Forests Don't Support Idle Goblins

Charles had imagined the giant ant Broken Tooth had mentioned, thinking it was at most about the size of a small dog, but when he actually saw it, he realized that his imagination was rather limited.

It took him quite a while to get there with them, and when he finally stood to the side, he stared incredulously at the corpse of the ant in front of him.

This ant is about 1.6 meters long. It has a large white head with two big black eyes. Its thorax and six legs are black. Its originally large abdomen has shriveled up and is covered with black and white rings.

"What an amazing forest," Charles remarked, slowly approaching the corpse of an ant lying on the ground.

This ant appears to have been dead for some time; the decay of many joints has caused its body parts to separate, especially its leg segments, which have scattered and lay on the ground.

"How could such a huge ant be killed?" Charles walked to the ant's head, bent his knuckles and tapped it a few times. "It's very hard, like steel."

He rubbed his fingers and went to the corpse's abdomen.

The ant's abdomen looked like a deflated sack with several large holes, clearly punctured by something.

"Hmm, what is that?" Ciel looked down at his feet, where something seemed to be stuck to the soles.

They were several very thin white threads, slightly sticky.

"This thing, could it be spider silk?" He frowned as he looked at the silk threads in his hand.

If this is spider silk, it means that the ant was killed and eaten by a large spider, and the large hole on the abdomen of the corpse was pierced by the spider's chelicerae.

"I feel like I'm in a land of little people." He threw down the silk thread and turned to look at the ant's corpse. "If this area to the east is full of giant ants and giant spiders, it's going to be a bit too dangerous."

"Moreover, these creatures have such hard chitinous shells that ordinary sword attacks should not be very effective."

He waved his hand, signaling his men to disperse, then he himself distanced himself, took out a grenade from his waist, and threw it at the ant corpses.

With a "bang," an explosion rang out, and the scattered ant shells were pushed a distance by the blast wave.

Charles walked over and picked up a leg segment of an ant, turning it over and examining it closely. "The grenade fruit's effect is limited. At this close range, only one shrapnel fragment got stuck in the leg armor; the others just added some scratches."

"Moreover, the throwing distance is limited. Even if you throw it, such a large creature will quickly rush towards you, making it difficult to cause any damage."

He placed the leg segment on the ground, then took out the incandescent glue and threw it directly at the ant. The flames quickly engulfed the ant's remains.

"If it can be burned, then we can deal with it." Charles's eyes lit up; he felt he had found a solution.

"If we throw the blazing glue directly at the giant ants and spiders, it will ignite them. According to their primal instincts, they will struggle and thrash about or turn to run away. In that case, we can still put up a fight." He gradually revealed a smile, and then ordered his men to extinguish the flames in front of them.

"Let's go back first." Charles looked up and scanned the forest in front of him, wondering what else might be hidden in this area.

…………

"A giant ant?" Agatha exclaimed in surprise.

"Yes." Charles nodded, then picked up a leg segment from the ground and placed it on the table. "This is an ant's leg segment."

"Hmm, this smell." Agatha frowned, then curiously leaned closer and, without any disgust, stretched out her pale fingers to touch it.

"With legs this long, how long must the whole body be?" she said with a laugh.

"About 1.6 meters tall." Charles leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and looked at the glowing mushrooms on the ceiling. "And I reckon it was killed by a giant spider."

"With such a huge creature to the east, it doesn't seem like it will be easy to explore." He shook his head slightly.

"Did you see worker ants or soldier ants?" Agatha asked without looking up.

"Worker ants? Soldier ants?"

"Yes, worker ants and soldier ants are different sizes, with soldier ants being a bit larger. Didn't you ever raid anthills when you were a kid?"

"Of course I dug it out. I even poured water in it," Charles said with a smile. Then he thought for a moment, "The ant corpses I saw at the time didn't have very big heads. According to my knowledge of ant classification, they should have been worker ants."

"Such big ants, if we could control them, it would be quite impressive," Agatha said with a smile. "Worker ants are used for digging tunnels and transporting goods, while soldier ants are used for setting off and fighting."

"Hmm? How could you have such an idea?" Charles perked up immediately upon hearing this.

"When I was a child, before I had awakened my bloodline, I watched my elders summon all sorts of astral creatures. I used to fantasize about what I could summon, including giant ants." Agatha stared at the leg armor in front of her, a smile playing on her lips. "And I also read fairy tales where a hero riding a giant ant defeated a dragon and rescued a princess who had been kidnapped."

"Now that you mention it, I do remember. But the version I read was where the giant ant rode the hero, defeated the princess, and rescued the captured dragon," Charles said with a smile.

Agatha was stunned when she heard this, her pupils dilating in shock.

“You’re right,” Charles leaned forward, resting his chin on his hands on the table. “Worker ants can lift heavy loads and help dig tunnels, so I can modify the fortress. At the same time, manpower can be redistributed. If goblins can ride ants to collect resources, the single load limit will be broken, and more can be brought back.”

"The suggestion is good, I'm starting to get interested." He immediately took out his notebook and wrote down "Release relevant intelligence on giant ants and giant spiders to the association."

"And this," Agatha said, picking up the leg section and looking at the thickness of the shell, "I wonder if we can use it?"

"You mean make it into a suit of armor?"

"Yes, it's very hard."

"Yes, I had thought about it before, whether it could be made into armor," Charles nodded and said. "It's just the shell of an ant. If we find an ant nest, we can keep collecting them and then find a way to make full use of the shells."

"But it's a bit troublesome," his excited expression subsided slightly, "ordinary grenade fruits are hard to harm ants. To kill them, you need incandescent glue, but if you throw incandescent glue at the ants, the outer shell will also burn."

"This is a bit troublesome." Agatha put down the leg joint she was holding.

"If all else fails, let Cao Cao rush up, pin the ant down, and then stab it through the neck with a knife," Xia Er suggested a solution. "I checked, and the head and thorax were separated, proving that there was no carapace at the neck junction."

"But I still think live giant ants are more useful than dead ones." Agatha smiled at Charles. "Remember those two metal pieces you gave me before?"

"You mean the runeword: Mind?" Sharl said.

"You can give it a try. Dragon hide is hard to get, but you can try using monster hide first."

"We can get some of the Blue-Eyed Dragon's skin back. The tanner will have some left over. I'll go tell Mary right away." Charles took the notebook, got up, and strode towards the teleportation chamber.

…………

"Southern defense deployment map," Charles stared at the relief on the wall, "This complex of buildings in the east is quite large, about the same size as the fortress area, but I don't know how much space is underground."

He sent the intelligence report to Mary a few days ago and has just received her reply.

"No one has provided any sighting reports about giant ants and giant spiders for several days in a row?" Charles looked at the intelligence sheet in his hand. "The Adventurers' Guild, however, has provided a rumor."

"Several years ago, someone was attacked by two giant spiders, resulting in casualties. The attackers were a complete adventurer team, and only one person survived." He put down the intelligence report. "Two giant spiders can take on a five-person adventurer team."

Why are there two giant spiders?

Charles frowned and said that he had previously gone to the Mother Tree, but the Mother Tree told him that her abilities were not enough to detect that far, and the Forest Whispers had never told her anything about it.

"We need to expand our forces to 300 before we can hear this so-called forest whisper." Sharl put his hands behind his back and walked out of the portal. "The fortress renovations can wait a bit longer, but the underground area with the Treant race needs to start now."

Previously, the underground stone chamber where the Druids played with mushrooms was a bit far from the Treant population. If the goblins were to live in the underground stone chamber, they would need to walk to it on the surface every day to do their work, which would undoubtedly be risky.

There aren't enough people right now, so for the time being, Xia can only deploy a small number of herb gatherers there. If they encounter adventurers, it'll probably be a case of "Please keep my ears safe, and don't bother coming back."

Not to mention the time it would take to harvest the tree fruit; with the goblin's small size, it's hard to imagine how long it would take to carry it.

"Not only do we need to dig an underground tunnel directly to the Tree People's area, but we also need ants to transport goods." Shire was increasingly realizing the importance of the eastern region.

"Sharl," Agatha called out as she approached the goblin chieftain, who was deep in thought, "The runeword is finished. Want to try it out?"

"Is it done?" Charles immediately replied, "Let's go try it out."

They left the fortress and came into the forest, where two large deer, bound with ropes, were left beside a large tree; this was what the herd would eat that day.

Agatha took out several leather rings, each less than 10 centimeters wide, and each engraved with runes.

"Try this first," she said, handing two strips to Charles. "These are made of ordinary sheepskin."

Charles took it in his hand, then called over Grass, who was carrying wood in the distance, and asked him to hold down the frightened Great Deer.

He quickly put the leather ring on the deer's head and secured it. Agatha thoughtfully added buckles and holes to it, just like a belt.

"Alright, Cao Cao, you can let go now." He fastened the other leather ring to his head, looked at the struggling stag on the ground, and tried to say, "Quiet, I won't hurt you."

The great elk was still wailing and struggling, its nostrils flared as it strained to look around, as if searching for something.

Charles continued, "It's me. I'm in front of you, and I won't hurt you."

He crouched down, his eyes fixed on the great elk.

Gradually, the deer seemed to realize that the goblin in front of it was talking to it, and the intensity of its struggles began to decrease.

"It seems to be working," Charles said to Agatha with a smile as he turned around.

"Do you feel anything with this leather ring?" Agatha kept staring at the runic leather ring on Ciel's head, observing its changes.

"It's a little warm, just a little." Charles touched the leather ring, then continued trying to communicate with the stag. "You're safe, I'll untie it for you."

He then took out his knife and approached the stag, but as Charles got closer, the stag clearly began to tremble and became somewhat resistant.

"It must be the animal's instinct; it's afraid," Charles deduced. He then cut the ropes with a single stroke, and the great deer lay on the ground, remaining motionless for a few seconds before immediately trying to stand up.

"Don't be afraid, I won't hurt you." Ciel put away his knife and reached out to try to stroke the deer that had regained its freedom.

Just as he was about to touch it, "snap," the leather ring on the deer's head suddenly broke. Then Charles kept talking, trying to calm the stag, but to no avail. The stag panicked and ran away.

Agatha walked over and picked up the leather ring from the ground, and began to examine it. "Sure enough, the sheepskin couldn't withstand it."

"Here," she handed over two more leather rings, "these are made from the skin of a blue-eyed dragon snake."

When Charles took it in his hand, he felt it and found that it was indeed much thicker, almost three times the thickness of the sheepskin, and also much sturdier.

He used the same method on the remaining elk, and soon the elk was able to stand quietly to the side, though it still dared not approach the grass beside it.

"It's a success. This leather ring doesn't feel hot at all when worn," Charles said. "That means if you feel anything unusual, you can replace it beforehand."

"Theoretically, you could say that," Agatha nodded, then held out her hand. "Let me see if it can be improved further."

"Wait a minute." Charles quickly removed the leather ring from the deer's head, then, completely ignoring the panicked prey, rushed excitedly towards the fortress.

He soon arrived at the underground river platform, and then Charles rang the small bronze bell, and Rupus sprang out.

"Come here, we have a new toy." Ciel chuckled and hugged the astral hound's neck.

He skillfully put the leather ring on Rupus's head, then tried to soothe the still-uncomfortable big dog, "Don't move, I am the dog king, your leader."

Lupus tilted his head, looking at the goblin in front of him, clearly still not understanding the situation.

"I'll provide you with food. I'm your leader, and you're my subordinate." Charles tried his best to maintain a dignified expression and continued to intensify his persuasiveness.

Rupert was still somewhat confused.

Charles thought for a moment, then ran to the side, put the entrails that the white-haired creatures had cleaned into an iron basin, and presented it to Lupus. "I am the Dog King, I'm giving you this to eat."

Lupus stared at Charles, then slowly approached the iron basin and tried to pick up the entrails.

Charles banged on the iron basin, "I am your leader," and Lupus shrank back.

After several attempts, he finally noticed a change in the "Having Subordinates" section of his panel.

"That was really hard-won." Charles was overjoyed, and then bestowed the [Lewdness] attribute upon Lupus.

At the same time, Agatha said in surprise, "Where did that guy go? Where did he go?"