Kanaman's spirit was bogged down and in pain; he was also intoxicated. "The wine I drank that day was the best wine I had ever tasted."
Xu Jun was speechless. He, who was also drunk, thought, Kanaman, how can you be so decadent in front of your younger brother!
However, Xu Jun thought, thinking about Ti Na's previous expression, birds of a feather truly flock together; these two brothers were identical. Let's not mock each other anymore, Xu Jun decided.
Ti Na pulled on Kanaman's pant leg, causing Kanaman to awaken from the aftertaste of fine wine. He let out a sigh of frustration. Kanaman hadn't wanted to behave so decadently before his younger brother, but beastmen were born with little resistance against temptations.
The race of beastmen were born with this flaw: they were driven by instinct and desire. Perhaps it was because they had evolved from the boorish monsters that the beastman's intellect was a joke.
Xu Jun secretly shook his head in his heart. “It's really not good to be so lacking in self-control. The quality of beastmen here is really—"
Demon King Rozenke, who had also become drunk, thought, do you think yourself disciplined? Someone like you, who constantly thinks about money, rewards, and girls, feels superior to beastmen?
There was no other way. Xu Jun could only continue to guide Kanaman. Kanaman felt a bit embarrassed after reveling about fine wine, and so he maliciously glared at the humans around him. Behind him, an entourage of little brothers and sisters followed; all of them were sand leopard beastmen. There were both males and females. It seemed that gender wasn't a problem with the beastmen. No matter if it was a sand leopard man or woman, they were all the same as Kanaman. As soon as they heard about good wine, their spirits flew away.
Wind suddenly rose and fell; it was the beastmen sucking in their saliva.
Kanaman's face flushed red to his ears. Ti Na looked down, too embarrassed to meet anyone's eyes—although the beastmen liked to act on instinct, they weren't usually this barbaric. However, they were all hungry. Kanaman clearly knew that in order to rescue Ti Na as quickly as possible, they had been running like madmen for the past two days. For two days and two nights, they only drank water and ate dry rations, all for fear that Ti Na had already been sold.
It was said that these traffickers had some connections. They weren't some scattered business, but rather one with a dragon-sized sales channel. They would never abduct a child without a goal in mind. Rather, any child they abducted was certain to be sold off. They even find their customers before they set out to "do business," meaning that they always hit the mark.
Furthermore, these humans were extremely clever and good at disguising themselves: they could come to you as an unsuspicious, kindly old man. If it wasn't for this, perhaps Ti Na wouldn't have been…
The ashamed beastmen of the sand leopard tribe, who were now snapping about in a panic, had been bounding after Kanaman these past two days in an almost self-abusive manner.
—The humans would definitely laugh at them.
The humans had always looked down upon them and currently… even they looked down upon themselves.
Kanaman and the surrounding beastmen all heard that human warrior, who they had treated as a trafficker, that man who seemed to be called Xu Jun, sigh softly. "Let's go eat something first."
A good man! -within the beastmen's minds, these three glowing words popped into existence!
However, cough…Kanaman raised his head, struggling against his own arrogant self-esteem; he appeared to almost be glaring at Xu Jun.
After a long while, he spoke. "…Are you paying?"
The corner of Xu Jun's mouth twitched. "Alright, alright, I'll treat you all, I'll pay for you all, so can you all carefully think about the circumstances around Ti Na's abduction?"
Kanaman: "Yes, yes, yes, I'll think about it right now!"
–What the fuck happened to your self-control (╯‵□′)╯︵┻━┻!
The Wilderness City's Lord and the Personal Guard's Captain had finally managed to escort the two half-dead beastmen survivors down the city wall. They had left the remaining soldiers to carry the remains of their comrades. After the fierce fighting, the deaths seemed to weigh even heavier upon their minds. Things that they had once forgotten would suddenly wake them up from their bloody dreamscapes, only to sink into an even more depressing reality.
The City Lord let out a sigh. Once, he too had been their age. Youths were passionate and loved to dream. They dreamed about killing millions of enemies and rising to glory. They dreamed about earning achievements on the battlefield and walking towards the apex of their life. However, one day, when they became clear-headed, they will suddenly think of how, for every million enemies killed, a million comrades had died. They would reach the peak of life, stepping upon the bodies of countless soldiers.
After he had seen through this, the Wilderness City's Lord had suddenly matured. At the time, he was only thirty years old, yet he had seemed to have turned old. Before that, he had been a merit-seeking official, a utilitarian subordinate. From then on, he slowly became gentler. He began to give more benefits to the little brothers under him. He was no longer as ambitious. He had once dreamed of becoming Snow Blade Kingdom's marshal, now he was satisfied with just protecting one region. Later on, he was assigned to Wilderness City. Things changed with the passage of time and Wilderness City became an independent city. He had also become the city's lord.
He wanted to protect this simple, bustling, wild, and cunning city.
However, just one serious assault by the beastman bandits had left so many soldiers dead.
Furthermore, due to an injury in his younger days, he could no longer fight as he did before.
"…go identify these soldiers and give their family members a generous compensation. See if any families are particularly distressed. If you can afford to do so, help any families that have kids or elderlies." He said all of this with a sigh, exhaustion creeping up his face.
However—"Allen, come with me to find the warrior who helped us in the battle and that brave priest. We need to give them our greatest thanks." The Wilderness City Lord, Dika Maines, briefly closed his eyes. When they had opened once again, he had recovered his spirits. Now was not the time to rest.
"Yes, Lord Dika." His personal guard's captain, Allen, smiled slightly. Seeing Wilderness City's Lord beginning to cheer up, he felt more at ease.
Lord Dika was extremely important to the Wilderness City.
Therefore regarding how this one and only City Lord had stubbornly wanted to go up the city wall…the captain of the Personal Guard, Allen, clenched his jaw. He thought in his heart, City Lord, you're fucking mental!
That kind-hearted warrior had left with the priest and a gentleman who seemed to be a holy knight. As for the sand leopard beastmen who had followed them—the great City Lord felt there was a scheme behind the current incidents. It seemed the warrior, who had been accused of trafficking one of the sand leopard tribe's cub, had indeed possessed said cub. However, the cub seemed to have been under the care of the Holy Knight.
Tsk, upper-class relations truly were messy. He really had no idea what they were trying to pull off.
Wilderness City had always maintained friendly relations with the Dark Swamp beastmen. Although some small conflicts arose during disastrous years, both sides wanted to maintain the peace. That's why if said warrior had really abducted one of the sand leopard tribe's cubs…the City Lord would encourage the warrior to first let go of the child and then purchase two kitten beastmen for him!
In short, calm the sand leopard tribe's anger while making sure that none of Wilderness City's benefactors suffer any losses. The City Lord calculated that following this great battle, it should be quite easy to sell kitten beastmen. It shouldn't be too hard for him to find one…
If that warrior doesn't agree to the exchange and refused to give up the sand leopard's child…well, in the long run, it would be better to cooperate with the sand leopard tribe and wrestle back their cub. However, that warrior was incomparably powerful and had vast combat experience. The City Lord wasn't sure if they could actually get past him.
Not to mention if the other had some background, such as being a member of some powerful family, he would definitely be done for. _(:зゝ∠)_
With his worrying, the City Lord shattered his own heart.
Pointing towards a certain direction, Captain Allen's voice trembled. "Lord Dika…great City Lord, what is that over there?"
Looking towards the direction of the pointing finger, the City Lord saw a roadside barbecue stall that had not yet fled the city. Surrounding the stall was a group of rowdy beastmen, drinking and eating along with…the previously mentioned kind-hearted warrior, priest, and holy knight.
A beastman blubbered, "You're such a good man, I'm sorry for misjudging you before!"
Another wailed, "This is tasty! Wow, this is also tasty!"
Someone called out, "Stallholder, can we get some more wine!"
The sand leopard beastmen and a few humans were intermingling. That warrior, whom the City Lord had been worrying about for over half a day, was chatting and laughing amongst them with ease. After gulping down three slabs of grilled meat, Kanaman really wanted to call that man his brother.
The esteemed City Lord of Wilderness City: Fuck, this warrior is toxic! It turns out he wasn't aiming for a single sand leopard cub, but rather the entire sand leopard tribe!
This, this is such a…vast dream!
Bu-but, the smell of grilled meat is really too fragrant! After a great battle, smelling such a scent is just like self-torture! The esteemed City Lord shoved aside the Captain of the Personal Guard and squeezed into the crowd. "Stallholder, I'll take two kebabs!"
Xu Jun's heart cried out, fuck! Seeing that I was paying, did he come looking for a free meal?!
#Consequently, from this day forth, the Captain of the Personal Guard tightened the leash on the food safety and hygiene of Wilderness City's roadside stalls#
…
"His Majesty the Demon King's aura has… disappeared?"
The Abyss Lord nodded, looking at the normally cold and aloof, face-paralyzed Ice Lord who liked acting cool, the same Ice Lord who was now showing indescribable expression of shock. In his heart, the Abyss Lord thought, even this fellow can be down to earth sometimes. à_à
If it had been under normal circumstances, he would have definitely cussed out the Ice Lord, saying something along the lines of, don't show the expressions of mere mortals like me, oh unreachable flower, I am so vewwy scared. However, His Majesty the Demon King's aura had completely dissipated and so he didn't have the mood to mock the other. The Abyss Lord solemnly held the Ice Lord's hands. "Yes, that's why I am heading off to see what happened. I will leave Northern Alliance to you…"
The Ice Lord slapped away the Abyss Lord's claws. Pale and handsome, his features sharp to the point of harshness, the polar opposite of the heartless Abyss Lord.
On the back of that pale hand, a red mark surfaced because of the Abyss Lord's grasp.
"Don't concern yourself with His Majesty the Demon King's whereabouts. Continue to guard the northern region."
You actually wanted to use this kind of method to hand over the Northern Alliance to me, a single demon? Shameless! The Ice Lord maintained his calm façade, but in his heart, he was cussing up a storm. Had this been a few thousand years ago, he might've still believed the Abyss Lord's excuse. Now? He had already been tricked so many times; he would be a fool to trust this fellow again.
Anyways, it is impossible for His Majesty the Demon King to truly die. This is probably just a false alarm.
Holding on to this kind of mentality, the Ice Lord hurried all the way to the southern region's Burning Hell before finally getting a whiff of the Demon King's aura. He pried apart the ground, and found a corpse.
He then looked towards the wooden stele placed before dirt mound. Upon it read, "Beneath here, a set of rose silk innerwear is definitely not buried."
"…" The skeptical Ice Lord remained silent.
The author has something to say:
Xu Jun: I can't give up on the silk innerwear of the Demon King because I might become poor someday. When that day comes, I can come here to dig out the clothes and then sell it. This silk innerwear is my savings.
Demon King Rozenke: …Then what is the Demon King to you?
Xu Jun: The Demon King is…my clothes' model!
Demon King Rozenke: Fuck! What happened to being an old enemy?!