Chapter 84 Chapter 83 Bargaining
The head of the runic battle axe hit the ogre’s mouth accurately, catching the latter off guard, causing its head to tilt back, and a few bloodied teeth to fall out.
The butcher, Goutrek, reached out his hand, and the runic battle axe automatically returned to its position.
As Goutrek made his move, the ogres sitting around sprang to their feet, raising their large knives. Jima reacted even faster, flapping his wings to take off into the air.
“Looking for something to eat, huh!”
The one-eyed ogre covered its mouth, furious, lifting its long-handled war hammer, and swung it toward Goutrek’s head. Goutrek showed no fear and lifted his axes, ready to clash.
“Stop!” Jima spread his fingers, activating the curse he had previously placed within the ogre, dragging it into a dream.
Confusion appeared on the face of the one-eyed ogre, its eyes squinting as it teetered between wakefulness and sleep, its war hammer drooping.
Goutrek stopped, raising his axes and watching the surroundings warily.
The ogres surrounded him, with Goutrek only reaching their knees, making him look like a group of sturdy men encircling a kindergarten child.
However, Goutrek was not afraid but rather pleased, gripping his runic battle axe and weighing which ogre to strike first.
“Stop! Everyone stop!” The two-mouthed ogre leader, nicknamed Sanwei, finally stood up, “Don’t eat the employer!”
The ogres glanced at each other and then parted ways, with one pushing the one-eyed ogre, which staggered and then looked strangely at Goutrek, saying, “Didn’t I smash you?”
Jima landed from the air and said, “Isn’t it that Goutrek’s body sprouts a piece of meat mushroom, and when you eat it, you grow bigger, getting four to five more mouths, and there’s a hole on the ground leading to a world full of meat?”
The one-eyed ogre was startled and asked, “How do you know?”
“Because I made you have a sweet dream.”
The surrounding ogres laughed, saying, “You were just standing still a moment ago.”
The one-eyed ogre, embarrassed with anger, wanted to charge again, when the two-mouthed ogre leader opened both mouths and shouted, “I said stop! Do not eat the employer!”
“How could they be the employer?”
“Who decides?”
The one-eyed ogre was indignant and lowered its war hammer.
“Little thing, we need to have a good talk.” The two-mouthed ogre leader turned to Jima: “I think you wouldn’t give up on hiring us just because of my subordinate’s impulsiveness, right?”
Jima understood that they needed to demonstrate their strength to qualify for being employers. Otherwise, with only two people, why not just use them as food?
“I want to hire you for a battle.” Jima said, leaning on his branch axe: “How many of you are there, and how many monster cavalry do you have?”
“Eighty-three.” The two-mouthed ogre leader said: “And twenty-two Toothless Beasts. Let me be clear, we only accept cash, full payment, upfront.”
“How much?”
“How long do you want to hire us? Who are we fighting?”
“One battle, against a group of trolls.”
The talking ogres immediately fell silent.
The two-mouthed ogre showed an impatient expression:
“Just one battle? You’re kidding me? We are mercenaries, and at least a three-month contract is required.”
“Even small business is still business.” Jima said: “A little extra profit wouldn’t be bad, would it?”
“Are you telling me to send my brothers to death?” The two-mouthed ogre said: “We’ve come along the trail of the trolls, and I’ve heard there are a thousand of them; all the human settlements around have been cleared out by them.”
Jima smiled, revealing his bright white teeth, and said:
“Who said that? Did the person who said this count them? That group of trolls clearly has fewer than three hundred left, and now, we’ve killed off fewer than two hundred, to be precise, one hundred ninety-four.”
The two-mouthed ogre leader asked back, “Heh, you’ve counted?”
“Of course I’ve counted, I’ve even counted your numbers. Where are eighty-three? There are clearly only seventy-eight of you, and only eighteen Toothless Beasts.”
The two-mouthed ogre leader furrowed his brow, recalling something: “I had a dream yesterday where someone called me in my dream—”
“Indeed, it was me.” Jima said: “As a demon, it’s normal to probe for information through dreams; I hope you don’t mind, and if you do, I don’t care.”
“Ha! Truly terrifying.” The two-mouthed ogre leader said, extending five fingers, “This is the number.”
“Five gold coins?” Jima said: “Then, please refund me nine hundred ninety-five gold coins.”
The two-mouthed ogre leader’s face darkened as he said, “Fifty thousand gold coins, no negotiation.”
Goutrek muttered beside him, “Even after being robbed of our underground city, we don’t have that much gold.”
Jima replied, “I have that much money, but—”
The two-mouthed ogre interrupted, “We only accept cash, full payment.”
“I can pull out fifty thousand gold coins at any time.” Jima said: “But I will never be a fool to hire a group of ogres.”
“A fool? Where can you go now to hire mercenaries?” The two-mouthed ogre said: “Don’t think I don’t know, I know you’re in a precarious situation, all people are to be turned into troll rations. For our brothers to risk their lives for you in this bloody battle, this price is quite reasonable.
“You think it’s expensive; I’d rather not have my life spent.”
“Bloody battle?” Jima retorted: “Fighting a group of dimwitted trolls doesn’t warrant a bloody battle? Let’s put it this way, you listen to my command, I have the ability to hide you well. After the trolls attack, with one command from me, we’ll strike from behind and take down the troll king, won’t that work?
“We only need some soldiers to cover us; we have four strong ones. In these few days, we’ve killed a little over a hundred trolls. You should have heard of this.”
Theoretically speaking, the events from a few days ago should not have reached the ogres’ ears. But if someone secretly spread rumors to the dozing ogres, that was another matter.
The two-mouthed ogre leader was half-convinced and asked, “Are you the legendary… Savior Squad? In and out of the troll camp seven times?”
“Yes.” Jima held his head high: “Any more questions?”
The two-mouthed ogre leader said: “We’ve already made arrangements with the trolls to fight for them; our principles require coin to be forgotten.”
The scene fell silent.
The one-eyed ogre seized the opportunity to shout: “If we kill you, we can take your heads to the trolls and collect plenty of rewards!”
The ogres placed their hands on their knife handles and looked at Jima with ill intentions.
Jima then realized why the other party repeatedly emphasized cash payment. After he paid them upfront, the ogres might chop the two of them up and turn them into another profit.
Goutrek laughed, “The ogre is just an ogre, treacherous and deceitful, owes me a blow from my axe.”
However, Jima was not scared; the fact that the two-mouthed ogre leader was saying this indicated he intended to negotiate a price with Jima.
But Jima didn’t have fifty thousand gold coins; he didn’t even have five thousand when the whole team’s gold was combined. Who would hold that much cash? It’s not like they were running a bank.
“Oh?” Jima said: “Do you have a written agreement? Or is it just a verbal agreement?”
“Only weak and feeble people who like to scribble on paper.” The two-mouthed ogre leader said: “Trolls don’t write. Just slap a blood print on a beast skin and make an oath.”
“Where’s the blood print?”
“The messenger with the blood print will be arriving soon.” The two-mouthed ogre leader said: “At the latest today, we can have a good talk. How much can that blood print be worth?”
“Are you planning to auction it?”
“Auction? Yes, that’s the word.” The two-mouthed ogre leader’s eyes lit up, “When it comes to making money, I respect those diminutive folk like you just as much.”
Four hours earlier.
A distance from the ogre camp, the snowflakes of various shapes fell from the sky.
A knife-shaped snowflake smashed against a bald head, belonging to an ogre with a classic money rat-tail hairstyle, sitting atop a Toothless Beast, flanked by four trolls.
He laughed: “Hey! If you all were just a bit smarter, you’d know to flank those little folk from both sides, and they would have been eaten already.”
“So clever, you.” One of the trolls replied in a silly tone: “The boss would break the ice on his thigh upon hearing this.”
The ogre messenger patted his full belly, feeling that the trolls were still too stupid. Since they knew there were two sides to the gorge, a flanking attack could win; why spend extra to hire them?
What utter stupidity.
As he thought this, he laughed heartily: “I have many more good strategies. By the time I return to the camp with the blood print, our more than a hundred brothers can chop up all those little folk and toss them into the pot to boil.”
The troll beside him said, “Boss, the boss said to eat less people, keep more alive. The deity, the bird deity wants living ones, hey? That… that light.. light stick!”
As the troll stammered, he raised his hand.
“What light stick?” The ogre messenger automatically followed his finger to look.
He saw a “light stick” standing in the snow by the roadside, a bizarre scene caused by light distortion.
The ogre messenger had never seen it before, pulling the reins out of curiosity, stretching his neck to look at the “light stick” seven or eight meters away, asking, “What the hell is this?”
The trolls looked at each other, shaking their heads: “Don’t know.”
Driven by curiosity, the ogre messenger got off the Toothless Beast, holding a large cleaver in one hand and the Toothless Beast’s leash in the other, realizing his feet sank deep into the snow.
He felt that this snow was thicker than the others, deep enough to bury a corpse, but he didn’t think much of it. After a few steps, he saw that the transparent “light stick” was a small hole “inserted” in the snow, about the thickness of a finger.
“Could it be treasure?”
The ogre messenger was excited, crouching down, stretching out his arm and scraping at the small hole with his cleaver. The blade touched a metal object buried only shallowly, making him even happier, feeling he was striking gold, moving the cleaver aside to see.
Hey, it was a helmet, the Shaerel helmet, exquisitely crafted.
The helmet suddenly rose—not a helmet, but a set of super Gothic armor stood up, snow falling off its surface, revealing gold edges.
This is worth a lot!
An involuntary smile appeared on the ogre messenger’s face until a Holy Slash came down, and he realized.
Damn, there’s a living person buried in the snow!
George leaped in, a Holy Slash cleanly severing the messenger’s head.
At the same time.
Behind the startled trolls, a “rock” exposed in the snow stood up, Eve Frostleaf cloaked in a color-changing cape, bow drawn and aimed at the back.
This was an ambush.
George had previously been lying in the snow, using his ability to distort light, and through a small hole, he could see the outside scene. The side effect was the appearance of a “light stick.”
The ambush was very successful; in just two minutes, six beings, including the agitated Toothless Beast, were all dead.
George pulled a blood-stamped leather from the headless ogre’s corpse, throwing it onto the burning troll body, where the flames devoured the leather.
Eve Frostleaf skillfully dispersed the black smoke with wind and manipulated earth elements to dig a hole in the ground. George tossed the charred corpses into it and buried them.
From the killing to the burial, the movements were agile and seamless, taking only about twenty minutes.
——
Recently adjusted my sleep schedule, showing initial effects. This week and next week, I will strive to update on time every evening at seven o’clock.
The week after next, I aim to increase updates, since the book friend “Little Demon Jima” has rewarded me with the Flame Emperor; it’s only right to make some gesture, right?
