The First Legendary Beast Master

Chapter 901: Chief Snakebite

”Champion Karl, I am Sub-Chief Snakebite of the Bhakh Clan. Welcome to our village. We follow the old ways, so there might not be much that we can trade between you and us. But it is a pleasure to meet you.” The huge Orc greeted them.

”I am certain that there is something, even if itʼs not what you expect. We have bone and wood runic items to help with crafting, mana storage, cleaning, creating water, and even improving luck with the opposite sex. Plus, the lovely ladies of the church are always willing to help your people keep their pantries stocked with their signature rice and beans.” Karl offered.

The Chief smiled back at Karl.

”Now, that is something that we can all agree on. However, as we do not trade much, we also do not have much coin.”

From Thorʼs back, Nachtia laughed.

”You know, we have a Red Dragon High Priestess here, and I am reasonably certain that her Goddess would be offended if we charged you for food when there is war at your doorstep.” The black dragon insisted.

Tessa nodded in agreement. Provisioning the civilian villages before an invasion was an important part of any war, and the Red Dragon God took a dim view of war profiteering.

Or, at least she did when it came to non-combatants. The Red Dragon didnʼt mind at all if you got filthy rich making weapons for both sides of a righteous conflict.

The ladies climbed down from Thorʼs back, and he transformed back into a humanoid to better protect them and explore the town.

Karl had noticed that he was becoming more and more protective of Tessa now that she had a fully scaled transformation, but she didnʼt seem to mind, so he wasnʼt going to say anything about it.

”Would you like us to fill a cellar for you? Or do you perhaps have a storage silo?” Tessa asked.

”You can make that much?” The Chief replied, startled at her request.

”I am a Monarch Ranked High Priestess. I can make enough to feed an entire army with every casting. Itʼs not uncommon for all of a dragon armyʼs vegetable-based foods to be magically created. Only meat needs to be hunted.” Tessa explained.

Chieftain Snakebite patted her on the shoulder, then gestured to a tall, round building off to his left.

”That granary is empty. We can clean it out to prepare it for your dry food, and then the people of the village will have real cause to celebrate. With all these attacks across the border, there is a high chance of blight destroying the crops, and weʼve already lost much of our livestock.

The attacks last week passed by us, and a group of Revenants broke off to attack the cattle in the night,” he explained.

Nachtia frowned. Revenants were a nasty sort of creature, and the Black Dragons killed them on sight. They werenʼt technically undead, but living creatures whose souls had been ripped out, trapping them halfway between life and death, driven insane by the missing piece of themselves, and ravenously hungry, trying to fill the void where their soul should be.

But worse, they often retained some of the skills and powers of their initial species. That made them among the most dangerous residents of Bomgon, and an atrocity that the Necromancers often committed upon fallen villages.

After all, why would they sacrifice their own to make Revenants, when they could capture villagers and rely on the unholy magic to turn them into soldiers?

But if they were using Revenants, the battles against the Bomgon invaders took on a whole new level of disturbing. With every village overrun, they would have undead much stronger than the usual zombies and skeletons.

The Orcs were quickly sweeping out the grain bin, and putting down a ground cloth, made of higher grade cloth that the average rodent couldnʼt chew through, to line the bin and keep unwanted occupants away from the food.

Once everything was prepped, Tessa climbed the bin and secured the top of the cloth at the ceiling vent hatch. Then she began channelling the creation spell and slowly filling the large round building with dry food.

Over the course of the next five minutes, the wooden building creaked and groaned softly as it was loaded, and then Tessa finally dropped the top of the cloth and closed the top vent that she was loading through.

In the Golden Dragon Nation, that would be the usual loading point for an auger. But the Orcs didnʼt have anything of the sort, and instead they had a moving ramp for bulk wagons, which could be dumped down a chute into the bins.

The setup looked pretty sketchy, but it must work, or they would have come up with something else by now.

With under a thousand Orcs in the village, a whole bin full of food would last them months while under siege. Holding out that long would be much more difficult than keeping up the food supply, and if the undead were really outside that long, then the village would most likely be lost to the blight for many years afterwards.

Karl looked around the village, then caught the Chiefʼs attention.

”Where is the village well? I am a Runemaster, and I can enchant it to always stay full of clean water. With a fresh supply of food and an upgraded well, the village should be stable until the situation with the enemy force buildup is settled.” He asked.

”There is a well in the centre of town. But we have rain barrels on all the buildings, in case the undead try to poison the groundwater.”

Karl hadnʼt considered that. If that was the case, then he would just upgrade one of the storage tanks to always be at least half full. That way, it could still catch the rain water, and a dry spell wouldnʼt run them out of water.

He went off to do the work, with the Chief following him.

”What do your people want in exchange? This is a lot of benefit for my people, and you havenʼt made any requests yet.” He whispered, not wanting to alarm his people if Karlʼs request was too much.

Karl smiled. ”Well, we could consider it a favour, but I know that the Orcs donʼt like dealing in favours. Instead, we can settle up today.

The food is from the Red Dragon, I canʼt charge you for that during a war. But two gold coins worth of whatever you would like to trade for the water barrel upgrades is a fair price.

Expensive now, but in the long term, they will pay for themselves.”