Forests Don't Support Idle Goblins

Chapter 409 The Tribes of the East

"You saw a group of goblins?"

Charles put down the little tin soldier in his hand and looked up at the broken tooth on the other side of the table.

Previously, in order to investigate the situation of the Feathered Serpent God and those escaped caves, he directly ordered Broken Tooth to explore eastward, and to return immediately to report if any discoveries were made.

Now that Cunningham's matter is over, the goblins in the tribe are slowly recovering from their injuries. Although they had been tearing each other apart under the Chaos Curse, they were also afflicted by the Weakening Curse, so their injuries were not serious and no one died.

Urban construction is also progressing steadily. The entire southern district has now been leveled, and the large training ground has been completely prepared. Apart from the facilities still being somewhat rudimentary, it is ready to support Diana's training. Currently, Nine Fingers is leading people to dig tunnels in the western district. A large portion of the underground area has already been excavated. After a period of time, the entire western district will be able to begin fulfilling its aquaculture function.

Just as Charles was preparing to plan the construction of the eastern residential area, Broken Tooth returned.

"Yes, but not many," Broken Tooth replied, gesturing with his hands.

His number was relatively small compared to the current size of the tribe. Looking at the gesture of the man with broken teeth, Xia Er already had a general idea in mind.

"About a few hundred goblins." He placed his hand on the little tin soldier, his fingers tapping slowly.

This little toy was something I got by chance before. Because Nine Fingers liked to carve wood, Ciel lent it to him, wanting to see if an "artist" could emerge from among the goblins.

Of course, Ciel would never acknowledge someone like Bucktooth, who occasionally spouts off a few lines of "cheat poetry," as a poet.

After Nine Fingers took it to study, it did indeed help with his carving. To put it another way, now the things he carves can be seen to be "human".

However, Charles felt that this was already quite good. It was a great improvement that a goblin could be carved into a human shape instead of an abstract lump of wood.

Now, Nine Fingers returned the Tin Soldier and also reported something to Charles.

That is, while he was playing with the little tin soldier, he accidentally opened the back cover of the thing, and a dark gray crystal fell out.

The little tin soldier and the gray crystal are now on Charles's desk, but he doesn't have much time to study them right now.

"Besides goblins, have you found anything else?" Sharl continued to inquire.

It's not unusual to have goblins. These goblins were likely driven out of the feathered serpent goblin tribe in the past, and then gradually gathered together to form a sizable tribe.

This is similar to the goblins that were previously gathered by the goblins; their numbers were quite large at the time.

However, with hundreds of goblins gathered together, something strange is bound to happen. Either a bear goblin will appear, or some strange mutation will occur. Otherwise, given the nature of goblins, they would definitely fight each other, and in the end, it would be impossible to guarantee such a large number of people.

Only a strong leader can make these goblins obedient, just like Quetzalcoatl.

This situation is quite interesting. Goblins are indeed a cunning and cowardly race. When you are only slightly stronger than them, they will try every means to take your place. But when you are much stronger than them and they feel that they cannot defeat you alone, they will obediently submit and even completely obey you.

But you must not show weakness, otherwise your subordinates may develop ulterior motives.

The situation is similar for Sharl now. He displays an ability, or rather "wisdom," that the goblins cannot comprehend. This ability is enough to sustain them, and there are also many powerful individuals surrounding Sharl. This makes the goblins in the tribe willingly accept his leadership. Although they may slack off a little each day and secretly hoard some wild fruits and insects, it does not pose a problem.

However, without the support of Little John, Red Eye, Grass, and Sophia, and without mastering magic, he couldn't guarantee that the goblins in his tribe wouldn't have the idea of ​​"taking his place."

After all, goblins have had similar experiences before.

Charles even recalled the goblin he had defeated several times before, whose name seemed to be "Bald Skin." This guy was completely unwilling to submit to Charles. On the one hand, he was the cave leader and had been promoted to a military leader. On the other hand, this goblin was a member of the Feathered Serpent God's clan at the time, and he had witnessed the "divine power" of the Feathered Serpent God, so he naturally did not believe that Charles would be stronger.

But regardless, those are still several hundred goblins. If they can all be recruited, it will increase the number of goblins under my command.

Unlocking the next alien letter requires a population of 7500, while the Shire currently only has over 5000 people.

"They," Broken Tooth paused, thought for a moment, "were probably enslaved."

"Slavery again?" Charles frowned. Every time he heard news about goblins in the forest, it was about them being enslaved. This race was too dependent on others.

"They were dressed in rags and ate poorly," Broken Tooth nodded, recounting the goblins' living conditions, "while also having to do a lot of work every day."

"What are you wearing? And what are you eating?"

"We're wearing tattered clothes," Broken Tooth gestured to his body, indicating that the clothes were just simple shorts and a t-shirt. "The food is about the same as before, in the very beginning."

"Before?" Charles blinked. "Was it when the four of us were together?"

"Yes." Broken Tooth nodded heavily.

"Well, this should be enough to eat, right?" Charles was a little surprised. Although the white-haired man's cooking skills were just to cook the ingredients in one pot without processing them, there were wild fruits, meat, and sometimes even rabbits. Charles had only ever eaten "roasted potatoes" back then, but for goblins living in the forest, this kind of food was not bad.

The goblins that joined later couldn't even hope to get enough to eat.

He couldn't help but shake his head. It seemed that after a period of good times, Broken Tooth had completely forgotten the days of eating coarse food and wild vegetables. He even looked down on goblins that could eat rats, frogs, and rabbits.

"If they eat like this, then they're still wearing rags?" Charles continued to press.

Broken Tooth thought about it carefully, then looked at himself with some insecurity. He was wearing a full set of warm clothes, and on his feet were "forest waterproof boots" that Shire had specially made by the shoemaker in Goathorn. Such clothing was only owned by a small number of people in the tribe. "It was indeed rags, and they would stuff dusty feathers into the rags."

"Stuffed with feathers?" Charles was a little surprised. "Every single one of them had some stuffed in?"

"Hmm." Broken Tooth nodded, then added, "I noticed, most of the goblins are stuffed in, it looks ugly."

Stuffing feathers into clothes would certainly keep you warm, but then comes an even more important question: where do these feathers come from?

The forest is home to birds, and even hunting parties from various groups bring back several forest grouse every time they go out, which provide a lot of feathers.

However, goblins are not a group skilled at hunting birds. They don't have bows, nor are they good at making nets. The idea of ​​hitting birds in the treetops by throwing stones is simply a fantasy.

But it's interesting that almost every goblin in this group has feathers to keep warm.

Sharmo stroked his chin, thought for a few seconds, and then asked, "What do they do every day?"

This time, Broken Tooth didn't try to recall the events, but instead stated them directly. It was clear that he had a deep impression of them, otherwise he wouldn't remember them so clearly: "They were chasing away birds."

"Shoot birds?" Charles was taken aback. What kind of job was this? "What kind of birds, like forest grouse?"

"No," Broken Tooth immediately shook his head, "It's very big, very tall, with a grouse's head, but its tail is like a snake, and it has many tails."

How tall is it?

Broken Tooth jumped off the stool, stood on tiptoe, and gestured with his hands to indicate his name, but judging from his movements, he seemed to want to go even higher.

"Taller than John Jr.?" Charles pressed.

"Hmm." Broken Tooth nodded.

"What about grass?"

Duan Ya thought for a moment and shook his head.

"I think so too. It's not easy to find a species in the forest taller than grass." Charles smiled. "However, a bird that's over 2 meters tall is quite large. It seems that the goblin feathers must be from this kind of big bird."

Thinking about this, he suddenly became even more interested in the guys who enslaved this goblin tribe. "Who keeps these big birds?"

"A hairy fellow," Broken Tooth immediately answered. "Taller than a goblin, but shorter than Little John."

"Well, that's about right—" Charles gestured with his hand, "1.7 meters tall? And covered in fur?"

"Yes," Broken Tooth nodded, "It's very ugly, like—"

He lowered his head, trying hard to recall, and after a few seconds he finally managed to come up with an answer: "Just like those gray wolves in the forest."

"A face that looks like a wolf?" Charles raised an eyebrow. He did have a vague impression of this kind of creature; he had seen a similar creature in Agatha Christie's books before—the gnoll.

This creature is quite interesting. It is an ancient race, but they generally live in the wilderness. Their fur is grayish-yellow, and the book says that they are nomadic creatures who do not usually live in one place. But this may be what humans think, because gnolls will steal anything of value, from food to clothing, and even their weapons are obtained by plunder. This has led to humans' extreme hatred of the gnoll race.

Humans will launch an attack whenever they discover a gnoll tribe in the vicinity, continuing until the gnolls are completely driven away.

However, gnolls also have a few advantages. They are not as brutal as trolls or goblins because they are not very strong. Sometimes they can be used to coerce or entice them. There have been records of human lords hiring gnolls as "barbarian soldiers" with a few benefits.

At the same time, these guys also have a bit of intelligence, though not much, but it is indeed a little bit higher than that of goblins.

Just as Broken Tooth said, this gnoll tribe raises these strange, large birds, and they are even raised by goblins.

But one thing surprised Charles: Broken Tooth had said before that Quetzalcoatl must have been hiding in the gnoll territory, and that he had seen the gnolls kneeling toward a dark cave entrance from the shadows.

There, Broken Tooth seemed to sense the same danger he had felt in the cave earlier.

"This feathered serpent god is really a headache. Even though we've already defeated it, it still cares so much about this place. What is it that it can't bear to part with?" Charles tapped the table lightly, and with a "snap," the little tin soldier slumped to the side.

Looking at the little tin soldier, Charles suddenly remembered something, "Could it be that it's eyeing that phoenix egg?"

Thinking of the phoenix eggs soaking in the pool of venom inside the cave, Xia Er's lips twitched. Could it be that this evil god wanted to kill the phoenix chicks by letting his venom seep into the eggshells, and then swallow them?

If that's the case, then it certainly has a clever idea. This would greatly enhance its abilities, since phoenix chicks naturally possess power.

"Sure enough, the phoenix egg is about to hatch. Quetzalcoatl must have planned this beforehand. Over the winter, his venom should have completely eroded the eggshell. When spring arrives and he wakes from hibernation, the first thing he'll probably do is eat the phoenix chick." Charles nodded as he thought. "In that case, this guy definitely won't give up on Forest City."

That phoenix egg should now belong to him, Xia Er, and no one can take it away.

Shire also plans to raise the phoenix chicks to become the "guardian beasts" of the goblin city, so that no one will dare to come here and harm his tribe.

It's still a long way from when the phoenix will grow up, since it's only just about to hatch. But this is also a kind of expectation, and more importantly, a kind of insurance mechanism.

If his plan to lead the goblin army out of the forest fails, he can still retreat back into the forest. At that time, any human army that wants to do anything to the goblin kingdom will have to think twice about the power of the phoenix.

"Now that spring has arrived, could these gnolls be bewitched by Quetzalcoatl and attack me directly?" Thinking this, Charles suddenly looked up at Broken Tooth. "Have they shown any signs of making any move?"

Broken Tooth thought for a moment, then suddenly nodded. "They're exploring this way."

"They've already started exploring?" Charles frowned. He hadn't realized Quetzalcoatl was so quick. Sure enough, being defeated by a group of goblins was hard for Quetzalcoatl to accept.

"Well, but—" Broken Tooth looked like he wanted to say something but couldn't.

This piqued Charles's curiosity. "Tell me, what's going on?"

"They seem to have gotten lost. They started heading west, but after walking a while, they started heading north." Broken Tooth took out a compass from his pocket, looked down at it, and then nodded affirmatively.

"So, these guys are lost?"