my age of magic

Chapter 666. The price of survival

I squatted in the sweltering cave, the sweat on my forehead dripped on the rocky floor, making a faint crisp sound of 'click'.Looking at the exquisite lines carved on the metal box, I didn't expect this kind of metal box to be very common, and it seems that goblins like to use these sheepskin drawings with certain parts on the bottom of the box.

It's a pity that some drawings are not so well preserved, the lines on some parchments have become somewhat blurred, and some are simply missing a corner, or some holes have been eaten by some small insects, but for the mechanical parts I still decided to keep the blueprints properly. If there is a chance, I would like to bind them into a book. In the Grimm Empire, no one pays attention to these mechanical technologies, but it is clear that the development of magic has reached a bottleneck.

If you want to increase productivity, I think it is difficult to rely on those expensive magicians alone. Maybe you can combine some mechanical structures and power sources made of magic rune plates to make some exquisite magic machines. Green The future development path of the imperial capital's magic industry.

If it is said that the Green Empire is at the forefront, it is naturally the processing and manufacturing of magic caravans. Magic airships can only be barely counted, but these airships are all custom-made from the dwarf kingdom. I have to say , In some areas, the dwarves are ahead of the Grimm Empire. Although they are not good at magic, some magic tools come from the dwarf kingdom, such as airships, muskets, and clocks.

The magical magic broom can only be regarded as a special item for magicians, and it has no way to become a means of transportation for ordinary people in daily life.

I put away those parchment drawings, and I didn't have any extra shirts to pad the box, so I could only find some blank magic parchment from the magic pocket, spread them under the metal box, and then put the malachite back into the box.

The dwarf warrior Bernd came to the entrance of the cave warehouse and asked Kalancuo who was holding a torch: "What is our lord doing?"

Kalancuo glanced at me who overturned all three gem boxes, and said to Bernd with a half-smile: "He just wants the blueprint under the box!"

"So just dump all the gems out of the box?" Bernd asked suspiciously.

Kalancuo looked down at the dwarf Bernd, and said arrogantly: "Otherwise, what do you think?"

As the leader of an orc tribe, she looked down on this dwarf somewhat.The hatred between orcs and dwarves originated from those gray dwarf bandits.It was the spiritual leader of the orcs, Kulle Paulos, who launched the action of the whole people to resist the gray dwarf robbers, and it coincided with the once-in-a-century catastrophe, that made Kalancuo and these orcs displaced and moved to the Grimm Empire, where they lived a hard life .

"Hahaha!" Bernd laughed heartlessly, and then said: "I thought he wanted to use the box to decorate something else, or he wanted to find one or two pieces of the best out of these malachites and give them to him. The girl he likes!"

"..." Kalancuo put away the smile on his face, glanced at Bernd indifferently, inserted the torch into the groove of the stone wall, and walked away coldly.

Bernd stared blankly at Kalantso's leaving back, stood at the cave entrance and said to himself: "Why did she suddenly become very angry, what did I say wrong?"

Finally, with the help of the two beast girls, they put all the sharp-edged malachite back into the box.Then straightened up, patted Bernd on the shoulder, and said to him: "Take a good rest, I'm going first!"

Throwing down the confused Bernd, he chased after Kalancuo who had gone far.

……

Jijirou finally came back in time with the magic red copper before we set off, and the copper ingots of the red copper were neatly put together.

But I was curious about how the goblins used weights and measures, so I asked Jijiru: "Is the red copper you brought as heavy as your slaves? How did you do it? Did you just measure it?" ?”

Jijilu stood by the pool, gestured to me and said: "Master Jijia, you have wronged me. Although our tribe does not have a scale that is big enough, we have other methods. I will take all those slaves Drive into a large puddle, then mark the rising water level in the puddle, let the slaves climb out of the puddle, and throw red copper ingots into the puddle until the water level rises to the mark .”

Its imperial language is poor, but with the body language, I can finally understand what he is saying.

Jijirou told me very proudly: "The red copper in the puddle is naturally all yours."

I looked at Jijiru speechlessly, no wonder I felt that there seemed to be too many copper ingots of magic red copper.

It began to complain to me again: "I spent a lot of effort to wash away the pond flower."

"And in order to move those red copper ingots here in one go, this time, I brought a lot of goblin warriors from Pandawang, I hope you will allow us to follow in your footsteps and make a contribution to your expedition to the underground world .We can help you clean up the battlefield and do some manual work."

Seeing that I didn't agree or object, Jijirou began to persuade me again: "Don't worry about us having any secrets, I will assure you that when we leave, we will not take a single bit of metal with us. , I just hope that you can allow us to buy the following goblin slaves, and please allow me to pay back the magic red copper owed to you later."

It said: "Just give me a little time to mine!"

I saw that the cowering goblin warriors were carrying a lot of ropes on their backs, and they had no weapons such as swords and shields. I glanced at Jijilu and asked Jijilu: "These ropes are your slave hunters. use?"

Jijirou showed a sly look in his eyes, smiled at me, and nodded very proudly.

The appearance of the goblin is very wretched and disgusting. It has a short body, bowed legs, and its neck always stretches forward. It walks like a wild duck running on the bank.Watching a whole group of goblins walk in the cave, I felt an extremely disgusting feeling like swallowing a fly in my throat and being unable to spit it out.

The goblins, on the other hand, felt good about themselves, lined up in a row with their chests upright, carrying a bundle of hemp rope on their backs, and followed behind proudly.

He didn't have any sense of crisis, and even felt that cleaning up the goblins of other tribes was a war that could win supreme glory.

Jijiru walked in the front to guide us, and he is very familiar with the terrain here.

The goblin villages I met along the way usually lived in large circular caves, and I found a flat place to build some dilapidated shacks. Those goblin tribes usually had no resistance. Under the volley of muskets, the main resistance force was wiped out, and then it entered the time period for the Jijilu goblins to capture slaves.

Seeing those goblin warriors under Jijilu slaughter those goblins who dared to resist, I realized how cruel the goblins are to the losers, maybe because they have some distortions in their hearts, they often take the trouble to tie up those goblins with ropes , and then let the captives line up collectively, let the strongest goblin use a single-edged ax to chop off the head of each goblin, and pile them together, while the corpses are piled up in another pile like dry wood, and finally, Put some dry, flammable roots and branches right next to the corpse pile, and light a fire as you go.

We leave this goblin horde with a raging fire.

And this goblin tribe will be completely erased from the map of the underground world of Xinliu Valley. Those young goblins and female goblins who gave up resistance are tied into a string with hemp rope, carrying the red copper and copper we seized from the tribe. Ore, crying while walking.

Generally, in emerging goblin tribes with only a few thousand people, there are usually not many metal ores. On the contrary, some moldy wheat flour is hoarded in the warehouses of some tribes. There is even a big oak barrel in a goblin tribe, and the empty wine The barrel was converted into a cozy cabin by the crazy chief, and it is not known how they smuggled the barrel back.

The goblin tribe that used to live near the blood pool of the devil's blood has been cleaned up by us before. This time, there are some small tribes left around. We can quickly carry out the cleanup work, and some small tribes have not searched carefully. , only Jijiru is very enthusiastically asking those goblin slaves to hand over their hidden treasures so as not to be abused.

After clearing several tribes in a row, he finally arrived at the cave where the blood of the devil was buried. Passing through the huge rock gap that was bottomless, he recalled how hard it was for Qing to kill that poisonous spider.

Stepping on the tough spider web and feeling the cold moisture blowing from under the abyss, Jijilu's face turned pale. Even though he knew that the poisonous spider was dead, he still didn't dare to stand on the spider web.

Not many people know that the precious blood of demons is stored here, and Jijirou just knows that there is a bottomless abyss under this spider web, and the cave opposite is a magic cave that can make goblins corrupt. He doesn't seem to want to know What is there in the cave over there, so Jijiru and a group of goblins stayed on the other side, while I only led the orc warriors across the huge spider web.

Hearing Jijiru standing on the other side, he said to his subordinates in a very soft voice: "They are a group of devils, whoever dares to cross this abyss will become a devil, drive these slaves back, we Migrated to the depths of the cave, a place where they could not find us."

It seems that Jijiru has a high reputation in the hearts of these goblins, and his words brought tears to the eyes of many goblin warriors.

The orc warriors were left outside the cave by me, and I just walked into this mysterious cave with Luka and Kalantso.

When the cave that was blocked by stones was opened by me again, the stone wall that once had a wound of the demon bird still stood there. In front of the stone wall was a two-meter-square blood pool. There is a layer of dark purple scabs, and the bright red blood of the devil in the blood pool is constantly boiling.

Luka and Kalancuo could feel the weird atmosphere in the stone room.

Although none of them asked me, the doubt in their eyes couldn't be concealed, so I said to them two: "Hell used to be connected here, but I destroyed that passage, so there is still a smell of hell here! "

I stood next to the blood pool, took out the round-bellied thin-necked bottle, filled five bottles of devil's blood fully, and put it into the magic pocket.

Then take Kalantso and Luka out of this secret room, and then seal the secret room again with stones, arrange some magic traps of 'frost' scrolls in the tunnel, and then say to Kalantso: "I'm not here! From time to time, you must help me check the magic trap here from time to time, and you must help me watch those goblins, and you must not let them come here at will."

"Understood." Kalanzo said.

……

After re-cleaning the goblin tribes around the blood pool cave leading to the underground warehouse, with a large amount of captured loot, they did not return to the underground warehouse again, but continued to clean up the goblin tribes along the cave leading to the underground exit.

The goblin tribes I met along the way were all vulnerable, and I had never met the newborn goblin bandit forces that fell into goblins, which made me secretly impatient. The goblin tribes I met along the way, although also They each had some strong goblin fighters, but in the face of several rounds of crossbow volleys from the orc fighters, and then another round of musket fire like a torrential rain, there were only a handful of goblin fighters who could survive and resist with their weapons.

At this time, Jijiru led the goblin warriors of the Pandawang tribe to clean up the entire battlefield. They would first brutally execute the old goblins and some strong and prestigious goblins, and then conduct a slave hunting operation, and search the entire goblin tribe at the same time In the end, all the shacks were demolished and burned together with the corpses of the goblin warriors.

At this time, the orc warrior Kentoya would stand up with the oil drum on his back, spray corpse kerosene on the piles of corpses expressionlessly, and then quietly wait for all the goblin slaves to evacuate first with their supplies on their backs. After the goblin tribe's cave ignited the flames of the corpse pile, the last orc team also left quickly, and finally completely sealed the exit of the cave connecting the main passage with stones.

Then the entire bloated team continued to march to the next goblin village amidst the mournful cries of the goblin slaves who had lost their homes. Stretching for several kilometers in the dim cavern tunnels, the Pandawan goblins became complete watchers.

Unexpectedly, those Pandawan goblin warriors took pleasure in killing goblin slaves. The more cruel the Pandawan goblin warriors, the more obedient the goblin slaves under them were. The blood of unidentified goblin slaves.

And the slavery and infinite pessimism of the goblin slaves made them face all this numbly, numbly watching their relatives die silently beside them, numbly watching their homes burn down, looking at those underground passages The exit was completely blocked by a boulder...

……

The Pandawan goblin tribe is the goblin tribe closest to the underground exit. When our expedition team entered the underground world, the first goblin tribe encountered was the Pandawan goblin tribe. At that time, their tribal leader was a wise old goblin tribe. Unexpectedly, three years later , the once young goblin Jijiru has become the new leader of the Pandawang goblin tribe.

When I came to the Pandawang goblin tribe again, I found that the original low shacks had disappeared, and the huge cave was full of wooden huts. All lit torches, bathing the entire goblin village in twilight, and I finally learned how the Pandawan goblins are different from other goblins.

These Pandawang goblins really know how to live.

They no longer live the primitive life of drinking blood, but have begun to have the simplest social structure.

This is a large tribe with a population of more than 2 people. It is far more prosperous than I imagined. Looking at the smoke rising from the tribal cabins, I guess they even know how to make fire. These goblins are very capable of learning. Powerful, living tenaciously in this space-time gap that the gods cannot see.

Standing at the entrance of the cave, looking at the extremely prosperous goblin village, my expression is a little cold at this moment, because in my heart, reason and commitment are at war.

Reason told me to completely wipe out this large tribe before they hid in the depths of the cave.

The promise is just a matter of reasoning. I want me to keep my original promise and let these goblins live. As a magician nobleman, promise and reputation are extremely important. As a nobleman of the Grimm Empire, you cannot be a treacherous villain.

Jijirou on the side looked at my cloudy and uncertain face very anxiously, like a prisoner undergoing trial. He looked at the thousands of goblin slaves who were tied back with hemp rope in panic, and wanted to say to me What, but he hesitated to speak.

The orc warriors around him also looked at such a complete goblin village in front of them in surprise, speechless in surprise.

It seems that the orc warriors have never noticed that in the underground world not far from their village, there is a goblin village dozens of times larger than that small orc tribe, and there are tens of thousands of goblins living here. , and they didn't realize it.

Kalantso and Luka stood by my side. I knew that as long as I gave an order, twenty orc warriors would use their crossbows to thoroughly cleanse this goblin village. The glory of the nobility, what I value more is the tranquility of Xinliu Valley in the future, and the peace of these orc villages, so I think: this prosperous goblin village should completely disappear in Xinliu Valley, which is in the best interest of Xinliu Valley .

So I turned my head and glanced at Luka and Kalancuo. They obviously understood what I was thinking at the moment, and Jijiru who was on the side looked extremely pale and desperate. Obviously, he had already guessed my thoughts.

At the moment when I was about to give an order to Kalancuo, I suddenly saw a group of goblins coming out of the goblin village. Two young goblins walking in front of them were carrying something like a door panel, on which lay an extremely old man. The goblin old man, his body was covered with a soft blanket, his complexion was very poor, his eye sockets were sunken, and he looked terminally ill.

I looked at its face carefully, and recognized him as the old goblin I met three years ago. I didn't expect that although it gave up the position of leader to Jijiru, it was not dead yet. Death is not too far away.But thinking of all the things at the beginning, he still couldn't hold back, and drew a magic circle in front of him, and the 'hydrotherapy' emerged on the old goblin.

In the next instant, his originally dead gray face turned slightly green. He opened his eyes with difficulty, gave me a deep look with gratitude, and then gently told me to lift my hand. The young goblin of the door, lifted the door to me and put it down.Behind them, there were sixteen goblins carrying eight metal boxes, which were also placed behind the old goblin one after another.

The goblin old man just lay in front of me with a sad face and looked at me quietly. Before I could speak, he said first: "I know that the time I see you again will probably be when our Pandawang tribe perishes. Which goblin would ignore a poisonous weed quietly growing around him, and if it is about to grow, he must pull it out."

"It's a pity that although I expected this result, I failed to persuade Jijiru to take the Pandawang tribe to migrate deep underground. He always wants to give it a try and bring back some new slaves for the Pandawang tribe."

When the old goblin said this, Jijiru, the goblin standing aside, looked even worse. Obviously, he had seen the situation clearly, and his face was full of remorse.

The old goblin stared at me with wide-eyed eyes. He opened his mouth to resist the pain in his body, and asked me: "If I say now, I will take the Pandawang goblin tribe to the deepest part of the underground cave, never again Come out, can you let us go?"

I silently shook my head.

Jijiru sat down on the ground, his body became wet, and he was obviously covered in cold sweat.

The old goblin was not surprised at all, he turned his gaze to the eight huge metal boxes, and signaled the young goblins to open the eight boxes one by one, revealing the magic gems piled up inside, and then said to I asked, "If I say now, if you will let our tribe of Pandawan goblins return to the underground world, then I will dedicate these eight chests of gems to you, and every year thereafter we will give you one chest of these gems and several Red Copper, can you let us go?"

I shook my head silently again, without even the slightest hesitation.

Jijirou seemed to have lost all his strength, and suddenly collapsed on the ground.

The goblin old man smiled wryly and muttered to himself: "I knew it... I knew it! This is a catastrophe for our Pandawang tribe. It is the messenger of God who came to clean us up!"

Suddenly his eyes flashed sharply again, his big protruding eyes like a frog widened, his teeth were no longer full of wrinkles and his lips trembled. He asked me again tremblingly: "If I use the Pandawan goblin tribe now The previous inheritance, in exchange for a way of life for our tribe..."

He struggled to lift up a stick in his hand. Sixteen young goblins were calling loudly. I couldn't understand the goblin language they spoke.

Under Jijiru's frightened expression, he saw a large fire lit in the cave from a distance, and a pile of parchment scrolls were placed in front of the bonfire.There are a group of goblin warriors on both sides of the scroll. It seems that as long as I make a slight change, those goblin warriors will throw those sheepskin scrolls into the fire.

The old goblin looked at me with pain on his face and asked: "If I use the scrolls left by those ancestors now, in exchange for a promise from you, in exchange for a way of life for our tribe, would you agree?"

I asked the old goblin, "What are the paintings on those scrolls?"

Unexpectedly, the old goblin shook his head and said, "No one can understand the meaning of those blueprints, but I believe you can. Those are the glory of our goblin clan!"

When I heard the old goblin count out the word 'drawings', I agreed without any hesitation: "Okay, I promise you, as long as I get those blueprints, I will allow you to continue living deep underground, but you must Don't forget, you still owe me the ransom money of thousands of goblin slaves!"

(End of this chapter)