Chapter 45: The Beastmen’s Leader
"I’m sorry for dragging you into this mess. I can’t really call it a reward, but how about coming over to our place? I’ll treat you to a meal."
"Boss!?"
"Boss!?"
"Boss!?"
Since they were being offered food and it was already around mealtime, they decided to accept the invitation.
"Hey! If you’re done talking, hurry up and untie these ropes and release me already!"
It seemed that one person here was completely incapable of reading the room.
The appearance of the big man had made him forget for a moment, but letting this go so easily would leave a bad taste in his mouth.
"Why don’t we just leave him tied up for a day? If he’s lucky, help will come from the castle. If he’s unlucky, the animals of the forest will take care of him."
He had said it half-jokingly, but judging from how the man turned pale, it seemed to have been quite effective.
"If we kill him and another idiot shows up, that would be troublesome too. Even if we let him go, I think it would be better to have him learn a bit more first."
After all, he still hadn’t apologized for the insults he had hurled earlier.
If they let him go like this, it was obvious he would come back with even more soldiers to get revenge.
The soldiers lying around the man who kept shouting that he was a prince did not appear to be bleeding, so they were probably just unconscious.
Despite being shown such obvious restraint, Qiong Xing could not understand why the prince was still shouting that he hadn’t lost.
On top of that, he continued to hurl abuse at the beastmen who had defeated him.
It made him want to ask whether the man was even capable of understanding the situation he was in.
"Right. In that case, how about we tie him up on top of a tree or something. I’ll leave it to you guys."
The prince was hoisted up and suspended from a tree.
It was quite a surreal sight.
The prince still tried to shout, but when he was told that making so much noise would only attract wild beasts, he immediately fell silent.
"Alright then, I’ll guide you there. Of course, you’re all coming, right?"
Leander and the others still seemed wary, but when Qiong Xing said it was fine, they reluctantly agreed.
"Boss, what’s your name?"
"Boss, huh... That’s a pretty cute way to address someone. But my name js Joachim. You can call me Joa, just like everyone else."
"Mr. Joa?"
"Just Joa. I haven’t lived some clean and respectable life that’d earn me an honorific."
He said that someone like himself, who defeated humans like this just to survive, could hardly be considered clean.
"But that’s because you’re protecting your companions, right? If you’re worried about being a beastman, then I don’t mind that at all. More importantly, the fact that there are people who admire you and follow you like this means you shouldn’t look down on yourself so much."
When Qiong Xing told him that striving to live for the sake of those you protect was already a sufficiently admirable way of life, it wasn’t Joa himself who reacted, but rather the subordinates who had been listening nearby and they crowded around happily.
"That’s right?! The boss is amazing!"
"Yeah, the boss is seriously cool!"
"So you get how awesome the boss is, huh? Not bad for a human!"
Joa wore a slightly bitter expression as his subordinates bragged about him one after another, but judging from how his ears were busily twitching, he was probably embarrassed.
The subordinates, who were supposed to dislike humans, also seemed to see Qiong Xing and the others as comrades after what had happened earlier, and they treated them in a friendly manner.
"What kind of beastmen are you all?"
When he asked while looking at their various hair colors and ears, everything made sense.
"Fox!"
The young man who said that had yellowish-brown ears and narrow eyes that left an impression.
"Cat, sir!"
The small-statured youth who said that was a spotted brown beastman with ear shapes a little similar to Elias’s.
"Monkey."
The taciturn young man had brown hair and ears similar to Qiong Xing’s, making him feel the closest sense of familiarity.
They were also introduced to a gallant, handsome young man who was a hawk beastman, as well as an owl beastman with sleepy-looking eyes, among others.
"What about you, Joa?"
"Huh? You can tell, can’t you? I’m a bear."
He answered gruffly, perhaps still embarrassed, but once it was pointed out, it made sense given his massive build.
Compared to Qiong Xing, Joa’s body that was several times larger even than the fairly big Leander was like that of an adult next to a child.
His nearly black dark brown ears, along with the large scar running from his left eye down to his jaw, added a masculine allure to his well-defined features.
"Do you think I can become like Joa too?"
"......"
When looking up at Joa’s impressive broad chest, Qiong Xing who was still hoping for further growth looked down at his own flat and thin chest.
The liveliness from just moments ago was nowhere to be found, and no one would meet his eyes.
That was probably the answer.
But he wouldn’t give up!
"Ah, well, even without something like that, you’ve got two reliable mates, don’t you?"
He was told that since Qiong Xing was clearly smaller and slimmer than Joa, he should leave the fighting to his two mates, but he couldn’t understand the logic at all.
"Then that would mean I can’t protect the three of them, would it? I may look like this, but I’m not just a child who needs to be protected."
"......"
If he were a child, it wouldn’t be strange for him to be in the position of being protected.
But Qiong Xing was already an adult, the mate of two people, and although he was a man, he was also Cari’s mama.