were coiling it tighter.
The outer palisade had been dragged uphill and reset along the spine of the ridge, jagged stakes driven in at steeper angles. Bone poles hammered between them rattled with charms that clicked softly in the breeze. Lower tents were coming down, folded, and carried higher by strings of goblins. Rebuilt behind the war tent and central fires, they formed a denser inner ring.
Weapons racks and armor stands had been pulled in closer. Cook fires burned hotter but lower, stacked in disciplined rows instead of random clusters.
If yesterday’s rally had been a wandering war camp, this was the start of a fortress.
Rin watched Krok lean on his gas hammer by one of the inner fires, big frame smeared in ash and grease. The large goblin paused mid-bite, looked up, and gave Rin a short, firm nod.
Muzzle sat on a crate nearby, chest wrapped in fresh bandages, wheezing laughter as Tikka relived the Hollow fight for a crowd with wild chopping gestures.
Their nameplates all carried that faint gold outline now.
Trusted.
Rin nodded back and kept moving toward the highest point.
“Before you go in there and accidentally start season one of Goblin World War,” Aria said, “I got a couple of things on my side you need to hear.”
“Hit me,” Rin said.
“First,” Aria said, “I checked the pod telemetry like you asked. Drives are hot, but not cooking yet. You definitely did something to it. Power draw spikes are filthy. That thing was not built to run a modern HGO full dive.”
Rin grimaced.
“Yeah,” he said. “Because it was not. But my old man’s handiwork does not die that easily. If I get the parts I need, I can get this thing running better than the third-gen pods. My dad sold his schematics to them so they could make those.”
Aria went quiet for half a second. He could still hear her keyboard going.
“Of course you are built differently,” she muttered. “Alright. Priority list stays the same. Getting PK Wraith money from gear comes first. Pod parts and keeping your brain unfried are right behind that. Winter Bash prep rides third.”
Rin could almost feel her leaning closer to her monitor.
“Good to know you are not trying to speedrun permanent brain damage,” she added. “I actually kind of like having a duo.”
He snorted under his breath and kept climbing.
He crested the last rise.
The war tent sat at the crown of the ridge, dark canvas stretched tight. Bone charms hung off the guy ropes and edges, clacking softly whenever the cold dawn breeze pushed past. Smoke from the nearer fires curled around it, smearing the outlines.
Two Thrash goblins flanked the entrance, spears crossed in a solid X.
They straightened when he approached.
Both of them looked him over, gaze stripping from his ash-smeared rags to the Call of the Bones necklace on his chest. His title marker pulsed faintly in his HUD, but their eyes were on the relic, not the UI.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
“Kaiseki,” the one on the left said. “Warchief said you go in when you come back. You go. We keep everyone else out until he tells us different.”
He shifted his spear just enough to open a gap.
Rin gave him a short nod.
“Appreciate it,” Rin said.
He stopped just short of the flap. The canvas loomed in front of him, heavy and still, like the entrance to a boss room.
Aria’s voice slid back into his ear.
“Before you go in,” Aria said, her tone changing, “one last thing. Then I shut up.”
Rin rolled his shoulders once.
“Go,” Rin said.
“I would really suggest you do not go in with unspent stat points sitting in your pocket like that; the last thing you need is to be locked out of being able to, which happens in combat.”
Rin winced.
“Yeah, alright,” he said. “Fair.”
He pulled up his character sheet, a thought crossing his mind.
The familiar translucent window popped into the corner of his vision.
[Kaiseki - Goblin]
Level: 10
Unspent Stat Points: [ 35 ]
Unspent Skill Points: [ 7 ]
He dragged points into health and staying power first, then into the stats that made his spells and movements hit cleaner. The sheet updated with each confirmation, small pulses of light rippling through his HUD.
[STATS UPDATED]
Another window nudged his vision.
[NEW SKILLS AVAILABLE]
Goblin Rally
Poison Wave
Cryptic Ember
Augment Blades
He skimmed each one, pulse ticking up a notch.
Goblin Rally. Something about reinforcing goblins inside his command radius and tightening their lines.
Poison Wave. A more controlled, smaller-scale version of Krok’s hell cloud, tuned for battlefield control instead of total deletion.
Cryptic Ember. A flicker of flame he could spit or cast that marked a target, left them burning, and lit them up on the minimap for a short window.
“Tag and bag,” Rin thought. “Perfect for rats who like to run.”
Augment Blades. Conjured spectral daggers that synced with his spirit magic, shaped to his hands, something he could actually fight with.
Rin let the menus fade. The war tent flap came back into complete focus. Smoke. Canvas. Bone charms. Two guards are trying very hard not to stare at him like a zoo animal.
“Winter Bash,” Aria said. “I know you already said yes. I want to hear it clean. Why are you actually doing this with me?”
Rin stared at the war tent flap.
He thought about the hospital machines. About his mom. About Momo and Taji. About the Tabuchi debt sitting over all of it like a storm cloud.
“Because solo queueing a three-team siege when I have no game experience already is asking to get first-rounded,” Rin said. “Also, I need money, and I need someone in my corner who is not just using me for clout or stabbing me in the back.”
He swallowed once.
“Lastly, for all your yelling, you have not lied to me yet,” Rin said. “You know the game.”
Aria was quiet.
When she spoke again, the hype was still there, but it rode atop something steadier.
“Good,” she said. “Because I am not doing this for fun either. If Sakura folds, I go overseas, and some relatives I do not like start making decisions about my life. No more HGO. No more White Lotus. No more late-night ladder. I am not letting them have that.”
She clicked her tongue.
“I have been holding this place together with J-Link money, coaching, and side gigs,” Aria said. “I found those black auctions in Lunaris because I had to. Real cash is moving through this world now. If we play this right, that money pays well.”
Rin let that sit.
“Then we play it right,” he said. “You handle intel until I can get the second pod up. Then we grind more.”
“Deal,” Aria said.
Rin nodded, more to himself than anyone else.
“Alright,” he said. “Muting time.”
“Good luck, Elder,” Aria said. “Do not sign anything with your blood,” she said sarcastically
Her audio clicked off after.
Silence rolled in behind it.
Rin tightened his grip on his spear, pushed the flap aside, and stepped into the war council.
The war tent swallowed the outside world in one breath.
Inside, the air was warmer, thick with coal heat, blood, oil, and incense. Light filtered in through slits and seams, bright enough to see but dim enough that the corners felt like they were waiting. The ground under his boots was packed hard by heavy feet and old councils.
A heavy table took up the middle of the space.
Sevish stood on the far side of the table.
Up close, he was almost too big for the tent. Broad shoulders wrapped in leather and layered bone. Thick arms marked with scars and swirling ink. His bone greatsword rested point-down in the packed dirt, his hand loose on the hilt like it weighed nothing.
Wyx leaned at his right, one hip against the table, arms folded. Fur collar framing her face, eyes sharp and amused as they tracked him.
Drosh stood at Sevish’s left, spear grounded, both hands resting on it. Relaxed, but only in the way a drawn bow could be called comfortable.
The flap fell closed behind Rin.
For a heartbeat, nobody moved.
Sevish’s gaze slid over him. From muddy feet. To ash and sweat-stained armor. To the Call of the Bones hanging over his chest.
“This is him,” Sevish said. His voice filled the tent without needing to rise. “The one who turned four raiders into smoke.”
There was no accusation in it.
Just truth, laid on the table alongside the map.
Rin squared his shoulders.
“Warchief. Huntress,” Rin said. “I reported back like you ordered. The New Covenant squad that hit our rally is handled for now.”
Wyx’s mouth twitched into a small, sharp smile.
END OF ACT 1
CHAPTER 16 BEGINS ACT 2
THANK YOU FOR READING! PLEASE LIKE AND FOLLOW TO HELP SUPPORT THE STORY!