Chapter 272 – Complicated Human Merchant
Alaes and Alea could only address their tribesmen with lowered heads, after glancing at Zhao Hai and the undead creatures behind him.
It didn’t take more than a while for every tribesman to be a.s.sembled. There were only about 900 people left in the tribe, with more than 100 of them being youths, and the rest being the old and weak.
Everyone was looking nerve-wrackingly at the undead creatures, whose strength they had just witnessed. All of Gasol’s escorts had been experts with at least the strength of level 6 warriors. And yet, even with such strength, the undead cavalry had exterminated them in a single charge with no casualties. What sort of concept was this?
The large-horned tribe’s people were not idiots without common sense. They knew quite well that if the undead creatures had not been powerful enough, Gasol’s dozens of escorts would’ve been able to deal with several hundreds of them without breaking a sweat. But the escorts had been taken care of without a single casualty on the undead’s side. This could only prove that the strength of the undead creatures was not inferior to that of Gasol’s escorts. And since they numbered more than 3000, there was no way the tribesmen could oppose them.
If they couldn’t oppose them, then all that was left was only submission. They gathered around cautiously, with the women and children in the middle, then the elders, and finally the youths.
Zhao Hai glanced at them, then waved the staff in his hand. A cloud of black mist wrapped everyone up, which made the tribesmen nervous for a while.
Soon, the black mist dissipated, and the tribesmen discovered that they were now standing outside a castle. A real human castle.
Beastmen had always heard about such castles more than they had seen them. Now that the large-horned tribesmen were finally seeing one, they couldn’t react. They just stood there in front of it, staring dumbfoundedly at 2 people.
Yes. Not beastmen, but true humans. They couldn’t understand how they had suddenly appeared here.
Just then, Zhao Hai’s voice suddenly rang out, “Alright, from here on out, this will be where you live. Remember, you are the slaves of Zhao Hai. Me.” The tribesmen returned to their senses in an instant, and then looked at Zhao Hai at a loss for thoughts. They seriously couldn’t understand how Zhao Hai had done it. Why was he able bring so many people here from the prairie in an instant?
Without care, Zhao Hai continued. “This is my supervisor, Greene, and likewise, this one is Kun Zheng. They will arrange your accommodations, as well as clarify the rules here. Remember. Whoever dares to cause trouble, I will be turning them into a specter.”
Of course, Zhao Hai was terrorizing the tribesmen, which was something he couldn’t afford not to do. If he couldn’t make the tribesmen feel fear, then he would have to kill more people if they caused trouble.
In order to settle the large-horned tribesmen down as quickly as possible, Zhao Hai waited and watched Greene arrange them into their accommodations instead of going back to the prairie in a hurry.
Greene and the others had prepared for this. With their crazy purchases in Casa City beforehand, they were not lacking in supplies right now. It didn’t take a lot of effort to settle the tribesmen.
Most importantly, this castle wasn’t small. Zhao Hai and the others had only been able to use a part of it since they had been too few in number. With more than a thousand of the large-horned raging bulls here, it was just enough to make the castle a little more lively.
Although the tribesmen didn’t know where they were, they didn’t dare to disobey Zhao Hai’s words. Adding the fear of being in a completely foreign environment, they could only enter the castle nervously under Greene and Kun Zheng’s arrangements.
Food had already been prepared for them in the castle, so all the tribesmen needed to do was to occupy themselves in it. With Zhao Hai keeping watch, everything proceeded very smoothly. In the eyes of the large-horned raging bulls, Zhao Hai was a devil with power beyond boundaries. Otherwise, there would be no way for him to have such a large army of undead, not to mention the ability to bring them to here in an instant from the prairie.
Zhao Hai had used the s.p.a.ce to bring them here, of course. In order to avoid letting them see what was going on inside the s.p.a.ce, he had used a black mist spell to cover their entry, and with the speed of the transition being so fast, they could only feel the black mist covering them up before they were transported to a completely foreign location. This caused them to have an incomparable fear towards Zhao Hai’s ability.
The large-horned raging bulls were a very gentle race among beastmen, and their nature made them a little cowardly. With how ‘obeying the strong’ had always been the rule on the prairie, they could only be complacent.
By the time they had settled down, dawn was about to break, and Zhao Hai immediately returned to the prairie, where there were a lot of matters he had yet to attend to.
When Gasol had defeated the Large-Horned Raging Bull Tribe, all of their supplies had been looted, including magic beasts, food, wagons and tents, which were the most commonly-used by beastmen.
Zhao Hai had only taken care of Gasol and his men, and the matter of transporting the large-horned tribesmen to Iron Mountain Castle, while the other things had been left untouched on the prairie. Right now, they were being guarded by the undead creatures, led by Laura.
Zhao Hai entered Xenomorph as soon as he arrived, and found that Laura and the others had gone to sleep. He smiled a little and didn’t disturb them as he walked out.
The things which Gasol and his men had looted weren’t a lot, for the tribe in question was a small tribe of more than 1000 people. Even so, their supplies were not little. Just putting these things away required several hundred wagons.
One had to keep in mind the difference in size between beastmen wagons and human wagons. The wagons that Zhao Hai’s group was using could only fit up to 1000 kilos of grains each, while each of the beastmen’s wagons could carry more than 5000 kilos of grains.
Zhao Hai counted it carefully. The Large-Horned Raging Bull Tribe had up to 500 large wagons, with 300 of them containing tents and everyday necessities, while only 200 of them contained grains. However, when Zhao Hai took a look, he saw that the grains had not been fully packed. Every wagon only carried around 2000 kilos, and each had been tightly covered with leather. This showed that they treated the grains with great importance.
Some magic beasts were tied to every wagon. There were 3 kinds: large-horned raging bulls, ordinary raging bulls, and argali goats.
The first of which were obviously the tribesmen’s mounts, while the ordinary raging bulls were for pulling the wagons. The argali were naturally their most important a.s.sets.
After careful counting, there turned out to be more than 1500 large-horned raging bulls, more than 1100 ordinary raging bulls, and the argali were too many to be counted.
The beastmen certainly had a way to deal with the argali. Such a large commotion had taken place last night, yet the argali hadn’t run away, and right now, in the morning, the argali were eating gra.s.s in a laid-back manner.
After some thinking, Zhao Hai put everything into the s.p.a.ce, while leaving only several hundred argali and a couple of supply wagons outside. One contained tents, while the other contained living necessities. Although they were meant for beastmen, they were enough for appearances.
Zhao Hai had thought the merchants on the prairie to be too simple when he had talked with Wales in some days ago. The merchants on the prairie were even more like beastmen in lifestyle. They brought large numbers of grain wagons, as well as wagons with tents and supplies, because they had to set up their own tents most of the time. It would be impossible for them to seek accommodation with beastmen everyday.
Humans who had arrived at Beastmen Prairie would normally wear clothes made of beast skins. The first reason for this was to generate a sense of positivity in the beastmen, and the second was for suitability.
It was also until now that Zhao Hai knew that human merchants were living their lives this way on the prairie. He tried to ask Laura, since Laura should’ve had known all of this since she had claimed to have done business on the prairie.
Unexpectedly, Laura rolled her eyes at him and said that businesses on the prairie had always been monitored by Kun Zheng, who had always barred her from making contact with those people (human merchants) on the prairie. Then, it had been pa.s.sed to Ah-Tai, so she had only been in charge of ledger issues instead of the specifics.
In Kun Zheng’s view, the main purpose of this excursion was not to do business, but to acquire rare magic beasts and plants, so he hadn’t said too much of this to Zhao Hai and the others. Besides, with the s.p.a.ce, there wasn’t a need to do so many things. Kun Zheng could never think of seriously letting Laura eat and sleep while exposed outdoors like the merchants. He couldn’t bear the thought.
The wagons which Zhao Hai left behind were just to keep up appearances, and he wouldn’t use them seriously. After all, they rested inside the s.p.a.ce.
The reason why he had left the argali outside was to have them match his ident.i.ty of being a merchant. On the prairie, it was very normal for merchant convoys to be followed by a large herd of argali.
The grain wagon of the Large-Horned Raging Bull Tribe was left outside, since he would use it to engage in trade from this point onwards. The smaller wagons were too small after all, and unsuitable for use on the prairie.
After sorting everything out, Zhao Hai let out 500 undead humans and 100 undead large-horned raging bulls to guard the wagons. He also let out Laura’s wagon and woke her up. They had to hurry up once again.