“Humans?,” Lunus exclaimed.
The two girls inside the cage clung and hugged each other as their body shook in fear like a scared rabbit. One of the girls or maybe both of them had probably pissed as he could clearly sense the strong stench of urine.
“M-Monster! An undead!!! We are doomed, Mina! Big sis Hilda must be dead already! I don’t want to die unmarried like this!,” the one with cherry-pink short hair cried as she buried her face between the big breast of her friend.
“I’m also scared, Cheri! And I’ve already wet my pants! What should I do? What should I do?,” The curvy blonde hair girl closed her face with her hands while twisting nervously.
“Wait, you wet your pants!? No wonder why my thigh feels hot and stinky…”
“I-It can’t be helped!!! Besides, won’t it think like I’m dirty this way and chooses to leave me alone?”
“But, doesn’t undead just kill lives because they hate living things?”
“Then, are we already doomed?”
“We are already doomed.”
““Nooooo, I don’t want to die like thisssss!!!,”” they cried like a baby, clinging to each other.
Seeing such a pitiable scene, Lunus’ vine mouth opened wide in shock as the flame in his hollow eyes grew smaller.
What is this mess!, he screamed in his mind.
His vine that had lifted the covering cloth up slowly closed it back down as the screaming sounds of the girls inside got slowly deafened.
“Master! Master! What should we do? Should we kill them right here? They are also intruder, right? Right?,” the rabbit asked.
Lunus who was still in shock was snapped back to reality due to his follower’s scary idea.
“No, we won’t do that. They are also preys of the green warts like us, so we’d better release them. They might have their good reason to be captured here, but sadly… we can’t talk to them.”
Even though Lunus could talk with plants and beasts like his lord does, he couldn’t communicate with humans since he couldn’t actually speak. What he could do was using his [Mind link] to communicate, but it had a limit that allowed him to talk to only plants, small beasts, and herbivores.
Of course, humans were not included in the list.
As such, he couldn’t talk to the girls or ask them questions. And he didn’t want to kill them with no reason either since his main objective right now was annihilating the goblins. If these girls were here to kill or investigate the goblins as he did, then he didn’t mind to let them live.
Since human was a curious race in nature, he believed that it was possible for them to start investigating this forest if something especially odd was to happen. And if they were to bare their fangs at the goblins, he didn’t want to be in there way.
“Let’s bring the cage back to our gathering point as it is. We will release them later.”
“Aye aye, sir!,”
The rabbit stood on two feet to show its acknowledgment before hopping back to the gathering point to ask for help in dragging the cage back.
Seeing that, Lunus wanted to let out a sigh, but he couldn’t since he didn’t actually have a lung. His eyes followed the rabbit until it disappeared into the crowd of the forest protectors.
“I’ve got more reliable followers than I initially thought. I wonder if I can actually push them to their highest limit…,” he pondered.
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Lunus threw some leftover food of the goblins and a ragged cloth around there into the cage. The girls must be treated poorly by the goblins, so it was possible that they were starving. And they must need the cloth to wipe their face and the pool of their stinky urine.
Making sure that he had provided them with every necessary thing, he turned on his heel, leaving the wrapped cage and the crying girls behind for his men to transport them back.
As he walked back to the gathering point, he realized that his men had done their jobs well while he went inspecting the cage.
The bones were already arranged and more than half of them had been stored in his men’s abdomen. The goblin corpses were all checked and piled into a mountain. And the corpses of beasts hunted and eaten last night by the goblins were also gathered per Lunus’ order.
“...There seem to be more corpses than what we found last night. Damn the green warts! Just how many more beasts do they want to slaughter before their bottomless greed will be fulfilled?,” he grunted.
Looking at the gathered corpses, most of them still had had their head attached. That was a good news since Lunus could still make them into a forest protector if at least their skull was in a perfect shape.
Lunus didn’t know this but the reason was due to Gugaga was busy with his “new toy” last night, so he didn’t want to spend his precious time playing around with the captured beasts.
However, what made Lunus became tense the most was the headcount of the corpses.
“This time there are more than 200 of them… If this thing is to happen every day then...” he groaned, scratching the ground to ease his mind that became down all of sudden.
In this camp, they had found the corpses of 12 saddled horses, a family of bears, a herd of mountain goats, a big flock of birds, and some other animals. They numbered between 200 and 300 in total.
“Master, also, human corpses,” the bulls’ leader reported.
Lunus looked at a distant corner. Lied there were ten bodies of humans. Nine of them were male and they wore a set of leather armor that was full of cut and holes from a fierce battle. And the other one was a naked female that they found under the collapsed tent.
“...Hilda?,” a name slipped out from Lunus.
“Master know this one?,” the bull asked.
“Ah, no. Mmm, where did I hear this name, I wonder?”
Lunus was lost in his thought. As the rabbit who was a little further away and was preparing the transporting team for the cage saw that, it poked its tiny head out from among the crowd.
“I think! I think it’s a name that the humans in the cage spoke out, master!”
“I see, so those humans and this one are acquainted.”
Lunus turned his face at the body of the girl as he inspected her. Her body was full of wounds from being tortured. There was even a black and blue mark from being squeezed to death on her neck and her body was dirtied by a certain nasty fluid. But her face and shape still look good as a female human.
Although her limbs were muscular due to her ways of life, her delicate face and her chestnut-brown hair were so beautiful that they could even charm Lunus who wasn’t even a member of the human race.
“...Let’s make them a funeral,” said Lunus.
“Funeral?,” the bull asked curiously.
“I heard that it’s a human ritual for the dead.”
“Master, why for intruders?”
“I don’t know. I just feel sympathize for their poor fortune. And also…”
He looked back at the girl.
“...she reminds me of someone I know.”
“If you wish, master.”
Lunus took a short walk and picked up a ragged cloth to clean the girl’s corpse. He rearranged her hairs to get rid of the mess and then covered her naked body with pieces of clothes.
It seemed the simple-minded bull could read the mood as he kept silent all along and behaved as a good observer.
When Lunus was done with his business, he turned toward the bull as he gave him an order.
“Please use your power to dig 10 holes that can put these bodies into. I will go wake up our new comrades, so make it finish before the caged human arrives. Oh, and if it tends to take you too long, you can ask your men for help.”
Just like that, Lunus left the bull to deal with his assigned job as he walked toward the place where the corpses of beasts were gathered.
Long vines extended from his back like a pair of wings as a spring breeze blew thousands of tiny white petals into the air. Glowing berries quickly grew in the places of the fallen flowers as Lunus flapped his vine wings and threw the berries into the air.
The white petals flew past Lunus’ eyes as they reminded him of an event that happened in the long past.
“I wonder…, what is that girl’s name again?”
Lunus was lost in his past memories as he witnessed the rebirth of his new comrades. Vines sprouted and quickly grew in front of him as they assumed the shapes of big and small beasts.