"Lands east of Vitas are fertile as any land around the Vitas, the Giver of Live but since the collapse of the Empire if one ventures far enough to the east where the grass grows tall the blessing of Tinnbera disappears completely. The fertility of the wind-swept grass sea which is Demi-Human Territory couldn't be describe as terrific as it would be a understatement of this century. Many companies trying their luck to establish colonies inside the Territory to ease the trade between West and East had all suffered failure. No matter how well defended the settlement was or how many hands the magister had on his disposable they all met the same fate, starvation. The land in the Territory simply refuses to grow anything but the native tall grass. Similar to the land surrounding Mensana the Territory is found to be cursed and hostile to human existence...
Extract from a research paper on further colonisation of the Demi-Human Territory by Oriripol.
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"Wow." Nakatei's green eyes seemed to be replaced by glittering stars as she pressed her weapon to her chest.
"How do you like Nishimine?" Shiro stepped in front of the mesmerized fox and outstretched her left hand toward the city like a merchant showcasing his inventory might do.
"It's so big," Nakatei's eyes glittered for a moment longer before dimming as she looked at the oversized dull-coloured clothes she was wearing. "I can't go there like this, I will bring shame to my village!"
"I think that they will be honoured after hearing what their little spoiled shaman had to survive to become a shaman," The older demi ruffled up the ember-coloured fur on top of Nakatei's head while her forked tail waggled from side to side. "After I get you to the temple you can buy yourself a new pair of clothes."
Listening to the two beastwomen Iris looked to her left and saw that the mage was still in the middle of nippling on Umbria's cookie. Through the morning fog, they could see the outline of the city slowly emerge. It took them almost no time to reach the outskirts of the city. Compared to human cities which are usually surrounded by seemingly endless fields to feed the city they surround, Nishimine only had a two hundred-meter wide strip of land on which the tall knee-high grass had been grazed upon.
"Shiro, may I ask a question?" Iris said as the shadow of the curtain wall veiled half of her face in a shadow.
"Yeah sure, shoot it."
"What do you eat?"
"Meat of course." Confusion appeared on the cat's face as her crimson eyes searched the elf what might have caused her to ask such a stupid question.
"But where do you get meat from? I don't see any farm animals grazing nearby."
"We hunt for it."
"And what do you hunt, we barely saw any game for the past three days?" Iris asked, the out-of-place noble-looking lady near her leaned her body toward the conversation.
"Anything really, meat is meat."
Iris's eyes were drawn above Shiro toward something strange. She noticed dark slag running down the tall walls like candle wax. Looking upward toward where the battlements should be she noticed that there was none, smoothed and molten into by hottest of flames. In the rock, her elven eyes spotted small yellow crystals coming out of the dark grey mass of the smoothed stone between the deeper cavities which were left after someone had pulled out the larger crystals.
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Instead of a gatehouse, the cat climbed on a pile of rubble and led them through a hole as wide as two carts. Iris took an opportunity and ripped a small chunk of slag and smelled it.
Brimstone? Iris thought to herself as she rubbed the chunk of tragic past with her thumb, feeling the infernal scent burning her nostrils.
"I thought there would be more people here?" Nakatei said as they walked through the empty streets surrounded by houses in various states of ruin.
"That's because it's winter," Shiro answered, poking the shaman in her lower abdomen. "You should understand why that fact is important. There will be dozens of loud packs of youths roaming these streets in a couple of months. Also, it takes half a day of jogging to go around the first set of walls so there is no way for us to fill up all four layers."
"Why?"
"Food." Shiro responded before the sounds of everyday life pierced the howl of the wind.
While walking through what looked like the main arterial road they passed two older sheep beastmen still gripped by sleep working on dismantling a house brick by brick. The elf wondered why they were doing that until she walked through a gatehouse with its portcullis reduced to a thin line in the cobblestone which tripped Kia up.
The reason why the two beastmen were carefully dismantling the building became crystal clear to the elf as she observed the city around her. The demi-humans didn't live in shacks like the elf had imagined. They lived in stone houses once built by humans, repairing them, extending them and modifying them with the bricks taken from other houses. It made quite a strong contrast to the elf seeing beautiful arches among basic square houses with little thought of aesthetic put in them or elaborately carved window boxes once containing decorative flowers used as a storage which some beastman had filled full with cloth.
Inside the third ring, more demi-humans were doing their morning chores. Most demis didn't even look at four women but those who did gave the two undead long stares before shifting their gaze at Shiro which seemed to resolve whatever issue they had.
True to the cat's word, the city was mostly filled with beastwoman and older beastmen with an occasional child appearing here and there grooming their fur for the incoming day or tiptoeing around a hole ready to pounce.
The elf noticed that there were very few predators among the beast folk, most of the demis she spotted resembled herbivores such as sheep, rams and donkeys in various degrees although never fully resembling an animal, there was always something strange about them. Scale-like skin on one arm, horns jutting out of the spine and other such mutations always separated the demi-humans from each other even if they resembled the same animal.
"There are a lot of demis of the same sub-race in here." Iris commented.
"And?" Shiro asked.
"I don't know, seems odd. Thought demi-human settlements are packed full with different sub-races."
"That's not how we work," For a strange reason Shiro smiled in a dangerous way causing nearby sheep to take one step away from the road. "We divide ourselves for a reason. Those who can eat grass naturally clump up together in big herds or in towns like these since food is everywhere leaving those who can't eat the floor to wonder about in search of game. This city is special because it allows the likes of Nakatei and me to enter without trouble since it is where shamans of every tribe collect knowledge for the next generations and of course, there is a rule of absolutely no killing of kin in Nishimine... but the city limits have their ends." The cat hungrily licked her lips.
"So you do eat others."
"Of course. We can't waste food in the Great Plain. It's not like we eat each other every day but when we raid each other it will be a dreadful waste of perfectly good and often delicious meat if we left it to rot in the grass. I know that you find it disgusting but you can make food grow out of the ground which everyone can eat." Shiro explained sounding like she had that conversation before." Also, those balls of cotton and others like them are not innocent they too eat meat but unlike us, they don't need to." She pointed at a sheep woman busy with grooming her brown coat, dry crimson stain proving the cat's point.
"Can I eat a ball of cotton?" The petite devourer chimed in, sounding much more like she was asking for a different colour dress than about eating another being.
"No, you can't," Iris snapped before the grinning cat beside her could say a word. It didn't matter that she had become a villainous undead monster and that Kia also was technically a monster too, she couldn't allow her kitten to be corrupted by that white cat. "I will make you something delicious in the evening." She said as she too held off the devour's chin and made her look away from a ram walking on top of the roof in search of moss.
"If there is more of the prey couldn't they kill all predators?" Iris asked the cat out of curiosity. Every race from humans to elves always tries their very best to exterminate anything that can kill them and the risen couldn't understand why the different demi-human sub-races weren't the same.
"Because they are prey?" The cat shrugged as they approached another breach in the wall this time guarded by a pair of tall demi-humans.
The beastwoman on the right resembled a boar, with a brown furred ear sticking out from the side of her helmet and a mop-like tail behind. The other demi was an older male with the elongated face of a mouse with whiskers sticking out the side of his nose. The two were wearing leather armour which Iris instantly recognised to be from Havenfall from the decorative clasps indicating that the previous wearers were paladin squires.
"State your business." The hairy pig demanded.
"I'm escorting a Kitsune shaman from her village." Shiro responded, losing all the playfulness in her voice.
"Mmmmm," Iris suddenly felt everyone nearby stopping their work as the word shaman left the cat's mouth. The mouse man's small pebble eyes scanned Nakatei, who straightened her posture as much as she could. "Turn right to the temple and then talk to a shaman." He said, turning his body to the point where to go after his eyes found the heavy-looking fragmented sword the fox was clutching with her hands.