Forests Don't Support Idle Goblins

Charles originally thought that frogmen were the same race as goblins. Looking at their "wise" eyes, he naturally categorized them as the "persuasive" type.

However, after learning the meaning behind the name "Frog Two Three Five Seven One," he had some doubts.

The name means that this frogman is the 23571st member of the group, which makes Sharl completely incredulous. These creatures, which are only one meter tall, and some are even less than one meter tall, can count to such a high number. In comparison, goblins can only count to the number of their own toes. If a goblin is missing a few fingers or toes, it certainly won't be able to count to 20.

Later, during his conversation with Frog 23571, he learned that this was a tradition of frogmen naming their children. In the past, frogmen could lay many eggs at a time. Although the survival rate was very low in this sealed cave, quite a few eggs would still survive. In order to record the members of their group, they simply gave the newborn frogmen numerical names.

Moreover, it seems that they are only capable of counting, and their development in other technologies and production experience is very limited, as seen in the black buildings in front of Charles.

These oval buildings look like large capsules or giant eggs, but the space is small, probably less than ten square meters in total.

Furthermore, considering the crude stone spear that Frog Two, Three, Five, Seven, One was holding at the time, Xia Er deduced that these frogmen should still be able to be persuaded.

But first, we need to persuade the frogman chieftain in front of us.

"Outsider, I am the chief of this tribe. My name is Frog 5144, croak." The frog chief sat on a white stone platform, looking up at the Naga prince in front of him.

The reason he was raising his head was because the space in the black oval building was really limited. After Pazzani crawled inside, he could only curl up and try his best to control his head so that it wouldn't be raised too high, otherwise it would hit the top of the building. In addition, in order to make room for Charles to stand, he also had a small part of his tail hanging outside the building.

The building looked incredibly cramped because it was crammed with a Naga, a Goblin, and the Frogman chieftain, but this only strengthened Shar's confidence.

"Chief, hello." Pazzani grinned, his four fleshy whiskers twitching, and smiled somewhat awkwardly. It was clear that he wasn't feeling very well.

Ciel, on the other hand, simply sat down cross-legged, acting as if he were merely a follower.

"I heard about you from Frog Two, Three, Five, Seven, One. I never expected that someone would actually come in through the Egg-Born Gate," the Frog Chieftain said with a faint smile. "So, what brings you here? Ribbit."

"We came here to..." Pazzani hesitated for a moment, then glanced at Charles sitting next to him, "to explore."

"Exploration?" The chieftain paused, then glanced down at Shar, who was examining the building's walls. A few seconds later, his voice changed. "I see. So you are the leader of this group, the one foretold in the prophecy, quack."

Xia Er stopped observing the building walls and met the clan chief's gaze. The other's words were somewhat unexpected, but upon reflection, they did make some sense. After all, the clan chief was not a small fry like Frog Two, Three, Five, Seven, One, and was not so easily fooled.

"I'm sorry for deceiving you before," Charles readily admitted what he had done, "but this was also to make contact with you. Please rest assured, we had no ill intentions."

He raised his hands to indicate that he was safe.

"Then, tell me your intentions, ribbit." The frogman chieftain didn't seem to care about anything and asked calmly.

This surprised Charles. He had assumed that the races in the forest were wary of any other race. The Dark Forest Law of his previous life was indeed a code of conduct in the Nightmare Forest. However, after interacting with this frogman chieftain, he found that the other party did not care at all whether he, a group of outsiders, had any ill intentions.

He thought for a moment, then looked back at the outside of the oval building. Furu was floating there, puffing out air. Because there was too little space inside the building, the creators of this "chat platform" had to work outdoors.

Seeing that Furu's eye stalks twitched twice, Sharl knew that there were no evil thoughts around, so he was relieved. "Chief, we just accidentally discovered this place and came here to explore. We didn't mean to disturb you."

"You came from the ground, didn't you?" The chieftain raised his hand, indicating that he didn't mean anything by it. "No need for that. Are you a little surprised that we were so unprepared? Quack."

Charles narrowed his eyes as he stared at the frogman chieftain. This frogman looked much older than Frog 23571, but it was hard to tell from his appearance. He had no beard or white hair, and apart from speaking in a weak voice, his skin looked very wrinkled and didn't seem as shiny as Frog 23571's.

"I'm so glad you were able to open the passage to the oviparous realm. If you had come any later, you might never have seen our kind again, quack."

"Are you leaving?"

"No, it's that this tribe has perished, quack."

Charles frowned, staring at the chieftain's somewhat cloudy eyes. How come he often encountered those tribes on the verge of extinction in the forest? "I'm sorry, I don't know about those."

"This is not your doing, outsiders. On the contrary," the frogman chieftain waved his hand, "it is the ultimate fate of our race, croak."

Seeing the questioning looks on Charles and Pazzani's faces, he didn't wait for them to ask anything. Instead, he pointed to the outside of the building and said, "We frogmen have always lived here. I don't know how long it's been, but we've lived in this underground world. Originally, we relied on the various creatures in that pool outside to fill our stomachs. Ribbit."

The chieftain gently patted his round, white belly. "The algae, fish, and insect eggs and larvae inside are our food. It's just a pity that the water temperature in the pool is too low, which is not very suitable for the hatching of our eggs. So the tribe can only barely survive, quack."

"Then why do you say it's going to perish?"

"Perhaps it's the malice of the gods," the chieftain sighed, stroking his white belly. "I don't know when it started, but a strange fish appeared in the pool. It's huge and attacks and eats us. This has caused heavy casualties among our tribesmen who go into the water to fish and hunt. More importantly, our eggs can only be laid in water. With this strange fish around, we simply can't hatch the next generation. Ribbit!"

"Strange fish?" Xia Er recalled what Frog 23571 had said before. That dark pool was called the Lake of Darkness, and that guy had indeed mentioned some big fish.

"But now, you really are our saviors," the chieftain said, sitting on the white stone platform with his hands on either side, leaning forward and bowing his head slightly. His round white belly made his movements look a little difficult. "We can finally leave this underground space and find a way to live in a different body of water, quack."

"Can you tell me about that strange fish?" Ciel asked after the other person had sat down again.

"A large fish, extremely ugly in appearance, with three vertically arranged eyes and four strong tentacles, has been lurking at the bottom of the lake. However, it can sense any creature that enters the water," the frogman chieftain said slowly. "And it seems to have some strange abilities that make enemies unconsciously obey its influence and swim down to the bottom of the water. Ribbit."

With a furrowed brow, the chieftain continued, "We tried to organize our people to attack it before, but unfortunately, those warriors seemed to fall into a strange illusion and plunged directly into the deep water, never to reappear. They must have all been eaten by that strange fish, quack."

"I don't know if it's the power of that strange fish or the four strange stone sculptures at the bottom of the lake, but our clan has paid a great price to defeat that strange fish and still hasn't succeeded, quack."

"The power of the strange fish, the strange stone carving?" Sharl repeated the words the chieftain had spoken, the one that particularly intrigued him being the word "stone carving." "What kind of stone carving?"

The chieftain thought for a moment, paused for a long time, then raised his hand and gestured in the air, "This is the first time I've seen this when I was young, diving into the water, quack."

Charles watched the other person's webbed fingers waving in the air, but couldn't make out what pattern it was. He thought for a moment, apologized, and walked out of the black oval building. He returned shortly after. "Look, does it look like this?"

He handed over a belt engraved with the runic word "Mind," and pointed to the pattern engraved on it, asking questions.

The chieftain took the belt, staring at it with his two cloudy eyes for almost a minute before returning it to Sharl. "It looks similar, but the pattern on it is different, quack."

"I understand." Charles nodded. It seemed there were new runic words at the bottom of the lake. He didn't know what they were used for. Could they be related to that strange fish? But they seemed to have a significant effect, namely the ability to control the minds of other creatures. He didn't know if it was the strange fish's ability or the runic words' ability.

Unfortunately, if you want to go into the water to see it, you have to kill that strange fish first, otherwise you'll definitely be attacked if you rush into the water.

"I suppose since you've always lived in this underground cave, you've never been to the surface," Charles thought for a moment before deciding to continue asking for information.

"It's not that we've never been out," the chieftain said, patting the stone platform with a hint of melancholy in his voice. "There are two outlets in the pool that connect to the river outside, which is one way out. But the entrance is very narrow, only allowing one frogman to pass at a time. And the river is very long. Only a few brave warriors from our ancestors were able to go out there and learn about the outside world. But since the strange fish appeared, this only passage has been blocked. Ribbit."

"I suppose since you've always lived in this underground cave, you've never been to the surface," Charles thought for a moment before deciding to continue asking for information.

"It's not that we've never been out," the chieftain said, patting the stone platform with a hint of melancholy in his voice. "There are two outlets in the pool that connect to the river outside, which is one way out. But the entrance is very narrow, only allowing one frogman to pass at a time. And the river is very long. Only a few brave warriors from our ancestors were able to go out there and learn about the outside world. But since the strange fish appeared, this only passage has been blocked. Ribbit."

"So, we really have come to take you away from here," Sharl said with a smile, pointing to the silent Pazani beside him. "He is the king of the Naga. You may not have heard of the Naga race. They are a very ancient race, formerly known as the 'Shepherds of the Sea.' They now live in a lake not far from here. I think if you would like, you can move there and live with them."

"Naga? Ribbit." The frogman chieftain turned his head to look at Pazani, who had a slight smile on his face, but did not make a decision immediately.

"Then you can hatch your eggs in the lake, and you won't have to live in this cramped little stone house anymore," Charles said, glancing at the black wall beside him.

"These little houses were built by us frogmen; they're our homes, not stone houses, quack," the chieftain slowly corrected Sharl's opinion.

"You built this?" Charles was somewhat surprised. These frogmen would build such a structure, just based on those crooked stone spears.

"Yes," the frogman chieftain straightened his back slightly, "we can build such houses by mixing the mucus on our bodies with the algae in the water, along with those pebbles and soil."

"Slime?" Charles frowned. He remembered the layer of slime on the surface of Frog Two, Three, Five, and Seven before, and the Frog Chieftain in front of him must be old, so he didn't secrete much slime. No wonder he didn't look as shiny as the other Frogmen.

He stood up, approached the wall, and reached out to touch the black surface. He could feel the unevenness and the presence of small pebbles. "You mean, this is something your frogman race mixed with slime and algae, then added soil and sand, and then solidified?"

The frogman chieftain didn't say anything, but just smiled and nodded, clearly proud that his race had achieved such results.

"Do you still have any of this?" Sharl turned to stare at the frogman chieftain. "Or rather, can you still make it?"

"Of course," the frogman chieftain nodded. "After all, it's stirred by the mucus on our bodies. We just need to scrape off the mucus and drink water to replenish it. It's just that the algae needs time to grow. Now that the pond is occupied by strange fish, we can no longer grow algae, ribbit."

"In that case, I'll find a way to help you kill that strange fish," Charles said seriously. Pazzani, who had been silent, nudged him with his tail and then gave him a look, signaling him to go outside and talk.

The two quickly arrived outside the black, oval-shaped building. "Are you really going to help them kill that strange fish?" Pazzani asked.

"Um."

"Why? Just because that strange fish ate a lot of frogmen? Isn't it enough to just get them out of here?"

“No, you don’t understand,” Charles waved his hand. “First, I want to go to the lake to see the new runic words, which requires killing that strange fish. But more importantly, the frogmen’s slime mixed with algae can be made into a powerful building material.”

Its name is cement.