Forests Don't Support Idle Goblins

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The three kingdoms on the continent frequently clash, though not to the point of war. However, Sharl knows that the most recent conflict was a naval clash between Fran and Savoy. Fran accused Savoy of harboring pirates, resulting in their country's cargo ships being plundered multiple times, while Savoy vehemently denied the accusations.

Two years ago, a naval patrol from both sides had a head-on clash in the near sea.

If this is the case, Herbert's statement that "we are an enemy country" makes sense.

However, Charles believes that in the past few hundred years, whenever a country has undergone a major upheaval, the surrounding forces will try their best to seize the benefits. For example, the military fortress "The Great Nest" where the Duke of the North is stationed was originally just a military camp to defend against the invasion of the demon army. However, after the Dark Portal was closed, the Kingdom of Argon in the north began to stir and prepared to take advantage of the military weakness caused by the demon war to invade the Kingdom of Fran, which directly led to the establishment of "The Great Nest".

The "Hive" is now a massive defensive fortress with multiple types of troops and a huge area.

Charles finally agreed to the vampire count's proposal to trade 30 gold coins to the werewolf count named Gene, exchanging them all for "counterfeit coins" minted by Gene. However, the silver coins of the Kingdom of Fran did not have serial numbers, so there was no way to distinguish between the real and fake ones.

As for how he would send the gold coins there and retrieve the silver coins, Charles said that they didn't need to worry about it and that he would have a way. This aroused Herbert's interest, because transporting 30 gold coins to a specific city in Savoy without anyone noticing was harder than climbing to heaven.

Unfortunately, Herbert asked many times, even offering to waive the referral fee, but still couldn't get an answer from Charles. In the end, he had no choice but to give up.

According to the information Charles obtained from Herbert, if the speculation is successful, he will earn nearly a quarter of the difference, which is almost 70,000 gold coins. After deducting various fees, he will still have an income of 60,000.

This gave Charles a glimmer of hope. "I wonder if I'll still be able to get low-interest loans from them after this is all over."

This way of making money is much faster than selling Red Bull, but the first payment will be settled in about a month. "But it's fine, after all, rebuilding the City of Ten Thousand Races requires a lot of money, so this time we can consider it the Chamber of Commerce Alliance's contribution to this project."

Charles smiled and closed the notebook in front of him. The forest had whispered that "they're here again," but now it seemed that it wasn't all bad news. Look, there were people who had come to offer money.

"Miss Mary," Charles stood up, looking at Mary who had returned after seeing off Mr. Herbert, "this is a list of items that need to be ordered recently, and I have deliberately increased the quantity on it."

Mary took the order and glanced at it briefly. "Boss, isn't the quantity of these parts a bit too large?"

"No, not really. After all, the banks are eager for us to increase our trade volume right now," Charles said with a smile.

"I understand," Mary nodded, then continued, "There's been news about the textile workshop you asked me to apply for. The town hall has approved it. When do we start?"

"You find a piece of land. We'll build this workshop on the outskirts of Giethoorn. There's only one requirement," Charles held up a finger, "that payment be made in full and that we don't leave any evidence against the land."

Mary nodded vigorously, her face flushed with excitement. This was the first time she had done something so big. Although she had dealt with many craftsmen before, this was the first time she had overseen the establishment of a large workshop.

Charles looked at his "capable assistant," who was overjoyed yet maintained a reserved demeanor. He couldn't help but smile. Who would have thought that this young girl, who always had a book in her hand, was just the daughter of an ordinary village blacksmith? A little over a month ago, she had proposed to elope with a poor boy. "Keep up the good work. Don't be afraid of making mistakes. When Little John comes back, I'll make him work under your command."

"Yes, boss," Mary bowed deeply, "I will definitely make good use of Jack."

Charles knew that Jack was Little John's nickname. "Yeah, use him hard."

…………

When Charles returned to the fortress, he found Nine Fingers anxiously waiting for him.

"Someone's come to persuade us to surrender?" Charles was stunned when he heard his subordinate's words. "What are these goblins thinking, coming to persuade us to surrender?"

"Yes, Chief, those guys are waiting right outside the centaur village. Do you want to see them?"

"I'll meet him," Charles nodded immediately after thinking for a few seconds. "Such an interesting opponent definitely deserves to be met."

He didn't know what the other party was thinking, or where they got the courage to take the initiative to persuade him to surrender, but this might be a good opportunity to extract information. "Whatever, maybe it's the feathered serpent that gave them the courage."

After a while, Charles led a few goblins to the goblin "persuader" who was sitting on the ground catching insects with each other, looking bored.

Calling them envoys of surrender is an understatement. These goblins were dressed in tattered clothes and shivered in the cold winter wind. Only two of them had fur items, which looked like skins of rats.

Meanwhile, Charles and his men, dressed in warm clothes, stood before them, causing the goblins to instinctively shrink back.

"You want my tribe to surrender?" Sharl looked at the goblins opposite him with great interest. These guys were very close together, probably trying to huddle together for warmth, but their greedy eyes never left the clothes they were wearing.

A goblin was pushed forward, his body trembling slightly, and he said loudly, "Yes, we are here on the orders of our commander to demand that you wild goblins who blaspheme Quetzalcoatl surrender immediately. If you—" he sneezed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand, "you will surely be killed."

Charles listened to the other party's "surrender speech" with a smile. He glanced at his men, whose eyes all showed disdain.

"What if I still refuse?" Charles said, while secretly casting two group curse spells on himself.

"The result is that you will be..." The envoy began to count on his fingers, but probably because there were too many goblins, he couldn't figure it out after several attempts, so he simply stopped counting. "You will be attacked by many, many goblins, and death will be all that awaits you."

A sinister voice drifted up behind him: "And an iron pot."

"Death and iron pots?" Charles shook his head slightly. He was speechless at these greedy and foolish creatures. "You should know that my tribe also has quite a few goblins, so you alone won't be able to defeat them so easily."

"We've come in large numbers," the envoy said, trembling. If you didn't listen to what he said, and just looked at him, no one would believe he was trying to persuade them to surrender; rather, it would seem like he was surrendering. "Achoo! And we've brought all the giant lizards in the kingdom with us."

"All the monitor lizards," Charles asked, feigning nonchalance, "how many are there?"

The goblins immediately huddled together and began to seriously count the number. After a dozen seconds, the envoy said somewhat smugly, "Five burrows. Are you scared now?"

Five burrows... Xia Er calculated in his mind, "That's more than 100, which is quite a lot."

More than half a month ago, he used the runeword Winter to take down more than twenty petrified lizards in one go. Now, without the help of the runeword, it will be quite difficult to deal with so many lizards.

"If you want to surrender, give me your clothes first." Upon hearing Charles's words, the envoy immediately straightened his back and even took the initiative to come over and try to pull at Charles's clothes.

Charles didn't tolerate him and kicked him back.

"You think you can make me surrender? Keep dreaming."

"You, you," the envoy rolled twice on the ground before being helped up by the other goblins. He was a little out of breath from the kick and said intermittently, "You dare hit me? I, I'll go back and tell the commander, and then..."

"Who is the military leader?" Charles stepped forward and interrupted the other party.

"Huh? Commander, the commander is bald." The envoy didn't realize what was happening and answered instinctively.

"Bald?" Charles tilted his head, thinking for a moment. The name sounded familiar. "Isn't he the guy who brought goblins to fight me before?"

The word "bald" in his name gave Xiaer a vague impression, and after the goblins surrendered last time, they talked about the Feathered Serpent Kingdom.

"It's him," the envoy said, seeing that Charles had taken the initiative to mention the leader of the troops and was no longer timid. "The military commander sent us to persuade them to surrender today."

"Didn't he fail?"

"He was appointed by the high priest. He also said that Baldy would be in unified command this time, and he even promoted Baldy to military commander," the envoy said with some pride.

However, what he said surprised Charles somewhat. "This high priest seems to have some wisdom."

Charles stroked his chin, his gaze sweeping over the goblins. "The information Broken Tooth brought back earlier said that the High Priest speaks Common Tongue, can communicate with humans, and now even has organizational abilities. Could he really be a human who has turned into a goblin?"

Compared to the High Priest, Charles was more interested in Baldy's promotion. He asked with a smile, "Did your military leader say why you were sent to persuade them to surrender?"

"Commander," the envoy and the goblin beside him exchanged glances, and after a few seconds said weakly, "we were fighting over food and forgot."

"That's typical goblin behavior." Charles shook his head in annoyance, then lost interest and ordered his men, "Drive them all away."

"Leader, are they dead? Dead?" Red-eyed approached and slowly drew his longsword.

"No need to kill them. Of course, if they resist, killing a few won't hurt," Charles waved his hand. "I'm just interested in this guy who knows how to persuade them to surrender."

"No need to kill them. Of course, if they resist, killing a few won't hurt," Charles waved his hand. "I'm just interested in this guy who knows how to persuade them to surrender."

He could roughly guess Baldy's idea: to send a few cannon fodder to persuade him to surrender and see if they could intimidate him. If they succeeded, that would be best; if they failed, it would at least lull him into a false sense of security. However, this guy didn't know that he could cast two curse spells, and instead managed to extract the information he wanted from the goblin.

"The number is definitely more than before, possibly exceeding 1500 goblins," he said, watching his men beat the goblins into a groan and run away. A smirk crept onto his lips. "Besides that, there are also more than 100 petrified lizards. I just wonder how many of these goblins can fly."

The goblin that had been persuaded to surrender had already taken off running into the forest without looking back, and Sharl's men had stopped chasing. Even a "battle maniac" like Red Eyes felt that fighting such a "weak and powerless" goblin was pointless.

"I need to send Broken Tooth to scout ahead." Charles decided to first have Broken Tooth determine the current position of the Feathered Serpent Kingdom's army so he could devise a countermeasure. If the petrified lizards were proving too difficult to deal with, he would have no choice but to ask Elephant Lord for help.

"Although the elephant lord said before that he wouldn't get involved in our fight, now that the greenhouse is built, the elephants' warmth is no longer a problem. I guess we can still persuade him." Charles thought to himself, but he was still not very confident. After all, it's not easy to persuade an "evil god".

"Let's go back." He waved to his men, then gazed into the depths of the forest to the north. "This military leader knows how to use tricks, even if they're mostly useless ideas. But at least compared to those other goblins, he has some wrinkles on his head, instead of being a smooth, waterlogged egg."

Charles couldn't help but wonder about the commander on the other side. Commanding so many goblins must be a real headache.

Meanwhile, deep within the Nightmare Forest, Baldy wrapped his tattered fur tightly around himself, muttering, "This damn weather is so cold."

After winter set in, obtaining food became extremely difficult, but Quetzalcoatl insisted that they come out to attack. "Every day, they have to dig burrows for the giant lizards to hide and keep warm, and these guys have become incredibly irritable. If you're not careful, they'll attack the goblins around them."

He knew that in the past, during the winter, the petrified lizards would hide in their burrows and refused to come out. However, without the help of the giant lizards, Baldy felt that he had no chance of defeating the Sharl tribe.

Sometimes he would mutter some complaints about Quetzalcoatl, wondering why he had to attack those goblins in winter, and what the goblins had done to blaspheme. Since late autumn, Quetzalcoatl had not left the huge cave under the tower. Had Quetzalcoatl's strength weakened?

These words could not be spoken aloud, as the High Priest had strictly forbidden all goblins from engaging in any behavior against Quetzalcoatl, or they would be immediately expelled from the kingdom.

"Why is it called a kingdom?" He looked up at the sky through the gaps in the treetops. "It seems like none of the goblins in this group are kings."

"Commander, we've spotted a giant snail ahead!" a goblin reported as it ran up.

Baldy waved his hand and said familiarly, "Let the giant lizard go."