Eventually, a couple months passed within the Dark Lands of Mir, just a little under three.

  By now, things had settled into a rhythm within the Dark Land of Mir, and this of course included Rick, who was not slacking off in the slightest.

  Firstly, and probably the most annoying part of his day, was paperwork. He always had paperwork to do, and no matter how much paperwork he got through, there would always be more paperwork to come for him. It was quite literally an undefeatable opponent, and one he saw no way to get rid of, because once again, unfortunately for him, it was unavoidable.

  There were not any computers or phones or anything digital within the Dark Lands of Mir, meaning everything of importance was written down and could not be left to just word of mouth. He quite literally received reports on a daily basis about the ongoing events of every single clan in the Dark Land of Mir.

  Of course, for the most part, he did not have to read through these daily reports line by line, word by word, as he had aides and other things in place to ensure he did not have to do that.

  But a summary of these reports was always presented to him, and he would at least have to read through those. But that was only for daily reports. Weekly reports were another matter altogether, as they summarized an entire week for the clan, and Rick read through every single one of those just to make sure there was not anything he missed in his daily summaries.

  Then of course came monthly reports, which were a bit more extensive, and he read through those as well.

  But it was not just reports that made their way onto his desk. Any decision, big or small, could find its way to his desk as well. For the most part, Chiefs and other people in place within the clans would make their own decisions, but every now and then a Chief would feel that whatever decision they had to make should best be made by the King himself.

  Especially since Rick made it clear that he had an open door policy, and if there was ever a problem, they should come to him. He did not want them second guessing whether something was big enough to reach his ears.

  So he took on that burden. As long as they felt the decision was out of their hands, bring it to him, and they did. They trusted him, and he paid for their trust by making sure he thought long and hard about every single decision that was to be made.

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  Recently, one of the big decisions he made was where to build the first arena for Gobbo Ball.

  This decision obviously was not light, considering land was at something of a premium within the Dark Lands of Mir, and it was not like they could extend on the front to build this arena, nor could they extend beyond the borders of Mir.

  So Rick had to make sure to give it real thought, and the answer came to him quicker than he thought it would. There was quite literally plenty of space around his abode since the Goblins quartered off a lot of space for him to have to himself.

  Usually there was not much pushback to anything Rick wanted to do, but in this case there was. The Chiefs and even Commander Meegra felt building anything where that many people were supposed to gather so close to his home was not a good idea.

  But Rick argued back a little bit, saying it would only be Goblins coming that close to his home, and he would never want to be such a King where even his own people would not be allowed to be near him.

  That was enough to get the Goblins to get off his back a little bit, and thus an arena of sorts was being built not too far from Rick’s abode. It would still be a bit of a walk from the arena to where he lived, and there would be plenty of safety measures put in place to ensure that no one had to travel directly next to Rick’s house to get to the arena.

  Of course, Rick did not mind, but this was one thing his Goblins really did not want to give up on, so he compromised with them. Rick was not a tyrant, and if it made his Goblins happy, it made him happy too.

  Though that was only part of his days. He also spent time at the front among his Chiefs. He still had quite a hole to climb out of to once again begin earning Essence, and it would not be in a short time. And the longer he spent not fighting and earning Essence, the longer it would take for him to finally end up in the green again, as the Goblins love to say, and truly begin his journey down the path to the Eighth Tier.

  So paperwork, decision making, and fighting a never ending battle... that was Rick’s life, and what it would be for quite some time.

  Well, quite some time at least until the arena was completed.

  There were already plenty of plans going around the clans to form teams. There were even practices going on, as Rick ensured that at least one person in each clan knew how to play the game, and from there that person would teach others of the clan.

  Which brought them to where they were now. An arena was being built, and the Goblins of all the clans were practicing and putting teams together. Rick did his best not to pay attention too much to any of those practices, as he wanted to be surprised.

  He wanted to see these games and watch them for the first time just like every other Goblin would. Of course he knew how it would be played better than anyone else since he was the one who came up with it, but the type of strategies each clan could come up with, the type of movements, and the type of Goblins they wanted to make their team with… would it be only normal Goblins, would there be a mix of Maglins and TinkGoblins, he had no idea.

  Either way, he was excited about Gobbo Ball.

  They all were.

  Secondly...I published Book 1 in May, and while it isn't anyhwere near a best-seller lol, there are people (outside of royal road) who like it and have been begging me for the rest of the series. I wanted to publish Books 2 and 3 this year but I haven't had the time to work on it like I wanted to and I don't want these time constraints to continue holding me back from publihsing the series in full.

  Without having the pressure of posting a few times a week), I'll be getting Books 3 and 4 fully edited and published as well.

  As always, thank you all for being so supportive of my work and the very first book idea I ever came up with!

  Go Gang Green!