Volume 6: Helping the World Chapter 196 Burn You as a Sacrifice to the Goblins
This thing must have been squeezed out from deep in the gap. The overall shape is probably a humanoid creature, because the part that looks like it should be the head and the entire face have been squeezed out of shape...
To use an analogy, it's like someone put on a rubber hood, and then grabbed both ears and pulled them back hard, making the nose very wide, and the eyes and mouth very long and thin...
Rosemary opened her mouth into an O shape, turned around and ran back silently, dragging Xiao Yun with her. She stopped in shock after getting into the crowd of Snow Wolf warriors, gasping for air and saying, "What the hell is that?!"
"You ask me?" Xiao Yun said unhappily.
The strange creature that was slowly squeezing out suddenly stopped.
Yu walked forward a few steps, stared at it for a while, and asked in confusion: "Strange, why did it suddenly stop moving?" He turned around and said, "Ayun, let's pull this thing out and take a look?"
Rosemary and Baron looked at Yu in horror.
Xiao Yun stared with dead fish eyes: "Uh..." To be honest, he didn't think the things in the cracks were scary. What was there to be afraid of if it had a physical body? But this thing was really too weird. Just looking at it made his SA N value drop wildly, not to mention letting the tribesmen touch it with their hands. "Forget it, let's poke it and see if I can poke it back. It looks disgusting."
Yu nodded, and then he raised his spear and poked it into the crack of the stone... Then he was surprised: "Hey, this thing is shrinking inward by itself."
Can he run? Xiao Yun's expression changed, and he immediately changed his words: "Catch him!"
The feathered master was very brave and had never been afraid of anyone. He stretched out his arm and grabbed the white creature: "Oh, oh, I can't hold it firmly! It's so slippery!"
“I’ll do it, I’ll do it!” Ah Shan rushed forward with his tongue wagging, squatted down, stuck his arm under the crack of the stone, and tried to grab the opponent’s lower body…
Ah Shan: "Can't you do anything?"
Yu: "Can't you hold on to the bottom?"
Ah Shan: "Yeah, I'm an old skater. Slippery than soap."
Yu: "I tried to grab the place that looked like the nostril, but it slipped away as soon as I applied force..."
More Snow Wolf Warriors surrounded them, some tried to get in position and grab, some had wild ideas to widen the stone wall, and some were anxious because they couldn't squeeze in...
Rosemary & Baron: "..."
Xiao Yun was very calm and followed the routine procedure, sitting down.
A few minutes later, the snow wolves sat back by the campfire regretfully and continued eating.
"It's a shame to let it get away."
"That damn place is too narrow. Even my shoulders can't fit in."
"What the hell is that?"
After eating and drinking, they continued to search the surrounding passages. After wandering around for half a day, Ah Shan accidentally stepped into a bush of brightly colored, poisonous mushrooms. Only then did he discover a secret passage leading downwards. After digging out the poisonous mushrooms and entering the secret passage, the Snow Wolf people discovered a village of gray dwarves living in a cave that looked like a secret room...
Needless to say, negotiate and attack to kidnap the three quality companies, then block the secret passage, destroy the evidence, separate people to escort the gray dwarves on the road, and the others return to the main force to continue "getting lost"...
A few days later, the Snow Wolf people "finally" delivered the first batch of vermicelli to the underground city. They apologized and explained the reason for the delay, and accepted the first payment from the dark elves. On the way back, Xiao Yun stared with big eyes and continued to "get lost" with his people...
On the way here, we discovered six gray dwarf villages one after another and packed up nearly two thousand people to take back. On the way back, our luck seemed to have run out. We didn't encounter a single gray dwarf village, but we did encounter a few useless lizardman and demon settlements.
The lizardmen are not only ugly but also have low IQs. Xiao Yun offered them dried meat to try to get them to eat, but they refused to eat it... After figuring out that these guys actually lived on insects, Xiao Yun was planning to kidnap a few of them and take them back to look after the fields. However, he discovered that this sub-human race had a terribly low IQ, so he gave up.
A not-so-ugly demonman is not completely useless, but it's a pity that all of his racial skill points are focused on combat, so the Fire Department cannot be used for the time being.
Halfway through the journey, the goblin Baron discovered traces of activities of his fellow goblin clansmen.
"No doubt about it. These insect legs are not what the lizardmen left over. Lizardmen eat insects whole and don't leave any." Baron excitedly showed Xiao Yun the insect leg shells he had pulled out of the slime monster's nest. "Look, Yun, the shells have traces of being roasted by fire, and the meat inside has been eaten. These must have been buried in the soil by my fellow tribesmen and found by the slime monsters to build nests!"
Xiao Yun would definitely not let go of such an excellent miner and quarry worker from the goblins, so the Snow Wolves immediately began searching the surroundings...
However, the goblins are better at hiding than the gray dwarves. They will not place their tribes in places where they can be blocked by others, and their settlements will be hidden underground. Even if outsiders walk over their tribes, it is difficult to detect them. After most of the day, only Ashan found a cave hidden behind the rock.
Ashan couldn't get into the goblin's cave, so he quickly called Baron over.
Baron squatted down and observed for a moment before saying, "The soil at the entrance of this cave is covered with moss. It should be just one of the backup exits. We usually leave five to six exits in our settlement. Except for the commonly used exits, the other exits are blocked when not needed. They are only dug when they are needed... and the entrances are scattered quite far apart. Even if we dig along this entrance, I probably won't be able to find my fellow tribesmen."
Xiao Yun shook his head: "You guys have a great sense of security, it would be perfect for you to run the spy safe house..."
Baron scratched his head in embarrassment. "The tunnel entrance to the cave where our tribe lived before was not dug there. It was always dug to other places. Uh... by the way, sometimes we would dig the ventilation hole into the cracks of the rocks or places where no one else could enter, which was more hidden."
"Ventilation holes?" Xiao Yun's eyes lit up, and he immediately called out to everyone, "When you see cracks in the rocks or places where people can't pass, pay attention to see if there are any places disguised as natural holes. If you find any, smoke them out!"
Baron was shocked...
After another half day of searching, Rosemary discovered a small cave camouflaged with vines at the bottom of a stone forest close to the rock wall. She immediately asked everyone to scrape the moss and dig up grass and tree roots to make a fire and smoke...
The smoke from the damp moss was blown into the cave. After a while, the Snow Wolves, who were holding their breath and listening attentively, heard a faint cough...
The snow wolves, who had been busy for a whole day without seeing any goblins, became excited. They dispersed in all directions without any command, deployed personnel within a mile radius, and kept a close eye on any place where goblins might appear.
Rosemary accompanied Xiao Yun as they squatted in the stone forest and set off cigarettes. They stood on one side of the Ashandu stone forest and on the other side of the Yudu stone forest, staring at all the suspicious corners in the stone forest with a fierce look.
Xiao Yun was very satisfied with everyone's cleverness. He stood up and looked around, pulling up the vines that hung like spider webs between the stone walls and stone forests to see if those cunning goblins had hidden the exits in these places.
After checking the large areas of densely grown and tangled vines, Xiao Yun suddenly felt something was wrong.
He immediately went back to the place he had just looked at, pulled aside the tangled vines, and turned out a vine with extremely large leaves.
The largest leaves of other vines are the size of two palms put together, but this one is very different. The largest leaf is at least as big as a lotus leaf; there is also a particularly smooth break at the end of the vine, as if it was cut by a sharp knife.
Grabbing the vine with particularly large leaves, Xiao Yun moved his gaze upwards to look above the stone wall.
At the top of the stone wall, in a deep crack that cracked from top to bottom but did not crack to the bottom, a pink and white flower bud, about to bloom and as big as half a person's body, emerged.
Xiao Yun: “…”
Rosemary, who was busy fanning her cigarette, looked over curiously: "Ayun, what are you doing?"
Xiao Yun stared at the pink and white flower bud with dead fish eyes: "Hmm... I'm thinking of a philosophical question - Rosemary, you said that in a world where white wolves, big cats, buffaloes and tigers can become spirits, can plants become spirits?"
rosemary:"??"
Xiao Yun pulled the vine hard, but it didn't move at all, so he simply wrapped the vine around his hand and tried to use it to climb up the rock wall.
He had just climbed up twice when the vine suddenly loosened and Xiao Yun almost fell head over heels. He grabbed another vine to hastily steady himself.
The vine he was holding quickly retracted in an attempt to break free.
"As expected! You're still trying to play that trick on me!" Xiao Yun quickly wrapped the cane around his arm, "Maomao Ashan, come help me and pull this bastard down!!"
Yu came over confused and looked at Xiao Yun who was struggling with a vine in surprise. He also pulled the vine and exerted force before realizing something was wrong: "Huh?"
Ah Shan also came over and joined in the tug-of-war...
rosemary:"??"
After a few seconds, Rosemary finally realized... How strong is an adult snow wolf? Maomao and Ashan, plus Ayun, couldn't even pull the vine? !
Xiao Yun found that brute force was not enough, so he shouted to Rosemary, "Take that flower down, the biggest one on top!"
"Oh." Although Rosemary was a bit stubborn, she was still reliable. She immediately grabbed the densely growing vines on the stone wall and climbed up.
Just when she climbed halfway, the vine that was hanging on the other side pretending to be dead suddenly came over and hit Rosemary's side abdomen with a "snap". Rosemary meowed in pain and almost fell down.
"That bastard is quite capable!" Rosemary was furious. She stretched out her claws, grabbed the stone wall, jumped up suddenly, and hugged the huge flower tightly. She bounced out again, and used her own weight to drag the giant flower down.
Big cats are not afraid of falling to the ground...
Yu loosened the vines, suddenly squatted and jumped up, hugging Rosemary with one hand in mid-air; coupled with his body weight of more than 200 kilograms, the giant flower could not hold up at all, and was fragilely pulled down from the crack of the stone wall with its buds, stems and leaves...
This strange giant flower obviously did not want to sit still and wait for death. Dozens of vines hidden in various places moved at the same time. Some of them tightly entangled their counterparts on the stone wall, and some attacked Rosemary and Yu. It also revealed the hammer fruit that had been hidden somewhere before... but it was much smaller than the last time it was encountered.
"Is it a battle tree?" Seeing this familiar attack mode, Yu smiled easily. He protected Rosemary behind him with one hand and swung out with the other hand. The spear tip, which was made of fine steel and had a triangular blade, knocked the hammer fruit down.
Ah Shan jumped out from the side, grabbed the vine and held it in his arms, and skillfully braided the thick vine into a pigtail...
The soldiers outside the stone forest also came up to help. The giant flower that had left the protection of the stone wall was no match at all. After being tied up by more than a dozen vines, it was completely defeated...
"This is the battle tree, right? Will the battle tree hide its fruit? I never saw it before." Ashan squatted down and picked up the hammer fruit that Yu had cut off. "Wow, this fruit is so small."
"Will the battle tree whip people with its cane?" Rosemary held the giant flower's "neck" with one hand and rubbed its side with the other. "It hurts so much... Shit, there's a big bruise!"
Xiao Yun's arm was also hurt by the vines. He swung his hands and walked over to look at the giant flower that Rosemary was holding. He reached out and patted the bud. The petals looked crisp and tender, but to the touch they felt like a tire. "Hey, you're still pretending to be dead? Where's the energy you had just now? Come back to life, or I'll burn you as a sacrifice to the goblins!"
Baron hid aside: "???"
"You're talking to it?" Yu looked at Xiao Yun curiously and then at the flower bud of the battle tree.
Xiao Yun showed Yu the broken vine: "This is not an ordinary battle tree, it's the one we encountered before. Look, this is where Ashan and I should have cut it off."
"The battle tree can run?!" Yu, Ashan and the warriors were all shocked.
"That's why I said this isn't an ordinary battle tree." Xiao Yun said dissatisfiedly, "Come here, Rosemary, bring that flower bud over to the fire and burn it. I wonder how long this thing will play dead."
Confused, Rosemary dragged the giant flower over and obediently pressed the huge flower bud onto the fire...
"Don't burn it like this. Remove the moss and add more firewood to make the fire bigger." Xiao Yun said.
Rosemary screamed "Fuck!", and the giant flower that was held by his neck suddenly struggled, and he almost couldn't hold on...
Yu quickly reached out and grabbed the stalk of the giant flower, then used his backhand to push the tip of the spear against the receptacle.
The giant flower immediately became obedient... Yu's spear was specially made, and it had experienced the sharpness of the spear tip and didn't want to experience it again.
"It's really alive?" Yu exclaimed.
"Well, yes, this flower is indeed its true form. No wonder it is placed so high up and closed up, pretending not to recognize it." Xiao Yun chuckled, not caring which way the giant flower's "face" was facing, and pointed at it with the cane, "Listen carefully, now I'll give you a chance to perform and atone for your sins. If you do well, I'll let you go. If you don't, I'll burn you as a sacrifice to the goblins. Do you understand? Nod if you understand. If you don't understand, I'll still burn you as a sacrifice to the goblins."
The snow wolves looked innocent.
Baron came back from the side: "???"
rosemary:"……"
The giant flower seemed to shudder, and moved its buds left and right in a frustrated manner.
Xiao Yun picked up the vine and squatted at the ventilation hole of the goblin's cave. He showed his claws and slightly opened the hole: "Reach in and grab the goblin inside. Don't hurt the goblin, or it will burn you."
Baron & Rosemary: "..."
The vines of the giant flower were only as thick as a wrist, so reaching in was no problem at all. After a while, a series of screams were heard, and a strange goblin with a dusty face and black ash was dragged out... and stuck at the entrance of the cave.
"Can't get out?" Xiao Yun crouched down and approached the terrified goblin, using his fingers to push open the goblin's belly to observe the width of the cave entrance. "The cave wall is really too thick... Forget it, Baron!"
Baron ran forward and squatted down to negotiate with his fellow tribesmen...
The goblins that were set off by the smoke did not plan to escape from other exits, but were busy moving soil to block the passage on the ventilation side, which had already been blocked for a small part. When Xiao Yun heard this, he asked Baron to threaten them that with the battle tree here, they could not block it! Either come out and negotiate honestly, or wait to be suffocated to death by the smoke...
With a combination of coercion and inducement, this group of goblins finally chose to obey... After all, if Xiao Yun pinched the giant flower's neck and forced it to stretch its vines in to mess with them, they would not end up well.
More than sixty goblins, big and small, tied their hands with thin vines, put them into the baskets of the Snow Wolf warriors that were carrying vermicelli, and dragged them away. The "meritorious" battle tree didn't get any good treatment either, as it was tied up like a dumpling...
"Uh... Ayun, it has helped us after all, why not let it go?" Yu was a little reluctant, "Besides, it doesn't bear any fruit now..."
"Think of it this way, Maomao. We just picked some fruits ten days ago, and it has grown a new batch. If we take them back and plant them, won't we have hammer fruit to eat every month?" Xiao Yun smiled and patted the giant flower that was drooping, too lazy to close, and bloomed like a carnivorous plant. "In exchange, we can provide it with a safe place to live, so it doesn't have to run around so hard... After all, it's a plant, weak, pitiful and helpless. We can do a good deed."
Yu tilted his head and thought for a moment: "Although I always feel like something is not right...Okay, I'll take it back."
Xiao Yun kindly said to the giant fighting tree flower: "Do you have any relatives, friends or neighbors who can run around like you? If so, take them along with you. You can have some companions. Otherwise, how lonely would you be if you were all alone?"
The giant flower said nothing and slowly closed its petals.
Rosemary, who was sitting on Ashan's back, turned around and said with a twitch of her lips: "Really, Ayun, I always feel that you are a villain, and we are all your minions..."
"How do you talk like that?!"
Across the inland sea, Valentine.
Valentine is the first commercial city in the Kingdom of Kronin. Most of its food is purchased from outside. In the first half of the year, half of the vermicelli purchased from the Cursed Land by Countess Lola Philip of Bolton County was sold to Valentine.
The export price of the Snow Wolf tribe's vermicelli is six copper coins per pound. The Adventurer's Association's Transportation Department, which is responsible for transportation, earns half a copper coin per pound as transportation fee, and Lola, who resells it, earns two and a half copper coins per pound as a resale fee. When it comes to the new city lord of Valentine, after breaking it down into retail, the profit per pound is three to four copper coins... It can be said that every family on the line can make a profit.
The new City Lord of Valentine tried to buy vermicelli directly from the Snow Wolf Tribe and save Countess Philip's transfer fee. Xiao Yun naturally couldn't ruin his own disciple's financial prospects... but he wouldn't refuse the hand extended by the new City Lord of Valentine: We'll let our third disciple be the exclusive agent for the vermicelli, but we can still do some side dish business like pork and rabbit meat~!
Several large ships of goods were pulled to the Valentine port. Isaac, the grassroots chief and others were busy for two days unloading the goods, and then they received an invitation letter from the Lord of Valentine.
Xiao Yun hoped to train his team through this business, but it was impossible for his team to sell hundreds of thousands of kilograms of fresh pork and several hundred thousand kilograms of rabbit meat in a scattered manner. The bulk of the profits still had to be shared with the new city lord of Valentine - especially rabbit meat, which could not be consumed by the market in Valentine alone and had to be transported to other cities in Kroning.
Refrigeration in this world relies on ice. Fresh meat can only be kept for a while in winter. If it is not sold quickly, it will rot on hand.
After talking with Margaret, an official from the Ministry of Transport, and selling several thousand kilograms of pork and 20,000 kilograms of rabbit meat to the Adventurer's Association at a friendly price, the Grassroots Chief kept the accounts and collected the gold coins. Only then did he have time to hold a meeting with others to discuss the next matters to be dealt with.
Isaac opened his notebook and showed everyone the prices they had investigated. "We visited sixteen markets in the middle and lower parts of Valentine. Fish and meat are very cheap here, only a few copper coins per pound. Other meats are more expensive. Since the beginning of winter, mutton has risen to thirty-six copper coins per pound, and beef is even more expensive, one silver coin per pound. Beef is basically not seen in the lower part of the city, and mutton is rarely available occasionally. In addition to fish, the entire market only has poultry such as chickens, ducks, and geese, and the prices are all in the range of twelve to eighteen copper coins."
"The price of rabbit meat is unstable. The main reason is that we humans don't have the concept of raising rabbits. We rely entirely on catching wild rabbits. Generally, a rabbit weighing one or two kilograms costs between 20 and 40 copper coins, which is slightly more expensive than poultry. Our rabbits are raised in a centralized manner, so they have a thicker fat layer and larger pieces. The human concept of meat is that the more fat, the better. I think a unit price of 15 for wholesale and 18 for retail is more appropriate."
The Grassroots Chief nodded. She also liked to eat fatty meat a few years ago, but she was willing to eat more lean meat in recent years as her life has improved. Anyway, the feed for rabbits raised by the Fire Tribe is alfalfa and bean dregs that cattle, sheep and pigs eat. The cost is not high, and it is profitable no matter how much it is sold.
"Where's the pork?" the Grassroots Chief asked, noting down the price of the rabbit meat.
"There are very few places in the human race where pigs are raised in a centralized manner. Pigs are generally raised at home by rural farmers, farm serfs, or small town residents. Serfs feed the farmer's pigs, and when the farmer slaughters them in a centralized manner, the pork that appears on the market will be cheaper, about twenty copper coins per pound. The pigs of small town residents are raised more cleanly, and the unit price is about twenty-five copper coins." Isaac smiled bitterly, "As for rural farmers who account for the majority of pig farming... generally do not kill pigs in winter, because their families need to sleep next to the pigs to keep warm."
The Grassroots Chief, Harris and others nodded silently. They really didn't know this.
"In this case, the price of our pork should be in the range of twenty to twenty-five copper coins." The grass-roots chief said, "Our pigs are all castrated and raised, so they should be more expensive than uncastrated pork. If we sell them in bulk, the price will start at twenty-two copper coins, and if we sell them individually, it will be twenty-five copper coins. What do you think?" (No matter how fat rabbit meat is, it can't be fatter than pork, so it's not as expensive as pork.)
Isaac brought Alex to the meeting. Alex overheard this and couldn't help but whisper, "Aren't we planning to open a raw meat retail store in the downtown area? If we sell it by the pound, some residents in the downtown area may not be able to afford it."
"Tell me what you think, Alex." The grassroots chief raised his hand and made a gesture of invitation.
Alex was a little nervous. He looked at Isaac and said, "When I was a kid, I lived in a town. The butcher there would sell the meat in strips. Each strip weighed two taels and cost five copper coins. People without money could buy some every once in a while. At least they could taste some meat."
"That's a good idea. It also saves the trouble of weighing when selling in bulk." The Grassroots Chief nodded.
Isaac was very happy and looked at Alex encouragingly. Alex was encouraged and licked his lips and continued, "If we want to let the world know about the friendliness of the grassland people without losing money and making a profit... we can also boil the pig bones into a big pot of thick soup and sell it to the residents of the lower city at the price of a copper coin and a few full spoons. They can bring their own bowls or pots, and we can save the manpower of washing dishes and the time of recycling tableware. Most people can afford this price."
"Good idea!" The Grassroots Chief slapped his thigh and praised with a smile, " Pork bones don't sell for much anyway, and making meat soup doesn't take much time. Ali, you're really smart!"
They acted immediately and the grassroots chief took Isaac and Harris to the new city lord's mansion in Valentine to discuss large transactions. Other adventurers from the Snow Wolf Clan, Snake Clan and Isaac's group organized the female workers from the MSG factory and textile factory they sent back, and rushed to various parts of the lower city to survey the roads and rent street-side shops of various sizes in preparation for opening stores.
