Struggle in the Steam Age

Half an hour later, Ranger Christine ran out of the woods. As soon as he got back outside the forest, he rushed straight to Lawrence and the others resting, and then reported the situation he had just detected to the team members who were waiting for him, especially the priest who was the team leader.

"I touched the edge of their tribe." After taking a sip of water from the water bag, the ranger Christine said while drawing a picture on the sand with his fingers, "It's not so easy, because there are several on the road. A patrol of three or four goblins."

"After bypassing the blockade of several patrols and walking a little further, I found a goblin tribe through the bushes. There are fourteen or fifteen goblin huts built with branches, leaves and vines in this tribe In the middle of the hut there is a simple fire made of stones, and a dozen goblins are moving around the fire."

"Are there any characteristics of those goblins you saw?" As the captain of this temporary team, the priest asked. "The key point is the age ratio of the goblins in that tribe, as well as the equipment you found for the goblins."

"I only saw adult goblins along the way." Christine said seriously after thinking for a while. "These goblins' equipment is also very confusing. For example, some goblins are wearing leather armor with metal plates, and there are metal daggers or spears made of metal on their bodies, but most of the goblins are What can be draped on the body is all draped on the body, and the weapons are only some wooden sticks that have been sharpened and blackened in the fire."

"By the way, there is one more point." After describing the goblin, Christine suddenly added. "Those goblin huts vary in size, the largest of which are more than three times the size of the smallest."

"Thank you Christine." After listening to Christine's words, the leading priest patted the ranger on the shoulder and said to everyone. "It's now clear that what we're dealing with is part of a collapsing tribe of goblins."

Lawrence nodded. As someone who has dealt with goblins a lot, he knows that leather armor and metal weapons are exclusive to goblins in large tribes, and it is impossible for small goblins to have these things. Also a normal tribe of 100+ goblins is very chaotic and doesn't even have a leader. There will be no shed patrols of varying sizes representing different classes. These all show that there are shamans or high-level goblin warriors in command in this tribe.

Besides, a normal goblin tribe has no old people except priests, but there will be many underage goblins. Those disgusting little guys will not stay in the shed obediently, but will run around everywhere. The ranger just now didn't find any little goblins active outside, which can only prove that this tribe is not a naturally formed tribe.

While Lawrence was thinking, the priest of the Agricultural Church, who was the team leader, simply assigned the task. Soon, the ranger caught a fat wild boar from the surrounding woods.

After he returned with the wild boar tied up, the priest stepped forward and poured the green liquid from a bottle on his body into the boar's mouth. When he closed the wild boar's mouth, the wild boar was completely motionless.

"This is a chronic strong anesthetic commonly used by our agricultural church. It is generally used to subdue certain violent animals. Of course, this wild boar passed out because I administered too much medicine at once." The priest finished everything Later explained. "We only have five people. It's not a good idea to go head-to-head with a goblin tribe with more than 100 people. So I want to use these powerful anesthetics as a trap to weaken the goblin tribe as much as possible."

"Then why not use poison?" the retired warrior in the team asked while checking his huge iron tower shield. "I've seen rogues use poison before when I was adventuring. Putting a little on a knife can easily kill all kinds of monsters."

"Poison is really useful if you are dealing with a small number of enemies." The leading priest shook his head and said, "But what we have to face is a tribe of goblins, and it is impossible to eat our bait at the same time. Although the goblins It has always been known for its low IQ, but if a companion is poisoned to death, other goblins will definitely not continue to eat our bait."

"As for the top poison that can control the time of poisoning, it is too expensive, and I don't have that kind of thing." Speaking of this, the priest shrugged his shoulders. "Even if I had it, I wouldn't use it on goblins."

During this period of time, the anesthetic also spread to the whole body through the internal circulation of the wild boar, causing the heart of the wild boar to stop beating. After discovering that the wild boar was dead, the priests of the Agricultural Church immediately stopped explaining and asked everyone to prepare for action. "Okay, the potion has spread, we can start to act."

Because there were a lot of people in this operation and not all of them were good at activities in the forest, Lawrence and the others did not head straight to where the goblin tribe was. The direction of the hills is very close to the location of the goblin tribe.

"Just now I found that the group of goblins are short of manpower, so they focus on the direction close to the road. Now we go around from the other side where there are few people patrolling." The ranger in front just entered the forest. He said to the other people who followed him, "I hope you can fully obey my orders and follow my footprints. If you don't pay attention to this kind of place where you are not used to staying, you may alarm those things."

After listening to the ranger's words, Lawrence nodded silently and seriously, then took out a metal test tube from his belt, unscrewed the cap, and filled a test tube full of withered yellow powder. He sprinkled some on himself first, and then told the others. "The test tube is deodorant powder, and everyone sprinkles a little on their bodies."

"It's pretty good." After taking the test tube and smelling it for a while, the priest praised Lawrence for pouring some powder from the test tube and sprinkled it on himself, then turned his head and said to the others. "Everyone sprinkle a little on the body, not too much, a handful is enough."

After finishing the preparations, the five of them walked to the depths of the forest together. More than 40 minutes later, shortly after everyone walked quietly through a path patrolled by goblins, the ranger walking in the front raised his right hand to signal everyone to stop.

"It's fine here." Ranger Christine stopped and pointed to a space with many footprints in front of him and said, "Going forward, the group of goblins have set up a lot of traps, and it's hard for us not to be alarmed." walk through them."

"Then let's find a place to hide nearby." The priest nodded, then turned his head and said to the former soldier carrying the wild boar, "Just put the wild boar here."

"No problem." The soldier followed the ranger's instructions and placed the wild boar in a place where there were traces of goblin activities. Then he pulled out a dagger from his belt and stabbed the wild boar deeply a few times. Soon the smell of blood spread around the wild boar's body.

"Now we should stay away, the smell of blood will soon attract the goblins." The soldier said to everyone after retreating.

The five people immediately moved away from the dead wild boar and hid in the bushes behind a big rock. Along the way, Lawrence discovered that the soldier was also a veteran, stabbing the wild boar so many times at close range without a single drop of blood on his body.

"Will goblins fall for this?" the retired soldier asked, looking at the wild boar lying on the ground. "A dead pig appeared out of thin air on the ground, with knife wounds on its body. I think this is suspicious no matter how you look at it."

"Don't worry, there's no problem." Lawrence explained in a low voice, "These greedy guys stuff everything into their mouths like locusts. I've even seen hungry goblins eating dirt. So they probably won't give up on this one." pig's."

"And apart from shamans and some goblins who possess extraordinary power, ordinary goblins have terrible low IQs, even worse than five or six-year-old human children, so they will not doubt the origin of the meat. According to the internal class of goblins, When this pig appears in front of the smarter guys among the goblins, it will be in the form of a cooked dish, so naturally there is no need to worry about them finding out that something is wrong."

"So it's like this..." The ex-soldier closed his mouth before finishing his emotion and signaled everyone to hide. Soon, a team of goblins jumped out from behind a bush.