Isilt could only watch powerlessly as the beasts of Loimos flooded into the lands of the south, of course, they came alongside soldiers and knights as well, but to the young trainee, it was the creatures that inspired the most dread, especially due to the fact that they were many times more numerous, circling and wandering the golden fields, they scared away all wildlife and made the ogres feel generally uneasy.
The young man no longer wore his armour or bore arms, back to his farmer self from before he was taken in, working the fields and taking care of corneaus, it was like he had never even left, all of the old habits and reflexes remained without deviation, but his attention laid on the undead beasts.
Soldiers and knights were one thing, in fact, as a trainee, Isilt was lucky to not have been split in half during the last battle, his strength and skills were still inferior to that of even the patrollers, so even a single Loimoisian knights could have easily torn him limb from limb, but thankfully, he did have one great quality, being that Isilt was very quick, agile and dexterous, even if he could not fight back effectively, at least his organs had not been made to experienced the outside world.
And frankly, the youth that he was was just fascinated by these beasts, monsters and great creatures were incredibly rare in the south, apart from the ogres which were mostly reduced as labourers, so of course, his experience with monsters was tainted as the sort he was most familiar with was completely docile.
The undead beasts that served in the vanguard however, even if not aggressive as they believed him to be a non-combatant like everyone else, they were definitely not docile, the greater majority were actually regular animals, packs of wolves, all sorts of bears to cite the ones that he actually recognised.
To Isilt, an hippopotamus was very much a monster, same for the one elephant that just stood in the distance like a statue, decayed and skeletal, although the stench was suppressed, getting too close would get one the full fragrance of a corpse that had been decayed for much longer than should be possible, each of those were housing dozens, if not hundreds or thousands of undead bugs, Isilt had had the misfortune of walking right at the right handle to see centipedes and cockroaches crawling around within the belly of a fox.
He could still see it when he closed his eyes, facing soldiers and knights had not prepared him for the horrors that were undeads, hiding whatever awful things underneath armour was perhaps preferable to the mental damage their naked form could inflict.
Still, he kept on closely analysing the beasts of Loimos, Isilt had heard that this was what they were called, someone else had actually just asked a random soldier, and more surprisingly, he had received an answer.
The trainee would have liked to get intel from them directly as well, but he feared that getting too close would blow his cover.
In any case, this appellation seemed to be how all beasts and creatures of the vanguard were called, although the title itself should designate specific beasts that had achieved something to deserve it.
To the young man, this probably meant that the special-looking beasts were the beasts of Loimos, including the only actual monster around, which had what looked like the body of a hairless dog, the tail of a rat and the head and neck of a worm particularly well furnished in the dentition department, it was about as big as the average wild dog, but definitely seemed like a nasty foe.
Although Isilt was definitely feeling his inner little boy marvel at these abhorrent creatures, the actual reason he was doing this was not for fun, he had not taken on the appearance of a farmer and returned to his family to escape fighting either, the trainee was following orders, the fact that he was trainee made it especially easy to not be found out as a warrior, the undead vanguard would not hesitate to execute anyone that was discovered to not be protected by the agreement.
Today, Isilt was trying to understand more about the most majestic of the beasts, at least according to his own opinion, a huge pale hound, with long fur the colour of bone, a bushy tail, piercing blue eyes, taller than a grown man, it scoured the outer reaches of the farmlands most of the time, accompanied by many rotten wolves and other canines.
This one felt especially dangerous, prowling day and night, despite its great size, it demonstrated frightening ease to vanish from all sight.
'We would need it taken down first, or away from here…' thinking about this, staring at the beast whilst pretending to instead be looking over the work of an ogre.
"Pretty cool, ain't it?"
"Ind- What?" Isilt felt a hand covered by a gauntlet fall upon his shoulders hard enough for it to hurt a bit.
"Oh, sorry for the surprise"
'Hold on… It's just a soldier…' the youth quickly calmed himself, but still made sure to appear a bit scared, his heart beating quickly, a regular farmer should not be calm when approached by an undead.
"I just couldn't help but notice how much you were staring at the dog" speaking clearly, Isilt could feel that their language was different, but did not quite understand what sort of sorcery was at play that allowed them to fluidly converse.
From the looks of it, every single knight and rank and file had this mysterious ability.
'At least it's not a knight… He shouldn't be capable of discerning anything amiss…'
"Hum… I was just watching this ogre…" he tried to shakily explain, the undead slapping him in the shoulder again, using the exact same amount of force as before.
"No need to deny it, all the children want to ride this big gal! But of course, as a bonafide beast of General Loimos, mere contact would be lethal for them!" laughing heartily, the soldier was certainly more jovial than expected.
"Oh… Does she have a… Name?" understanding that this corpse was not going away any time soon, Isilt attempted to hold a non-suspicious conversation.
"The beasts don't have names, even the ones closest to Loimos… But tell me, how come a mere farmer is so strong? This musculature is not one earned solely through farm work" tightening his grasp, something clacked underneath the veil of chainmail.
A bead of sweat trickled down Isilt's face.
He tried to come up with the best possible explanation, in just a brief second.
"Must be an aspiring knight, huh? Don't fret little guy, look at you! Squirming and shaking like a little girl in a bear's den!" overtaken by total hilarity, the soldier slapped his shoulder again, walking away whilst maintaining laughter.