Chapter 511: Two-headed Ogre

“Surrender or die.”

Kaqi sat on the two-headed ogre’s chest, looking down at it. With two heads, though, he wasn’t sure which one to stare at.

“Ogres will never be slaves!” the left head shouted.

The damn sense of déjà vu was too much. Leech couldn’t resist having the Corpse Ghost kick its fat, swollen face.

‘Eat this, my Prison Guard!’

“GWAHAHAHA!” The right head cackled with glee. In the spirit of fairness and treating both sides equally, Leech had the Corpse Ghost kick the right head as well. The cackling stopped abruptly, and the left head began to roar with laughter. “HAHAHAHA, you idiot!”

“And you have the nerve to call someone else an idiot!” Leech almost laughed at its stupidity.

Subjugating the ogres was a sudden whim of Leech’s.

First, he didn’t need to control too many low-quality Extraordinary corpses. The limits on his Spiritual Power, even with Isis’s help, meant he was fated to never have a ten-thousand-strong army of the dead.

He wasn’t even considering a shambling, zombie-like army of the dead. The cost-effectiveness was far too low—every single corpse required gold.

Creating a Corpse Ghost required the original body to be Extraordinary and also needed Extraordinary materials. The ogres were clearly not Extraordinary, so they didn’t meet the requirements. An artificially enhanced Extraordinary being, forced through Magic, would certainly be different from a genuine one.

Although becoming a Corpse Ghost granted a decent level of intelligence, he really couldn’t guarantee an ogre’s IQ would improve after the transformation.

Besides, given the ogres’ appearance, they could never freely leave the underground and enter the human world. They were more useful alive than dead.

‘Maybe they can even breed some little ogres. All of them with thick skin and tough flesh… they’re basically mass-producible meat shields.’

Furthermore, look at these big guys!

Preparing Magic Antiseptic for them would cost an astronomical sum. Plus, they always gave off a foul stench. HISS… The antiseptic they soaked in would probably turn pitch black. Could anyone else even use it after them? The thought alone was disgusting. Leech had no desire to control such corpses.

Also, he wanted to conquer the underground without using too much of his own power or wasting gold. He planned to mainly consolidate and manipulate the underground forces. Since they were all just underground factions fighting each other anyway, he could drive one group to attack another, make a small profit on the side, and supplement his household income.

After some brief contact, Leech had clearly identified the ogres’ intelligence problem.

It wasn’t that it was too low, just a bit above the Giants he had encountered before, who could only howl and had zero intelligence.

The ogres had a rather childish mentality, but they weren’t without cunning. Just now, when Kaqi was surrounded, the two-headed Ogre Mage had used Magic to suddenly boost the strength of all the other ogres. It was the move of a seasoned veteran.

Take a beating first, then, once the enemy’s guard is down, unleash a sudden, treacherous move.

‘In a fantasy novel, this would be another one of those protagonists who plays the pig to eat the tiger.’

‘”It looks like I’m taking a beating, but actually I have a ton of trump cards.” Leech hated that back-and-forth style of “you play a card, I play a card.” It was like a novelist writing without any stockpiled chapters.’

But he had to admit, Leech loved the feeling of ‘I have a trump card, and you don’t.’

In any case, the ogres were hardly the sharpest tools in the shed. They were dumber than a border collie, at least.

Leech pointed at a pig leg, dripping with a thick, foul-smelling liquid, that two other ogres were fighting over. “Want to eat that?”

“Want!” the left head nodded.

The right head was already drooling. SLURP. SLURP.

“Follow me, pledge your allegiance to that lord, and I can guarantee you’ll be able to eat that kind of pork.”

Since threats weren’t working, it was time for bribery.

The strange pigs weren’t slow runners, and as it happened, the ogres were both stupid and slow-moving. It was impossible for them to catch the pigs.

‘One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.’

So he chose to use food as an incentive, and unexpectedly, the effect was remarkably good.

“Okay!” “Okay!” the two ogre heads said in unison.

“Since you’ve pledged your allegiance to me,” Leech said, looking at the wooden staff in the two-headed ogre’s hand and pointing, “lend me this thing to study for a bit. I’ll give it back.”

“Meat! Meat!”

Leech held no expectations for the ogre’s loyalty. They were just going to be used as cannon fodder anyway.

‘Who said they were stupid? They weren’t stupid at all! They wouldn’t even eat the empty promises Baron Leech offered. They were unbelievably smart!’

‘The other nobles worked for him tirelessly and without complaint. Look at them, did any of them ask him for benefits? They all couldn’t wait to devote their limited energy to the infinite construction of the domain. And for what? Just to listen to Baron Leech’s empty promises!’

‘Forget eating that pie, just a sniff of it could extend one’s life!’

“Fine, wait here!”

Meanwhile, Isis had opened the portal again, which naturally consumed a large amount of livestock.

As Leech had the Corpse Ghost toss the black dragon’s corpse through the portal, three dead pigs were tossed back in return.

“Here’s the pork.” Kaqi directly snatched the two-headed ogre’s Magic Staff and tossed it back through the portal.

‘Once something’s in my hands, there’s absolutely no way I’m giving it back.’

The Tangkx Scholar had mentioned before that Casters needed a Magic Staff. She didn’t have one on her, which was probably related to that pile of wondrous trinkets she wore.

But Leech needed a Magic Staff. Not just him, but the young apprentices he was training needed them too.

Now that he had a Magic Staff to use as a reference, he was definitely going to take it first and ask questions later.

The two-headed ogre, however, couldn’t care less about its Magic Staff. It scrambled to its feet and charged toward the dead pigs. Other ogres also rushed over to fight for the food, only to be knocked down one by one by the two-headed ogre’s fists. Some, heedless of their own safety, continued to lunge forward, the aroma of the food making them forget their fear.

“Mine! Mine!” the right head bellowed.

“Get lost! Get lost!” the left head roared.

A red glow enveloped the two-headed ogre’s body, and its punching power soared. It beat the other thick-skinned ogres until they howled in pain.

After taking a few more hits, the gluttonous ogres seemed to realize who was beating them up. They instantly settled down, watching with wide, eager eyes as the two-headed ogre pounced on the pigs and started gnawing on them.

‘It’s just a few pigs, right? Pfft, we don’t even like pork. It’s too greasy, too much meat, smells good, tastes even better…’

And so, Leech watched a crowd of ogres standing with their mouths agape, drool streaming down. Some of them kept swallowing hard, GULP, GULP, absolutely overcome with gluttony.

Watching the two-headed ogre pounce on the dead pigs, tearing off huge mouthfuls of meat, they were truly drooling with envy.

The spots where they’d been hit just moments ago didn’t hurt so much anymore. They figured they were good to go again and started inching closer.

“You eat less, I’ll eat more!” the two-headed ogre’s right head shouted while eating. At the same time, it raised a hand to grab the left head’s horn. “If you get full, I won’t be able to swallow!”

The left head also controlled its half of the body to fight back, but it kept its head down and continued to chew furiously, completely ignoring the other head’s shouts.

The stomach was only so big. If one head ate more, the other would definitely get less. Therefore, whoever kept eating and took bigger bites would come out on top.

Soon, four-fifths of one pig had been devoured. The two-headed ogre collapsed on the ground. Seeing their chance, the other ogres immediately pounced, carving up the remaining pork. Another chaotic brawl broke out.

“Doesn’t taste good!”

“Yeah, doesn’t taste good.”

The two heads critiqued the pork, as if the plump, fatty pigs Leech had someone meticulously raise were, in the ogres’ eyes, inferior to the foul-smelling strange pigs whose blood was like pus from a sore.

‘They really were fated to eat shit. I shouldn’t have given them meat!’

Leech withdrew his consciousness. He instructed Kaqi to start managing the Ogre Tribe for now, then slowly explore the surrounding area and plunder any treasures.

Now for the main event: creating a Corpse Ghost from the black dragon.

All the black dragon fragments have been collected. The synthesis can now begin.