My planet is infested with Goblins

Chapter 92: One Down, Four Remaining

Noah kept his consciousness above Eastwatch for a while after the fighting ended, watching the city change from a battlefield into an occupied capital.

Viridian patrols moved through the streets in organized groups. Engineers remained at the northern and southern gates, checking the mechanisms and assigning guards.

Prisoners were gathered in courtyards under watch while wounded soldiers, both goblin and human, were carried toward improvised treatment areas. The government hall still bore the marks of the final battle, but the Viridian banner above it was already becoming the clearest sign of who controlled the city now.

Noah could still sense Rakhar moving through the captured administrative district, issuing orders without waiting for divine instruction. The Grand Marshal had transitioned naturally from conquest to occupation, and Noah saw no reason to interfere.

That independence pleased him more than the banner itself. Eastwatch had not fallen because Noah descended from above and destroyed its defenses. The city had fallen because Rakhar recognized when the original eastern assault had become wasteful, expanded the battle across the other walls, exploited the northern breakthrough, opened the city from within, and kept increasing pressure until Caldris could no longer maintain a coherent defense.

Even after victory, the goblins were securing supplies, preserving records, organizing prisoners, and controlling civilians without Noah needing to tell them how to perform every task. The Viridian Empire was behaving like a functioning civilization rather than an army waiting for its god to make every decision.

Satisfied that the city would not collapse into immediate disorder, Noah slowly allowed his attention to expand beyond Eastwatch.

The sensation was strange after concentrating so intensely on one campaign for so long. The streets below seemed to shrink. The walls became another shape within the wider province, then the province itself became only one portion of the eastern region of Caldris.

Noah became aware again of the other divine consciousnesses suspended above distant battlefields. The young planetary lords participating in the mission were still connected to their followers, each observing a separate war unfolding below them.

Their instructors remained nearby as well, watching without directly interfering, while Commander Garran Aelwyn’s presence lingered over the larger operation like a fixed point around which the students moved.

Most of them had spent so long focused on their own armies that little attention had been given to the others. The invasion had quickly become too demanding for casual observation.

When a student’s followers were crossing a river under fire or preparing to assault a fortified city, there was little reason to waste concentration watching someone else’s front. Now, however, several campaigns had reached temporary pauses. Armies were reorganizing, siege preparations were being completed, and wounded troops were being moved. That brief reduction in pressure created curiosity with the progress of their competitors.

One of the young gods extended his consciousness toward a neighboring front first. Others followed almost immediately, and Noah sensed the shift as several divine perceptions overlapped over the same stretch of Caldris.

The army below had done well. Several towns were already occupied, and its banners stood over villages along a major road. Caldris patrols had been driven away, and supply wagons moved through captured territory with reasonable security.

Farther ahead, however, a fortified city still blocked the advance. The attacking army had begun constructing siege positions outside the walls, but the defenders were clearly prepared. Soldiers crowded the battlements. Defensive engines had been positioned on towers. Laborers reinforced gates and moved supplies inward.

The student responsible for the front clearly took pride in what his followers had accomplished.

Another young god shifted attention toward a different campaign. There the siege had already begun. Stones flew between walls and siege lines. Assault troops gathered behind shields while defenders fired from above. Bodies lay near one section of the wall where an earlier attack had failed. The invading civilization looked strong and disciplined, but the city remained firmly in Caldris hands.

"That wall is thicker than it looked from the briefing," one student commented through the shared divine space.

Another replied that the defenders would eventually break if enough pressure was maintained.

Noah listened without joining the discussion.

Their consciousness shifted again.

The third front showed the aftermath of an open battle. A Caldris field army had clearly been defeated. Bodies and abandoned equipment covered the ground while the victorious force reorganized nearby. Yet the strategic situation remained unfinished.

Surviving humans had retreated toward fortified settlements, and the victorious army now faced the harder problem of transforming battlefield success into territorial control.

The comparisons started naturally after that.

One student spoke about the physical strength of his starting race. Another pointed toward the armor his civilization had developed. Someone else mentioned magical aptitude and argued that a species naturally capable of using mana had an obvious advantage once cities became serious obstacles.

The conversation gradually moved toward civilizations considered less suited to warfare.

Someone eventually remembered Noah.

"What about the goblins?"

The question was casual enough that several others immediately turned their attention toward him.

Another student gave a faint laugh. "He probably has numerous soldiers, at least."

"Numbers are advantageous against villages." someone else said. "Against fortified forts, that is another matter."

Noah remained silent.

The assumptions were not surprising. Most of them had seen goblins only through broad racial descriptions or primitive examples.

Smaller bodies, shorter reach, short lifespans, and a reputation for disorder made them easy to underestimate. Even a large goblin population could be dismissed as a swarm until it demonstrated something more.

One of the students extended his consciousness toward Noah’s assigned eastern region.

Several others followed.

At first, they searched near the frontier, apparently expecting to find Noah’s army still pushing through the outer settlements. Instead, what they noticed first was the road network.

Viridian patrols occupied major routes well inside Eastwatch Province. Small garrisons controlled bridges, crossings, mills, and administrative settlements. Supply wagons moved between occupied villages with little sign of Caldris interference. Farms remained active. Grain stores were guarded. The province did not look like territory being raided by a passing army.

It looked occupied.

The students’ attention sharpened.

Their consciousness spread across the countryside.

Several fortified settlements still stood under Caldris banners, but those cities were isolated. Viridian troops controlled the roads around them. The surrounding farmland and villages no longer answered to the defenders inside. No relieving army approached. The strongholds had become islands inside territory that had already changed hands.

"That is farther than I expected," one student admitted.

Another shifted his perception toward the route leading deeper into the province.

They found the old battlefield.

The dead had largely been recovered, but the shape of the engagement remained visible in damaged ground, abandoned equipment, and burial areas. It was immediately obvious that a substantial force had fought there. This had not been a village skirmish or an attack against untrained militia.

A professional Caldris field army had fought Noah’s goblins and lost.

The students followed the main Viridian routes from there.

Eastwatch appeared beneath them.

For several moments, nobody spoke.

The city walls were unmistakable. So were the siege towers still pressed against sections of them. Catapult positions remained outside. Ballistas and damaged siege equipment were being recovered.

The eastern gate was visibly shattered, its approach marked by the remains of some of the hardest fighting of the siege.

But there was no active siege.

Viridian banners flew above the walls.

The northern gate stood under goblin guard.

The southern entrance was controlled as well.

Inside the city, goblin patrols moved through the streets in organized formations. Caldris prisoners sat beneath guard in designated areas. Supply teams moved through the government district. Viridian soldiers occupied towers and intersections rather than rampaging randomly through civilian neighborhoods.

One of the students finally asked, "Is that Eastwatch?"

Another responded more slowly. "It has to be."

A third extended his consciousness directly toward the center of the city, perhaps expecting to discover that the goblins controlled only the outer districts.

The Viridian banner above the government hall answered that question.

Governor Marcellan Rusk remained alive inside a secured administrative building, watched by goblin guards. The remains of the provincial command structure were scattered throughout the captured compound. General Halvern was dead. The human government that had controlled Eastwatch Province had ceased functioning independently.

The silence among the students deepened.

Someone shifted attention across the regional boundaries as if checking whether they had misunderstood the scale of what they were seeing. The eastern region consisted of five provinces. Eastwatch Province was only the first. Beyond its borders, four other provinces still remained under Caldris control. Their cities stood intact. Their officials still governed. Their armies had not yet faced Viridian.

Noah had not conquered the entire east.

He had conquered one province.

Most of the other students were still trying to capture their first major city. Noah’s army had already completed the entire process of provincial conquest. The countryside had been occupied. A counteroffensive had been destroyed. Fortified cities had been isolated. The provincial capital had fallen. The governor had been captured. Occupation had begun.

One student focused more carefully on the goblin formations inside Eastwatch.

"They are organized."

The comment sounded almost unnecessary after what they were seeing, but it revealed how deeply their assumptions had changed.

Viridian infantry moved in defined units. Crossbowmen occupied specific positions. Engineers repaired captured defenses. Supply formations transported equipment. Officers carried instructions through the city. No great mass of goblins wandered without purpose.

Another student shifted toward the siege equipment outside the walls.

"Siege towers. Catapults. Ballistas."

"And rams," another added after noticing the wreckage near the eastern gate.

The disbelief was becoming harder to hide.

Someone finally turned back toward Noah. "Did you command the siege yourself?"

Noah answered simply. "No."

The student hesitated. "You mean you gave the orders through your followers?"

"Rakhar commanded the campaign."

Several divine perceptions immediately returned to the Grand Marshal below.

Rakhar was standing over a captured provincial map with several officers, already examining roads beyond Eastwatch Province while other goblins handled the occupation around him.

"You let a goblin command all of that?" someone asked.

"He is the Grand Marshal of the Viridian Empire," Noah replied.

The instructors had been quiet until then.

One finally spoke. "That is the more important part."

The students turned toward him.

"Population can be increased. Weapons can be copied. Even siege engines can eventually be reproduced. Producing commanders, officers, logistics systems, engineers, and soldiers capable of operating without constant divine correction is a different stage of civilizational development."

Garran said nothing at first, but Noah could sense his attention lingering over Eastwatch far longer than before. Garran had known Noah used the time acceleration chamber. He had known Noah’s starting race was goblins. What he had not known was what three thousand years had actually produced.

Now he could see it directly.

Noah allowed the others to speculate.

Some attributed the result entirely to time acceleration. Others wondered whether Noah had somehow obtained unusually favorable resources. A few simply stared at the city as if trying to reconcile what they saw with everything they believed about goblins.

Noah offered them nothing more.

None of them needed to know about One Percent Genius.

His consciousness drifted beyond Eastwatch Province while the others continued examining the occupied capital. Four provinces stretched farther into the eastern region, each with its own cities, armies, rulers, roads, and defenses. Those governments would eventually hear what had happened here. They would have time to prepare in ways Eastwatch had not.

The first province had fallen.

The campaign was nowhere near finished.

Behind Noah’s consciousness, Viridian banners covered Eastwatch Province. Ahead of him, four untouched provinces remained under Caldris control, and while the other young gods were still staring at what his goblins had already accomplished, Noah was already looking toward what they would have to conquer next.

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