King
Chapter 118 - 118 98 Unexpected Person Request for Monthly Ticket_1

118: Chapter 98, Unexpected Person (Request for Monthly Ticket)_1 118: Chapter 98, Unexpected Person (Request for Monthly Ticket)_1 With the commencement of the autumn farming season, the issue of labor shortage was exposed to all the new lords.

The same problem faced by different lords ended in different outcomes.

The native nobles relied on their connections to borrow manpower and livestock, thus accomplishing the autumn farming smoothly.

The Northern aristocracy suffered.

Their families were thousands of miles away, and it was impossible to ask for help.

Their fellow defectors could not care for anyone else but themselves.

Even if the soldiers were ordered to till the fields, a large amount of land was inevitably abandoned.

The price of human slaves in the market had skyrocketed so much that even Hudson, who came from a rich family, was scared off, let alone the poorer lords.

Even the wealthy could only purchase a small number.

Mass procurement was no longer a matter of price, but of the fact that there were simply none available on the market.

In the past two years, no major wars had broken out among the big nations.

The slaves now available in the market were all sold by their masters who needed cash flow.

Normally, major nobles would not sell their slaves, lest they unintentionally reveal some of their secrets.

After experiencing the loss caused by land abandonment, everyone naturally sought a solution.

Some turned to merchants to purchase livestock, others targeted orc slaves.

It didn’t matter if one or two families did this.

But when dozens of families did the same, the increase in quantity finally brought about a significant change.

Seeing their neighbors catching regular slaves, the followers believed that there were new buyers for orc slaves.

The border slave trade, as a result, flourished for a while.

The large-scale capture of tribesmen quickly drew the attention of orc tribes.

Facing the brutally wicked slave hunters, the small tribes were powerless and could only report to the higher-ups.

The reports finally ended up in the hands of Prince Butzweig, in charge of frontier rotation.

“Send someone to check if some mage has gone mad, or if some cult organization is causing trouble again,” he ordered.

It was not surprising that Butzweig would think so, since human slave hunting was usually targeted at attractive and weak species.

This time was different, with species like Minotaurs, the Doghead Race, Ratmen, Goblins, Pigg, and others all having large numbers go missing.

Aside from a few species that had some fighting power, the rest were weaker than the weakest.

In terms of status, these species were like slaves in the human world, or even worse.

At least slaves could create wealth, while most of these species, apart from wasting food, were good for nothing.

In the eyes of the noble Butzweig, humans capturing these species was just a way of collecting junk.

Deep down, Prince Butzweig looked down on these silly creatures.

The money spent on hiring slave hunters could have been used to buy more in the Orc Empire.

Except for serving as experimental material for magic and blood sacrifice to an evil god, what good were these species at all?

In fact, these species were not good choices for magic materials.

The main reason they were chosen was that other species were hard to provoke.

Magicians were passionate about magical experiments, but that didn’t mean they were actually crazy.

Any experiment consuming hundreds or thousands of lives would have killed them many times if they had used other species.

As for the evil gods, that was another story.

Since all of them had degenerated into evil gods, no one knew what they really enjoyed.

Maybe some of them liked the taste of these underdog species.

However, most evil gods were squeamish.

Compared to these rubbish species, they preferred offerings of pure souls.

Deploying troops to protect these tribes?

That would be wishful thinking.

The Orc Empire often culled these junk species internally due to their rapid reproduction.

Take the Pigg as an example.

They could reproduce one to three times a year, each time yielding five to several dozen piglets.

Most of them survived to adulthood.

They ate meat when available, and when not, they were okay with grains.

If nothing else was available, they could even make do with grass or leaves.

Piglets matured within two years and then joined the cycle of reproduction.

Theoretically, a mother Pigg could give birth to a legions of offspring in its lifetime, along with its descendants.

Prolific species like Ratmen and Goblins also reproduced rapidly, which the noble Bimon envied and despised.

If not controlled, these species could easily overrun an area.

To maintain the ecological balance of the Orc Empire, the Five Royal Clans had to develop a birth control plan for these species.

If the restrictions were cancelled one day, it would mean the start of a major southern invasion.

In every major war, these species would serve as the Cannon Fodder Legion of the Orc Empire.

Being issued a wooden stick was enough for them to go to war, as any other weapon would be a waste in their hands.

The war equipment was an essential parameter in judging the fighting power of an orc army.

Generally, the better equipped they were, the stronger their fighting power.

…

In Mountain Domain, Hudson was showing his brothers around his territory.

The non-stop clanging in the mines was the most pleasant symphony; the bustling pioneer army composed the warmest melody.

Both of his brothers, who were quite experienced, knew well that Hudson was preparing to contest the Salam Mountain Range.