Are you also employed?

Chapter 422 Are you also employed?

As they rushed out of the woods and their vision suddenly brightened, Iron Fang, the leader of the gnolls, instantly felt a sense of despair.

As he was moving through the woods, he noticed the makeshift weapons and rags scattered everywhere. They looked like weapons discarded by goblins, probably to escape faster.

But after chasing for a while, a sense of alertness suddenly arose.

They found far more equipment than they had seen goblins. Even if each of them carried weapons in both hands and wore three sets of clothes, they still couldn't contain all the equipment they had found along the way.

Furthermore, how did these goblins manage to throw away their weapons and run away while stripping off their clothes?

They evenly distributed the items, so you can see several pieces of equipment in each small section.

Another thing that shocked Iron Fang even more was that they hadn't seen a single goblin during the entire chase.

You have to understand that they were riding snake-chicken beasts. With those two short legs of goblins, how could they outrun snake-chicken beasts?

In reality, that small group of goblins seemed to have vanished into thin air.

In a flash, he wanted to tell everyone to stop, but the gnolls around him were all excitedly howling. This was a weakness of the gnolls. As a race that liked to steal all kinds of spoils, they would become "selfless" when they started fighting. Every gnoll was afraid of falling behind and missing out on the spoils.

This directly led to Tieya being swept along by the main force and charged forward.

Even though he roared loudly at the front of the group, his voice was drowned out by the howling, and his roar only excited the other gnolls.

Everyone knew the enemy was a group of goblins, and the gnolls knew all too well what goblins in the forest were like.

Upon seeing the minotaur army, all the gnolls were thrown into panic.

The promised easy prey of goblins turned out to be a group of burly minotaurs wielding hammers and axes, and there were quite a few of them.

If there were only a few, the gnolls wouldn't be afraid, but when faced with dozens of minotaurs in a dense formation, they panicked immediately.

At this point, trying to rein in the snake-chicken beast was simply a pipe dream. The gnolls had no choice but to grit their teeth and charge towards the minotaurs. Iron Fang had no choice but to raise his weapon and desperately try to control the army. "Turn around, turn around quickly!"

His idea was good. He had fought against heavy infantry before when he was in the Kingdom of Argon. Those heavily armored heavy infantrymen moved very slowly.

If the enemy's formation is well-organized, the cavalry can turn around in time to avoid the heavy infantry phalanx.

However, this requires the cavalry commander to issue orders in a timely manner, and the entire force to execute them immediately.

However, it must be said that the huge gnoll mercenary group that has now been assembled is a bloated rabble. They are good at fighting when things are going well, but once they encounter unfavorable situations, each of them will have their own selfish thoughts.

Just now, when chasing the goblins, everyone was afraid of falling behind and not getting any good loot. But when their view opened up, they were terrified to find that the enemy had turned into minotaurs, which caused a commotion.

"Steady, steady, turn!" Iron Fang controlled the snake-chicken beast, trying to slow down, while shouting the command again.

But his efforts were in vain. Because there hadn't been much practice beforehand, everyone in the team had their own "ideas." Some wanted to slow down and stabilize, some wanted to turn around now, some wanted to follow the people in front, and some wanted to rush straight ahead and let the people in front create an opening.

Instantly, the gnoll ranks fell into chaos. Snake-chickens cried out and fell to the ground, while the gnolls on their backs could only let out a few screams before falling silent.

This unexpected turn of events caused Iron Fang to panic. He watched as his troops drew ever closer to the minotaur's army, and they were about to collide with them.

At this point, there was no way to control the direction of the team. For some reason, his mind started to wander to the game of pebbles he used to play.

That's a game that gnolls play when they're kids. There's not much fun to do on the wasteland, so when gnolls are herding, they collect some stones and play a simple game of chess according to their hunting habits.

"If only this team could manipulate those pieces like I do," Iron Fang cursed as he charged into the minotaur army. "Those damn goblins, not one of them told me there were minotaurs here."

"Boom!" A series of impacts rang out. At the same time, the minotaurs grabbed their weapons and swung their heavy hammers and giant axes at the snake-chicken beasts. Fortunately, due to the chaos, the gnolls' speed had slowed down, and they did not cause too much damage to the minotaurs.

"Not bad," Diana said, controlling the soldier ants and raising her body so she could see the battle situation in the distance more clearly. "Finally, they didn't go on silly war dances or rush out recklessly."

The minotaurs' performance relieved her. If they had rushed out of the formation earlier, the formation would have collapsed, and they would have run into the gnolls who hadn't slowed down yet, resulting in heavy losses.

"It's clear that Bain and the others have done a good job with their training." Charles also looked ahead intently.

"That's not enough," Diana shook her head. "Right now, we can only stand still like wooden blocks and take the impact. A real military formation can change and can be altered to further reduce the impact of the cavalry."

She spoke while making simple gestures.

Seeing Diana's gesture, Charles understood what she meant. "That's enough. They're just a bunch of minotaurs, and an exiled clan at that."

The implication is that after this period of training, it's already quite good that they've achieved this much.

However, Diana frowned, clearly still somewhat dissatisfied with the minotaur's performance.

Then, she beckoned to the side and summoned another little fairy, "Notify Red-Eye to block the gnolls' retreat."

The little fairy immediately flapped its wings and flew towards the rear of the army formation.

"Block their escape route?" Charles raised an eyebrow. "Prevent them from escaping?"

Diana merely glanced at the goblin. "You were implying all along that you wanted to keep them here. Did you think I didn't hear you?"

"Uh," Charles scratched his cheek and chuckled a few times, "it's not quite like that—"

He did want to keep the other party, but his main goal was to keep the snake-chicken beast. Of course, it would be even better if he could capture some gnolls and ask them about the situation in the wasteland.

However, he didn't expect that Diana would still discover his intentions.

"Is this ragtag army about to grow stronger again?" Diana muttered to herself. "What is the Supreme God trying to do? Is he building a non-intelligent legion just for fun?"

"Hmm, what did you say?" Charles's attention was completely focused on the battle in front of him. Hearing the muttering beside him, he immediately asked.

"It's nothing, you've got more toys again," Diana said irritably.

Iron Fang narrowly avoided the giant axe swung by the minotaur, but at the same time he also fell off the snake-chicken beast.

This large bird is covered in feathers, but it hates saddles. The jackal people had tried many times to put saddles on the snake-chicken beast, but they could not. Every time they tried to put the saddles on, the snake-chicken beast would kick and jump violently.

Perhaps it was because the saddle was too hard, pressing down on their feathers, that these large birds thought they were being held down by the giant claws of an enemy, causing them to struggle frantically.

Given this situation, the gnolls had to make simple saddles. These simple saddles were actually just a few pieces of leather that were loosely secured before they could set off.

This also means that riding the snake-chicken beast is not very comfortable, and it is not as comfortable as a human warhorse. Unfortunately, human lords are unwilling to give up their precious warhorses to mercenary gnolls.

The only way for gnolls to seize warhorses is to follow their employers' orders to attack enemy cavalry and steal their horses.

But their employers weren't fools either. How could they let the gnolls have their hands on such an important resource as warhorses?

Therefore, the Snake-Chicken Beast can only be considered a lower-level alternative.

Of course, Iron Fang prefers riding a griffin. He once tried to steal one, but was beaten up and had to rest in bed for a long time.

But that was enough for him to swagger around among the gnolls.

This move became a crucial bargaining chip for him to become the leader of this rabble.

But now, his feather ornaments were scattered on the ground, and he was in a panic. The minotaur in front of him was carrying a large axe and grinning as he walked towards him.

The surrounding gnolls were already in disarray, and the remaining troops not far away finally regained their footing and stopped attacking. It was clear that those guys had hesitated.

Anyone in this situation would probably have some doubts. The promised goblins turned out to be minotaurs. Anyone would have some doubts.

"Could it be that the goblins weren't the only ones who drove away the Feathered Serpent?" Iron Fang's mind raced, trying to recall the goblins' testimonies. But after searching, he was certain that none of them mentioned any other races. "Or perhaps, these minotaurs are mercenaries employed by humans, just like us?"

As soon as the thought popped into his head, Iron Fang became certain of his guess.

The human lords of Argonne not only employ gnolls, but also keep goblin "mud soldiers." They also hire adventurers, who usually call themselves "brotherhood" or "knighthood."

"It's just that the name sounds fancy," Iron Teeth would always scoff, "but in reality, we're still doing the same things as everyone else."

What Brotherhood of Glory, what Knights of Radiance, compared to the Bittergrass Slope Mercenary Group, they are all the same thing.

Now that he realized the minotaurs were also a mercenary group, Iron Fang was even more certain of his discovery, because the minotaurs' equipment looked very rudimentary, which was similar to the situation of the gnoll army under the employment of human lords.

"We can talk." He gripped his longsword tightly while dodging the minotaur's giant axe.

"What do you want to talk to your father about?" The minotaur chuckled, then swung his giant axe again. He wore a golden ring on his nose, with a dark ball in the center that was now faintly glowing red.

"You're also employed by humans, aren't you?" Iron Fang didn't care about the other party's mocking tone; clearly, he had more important things to do now.

"Humans?" The minotaur laughed a few times, then charged forward with a loud "boom," his giant axe slamming into the ground, sending up a spray of dirt. "The Bloodhoof Clan would never stoop to being employed by humans."

"Then you are—" Iron Fang was stunned. He had just dodged the minotaur's jumping attack, but then, several "whoosh" sounds came from the air, and at the same time, several black dots flew towards the gnoll team that was still watching not far away.

"Boom!" A series of explosions rang out, startling the entire gnoll army into a commotion.

"Looks like Crimson Eyes and the others did a good job." The minotaur lifted his giant axe with force. "They didn't waste the Bloodhoof Clan's war cry."

"What is that? You still say you're not employed by humans?" Iron Fang shouted, completely ignoring the howls of the gnolls around him and the chaotic mess of his team members in the distance.

"It's just a bomb fruit," the minotaur laughed, raising his giant axe again.

"Bomb Fruit? What's that? Isn't it human magic?" Iron Fang was a little puzzled. He had seen human magicians before, and the effect of the explosion just now was indeed very similar to the effect of some magic.

"Idiot, that's not magic, that's a goblin's bomb berry."

"Goblins? You're not hired by goblins, are you?" Iron Fang's eyes widened; he couldn't believe what the other person was saying.

This sounds like a series of subcontracting, with humans hiring goblins, and the goblins hiring minotaurs.

This situation has occurred before. Usually, human lords hire knightly orders, and then the knightly orders hire gnoll mercenary groups to act as cannon fodder.

Is the status of goblins really that high in the Kingdom of Fran now?

Just as they were wondering what was going on, a large number of black dots flew through the air again, and the previously chaotic gnoll army was surrounded by explosions once more.

However, the explosive effect was much less destructive than human magic. Only some of the gnolls fell off the snake-chickens, while others were doing their best to control the panicked snake-chickens.

Wild animals are inherently difficult to adapt to explosions.

After several explosions, the remaining gnolls had no choice but to pull on the reins, controlling the snake-chicken beasts to flee in disarray.

The enemy is clearly behaving strangely; to continue fighting at this point would be suicidal, and to flee in the face of battle would be tantamount to being a mercenary.

The inherent behavior of the group.

Iron Teeth sighed softly, "It would be best if we could escape; at least we could save our lives."

"Escape?" The minotaur walked over with a grin, his giant axe seemingly itching for a bite. "How could we possibly escape? The centaurs have already formed an encirclement behind us."

"None of those idiots will escape."

"Centaur?" Iron Fang frowned. "Are they also employed by goblins?"

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