Forests Don't Support Idle Goblins

"Yes, draw a card and put it down," Charles said, standing behind a Furu and instructing him. "Play another card, this one is enough, you have all bird cards on your side."

This domino, with one eye looking at its own cards and the other eye staring at the center of the table, after thinking for a moment, threw out the domino with two green leaves drawn on it.

Then Charles ran behind Furu and gave him instructions on how to play his cards.

After this cycle, finally a Furu Hu card was obtained. He took away the other small stones that Furu had thrown from the table, and all the whiskers turned into a pleasant light pink.

"Let's do one more lap," Charles said, his smile beaming.

When he went to explore the west before, these big round cakes refused to leave the fortress no matter what he said. If he could have a Furu following him, he might have been able to find that powerful druid in advance. At the very least, he could have found a way to communicate with those goblins telepathically and find some way to deal with them.

So after he came back, he kept thinking of ways to activate Fulu's initiative.

But these guys just looked around curiously every day, either bothering the little fairies or staring at Agatha, until he discovered that Furu liked to collect pretty little stones.

He immediately sent Mary an order form, instructing her to quickly purchase a batch of seashells.

These seashells didn't cost much; they were brought from the Torch City coast to Giethoorn by sailors just to earn some money for a light beer. Shire bought them all at once.

Then he gave these white "stones" that reflected iridescent light to Furu, and the big round cakes immediately liked them.

"The bandits are good people, and these stones are beautiful."

"It's beautiful. Is it a gift for me?"

"Don't call him a bandit, call him a hero."

Charles nodded, feigning seriousness, and said that they had made many contributions to the fortress, agreeing to distribute these "stones" to them.

After Furu received the same number of white seashells, he took out several round fur mats. These were specially made by a fur craftsman at Mary's request. They looked like cat mats, with a soft bottom in the middle and a raised edge around the edges. They were just the right size for Furu to lie on.

"There aren't many of these cushions left, but I can sell them to you," Charles said. "You only need a few of the small stones from earlier."

After the customers tried it, some were indeed willing to pay, and not only were all the plush mats sold, but several orders were placed.

Finally, Ciel moved over a few square tables, revealing his "fangs".

"This game tests your intelligence, strategy, and luck," Charles said with a smile, placing some dominoes on the table.

These are tiles he made in imitation of mahjong tiles, except that he replaced the patterns on them with flowers, leaves, birds, and fruits.

Furu was an intelligent and knowledgeable creature, and also full of curiosity about other things. Under Shire's guidance, he soon became addicted to this "Forest Card".

They were having a great time playing around several square tables, while the other Furu floated back and forth watching. Those Furu who weren't at the tables were even more excited than those who were.

After playing "Forest Cards" for several rounds, the white seashell was also thrown onto the table as a wager.

For every winner, there is a loser. Ciel watched as several Furu left the square table, their whiskers turning a deep blue that symbolized sadness.

"By the way, there's something I need to do. I'll be going to explore the east in a few days and might need some assistance. I wonder if you could help me?" Sharl said loudly to Furu. "I can pay Furu 50 white stones."

The Furu huddled together, whispering amongst themselves. Soon, one of the Furu floated over and asked, "Bandit, are you really going to offer 50 white stones?"

"That's right," Charles nodded.

The furoo floated in place, pondering for a moment, "Will there be any danger, bandits?"

"How could that be? I would never let you get into danger. If you do, you run first," Charles said earnestly.

Furu continued to think.

"Here's what we'll do. I'll give you another 10 stones as a fieldwork allowance, making it a total of 60 white stones," Charles said.

"Yes, my hero." Furu finally nodded, tapping his two eye stalks.

"I'll call you when the time comes," Charles said with a smile.

With Furu, we might be able to spot evil creatures in advance, or communicate with ants, thus avoiding getting into danger so easily.

Furthermore, he plans to assign some work to the Fulus in the future, make some small trinkets for them, and even upgrade the white seashells into small gold nuggets and gemstones. This way, there will always be Fulus willing to accept the commission. Just now, this Fulu bought a fur pad and lost all the small stones.

Meanwhile, in preparation for this exploration, he specifically asked Agatha to purchase a large quantity of incandescent glue, so that each person would have four or five pieces and could throw them out if danger arose.

Not only can the Blazing Glue explode, it also sticks to the enemy's body and burns. "What giant spider? Three bottles of Blazing Glue will turn you into a giant roasted spider."

If we can capture and control a few more giant ants, then the project on the Treant side can begin.

…………

Little John stood on the ship's railing, gazing out to sea. The ship was about to sail up the Darren River all the way to Giethoorn.

His observations over the past few days had yielded some results, and the killing of those henchmen from the police department had caused the entire Torch City to be searching for the murderer, so he had to leave first.

"I wonder how the boss and Mary are doing now, especially the Storm Brotherhood. Those guys must be very strong. I hope they haven't found the fortress," Little John muttered to himself.

He knew that Charles had deliberately sent him away this time, not wanting to affect him. Little John was also very grateful to Charles and glad that he had made that choice.

"A goblin can be a good employer too," John said with a smile.

"Excuse me for interrupting you, were you just talking about goblins?" A clear female voice rang out beside her, and a round-faced, red-haired girl with her braids tied up at the back of her head walked over.

"Oh, yes, is there something you need?" Little John asked, a little wary.

"Well, I'm a member of the Church of Earth and Life. We're heading to Giraffe Town and then into the forest. Judging from your attire, you're an adventurer," the girl said, covering her mouth with her hand and yawning. "I wanted to ask if you've seen a high-level druid in Giraffe Town?"

"Druids?" Little John thought for a moment. He had indeed met druids from the church, but they were all very ordinary.

"Ah—" A scream rang out, and John and the girl looked over at the same time. They saw a skeleton soldier dressed in tattered clothes and holding a scimitar climb onto the ship's side and jump in front of a female passenger.

"These undead sailors," the girl sighed, "are disturbing my sleep."

Then, she lunged forward, meowed, and transformed into a lithe black panther, rushing over and swatting the skeleton soldier away with a single paw.

John pulled his greatsword from his back and stared intently at his surroundings. Skeleton soldiers kept climbing onto the ship's side, and soon the observation deck was filled with undead sailors. The passengers took chairs or long poles and retreated into the cabins.

With a "bang," Little John swept two skeleton sailors away, but many skeleton sailors were still climbing back onto the ship. Meanwhile, the girl from the Church of Earth and Life had transformed into a powerful owl-bear, swinging her two front paws and rapidly charging at the skeleton sailors.

"Impressive." Little John looked at the other's casual manner and couldn't help but feel a little envious. Then he cut down a skeleton soldier, and with a thought, his eyes flashed red, and the five undead sailors in front of him stood there dumbfounded.

"Getting more and more skilled." He smiled and swung his longsword, sweeping the undead sailors down.

"Huh." The howling owl bear ran over to him, glanced at Little John, and then continued charging towards the other skeleton soldiers.

Soon, with the cooperation of Little John and the girl, the group of undead sailors was wiped out. The girl transformed back into human form and came to Little John. "I didn't expect your swordsmanship to be so good, and you can even suppress magic."

John himself couldn't explain why he possessed this ability, but he humbly said, "No, I'm no match for you. You could easily handle these undead sailors all by yourself."

"Although I can handle it, they might rush into the cabins and harm the passengers. If you hadn't been there to block the door, there would probably have been injuries or fatalities." The girl gave a polite slight bow, then yawned. "My name is Sophia, what's yours?"

"You can call me Little John." Little John frowned as he looked at the scattered black and gray skeletons on the ground and said, "How come there are things like this around Torch City?"

"Who knows?" Sophia shrugged. "It's probably the work of the officials from the second and third princes' factions. I've dealt with a lot of these undead sailors lately."

"Did the officials do this?" John asked in surprise.

"One side wants to squeeze the other out so they can monopolize the entire harbor, since it's a goldmine here every day." Sophia gazed at the bustling harbor in the distance and shook her head. "Politics is such a hassle."

"Don't they consider the civilians on board?"

"They did consider it," Sophia smiled, kicking a bone at her feet, "so these skeletons won't move once they're broken; it's just intimidation."

John fell silent. He thought the old commoner from Torch City had spoken very succinctly: "Politics and interests are the games of the nobles."

"So you're going to Girth to find a high-level druid?" Little John changed the subject.

"Yes, a renegade druid is hiding in the forest. He's very powerful. If you see him, run far away immediately." Sophia's expression turned serious for the first time. Then she added, "Of course, there's more."

"Something else?" Little John looked at the other person, thinking to himself that he should hurry back and tell his boss that there was a very powerful druid in the forest and that he had to be extremely careful.

"The church discovered that the Lord God had blessed a region of Nightmare Forest, which is impossible. There are no churches or temples dedicated to the God of Earth and Life in the forest," Sophia rubbed her sleepy eyes. "So I'm going to go and see."

"Hehe," Little John chuckled, "anything strange can happen in this forest."