Critters of the forest scramble upon the creaks and cranks, three large wooden beasts rumble along the ruts run by those before it. The tarp upon its back scratched and damage, bits of the wheel chipped off from an attack not long ago.

The blazing heat scorch the earth making it unbearable for the feet to walk upon. The wooden carriages are spaced far from each other as to accommodate for the demi human slaves walking with them.

Men in horses patrol up and down the line periodically to make sure all is in order. The weariness is clearly visible on their face, bandaging can be seen on their wounds healing from the scuffle before.

Despite their tiredness, they keep up appearance. Taking a rest now when the merchant caravan is moving this slow will only make their client even more irritable.

The window shutter of the front carriage opens.

Creeeek…

The already strained metal suspension whines as something heavy shift to its left. From within the carriage, an obese man puts his weight on the windowsill as he leans out of it.

Mercenaries closest to the front cover their ears in preparation for…

“OI!!! Can’t any of you hurry this caravan up?! I’m wasting precious money for every second you all spend delaying my trip!”

The deafening screams and complaints of the merchant has been driving them nuts for the past couple of days. And as always, the commander rides up alongside the merchant’s carriage.

“This is as fast as we can move with the slaves, sir. We’re already ahead of schedule after recalculating our arrival time and shouldn’t be long before we reac-“

“Excuses, excuses, and more excuses! If you don’t hurry it up, I’m deducting your commission amount the moment we get back!”

“I… Understood.” Dejectedly, the commander returns back to work.

“If it wasn’t for that damn minotaur…” The merchant softly mutters a complaint to himself before slipping back inside the carriage.

It had been going smoothly for the caravan since the beginning of the merchant’s trip to the Western continent. His annual trip to the merchant’s conference always brought him loads of profit upon returning.

Hiring the cream of the crop mercenaries, attaining the best bargains, and even striking a new business deal. Everything is going in the merchant’s favour.

The merchant was supposed to return with 10 carriages. 4 transporting slaves, 3 carrying valuable merchandise and goods, and the remaining reserved for the merchant and the mercenaries use.

It was the final stretch of the return journey where the caravan will pass through the Debaucus Forest Dungeon. A dungeon known for having weak monsters and wide dirt roads being popular as trade routes for merchants transiting between the four nations surrounding it.

The merchant has used the trade routes before and is confident that there will be no issues passing through it. The merchant’s preparations, though overkill, makes it so that he himself will never be harmed.

With the most experienced mercenaries capable of taking down multiple giant bears, weak monsters within this forest will be a breeze for them. Should any be able to make it pass the mercs, the merchant had 6 of the most well-trained bodyguards to shield him.

Yet, with this much protection, who knew that it will all crumble when a minotaur attacked them midway.

With thick hide resistant to the blades of the mercenary’s iron swords, strength enough to topple over trees, the mercenaries could not fight against that beast. In the end, 2 of the carriages had been destroyed in an instant

The merchant wasted no time in saving his butt, he had already fled the moment the minotaur started its attack. In order to make sure the minotaur did not follow him, the merchant ordered the mercenaries to use the carriages as decoys, specifically the ones carrying slaves.

The mercenary commander was reluctant to do so but the wellbeing of his own men comes first. As such, the reigns of the horses pulling the carriages were cut free and the coachmen fled on top of them.

Of course, the commander isn’t that heartless. In order to make sure some of the demi humans may survive, the locks to the carriage were broken and the slaves scurried out before the carriage they were in are crushed by the minotaur.

Managing to flee with their lives, it is then that the merchant realises that of the 3 surviving carriages, just 1 contained valuable goods and commodities. Two thirds of his profits had been loss and what’s worse, the surviving slaves had managed to catch up.

In total, not only did the merchant lost most of his precious profits after an accident, but his arrival time also back home has been delayed by another 3 months. Hence, the irritation he feels increases by the minute the caravan is stuck inside the forest.

As the merchant sulks within the comfortable confines of his carriage, a little shark girl and her father is suffering under the intense heat.

Lusaia walks behind her father as his shadow casts what little cooling it can provide for her. Just like her father, Lusaia has a shark tail that sways with each step she takes.

Left, right, left, right… With nothing to do but to walk ahead, Lusaia occupies herself by copying the sway of her own tail to her father’s.

“Koff! Koff!...”

Her father’s shoulder lunge forward with each cough straining his through.

Lusaia pulls on the hem of her father’s ragged cloths looking up at him with worry. “Papa…” she calls out.

“I’m fine…” Her father reassures her.

Distant clopping of hooves approaches the caravan from the front as their scout has returned from surveying the road ahead.

“Pol, reporting in! No potential threat ahead of the column, sir!”

With an enthusiastic salute greeting, the scout gives a quick report to the commander.

“Good job, you’re dismissed. Go take a rest in the back carriage. Roland! You’re up next!”

“Aye, sir!”

Pol, given a dismiss order, is a bit hesitant to move to the back. He brows furrow as he looked at the weak pathetic state of the walking slaves. In order to keep on schedule, the caravan is forced to walk from dawn to dusk so the demi humans have yet to rest.

The commander notices that Pol has yet to head back. Tracing Pol’s eyeline, he understood what Pol is thinking. The commander rides up to his side and pats Pol on his back.

“Go take a rest, worrying about them will do you nothing.”

“Understood… sir.” Pol’s head slumps dump disappointingly.

“Oh dear… the horses seem to be tired… We might need to make a stop soon.” Sarcastically saying out loud, the commander gives Pol a wink as he gallops towards the merchant’s carriage.

Pol seeing his commander like this feels a burden being lifted off his shoulder as he can finally go and rest…

“WHAT!?”

In an instant, Lusaia is snapped back from her daydream by the booming voice of an irritated man. Loud squabbling followed by a weak yet confident voice going back and forth up ahead. The slaves in the back are confused by the commotion but it dies down as quickly as it started.

The slaves walk for a little longer until they are ordered to stop. The commander on his horse run down the line as he shouts…

“We are taking a five-minute break for our horses to rest. Any of you who wish to freshen yourself, you may do so at the riverbank up front. Remember to come back as we will not wait for you. I repeat! We will not wait for you!”

The faces of the demi humans brighten upon knowing they can finally rest their legs. They head towards the front where there is a side road leading towards a clearing and a riverbank.

In the blink of an eye, the wide clearing has been packed full of demi humans taking a rest under the shade of the tree’s canopy or sipping at the cool refreshing water.

Lusaia and her father didn’t waste any moment to take a chance of hydrating themselves. They squeeze in with the slaves and are only successful up to the point where the riverbank is in sight. Pushing and weaving through the gaps, they are repelled with each attempt. The closest they have gotten is an arm’s length away from the river but that is about as close as they can get.

Unable to reach the water, they pull back and find a tree stump where they sat waiting. Three minutes have passed but it doesn’t seem that any of the demi humans will let up a spot.

“Papa… Lusaia want water…”

“I know… I know…”

Lusaia pouts sitting on his lap, disappointed that they can’t drink any water. Her father strokes her head which brought some relief to Lusaia.

Staring at the crowd trying to find a spot they can reach the river, Lusaia notices a familiar pair of cat ears. They scan the surrounding as if it’s looking for someone within the sea of demi humans.

Knowing who it could be, Lusaia happily hop off her father’s lap and calls out towards the crowd.

“Aunt Marianne!!!”

The ears twitch in Lusaia’s direction and locks on to her. It wades through the crowd and, alas, a middle-aged cat demi human lady appears. She approaches Lusaia carefully balancing a leaf cup holding water cusped in her hands.

“Hello dearie, still as energetic as ever.”

“Hehe! Lusaia is so happy to see Aunt Marianne.” Without hesitation, Lusaia embrace Marianne by her waist almost.

“Nice to see you as always, Marianne. How are you doing?”

“Good as always but you, Solaris, on the other hand are looking much worse. I’ve been looking everywhere for you two when you weren’t at the river and knew you didn’t get any water. Here, you need this more than I do.”

Marianne passes the cup to Solaris who stares at it for a while. He notices Lusaia staring at the cup with eager eyes while attempting to hold herself back.

Solaris bit his lips knowing he’ll get lectured, “Lusaia, you can drink it first.”, and he passes the cup to Lusaia instead.

“Solaris! I told you it’s for you! You’re already this weak and you’re still worrying about your daughter?”

Solaris lets out a wry laughter as he awkwardly his head, “haha… I can’t help it, I just love my little Lusaia a lot.”

“My words… I tell you, back in my days…” As predicted, Marianne goes into her lecture mode like a mother telling off her child.

To them, Marianne was their guardian watching over them since the day they were exiled and sold as slaves. Whenever they got into trouble with the wardens or other “colleagues”, she was there to mediate them out of trouble.

They never knew Marianne beforehand neither do they know why she is this concern about their wellbeing. Still, they never questioned her kindness. In a situation where he had lost everything but his child, Solaris is willing to take any help he can receive to get back on his feet again. Since Lusaia has taken a liking to her, there’s no point in being suspicious about Marianne.

“… which is why as I always tell my students, your heath is more precious than wealth… Are you even listening?”

“Ah- Yes, Yes I was!”

“sigh… you know what, forget it. Lusaia, you love your Papa, right?”

Lusaia nods enthusiastically, replying, “Mhmm! Papa is the best!”

“Your Papa loves you too but he loves you too much that he’s hurting himself.”

“Eh!? Papa is hurt?”

“No, Lusaia… Papa is fine… Marianne what are you getting at?”

Ignoring Solaris, Marianne continues to speak to Lusaia. “This is where you come in, Lusaia. You need to also take care of your Papa.”

“How?” Lusaia curiously asks.

“It’s simple. Your Papa is thirsty now, so what should Lusaia do?”

Lusaia ponders for a bit and, being the smart kid that she is, understood Aunt Marianne’s meaning behind her words.

Lusaia face her father and outstretch her hands with what the remaining water that remains in her cup.

“Papa should drink this, Lusaia don’t want Papa to be hurt…”

Solaris wanted to reject her offer wishing to let Lusaia drink the whole cup. Yet, with those puppy dog eyes begging for him to drink it, how can he reject the adorableness of his own daughter?

“Sigh… Alright, Papa will drink it.” Solaris admits defeat.

Behind the gentle old façade of Marianne’s face is a wise and sly cat with decades of experience behind her. It is no wonder that Solaris manages to give in but at least her intentions are all for his wellbeing.

Solaris raises the cup as the liquid slides off into his parch mouth. It quenches his thirst in an instant, moistening his lips that are as dry as desert. He tilts the cup and his head up a little more just to get a little more of the water remaining inside.

Satisfied with the water slithering down his throat, his head tilts back down.

He regrets doing so.

Solaris drops the cup and he’s paralysed with fear by what he sees. Before the words can out of his mouth, there is no need to give the creature the introduction it deserves.

“MOOOOOOO!!!”

A loud bellow explodes from across the river and everyone stops and drop what they were doing. The slaves by the riverbank did not need to look up to know what is in front of them. In a split moment, chaos erupts.

Screams and shrieks come from all over as the demi humans flee from the area.

“Minotaur…” The pause in his words resumed as Solaris mutters out the creature that had almost killed them.

It’s humongous physique, big burly human torso and large bullhead, the aura it exudes will make one tremble in fear. In its arms, it wields a stone war axe. Though dull, its extreme strength will slice humans in half as if they’re butter.

The minotaur begins wading through the shallow water making its way towards its victims. Some stricken with so much fear collapse on the ground next to the river. The minotaur takes this chance to finish them off as it gruesomely mutilates their body.

The first death.