Seeing Zhao Hai come back, Laura asked, "So what happened?"
Zhao Hai smiled faintly, "Big Brother wanted to march towards West Wonder King's camp in three days. He also wanted to give the Fighting Bull captives to me as slaves, but I didn't want them, I wanted slaves who had gentle tempers, too much temper is very inefficient for slaves, me having the Fighting Bulls would be inappropriate."
Laura nodded, "I agree, the Fighting Bulls are famous to have a short tempers in the prairie. Even if they become our slaves, they would be a bit troublesome, it looks like big brother is looking after us."
Zhao Hai smiled, "Brother thought about it very much, he wanted to extinguish the Fighting Bulls as well as make them our slaves, he really is very determined."
Laura also smiled, "I'm afraid that of all the humans, we became the most busy in the prairie, but our profits is still sufficient."
Zhao Hai replied, "Be relieved, our profits are also very big, no need to talk about this anymore. In three days we must prepare to head towards West Wonder King. This time may not be as big a battle. There's less young and able people in West Wonder King's camp, they shouldn't be that daring to face big brother, but I also suspect that West Wonder King just won't wait for his death, he may counterattack, but I just don't know what kind of counterattack it would be."
Laura smiled as she replied, "I'll come with you, Big Brother Wales won't even need to bring his army, how much undead did you have again? more then four hundred thousand? With those numbers, you could even establish your own tribe in the prairie. Even if Big Brother Wales 's tribe has a population of over a million, their army wouldn't even be the same as yours, they could also add their warrior slaves, but the undead in your command has more fighting prowess than general beastmen armies in the prairie."
Laura was happy, not because of anything else but the fact that these undead can make the Iron Mountain Fort's protection stronger. Zhao Hai can make these undead protect Iron Mountain. With an average power level of 7th ranks, even if Zhao Hai wants to rampage around Aksu Empire, it'll certainly be possible.
Naturally, Zhao Hai wouldn't do so, if he actually dared, he would become the enemy of everyone in the entire continent. When that time comes, he really wouldn't have anywhere to take shelter.
Zhao Hai smiled, then sighs, "This time, when we travel to West Wonder King's camp, I wonder what expression Beta would wear?"
Laura also sighed, although they aren't in agreement with West Wonder King, they had to accept the fact that they were still friends with Beta. In that case, it would be very awkward for them to meet Beta during that time."
Meg suddenly said, "Master, if everything here is settled, we should return to Iron Mountain Fort, I really couldn't take the winter here."
Zhao Hai thought for a moment, then nodded, "We should go back, winter in the prairie isn't short, a bit more than three months. We'll return to Iron Mountain Fort then head towards Rosen Empire during this time period. It would be best to set-up a supply station there so that when we return to the prairie in the spring, we can set-up our own trade route in the Rosen Empire. We could exchange our traded goods with Rosen empire currency. Moreover, since the beastmen in the prairie needed many commodities, we could acquire them in the empire. They could be said to be the most powerful nation in the continent, so we should have all we need there."
Laura agreed, "Of course, the largest supply market in the continent is their Imperial capital after all, Carson City. There were even rumors that as long as you are looking for something in the continent, then it would certainly be in Carson City."
Zhao Hai smiled, "Wouldn't that be better? When the time comes, if we have anything to sell, then nobody would pay attention. But this time, we should change our way of doing things. It would be best to have some cooperation with people of high position inside Rosen Empire, so that people wouldn't dare mess with us, so that what happened in the Purcell Duchy wouldn't be repeated."
Laura nodded, "I agree with Brother Hai's words, we won't need to worry about the matters of the Radiant Church while in the empire. But some powerful people may also be able to kick us out of the empire, thus we need to find someone of significant power. We must make sure that what happened with Purcell Duchy wouldn't happen again."
Zhao Hai replied, "We first need to head to Rosen Empire's Carson City to take a look at the situation, have a good understanding of the high positions in the empire, then we decide to whom we should cooperate with."
Laura smiled, "Brother Hai, I just had a thought, the next time we see Bell, we should ask him if he has some connections in the Rosen Empire, what do you think?"
Zhao Hai's eyes lit up, "I didn't think of that, good, we can ask Bell, I'm are also a member of the League of Black Mages. The league's influence isn't small, perhaps they may have some connections inside Carson City."
The group talked about more topics, then they returned to Iron Mountain Fort and told what they agreed on to Green. Green was also in agreement with Zhao Hai's plan. This time, winter had finally arrived on the Black Wasteland, the weather outside the castle was very cold, fortunately Cai'er managed to make the castle warm. Several production lines in the castle were still in full operation, they already had many milk wine stored up, wool production had also started, ration department had also started creating rations, all departments were on track.
Zhao Hai was relieved, but they still wanted to expand the fort. Only then they could add more production factories, making the scale of operation bigger. With the current size of the Fort, all of these couldn't fit in.
Unfortunately, it was a pity that they had no skilled masons among them, otherwise they would be able to mine stones from the mountain and expand the fort.
The Iron Mountains behind the fort were almost hollowed out by the dwarves, no stone could be farmed, there were even plenty of dangers present. So if they wanted to find some stones to expand the fort, they can go to other parts, after all, the mountains were not small. But they still lack qualified masons, they couldn't perform large scale mining without having one.
However, it was also obvious that it was not the season to expand Iron Mountain Fort as it was winter. There was nobody outside at this time, so Zhao Hai decided to wait till next year.
Three days passed by in a blink of an eye, Wales dispatched his troops to march towards West Wonder King's camp. The Herculean Bulls moved, better prepared than before, they carried a lot of commodities this time, unlike before where they were lacking in supplies.
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The tents were already taken care of by Zhao Hai, so they don't need to worry. They just needed to prepare their weapons and other equipment.
Of course the entire tribe didn't move, Wales left behind fifty thousand garrison troops in the camp, he also left some weapons for the elderly and women, just in case they might enter a battle.
This time, Wales brought one hundred and fifty thousand Herculean Bull soldiers, as well as one hundred thousand slave warriors.
The Herculean Bull's slaves were mainly composed of half-beastman, half-human slaves. For a clan like the Herculean Bulls, it would be impossible to have their own dedicated slave race, they still weren't qualified.
These half-beastmen slaves that Wales brought were the children between humans and Beastmen. These offsprings did not grow beast heads like the beastmen, instead, they had incomplete forms, their head would be human but they would look much like beastmen. For example, a half-rabbit beastman would grow a rabbit nose, or grow long ears, beside these qualities, they would have a human form.
These half-beastmen race's physical conditions were better than humans, but worse than beastmen. Thus they could only be recognized as a slave race inside the prairie, they were basically born to be slaves.
When the Herculean Bull warriors saw that Zhao Hai would accompany them, they immediately cheered. They liked to go to battle with Zhao Hai as they didn't need to worry about logistics, they immediately hurried along and formed their lines.
These half-beastmen didn't know of this, so they were obviously puzzled as to why the Herculean Bulls cheered for Zhao Hai, they didn't know what it means.
But they soon understood, since from the Herculean Bull camp to West Wonder King's camp would take about seven days. Adding on to the fact that it was winter and would experience snowstorms, their advance would be slow.
Therefore, this time, it would take about ten days to reach there. Fortunately, they had managed to perform this march with Zhao Hai before, so they were advancing forward constantly without much accident.
Along the way, Zhao Hai and the group would encounter Fighting Bulls who were killed or had frozen to death. One could clearly see that the damage to the Fighting Bulls this time was quite serious.
Zhao Hai released blood hawks to survey around using the Herculean Bull camp as the center. All around the camp he could see corpses of Fighting Bulls, reaching about a hundred thousand. These corpses were mostly killed, a few froze to death. In total, the overall Fighting Bull corpses he had acquired numbered to around six hundred thousand, but the population of the Fighting Bulls was eight hundred thousand, their numbers had been reduced drastically.
Seeing such result, Zhao Hai was helpless. If it were not winter, the Fighting Bull losses wouldn't have been that many. They could, at most, lose about five hundred thousand people, saving about a hundred thousand, this was because of the six hundred thousand corpses he acquired, one hundred thousand were those who froze to death.
Zhao Hai couldn't do anything about this, this was war. After their fifth day of their march, Wales became alert, not for anything else but because they had met demon wolves.