Kratos slept and snored while the humans tried to find sleep, which came anyway, but Romas slept with one eye open.

I chewed on a piece of smoked meat I had in my skin bag.

My slit yellow eyes reflected the fire like headlights in the night and I began to think.

For a first contact, it was not bad and I had in front of me a knight who had to judge my situation.

Romas was grilling a piece of meat on a wood over the fire.

and he had so many things to ask.

The tension of the previous day had been taken down a notch.

"Mir... what do you want to do now? Here?"

I largely understood what he was telling me.

I looked at the stars then at Kratos and finally looked at my winged paw hands and sighed.

"Mir want human not hurt tribe Mir. Mir fear humans."

Romas did not respond to the answer.

"I see Mir is very smart...Mir, you want to protect your family.

You are right, and as all humans do.."

He swallowed a mouthful, his hand reaching for the fire, also trying to keep warm.

I was getting better and better at assimilating their evolved version of Latin, but it wasn't common.

Romas: "You and Kratos will come to Winterfort for training and learn the laws and rules in the empire. Consider the dragon hunters as a sheriff protecting the humans, peasants and citizens of the empire.

There are hybrids and beastmen like lizardmen and demidragons. They are rare but are considered citizens. Savages who attack or harm the empire are hunted down and eliminated or at best, subjugated as slaves or mounts."

I suspected that the situation was as I imagined it.

"Mirrrrrrr obeyrr Romasss"

Romas: "You have done a good job of securing the area. But the forest is still dangerous.

"6 wyverns mercenary warrior want.... Uncle aunts Cerrrvoise!!!! good good crazy"

The hunter tilted his head back and burst out laughing.

"Cervoise!!! HAHAHA... They wanted some simple booze..."

"Sire... tribe love kerb... Not savage!!! hate!!! evil..monsters!!"

Effectively, Romas asked his system to analyze Kratos and Mir and he saw that the mention Monster was absent.. but Wyvern Intelligent instead.. and he discovered that we also had a basic system, denied to monsters and reserved for human beasts and fairly human hybrids.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Your problem, Mir.. is food, right? supplies, preservation. you must be starving.."

"Dry meat... salt fish... large storehouse... fire keep fat"

"You want to create a wyvern village... Mir..."

"Yes, Romasss. Difficult. Mir small. Mir tired Mir ask for Mercy Tribe.."

Romasss realised that it wasn't just a couple of wyverns but at least 12 individuals plus their young..

It was untenable for the forest. When they have eaten all the wolves, deer and monsters. They will inevitably turn to the pastures and the cattle.

12 wyverns, and their young, if his calculation was right, it was like 200 people to feed by hunting, but hunting was 100 times less profitable than farming and still, people ate little meat and mostly bread, eggs and cheese.

The wyverns had a carnivorous diet... and that multiplied the numbers by 40 in need.

Secondly, wyverns grew fast and matured twice as fast as a human. And with 4 or 6 eggs, protected and kept in good conditions, the population would explode and that, even with the best will in the world, would lead to a conflict, which would end badly for the intelligent wyverns.

He looked at Mir with pity and remembered the words of the "Old Man": follow your heart.

Kratos woke up and stood guard while the others, including myself, finally fell asleep.

The sun shone on us and reflected off my scales and I relaxed like a cat.

Kratos was having his "breakfast", namely, a dire wolf and he was eating it several dozen meters away from us to spare a gory spectacle at the start of the day.

There was no wind and the sun was shining on the snow.

As soon as we moved, the cold disappeared and it was rather a beautiful day beginning.

I took off after the chicory was distributed and I was quite satisfied.

Half a day's travel over, Mum and Dad were circling in the sky.

The humans were wary and looked towards Romas.

I circled around chasing my sister's tail and the other one was also chasing me and my brother. They had come to see, out of curiosity, and all the members of the tribe landed on a rocky ridge about a hundred metres away. Dad had forbidden them to approach. They were impatient and curious.

Romas looked on with a military eye: "A real army! If they could be my soldiers, we'd have a chance against the Republic of Mysteria," he thought.

Then, remembering, the Forbidden Forest should remain the Forbidden Forest...It deters Republican armies from invading the Empire from the west.

Kratos landed and helped unload the large anvil with Dad's help.

The humans stood at a distance from each other. An accident, a reflex, anything was possible.

I rubbed my paws with all this material but it was all so expensive... if you were to compare it to the price of a pickaxe or a sledgehammer in a DIY shop, we were in the fantastic middle ages, a never-ending middle age.

If a sledgehammer cost 50 EUR, a sledgehammer here would cost 5000 EUR, and still!

Everything was a hundred times more expensive. Of course, everything was done individually and by hand.

Mass production was unthinkable except in times of war and the only mass produced products were coins and arrows to supply the troops.

Soon the wyverns were arriving in pairs to load and take the goods to our collective lair.

But this had to remain a secret.

Kratos accompanied Jack and the others to Suderive and received a small barrel of booze and a honeycomb for his trouble.

The gold could wait. Besides, how would he spend it?

Romas was surprised that the ambush never happened and he had never received an answer or confirmation to his mail. Something was wrong.

For his part, Jack arrived safely at the merchant's guild and confirmed with the help of the knight and guild leader that the way was clear but risky and dangerous.

Wolves were roaming, perhaps ice trolls were roaming, and the trade route was very risky, if not impossible, but the presence of mercenary Wyverns changed all that.

Romas discussed with other guild leaders the possibility of recognising intelligent wyverns as citizens under certain conditions. A beast tamer should be responsible for guiding these powerful and unpredictable monsters.

It wasn't like having a wyvern domesticated under a subjugation collar, it was different.

But he wanted to give the "Tribe" a chance, but Mir had to be the intermediary for that. He also saw the possibility of having powerful allies against dragons and other wyverns.