Chapter 45: The True Value of a Half-Ogre

This massive undertaking took Gawain and his crew more than two days.

During this time, he also drove the carriage to deliver a variety of miscellaneous goods and mobilized a small squad of kobolds to work overtime.

However, the harvest was bountiful. The pile of spirit crystals, large and small, was as big as a human head. Not only was it enough to manufacture spirit crystal servants, but there was even a surplus.

This indirectly confirmed one of Gawain's suspicions: there was a spirit crystal vein nearby. While its exact location remained unknown, it was known that it was controlled by a goblin tribe.

Investigating which goblin tribe held it would not be difficult; he only needed to use these ten days to let Hou, the half-orc, wander around following his old tax-collecting routine.

Gawain noted this in his itinerary, then drove the carriage back in a grand procession, accompanied by the half-orc carrying heavy bundles and two squads of kobolds.

As they walked, Hou could not help but look back at his cave. He had a vague, lingering feeling that the possibility of ever returning here in his lifetime was slim to none.

His grief and indignation over the past few days went without saying.

Not only was he leading a group of people, but they were kobolds—the very creatures that had oppressed him since he was old enough to remember. They had ransacked his cave, loading the treasures he had painstakingly accumulated over many years onto their carriage.

Even his bone decorations, which he regarded as art, had been tossed everywhere by those kobolds, trampled underfoot and ground into the mud.

Anger, like a raging fire, surged from his heels to the top of his head, scorching his brain and soul, setting him completely ablaze.

But in the next second, under a pair of cold, dangerous eyes, the fire was extinguished once more.

Following his primal instincts, he knew that if he dared to harm a single kobold, he would never get a second chance.

It wasn't that Hou hadn't thought about running away. Several times, he had even found perfect opportunities. With a single leap, he could scramble into another ravine, and with his long strides, those short-legged creatures behind him would never catch him.

But every time Hou was about to act, his legs felt as heavy as if they were cast in iron.

Involuntarily, images of the food he had eaten over the past two days drifted through his mind.

In his entire life, he had never eaten anything so delicious. Compared to this, everything he had eaten before was garbage.

He hadn't felt much when he was eating garbage every day in the past. But now that he had tasted exquisite food, the half-orc found himself hesitating at the thought of returning to scraps.

And often, during that moment of hesitation, the group would have already marched far ahead, and his chance to escape would vanish in an instant.

Hou's mind was not as deep as he imagined; almost everything he felt was written plainly on his face and in his actions. The struggle, contradiction, ferocity, and fear constantly cycled across his ugly, large face. Even the kobolds could discern his mood from this, let alone Gawain.

By the time they returned to Black Well, Gawain was fairly certain that the half-orc had undergone preliminary domestication. It was time to move to the second step, which included the Black Well tribe itself.

In the short two days Gawain was away, the Black Well tribe was undergoing earth-shattering changes.

Construction was in full swing.

Freshly felled logs were being dragged in by the collective effort of the kobolds.

Under Gorth's leadership, even more kobolds were using simple tools to level the ground around the Black Well mine.

The biggest change, however, was that most of the kobolds were no longer nearly naked; they now wore varying degrees of leather armor and weapons, and the strongest few even had studded leather.

This equipment had, naturally, been scavenged from Hou's trash heaps and repaired by the goblin warlock and the young priestess using Restoration magic.

This was the best sign that the Black Well tribe had accepted them.

They had originally been like duckweed, floating at the mouth of the Black Well, liable to be washed away by the slightest wave. Now, they were going to take root here.

"Lord, you have returned, woof!" Upon hearing the news, Gorth immediately scurried forward to greet him, following closely at Gawain's side. "Lord, my kin can handle the initial leveling work, woof. But as for how to build the houses later, we truly do not know, woof. In my opinion, we should expand the Black Well entrance several times over. In just a few days, we could dig out a cave for the Lords to live in, woof!"

"How many people from other tribes have come to join us in these two days?" Gawain did not answer Gorth's question.

At this question, Gorth's eyes brightened and his fine scales flared; his entire spirit rose a level as he answered quickly, "Thirteen! I heard from the newcomers that many in their tribes have had the same idea, but were forcibly suppressed by their leaders. They ran away in secret, woof. But I estimate their leaders won't be able to suppress them for long. In a few days, at least twenty more will come to join us, woof. By then, our tribe will break a hundred, and we won't be a Black Well Nest anymore, but a Black Well Den, woof!"

Whether it was a "nest" or a "den," these were specialized terms kobolds used to categorize the scale of their settlements. To them, population was everything, so they naturally used headcount for classification.

"What is the maximum number of kin your Black Well can accommodate?" Gawain posed a new question.

Gorth froze, clearly having never considered this. He counted on four fingers, "A hundred, a hundred and fifty... currently, we should be able to hold a hundred and eighty. If we squeeze in, we could reach about two hundred. Any more than that would be a bit too crowded."

"How long do you think it will take us to reach two hundred?"

"That..." Gorth's expression became hesitant. If they relied on natural growth, it would take at least another half month, as there were only a few nearby kobold tribes. But given the way Gawain operated, he wasn't sure if the man would simply sit and wait.

Gorth's wandering gaze fell upon the half-orc, who had already joined the construction crew not far away. He felt as if a bolt of lightning had struck his forehead, and his mind suddenly cleared with a *buzz*. "Ten days! At most ten days, our tribe's population will break two hundred!"

The half-orc wasn't just being squeezed for one tribe, but for every tribe within a few kilometers.

Now that this rogue had been tamed by Gawain, Gawain only needed to stand before the surrounding kobold tribes with him and declare his identity, and countless kobolds would join the Black Well tribe.

No, no, that wasn't right.

That idea vastly underestimated Hou's deterrent power in the area.

Gawain had already led Hou through the nearby mountain paths several times. News of the half-orc having a new master would soon spread across the surrounding peaks with the mountain wind, and those cunning creatures would deliver themselves to his doorstep.

Gawain gave him an expression that said *you are clever, woof*, and said, "So, look further ahead. We will have skilled builders, professional miners, and powerful warriors. What you need to do now is lead your kin to lay a solid foundation in preparation for the coming population boom."

"The Lord is right, my vision was too short-sighted, woof!" Gorth nodded repeatedly, speaking with genuine conviction.

In private, he always considered himself a clever person—a smart kobold with shrewd calculations. But in front of Gawain, after only a few questions, his brain had turned into mush; he simply couldn't keep up.

This was because the other man's gaze was never fixed on the small corners of his calculations, but on a much longer-term, macro perspective.

Whenever his thoughts synchronized with Gawain's, he would look back at his own ideas and schemes and find them so naive, so ridiculous.