(Nov 14)

“It is a massive snake as thick as a several trees and as long as a river... a legendary beast we call… Agora.”

Agora, a massive snake monster.

That sounds quite intimidating. I haven’t fought many snakes type monsters before so this’ll be a new experience.

“What more can you tell us about this snake?”

Upon my question, the elderly beastkin turned his head and stared me.

“…”

“…”

“It is late. You have just arrived, so please, let us show you our village. We can speak of the beast tomorrow when the other warriors gather.”

I nodded.

Sven was already tired from the long journey, so it’d be best to get some rest before we start discussing some serious business.

We were welcomed through the city gates and into the village.

The beastkin village was quite interesting.

Despite living in a deep forest, they were not primitive by any means. They had stone buildings with simple and complex mechanics, magic lamps, and other various things that you would normally see in a city.

It wasn’t small either, it was about the size of an average village.

Sven and I were led to some sort of inn where we would sleep for the time that we’ll be staying here.

The rooms we were given for our stay weren’t very big, but it was clean and cozy.

“I hope you find the room comforting. We will also be having dinner soon, feel free to come out and join us. We don’t get visitors very often so we hope you enjoy our humble village.”

The elderly beastkin bowed and then left us to be.

I don’t know why that elderly beastkin was being so oddly nice, it almost makes me feel a little suspicious. Considering his strength, that elderly beast must be an important figure to this village, and yet it doesn’t look that way from how he acted…

However, it’s possible that I’m just paranoid. I won’t deny some good hospitality.

Sven and I settled down for a bit before we left the inn.

As the elderly beastkin had said, it was dinner time and there were bowls of food being passed around.

Some friendly beastkin approached us and handed us bowls of food, telling us to enjoy ourselves.

We sat down together and spoke with these beastkin as we ate our food. At first, we were somewhat cautious of them and they were of us, but we eventually got quite friendly with each other.

They told us a lot about their cultures/ traditions, and we told them about the city, sharing stories with each other.

Even though we only met for a few hours, I feel like I became friends with some of them.

They even told us a bit about this Agora snake monster.

This Agora snake used to be quite friendly, but for some reason, it went crazy one day.

Just a few weeks ago, Agora attacked a group of beastkin hunters.

After that, it became progressively more aggressive and attacked much more often and even showed up at the village.

Sounded like typical subjugation monster stuff.

By the time our conversation ended, we had finished our meals and they said their goodbyes to leave and get to their duties.

Sven and I decided to wander around the beastkin village for the rest of the night, checking out the local stuff.

There were a ton of beastkin walking around, and they didn’t even try to hide their stares.

Most of them seemed like they were just curious about us, but there were a few that seemed dissatisfied with our presence here.

We were total strangers in their village so its not surprising that they’d be a little skeptical of us.

We did our best to ignore them and continued exploring the area.

There weren’t many places for us to visit though since they didn’t get many visitors.

But surprisingly, there was a public library.

They must value knowledge, considering it was quite a big library with all sorts of literature that you wouldn’t expect from a forest tribe.

The library was built inside of a massive tree and the aesthetic and architectural design was beautiful.

The air inside the library was filled with natural magic emitted from the century old tree and some of the ancient magical infused books contained within.

Sven and I split up to check out different sections of the library.

Although the library itself was very impressive, it wasn’t very well organized. Book genres and topics were mixed and very vaguely sorted so it was very hard to find specific books.

I ended up just wandering around through the aisles of books until eventually reached the far end of the library, and that’s when I noticed something.

On the wall, was a golden framed painting of a beautiful women holding a bow, standing next to a massive wolf, softly glowing in the moonlight.

The painting itself was very beautiful and must’ve been made by a professional. I could even feel magic being exuded from it.

“That is Artemis. The wolf is Fenrir.”

I turned around towards the voice and saw the same elderly beastkin from earlier.

“Artemis, you mean the goddess of the hunting? And Fenrir, the legendary wolf of myths?”

I didn’t know much about these two, but I have heard a few stories about them. They were legendary beings that even among S rankers, they were revered.

The elderly beastkin nodded.

“Artemis and Fenrir, our greatest ancestors and the ones said to have started the beastkin race.”

“Oh?”

This caught my attention.

They started the beastkin race? Now I was quite curious.

“Yes. The story of Artemis and Fenrir happens several hundreds of thousands of years prior to now. They lived in a completely different world that we live in now, as would expect of such a vast time gap. During this time, two legendary figures, Artemis and Fenrir appeared and dominated the world as partners. The two of them fought together for centuries, and eventually, they grew feelings for each other and fell in love.”

“Isn’t Fenrir a wolf though?”

Ah, this must’ve been the first case of humanoid and animal intercourse.

The elderly beastkin let out a sigh.

“Yes… I am aware that it sounds very strange. However, this was several hundred thousand years ago. Back then, monsters were much more powerful on average thus resulting in more beasts gaining intelligence. Fenrir was a legendary wolf, capable of human speech and could talk like us. It was much more common then for man and beast to have close comradery if you could communicate with them like other humanoids.”

I nodded but didn’t respond as I continued staring at the paintings.

He too was looking at the paintings as he continued his story.

“Most legendary beasts also gain a humanoid form after obtaining enough strength, so it’s quite likely that Fenrir too had a human form.”

Well, if you had told me that Fenrir had a human form from the beginning, that would’ve been a lot less weird.

“We are aware our history is not something that all people will understand. We no longer involve ourselves with bestiality. That was a distance past. We just wish to live and be treated like normal people.”

Both of us stayed silent for a moment, before the elderly beastkin continued talking.

“What about you? I can sense something inside of you… you are not fully human… like us… are you by any chance a special type of beastkin?” He asked me.

I couldn’t help myself but grin a little.

This must’ve been why he was acting sort of strangely towards me.

He’s strong, so he must’ve seen many strong people in his life. He probably noticed my strength the moment we met and must’ve noticed traces of my dragon essence.

“No. I was born a human; I became this way during my life due to a certain accident.”

“Hm.”

The elderly beastkin stroked his small beard.

“My name is Vindal. Elder Vindal. You?”

“I’m Anthony.”

“Well, Anthony, it was a pleasure speaking with you. I look forward to working with you tomorrow.”

And then Elder Vindal turned around and left.

This was quite the strange interaction.

I used to not be very social, and only recently have I actually been getting a lot of interaction with new types of people.

As such, I’m not quite sure if these sorts of interactions are normal or not.

Regardless, this was educational since I learned more about the beastkin lore.

I left the library soon after with Sven and headed back to our room.

Tomorrow we’ll probably discuss the plans for the subjugation, so we’ll need a good night’s sleep.

That means I’m off to bed!

Good night.