The gnoll wrapped head to toe in seaweed bandages was, of course, Li Wei in disguise. The Koutao Fishman he was shaking so hard he was practically turning him into fish floss was Pipim, also in disguise.
Clearly, the master and servant had been in a hurry to escape after the Riverbank Battle. They hadn't made sufficiently detailed plans before parting ways. Pipim's brain, meanwhile, couldn't actively think up ways to carry out the BOSS's orders more effectively like a highly intelligent creature could. With only vague instructions, they could only rely on their usual habits and do their best to work toward the intended result.
So, in order to earn more ore, they had decided to discount their stock of salted fish, even though they had lost their main source of supply. This had nearly broken Li Wei's heart—he was, after all, a Silver Dragon.
It had to be said: in the strange and wonderful land of Zelandia, a Koutao Fishman salted-fish stall was a real oddity.
These Koutao Fishmen, who hadn't even known how to speak Common Tongue at first, had appeared a little over two years ago. According to some people, they might have swum in through the waterways from an underground river.
That wasn't unusual in itself. Zelandia was already a loose community made up of escaped slaves, and a few new Koutao Fishmen wouldn't make much of a splash. Even if the fishmen couldn't contribute anything, they could always be pickled and turned into salted fish.
But within days of arriving, the Koutao Fishmen had started selling salted fish. The main ingredient was Sawfathead Fish, salted with Rock Salt and dried in the shade. Even with all the water removed, each fish still weighed three or four pounds.
One such salted fish provided enough nutrition for a strong man to get through an entire workday.
And how much did they charge? Three fish for one unit—that is, two hundred pounds of iron ore!
Before this, how much had Zelandia's cheapest black bread cost? One loaf for two hundred pounds of iron ore! It weighed less than five pounds and was made mainly from Fluorescent Moss and underground gray wheat bran. The unscrupulous Dwarves had even mixed in plenty of sand to save on ingredients.
You had to soak that black bread in hot water before you could stomach it. Otherwise, it was practically a weapon for self-defense. One swing of the loaf could crack open a Goblin's skull.
So the salted fish became an instant hit in Zelandia's market. On the first day, the Pipims' stock sold out in less than an hour. The miners were so desperate to get their hands on it that they nearly snatched up the Slime-transformed Koutao Fishmen along with the fish.
At first, people thought the Koutao Fishmen, whose brains were barely bigger than walnuts, couldn't do the math. They were naturally happy to take advantage of them. But as time went on, Zelandia's refugees realized that the fishmen still weren't raising their prices, and their supply of salted fish seemed practically endless.
As a result, the market that had remained unchanged for decades was thrown into chaos by the flood of cheap salted fish. The Dwarves had no choice but to lower their prices to get rid of their nearly moldy black bread. The resulting chain reaction of price cuts meant the refugees of Zelandia found their quality of life improving.
In a different world, people would probably have worshipped such adorable Koutao Fishmen as living saints.
It wasn't that no Dwarves had suggested replacing the fishmen who were disrupting the market. But Old Tiger had stopped them.
The reason was simple: food was scarce in the Underdark, making it a precious resource. Even the Dwarves themselves benefited from the cheap salted fish.
More fundamentally, Sawfathead Fish lived in the river, and aside from the Koutao Fishmen, there were hardly any amphibious creatures in all of Zelandia capable of catching fish on a large scale.
Killing the fishmen would be like draining the river to catch the fish. It was hardly a wise choice.
Not everyone understood the reasoning, but they could at least do the math. With their daily allotment of salted fish, they could save more ore to trade for better mining picks, or even buy some gear for self-defense. They could also afford to visit a Drow craftsman every now and then. Why not?
And so, under Li Wei's direction, Pipim and the others had opened a fish stall that became the most well-connected stall in all of Zelandia.
With just a few Koutao Fishmen, Pipim and the others had managed to thrive in this cutthroat den of vice.
Every now and then, some clueless refugee would try to bully the fishmen with his size and eat without paying. But before the Dwarf patrol even had a chance to step in, these fools would be beaten half to death by concerned citizens.
As time went on, everyone learned that the Koutao Fishmen had powerful backing. Such troublemakers soon became a rare sight.
And now, at the busiest time of the day, when people were gathering for the start of work, someone had dared to bully their adorable Koutao Fishman boss! It was as if he had no regard for them, a bunch of rough-and-tumble men!
Li Wei had only just arrived, but he could already tell something was wrong. In just a few seconds, thousands of people had surrounded him, a dense, dark mass of them rolling up their sleeves and glaring at him.
Li Wei sensed something was off, too. He was about to speak when a gruff voice rang out. "Let go, let go of that fishman! I, Garuru, will beat you up! Saruga!"
"Hm?" His train of thought interrupted, Li Wei frowned at the Ogre in his gnoll form and bared his teeth instinctively, looking fierce.
Perhaps because he had killed at least a dozen Ogres at the Riverbank battlefield, and because the stench of blood still clung to him, the Ogre suddenly imagined that a monstrous beast was looming before him.
"Me Garuru, Garuru, Old Tiger! This gnoll is scary! Garuru can't beat him." Garuru instinctively staggered backward two steps at the sight of him, then landed hard on the Dwarf behind him, who let out a cry of pain.
Seeing even an Ogre frightened off at a glance, and taking in the gnoll's imposing frame, well over seven feet tall, and his powerful muscles, the others no longer felt like being the first to step forward.
Just then, Old Tiger, the head of the Golden Miner Brotherhood, arrived at the fish stall under heavy guard from the Dwarf patrol. He looked over the unusually burly gnoll carrying a huge stone slab on his back. Seeing him wrapped tightly in seaweed bandages, Old Tiger—who had spent years selecting laborers—wrinkled his nose and sniffed on instinct.
He still smelled a little of river water, so he must have swum in through the underground river. Old Tiger wondered how he had managed to hold his breath underwater for so long while carrying such a huge slab. Other than that, he seemed quite clean. Though he looked badly injured, most of his fur was missing, and his wounds had scabbed over. There wasn't even a trace of an unpleasant odor, so he probably wasn't carrying any disease.
"Hard case," Old Tiger judged instinctively, feeling his scalp grow tight.
He hated uncertainty, especially now, with Gershon City squeezing the Lower City harder and harder.
But as the head of the Golden Miner Brotherhood, he had no choice but to step in when something this troublesome came up.
Old Tiger tapped his head with his index finger, then calmly addressed Li Wei. "Gnoll Warrior, please put down our fishman brother, Remlu, first. This is Zelandia, and I'm Tiger Bronzebeard, head of the Golden Miner Brotherhood. I don't know how you got here, but now that you have, you'll have to follow our rules. Plenty of Warriors like you have shown up over the past few decades. Those who didn't follow the rules have all turned into fossils in the mines by now."
Li Wei saw that someone in charge had finally appeared. He didn't seem to care about the threat in Old Tiger's words. Instead, he set Pipim, who had named himself Remlu, on his right shoulder, clenched his left paw into a fist, and struck it against his chest. He gave the old Dwarf a slight nod, then grinned from ear to ear.
"Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Hogg, owner of Remlu Fish Stall. My fishing grounds went bankrupt, so I was forced to wander here. I had a bit of a falling-out with one of my subordinates over his poor execution of a company assignment. Please don't misunderstand."
Li Wei's brief introduction sent shockwaves through the crowd.
"Breaking news! The hidden boss behind the Koutao Fishman stall is a gnoll!"
"Wait! What do you mean, the fishing grounds went bankrupt?"
Clearly, everyone was very sensitive to the news of the fishing grounds going bankrupt. Their expressions grew complicated. Did this mean they wouldn't be able to get cheap salted fish anymore?
Old Tiger raised a hand to quiet the crowd before their murmuring could grow louder. Frowning, he asked, "So, Boss Hogg, what brings you to Zelandia today?"
Li Wei's smile grew even brighter. He pulled out the huge stone slab he had been carrying on his back—it was almost as long as he was tall—and planted it beside the fish stall. One end sank silently into the ground. A line of extremely crude words had been scrawled across its surface:
Hogg Mining Extraction Co., Ltd.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Old Tiger and the Dwarves around him immediately looked uneasy.
Ignoring Old Tiger's increasingly complicated expression, Li Wei glanced around at the crowd and smiled. "Starting today, I, Hogg, am one of the mining bosses around here! I urgently need to hire a large number of miners, and the pay will be generous! The first hundred applicants will receive three fish as a reward. If you're interested, sign up now!"
The crowd's first reaction was: "???"
But the moment they heard that the first hundred applicants would get three free fish, their eyes lit up like those of old men and women who had just heard that the supermarket was having a sale on vegetables.
Hogg Mining Extraction Co., Ltd. was officially open for business! If you're interested, please cast a Recommendation Ticket!
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