Slaughter! (Part 2)
Plans inevitably had variables, and these variables had to be manually corrected for the plan to get back on track.
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It was a good idea to use the lure of personal gain to attract the slave merchants and civilian adventurers to hunt for the gnolls, but once these actions were taken, many problems were exposed one after the other.
The most prominent problem was that the slave merchants and adventurers could only matchup against the female gnolls!
And on the off chance that their ability to fight was slightly poorer, then their losses would be even greater than that of the gnolls.
As everyone knows, most of the slave merchants' armed forces were mercenaries and civilian adventurers. The fighting power of these people wasn't as strong as the stories made it out to be. At least, those that were powerful enough to fight against the gnolls were rare among them!
As long as a mercenary with strong fighting ability had a clean record, he could easily get a full-time job in the army with some official appointment, and he wouldn't have to get mixed up with the mercenaries.
As for the adventurers, unless this trade could attract a powerful multi-ethnic team that took adventures beyond the map, not much could be expected from those adventurers that only explored the southern plains. Most of their members were desolate knights or civilian swordsmen, and their fighting power was no better than the elite gladiators that were in the hands of the slave merchants!
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In fact, what Murphy did wasn't all that complicated.
Due to the difficultly of capturing gnolls, there was a lull in the trading of gnoll slaves. After a period of capturing, the slave merchants realized that these cunning and brutal creatures weren't as easy to deal with as they had initially thought! It often required two or three people to capture a single gnoll and not get injured! And when this creature started fighting to the death, they sustained significant losses!
Eventually, they found that the effort they had to put in wasn't worth the payoff, and it made people unhappy.
As a result, the initial gnoll craze that had come about from the expensive bounties gradually simmered down.
What Murphy wanted to do now was ignite the slave traders' passion again!
After Lady Elizabeth pulled some strings, she and Murphy were the first to come to town, and behind them were slave merchants who were supported by the noble council after they had reached an agreement. In fact, it was the slave traders that had the support of the noble council to initially promote the gnoll slave-trade business opportunity. They were also a part of the plan to drive this trend!
Now, the town urgently needed to capture or kill a group of gnolls to build confidence in the others!
Murphy had silently been observing these slave traders, and through them, he intended to understand the progress of civilization of the aboriginals in this world. He wanted to calculate how big the gap was between their combat power and that of the town army! He found that the combat power of humans in this world wasn't all that powerful, and the power of their forces on the low end was small. As far as supernatural power goes, he had presently only seen it in one person!
Murphy still remembered it like it was yesterday!
It was raining heavily that day, and he had met a special group of visitors at the town port.
Lady Elizabeth was beside him at the time, and both of them had noticed the arrival of this group of outsiders.
There were approximately 150 people in the group, and all of them were adult males. They were equipped with weapons and leather armor, and they looked like they had received some sort of military training. Obviously, this was also a group of people who had been attracted by the rewards.
The leader of the group was a big, muscular man, who stood about 2 meters tall. His chest and forearms were painted with white paint, and he seemed different from other aboriginals. This group of people had a wilder vibe. Their hair was loose, and they had a braid in the middle of their heads, making for a rather weird hairstyle. Their skin color was darker than other aboriginals, and the styling was similar to that of Indians or African natives!
It was exactly with this group of people that Murphy saw something strange when he looked at them. It was the same thing he had seen back in the temple!
Murphy saw a gray, dusky mist surrounding these people!
And around the leader of the group was a special pattern that looked like it was made from off-white silken threads!
This pattern looked a little like that of a wolf, but it wasn't quite clear what it was.
"They are Psaiyans, and they live in a jungle bordered by wilderness to the north of the plains. Their people are all hunters, and nearly half of the human city-state's gnoll slaves had been caught at their hands!" Lady Elizabeth said. She knew that Murphy wasn't familiar with these people, so she took the initiative to introduce them. "It seems that our plan is going along very smoothly if even they are drawn to it!"
"Psaiyans?"
Were they one of the races in this world?
Why did they seem to look different from the other humans in the southern plains?
"Do they adore wolves?" Murphy suddenly asked. He fell into deep thought as he studied this odd group of people called the Psaiyans.
"Why do you ask that?" Lady Elizabeth said. There was a look of surprise on her face. She thought about it for a moment, and said uncertainly: "It seems that all barbarians have the habit of worshipping wolves, but I'm not too sure if this is the same for the Psaiyans."
"If they really are worshipping something, I think it's most likely their ancestors!" Lady Elizabeth said, pointing her finger at the white marks on the man's chest. She said slowly: "The Psaiyans' ancestors originated from ancient times, and were human heroes! They often shouted before a battle that it was all for the glory of their ancestors!"
It was all for the glory of their ancestors?
Murphy fell silent.
Actually, he had found a problem during this period!
He realized that the humans across the southern plains didn't seem to have a single unified belief system. In other words, human beings in this world had yet to gather under a common faith!
Moreover, Murphy also found that most of the Gods these aboriginals worshipped were actually elven gods!
There were even some barbarians who believed in orc gods!
And even in the beasts!
What did this mean?
Didn't the human beings in this world have their own gods?
Murphy frowned slightly as he stared at the group of Psaiyans from afar, and he felt an odd feeling as he watched them practice their faith.
If he didn't remember wrong...
Almost all the gods had come from the worshipping of ancestors!
The history of the development of human civilization within the southern plains was less than 2,000 years. Compared to the history of orcs and elves, which was 6,000 years, it wasn't too odd that the humans hadn't gathered under one faith yet.
But the problem was that they didn't seem to have a human god yet.
If belief in a human god evolved from the worshipping of ancestors, then there would eventually be a group of gods dedicated to humans?
Could it be...
That there were other secrets in this?
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This conjecture reminded Murphy of some other more serious problems and made him feel a little uneasy.