Greed wasn't the only problem. The famous Sanni Forest monsters and beasts were a constant headache during the development of physical infrastructure. I was with Nina and Herald, as they had chosen to show me a live battle between two forces, using the new recruits.
"Form up! Perk up your ears! If I see anyone yawning again, you'll get lashes with spikes before you even get close to becoming monster meat!" Nina shouted over the wind. Through my Focus, I saw a man stiffen, shutting his mouth before anyone could catch him yawning.
Around her, men stood in a loose formation, with more stepping out of the barracks to join them. Almost half of them clearly showed fear. Everyone wore new armour, different from the training gear, and was equipped with spears, swords, and shields. I even recognized a few people from my memories of the boar fight. I concentrated on hearing their whispers.
"My dad used to say even a five-year-old with a knife can kill," a blond-haired man said.
"Well, goblins aren't much bigger than five-year-olds, though I reckon they're much uglier," another replied.
"What if they fight like the Star Lord?" one asked, looking at me as the comment was made.
"Then be prepared for severe injuries," a female recruit noted.
Footsteps drew their attention as Herald walked to the front, a sword strapped to his back. He looked far more focused than I had ever seen him; his mere presence quieted all whispers.
"If you haven't already guessed, we're going on our first mission," Herald began. "We'll be scouting for goblin trails. Just three days ago, these very same goblins hindered the road survey and killed three workers. Our main priority will be any goblin nests we come across. There should be no major problem for a squad of twenty-five—even with greenhorns filling the ranks—we should be fine."
"Silence, you bastards!" Nina shouted, and everyone quieted down instantly.
Herald continued without missing a beat. "I know you think it's easy, but that is only true if you remember your training and stay in formation! Is that understood?"
"Yes!!" half the squad shouted, the other half joining in moments later.
"Remember—panic, and you die. Break rank, and everyone in your line bleeds. Run, and even if the God of Death spares you, I won't." Herald's eyes swept through the squad, briefly turning toward me. "Are you ready?"
"Yes!!"
With that, Herald ended the briefing and moved to talk to Nina and the veterans. I saw a few men sit on the ground, holding their heads, while the majority looked anxious.
I wiped a bead of sweat from my face and felt my boots crunch dried roots and fallen leaves as I marched with the squad. The sun was hot, but the heat wasn't unbearable; I thanked my training, as I was holding up better than most recruits.
For four hours, they saw no signs of goblins—only footprints, which meant the nests were near.
"Let's go," Nina said, pointing at the side of a small hill where they had found a goblin nest. "Form a line. Shields up! The Gods have decided to be kind by giving you easy experience; don't mess this up," she said loudly.
They snapped into position, shields locked together in a semi-circle in front of a gaping hole on the hillside, where darkness permeated from within. As two men moved to smoke the nest with dry twigs and wood, the excitement in my heart grew. This was my first battle after five years in this world. I wasn't fond of fighting, but things were vastly different here than in my previous world.
I watched the kindling light up, smoke pouring into the nest. Through my Focus, I could see that everyone looked nervous.
"Holy Wing Goddess, please bless us and keep us alive," a recruit muttered, quietly chanting a prayer.
The sound of claws scratching and guttural howls ripped through the air. A second later, a goblin burst out of the nest. It was four feet tall, grey-skinned, and ugly, with a bald head and an annoying voice that reminded me of the ceremony. Alone, it looked easy to handle, but more of its kind kept jumping from the darkness, wielding daggers, swords, and spears.
The formation tightened. The goblins rushed them with a loping run, slamming their bodies straight into the shields. Despite the goblins' small size, a few men stepped backward. Weapons scratched against the shields until one recruit replied with a downward swing of his sword through a gap, hacking a goblin down. Another sword sliced a goblin's ear; it shrieked and tried to hop over the shield, but the recruit slammed it back, sending it sprawling.
More goblins threw their weight against the line. When men lost their footing, I saw arrows lodge into goblin skulls, giving the soldiers time to recover. I noticed a female recruit whose shield clashed repeatedly with goblin daggers, but she held on. Her sword mastery showed as her blade moved instinctively, driving into a goblin's ribs. Green ichor oozed out as it fell and was crushed underfoot. Another goblin lunged with a rusty spear, but she held her ground.
A large man swung his axe, cracking a goblin's skull in half, while another finished it with a crunching blow to the neck. More ichor showered over them.
"Don't let them push you back, men! Show them the power of your training!" roared Hobbs from the rear.
They kept at it, guttural screams echoing through the forest. Despite the press of the men, the goblins didn't slow. Every recruit's weapon was slick with green blood. A sudden scream drew my attention to a recruit who had been stabbed in the chest; I saw him slip on the blood. A veteran moved instantly, dodging a spear and kicking the goblin away to save the fallen man.
Minutes felt like hours, but finally, no more goblins emerged. A collective cheer erupted from the camp. Many slumped to the ground, exhausted and indifferent to the blood around them.
Herald's voice rang out: "Fifteen minutes rest, then we move. Check yourselves for serious injuries!"
Our mission reached its peak with the systematic purging of the final three nests. With every breach, the recruits' collective anxiety didn't just fade—it was replaced by a cold, rhythmic efficiency. Coordination improved, and that fatal split-second of hesitation simply vanished from their nerves.
However, it was a female recruit named Tina who locked my focus. Among the squad, she wasn't just performing; she was one of the best. Her real combat utility manifested during the storming of the final burrow.
"Tina, to your right!" a brown-haired recruit shouted, his voice cracking with a high-stress tremor.
She didn't flinch. Through my senses, I tracked the charging goblin—a loping, grey-skinned blur of jagged teeth and blind aggression. Tina didn't panic. She didn't retreat. She dropped her center of gravity and drove her shield forward, meeting the impact with a Lead Wedge transition.
The monster hit the wood with its full weight, but Tina didn't budge; she had anchored her skeleton into the earth exactly as Herald had taught. With a scowl that carried the weight of a veteran, she pivoted on her footwork and unleashed a brutal overhead strike. Steel tore through the goblin's shoulder with a wet, heavy thud. She didn't wait for it to bleed out; she slammed the rim of her shield into its face, sending the creature sprawling into the dirt in a spray of green ichor. One look at her cold, thin smile told me everything I needed to know: the creature was a corpse.
Another goblin was already upon her, lunging through the smoke with a crude bone-dagger.
Tina twisted her body—a smooth, kinetic displacement—as the beast leaped. It landed, turned, and hissed, its tiny eyes searching for an opening. Tina didn't give it one. She delivered a snapping kick to its gut, the force of her boot-sole folding the creature in half even as its dagger grazed her leg armor. Before it could regain its breath, she brought her sword down in a single, vertical arc across its throat. The results of her training had finally shown itself.
She didn't keep watching and turned around. All around her, the chaos of a battle was well displayed.
Shrieks and snarks echoed through the battlefield alongside grunts of the soldiers slicing through the ranks of goblins that kept coming out of their nest. The goblins had dug out two pits for their nests near the river.
Now, flames burned them, forcing the grey goblins out to meet their blades.
I saw the smoke sting her eyes through my focus, but Tina didn't break her rhythm. She charged into the fray, catching a goblin in mid-air as it tried to jump a fellow recruit's back. She grabbed its leg with a calloused hand and smashed it into the ground like a wet sack of grain
More and more of the distasteful creatures came running up at her, but Tina had become so accustomed to them, she didn't appeared overwhelmed at all.
On the contrary, none of the creatures could bypass her; those who tried were met with the edge of her steel before they could even register her movement.
Watching her, I decided it was time to run a Deep Audit on her. It wasn't just about her "grit"—plenty of people have guts when their lives are on the line. It was her tempo. In her, I saw the potential for more than just a loyal soldier; I saw a confidante. I needed a peer who understood the "Physics of War" of the Sanni front—the dirt, the blood, and the raw will of survival.
As I watched her wipe green ichor from her blade with a steady hand, a realization hit me like a physical weight. I finally understood how my parents had survived the till now. They hadn't made it through by being untouchable "Giants" or one-man armies. They survived because they had built a web of trust. They had a network of friends and allies who were forged in the same mud, people who knew exactly which way they would pivot before they even moved.
If I was going to build a "Machine State" in this wilderness. I couldn't do it as a solitary observer neither I couldn't just rely on the "Giants" like Father and Olford. I needed a "Wedge" of my own—people like Tina, who didn't just follow the plan, but lived it.
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