Chapter 94: The Kobold on the Run!

Looking at the bodies of two enormous crocodiles drifting in the shallows at the edge of the swamp, Rio stroked his chin, lost in thought.

"That really is a problem."

The swamp crocodiles made the dogheads' mining work far more dangerous, which was the same as driving up his own supply costs.

And those crocodiles did not stay in the swamp, either. Their tracks were everywhere across the basin.

Just this patch of shallow water in front of him was hiding no fewer than a dozen crocodiles, and there were several more like it scattered through the swamp.

Creatures of that size were no longer something the dogheads could handle. With the terrain on their side as well, the dogheads would only become food.

Rio seized the tails of the two crocodile corpses and dragged them ashore.

"Come on. Let's send them to the ogres!"

A swamp giant crocodile longer than four meters weighed at least a thousand pounds, yet Rio dragged one in each hand and did not seem to find them heavy at all.

"Why?" Fisha did not want to help. She still harbored a great deal of prejudice against the ogres.

Rio lectured her. "What do you know? Neighbors are supposed to help one another!"

Though Fisha was far from pleased after hearing that, she still ordered several of the dogs to take one of the crocodile carcasses. Some dragged, some carried, and together they delivered it all the way to the abandoned watchtower.

The ogre chief was named Krogg. Ever since he had taken Rio's advice and hidden away in the abandoned watchtower to recover, he had lost a great deal of weight.

The same was true of his clansmen. They were often so hungry they howled like ghosts in the middle of the night, green fire flickering in their eyes.

The foothills beneath the Grand Barrier were rich in resources, but ogres were not good hunters. Often fifteen ogres, thirty heads in all, would have to split one deer.

That was on a good day. Sometimes they could only eat mushrooms, turning their skin from red to a pale azure, and still they could not fill their stomachs.

Just as the ogre chief was beginning to doubt his own decision and considering sneaking down to River Bend to steal a couple of people, or going to the doghead valley to catch a few dogs to ease the food crisis, Rio appeared.

At the sight of the food in Rio's hands, the ogre chief felt both joy and shame.

He was delighted because there was finally meat to eat; ashamed because his friend cared so much for him, while he himself kept thinking of eating that friend.

Unfortunately, his two broad ogre faces could not express shame with any accuracy, and Rio could only see the hunger for meat in his eyes.

Fisha, to be fair, was the clever one. She vaguely understood Rio's intention and could not help growing excited. She jumped onto the giant crocodile carcass and shouted, "Ogre people, neighbors! Giant crocodile for you!"

"Over the mountain! A whole herd! More than enough to eat! More than enough!"

That sent the ogres into a frenzy. They were itching to set out hunting at once.

One giant crocodile weighed no less than a thousand pounds; that was enough to feed the ogre tribe to the brim. If they caught one a day, the whole clan could fatten up again!

Rio only smiled and said nothing, concealing his merit and his name alike.

Having placed the swamp giant crocodiles on the ogres' menu, their fate had already been sealed.

Krogg thanked Rio with one head and thanked Fisha with the other.

"You are all so good. Such good neighbors!"

"Dogheads, I have a gift for you too!"

"Come with me!"

With that, the ogre chief led Rio and Fisha into the abandoned watchtower.

After so much time, the watchtower had not changed much. The only difference was that many makeshift roofs had been built in the courtyard inside the walls, just enough to keep out wind and rain.

Brother Lawrence's skull and spine still hung above the gate.

Clearly, the ogres were very fond of the decoration, for they had even collected a few human and beast thigh bones and hung them beside it.

When the breeze passed through, the bones knocked against one another with a clear, tinkling sound like a wind chime.

Rio caught Brother Lawrence's spine and gave it a light shake. At once, several thigh bones rattled against his skull with a hollow thudding.

So it was not a wind chime after all, but a doorbell.

Rio had not expected that Brother Lawrence could still, in such a form, become part of the lives of those who came after.

The dogheads were also very interested in this doorbell, but unfortunately they were too short to reach it.

So Rio, in a fit of canine sympathy, grabbed two dogheads by the scruff of the neck and lifted them up, letting them seize the remains of the spine and shake it for a while, satisfying the dogs' curiosity.

Once they entered the courtyard, Rio heard a terrifying low howl from the passageway inside.

The ogre chief Krogg stooped with remarkable ease and ducked into the passage, then crudely hauled out a werewolf!

"This is the runaway doghead! Here, take it!"

The burly werewolf, nearly two meters tall, was bound in thick iron chains, covered in wounds, and full of fierce, murderous light.

Chains made of iron rings thicker than a thumb restrained its limbs and neck one by one, limiting its movement.

The werewolf plainly refused to show its face. While being dragged out, it struggled constantly, its sharp claws raking the stone walls of the passage and gouging out deep grooves.

Too bad its opponent was an ogre with boundless strength. Even if it tore its own neck off, it would be useless.

Krogg handed the chains over to Fisha.

Rio could not help covering his face. "That is not a doghead!"

The moment Fisha saw the werewolf, she froze. She looked at herself, then at the werewolf, then back at herself, then back at the werewolf, studying it over and over.

At Rio's words, she protested angrily, "This is a doghead!"

"Same head, same body!" Fisha pointed at the werewolf, then at herself. "Black! White!"

"Exactly the same!"

Very well. Rio had to admit that this Siberian werewolf and Fisha, this husky girl, really were about eighty percent alike.

"Is this a doghead?" Rio could not outargue Fisha, so he turned to Krogg instead.

The ogre chief scratched his head, looking back and forth between the werewolf and Fisha in great embarrassment. He could only mutter, "Rio said dogheads can't be eaten, so we didn't eat it. It's so big we couldn't bear to throw it away."

Rio then questioned the werewolf. "Are you a doghead?"

The werewolf bared its sharp teeth at him, eyes flashing with ferocity, its body hunching slightly as if about to spring.

At that moment, Krogg added, "If it's not a doghead, that's even better! Boil it right away and eat it!"

The werewolf withdrew the teeth it had bared, licked its lips, and fell silent.

Rio laughed. Yet another one that understood human speech.

If it understood human speech, then things were easy.

Fisha was still defending her "kinsman's" identity. Gripping the thick iron chain tightly, she tried to take the werewolf away.

"This is a doghead! Ogre people, good friends, neighbors! Give it to my people!"

Rio had no strength left to complain. "And who was it that said ogres weren't people last time?"

A fierce werewolf was thus obediently dragged away by Fisha.

On the way back, as he watched a crowd of dogheads surrounding Fisha and leading a tall werewolf through the forest in cheerful procession, Rio could not shake the feeling that the scene was deeply strange.

In this world, werewolves were a separate race, or were they humans turned into something else? If a werewolf bit someone, would that person also become a werewolf?

And if a doghead was bitten by a werewolf, what would it become?

That seemed like an entirely unexplored new field...

Rio could not help warning the werewolf, "I'll assume you can't speak, but don't pretend you can't understand. If Fisha really takes you as one of her own, then just settle down and be one of her own. Heal up, stay if you want to stay, run if you want to run, but don't cause trouble."