Burger was the answer. Not my feasting on the flesh of the goblins minced into patties—I didn't think I could ever hunger for the flesh of a humanoid outside of predation—no, what I meant was that I enjoyed a burger-inspired lunch with the small army of goblins.
It was quite adorable feasting with them and seeing their thrilled and awed expressions when I healed them, cleaned them, clothed them in swagger, and finally fed them—they were more amazed by that last one. These folks were starved of tasty food and just food in general.
They were almost emaciated, ribs showing over their disgustingly round stomachs. It worried me and saddened me that they were starving in this world of pure miracles. How was that possible?
The answer was obvious: not everyone was as inspired as I. People couldn't just manipulate matter. Hell, the contractor's personality betrayed to me that he was incapable of this level of imagination. No, I meant that literally. The kind of imagination and creativity I was exercising registered as eldritch to Satoru's senses.
It was like… he was a limited human, locked to a certain way of thinking. Like, if you said magic, he'd respond fireball! If you said power, he'd answer strength! Witchcraft? His answer would be female mage.
It was as if he was someone who rationalized the metaphysical through a DnD lens. He didn't even comprehend the difference between magic and skills beyond one being much easier to use. That… wasn't the difference. The difference was the absence of cause to the effect. It was an inexplicable effect.
Even Aspectual Magic worked on this same logic.
But anyway, that was the issue. Inspiration. These people were uninspired. Great Sage was uninspired despite its unarguable abilities. I was starting to think that the programmer and my subsequent formation was an error in the system. Maybe he was supposed to reincarnate somewhere else, like a place similar to those pirate movies with so much eldritch nonsense.
Plus, he was Caribbean.
No, he'd have killed himself from all the lack of hygiene. That guy was a seriously disturbed individual. It was a shame that he died from some rogue object hitting him on the temple. In my suspicion, I believed it to be a bird.
But back to the goblins. They were friendly and kind of stupid. They even called me great one, and I was promised to be shown to their home. That was nice and all, but I was still concerned for them. They were obviously just weak creatures in the middle of a dangerous forest.
I even asked how they managed to survive this long. The answer was, they didn't. Goblins, at least like the stereotypes, matured rapidly. They also had a short life span, but they were blessed with… fertility. Like, they had twins on average.
Though, it was a bit weird listening to creatures that looked like tweens talking about sex. The only saving grace was that they weren't depraved or innocently clueless—there was smarts in those simple brains.
So, they died a lot but at the same time, they reproduced quickly. That was… grim. Why was this world of lovable goblins so grim?
"…I really appreciate the lore, cute round-faced goblin," I said, petting the goblin who'd fallen on the head. He was the oddest of the bunch—round-faced and round-eyed and round-nosed, with the theme being that all his facial features were a bit bigger and round, and he only had a small patch of amethyst hair on his head.
"…I'm nice to… help, Great One," he said with a wide smile before bowing. I returned the smile and shooed him away with a stick of candy. I felt like I was running a preschool of some sort.
And that goblin was my favorite student. I chuckled, looking at the roundy goblin again as he showed his pals the candy.
He actually looked a bit like a wannabe delinquent, except he was chill and a bit relatable. Plus he was wearing drip—none of that loincloth here; we wear swagger.
Well, it wasn't really a modern style, just something adjacent. For the males, which was a majority of the dozen or so goblins, I made a similar grey shirt, a cotton jacket with some fur on the neck, waist, and sleeves. A baggy pair of pants, elastic and holding around the hips and legs, and a simple pair of black leather shoes.
I also gave them underwear.
The pair of female goblins were similar, though theirs were less baggy, plus I added some ladybug pins in their hair—I didn't know what girls liked. Still, they were excited, and I was… less guilty? Not quite.
See, it turned out the goblins started having problems after I had swallowed Veldora. The forest started acting up around that time. So, in a way, this was my fault, and I wanted to at least reinstate the ecosystem to its previous functionality, or better still, a more peaceful state—it wasn't like I had somewhere to be.
And so, for the moment, I had tasked myself with aiding these adorable little creatures. Plus, after analyzing them, I came to realize that they had an evolutionary pathway under the sprite species. These goblins were faerie by descent. They were similar to my… elvish form, though mine lacked an evolutionary path.
Though my slime form had a lot of evolutionary pathways. Unfortunately, all of them were pretty… meh. I wouldn't be evolving much other than just increasing the pool of my reserves and… something about spirituality and ability rank up—sounded like a lot of nonsense filler.
Anyway, the goblins could turn into hobgoblins or goblinas—the person in charge of the naming sense of this world was lazy. All they needed was a growth in their reserves.
That, I found, was more difficult to achieve. See, goblins were kind of trash rank in terms of being magical beings. They didn't know anything or were individually capable of manipulating their magicules.
Now, luckily, I could manipulate their souls for them via a naming ritual. Issue: naming was serious business, like it was the giving away of a person's potential.
Personally, I didn't give a damn about potential. So long as I had Predation, I could accelerate the growth of my soul. However, Great Sage was connected to that soul—it was occupying the majority of that soul, even—thus, I couldn't go losing my potential because I could lose my primary Unique Skill and in doing that, lose a way to breaking Veldora out of that Imprisonment Barrier.
But that was where the other important revelation came in. I was, on a spiritual level, bonded to an Origin Dragon, like a parasite. Turns out, no, the sharing a last name with an individual wasn't normal—that was a primary blessing.
What all this meant was that, so long as Veldora Tempest was alive, I couldn't lose my soul's significance. Every time I did, Veldora's own potential would replenish it, and since Veldora's own potential was infinite, I basically had nothing to worry about.
So, yes, I could manipulate these goblins and evolve them. The only issue was names, and even after so much time had passed, I kept coming up with stupid, stereotypical ones. I was actually just frustrated at this point.
Another issue was the number of the goblins. While I didn't need to worry about potential, I definitely needed to worry about my magicules—I didn't have enough reserves to name them all at once, and I definitely didn't want to enter sleep mode for many days.
So, we were going to do it by schedule. That would also help with teaching them the basics of humanhood.
Yes, I was definitely going to teach them of modernity. This was mainly because the creatures they would evolve into were kind of just one-to-one comparisons to humans.
Same average intelligence. Same growth rate. Same randomness of exceptionalism. Same weaknesses. Same lifespan. Same fertility. Same everything except with sharper greenish skin and a core inside their bodies.
After a bit of basking in the comfortable chair and determining that, no, a bus wasn't a good idea as a transporting vessel because it was out of theme, I finally decided to call the goblins to gather. It was time to name them.
"Okay, ladies and gents, I've determined with no small amount of contemplation that all of you are deserving of names and growth," I announced to them, having arranged them in a neat line—Imaginary Projection was a chill skill. I was already building up a spell from it and Accelerated Simulation. Soon, I was going to be a certain black-haired big brother with red eyes.
But I digressed.
The goblins cheered and danced as, while my words were not entirely understandable to them, I was reinforcing them with projected comprehension. This was how I was going to accelerate their learning; I called the spell Persona Gifting.
The basic data package was the understanding of languages, arithmetic, writing, commonality, and comprehension of empathy and agency—none of that rude nonsense here; we treat each other with all due fairness.
The secondary data package was the basic knowledge of subjects and skills like cooking, gardening, bathing, house chores, decent manners, acts of fun—individualistic and communal—economy, self-awareness, priorities, etiquette, and basic intrigue.
The tertiary data package would be a profession or three.
See, my thinking was that these goblins would be grown to the equivalent of their incarnation in human years. So as these ones would likely be seven to ten, there was need to suspect that they would at least be young adults in equivalent.
"…Great One… is… nice heart," they said with so much awe and appreciation it caused me to blush uncontrollably.
Yeah, I wasn't used to or entirely comfortable with honest praise. I'd need to work on that, or at least be able to accept it graciously. I was thinking of mimicking Veldora's attitude, but that guy was a dragon. And although he was generous, he was also prideful.
"Okay," I said, calming and sitting properly. "I will also be accelerating the metamorphosis process with temporal tempering."
The first one was the roundy goblin; I smiled and put my hand over his head. "You shall hence be known as… Gobta." A swell of magicules rushed into him, mutating his soul and reserves both.
He glowed a little, and… I noticed that aside from the tiniest of changes, his representation of self on his soul print was unchanged. Oh, he'd still be taller, muscular, and all that stuff, but he'd also be round-faced.
"You really are satisfied with yourself, aren't you, Gobta?" I said as I invoked True Self upon him immediately after uploading the primary and secondary data packages into his mind.
In a blink, Gobta just… became a fully realized hobgoblin.
"Woah!" he exclaimed with even wider eyes. "Did I mistake a blink for a nap?" Funny guy, ain't ya?
I chuckled and shook my head. "Move over to the side so that the others might get their turn, Gobta."
He obliged with great enthusiasm, not forgetting to praise me and thank me and call me… Lord Rimuru. That was… well, I didn't dislike it—it was leagues better than Great One.
I did the others as well—Rita, Benaru, Itachi, and such. It wasn't until after the fifth goblin that I discovered something interesting. While I couldn't influence their persona, strength, or anything significant, I could still mold their appearance within the boundaries given.
This was entirely possible because the goblins didn't have an idealized version of themselves.
Well, they did try to look like me—thus the large ears, longer hair, and a bit of symmetry in their features. But I added some beautification. I felt a bit like I was character creating.
Still, we did manage to get them all done, and I was immensely happy that they were now realized and capable of communication. They were also matured and thrilled at their new evolution, enthusiastic to present themselves to the rest of their tribe, and that was where we were going next.
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Extra chapters on my Pa-treon/BoombaTheSaint. I'll be taking this opportunity to bring Echoes of the Seven up to date. Bye