My planet is infested with Goblins

Chapter 95: Troops Surge

Rakhar received the king’s answer six days after his own report had left Eastwatch, and for several moments he simply stared at the number written in the center of the royal order.

Varek stood across the command table waiting for him to speak, while two senior officers remained near the door with the still-travel-stained courier who had brought the message through the Gate Beyond Heaven. Rakhar had expected reinforcements.

He had asked for enough troops to replace occupation forces, strengthen the portal route, and restore the mobility of his original expeditionary army.

Fifty thousand would have been useful. One hundred thousand would have changed the campaign. The king had chosen a different scale entirely.

"One million," Rakhar said.

Varek initially assumed he had misheard. "One million reinforcements?"

"Deployed in waves over one year."

The officers near the door exchanged looks, but Rakhar was already reading the rest. Eastwatch Province was to become Viridian’s principal staging ground in Caldris.

The captured capital would serve as the operational headquarters, while the countryside would house camps, depots, workshops, hospitals, and training grounds large enough to receive the incoming formations.

The first waves would emphasize engineers, garrison troops, logistics personnel, healers, and administrators before heavier combat formations began crossing in greater numbers.

Rakhar lowered the message and looked at the provincial map covering his table.

Eastwatch had been conquered with thirty thousand soldiers.

Now he had to prepare it for a force more than thirty times that size.

"We begin today," he said. "No celebration, no waiting for perfect information. Mark every road capable of carrying heavy wagon traffic. Identify open ground near Eastwatch, the portal route, and the larger captured towns. I want camps planned before the first formations appear."

The province becomes more active almost immediately.

The road between the Gate Beyond Heaven and Eastwatch became the most important artery in Viridian-controlled territory. Engineers who had previously repaired siege equipment were reassigned to bridges, road surfaces, drainage ditches, and staging posts. Weak sections were reinforced with timber and stone.

Water points were established at intervals. Supply depots appeared beside crossroads, guarded by soldiers who had once expected to be marching toward the next province.

Rakhar refused to allow incoming troops to move wherever they wished. Every formation received an assigned route, camp, arrival period, and supply point before crossing.

Wagon traffic traveled separately from dense infantry columns whenever possible. Engineers inspected bridges after large units passed. Patrols cleared civilian carts from military roads during scheduled troop movements and reopened them afterward.

Eastwatch city remained the command center, but Rakhar quickly decided that concentrating the incoming army inside its walls would be madness. Fields outside the capital were surveyed and divided into military zones.

The western approaches became one of the largest camp areas. Another staging ground was established near the road leading toward the Gate. Training fields were marked farther south, while damaged warehouses near the city were repaired and turned into supply depots.

The first wave began arriving several weeks later.

Rakhar traveled to the portal staging area personally.

The Gate Beyond Heaven shimmered at the far end of the fortified compound, and the first ranks emerged in perfect order beneath Viridian standards. Garrison infantry came first, followed by engineers carrying tools, bridging equipment, timber-cutting gear, and construction supplies.

Healers crossed with wagons filled with medicines and bandages. Supply corps followed with carts, pack animals, grain sacks, spare weapons, tents, rope, barrels, and field kitchens.

The flow did not stop after one formation.

More came.

Then more.

By evening, the road from the Gate was filled with soldiers moving toward assigned camps.

Rakhar had commanded thirty thousand during the first expedition, but seventy thousand new personnel arriving as a single organized wave created a different impression entirely.

Their banners seemed endless. Units from distant regions of Viridian marched beside formations whose accents and armor patterns Rakhar barely recognized. Many had never fought humans. Some had never even seen the foreign sky before stepping through the Gate.

Varek watched the columns beside him. "The first expedition looks smaller compared to now."

Rakhar kept his eyes on the road. "Small armies are easier to feed."

That became apparent within days.

The first seventy thousand strained food distribution immediately. Several supply depots had underestimated daily grain usage. Two roads became clogged when infantry and transport wagons arrived simultaneously.

One village temporarily stopped delivering grain after frightened farmers believed the newcomers intended to seize their entire harvest.

Rakhar responded before the problems could spread.

No soldier was permitted to requisition food independently. All grain, livestock, and supplies taken from the province had to pass through designated officers and be recorded. Units that ignored the rule lost their supply priority. Officers who allowed unauthorized seizure were disciplined.

The message spread quickly.

Eastwatch Province was not to be eaten empty.

The first wave was heavily weighted toward exactly the troops Rakhar needed to stabilize the conquest. Garrison infantry replaced veterans guarding bridges, warehouses, roads, and minor settlements. Engineers expanded camps and repaired damaged infrastructure.

Healers enlarged the military hospitals operating near Eastwatch. Administrators began entering captured government offices, working beside selected Caldris clerks who remained under supervision.

For the first time since the expedition began, some soldiers from Rakhar’s original force were relieved from occupation duties.

They returned to organized field formations instead of guarding grain stores.

By the end of the first month, the countryside surrounding Eastwatch no longer resembled recently conquered land. Long rows of tents stretched beyond the walls. Newly built storehouses stood beside roads that had once carried Caldris merchants.

Training fields filled with Viridian infantry practicing formation movement against opponents carrying human-length spears.

Rakhar insisted that every new formation learn the lessons of Eastwatch before moving farther east.

Humans were larger.

Their reach was longer.

Their shield walls were difficult to break from the front.

Narrow gates turned numbers into a disadvantage.

Prepared fortifications could kill enormous numbers of attackers if commanders became impatient.

The veterans of the original expedition became instructors almost by accident. Soldiers who had fought at the eastern gate demonstrated how human spearmen used confined approaches. Engineers explained how siege towers had been protected. Officers described the northern breakthrough and the importance of attacking multiple sectors rather than allowing defenders to concentrate.

When the second wave arrived, Eastwatch was more prepared.

Eighty thousand additional troops crossed through the Gate.

This wave contained a much larger proportion of field infantry, ranged formations, engineers, and siege specialists. Several senior generals came with them, each carrying royal orders placing their formations under Rakhar’s overall command for the eastern campaign.

Rakhar met them inside the former provincial military headquarters.

The oldest of the newcomers examined the captured map and said, "You began all this with thirty thousand?"

"We began with thirty thousand," Rakhar replied. "We do not have thirty thousand anymore."

The general understood the correction immediately.

Rakhar began reorganizing the growing military presence into larger commands. The original expedition remained intact wherever possible, but experienced officers and soldiers were temporarily attached to newly arrived formations as guides and advisers.

Scouts who understood the terrain were distributed among units expected to operate outside Eastwatch. Engineers familiar with Caldris fortifications were assigned to new siege groups.

The second wave brought the reinforcement total to roughly one hundred fifty thousand.

The province had to expand again.

More camps appeared.

Military workshops opened near captured smithies.

Carpenters produced carts, palisades, barracks frames, siege components, and storage platforms. Grain depots were enlarged. Roads toward Eastwatch were repaired repeatedly under the weight of constant traffic.

The human population could no longer pretend the occupation force was temporary.

From the windows of secured government quarters, Governor Marcellan Rusk watched columns passing through the capital day after day. He did not know the exact totals, but he understood enough to recognize what the movement meant. The army that had taken his province had not been the main strength of Viridian.

It had been the beginning.

Rumors spread among the Caldris civilian. Some claimed the goblins possessed an underground kingdom beneath the world.

Others believed the Gate Beyond Heaven created soldiers from nothing. A few insisted there must be another continent filled entirely with goblins.

Rakhar did not care what explanation they preferred.

Fear was manageable as long as it did not become rebellion.

By the beginning of the third month, the staging system had become almost mechanical. Incoming formations received schedules before crossing. Camps knew exactly how many soldiers they would receive. Supply officers knew expected consumption before units arrived.

Empty wagons traveled back toward the Gate while loaded wagons moved forward. Engineering crews inspected the route continuously.

Then word came that the third wave had begun.

This one was larger than either of the first two.

One hundred thousand soldiers.

The crossing lasted so long that the novelty disappeared even among Viridian troops. Infantry emerged by the regiment. Ranged units followed. Siege crews arrived with disassembled machinery and carts of heavy components.

Fresh engineers crossed with tools. New supply formations brought enough wagons to fill entire roads.

The countryside outside Eastwatch transformed again.

From the city walls, camps covered fields in every direction. Thousands of cooking fires appeared each evening. Training formations moved across the open ground during the day. Banners from dozens of Viridian provinces and military districts fluttered over roads that had belonged to Caldris only months earlier.

Rusk saw the third wave from a guarded upper window.

For a long time he said nothing.

A Viridian translator stood nearby, but there was little need for words.

He had watched thirty thousand goblins conquer Eastwatch Province.

Now roughly a quarter million reinforcements had arrived behind them.

The implication was simple enough to understand in any language.

At the end of the fourth month, Rakhar received the complete staging report in the same room where he had first read the king’s order.

Varek placed the numbers on the table.

"First wave, approximately seventy thousand. Second wave, eighty thousand. Third wave, one hundred thousand. Two hundred fifty thousand reinforcements confirmed through the Gate."

Rakhar looked at the figures.

"And the remainder?"

"Seven hundred fifty thousand scheduled across the next eight months. The royal planners still expect the full million within one year."

One of the newly arrived generals stood nearby and glanced toward the map. "We already have enough to begin the next province."

Rakhar looked at him.

"We have enough soldiers to begin many things badly."

The general fell silent.

Rakhar pointed toward the training areas marked around Eastwatch. "They learn first. They organize first. They receive supplies first. Our strength in numbers are useful after our soldiers can move cohesively.."

He had seen what impatience did at one gate.

He would not repeat the lesson with hundreds of thousands of soldiers.

When the meeting ended, Rakhar stepped outside the headquarters and looked across Eastwatch’s surrounding countryside.

Military camps stretched toward the horizon. Supply wagons rolled constantly through guarded intersections. Fresh soldiers drilled beside veterans. Engineers raised new storehouses where farmland met the city roads.

Four months earlier, Viridian had held the province with the remnants of a thirty-thousand-strong expedition.

Now approximately two hundred fifty thousand reinforcements stood inside Eastwatch Province, and the entire land had become a staging ground for armies not yet fully assembled.

The Gate Beyond Heaven continued shining far to the west.

Three waves had crossed.

Seven hundred fifty thousand soldiers still remained to come.

Rakhar watched another column disappear down the road toward its assigned camp and understood that the army surrounding him, immense as it already seemed, represented only the first quarter of what Viridian intended to bring into Caldris.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!