Information Gained

“Ah!!!”

It was the scream of Shortie the goblin. Serea did not look back at all. After another violent crashing sound, shortie the goblin’s screams stopped.

On the other side, Serea was organizing her thoughts…

Maregof wanted to rule the jungle? Maregof wanted to block the human merchant guilds? But why?

Serea already had a rough answer in her mind…

Maregof was a merchant. His ‘rule’ was established through ‘trade’ with surrounding tribes. He had food and supplies. Seizing the opportunity of the shortage of food and supplies when entering winter, he could use his rapidly appreciating ‘goods’ to exchange for a huge amount of ‘goods’ from other races.

And the specialties of ‘other races’ were already sought-after treasures among humans. In this way, with just a little food and supplies, he could achieve the maximum accumulation of capital, and then reinvest that capital into resources to consolidate his dominance over the jungle.

But a series of human merchant guilds, such as the Xiyun Merchant Guild, interfered with his plans. He needed to monopolize the channel to increase the value of his goods, but now that so many humans were willing to sell food and supplies to other races, how could he possibly maintain a monopoly?

Eliminate them!

As a member of another race himself, he had a natural advantage in the jungle. He hired the Church of Death for ambushes and used his pawn, shortie the goblin, for interception.

This way, the humans’ goods couldn’t reach the hands of other races. Over time, the other races would lose trust in humans. By comparison, maregof, a fellow outsider, would seem more trustworthy. This would establish his monopoly over jungle trade.

But then again, with so many goods and caravans lost, wouldn’t the humans investigate?

This was the Corrupted Jungle, where survival of the fittest prevailed. Human laws didn’t protect their trades here, so even if an investigation succeeded, what could they do?

On someone else’s turf, even if one Shortie was destroyed, there would always be a second, a third.

But human merchant guilds were different. They could not prevent attacks at all times in foreign territory, and increasing guards would reduce transaction profits. These factors resulted in Maregof’s dominance.

It was very difficult for humans to participate. In this environment, most merchant guilds simply gave up—except for one…

Xiyun Merchant Guild!

Unlike other merchant guilds, whose main trading targets were humans, the Xiyun Merchant Guild mainly traded with other races. That was why they would never give up trading in the Corrupted Jungle. Serea genuinely wanted to see what it would look like if the Xiyun Merchant Guild clashed with Maregof.

But thinking so far ahead was pointless. She should deal with the current situation first…

The camp had already been successfully taken. Overall, it was no pressure.

After liberating the camp, the other sealed stone houses were opened. When they were opened, Serea frowned again, as inside were none other than living members of other races.

Lizardfolk, beastmen, dwarves, and… trolls!

There were more than a dozen of them. Once they were released, their gazes were blank and numb. According to their accounts, Serea learned that they were all from migrating tribes just passing through, but when they were caught alone outside the tribe, they were accused of ‘invading territory’ and brought here.

Judging by the wounds on their bodies, they had certainly suffered a lot. When the remaining five trolls were set free, they rushed excitedly toward Augustin.

“Chieftain!”

The trolls immediately gathered next to Augustin. Seeing their chieftain transformed into a steel monster, they showed no rejection at all. Out of respect, they knelt before Augustin.

After looking over the last five surviving tribespeople, augustin sighed heavily.

“Sorry, I am not a qualified chieftain. I failed to protect everyone.”

After he finished speaking, augustin seemed to have exhausted all his strength and collapsed to the ground with a thud.

“Chieftain!!!”

“Where is our shaman?”

They searched for the tribe’s doctor, but after searching all over, they discovered a shocking truth—troll bones were strewn throughout the camp. In other words, aside from these survivors, everyone else…

That tragic reality stunned them. Staring at their destroyed homeland and devoured tribespeople, the trolls felt unprecedented fear and confusion.

The other liberated members of various races also huddled together. Their original tribes had migrated away, leaving them abandoned. What should they do next…

Seeing this, Lola wanted to say something, but Serea had already anticipated her thoughts.

“Send the team’s doctors to treat them, then let them leave on their own.”

Serea said this, unconcerned about whether releasing them would expose her group…

What was there to be afraid of!

It wasn’t that Serea was arrogant. She might fear the human kingdoms because they were far larger than she was now, but as for the outsiders on the outskirts of the Corrupted Jungle…

Sorry, they’re all nothing special!

Even if Maregof really had the backing of the goblin Empire, did he expect the goblin Empire to cross the entire Corrupted Jungle and nearly a third of the continent to send reinforcements? He’d have to be extremely capable for that!

However, maregof was probably not supported by the goblin Empire, because among the world’s “three most naive”: elves, dwarves, and goblins.

This ‘naivety’ didn’t refer to intelligence, but to their style of conduct.

‘Civilization, equality, harmony, and friendliness’—those eight words summed them up. Goblins were especially adept at business. Though they liked little tricks, they would never intentionally harm others.

Of course, that only applied to goblins living under the laws and morals of the goblin Empire. Maregof, a figure from the jungle, was a different story…

The elves and blood slaves went to treat the wounded members of other races. At first, those outsiders were fearful, but after confirming the goodwill of the elves and “humans”, they accepted treatment—including Augustin.

After briefly glancing at those being treated, Serea walked away, because on the other side, the skeleton cavalry had already finished organizing the corpses of the ogres.

As for what she was about to do…

Blood Absorption and Soul Harvest.

Those routines had to be performed. In addition, Serea had something else she needed to do…

“Just to confirm, you can really summon some good stuff?”

System: Unlike ordinary materials, combining the ogres’ corpse materials and the fear crystal gives a chance to summon a powerful abyssal creature.

“You said it. I remember that—don’t try tricking me again when the time comes.”

As Serea spoke, she prepared to perform “Abyss Summon” once again.

Previously, she had summoned Dogsius through Abyss Summon, but that was an exception. Every Abyss Summon since then had resulted in a ‘fallen Lucia’.

Summoning those things not only wasted food, but they also had no combat ability—basically on the level of zombies.

Serea hadn’t even wanted them; it was better to just revive a skeleton.

But this time was different. These were ogre corpses. There ought to be something useful, right? After all, wasn’t she a “lucky European”!

(To be continued…)

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep