The fires in the beastman camp had now been completely extinguished.
The mercenaries were cleaning up the battlefield, stripping any serviceable leather armor from the corpses. They dragged the bodies one by one into the largest open space in the center of the camp, doused them with oil, and set them ablaze.
For the beastmen who were not yet dead and still groaning, the mercenaries delivered a final, unhesitating sword thrust.
No one considered it cruel. Nearly ten thousand years of war between humans and beastmen had woven hatred into their very blood.
"Klaus, what's the status on our brothers?" Dario asked.
Klaus was looking down, wrapping a strip of cloth torn from a beastman tent around a wound on his left arm. "One seriously wounded, four with minor injuries. A pity that pantheress got away."
"Forget it. As long as our men are okay. Not losing any brothers is a blessing." Dario felt a lingering fear as he recalled the Tigran, Ceona's, dying frenzy.
"Heh, speaking of that pantheress, that body, that wildness... damn, she was something else! If we'd caught her, imagine getting her into bed..." a sleazy voice interjected. It was Jason, who had been mostly absent during the fight, now dusting off his hands.
"You, Jason? With your pathetic skills?" Klaus, having finished bandaging his wound, looked up and shot Jason a cold glance. "You can't even handle a few of the working girls at the Orchid Bar, and you're dreaming about a beastman warrior? Be careful she doesn't snap that useless little thing of yours clean off!"
Klaus's merciless taunt drew a round of crude, roaring laughter from several nearby mercenaries who were sorting through the loot.
Jason just grinned, unfazed. He turned to Dario, looking smug. "Boss, you'll never guess what I found! We hit the jackpot this time!"
With a dramatic wave of his hand, several mercenaries behind him roughly shoved forward a long line of young beastmen, their hands tied behind their backs with coarse hemp rope.
Most of the beastman children were no older than seven or eight, their faces streaked with dirt and tears. They let out defiant growls, struggling against their bonds.
The mercenaries' leather whips cracked without mercy, the sharp sounds followed by the children's piercing, agonized wails.
The moment Dario saw the cubs, his eyes lit up like a starving wolf spotting a fat lamb. "Easy with them, you bastards! These little ones are walking gold coins! Each and every one is precious. If you kill one, that's dozens of gold pieces down the drain!"
Many human nobles enjoyed keeping tamed beastmen as personal guards or even just as pets. The beastmen's superior strength and wild temperament satisfied a certain twisted desire for conquest. Adult beastmen were mostly untamable, preferring death to submission, but the young were relatively easy to train.
Therefore, in all the major slave markets, the price for beastman cubs had always been high, their value second only to that of female elves.
And if one happened upon a cub from a rare species, the price could reach a staggering figure.
"Boss, look at this one!" Jason, beaming, pulled the most securely bound little beastman from the line and pushed him in front of Dario. "This little Tigran here, I reckon he's worth at least a thousand gold coins!"
"Oh?" Dario raised an eyebrow. "This stubborn Tigran didn't manage to escape either?" He crouched down, intrigued, and reached out to roughly lift the dirt-stained chin of the young Tigran, Kray, studying him.
Kray's golden tiger eyes were now bloodshot, filled with a bone-deep hatred. These were the men, the butchers, who had brutally murdered his mother.
A bestial growl rumbled in his throat. The faint golden light on his wrists, once dim, suddenly flared!
SNAP!
With a crisp sound, the seemingly sturdy hemp rope was instantly broken!
The moment he was free, Kray's small body erupted with a shocking strength that defied his age. His sharp claws gleamed as he lunged at the nearby Dario.
But he was fast, and Dario was faster.
Before Kray's lunge was even complete, a hand like an iron clamp had already shot out and seized his fragile neck, snuffing out all his strength and resistance before they could even begin.
Kray's small body struggled helplessly in Dario's grip, his face turning a purplish-red from asphyxiation, the fire in his eyes slowly dimming.
Just as he felt he was about to be crushed by the irresistible force, to fall into eternal darkness, Dario abruptly released his grip, tossing him onto the cold ground like a piece of useless trash.
Dario stood up, dusting off his hands. The easy-going look on his face was gone, replaced by a touch of gravity. He spoke to Jason in a low voice, "Jason, a valuable little one like this, remember to tie him up tighter next time!"
"Captain, there's another one here. Probably worth one gold coin at most... what should we do with him?" Just then, a mercenary hauled the skinny Rayne out from a corner, holding him like a chick.
A common human boy slave was worth far less than a beastman youth.
Dario had actually noticed this strange human boy during the fight earlier in the day. He had been particularly surprised that he managed to defeat the young Tigran, whose strength was close to that of a Rank-1 Warrior, through sheer skill.
He crouched down again and reached out to lift Rayne's chin. This time, however, his movements were much gentler than they had been with Kray.
Rayne obediently raised his head to meet Dario's gaze. Though he was covered in dirt and grass, and his messy black hair stuck out like a bird's nest, his small, dusty face looked remarkably clean in the firelight. His eyes, especially, were pure.
"What's your name? How old are you?"
"Captain, my name is Rayne. I'm twelve."
Dario was taken aback. "Oh? And how did you know I'm the captain?"
"Isn't that what all the mercenary brothers call you?"
"Heh, a clever one," Dario laughed. "Then tell me, what's a human boy like you doing in a beastman camp?"
The smile on Rayne's face faded slightly, a flicker of sadness in his eyes. "Our village was attacked by beastmen two years ago. My mother was killed. I was taken to this camp as a slave."
"Nonsense!" Jason's shrill voice cut in again. He rushed forward and grabbed the collar of Rayne's tattered leather armor, glaring at him. "Since when do beastmen need human children as slaves? They'd rather eat them! Besides, you don't look like a slave. This armor on you, though old, is of decent quality. How do you explain that?!"
"That's enough, Jason. Don't scare the boy," Freya, who had been standing by silently, now intervened.
Rayne immediately shot Freya a grateful look, then turned back to the still-fierce Jason. "Don't worry, beautiful and respected lady, he doesn't scare me. I've seen beastmen far more savage than him, and I survived."
"Heh, quite the sweet talker!" Jason, feeling a bit foolish, sullenly let go and muttered under his breath.
"I survived because I still had value," Rayne explained calmly, smoothing out the collar Jason had wrinkled. "My mistress, she wanted to find a human opponent of the same age for her son, so he could learn about his future enemies from a young age."
"Your mistress? That powerful female Tigran?" Dario asked.
Rayne's head lowered slightly, his voice dropping, tinged with genuine sorrow. "Yes. Actually... my lady was very good to me. If she hadn't protected me, with my weak frame, I would have likely ended up as food for some hungry beastman in the camp long ago."
Kray, who had been lying on the ground as if resigned to his fate, flinched at Rayne's words. He looked up, his gaze a complex mix of surprise, confusion, and even disbelief.
"Alright, untie him," Dario said after a moment's thought, waving his hand. "In the Salt Blade, he is no longer a slave!"
"Thank you, Captain!" Rayne first bowed deeply to Dario, then respectfully thanked Freya, the scowling Jason, and even the mercenary who untied him.
Dario chuckled at his well-behaved demeanor, waved his hand dismissively, and turned back to directing the cleanup of the battlefield.
"Dario, are you really planning to haul back all this tattered armor and rusty weaponry? How much can they possibly be worth?" Freya walked up to Dario, frowning at the mercenaries who were carefully packing up a pile of what she considered worthless junk.
She had always been a bit of a clean freak and couldn't stand the sight of these bloodstained, foul-smelling scraps.
"Heh, Freya, that's where you're wrong. Even an ant's leg is still meat!" Dario grinned and explained in a low voice, "These things aren't worth much, but with a little mending, they'll fetch some coin. I've got dozens of mouths to feed under my command! And to be honest, we misjudged this one. We thought we had a fat sheep, but it turns out, besides these cubs, this so-called noble camp had nothing valuable. They were dirt poor!" Dario couldn't help but grumble at the end.
"What do you plan to do with that boy, then?" Freya ignored his complaints, her gaze shifting to Rayne in the distance.
"We'll take him back to the city first. That kid... he's an interesting one." Dario followed her gaze. Rayne was now trailing an old mercenary, diligently helping to collect scattered arrows and some seemingly intact beastman ornaments.
He was adapting with incredible speed, as if he was born for this life. In just a short time, he had already blended in with the rough mercenaries, helping them scavenge for "valuable" trinkets from the beastman corpses, an ingratiating smile on his face. Watching this, an inscrutable curve formed on Dario's lips.
...