Chapter 286 – Trap
Chapter 286 – Trap
Laura nodded and said, “Good, but when do we rescue the princesses? Do we wait up until we leave?”
Zhao Hai shook his head, “No, if we wait until we leave to rescue the princesses, then West Wonder King would suspect us of rescuing them. As long as we find the 2nd and 3rd princesses, we’ll immediately rescue them, only then would West Wonder King not suspect us.”
Laura heard Zhao Hai’s words and thought that they seemed reasonable, if they rescued the 2nd and 3rd princesses just as they left, then West Wonder King would undoubtedly find fault with them, adding many variables to the current situation. But if they immediately rescue the princesses, West Wonder King wouldn’t be able to find fault with them, even if he has his suspicions.”
Meg looked at Zhao Hai and said, “Young Master, did you see West Wonder King today? How did it go, smooth? What kind of person is he?”
Zhao Hai thinks for a moment then he said, “He looks like a powerful person, if you judge based on his appearance, then you’d think he was a crude man. But if you take note of his eyes, you’ll see that he has a calculating attitude. I went today and talked to him about the issue of our grain business, this should make him trust us.”
Laura nodded and then smiled, “Now West Wonder King would feel proud, I have the inkling that he could not wait for the day that we’d bring him the grain.”
Zhao Hai showed a faint smile, “First we need to stabilize him, have him stay his hand so that Brother Wales can continue on with his plans. And after we rescue the princesses, we’ll snoop around the camp. But from all the rumors going around, it seems that the Fighting Bull tribe isn’t in any better situation, by cooperating with a human they had place themselves in an awkward situation since its a beastman taboo to ask for help with humans, they’ll have to cover it up. If I am the Fighting Bull chieftain, I’ll help the humans escape the prairie, then await for a suitable time for to have them return, as the matter stands, they are on the losing side. This is a big help to brother Wales, it will make his success more possible.”
Laura nodded, “If big brother Wales can counter-attack as soon as possible, then he’ll certainly succeed because nobody would think that he’ll counter-attack immediately.”
Zhao Hai showed a faint smile, he didn’t add any further comments, he looked at Laura and asked, “You have been in contact with the Fighting Bulls these past few days, what do you feel about them?”
Laura thought for a moment, then she said, “I don’t really feel anything, I just think that they are very much unlike Spiel who was easy going, I don’t like them.”
Zhao Hai smiled, “Probably its because they are too practical, you cannot blame them, they often see convoys come so trading has become too common here. In any case, after this we won’t have any interactions with them anymore.”
Laura nodded, then turned her head to the monitor and saw several beastmen being busy, Zhao Hai suddenly sighed, “Look at their busy appearance, it is very difficult to imagine what their response will be when war comes.”
Laura didn’t say a word, none of them have experianced war so they cannot imagine that scene, but they had seen the Giant-Horned Bull tribe’s appearance after Gasol’s attack, and that is only a small tribe. If the big tribe outside encounters the same fate, it would be very difficult to visualize the scene.
Zhao Hai sighed, then the image on the monitor switched to the convoy. The convoy was still on the move without any accidents. Zhao Hai nodded, “Right, I just placed the fighting bulls and wild blood cows on the ranch. It made the ranch rise to level 7 and then I raised 100 cows. The milk wine that we made should be good by now. Want to return to Iron Mountain Fortress and have a taste?”
When Laura heard that the pasture has been upgraded, she became very happy. Then she said, “Brother Hai, the space’s pasture is now level 7, what change do you think will happen when it reaches level 10 ?”
Zhao Hai shook his head, “Who knows? The change that will happen may not be what I want, forget it, any change is good.”
Laura smiles, “I believe that the pasture will keep improving, just like the farm. Also, I didn’t think that the Milk Wine would only take a short time to ferment. To be honest, I cannot seem to get used to the taste of Milk Wine. But our milk might be very tasty, I can’t wait to have a taste the flavor of our milk wine.”
Zhao Hai showed a faint smile, to be honest he also wants have a taste of the wine. Seeing that it is now lunch time, Zhao Hai led Laura and others back to Iron Mountain Fort. He left the camp to Cai’er for monitoring, just in case if some people come to visit, they’d still have time to come back.
Back at Iron Mountain Fort, the residents have just finished eating their lunch. In general, the lunch provided here at Iron Mountain Fort is very simple. Since they will become busy at the afternoon, lunch would be brief then followed by a short break before they head back to work.
Seeing Zhao Hai suddenly come back, Green became somewhat surprised. Usually Zhao Hai wouldn’t come back for lunch, but fortunately Green prepared a lot of food, he didn’t need to prepare again.
While having lunch, Zhao Hai had Green bring some milk wine, Green got someone bring a pot to Zhao Hai. He then gave each person one cup to taste. The milk wine was very tasty, quite mellow compared to beastman-made wine. It was very fragrant, and coupled with the distillation method, the quality of the milk wine became a lot higher. Laura drank a cup, after which her face reddened.
Zhao hai didn’t drink any more, he only drank a cup then returned to his tent back at the camp, then fell asleep.
In the next three days, Zhao Hai’s life was very calm, sometimes they’d interact with some beastmen. But this time they didn’t just trade things with the beastmen, they also asked them if there are any things that the beastmen specifically wanted, because if possible, he’d bring those to them.
Leaving aside that Zhao Hai trades them with products, when he asked them regarding things they needed so he can procure them, the beastmen became happy. In reality, these beastmen have many things that they want, but since Zhao Hai mainly trades with food they couldn’t buy anything else, now that Zhao Hai wanted to listen to their requests, they’d be absolutely delighted.
But trouble came afterward, the news that Zhao Hai accepted requests spread throughout West Wonder King’s camp and before long, a bunch of people came in with requests of all the things they needed hoping that Zhao Hai could procure them.
Zhao Hai felt that he made a big mistake, he really shouldn’t have asked for requests. Since the beastmen still had a lot of things to do, Zhao Hai had them return first. He had their requests written down so that he does not need to list them one by one.
Zhao Hai did so because he had a lot of supplies from Casa City, almost all were prepared for this trip to the prairie. So Zhao Hai wanted these supplies to be traded for some argali.
He just underestimated the beastmen’s desire to buy. Since the beastmen cannot buy whatever they wanted on this scarce prairie, their blown out enthusiasm was completely out of Zhao Hai’s expectation.
Zhao Hai finally received all the list of orders, which was enough to compile a few books with. In any case, the grain convoy just reached outside the cow-headed race territory. Zhao Hai can only delay the orders until next shipment to bring in the requests.
These few busy days passed by quickly, Zhao Hai’s grain convoy had finally left cow-headed race’s territory. After they finished loading the grain, Zhao Hai immediately took back his Ghost staff. He then called a blood hawk to seek around West Wonder King’s camp to find Wales’ two sisters.
Now that the beastmen are preparing for winter, the quantity of grass to be foraged by a tribe as large as West Wonder King’s camp reached astronomical figures. Therefore at this time, there were very many foragers out and about, but these foragers were mostly slaves.
Foraging grass for the winter season is very tiring work, you cannot return to the camp for a long time, you work from dawn to dusk, such high intensity work, only after then can you rest. Majority of the large tribes would have slaves do this job, sometimes having a certain quota per slave, if someone cannot meet the required amount, they may even get killed.
Fortunately the blood hawk is quick, and also Zhao Hai believed that the Fighting Bulls would certainly group up all the Herculean Bulls to one place, Zhao Hai is certain to find their specific location.
Laura and the team are also staring at the scene, very careful in looking, fearing that they might miss something. Soon they finally found their target, in reality, it wasn’t that difficult to find them since they are not that far from West Wonder King’s camp, only half-a day’s journey away.
There were more than 100 Herculean Bulls working, both male and female. These people were in handcuffs and fetters. What made Zhao Hai surprised is that they are accompanied by a cavalry of 300 Fighting Bulls, moreover, they were fully-armed.
Zhao Hai didn’t immediately make a move, he observed the Fighting Bull cavalry carefully, as well the the surrounding situation around the Herculean Bulls.
Sure enough, Zhao Hai found something not right with the surroundings. In the herds surrounding the Herculean Bulls, there were a lot of Fighting Bulls working, these were not slaves of the Fighting Bulls but true Fighting Bull clansmen. They also have their mounts and weapons with them. Morover, you could see that they were not working that hard, instead, while working they would sometimes pay attention to the Herculean Bulls’ situation. Counting them up, there were about 5,000 of them.
Zhao Hai immediately understood the situation after seeing this scene. This was a trap set up by the Fighting Bulls, they want to use the 2nd and 3rd princesses as bait. So when the Herculean Bulls come and try to attempt rescue, they would be attacked immediately, catching the Herculean Bulls off-guard.
Seeing this situation Zhao Hai’s expression couldn’t help but sink. Laura with a gloomy face also didn’t speak. Some time after, Meg angrily shouted, “Too shameless! Without the Hercuelan Bulls they wouldn’t even achieve what they are today. But look at what what he did, he unexpectedly set a trap for the Herculean Bull clan. Completely shameless!”
Meg rarely cursed people, but today she madly cursed, you could see how angry she was. Zhao Hai and Laura are also very angry, they really didn’t expect that West Wonder King would be shameless to this point.
Zhao Hai can guess what West Wonder King is thinking, he wants to use this way to show the Fighting Bull tribe that he already drew the line between the Herculean Bulls and himself.
To be honest, after West Wonder King is finished with the Herculean bulls, he wants to hire himself onto the Fighting Bull clan. This point Zhao Hai can understand, after all, West Wonder King is a leader, not only himself, but he also needs to consider his people.
However, the method that West Wonder King used made Zhao Hai very angry to the point of enraging him. He knew from Wales that without the Herculean Bull clan, there wouldn’t be a West Wonder King today, but West Wonder King actually treated the Herculean Bulls this way, Zhao Hai cannot forgive this action.
Laura didn’t curse, but instead she turned to Zhao Hai, “Brother Hai, what is your judgement?” Laura knows that Zhao Hai isn’t a person to suffer a loss and remain silent, therefore she asked this.
Zhao Hai smiled faintly, “We move this evening, I’ll disptch the undead as well as the hawks. But not to save the 2nd and 3rd princesses but instead make West Wonder King’s 5000 men my subordinates.”
Laura stared, then immadeiately understood what Zhao Hai meant, she frowned and replied, “Is this okay? That is a large battalion of troops, and the camp is very close by.”
Zhao Hai smiles, “Darkness is our domain, we’ll tidy up the surrounding cavalry first then we’ll rescue the 2nd and 3rd princesses after.”
Laura nodded, then said nothing. Like what Zhao Hai said, after darkness, it would truly be their domain. With so many Undead, taking care of these Fighting Bulls should be very easy.
After watching the weather outside, Zhao Hai said with a low voice, “We shall rest first, in a while we’ll begin. We will not wait for the day to be entirely dark, this time we are only here to monitor, it would be best for the Fighting Bulls to see us so they will not have suspicions towards our group.
Laura stared blankly for a moment, then showed a faint smile and said, “Right, we’ll get loud during dinner, we’ll also go out of the tent from time to time, so that no one would doubt us.”
Zhao Hai smiles, “Right, by then we could provide evidence that we’re not the culprit. They wouldn’t think that we have the space, a mysterious existence, with us. I’ll have the bloody hawk hold the Ghost Staff, we’ll poison them first, then we’ll begin.”
Laura didn’t have any further opinion, all those inside the tent hoped that the darkness would come soon.