Chapter 3

Passing through one stone chamber after another, some housed large animals that dwelled in the jungle, such as wild deer, wild horses, and gorillas. Others contained low-level magical beasts like crystal magic lizards, green venom wind snakes, and wind wolves. Still, others held subhuman or humanoid creatures like sirens, centaurs, elves, and dwarves. Of course, the majority were humans, as they were the most numerous intelligent beings on the Dota continent, and they were not particularly difficult to capture.

Most of the gazes that fell upon the small ogre, Golong, were filled with despair and numbness, and of course, hatred and resentment. Golong found this somewhat strange. He did not understand what "hatred" was, because when he slaughtered those wild deer and goats, their eyes were also filled with despair, but there was no hatred directed at him, the slaughterer.

The weak are killed and eaten, and the strong continue to survive on their flesh and blood... Whether it's lions, raptors, falcons, or sharks, any carnivorous creature must eat to live. When an ogre is hungry, they naturally eat meat to survive. Isn't this all a matter of course? But why do these people hate him so much? And why do they look down on him?

Shaking his head, he cast aside the fleeting confusion and continued deeper into the cave. As he went further in, the cave branched out into more paths, and even Golong sometimes got lost. No other ogres ever ventured here. In the deepest part of this cave, Golong's own secret was hidden...

There has always been a saying on the Dota continent: "Every boy has three secrets." Golong also had three secrets that only he knew. One of them was that his "ingredients" could delay their fate of being killed and eaten if they met a small condition he set. This condition was very simple: to tell Golong a story or teach him how to do something.

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Golong loved listening to stories, a habit that might have been influenced by his human father...

After his mother and father mated and gave birth to Golong and Hakuriri, his human father escaped the fate of becoming food. He could have lived here as a member of a foreign tribe, like a troll shaman. However, Golong's father, Viscount Domenico Cristia Tabris von Hewen, never seemed to adapt to his new identity as a foreign ogre. This man spent his days huddled in the dark corner of a thatched hut, muttering to himself like he was in a dream. He did not respond when spoken to, and he would mechanically eat any food given to him without looking at it. Finally, the old troll shaman, Old Harman, concluded...

He was insane.

For a while, Golong developed a strong interest in his insane father. He would squat by his father's side all day, listening to what he was saying.

At first, there were many words Golong did not understand, such as "noble birth," "betrayal," and "revenge." Golong would remember these words his father repeated and then ask the most knowledgeable shaman and old troll shaman in the tribe. Although their answers were limited, they provided a starting point, and the intelligent Golong gradually began to understand what his father was saying...

It was his entire life.

From the moment he could remember, his father recounted every event in his life in a jumbled manner... from deliberately breaking his grandmother's beloved vase to losing his virginity to a maid, from his mischief and revelry at the magic academy to his secret infatuation with his handsome and sexy older brother, from his embarrassing failures during hunting trips to his struggles with other noble children, from his first murder of a civilian girl amidst laughter to his disgust and nausea at the sight of a real battlefield...

His birth, his family, his love, his boredom... his father's entire life was condensed into his ramblings. In these fragmented "little stories" of his life, Golong seemed to experience a life vastly different from his own as an ogre.

He treated these as stories, and because of this, Golong was almost obsessed with listening to others' stories. Unfortunately, after he finally grew tired of all his father's "stories," he could not find any new sources. Not even the simple-minded, sky-pure, and paper-clean ogre idiots could provide new stories. Even the few old tales that the old troll, who had traveled the continent in his youth and was somewhat knowledgeable and eloquent, had to offer—such as the rise and fall of the Amani troll empire, the century-long battle between trolls and elves in the Onyx Forest, and the chronicles of the Dota continent—were exhausted by Golong in two or three months. Finally, Golong had a sudden idea and found a new "source of stories."

Yes, it was the "food" imprisoned in the cliff caves. Golong knew that these "foods" knew many things that ogres did not.

Whenever he was about to slaughter and cook, Golong would ask the "food" a question: "Can you tell a story?"

Then, as long as the story satisfied Golong and the "food" had more stories to tell, Golong would point his butcher's knife at the next candidate and ask the same question: "Can you tell a story?"

...

Whether it was a proper story, a fabricated tale, a historical account, a legend, a fairy tale, or even some common knowledge or obscure trivia, or even recipes or magic tricks... as long as it was an interesting "story," Golong would listen with great interest. Through this method, Golong was exposed to new and interesting things every day, things he would never encounter in the small world of the ogre tribe. This made his life very fulfilling.

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