Life doesn't go according to plan. I threw the knife to the floor and picked up the bowl of water. I gulped it down like a madman and looked at Ain. Beside
was the leather cart, just filled for the third ti. This was the result of spending the last two days on nothing but Heal and sword strikes.
Skinning was harder than I thought, and regenerating the skin of the entire body required an imnse amount of energy. I thought I could produce leather with infinite power like a factory by just eating whatever, but even that reached its limit in two days. I rubbed my weary eyes and stepped on the knife that had fallen to the floor.
The porter pulled the cart outside again. I looked at Ain and asked.
"Lizard."
"Hnngh... Ha... Heheh... Hyaaargh! Gyaak! Gaaah!"
Ain was drooling while staring into empty space. It would let out a crow-like scream, twist its head, and then its whole body would tremble.
"Fuck, is it completely broken?"
"Arrrgh! Gurgle! Squeak!"
"Hey, hey."
When Ain didn't answer, I poked its stomach with my finger. And then.
"Gyaaaaaaah! Aaaaaaaargh! Aaaaaaaargh!"
Ain started screaming like crazy. It seed like a side effect of having its scales peeled off so many tis that just touching the scales made its entire body tremble in pain.
"Gyaaaaaargh! Gaaaargh! Squeal! Squea... hic...!"
Ain, which had been twisting its body so violently I thought the iron chains binding it might break, suddenly stopped moving and went limp. White foam trickled from its mouth. I stopped drinking my water, got up, and checked Ain's pulse. Thankfully, it was alive. It couldn't die yet. I had to stop skinning it, but there was still a lot of work left for this friend to do.
The harvested leather was enough to arm the Knight Order with a little left over. I considered using another healer to continue this leather production, but the Northern High Priest politely refused, saying he couldn't use priests for such a cruel task.
After coaxing another priest into trying, the results showed that the efficiency wasn't very good. This was because most priests could only regenerate the skin once and were done, or they could only regenerate about half of the skin before running out of energy and panting.
It ant that Lusius, being a Half-Elf, was a monster beyond the standard, and that I couldn't run an infinite power factory using priests on other captured Ain. I clicked my tongue in disappointnt. If only this plan could be realized, we would no longer need to fear the Ain.
I looked at Ain's claws. The claws themselves were easy to pull out, but the efficiency was too poor for the effort. Regenerating the claws also took more energy than the skin. So I only pulled out its claws until the first night, and from the next dawn, I only skinned it.
Ain's leather was being used to reinforce armor, creating vicious scale armor. The knights had very satisfied expressions with the newly added leather. Their existing armor would tear if it was scratched by the claws of the Ain, but the new armor was sturdy enough to withstand them.
Even when a knight with a strength stat of 25 struck it with all his might, the armor didn't get a single scratch. It was clear that the leather took on the stats of its original owner.
It took a full day to finish refining the armor. The Knight Order, equipped with the scale armor made from materials harvested over three days, looked impressive at a glance. The knights, too, seed satisfied with their armor, patting it with their hands and joking with each other.
I could see the murderous desire overflowing from the knights' eyes. So knights even embedded the claws of the Ain into their clubs to create vicious flails. I also pulled out a few claws and attached them to my mace.
* A poison attribute has been added to the mace. It gains additional attack power and an armor penetration attribute.
This was it.
Additionally, I threw a scale into a fire pit. The scale itself didn't burn, but I could tell it heated up rapidly.
After checking all these things, I leaned against the front line's iron fence and asked a knight.
"The Ain aren't coming."
"Indeed. They used to be stationed nearby and would periodically poke at us, but it seems they're being more cautious now that you're here, Sir Priest."
"Why are they being cautious? You said you needed a strong man like ."
"Because they learned during the ti of the Grand Duke that charging in like that only leads to a pointless death. They might try a different thod this ti."
"So we should just keep waiting?"
"To be honest, we don't know where the lair of the Ain is within the mountain range, so it's risky to dispatch scouts. The soldiers we sent a few tis never returned."
"It seems like it would be faster to strike the Ain's base directly..."
I indicated the Ain inside the tent with a nod. The knight asked.
"It seems to have already lost its mind. Will it be possible?"
"Beasts all have a homing instinct. Even if it has lost its mind, it will find its way ho on its own."
And so, I gathered the Knight Order to put my final plan into action. The reason I hadn't killed Ain until now was partly to harvest its leather, but I had also done it thinking that this level of torture would make it confess the location of its base. Unfortunately, its intelligence was too high, so it just went insane instead.
So I decided to rely on this Ain's homing instinct. I figured that an Ain that had gone mad and had nothing left but instinct would find its way ho from here on its own. I asked the knights.
"Have you never captured an Ain before?"
"We have a few tis, but we always failed to make them confess. But to think you'd use a thod like this. I should suggest this to the Northern High Priest next ti."
He'll refuse. He was the one who looked like he was about to faint when I explained what I was doing.
In front of the gathered knights, the Ain, tightly bound in iron chains, was flailing. The soldiers looked anxious to stab that Ain with their spears right away, and the knights were glaring at it with extrely hateful eyes. I started explaining the plan to prevent the knights from having a fit and beating the Ain to death.
"Everyone. Beasts have a homing instinct. It's the ability to find their way ho no matter how far they are. A normal, intelligent Ain, if we were to release it like this, would worry about being tailed and would take a winding path to shake us off, or commit suicide to stop us from reaching its group. But this Ain. What about this insane Ain?"
It wasn't pretending to be insane; it was a truly mad Ain. I was certain of this because I had checked it several tis with the status window. Even as I was explaining this openly, Ain was staring at the mountain range and panting. I placed my foot on its back, which was thrashing like a live fish, and broke the iron chains in one go with my hands.
"Aaaaaaaargh! Aaaaaaaargh! Aaaaargh!"
Screaming, Ain started going berserk again. When the knights raised their weapons and took a stance to charge, I raised my hand to stop them. We just had to wait. Just a little longer now. Ain, who had been rolling on the ground and twisting its body for a while, suddenly shot up, looked at the mountain range, and started running, letting out a strange scream.
"Gyaaaaaaaargh! Gaaaaaaargh! Garrrrgle! Gaaak!"
The soldiers were trembling at that bizarre scream. I took only the specially selected knights and chased after the Ain. I left half of the Knight Order here to prepare for any unforeseen situations.
***
The peaceful village of the Ain. The king of the Ain was offering prayers for the Ain who had not returned. Deorgon, in the cave beyond the mountains, was tornting them again today, asking why they couldn't bring him a strong man. The Ain who reported failing today's mission was brutally murdered by a single punch from Deorgon.
The king of the Ain didn't know how long they had to live off these sluggish attacks. Even when he told Deorgon that a strong person comparable to the elders had appeared in the human village, Deorgon just got angry at the Ain's lack of results. He scread several tis, telling them to hurry up and bring him a human male.
Every ti Deorgon shouted, a chilling aura flowed through the entire mountain range. The king of the Ain resolved to definitely kidnap that man in the next attack. Because if he failed to kidnap him this ti, he himself would be the one to die.
"Chief!"
An Ain soldier who was on sentry duty shouted. The king crawled out of the tent. Many of the villagers were already looking at the scout. Soldiers who were recovering from the travel fatigue of the last battle crawled out from the deep-rest tents.
"Speak."
"Elletarim has returned!"
"What?"
Elletarim. He was a warrior captured by the knights during the last attack. The king had thought that he, like most warriors captured by humans until now, would have chosen death. How did he escape? Like the great warriors, had Elletarim also shaken off the humans and reached the village?
The king shouted.
"Everyone, to the entrance! We will see Elletarim with our own eyes!"
A corner of the mountain range. The village of the Ain, nestled in a basin, was located in a concave place, so it wasn't easily spotted by people. As the Ain ran toward the entrance, they could see Elletarim running breathlessly from a distance.
The king of the Ain let out a shout of joy. Due to the nature of the Ain being few in number, each and every warrior was precious. The Ain followed their king and let out strange screams. Elletarim, as if cheering in response to their shouts, let out the sa strange scream.
"Gweeeeeeaaaaaaah!!"
The Ain fell silent. Elletarim's condition was strange. Only then did the Ain realize that he wasn't normal. The empty eyes, the staggering steps, and the emaciated body. Elletarim was not a proud fugitive. His movents were those of a madman.
"Gweeeeeeaaaaaaah! Gweeeeeeaaaaaaah!"
The Ain began to murmur. What was this? What in the world had happened? Co to think of it, the patrol mbers who were patrolling outside hadn't returned. Shouldn't the patrol mbers have discovered Elletarim before the sentries? The king of the Ain could see a group following Elletarim from behind. They followed Elletarim, possessing gleaming scales.
"Ooh! Is that the patrol mbers!"
The king shouted again in delight. But he soon realized sothing was strange. They were carrying weapons. The great Dragonians do not carry weapons. The Ain narrowed their eyes even more and looked closely at the party following Elletarim.
"Gyaaaaaaaargh! This isn't real!"
Soon, an Ain who realized their true identity grabbed its own hair and started going berserk. The Ain who belatedly confird what was chasing Elletarim fell into terror and started going berserk. The king of the Ain, too, could only tremble in fear after learning the horrible truth of the pursuit party.
"Uh... ugh... ugh..."
They were not Ain. They were humans wearing the skins of the Ain. The nacing club seen at the front had the claws of the Ain embedded in it. Elletarim howled.
"Gweeeeeeaaaaaaah!"
The Ain, who were in a greater panic, started to howl even louder than that sound. Lusius, at the front, threw a stone the size of a head towards the Ain and shouted.
"Kill them all!"
"Aaaaaaaaargh!"
"Kill them! Kill them all!"
At the sa ti, the knights, filled with killing intent, charged forward, tearing Elletarim to shreds as they advanced. They were frenzied by the re fact that they could kill the Ain. They rembered the Northern Region, which had been brutally trampled for the past four months.
There was no one who could stop the once-unleashed rage. Faced with this cruel fury, the Ain began to flinch and retreat. No being can remain calm in front of a murderer wearing the skin of their own kind. The blood of the Ain stained the mountain range. The boulder thrown by Lusius crushed the Ain who were blocking the entrance.
A one-sided massacre was beginning.
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