Chapter 51 The Nature of the Beast, the Logic of Man
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
I cut off the head of Gazel, the wolf beastfolk, with one strike of my blade.
At the same time as the dull sound of the impact, a spray of warm blood splashed across my cheek. From the corner of my eye, a flash of bright red moved through the air before soaking into the dry earth.
Right after that-
Kyle, the elf, glared at me with eyes that looked like they were seeing something impossible, and his voice rose in strong protest.
”Hey, you! To go as far as executing a prisoner…!”
Kyle’s voice shook a little. I could not tell if it was from boiling anger or creeping fear.
With my sword still raised, its blade lightly covered with blood that had splashed back, I gave a perfectly calm answer.
”It could not be helped. The man clearly said he would kill anyone he saw.”
I had a large amount of Mana, more than enough to force anyone into complete submission.
If I had wanted to, I probably could have turned him into a Magic Slave. But I chose not to.
In that situation, there were only two choices. Turn him into a slave, or kill him.
And without any hesitation, I chose the latter. It was as simple as that.
Feelings did not matter at all.
With a light flick of my wrist, I shook the blood that was sticking to my blade. A few drops scattered across the dry floor, leaving behind bright, fresh stains.
I turned my eyes toward the remaining beastfolk, who was still tied tightly with ropes. He was cowering, his eyes narrowing in pure terror.
Those frightened eyes belonged to a man facing the executioner’s block.
”So, what about you?”
Baird, the bear beastfolk. In his human form, he was a huge wall of a man, built exactly like his name.
Yet, in sharp contrast to his huge frame, he was now shaking like a small, cornered animal.
”A-Ah, alright, I get it! I will listen to whatever you say. Just… first, please release me from this slave bond. And hurry up and undo these ropes while you are at it!”
Unlike Gazel, Baird proved to be very cooperative. Desperation filled his voice.
Yet, something about his cooperation felt completely unnatural. I kept my guard up.
”Very well. Let us start by freeing you from your slavery.”
I traced my fingertip over the Slave crest stamped on his chest. The cursed mark burned into his skin flashed with a faint light before vanishing without a trace.
The very next moment, Baird’s behavior changed completely.
His terror dissolved, replaced instantly by a rude, sneering grin. A sudden chill ran down my spine.
”Bwahaha! You complete fool! The moment I am a free man, the advantage is mine!”
Baird began to change into his beast form right then and there.
His muscles swelled violently, and rough black fur burst out across his body, tearing through his skin. The unpleasant, cracking sounds of shifting bones echoed through the air as his monster form took shape.
A wild, vicious look lit up in his eyes. His desire to kill was locked directly onto me.
At this rate, his growing size would fill my entire field of vision.
”High-speed regeneration! It has been a long time since I last tasted human flesh!!”
Before his disgusting roar could fully echo through the room, my sword cleanly and precisely cut through the changing Baird’s neck.
The sickening feeling of cutting through thick flesh traveled up through my grip. The beast’s hungry cry was choked deep inside his throat.
”…I see. In that case—I suppose I really could not let you go free.”
I had thought about using them as bargaining pieces in talks with the Beastfolk, but it could not be helped.
A truly disappointing result. I gave a very small shrug of my shoulders.
And so, my very first contact with the Beastfolk ended with two fresh corpses.
As I thought about this to myself, Kyle’s sharp voice lashed out at me from behind once again. His tone was a mix of fury and deep distrust.
”Hey, you! There was absolutely no reason to kill him! He had already lost to you in battle once. There is no way he would have attacked a second time! You should have just let him run away!”
Kyle’s strong hostility cast a heavy, suffocating weight over the air around us. Yet, my heart remained perfectly calm.
”No… The guy literally yelled, ‘I can taste human flesh again.’ No matter how you look at it, letting him go was out of the question, right?”
”Who cares?! So what if a human or two gets eaten alive?! He was kept as a slave until now, so you should at least accept that much! Besides, it is you humans who are in the wrong for enslaving beastfolk in the first place!”
Well, I could not exactly let that happen, which is exactly why I killed him.
It seemed that getting along with other races was not something that could be easily achieved just by saying empty words like “let us all get along.”
Kyle’s face turned bright red with anger. In his eyes, a human like me was undoubtedly the very form of evil.
”You really enjoy snapping at me every chance you get, do you not? Even though I am trying to offer a hand in friendship here…”
”Do not give me that bullshit!! How could anyone ever get along with a cruel, cunning, rude, lustful, and completely careless human like you?! Just die already!!”
And so it went.
No matter how much we talked, we would only ever run on separate paths. It felt as though a deep gap stretched between Kyle and myself.
Good grief. The future looks very bad, I grumbled to myself. But just as I was sighing inside, unexpected support arrived from a completely different direction.
”Hey, you over there with the pointed ears. This guy is speaking the plain truth.”
The voice belonged to Hawks, the hawk beastfolk. His sharp, predatory look stabbed directly into Kyle.
”That bastard from a moment ago would have eaten elves too. Not just that. He would happily eat his own kind, the beastfolk—there are rare monsters like that among us.”1
Hawks gave a completely annoyed look at Kyle before continuing. His tone carried a heavy amount of resignation mixed with a hint of dislike.
”Just to clear up any misunderstandings, even meat-eating beastfolk like us do not normally eat humans. There are barely any who actually enjoy the taste. If one does show up, they become an immediate target for killing by the rest of the Beastfolk. I mean, think about it. Anyone who eats humans will turn around and eat beastfolk without a second thought. There is no way we could ever live together with a freak like that.”
Well, that certainly made sense.
His logic was perfectly sound. It was nothing less than a natural truth.
”That Baird bastard was originally a well-known criminal who went around attacking human settlements. That is why the Holy Knights hunted him down, and he ended up falling into slavery. He is completely different from the rest of the beastfolk who were unfairly captured and turned into slaves by ‘Beastfolk Hunters.’”
* * *
”Hmm, I see. I understand the situation now. So, Hawks, what do you plan to do? Do you want to stay and work here at my theater? If you prefer, I do not mind letting you return to your homeland in the Beastfolk Forest.”
”…I do not mind working, but I have had more than enough of being a slave.”
Though a faint shadow of caution still remained in his eyes, Hawks showed clear interest in my offer. His eyes locked onto my face.
”You do not need to worry about that. I have a very useful Magic item used for changing one’s appearance. The elf over there wears one whenever he is on duty.”
”…Well, if that is the case, I suppose I am in.”
Hawks fell silent for a short moment as if thinking about his choices, before giving a firm, small nod. A look of subtle relief seemed to cross his face.
He, too, was probably looking for a place to belong.
And just like that, Hawks joined the staff of the theater. I felt a mild rush of excitement at gaining a new ally.
Sometimes things fall apart, and sometimes they go exactly according to plan. The complete unpredictability of it all drew a faint sigh and a dry smile from my lips.
I glanced briefly at the corpses of Baird and Gazel. Fresh, shiny pools of blood still stained the floorboards.
The faint, metallic smell of death brushed against my nose.
”Now then. Time to clean up this mess. Ashraf, take these bodies and put one in Ignazio’s room, and the other in the room of the leader of [深淵の爪]. Naturally, make sure you are not detected.”
From the depths of the shadows, only Ashraf’s voice answered.
’At once, sir. It shall be done.’
As usual, his voice was completely empty of emotion. He felt like an extension of my own shadow.
If it was him, he could easily slip past even the strictest security systems and deadly traps without setting off a single alarm.
Tomorrow morning, when they open their eyes, they will find the corpses of the assassins they sent rolling around their own bedrooms. I wondered what kind of faces they would make. It would certainly be something to see.
They will undoubtedly turn pale, their expressions freezing completely solid in pure terror.
With this, the main part of the aftermath was taken care of. All that remained was…
”So, what about you?”
I directed my question toward Cuko, the black cat beastfolk. Her eyes stayed glued to the floor.
At my question, her whole body gave a violent shake. It seemed she was still very afraid of me.
Yet, her face was flushed a bright, vivid red. She looked very much like a piece of perfectly ripe fruit.
Well, I had just easily killed two beastfolk right in front of her eyes. It was very likely that her opinion of me had hit the lowest point.
Even so, she could not seem to take her eyes away from me.
Moving nervously, she murmured in a voice so tiny and fragile it was almost completely lost to the air.
”I-I… want to… th-that is… I want to bear your children.”
”…Huh?”
For some completely unknown reason, she had suddenly confessed to me. My brain stopped completely.
My understanding simply could not catch up.
”No, I am sorry. I completely fail to see how we got to this conversation?”
As I stood there truly confused, Hawks, who had been listening from the side, gave a dramatic, annoyed shrug of his shoulders. His face was a perfect mix of disbelief and sudden realization.
”Ah, well, that is just how it is with beastfolk, boss. Our women love a powerful male, period. You killed Gazel and Baird as easily as breaking a dry twig, so she went and fell completely in love with you.”2
…What complete nonsense.
That was my immediate thought, but since it came from a fellow beastfolk, it was likely the absolute truth.
It was a set of values completely beyond my ability to understand. My sense of common sense felt thoroughly shaken.
The gap between my logic and theirs was simply a huge, unbridgeable distance.
Looking closer, I noticed a familiar, detailed pattern faintly glowing and rising to the surface of Cuko’s lower stomach.
It was the proof of her status as my Dedicated Slave. The soft, shining light seemed to show the exact state of her heart.
It seemed that both her mind and her body had completely given in to my overwhelming strength.
Thus, in a way that was slightly different from my original plans, Cuko the black cat beastfolk became my newest Dedicated Slave… or rather, she joined our group as a companion.
Under my palm, her future had quietly started to turn. It was, I thought, a truly strange twist of fate.
—
Summary:
Severing the heads of the aggressive beastfolk prisoners, the protagonist ignores Kyle’s ideological protests and secures a pragmatic agreement with Hawks instead. Orders are given to secretly plant the severed heads in the enemies’ private chambers as psychological warfare. Meanwhile, Cuko submits instinctively to absolute strength, introducing an unpredictable harem element to his faction.
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Trivia:
1 The character Baird possessed a hidden high-speed regeneration ability that was actively cut short by a decapsulating strike mid-beastification.
2 Carnivore-type beastfolk explicitly reject cannibalistic tendencies, classifying human-eaters as outcasts hunted down by their own kind.
3 The mark of a Dedicated Slave glows dynamically on the lower abdomen depending on the emotional state and mental absolute submission of the slave.
4 Ashraf possesses perfect infiltration capabilities allowing him to completely ignore high-grade magical traps and alarm countermeasures undetected.
—
Translation Notes:
Notes:
• Gazel – A fierce wolf beastman and leader of the assassination squad who harbors an absolute, unyielding animosity and deep-seated grudge against humans. A wolf Beastfolk assassin agent with a lean, muscular build, closely cropped brown hair, sharp silver eyes, and countless scars across his body. A wolf beastfolk who is summarily executed after declaring his intent to slaughter humans indiscriminately.
• de – A particle used in the aristocratic name of the Margrave Albion de Blanchefort.
• Kyle – A muscular, golden-haired elven warrior with emerald eyes, he is a blunt, hot-headed protector who wears a green robe and wields a potent, poison-tipped bow. Once a resilient theater guard, he is now a shattered shell, fueled by intense moral outrage and hatred toward Xenos for her sacrifices. Despite his rebellious nature, he remains deeply, unrequitedly devoted to his childhood friend, Princess Lyphia.
• Baird – A bear beastfolk who is a massive wall of a man in his human guise, previously a notorious rogue raiding human settlements before falling into slavery, and is killed mid-beastification. A massive bear Beastfolk clearing three meters in height, covered in thick dark fur, who serves as an assassin agent for the organization Deep Fangs. A massive bear beastman belonging to the assassination squad who is put into a deep slumber by magic.
• Hawks – A hawk beastfolk with piercing, predatory hawk eyes who acts as a grounded realist, explaining beastfolk values before joining the theater staff. An older, tired-looking hawk beastman carrying a distinct air of melancholy who serves as a slave under an assassination syndicate before liberation.
• Ignazio – The White Snake is a gaunt, cold-eyed tycoon with slicked-back white hair and a predator’s gaze. Operating as a ruthless underworld intelligence broker behind a polished merchant facade, he uses threats and illicit deals to pursue his obsessions, including his fixation on Leela. A prominent Royal Capital figure, he recently became the target of a chilling warning involving a beastfolk corpse.
• Ashraf – Ashraf, Xenos’s loyal demon butler, is a stealthy, shadow-bound operative who serves with elite decorum and a theatrical, deferential tone. Dressed in a tailored suit, his pitch-black eyes and golden pupils mask a dark past. He is a silent, powerful anchor capable of teleporting individuals, erasing his presence, and exercising brutal force to eliminate any threats to his master.
• Cuko – A black cat beastfolk whose face flushes a vibrant red and who becomes a Dedicated Slave after completely surrendering to the protagonist’s strength.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
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