Chapter 195: The Beast Lord and the Blue Cat Tribe

Chapter 195: The Beast Lord and the Blue Cat Tribe

Rigdis had already lost the will to fight. Likewise, Fran had done the same despite still being on guard. The reason for her sudden change in attitude was because Royce, one of the Beast Lord’s guards, had started healing Zefmate.

「Explain situation?」

「Your Majesty, did you perhaps forget to inform her as to the current circumstances?」

Roche immediately began questioning the Beast Lord’s actions, or rather, the likely lack thereof.

「Uhh...」

「Hah... Let me guess. You provoked her by acting in your usual cocky manner without actually telling her what had happened?」

「Hmph...」

「Do you have any injuries, young lady?」

「...None.」

「That’s good. So, exactly what kind of relationship do you have with Blue Pride?」

「Zefmate... Friends. Hate rest.」

「Ah, I understand now. As for you, Your Majesty...」

「I know, I get it already. My bad, alright?」

「So? Why wanted to kill Zefmate?」

「’Cause he tried to protect his buddies.」

「Hah... Allow me to explain.」

Roche gave us a detailed explanation of exactly what had happened.

Much to our surprise, Rigdis was against the enslavement of Black Catkin. In fact, he’d been going around freeing as many Black Catkin slaves as he happened across.

That precise action had caused an ideological rift to form between him and his father. The rift was so vast that he’d almost gotten disowned,so he ended up organising a coup d’etat, murdering his father, and claiming the throne with his own two hands.

It was an act that he’d always suspected he might need to perform, and to that end, he’d joined the Adventurer’s Guild, tempered his body, and secretly built up his connections. The only reason his coup had gone as smoothly as it did was because he’d managed to make every single last one of the Beast Kingdom’s A or higher ranked adventurers into his subordinates.

Upon his ascension to the throne, Rigdis had promptly purged all of the spies and slave merchants formerly connected to the royal family. He’d then gone out on a mission in order to find all slave merchants outside the bounds of his country so he could free every single last Black Catkin that remained in captivity.

「But fought Zefmate? Why?」

「But I guess we went a bit too far. We trained you so well you became unable to shake that stupid sense of justice of yours.」

Sennek attempted to mock Zefmate, but was hit right in his sore spot by Rigdis in retaliation.

「Says a no-tail.」

「How dare you!」

『What’s a no-tail?』

(Long-tailed beastkin without tail.)

Longer tailed beastkin species put great importance on keeping one’s tail, as losing it typically implied cowardice. Thus, those that were supposed to have tails but didn’t were mocked as no-tails.

It normally wasn’t too much of an issue as one could recover a chopped off tail so long as it was immediately treated with either magic or potions, but, in cases where one’s injuries were more severe, priority was instead given to the limbs and whatnot. As a result, those with a lesser degree of access to healing would end up permanently losing their tails.

The old man known as Sennek appeared to be precisely someone that’d ended up in that kind of scenario. I’d thought that he’d just hidden his tail away in his pants, but apparently that simply wasn’t something that long tailed Beastkin with tails would actually do for reasons I failed to intuit.

Getting called out by the Beast Lord had, for some odd reason, caused Sennek to glare in Fran’s direction.

「I would still have my tail if not for you meddling Black Catkin...!」

「Nn?」

「Foock! How dare you look down on me like that? And with a face that looks just like that annoying brat’s to boot!?」

「Brat?」

「Yeah, foock her! Foock Kiara for taking my god damned tail! And foock you for looking just like her!」

「Know Kiara?」

「Of course I foocking do! Foock her to hell!」

It seemed Sennek hated the Black Cat Tribe because Kiara had caused him to hold some sort of grudge. That, in turn, explained why he’d purposefully raised all the Blue Catkin around him to see Black Catkin the way they did.

「But you know what, it’s fine. I don’t care anymore, because that b*tch got sent right off to the Beast Lord! Hah! Probably got turned into a slave and forced into a straight up living hell alright. Gyahahahah! B*tch got right what was coming to her!」

Fran immediately approached Sennek with me drawn and in hand.

『Wait, Fran! Hold on! Don’t kill him!』

Ending his life here and now seemed like an act that could potentially anger the Beast Lord and his bros. To them, Sennek still had value, as he likely knew about others that worked in his trade.

Convinced, Fran sheathed me and instead started pummeling both men with her fists. I realized that she’d went too far by the time their already old, twisted faces had ended up even more deformed and bent out of shape than they were before. I figured it’d be best for me to stop her, but the Beast Lord actually beat me to the punch.

「Hold on kid. Hey, you assholes. When you said Kiara, did you mean the old lady? You know, Grandma Kiara?」