Green Monster Epic

Chapter 279: Hidden Worries (Seeking votes and subscription support!!!)

With the Grand Martial Competition settled, several adventurers dragged the body of the hobgoblin, Kenny, back, along with his belongings.

In this matter, Allen did not stop them, even though their actions were somewhat improper. However, with outsiders present, Allen did not want those who came seeking delicacies to feel apprehensive because of this.

After a period of noisy and lively competition, Green Lake Village returned to its usual tranquility. The tribesmen diligently performed their duties in their respective positions, occasionally chatting about anecdotes from the martial competition during their leisure time.

"Chieftain, these are the account books from the Thornsburg Noodle House for the past few months, brought back by Kour and the others."

Tea Blossom hesitated slightly, taking out a stack of account books during the monthly gathering and pushing them in front of Allen.

Allen frowned, asking with some puzzlement, "What's wrong? Is there something amiss?"

Although Allen was diligent in learning, he naturally did not have the energy or ability to personally manage tedious tasks such as managing the treasury's income and expenditure. Therefore, Allen entrusted the village's accounting management to Tea Blossom, Tony, and others with some basic arithmetic skills, allowing them to manage it. With the shrewd Tea Blossom managing the treasury, it seemed unlikely that anyone could manipulate it.

"According to the accounts, there are no problems with these noodle shops. Income and expenditure are clearly recorded."

"However, the income of one of the four noodle shops has decreased by almost 20% this month, while the other three have not experienced this situation. Perhaps there is some problem there."

Tea Blossom frowned tightly, not wanting to think about things in this way, but after all, this was within her area of responsibility, and she had to bring up these doubts. As for how to deal with the doubts specifically, that was up to Chieftain Allen to decide.

"I reviewed their procurement of supplies and found that the expenditure has also decreased by about 20%. However, upon checking the inventory, I did not find any remaining ingredients corresponding to this 20% reduction."

Dumplings and buns are not difficult to make. Otherwise, Allen would not have been able to research them in the first place. Therefore, over the years, it was not that there were no clever people who imitated Allen's noodle dishes, but in the end, customers still came to Allen's Noodle House because Allen and his people placed the production of the ingredients in the village. Every few months, they would transport a batch of supplies to Thornsburg, preventing the imitation of Allen's Noodle House dishes on the market.

"What do you mean?"

Allen seemed to have thought of something, but he was not very sure, so he asked Tea Blossom.

"I think the manager of that noodle shop is probably dishonest."

Tea Blossom spoke truthfully. In fact, she did not want to see this kind of thing happen.

"…"

Allen's expression turned gloomy, and the surrounding people fell silent, not daring to speak.

Ah Xiao felt uneasy. He had also been a little dishonest in the mine, but he was not so bold as to go too far. After all, besides food and ironware, Green Field Plains now had no other hard currency. The so-called money was not as attractive as a meal of meat in the eyes of Ah Xiao and the others.

The reason for his unease was that every month, when the refined iron and associated gemstones were sent back from the mine he was in charge of, a thief would always appear, specializing in stealing the associated gemstones they discovered during mining.

To this end, Ah Xiao had conducted countless thorough investigations up and down the mine, but he could not catch the thief at all.

Even if he changed the location where the gemstones were hidden or even kept them close to his body, the thief could always succeed. The only thing that made Ah Xiao feel fortunate was that the thief seemed to have something wrong with his brain. He did not steal all the gemstones, but only took the more valuable ones, leaving behind the larger quantity of red pine stones, white crystals, and the like, which were not very valuable.

These gemstones were not widely used in the village. Only Man Duli and his wife would use some when forging equipment, or the two low-level alchemists cultivated in the village would use a little. The rest was mostly sent to Linnaeus in Thornsburg to allow him to complete various druid divine art research.

Therefore, without being able to find the thief, Ah Xiao could only let the people in the mine who knew about this keep their mouths shut, pretending that the mine had never had these gemstones.

"Next time you go to Thornsburg, Mao Luo, you lead the team over and bring back the manager of that shop, along with all the staff."

Allen's tone was icy cold. Although the matter had not been settled, Allen believed that the trickery involved was probably not minor. Sometimes, he really did not understand what the brains of intelligent races were thinking. They had worked so hard to make life better, but they were never satisfied and wanted to live even better.

There was nothing wrong with this in itself, but the mistake was that some people could not satisfy their selfish desires through normal means, but instead began to engage in some underhanded methods in private.

Allen was not an inflexible person. Perhaps he seemed stingy at times, but he never felt that he was stingy when it came to treating those who had contributed to the village.

The village's biggest economic source was the noodle restaurants opened elsewhere. As someone who had run a stall before, Allen knew that the better the noodle restaurant's business, the harder the employees and managers running the restaurant would work. Therefore, although money wasn't very useful in the village, these managers and employees were, after all, in prosperous places like Thornsburg, where money was very important. Allen paid the employees sent from the village according to the salary level of the catering industry in Thornsburg, so that they could live better in Thornsburg.

"Understood."

"Teacher, Grandpa Philo said to ask you to go to Thornsburg when you have time, he wants to talk to you about something."

Kouer, who had been taught a lesson by Allen in the martial arts arena, had now adjusted her mentality. Especially after seeing the battle between the teacher and the hobgoblin adventurer, she felt ashamed of her naive thoughts at the beginning.

When she heard about Thornsburg, Kouer, who was only listening, quickly interjected, lest she forget about it. However, Kouer still forgot another sentence that the old man Philo had instructed, after all, the old man was talking to Erin, a little girl with a somewhat timid personality, and later when Erin relayed it to Kouer, it was a bit garbled.

"...Well, in that case, Mauro, you don't need to go. I will personally lead the team to Thornsburg next time."

"Okay."

"Anything else?"

Allen tapped the table and asked the 7-8 chieftains around.

"...Chieftain, I feel like the wilderness has been a little uneasy recently."

Mauro hesitated. As the head of the hunting team, he often took turns with Black Head and others to lead the team to hunt in the wilderness to obtain meat for the village. Recently, he had found that there seemed to be very few prey around, especially in the lush areas of the Turbid Water Creek, where the number of various gregarious animals had decreased greatly, which was a rare occurrence in the past ten years.

Moreover, there were very few signs of activity by other natives on the borders of the tribe's territory, as if these natives had disappeared without a trace all of a sudden.

Of course, these were just some of Mauro's own observations. If he were to produce actual evidence, he would have no way to do so.

"Oh?"

Allen narrowed his eyes. The storm of the Smashed Bone Village's extermination had not completely subsided. At this time, after hearing Mauro's report, Allen was also very worried about whether there was a real crisis lurking around this wilderness.

"Is there any proof?"

"No."

Mauro shook his head, and the expressions of the other chieftains suddenly became dull, as if saying that Mauro was making a fuss about nothing.

"It's just a feeling."

"The only signs are the reduction of prey around the Turbid Water Creek, and the disappearance of traces of activity by other natives near our territory's borders."

"The way you put it, if you hunt less prey, you should naturally look for the reason from your hunting team. As for the traces of activity of surrounding tribes, don't you think about it, how many tribes still dare to be neighbors around our tribe now?"

A Xiao leaned his fat body back on the wooden chair behind him, nonchalantly trying to make Mauro uncomfortable.

The relationship between these chieftains in the tribe now seemed to be a little subtle, and there were gradually signs of several small cliques between close and distant relationships.

However, what A Xiao said was not unreasonable. Not to mention the matter of prey, just talking about the gradually dwindling tribal groups in the Green Field Plain, this was related to the Green Field Tribe's repeated suppression of other tribes for their own slaves. With such a powerful tribe existing, which surrounding tribe wouldn't want to stay far away from them? Perhaps everyone would move away from their original sites.

"...When your hunting team goes out hunting recently, arrange more manpower and pay more attention to the two aspects mentioned by Mauro, and collect information in this regard."

Although Mauro couldn't produce any proof, according to his personality, he shouldn't falsely report these things. For the sake of safety, Allen still felt it was necessary to strengthen the alert, as caution makes a long voyage.

"Also, your defense team must pay more attention."

"A Xiao, you can't be careless about your mine, do you hear?"

"Got it."

A Xiao replied weakly, which made Allen still a little uneasy, but A Xiao had managed the mine well over the years, and he couldn't be too harsh, so he glared at the other party, and made him quickly cheer up and reply loudly: "Understood."

Because he was worried about the situation in the plains recently, and Kouer and the others had not been back from Thornsburg for long, Allen temporarily gave up the idea of ​​going to Thornsburg and stayed in the village to see the situation in the plains before making a decision.

In the wilderness, two figures ran wildly like the wind. Allen and Flower Snake, who rarely came out, accompanied each other and patrolled the Green Field Plain.

This was the 4th day that the two of them had come out. With the strength of the Green Field Tribe, their territory and influence gradually expanded, and now they had a super large territory with a radius of more than two hundred miles.

Such a large territory would definitely annex many native tribes, and the destination of the annexed tribal population was naturally A Xiao's mine. Anyway, he needed a lot of manpower there, and the consumption was also large, so there was no need to worry about not being able to settle them.

Tribes like the Ivan Tribe, which maintained a good relationship with the Green Field Tribe, were already equivalent to the Green Field Tribe's peripheral forces, and they also moved out one after another, giving up their original territory and settling in relatively more distant and important locations. This not only avoided disputes with the Green Field Tribe, but also helped the Green Field Tribe defend against surrounding enemies and gave them early warnings.

However, what they saw on this trip made Allen and Flower Snake's faces a little gloomy, because as Mauro said, there were indeed few traces of native activity around their territory. At least in the few days that Allen and Flower Snake patrolled, they had not seen any signs of other natives existing.

There will be an 8,000-word chapter tonight, I hope everyone has a happy weekend, and by the way, vote for it?