After passing through several miles of arbor forests, the terrain began to become rugged, the vegetation turned into low shrubs, and there were bare rocks everywhere. Looking up, you can see the magnificent barrier reaching into the sky. At the source of the Anzeno River, the more than ten sky-high waterfalls seem to be right in front of you. Leo led the team up a stream for another mile and found the valley where the kobolds' lair was located. It's no wonder that the ogres attack frequently. The pioneering caravan has driven to their doorstep and is just short of blocking their gate. Under normal circumstances, as a weak race, the Gnolls would never attack targets stronger than themselves. Let alone a pioneering team of 300 people, even if there were only 50 militiamen heading towards that station, the hundred or so Gnolls would only watch from afar and dare not act rashly. But it is different when the territory is invaded. Any ethnic group with territorial awareness will try every means to drive out the invaders in the territory. This is a small valley with sparse vegetation and a stream flowing down the middle. The kobolds have built a bunch of messy huts along the slopes on both sides of the stream. Some of them only have a roof, revealing the cave entrance on the sloping rock wall. The rock walls of the entire valley were dug by them like a honeycomb. The valley was filled with messy ores and even the stream was blocked in several places. The rusty ash and slag eroded the stream bank so that no grass could grow. The ogres obviously also had scouts and had received the news early on. When Leo and his men entered the valley, it was already in chaos.
At the desperate roar of a black and white kobold, kobolds of all sizes were driven out and gathered on the flat ground in the middle of the valley. Not counting the kobold cubs rolling around on the ground, there were still at least a hundred that could pose a threat to the militia. Although they were outnumbered, Leo was not worried about losing the battle. He had already seen fear and panic in the eyes of the kobolds. After repeated use of the tactic of giving away heads, this small tribe of ogres has exhausted its core combat power. Almost all of the strongest and bravest ogre warriors who rushed to the front have died, and only a group of old and weak ones are left. Among the group of kobolds gathered on the plain of the valley, most of the few remaining kobold warriors had faces filled with panic. In the eyes of the gnolls, whose average height is less than meters, the group of humans on the opposite side are at the top of the food chain. If hundreds of kobolds had broken through the militia's defenses in one go under the leadership of their leader, they might have been able to use their numerical advantage to achieve a tragic victory and drive away these outsiders. Unfortunately, there is no if. From the moment the kobold leader was bitten to death by brutal humans, the kobold tribe was doomed to failure. "Form a line!" Following Leo's order, twenty-five militiamen holding wooden shields surrounded Leo and advanced slowly. Twenty-five young and strong militiamen behind him also followed with sickles and hayforks. There is a reason why people in the North are called barbarians. Although the members of the militia are just a group of farmers who grew up eating bran, they have grown to a height of meters per person thanks to their excellent genes. After a year or so of extra food, the militiamen in the front row looked particularly sturdy with thick fur armor. The crude round wooden shields in their hands were imitated by Uliyan based on the standard round shields of the heavy infantry regiment. They were big, round and heavy, and looked like they could kill a kobold with just one shield. Although the young and strong villagers following behind had never seen blood, after watching several battles with the ogres, they gradually adapted to it and now all looked ferocious and ready to fight if they were not convinced. The militia's shield formation and steady steps brought great oppression to the ogres, and many of them could not help but throw stones and javelins in their hands. Some of these javelins and stones fell to the ground, and some hit the militia's shields, but did not cause any casualties. Unable to reproduce the dense shooting of hundreds of javelins, the kobolds had almost no way to deal with the militia's shield formation. Because of the distance and terrain, this time, Leo did not use the slingshot, but directly took out the javelin. "Javelin ready!" The shield formation moved slightly downward, and the militiamen all raised their javelins. There was an uproar in the ogres' ranks, and many ogres subconsciously squeezed back. "cast!" After two rounds of javelin rain, the ogres finally couldn't hold on any longer. Their already almost nonexistent morale collapsed and they fled in a rush, leaving a mess behind.
Leo cautiously did not pursue, but called on the militia to pick up their javelins again and line up to observe. After a while, under the hissing and barking of the eye-catching black and white dog-headed man, most of the dog-headed men came back, gathered together, and blocked the militia's way again. There is no way, this is their home, and behind them are their food for the winter and a bunch of kobold cubs. Leo was inexplicably touched. The ogre tribe in front of him was so similar to his own village. They were robbed by the orc scout team. Although they obviously could not defeat the enemy, they could only line up to fight back and exchange the lives of the militia for the preservation of the village. In the end, they had to migrate to escape. This was already the best outcome. At least they were still alive. Several surrounding villages were massacred. During the migration, there were also other migrating refugees who froze to death on the roadside. They even encountered several groups of hundreds of refugees, all of whom were frozen to death after a night of wind and snow. These refugee groups did not have a leader as powerful and thoughtful as Ulyaan, who could accumulate enough food, furs, tents, animal power and wagons before migrating. But Leo had neither the mood nor the time to pity these ogres. There was more than one tribe of ogres in this frontier. If the possible threats were not eliminated in time, the frontier camp would be in danger of destruction at any time. There is no guarantee that the next time the camp is attacked by other alien tribes, these ogres will not take advantage of the situation and stab us in the back. Just as Leo shouted "Javelin ready!" again, the black and white kobold stood out from the team. It left the pack, raised its hands, walked to the center of the clearing, and made a series of meaningless grunting sounds. "What is this for?" Ivan, the militiaman beside Leo, whispered curiously. "Is this a one-on-one fight?" asked another militiaman, Vicchi. Leo signaled the militiamen to put down their javelins, and he walked out of the shield formation, wanting to see what tricks this ogre was up to. The black and white kobold grunted for a while, but seeing that Leo didn't understand, it stared at the chain hammer in Leo's hand that it had seized after biting the kobold leader to death. The continuous grunting began to become intermittent and turned into words one by one. "Surrender...you...surrender." Leo was surprised to find that the dog-headed man spoke Imperial language. The militiamen had apparently also realized what was happening and were looking around in surprise, whispering to each other. "Can you speak?" Leo was surprised and bravely approached the kobold and asked. "Yes, Gulu, you, we... surrender." The black and white dog-headed man uttered words one by one with a "gulu gulu" sound, half of which were in an meaningless language, and the other half were in the Imperial language that Leo could understand. Whether or not they can communicate are two completely different matters. Leo inexplicably felt that the distance between himself and the kobolds was closer than that between the Vikings and the Anglo-Saxons. "Food, Woof! You, Gulu, Tie... Let's... go." Following the voice of the black and white dog-headed man, the surrounding dog-headed men became agitated and made meaningless barkings. But with the threatening roars of the black and white ogres, the ogres quieted down again. Several ogres dragged some bags from the mine above the valley and placed them between the two formations. The black and white kobold opened the bag, and a handful of acorns and pine nuts immediately fell to the ground. The black and white kobold pointed at the bag full of acorns, then pointed at the valley behind him, and continued to mutter: "Food, iron...you, give, us...let's leave." Leo listened twice before he understood and repeated, "Give us the food and iron, and we'll let you leave?"
The black and white kobold nodded. Leo suddenly fell into deep thought.
