While Angus and Jayna accompany Anna to eat, Aunt Extalia and Eric decide to rest in the hotel room. Since they need to wait for Mira's return before leaving the city, they take this free time to discuss their diplomatic mission with Nirvas.
Although Aunt Extalia didn't want to meddle with Eric's task, she still could give some advice based on her experience. Eric also learns many things and has become more mature during the past few weeks.
He has become more silent and observant than someone with a loose glib tongue. Aunt Extalia doesn't know if this development is good or bad, but she knows Eric is definitely better than before.
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Being exposed to the true power like Angus and the others for the past week really affects Eric's mind and worldview.
In the meantime, a group of beastman make camp far away from the Twilbo Forest. *ARRGHHH* A hysterical woman's scream could be heard inside one of the tents. However, the other beast race could only shake their head in a gloomy mood.
They experience this situation every few hours since they leave Craghost Town. The screaming woman is none other than Merra. They don't know what to do about their leader, who screams madly every time she closes her eyes for a moment.
Some of their medical team know this woman is already beyond saving. As the beast race who respects power more than anything, they know Merra's current condition is similar to chronic PTSD. It is already a miracle she is still alive and didn't just turn into a vegetative state.
However, they know Merra's career as a combatant and fighter is gone. She will never be able to recover from this, no matter what she does. Even if she somehow kills Angus in the future, she may still not be able to fully recover.
The medical team has already seen too many similar cases in their tribe. They could only give her a calming potion and medicine to let her rest a little bit. Suddenly, a large booming sound is heard and breaks their rune barrier. *BOOOOM*
A large muscular man with the head of a lion suddenly entered their base camp. Red blood and various pieces of meat could be found all over its body. Seeing the intruder, all the beastman immediately kneel down to greet their Warchief.
"Warchief!!" called the leader of the camp.
"Where is she?" asked Warchief Might Napollo.
"She is inside this tent." said the basecamp leader.
The Warchief Might ignore the others and enter the tent. Inside the tent lay a red fur woman with a blank look. There are some infusion bottles nearby her. Despite the arrival of Warchief Might, she still didn't react and kept having a blank stare.
"What happened to her? Did you give her something?" asked Warchief Might to the nearby medical team.
"W-We just give her a strong calming potion." said the nearby doctor.
"When will the effect end?" asked the Warchief.
"It should be around a few hours with leader Merra' body and metabolism." said the doctor.
"Alright. Don't give her these drugs anymore." said Warchief.
"B-But, sir. She will… I mean, her mind will not be able to hold on without the calming potion." said the doctor with a struggle.
Warchief Might is famous for being ruthless. Although he is one of the strongest seventh grades leaders in Firuman, he is far from being a good leader and Warchief. The only reason why their tribe does not collapse is that Merra and her subordinates handle all his bureaucratic work.
"Just do what I told you. I want to talk to my daughter Merra, not the drugged Merra." said Warchief Might before leaving the tent.
After that, various cries and screams were heard from the camp. Many of the beastman get beaten to the point of almost dying, especially the one from the intelligence team.
Ever since Warchief Might felt the mysterious presence in the Craghost Town a few days ago, he decides to contact Merra, who is close by the area, to gather information about it.
Unexpectedly, Merra is returned empty-handed and turned into this state by a human child (a/n. Beast Race thinks humans below thirty as children). This situation frustrates him as he knows how strong Merra is. There is no way an ordinary human child could shock Merra like this.
Since Merra is also his daughter that wears his surname, he feels like his surname is tarnished and humiliated. Warchief Might feels like this human child is the one that mocks him directly.
With his wild nature, it is already good that Warchief Might didn't go on a rampage and kill everyone in his surroundings. Still, he manages to vent some of his frustration by killing and destroying everything on his path on his way to this camp.
After beating everyone besides the medical team in the camp, Warchief Might finally calms himself and goes away after leaving a message to the blank Merra to search for him.
A few hours later, Merra slowly recovered from the calming potion and again remembered Angus' dreadful feeling.
"No.. D-Don't kill me!! ARRGHGHH!!" screamed Merra hysterically.
During her shivering and screaming, her sharp smell finally noticed the familiar scent in the tent. Before the doctor enters the tent to check her condition, she immediately pulls out all her infusions and runs in a specific direction.
Each time she takes a step, she remembers the cold, pitch-black eyes staring at her in her mind. Every time she channeled her mana, she could feel the dreadful death presence all over her body and mind.
Despite this, she keeps moving and running following the Warchief Might's smell. Soon she arrives at the rocky cliff with a sunset on the horizon. She finds Warchief Might sitting on the top of the rock, looking at the sunset.
The whole scene is breathtaking and gives a serene feeling. As Merra looks at the crimson-red sun on the horizon, it suddenly turns into dreadful pitch-black eyes. Merra immediately shakes her head and finds it is only a hallucination.
As one of the most brilliant beast races, she knows her current condition and what happened to her. Still, knowing and experiencing are two different things.
"Is he strong?" asked Warchief Might after a long silence.
"Yeah." replied Merra shortly.
"What will you do about it then?" asked Warchief Might.
"I… I am not sure." said Merra.
Hearing this, the Warchief only shakes his head while releasing a sigh. However, before he said anything, Merra continued.
"I.. I don't want to fight. No, I don't want to fight him again." said Merra.
Warchief Might didn't immediately reply and kept staring at the sunset on the horizon.
"Then, what are you going to do? A beastman who can't fight is a dead beastman." said the Warchief after a while.
"That's not what I mean. I… I just don't want to fight him again." said Merra.
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"Did you think you would recover without fighting him?" asked the Warchief.
"I don't know. But I can't fight him. No, I can't raise my hand against him." said Merra as she grabbed her hand and began shivering.
"*Sigh* I understand." replied Warchief Might shortly.
The two of them looked at the sunset in silence.
"Chief, can I ask you a favor?" asked Merra while looking at the half-sun on the horizon.
"What is it?" asked Warchief Might.
"I… I want to marry him." said Merra out of nowhere.
Not long after that, people in the nearby area heard and felt a large tremor like a volcano eruption. However, no one pays attention to this since this kind of weird phenomenon often happens in this magical world.
In the meantime, King Leon is looking at a certain report inside the Heart Kingdom's royal palace and releases a long sigh.
"I never thought Roy would truly betray me." said King Leon.
After a moment of silence, "Darius, how is our preparation?" asked King Leon.
"Everything is working as planned, My Liege. It is estimated they will be ready in two weeks." said Darius.
"Good. I will definitely make them pay." said King Leon with a cold tone.
"My Liege, the religious groups once again sent their envoy. This time it is from the Blirin religious group." said Darius as he gave a particular envelope letter to King Leon.
"Blirin?! Tell Otebon, if Blirin dare take a single step in our land, show them no mercy no matter the reason." said King Leon while burning the letter without even touching it.
There is a reason why the Blirin group is choosing small kingdoms like Evada for their base in this region despite their status as one of the biggest religious groups in Firuman. In the past, the Blirin often created chaos and instability inside the four big kingdoms.
Therefore, the four big kingdoms in the area decide to forbid Blirin from entering their land. Their teaching and influence of Blirin often create a lot of radical and fanatic believers. Therefore, it often creates a ruckus and small conflict.
For the four kingdoms with large territories, instability and chaos in their land are dangerous problems. If they let them be, they will be rooted too deeply and could destroy the entire kingdom.