457.Chapter 455 454 Hogg: My Pleasure You Plague Playing

Chapter 455 454.Hogg: My happiness you plague playing can’t even experience ah! -Hogg: I’m so happy you can’t even know what it’s like to play with the plague!

(For brother “Warm Wine Resignation” [1/5])
“Hiccup~”

Hogg, the Blood Claw Chief, didn’t know that there was an evil old jackal in the swamp shedding crocodile tears for his “death”, but even if he knew, he probably wouldn’t care.

But even if he did know, he probably wouldn’t care, because Chief Hogg is having a good time right now.

Since Lord Murphy officially opened the “Shadow of the Swamp” incident, Hogg immediately blocked off his own smuggler’s woodland, he asked his own people can no longer casually cross the border of the woodland to go to the swamp or Cato area, almost completely blocked off his own forces, lest the brute soldiers who are not enough brains to use go out to be caught by the plague warlock or the goldenrod vanguard. Vanguard to catch them in the act.

Anyway, the grain and food that its clans had hoarded during this time was already enough for them to survive for a long time, not to mention that after the skeleton army of the woodland had been collected and the swamp war had started, the animals that had originally fled returned to the area, and even the beasts of the swamp showed signs of migration, which allowed the hunters of the Bloodclaw Clan to bring back a lot of fresh meat every day.

On top of that, the Bloodclaw Clan had been given more important duties.

The field hospital in Transylvania was placed near the smuggler’s woodland, it was a place that needed the help of the jackals to guard and cover it, and Hogg knew the significance of that place’s existence, and it had arranged the defense for the field hospital with great care.

It knew very well that if it or its clan pups were ever unlucky, they would need these doctors to save their lives as well.

At this time in the Blood Claw Clan’s big lair above a hilly cliff, a roaring fire in the evening night splashed sparks, and on the grill was a deer being rotated by two jackal barbarians, and the clever Nash was holding a jar of “secret spices” brought from the Scarlet Fortress and sprinkling them on the roasted deer.

I don’t know where the chef of Scarlet Castle got this kind of stuff, sprinkling it on the roasted meat made the already attractive fat aroma bring a slightly spicy flavor, making the barbarian soldiers next to them couldn’t help but sneeze straight, but they kept drooling and waiting for the moment to eat after the food was prepared.

A group of small jackals who had finished their lessons today also waited impatiently at the side, they were very good at carrying firewood and wagging their tails waiting for the midnight snack.

Organized the “barbecue conference” Hogg chief this will have been early to enjoy the food, eat the belly round also constantly burping, and twist open a bottle of barley wine into the mouth of a large mouthful of dun dun dun dun.

Although the jackals with “wolf” in the name, but they belong to the intelligent creatures and is omnivorous.

Although eating fresh meat can also live, but the jackals will occasionally “improve” the food, grilled meat is their favorite snack, eat cooked meat for the maintenance of teeth is also very beneficial.

Of course, the past barbecue meat is certainly not spices such as advanced things, from this point, Hogg also have to thank Lord Murphy’s warriors to bring the “otherworldly flavor”.

Not only the chief himself, even its two “guests” today also have a kind of indescribable marvelous feeling about this meal.

On the stump opposite Hogg, Colonel Fraser, who had rushed to the swamp from Malo Town and rested in the middle of the journey, and had specially come to visit the Jackal clan, was holding a piece of roasted meat in his hand, and was staring at everything around him with a fan-shaped look of three parts surprise, three parts curiosity, three parts probing, and one part discomfort in his eyes.

On this cliff, there were only two humans, him and Professor Malcolm beside him; the rest were all jackals.

Colonel Fraser felt that he was probably the first human outside of Transylvania to be treated so warmly by a clan of jackals, like the protagonist of one of those bizarre stories, who stumbles into an isolated place and is treated like a guest of honor by the local savages.

The scene in front of the Colonel was so surreal that he thought he would have decided to go into ecstasy if he had been a museum scientist studying the barbarians.

However, out of a certain stereotype, he was still not afraid to eat the roasted venison that Hogg himself had cut for him, even though he knew that it had been cut from a deer, but he always felt that he was holding a piece of “mysterious meat” in his hand.

After all, in all human legends, the jackal is the image of hair and bloodthirsty cannibals.

After staring at the roasted meat in his hand for a long time, the colonel still couldn’t convince himself to taste it. He excused himself, saying that he wasn’t hungry and extolling the virtues of dieting, and then handed the meat in his hand to a few small, eager jackals with a friendly smile.

The latter took it in their hands in surprise and turned to run, only to have the opposite Hogg Chief grunt, and the little jackal immediately put a brake on his foot, turned around and held the meat to thank Colonel Fraser seriously, before running away in small steps.

Chief Hogg nodded with satisfaction, which proved that it had educated the little cubs in the clan quite well during this period of time.

This bizarre scene also made Colonel Fraser tsk tsk.

He had a feeling that in his next memoir of what he had seen and heard in the swamp, the story about the Bloodclaw Clan Jackals would definitely be the next chapter story that would make King Louis and his ministers cross their fingers.

Was this perhaps one of the reasons why Professor Malcolm had personally invited Colonel Fraser to be his guest at Clan Jackal?

“I never thought that jackals could sit so peacefully with humans over a meal.”

Colonel Fraser took out his handkerchief and wiped the grease from his fingers, and while composing in his mind how to describe his amazing trip, he said to Professor Malcolm, who was taking small bites of roasted venison beside him:
“When Governor Murphy told me that he had a ‘civilized’ army of jackals under his command, I assumed that he had engaged in some artistic manipulation, but I didn’t realize that he was just telling it like it is.”

Professor Malcolm placed the venison in his hand on his plate and lit himself another Dwarf-style pipe, glancing between swallows in the evening breeze at his sons and daughters playing with a pack of half-sized jackals under his wife’s care, then asked wryly:
“Don’t you think that this is a feigned enthusiasm on the part of Chief Hogg and his people, but in reality it’s just a way to paralyze you and wait until you fall asleep before tying you up and throwing you into the fire for a midnight snack?”

“Not like that.”

Colonel Fraser shook his head:

“I’ve been doing intelligence work for ten years, and although all I know about the habits of jackals is from books, I can tell the difference between good intentions and good intentions in disguise.

Chief Hogg and his people were obviously not in contact with humans for the first time, and the jackal guards in the den didn’t look at me in any particular way nor did they see me as prey.

They would even remind me to follow the rules of this side with a weird accent in human language, although there is also an element of intimidation, but that sophisticated posture is to see that they have had a lot of dealings with humans.

Some of the dog-heads even grabbed me and enthusiastically sold me some of the strange things they had dug out of the ground.
The timid rodents took me for someone else, they saw me as no different from the humans who frequent this tribe, or perhaps they couldn’t actually recognize faces between humans, in any case, they must have done something similar before and had success.”

Speaking of this, the Colonel picked up a rusty dagger that was still caked with mud in his hand, and in a relaxed mood he used his own fingers to clean the dirt from this dagger, saying:

“Like this one! If I’m not mistaken, this would be the combat sword used by the commanders of the Boris Vanguard in the First Black Plague five hundred years ago, and there’s a 1:1 restored fake of it in my family’s collection room.

My father loved collecting these antiquities.

He would have loved this authentic piece I accidentally picked up on my journey, and he would never have guessed that I got this from the dog-heads with only two candles.”

“If you like these, Your Excellency the Colonel, Goldtooth’s warehouse is full of these strange things dug up from the ground.”

Hogg grinned broadly as he sat on his stump picking his teeth with a freshly sharpened toothpick and added to Fraser:

“The Dogheads always dig up similar things when they dig ditches around the neighborhood, and when Governor Murphy asked the Dogheads of our Clan to go digging for defenses out of the swamp, there were more than enough antiquities dug up in that old battle ground.

If your father is fond of these antiquities, I could make a personal gift of a full set of Boris Vanguard cavalry sergeant’s battle armor! That too was certified authentic by Mentor Malcolm himself.”

“Oh? That would be wonderful, it just so happens that my father is about to celebrate his birthday.”

Colonel Fraser laughed, but then he looked at Professor Malcolm with odd eyes and said:

“Chief Hogg addressed you as ‘Mentor’?”

“That’s right, I taught it all its history.”

Prof. Malcolm held his pipe, waving his hand with a slight smile and even a slight pride, and said:
“Although it is difficult to understand the complex human politics limited to the savage mind of a jackal, so I made some deletions to the continental history, but just in terms of learning attitude, Chief Hogg can be much more diligent than some of my former students.

If you have read Chief Hogg’s personally written thesis on the Black Plague, then you would know that aside from the typos and the occasional misuse of words and grammatical errors, it has indeed counted as one of my students.

But Hogg wasn’t the only one to benefit from this unique teaching; I also learned about the way the Jackals see the world from its perspective.

Their unique view of the world, while narrow, could not be said to be wrong, and thus I had become skeptical of the view of the Jackals as barbarians that was prevalent on the continent.

If I can personally visit the Mossy Valley in the future, perhaps I will be able to come up with strong evidence to prove that the Jackals possess a history that is actually no shorter than that of humans.

During those ancient times, they also developed a civilization system that belongs to them in the Dark Mountain Range, and I think that from the perspective of a living race, they are not inferior to us.”

“What an astounding point of view, Professor.”

The Colonel whispered:
“You’ll get yourself in trouble for preaching such views elsewhere, especially at this point in time when the Black Plague is approaching.”

“But this is Transylvania.” Professor Malcolm grunted:
“There is no foolish bloodism here, much less arrogant views of ‘human supremacy’, and I have never been able to understand what courage some of the self-proclaimed civilized individuals among us have to mock elves, dwarves, or any other ethnicity; we are all inherently no different, and there is no shame in learning from others.

What’s more, Hogg was never part of the Black Plague in the first place.

It is a native of Transylvania, one of the original inhabitants of this land recognized by Governor Murphy.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

Hogg immediately picked up on that:
“I still have my identity file in the archives of the Administrative Office at Scarlet Fortress, and every member of my clan has a complete register of information, and after the Black Plague is over, we’ll be able to get our citizenship certificates from the lower part of the Administrative Office.

We were born in Transylvania, and we have nothing to do with the Dark Mountain Jackals who started the Black Plague.

If we had to say so, our relationship with the Dark Mountain Jackals is probably the same as the relationship between the Silans, the Caitans and the Nords, who are from the same source but have formed a different group.

We too have internal strife, we turn against each other, and even in the same war we choose different sides.

In this Black Plague, for example, the Transylvanian Jackals chose to side with the humans, just as the Silrans chose to join the vampires against the Nord occupation of Ice Bay at the end of the Second Black War.”

“You’ve learned your history well, Chief Hogg.”

Colonel Fraser shook his head:

“However that does not change the reality of the human versus jackalope rivalry, and words alone will not be enough to convince the Kingdom of Goldfinch to accept your presence. Just because I personally can sit here and talk to you with an open mind doesn’t mean that my compatriots won’t raise their weapons when they see you.

The relationship between the individual and the collective has always been complex.

What’s more, in this war, you haven’t made your sides clear, and you haven’t taken actual action for your choices.

Position is something that has always been more than words, we only look at actions!”

“You will see.”

Hogg bared his teeth and said:

“You will see my soldiers when you set foot in Plague Town, and you will see the jackals who fought for Governor Murphy in his army when the Black Plague hordes attacked Transylvania.

In fact, to put it mildly, my people and I have given far more to this land than you can imagine, Colonel, even in the events of Marlowe Town, where I contributed to your fight.

Just because you didn’t see it doesn’t mean I didn’t do it.

On that note, your Short Man Marshal probably knows better than you do, or you wouldn’t have been able to accept Professor Malcolm’s invitation to be my guest, would you?”

“Uh, are you really a jackal? Your mind is sharper than many humans I’ve met.”

Seeing that Hogg had opened up the sky, Colonel Fraser stopped pretending and said with a straight face:
“Indeed, Marshal Loren has received the information sent from the office of the Governor of Transylvania, he recognized the active role you gave in the Malo Town battle and commissioned me to come and inspect your clan.

But Chief Hogg, you have to understand that this is just a face-saving gesture from the Marshal to Governor Murphy, it doesn’t mean how much he really thinks of you, and also, the title ‘Short Man’ is too rude!
Governor Murphy’s slip of the tongue in the first place definitely triggered quite serious consequences.

Especially when you guys make more contact with the dwarves in the future, this kind of slip of the tongue will cause Transylvania’s position in their hearts to be seriously affected.”

“Then it’s called ‘Half Man’!”

Hoggle giggled:
“We’re not afraid of the Dwarves, all we need now is for your soldiers not to come running to the Smuggler’s Woodlands to ‘borrow’ our heads for military honors, too.

This time, we invited you over to talk about this issue!
In the presence of Professor Malcolm, I’m going to make a pact with you, Commander of the Silans.

My clan will be your safest rear during the Great Battle of the Swamp, and the Transylvanian field hospital will be temporarily located here, and we will provide the necessary security for the hospital, but your wounded soldiers will have to abide by our rules as well.

This mountain forest is now under the authority of our Bloodclaw Clan!

This authority had already been recognized by Governor Murphy, and the Scarlet Consul personally promised that the Smuggler’s Woodland would become an autonomous region of the Blood Claw Clan, just as the agreement between Governor Murphy and the Halfman Marshal had been.

I will make the same agreement with you.

I want you to recognize Clan Bloodclaw’s rule over the Woodlands, and this recognition is to last until the end of the Black Plague, lest we somehow get caught up in a shameless back-stabbing from an ally.”

At this point, Hogg listened and then lengthened his voice:
“Of course, the abundant resources of the Smuggler’s Woodlands need a bit of marketing, and it’s still a bit of a distance from the Scarlet Fortress, so Governor Murphy has allowed us to export a portion of the furs and herbs we can’t use to the Capay family, and to exchange them for the food we need from the Cato region.

If you need it, we can even make a special trade market for the Capay family near the woodland, which can be used by you to smuggle all kinds of materials from your home base Cato region to Transylvania to make a lot of money!

That would circumvent that official monopoly business pact between Transylvania and Mrs. Nordtor.

We, Clan Bloodclaw, would only need to collect a small, insignificant toll out of it, that’s all.”

“Enough!”

Major Fraser chided irritably:

“I am talking to you as a soldier of the Kingdom of Goldfinch, Chief Hogg, and this does not involve my family business.”

“Hey, humans are hypocrites.”

Hogg grinned, showing his canine teeth and sarcastically:
“You obviously carry that surname, but you always try to get rid of its influence, you’re not even as good as Kenport, that idiot still knows how to use its identity as the Governor of the Bite Bone Clan to get more favors for it.

Anyway, I can work for the Carpe family anytime I want, my people have already become friends with several of your chamber heads over at the casino, and there are a couple of lousy gamblers among them who are eager to turn over the money they owe me, and they promised that they would help me, a barbarian chief, get in touch with the Honorable Earl of Lyon.

If you don’t want to, that’s your business, but your father is the best merchant in the Kingdom of the Golden Sparrow, and you can’t change the fact that the shortest route from the Cato region to Transylvania is over Lake Shoalpearls and through the Smuggler’s Woods.

Even a jackal like me knows that this is a really good business for the Carpe family, so just tell me if you want this business route. A promise made by you would show your father his son’s talents in this area.

You see, it will do you no harm.”

“Well…”

Colonel Fraser glanced at Professor Malcolm, who was smiling without saying a word, and after a few seconds of thought, he said:
“A chamber leader will be coming by in a few days to discuss this with you in more detail, it’s not in the scope of our discussion… hmm? What’s the commotion?”

His words were interrupted by a sudden, violent jolt.

Everyone, including Hogg, jumped up from their stumps, the Jackal Chief roaring angrily for the panicked guards to rush to the den to see if any kilns had been shaken down, while Professor Malcolm and Fraser looked in the direction the vibration had come from.

“Deep in the swamp…”

Professor Malcolm lowered his binoculars as he stroked his growing beard and said:
“It’s the direction of the swamp sanctuary… The Plague Clan has started marching towards the sanctuary? Why would they make this choice in this situation?”

“It’s still unclear, but I can’t stay here.”

The Colonel whistled and let his warhorse gallop this way, feeling a wave of relief that he finally didn’t have to deal with all these things that had nothing to do with the war, he gripped the whip and said to his mentor and Chief Hogg:

“I must proceed to my position at once, both of you, and after that the rest will wait until the battle is over.”

(End of chapter)