A wild roar rang through the battlefield. The druid produced it, and his skill made it so that the closer the enemies were to the source of the shout, the more they would cower in fear. This even affected his allies. Still, everyone in the vanguard knew him and expected nothing less from their sellsword associate. Thus they braced themselves.

As the wolf-kin teen's whole troop was slowly pushed back, Marisia tried to analyze the entire front, 'This is what we want.... come on, a little more.'

The leader of the beast-kin troop was in the middle of her army, riding her war-boar, which she brought from the estate, and tried to coordinate the flanks. Their feint retreat worked as they had planned.

She yelled in the common tongue, which humans could understand, "Retreat slowly! They are too strong!"

There were only some random words for the beast-kin sellswords that signaled the plan's next step.

For this plan, they needed to get the humans overconfident, so her command was loud, and everyone needed to repeat it, so the enemy could hear it.

The first part was done, and she needed to start the second one, "Get the avian-kin ready!"

Some pigeon-kin, raven-kin, and Swan-kin flew lightly into the air so enemy troops could see them and started plastering them with arrows preemptively.

Luckily all of them avoided the avalanche of arrows since they were prepared to just bait them enough so they would get more overconfident, 'Good, now don't die on me... a little more. I know you want us, come on...'

They came closer and closer, and luckily they didn't commit enough to rush them and surprise their vanguard but were advancing slowly. Marisia could see how their formation in the back became looser, 'Good, now or never before their general fix it.'

She saw how her sellsword druid was getting pushed back, but a smile emerged over her face as she yelled, in the beast-kin dialect, which sounded like a different language, "KAIRO GO!" she continued with, "SLAUGHTER ALL OF THOSE ABOMINATIONS!"

A roar exploded on the battlefield, like some bomb went off, and stunned the front. The human soldiers, who stood before the druid in his bear form, were scared shitless and imagined that the bear had become twice his size and more monstrous than before.

Behind the enemies came the rest of Marisia's troops from the forest, as she had planned with the druid.

From the forests on the sides came the warriors, trying to surround them. They charged at them, ready to earn their coin.

The humans pushed far into them, and they became bold. Their confidence was detrimental, even for their general, as their rear broke down before their ambush, and he, the human general, did nothing to fix it.

She could see how the middle of their troops panicked, not knowing where to turn. A vicious smile was on her face; she wanted nothing more than to jump into their forces and start slaughtering them all. She held luckily back as this whole campaign should be educational for her.

Because of the human's overzealous leader, they thought that all they needed to do, was push and slaughter them, but that was not the case. Usually, such an easy tactic, the beast-kin performed, would be instantly seen through, as they had possibly scouts in the forest.

This was counteracted as stealthy sub-races went long before the battle and killed them off the instant when the fight started.

Mole-kin tunneling under the earth, hiding their colleagues, and feline-kin who sneaked even in the night before. They all stayed hidden till the battle started and then picked through their scouts one by one, like picking food out of their teeth and then sneaking their troops inside the forest, which were positioned outside.

Marisia was solemn, looking over the battlefield as all the mercenaries stormed from behind the enemy's flanks - starting with their slaughter.

As they connected, Marisia could smell the fear and panic in the air from the humans and the ferociousness and bloodlust of her kin.

She heard Kairoso giving his commands, even though he had no say in the hierarchical sense. They would rather have him in control than her.

There was no problem for her since this whole expedition was a farce in the first place, plotted by her parents who broke their own code of conduct which the Leonandra's followed for centuries and oriented themselves, generation after generation.

Usually, the Leonandra's are neutral and never involved themselves in conflict with other territories since they defended the east. It was suicide to split their forces for something like this.

Furthermore, they wanted to send her older sister, who was not even a fighter, to the battlefield, but Marisia jumped in and took the position away. It should look like some internal conflict through competition for the noble title, but she didn't care for it, like her sister. All she wanted was to protect her by jumping into this nonsense.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the druid motivating the troop, "YOU BASTARDS, IF YOU WANT SOMETHING TO EAT, HERE IS YOUR PREY, GUHAHAHAHA!"

As he screamed while mutilating the enemies in droves, all the enemy's fear and panic rose to extreme levels. They tried to break through to their back but could barely do it and lost a big chunk of their uncoordinated troops, and were intercepted by their charging sellswords.

They lost, and the skirmish was over. The mercenaries screamed in victory like they were possessed by demons and plundered the corpses.

Marisia rode on her boar to Kairoso and asked him in confusion, "I hope you will not eat humans - you know our ancestral ties are basically the same as other races, right?"

Kairoso started licking the blood from his paw and looked at her, grinning widely, "I just wanted to scare them, gehe hehe."

Marisia frowned, "You know... I would believe you if you would not lick the blood from your fur."

The bear's face started to frown, almost looking cute, were it not for the pieces of human and blood on him, "You know how hard it is to clean dry blood from my fur?!"

Marisia turned around and slightly chuckled and started to coordinate the clean-up and build a forward base.

...

Later at the encampment

"GUHAHAHAHA Did you see the faces of them? We are unstoppable!"

Everybody in the tent screamed at the same time while heaving their beer in the air, "WOOOOOOOH!"

Since he was at the frontline, they could push and push, and even if the humans could slightly encircle them, the beast-kin push was fast and ferocious.

It was the fourth win, and they came closer to backing them into a corner.

They built up a cavalry after stealing horses, and then, at last, the support from her family came: twenty fine war boars in armor. They were strong and could drill like an arrow into their formation, splitting them and ending their lives.

With this, they could get the territory back soon enough and then start their defense if they wanted to contest the region.

But Kairoso was nervous as the humans acted like little puppies like they learned for the first time what war actually was. They didn't build trenches, no assassination attempts, no spies, nothing.

He stood up, leaving the party as he wanted to discuss it with the general. Even though she was young, she saw the bigger picture. In his opinion, noble pride always came in the way of a good win, which was the most important thing for him. Besides coin, naturally.

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From his side came a small, high-pitched voice, slurping on his ale, with a scrunched-up face, "Master, where are you going?"

Kairo turned his head and answered the small fox-kin nonchalantly, "I need to talk to someone, so sit here and enjoy your time."

The fox-kin stared back at his ale, trying to take a sip, and nodded.

As he went to the general's tent, he thought about how it came that he now had someone to take care of, 'Urgh, I saved him a couple of months ago from some slave handlers who were traveling through Moorgrel. Since he was so young, even without his legacy, he had no choice but to take him in. He shrugged inwardly, 'Since I also needed some assistance, why not? My clothes don't clean themselves.'

The druid was starting to like him, 'He is somewhat clingy, but it will be better, hopefully, in the future...'

He thought about how he found him bloody and abused, which made him angry, 'But since he was tortured and raped by those bastards, I don't blame him for his behavior. The fuckers didn't deserve such a quick death. I was too nice for them.'

His mercenary group wasn't the only one walking through the camp celebrating their consecutive wins.

"Yohoo! Cmon baby, I am a hero! I killed some of those humans. Give me some love!"

"I am a guy, you old bastard."

"Never mind that! What cute is cute? What do you say?"

"Urgh, go away before I slit your throat!"

"Give me some real Ale! This is nothing, but water-shit is!"

"Shut up, you fucker! Do you dogs even know what good stuff is?"

"How do you call me, you damn pet?!"

"God, these herbs are excellent. Where..." a beast-kin exhaled purple smoke, "...did you get them?"

"Remember the human caravan a week ago?"

"Damn, these bastards have some good stuff."

Drugs, sex, aggressions, etc., after a good fight, they needed to calm down, even though veterans are calmer, especially beast-kin, who are more ferocious by nature than other races.

They also have a node inside their chest where all the stress accumulates. At every moment, some stray arrow could ram into your head, ending your life. They couldn't relax even though they won, knowing the next battle was approaching.

There was a good relief: Coin and a lot of it. Marisia paid a lot, like a shit ton, and the longer it went, the more they would receive, also depending on the contribution, obviously too.

After it was done, some of his colleagues could buy a lovely house in some village and start farming with their families. Few would do so.

Everyone who was in this business was fairly fucked up. Addicts, maniacs, or psychos, Kairoso included, 'This damn bloodline calmed down at least.'

He came out of his thoughts as he stood before the general's tent. He greeted guards who recognized him and didn't see any need to inspect or do anything.

The experienced mercenary shook his head, 'How sloppy. I could be bought off and want to kill her.'

Walking inside the tent, the second in command saw Ms. General leaning on a table and looking at the map, with her servant, a swan-kin, on her left.

The bird-kin glanced at the druid angrily and scrunched her eyes, "What do you want?!"

He clicked his tongue. Somewhere else, and he would break her pretty white wings, "Nothing, I just need to talk to the General."

The general raised her head solemnly and looked at him, like always, her eyes void of emotions, "Fine. Saly, leave us alone."

Salyna walked beside the mercenary out of the tent and threw a dangerous glance toward him before leaving, clearly showing disgust, 'Calm down... Kai, no need to rip her head off.'

As her retainer left, the general kept staring at him without saying a single word. An icy atmosphere was inside the tent, like always, but something changed, 'Is it more... welcome than usual?'

He could feel the ice-cold grip on his balls, but there was a little warmer, which he could discern, 'We won, so it makes sense.'

At this point, the druid had another plan. This damn war is already going on for more than two months, and even though his colleagues get paid very well, the morale will decline the longer it goes on.

Usually, such contracts are short-term, but this was not the case, and the little noble-lady needed to celebrate with them. There were no ulterior motives, but she needed to interact with her forces besides giving commands, so they could have a friendly face to the voice which commanded them to slaughter the enemy troops.

He stretched his head which made a cracking sound, and a smile emerged on his face, "You need to party with your troops, General."

She tilted her head and opened and closed her mouth several times, but no sound came out. She was baffled by what the druid wanted.

He walked over to her and started teaching her, seeing some potential, "I know, I know, how disrespectful of me, but listen, you are the General, and if you want that the moral stays high, you need to come out and celebrate with us and show yourself."

Her eyes became ice-cold as her voice, "You know, I need to plan for the following battles. You can not be ser..."

He rudely cut her off, "Doesn't matter. One loss is enough, and your planning is for naught as the moral will barely hold."

Her eyes slowly switched from golden to red, and her voice became more serious, "Leave, or I will make sure..."

The druid instantly raised his hands in a show of peace and turned his heel, "Sure, sure, but be careful what a child of a knightage says to a druid of the temple. Not even the count can touch us, Guhahaha!"

Out of the tent, he could hear a bang, and how something cracked inside the tent, "GUHAHAHAHA!"

...

Days later, on the battlefield

Raging through crowds of human soldiers was a giant bear. All the druid could think about was slaughter: 'There is no end to this madness!'

ROAR!

Swiping his giant bear paw, ripping into some soldier, and biting another one into the shoulder, ripping it away and spitting the cheap armor towards another to distract him, as one of his vanguards used this moment to cut his arm off.

The bloodthirsty bear was tired. His bloodlust was reaching its end, and he was very amazed that something like this was possible and that he could kill too many.

Their army saw no end as the enemies were much more numerous than usual since they fought for more than three hours, and he could see from his peripheral vision how their right flank crumbled, and their cavalry couldn't flick it anymore. The war boars were tired and wanted nothing more than just to flop down and sleep.

The avian-kins also couldn't fly anymore since the enemy archers somehow became insanely good and shot them down almost instantly.

As he took another one of those soldiers with a swipe, he panicked inwardly, 'This is shit! Why do they suddenly have so much god damn cannon fodders! For every real soldier I killed, I needed to go through at least four meat shields who were just some goddamn farmers at best!'

ROAAAAAAR!

As the druid let out his frustration with a booming roar, he went on all four and rushed towards the enemy frontline, trying to spearhead it, "PROTECT MY REAR, YOU BASTARDS!"

As he rushed in, roots started to appear, which grew on his sides, entangling the enemy troops and trying to split them up. This mystic skill cost him almost all of his mana, not that there was much left, but he could barely hold his energy upright anyway, only focusing it on the most vital parts of his body as protection, 'Shit shit shit! If we retreat now, they will gain much more ground through their numerical advantage, and it will cost us more time and more battles to gain it back, and who knows how much more aid they will get after that?!'

Rushing through enemy troops, he soon crashed into a giant shield. He couldn't break through anymore. Perfect for him since he basically only functioned at this point. There were no clever ideas anymore, only pure slaughter.

Standing up, he soon found himself surrounded from three sides. Only the rear had his back, and they tried to rush inside, breaking up their formation, 'This is risky, but fuck it!'

Wedge formations were always dangerous, and the way someone could only do it was with really robust tanks. Luckily, he was really, really robust.

ROAAAAAR!

The slaughter started anew. For every seven the beast-kin killed, one of them died, which was really bad as they couldn't as quickly replenish their numbers.

Most of the enemy were no soldiers, so it was a nonsensical slaughter, even for the rather bloodthirsty and rough druid, who also disliked killing poor plebians who were forced to fight, "FUCK!"

Like a wolf inside of a flock of sheep, he slaughtered everything he came into contact with. Roots entangled and strangled others, while the smaller ones encroached inside of others, ripping their insides with the thorns. The hate towards the enemy general burned his last bit of stamina away. The only reason he could stand was that rage he felt.

He thought, 'why did they start now throwing their fucking peasants into these fights?! Obviously, they are on the losing side, but this will deteriorate their morale... they are playing on time and are waiting for reinforcements...'

They slowly dwindled them down enough so they retreated before the beast-kin could divide their formation and take a big chunk out of them.

From behind came our general's screams, "Switch positions, formation two and three! Reserve Stamina and slaughter the rest of those filthy pets!"

He thought, 'Not bad,' she was getting better after some skirmishes in commanding, but she was too much of a stuck-up noble in his opinion, but a good-looking one, though. The sellsword was tired beyond belief, but one could appreciate beauty even when covered in blood.

The fights were getting easier. The enemy general is clearly some child of a noble, without any guidance, and only here for the same reason as the Leonandra's, 'Is this what master told me? Nobles are scum, and was he right? Well, he also said that excrement is really delicious, so I should take it with a pinch of salt as he was a treant.'

Marisia's army of sellswords was already almost at the front of the town, which had been conquered by the humans. They probably took the fellow beast-kin and already shipped them away.

Usually, they are used as slaves after they cut their tails, ears, etc., off and used as ingredients for some weird alchemical solutions.

The only reason they could be enslaved in the first place was that they had a very tribalistic society, every sub-race had their own little territory, but after humans, dwarves, and gnomes built up a giant alliance and saw worth in them as alchemical ingredients and slaves, they were quickly conquered.

Only after thousands of years could they reclaim their freedom, and slavery or forced subordination was now a very touchy subject in their empire.

As the fight was coming to an end and the enemy retreated entirely, Kairoso could see the town and became touchy as he saw a church, 'This motherfuckers either destroyed the temple and built the church there, or they just repurposed the temple.'

Inside the village stood a barely visible church, but anyone could see that it was hastily built. The druid mumbled to himself, "This will be annoying..."

Before he could think further, a somewhat small mole-kin screamed from the side, with a high-pitched voice, "WHAT ARE YOUR COMMANDS!"

Kairoso jumped to the side, slightly surprised, "By the circle, Mat, can you not always scream like this! Do the fucking same as always! Ditches and tell the couple treants to build a small palisade. Also, make a couple of traps in the forests. Also..."

Before Kairo could continue with his commands, from the side came a war boar. Sitting on it, the general, who had a smile on her face, surprisingly.

She jumped down gracefully and landed beside Kairoso, nodding toward him. She looked around and yelled, "Everyone who is not wounded, gather the injured towards the healer! Also, take the corpses from our kin and inform me who died honorably in the battle! I will compensate their families well!"

Kairoso had a knowing smile, 'Hoh, she became more open? Usually, her bird does the calls for her.'

Kairoso waited for her commands to end. While he could continue and scream over her, he wanted to encourage her.

She turned towards the druid, "Continue with your command, don't worry, your experience is much appreciated, and I will also provide an appropriate monetary reward... also, pl..." she stopped herself and coughed into her fist, "...choose some scouts and look around."

Kairoso grinned widely and continued his commands, 'Now she got the hang of it!'

...

At the general tent, Marisia was leaning back and holding her forehead, feeling absolute disdain for what had happened today.

She won, and it was one thing to kill soldiers, but the farmers they found, which were used as meat shields, turned her stomach, and her mood swang, 'Disgusting bastard. Something like this is allowed to command and rule over others?!'

Salyna was beside her and could feel her master's killing intent leaking out and shivered slightly but remained silent. She understood her very well.

Marisia S. Leonandra is a noble, born, raised, and as such, she conducts herself to the best of her abilities. Her manners and her whole being is trimmed by her mother. Since she got her legacy, this wolf-kin went one step beyond.

In her opinion, someone who wants to rule needs subjects. Otherwise, you are not a ruler. Usually, nobles see their subjects as pawns, used by them however they want, like her too, but she also sees them as something which gives her the power to be a noble.

To say it lightly, such a mindset is a little unusual, and she has already got criticized by her family and other nobles while visiting some gatherings. Nonetheless, she never moved away from her position and saw her duty to reign over peasants, but she also needed, no, wanted to get their support.

As she sat there, she suddenly sniffed the air and frowned, knowing who was coming. Her tail waved violently, like wanting to diffuse the smell.

As Salyna observed her, she saw a small smile and a glint in her eyes, both barely visibly. She frowned, 'Oh no... please don't tell me you like this barbarian?!'

The druid came in and was surprised to see the noble already with her typical resting bitchface, even after so many consecutive wins, 'Did someone kill her parents and trample on the grave of her ancestors? She looks like she is ready to behead every child in the empire.'

As he came in, two others came in, chameleon-kins with bulged eyes, a reptilian tail, and barely any clothes, and their skin blended into their environment, changing color as they moved.

They were the perfect scouts for information gathering because of their sub-race skills, and if they had a good legacy, they would be invaluable.

They saluted while Kairo stepped forward, frowning, "I don't know if it is bad or good news..." he exhaled strongly, looking angry, "...there are around two hundred beast-kin inside the town, and they are probably the previous villagers."