Chapter 71. Condition for a Follower Family (2)
At the Chieftain's question, Leontos, stumbling, grabbed the unique magic gear that resembled a stone axe and stood up.
His blood vessels burst from the side effects of Magical Beastification, and he wiped his bleeding lips with his fist as he spoke.
“…You asked why I committed such an act?”
Leontos chuckled for a moment and laughed lowly.
His long gray hair, which flowed down like a lion's mane, cast a shadow over his face.
The next moment, he lifted his head sharply, spread wide the arm holding the unique magic gear, and shouted like he was roaring to all the Beast-kin listening to him.
“─Because if not me, no one else will!”
Leontos shouted in an angry tone.
“You know it too! Our tribe is destined to perish soon anyway!”
A barren land made only of Magical Beast herds and rocky canyons, the southern territory of Elsyde.
The situation here was not good.
The surrounding resources, already scarce, were being depleted, and the tribe's population sharply decreased over generations.
From the very beginning, it was a remote land where the Beast-kin ancestors had settled as if being driven out of the Empire. It wasn't a region suitable for long-term settlement.
It was a miracle they had endured here this long.
But even so, they naturally couldn't meekly accept the tribe's perishing.
If they couldn't be accepted by the Empire like this, all the Beast-kin would simply wither and die in this barren land.
Therefore, the Beast-kin living in the southern territory of Elsyde needed laws and systems that would somehow allow them to advance safely into the Empire.
The Chieftain, without moving, threw a question at him.
“Even so, did you think this was truly the right way?”
“I too! At one time, I believed I could find a peaceful solution by compromising with the Empire's mages!”
Leontos also truly believed that at one time.
He went to visit the Empire's officials one by one.
He tried to change their perception with logic and persuasion.
He thought they too would understand.
That the Beast-kin were not as dangerous as they thought.
That except for ears and tails, the Beast-kin were also completely the same people as them.
But there were none who would lend an ear to those words.
Everywhere he went, he was routinely turned away.
Nevertheless, believing he could continue to persuade them, he didn't lose hope. Certainly, there was such a time.
Leontos ground his teeth and spoke.
“I tried to realistically persuade the Empire by offering the Beast-kin's excellent combat ability and physical labor as negotiation conditions. Because that was the command you, the Chieftain, gave from the start!”
“But why, then, did you suddenly change your mind and commit such an act.”
“Are you truly asking because you don't know?”
Leontos shouted at the Chieftain as if spitting it out.
“Because those Empire bastards, as if showing off, killed all of my innocent subordinates who had gone out to find me!”
The subordinates who had gone out to find Leontos, with whom communication had been cut off for a while.
“They said they'd be worth money in the black market! The Beast-kin!”
But they were horribly murdered within the Empire during their journey to meet Leontos.
“Because the Beast-kin are rare in the Empire, they'd be sold expensively as experimental material for black mages! The murderers who were arrested babbled that in my face!”
The murderers were released after paying only a small fine.
That was the Empire society's reaction shown regarding the deaths of innocent Beast-kin.
It was the only answer the Empire gave him.
“Great Chieftain Lycaon! In the corpses of my subordinates I reunited with, I saw the future of our tribe!”
Therefore, he needed teeth, not a tongue.
To converse in a language they could understand.
He would become a fang to bite and tear apart the Empire's arrogance.
“If we attacked innocent Empire citizens and attracted the Empire's attention, at least they would pay attention to the voice we were shouting! At least through their sacrifice, they would take an interest in our Beast-kin!”
The orange glow of dawn was gradually tinging the cold, cooled blue atmosphere of the night.
The Elsyde mages, wearing the family's black operation robes, silently watched the shouting Leontos.
“That's why I chose my way!”
Leontos shouted like he was roaring.
“Because cooperating with Vendetta was the only way for us, who are nothing but utter weaklings, to guarantee our future!”
But the next moment, Sirocco opened her mouth in front of him.
“The only way?”
Sirocco stared directly at him and spoke.
“You just gave up!”
A banished man who had once deeply despaired and given up searching for a path forward. Who simply chose the path visible before his eyes.
To him, the young Chieftain's heir clearly shouted in an angry voice.
“Vendetta was planning to Beastify our tribe! And yet you say that was for the village's future?”
“In exchange for that, Vendetta promised the future of our tribe!”
He clutched his unique magic gear and shouted.
“That the Beast-kin children would be excluded from the experiments, and they would provide a hidden sanctuary within the Empire's inner lands with Vendetta's power! Do you think there could be a better future than this for us who possess nothing!”
As if trying to hold on to the end, Leontos stubbornly shouted towards Sirocco.
“Everything, it was a choice for the tribe's future!”
Sirocco, who heard his desperate cry, momentarily flinched without realizing it, but still shouted at him.
“No! That's not right...!”
“Then deny it! That I was wrong! Prove with your own mouth that what I did for the tribe's future wasn't right!”
Sirocco clenched both her fists tightly.
No. It was clearly wrong.
The way Leontos was shouting about was not right.
But for some reason, she absolutely couldn't open her mouth.
It wasn't because she didn't want to speak. Rather, it was because the mountainous pile of words she wanted to say weren't organized and had become complexly tangled inside.
─No.
Momentarily, a memory of freezing with Leontos right in front of her back at the fortress flashed through her mind.
‘This time, too, I...’
Sirocco bit her lip without realizing it and slightly bowed her head.
However, beyond Sirocco, who had bowed her head like that.
“Future, huh.”
Enoch, still slightly stumbling, approached and resolutely cut off his words.
Swish.
Sirocco suddenly lifted her head at the sensation of someone passing beside her.
The black-haired boy was reflected in the girl's clear eyes like rubies.
Thud.
Enoch, who stood in front of Leontos, pointed to the side.
At the tip of his finger, there were young Beast-kin children held in their parents' arms in the village. They still hadn't fully recovered their senses from the suppression magic circle.
Enoch spoke coldly.
“In your eyes, does that look like the future?”
Leontos looked at where he was pointing for a while, then finally, in a voice that had lost strength, he slowly and blankly mumbled.
“Surely not. In exchange for cooperating with Vendetta's experiments, they promised to spare the young Beast-kin...!”
Enoch replied curtly.
“How naive.”
Thud.
As if that single word was the decisive blow, Leontos, who had barely been standing, collapsed as if falling to the ground.
Enoch silently watched the man who had now completely lost his strength for a moment.
Twitch.
Already, some of his skin was turning black and greatly twisting due to the Magical Beastification.
It must have been a side effect of the Magical Beastification Reagent the man used earlier for battle. Magical Beastification was likely progressing rapidly inside his body already.
If he was left like this, it was obvious Leontos would completely lose his reason, turn into an experimental subject, and attack again.
Enoch looked at him and thought for a moment.
‘Before the Magical Beastification is completely finished, I need to instruct the Elsyde mages...’
Just then.
Step─
The Beast-kin Chieftain, leaning on a large staff, passed Enoch's side with heavy steps.
Behind Sirocco, who was still wary of the collapsed Leontos, the Chieftain slowly walked closer.
And then he placed his large hand on Sirocco's small shoulder, which was still tense.
“Would you step aside, Sirocco.”
“Yes?”
At her slightly puzzled expression, the Chieftain looked at Leontos who had collapsed in front of him and spoke lowly.
“Let me do it.”
With all the Beast-kin and Elsyde mages watching. The Chieftain motioned Sirocco back and stepped forward a pace.
Looking at the Chieftain who stood before him like that, Leontos slowly mumbled.
“…You tell me.”
He asked the Chieftain in a fading voice.
“Do you truly believe there is another path to survival that we can choose?”
The Beast-kin Chieftain looked down at Leontos, whose entire body was gradually twisting black from Magical Beastification, and spoke.
“Leontos. Even if we are truly nothing more than weaklings no one cares about.”
Beneath the clear starry sky of dawn.
The Beast-kin Chieftain raised his head, looked up at the stars, and spoke.
“We must walk the path that is right, even if it is difficult, not the path that is easy but wrong.”
Through his hair that had turned white, the Chieftain's eyes were revealed, and he looked down at Leontos as he spoke.
“Wasn't that the lesson our ancient ancestors left for future generations?”
In the distant past.
Back when the Beast-kin were living throughout the Empire.
The majority of Beast-kin who naturally manifested magic remained silent, even though they knew of the miserable treatment of the marginalized Beast-kin who were non-magic wielders.
And even when the non-magic wielding Beast-kin, abandoned by society, were driven to the very last edge, they simply stood by and watched as if it wasn't their business.
Thus.
The result of the non-magic wielding Beast-kin struggling and taking hands with black mages to survive ultimately came back directly upon the entire Beast-kin race, who had implicitly agreed to ostracize them.
The Beast-kin who naturally manifested magic, who had pretended not to see those abandoned by Empire society, also ultimately paid the price for their inaction.
Standing now upon the land that held all that history.
The Chieftain slowly aimed the long staff he held in his hand at Leontos.
Thud.
In the middle of the square, watched by all the Beast-kin awakened throughout the village and the Elsyde mages, the tip of the Chieftain's staff pointed towards the tribe's banished man.
Leontos smiled bitterly.
“In the end, you are finishing it.”
The Chieftain replied in a low voice.
“The past must be concluded by that which is of the past.”
The Chieftain glanced at Sirocco and added softly.
“Our mistakes are not the responsibility to be borne by the future that is yet to come. My old friend.”
Leontos smiled bitterly once and spoke.
“…I agree. With that.”
The next moment, along with a small cutting sound that echoed around.
The blade of wind formed from the Chieftain's unique magic gear severed Leontos's neck, which was visible as a silhouette in the dawn light.
Suddenly, a small wind blew.
Carrying Leontos's last breath, a breeze that had blown from somewhere swept across the sky.
A gust of wind rose.
Someone's last breath, a gust of wind, lightly brushed against the collars and hair of the Elsyde mages and the Beast-kin.
And then it soon disappeared into the star-filled sky.
Enoch watched that entire scene with his own eyes and quietly repeated inwardly.
‘This is enough.’
The culprits who were Beastifying the Beast-kin. The events leading them to destruction were all resolved.
And the possibility of the Beastified experimental subjects, who rampaged in the original story, killing Enoch, was clearly blocked off at the source by this.
At least, the primary objective of coming here was certainly achieved.
‘But the most important thing is still left.’
Enoch's eyes widened as he recalled that fact.
Naturally, my objective from the start was something separate.
Sirocco Lycaon.
The unwavering Tier 1 dealer in the original story, and the mage I operated as a main character in all routes.
To welcome her as Enoch Elsyde's follower family to prepare for the original story!
Just as Enoch thought that far.
“Hey!”
Just then, Sirocco approached from over there.
“Thank you for helping earlier.”
Sirocco, who had walked over in a straightforward manner, stood beside Enoch. And then, she gazed at Enoch and spoke.
“I can't explain it well... but what Leontos said. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have been able to answer properly this time either.”
Sirocco suddenly glanced around.
And then, seeing the mages belonging to the Elsyde family moving around in the distance, she spoke as if slightly impressed.
“By the way, Elsyde really is amazing, isn't it? Our tribe's warriors are strong too, but your group's warriors are incredibly stronger than that. Enough to want to learn from them.”
Sirocco looked up at Enoch intently and spoke.
“And... I think you are too.”
Just then, a transparent orange light brightly spread across the blue dawn sky.
Sirocco's red hair fluttered in the wind.
With a slight blush on her white cheeks, she looked up at Enoch with a faint smile.
“......”
Enoch gave no answer.
Sirocco, looking slightly sulky at such a bland reaction, wiggled her ears diligently and protested.
“Huh, what? Aren't you happy? This is praise from me, the Chieftain's heir, no less!”
Of course, the reason Enoch wasn't reacting was obvious.
‘This is bad, my consciousness is getting blurrier and blurrier!’
My body condition for being able to answer normally had already passed long ago.
Furthermore, to make matters worse, the very, very familiar ‘wavering shadows’ suddenly began encroaching upon the edge of my vision.
A bad premonition suddenly struck me.
‘Could this be, the World of Impermanence?’
The moment I recognized that it was a trace of the World of Impermanence, familiar sentences appeared before my eyes.
? Notification: User consciousness currently unstable
? Upon user consciousness loss, entering 「World of Impermanence」
At the sudden message, Enoch opened his eyes wide.
‘Ha, wait a minute. What is this...’
Surely, it doesn't mean I'll be pulled into the Inner World if I faint?
“Hmm, that's strange. You?”
Meanwhile, when Enoch didn't answer, Sirocco tilted her head slightly as if finding it strange and asked again.
“You know that huge magic circle that was over the whole village earlier? Thanks to you blocking that, didn't the other bad mages run away too? I thought you'd be happier since you accomplished something really amazing.”
But Enoch was already not listening anymore.
Because now, if someone just lightly touched my side, I was truly on the verge of collapsing.
Still, Enoch forced himself to repeat the most positive aspects inwardly to hold onto his consciousness.
‘Fortunately, the battle is over. There are no enemies, so there's no worry of someone suddenly getting the finishing blow...’
And just then.
“Anyway, you worked hard. You.”
Tap.
Sirocco, putting meaning into 'you worked hard,' slightly poked Enoch in the side with her elbow.
Suddenly, Enoch's eyes widened.
The finishing blow he couldn't have imagined.
“Coof...!”
Enoch, lightly poked in the side, gasped for air.
Suddenly, Sirocco's stunned sound was heard from beside, seeing that.
“…Ah?”
Just before Enoch completely collapsed forward. From beside, Sirocco's immensely flustered expression was visible.
“Huh? Hey! Why suddenly...”
Without time to reply, Enoch lost his balance just like that. This time, his face was truly planted flat in the bare ground.
With his head planted in the bare ground like that, within Enoch's consciousness that was slowly fading.
As always, a white message surfaced indifferently.
? Notification: User consciousness loss confirmed
“Wh- what? I- I just lightly poked him!”
Beyond the vision that went dark as he entered the World of Impermanence.
Sirocco's flustered voice grew distant.
“Don't die!”
? World of Impermanence: Entry beginning