Pig-Slaughter Stew

Under Cairne's persuasion, Hamuul chose to heed everyone's advice. However, he insisted on undertaking this mission personally, negotiating with the deity and hoping it would forgive their disrespect.

Naturally, the Horde had no objections. What was Agamaggan? Something like Gruul? In Warlords of Draenor, wasn't Gruul enslaved all the same? One of his hands had even been cut off, and he was used as coal-burning labor. The Horde respected strength above all else. What did an animal demigod amount to? On Draenor, those so-called animal demigods had all been killed in the Orcs' repeated trials of strength. Grommash's father, Gor'mash Hellscream, had perished together with a powerful Gronn. That Gronn had been Gruul's brother, and it was hard to say who was stronger between him and Agamaggan.

In the end, the Horde decided that infiltrating Razorfen, the Quilboars' lair, required an elite team of powerful warriors. The final roster included Hamuul, who had to go; Rokhan, who excelled in the domain of shadows; Samuro, the Singing Saint; and Chief Ripi, an old friend of High Chieftain Cairne. Rend had never expected that his plan would bring together the future's two most famous Tauren chieftain band leaders and lead singers. Who knew whether sparks would fly between them?

Rend knew his own limits. Going there with his strength would be no different from courting death. Since he could not hide in the shadows, he would only be a burden, so he did not join this adventure.

However, Rend was well suited for another task: disguising themselves as centaurs to attack Quilboar villages and cover the elite team as they carried out the dangerous theft mission.

To preserve the swift, raider-like style of the centaurs—and to make their escape faster—this mission required cavalry. Thus, the Orc wolf riders were led by Rend, with Varok Saurfang serving as advisor. The Tauren Kodo Beast riders could only be led by Magatha Grimtotem, because Cairne had to remain behind as High Chieftain of the Tauren, while Hamuul was going to steal the Quilboars' biological specimen. Only Magatha had the ability and prestige to command this force.

Thus, ten thousand Orc wolf riders and three thousand Tauren Kodo Beast riders escorted the elite team under Rend's command while also raiding Quilboar villages. With the help of the Darkspear witch doctors, they were successfully transformed to look like centaurs. Rend experienced the witchcraft of magical artifacts firsthand. It was mainly an illusion, using magic and witchcraft to alter how others saw them; in truth, they had not changed at all. If Vol'jin had not acted personally, this Darkspear witch doctor, though powerful, could still have been easily exposed.

Fortunately, Thrall's powerful shamanic strength ensured the stability of the transformation spell, and Magatha could replenish the stable shamanic spell at any time.

More than ten thousand "centaur raiders" began their operation. To ensure the plan remained airtight, Rend adhered to one principle: leave no survivors. Dead men told no tales. They even switched to the crude weapons used by centaurs, ensuring that the Quilboars would believe the killings had been committed by centaurs. They had also brought along several hundred captured centaurs. Whenever they slaughtered a Quilboar village, they set it ablaze to conceal the traces, took away everything useful, and even staged scenes of centaurs cooking and eating Quilboars. They would kill the centaur prisoners with Quilboar weapons and leave their corpses behind in the massacred villages.

In a Quilboar village that had just been slaughtered, Rend crouched beside a pot, cooking the real boars raised by the Quilboars. Rend still found it difficult to accept eating Quilboars, but boars were different. It had to be said that the boars of Azeroth were indeed different. There was rarely much fatty meat; most of it was lean, delicious wild boar. As someone from Northeast China in his previous life, Rend had naturally watched his elders make pig-slaughter stew when he was young. Though he had only helped out occasionally, years of watching had taught him how to make it.

Rend held a bowl of stew along with rice produced in Westfall that he had bought from Ratchet, then began eating. He was accustomed to having rice as his staple food alongside dishes. Yes, among Orcs who preferred an all-meat diet, he seemed particularly unusual.

"How is it, Orc boy? I didn't expect you to know how to cook. Let me taste your handiwork." Magatha Grimtotem, chief of the Grimtotem Clan, walked over. She was quite interested in this dark-skinned Orc. Magatha had originally disliked these foreign races, but Rend's Blackrock Clan, like the Grimtotem Clan, was a powerful clan among their peoples with dark skin. They had that in common. Moreover, she liked Rend's methods against the centaurs and Quilboars. Though Magatha was a shaman priestess, she possessed little kindness. She was even a schemer and an ambitious woman. Rend's way of harming the centaurs and Quilboars, who had blood feuds with her, made her less averse to him. This dark-skinned foreign boy suited her tastes quite well. Perhaps he could become a good ally.

Even though Magatha Grimtotem was an isolationist and a racist, she still recognized that the Tauren needed allies. The Tauren had not yet emerged from the shadow of near-extinction and could not rely on themselves alone. The equally dark-skinned and warlike Blackrock Clan and the Grimtotem Clan had many similarities. If the Blackrock Clan had been in Kalimdor in history, they might very well have formed a Horde made up of the Blackrock Clan, forest trolls, ogres, and the Grimtotem Clan.

Rend had no favorable impression of this Tauren woman whom he knew would betray the Horde and cause Cairne's death. Besides, in Rend's eyes, she was an old woman who was dark, ugly, and evil-hearted.

"Chief Magatha, as an elder, of course I am willing to share my delicacy with you." Although Rend disliked her, he still restrained himself and shared some of the stew he had made, along with a pork knuckle, with Magatha.

"Wow, I never expected it. That boy's meat really is delicious. Of course, the Tauren have always raised Kodo Beasts, but I've eaten plenty of boar meat as well. Even the finest Tauren chefs can't produce this flavor." Magatha had only been curious at first, but she had not expected it to be so delicious after one bite. The texture was smooth without being greasy, the pork fat burst in her mouth, and the wild boar meat was fragrant and irresistibly enticing.

Let it be said here: Tauren eat meat! They are omnivores, not grass-eaters.

This was only Rend's watered-down version of pig-slaughter stew. After all, he had not found the many spices from his previous life. Only when Pandaria appeared would he be able to properly reminisce about the flavors of home with Pandaren chefs. Still, outside Pandaria, Rend was likely the only one who could make pork this delicious. After all, Rend, inheritor of Chinese cuisine, was beyond comparison with these natives of Azeroth. Azeroth was famous for its dark cuisine: bat meat, rat meat, spider legs, and even giant maggot meat were all considered famous dishes here. Rend did not look down on those ingredients; they simply had no idea how to bring out their flavors. What they made was truly indescribable.