Forests Don't Support Idle Goblins

Chapter 419 The Gnoll's Wishful Thinking

"These were all decisions you made back then." A gnoll swallowed the food in his mouth and curled his lip in disdain.

The leader, Iron Fang, merely glanced at the other party calmly. "What can we do? We've already been driven out by those humans from the Kingdom of Argon."

As he spoke, he scratched his fur vigorously. "If I hadn't made the decision to enter the forest, this mercenary group might have been wiped out by humans by now, and you would all be corpses in the mud pits."

"Hmph," a cold snort rang out, and a gnoll beside him said disdainfully, "Preserving the mercenary group is your responsibility. Otherwise, why did we vote to make you the leader in the first place?"

Iron Fang sighed softly, then his gaze slowly swept over the gnolls gathered together eating in front of him. They all came from the wasteland north of the Kingdom of Argon, and over the years they were gradually reorganized and regrouped until they formed this mercenary group in the last two years.

Human lords would pay them to work, sometimes to deal with minor border skirmishes, and sometimes to quell rebellions.

However, in recent years, the Argon Kingdom's crop harvests seem to have encountered some problems, with annual yields decreasing. But the gnolls don't care about this situation; they just do what they're paid for. Their biggest dream is to have enough to eat and wear and to save enough money to return to the northern wasteland and build their own pastures.

But bad luck still befell them; the human lords were no longer willing to employ them and even tried to drive them away.

What's more troublesome is that, under the pretext of having been attacked by gnolls in the past, the lords have begun to gather forces to prepare for a siege against him.

Men.

What do you mean by "attacked before"?

Those are all power struggles between lords. The gnolls are just mercenaries; their employers pay them to serve.

JP

They fight, so how could the gnolls not listen?

These lords were interested in the mercenaries' equipment. Although it was old and messy, it was still usable. With a little training, it could be handed over to their subordinates or sold to adventurers for a decent price.

As a result, the gnolls were constantly driven out and were unwelcome wherever they went, eventually leading to many gnoll mercenary groups being besieged on the edge of the forest.

It seems those human lords have conspired to wipe out the gnolls all at once and then divide the spoils among themselves.

It was under these circumstances that Iron Fang became the leader of the new mercenary group.

Calling it a mercenary group is not quite accurate, since no one has ever seen a group of nearly a thousand people. This huge group is almost a collection of the entire gnoll army of the Kingdom of Argon.

As for the rest who didn't join, they're probably already drowning in the mud.

"Given the circumstances, if we hadn't entered the forest, we would have been wiped out." Tieya took out a small knife and began to cut a large piece of dried bird meat. He cut it slowly and carefully, but his mind was clearly not on the food.

These words silenced the noisy jackals around them. These guys used to be the heads or leaders of various mercenary groups, but now they were forced to come together to form an unprecedentedly large army for self-defense.

"I told you from the beginning that when you enter the forest, you have to be careful of all sorts of things. Those magical beasts or strange races are dangerous to us." As he spoke, Iron Fang put a piece of jerky into his mouth and slowly chewed it.

"But you didn't mention there was a damned evil god in there." A gnoll angrily slammed his dagger into the ground. "My brother was swallowed by that guy."

"How could I possibly have known all this beforehand?" Iron Fang said calmly. "At the time, my suggestion to go into the forest to hide was the only option."

After saying that, he slowly cut the jerky while glancing around. A few seconds later, he spoke up, "However, I think this operation will probably not be fruitless."

The jackals all turned their heads and stared at their leader.

Sensing everyone's gaze, Iron Fang slowly and methodically sliced ​​the jerky, not in a hurry to voice his thoughts. However, one of the gnolls clearly couldn't wait any longer and spoke up directly: "Wet Nose, what are you pretending for?"

These words made Iron Fang's gaze sharpen. He slowly swept his eyes over and fixed his gaze on the gnoll who had spoken.

Sensing Iron Fang's emotions, his companion shoved the loose-lipped guy, who immediately lowered his head, not daring to meet Iron Fang's gaze.

"As you all know, Quetzalcoatl was injured," Iron Fang said, seeing that the flailing fellow dared not cause any more trouble, and began to explain his thoughts. "And its repeated requests for us to attack those goblins were probably because it wanted to see..."

The situation in the Goblin Kingdom.

“But who injured the feathered serpent?” a gnoll said. “We’ve already questioned the goblins who came running over, and they all said they didn’t see anything, just that lightning kept flashing in the sky. Those idiots were only focused on running away, and some goblins were so stupid that they didn’t watch where they were going and crashed into a tree and passed out.”

"That's exactly what I was thinking," Iron Fang nodded. "Those goblins only saw the lightning in the sky, nothing else. And besides Quetzalcoatl, there are other guys who can control lightning as well."

"A human mage?" the other gnolls immediately chimed in.

"Yes," Iron Fang smiled, revealing the strands of flesh between his teeth, "I also thought about it for a long time before I was sure of my idea. Those goblins who escaped said that they were attacked by other goblin groups before, and they seemed to be very powerful. I think you should know what that means."

"You mean, humans attacked the kingdom of Quetzalcoatl and also sent out a lot of 'mud soldiers'?"

The jackals whispered among themselves. In the Kingdom of Argon, there was a tactic of sending out a group of cannon fodder to defend against the enemy's rain of arrows or magical "bombardment." These cannon fodder were called "mud soldiers," meaning they would die in mud pits and no one would care. Mud soldiers were usually captured slave goblins.

Now Iron Teeth says that the soldiers sent out that night were probably just cannon fodder, while the human forces were behind them, and the human archmage and the feathered serpent god were "fighting" in the sky.

"You should know what kind of race goblins are. They're cunning and lazy. If it were them, they certainly wouldn't choose to attack at night," Iron Fang said confidently, glancing at the goblins in the distance.

Lin, and his actions also attracted the attention of the other gnolls.

"Indeed, these guys certainly won't launch an attack at night." The other gnolls nodded in agreement.

As mercenaries, they knew what it took to launch an attack at night. Only well-trained teams could march under the cover of darkness. For the goblins in the forest, even getting a full stomach was a luxury. These green-skinned dwarves only slept at night, using sleep to resist hunger and reduce their own energy consumption.

"So I think that if we find those goblins, maybe we can find the human army behind them, and then—" Iron Fang grinned, about to continue, when a gnoll interrupted him, "and then wipe out that human army?"

These words amused the surrounding gnolls, but Iron Fang retorted irritably, "Fool, they can drive away Quetzalcoatl, what do you have to defeat them with?"

After being reprimanded by their leader, the jackals reluctantly gave up.

"I just want to meet with the leaders of those human armies and try to talk to them about hiring us," Iron Fang sighed. "That way we can get away from Quetzalcoatl and at the same time, everyone can find something to do again."

"Humans will hire us again? Didn't they want to kill us all?" a gnoll wondered.

"Idiots, we're already far from the Kingdom of Argon," Iron Fang slapped his thigh hard. These companions could be really stupid sometimes. "Have you forgotten how long we ran for our lives in the forest?"

The gnolls exchanged glances and then fell silent. To escape the lords' encirclement, they fled far into the forest to ensure that no human army would risk venturing too deep into the forest before the three-day deadline.

"I think these human armies belong to the Kingdom of Fran," Iron Fang nodded vigorously, as if confirming his words. "You should have heard of the strength of the Kingdom of Fran."

"You mean that indestructible old raven that's perched in the giant nest?" the other gnolls asked. As mercenaries of Argon, they could hear human lords and armies talking about the giant fortress at the border between the two countries, and its master, Rudel Lokosa, the Grand Duke of the Northern Border of the Kingdom of Fran.

He and his troops were always the object of the Argonians' curses, and it was because of this immortal raven that the Argonians could not move south.

"In that case, making contact with the Fran people isn't a problem," a gnoll nodded. "We can be mercenaries anywhere, in Argon, or in the Fran Kingdom."

"So now you bunch of idiots know why I brought so many people with me," Iron Teeth said, scoffing as he continued cutting the jerky with his knife.

"I thought you brought out all the snake-chickens to escape," a jackal-man nearby said with a smirk.

The snake-chicken beast he mentioned was a large bird with a snake's tail, ridden by the jackal-men.

"These are all the snake-chickens we have, and we have to ride them all out," Iron Fang sighed. "If I wanted to escape, I couldn't possibly leave the rest of the gnolls behind at the camp. The reason we brought out all the snake-chickens is to prove to the Fran Kingdom's forces..."

This demonstrates our strength.

"Otherwise," he paused, his gaze sweeping over his companions and their haphazard attire, "those humans might think we're a ragtag army with no real abilities."

"Of course we are capable," the surrounding gnolls shouted, clearly confident in their abilities.

Seeing his companions shouting and yelling, Iron Fang smiled slightly: "Perfect. We can fight their goblin mud soldiers first, then wipe out those goblins, and then have a good talk with Fran's army. I think after witnessing our mounted charge, they should offer a good price."

These words caused the other gnolls to burst into laughter again, and the laughter even attracted the attention of the other gnolls and goblins.

After everyone had finished laughing, Iron Fang raised the small knife in his hand, "Once we've gathered more strength, we can return to Argonne."

"Yes, let's go back and take revenge," Iron Fang nodded heavily, "to avenge those human lords who besieged us."

"Revenge!" A hateful curse rang out, and a gnoll threw the dagger in his hand to the ground.

"Of course, it's also so that we can return to the wasteland safely." Iron Fang waved his hand, calming the emotions of these gnolls who were originally mercenary group leaders.

"And speaking of which, I think the Kingdom of Argon is also going to run into trouble." Seeing that no one was saying anything more, Iron Fang once again stated his deduction.

This deduction also piqued the interest of his companions; nothing is more delightful than hearing that one's enemy has suffered.

Seeing that the gnolls around him were starting to get excited, Iron Fang stopped keeping him in suspense and directly stated his thoughts: "The Kingdom of Argon has experienced several consecutive years of reduced grain production, and last year the situation was even worse. I think they will be in even worse shape this year. Under these circumstances, they will definitely start fighting."

"Just like when we were in the wasteland, if we didn't have enough to eat, the various gnoll tribes would start fighting each other."

These words caused the gnolls present to fall into whispers. They nodded as they spoke, and it was clear that this had happened many times in the wasteland.

"Moreover, I heard," Iron Fang glanced at his companion, "that the Argonne royal family has only one heir, and that heir is a princess."

"We've all heard the lords mention this," several gnolls said, but they clearly didn't understand what Iron Fang meant.

"Although queens have appeared in human kingdoms, there has only been one heir—" Iron Fang slowly cut the jerky in his hand again, and his words immediately made the gnolls around him light up.

"On the wasteland, if a tribe has few offspring, it will inevitably become the target of other tribes." Several gnolls chuckled. As a race on the wasteland, they knew the principle that there is strength in numbers. From the gnolls' perspective, only by growing strong could they have the strength to defeat the surrounding tribes and survive better.

Since Argonne's royal family has only one female heir, the inevitable result is that it will be swallowed up by other "groups".

This means that one day in the future, the Kingdom of Argon will be embroiled in a multi-party conflict. As participants in this conflict, mercenary groups will have no shortage of work to do, and they can even take advantage of the chaos.

"So, now you understand the importance of this operation, right?"

Iron Fang tossed a piece of jerky into his mouth and chewed slowly. Seeing the other jackals nod in agreement, he smirked and said, "This snake-chicken jerky is really awful."