Disclaimer:

“Dialogue”

‘Thoughts’

-Author notes-

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Chapter 20: Betrayal

Zephyr stared in horror and shock at the powerful being in front of him.

Most of his upper body was covered in golden fur. He looked like a massively muscular individual with a feral look and a pair of threatening orange eyes.

When he smiled, his fangs came into view, sending shivers down Zephyr's spine.

‘A Celestial Beastman! He must be the Lord of Zloria Town,’ Zephyr concluded.

His eyes moved to Dalia. She did not try to get away from the Beastman...on the contrary, she pressed her body closer to his and acted in a very submissive manner.

“Dalia… what is this?” The words escaped his mouth without his permission. He was not foolish enough to not realize it now. His friend had betrayed him and set him up to be captured.

“I'm sorry, Zeph.” She looked somewhat guilty at least. “I cannot betray my Master,” she added.

The Celestial Beastman let out a loud cackle, finding the situation very amusing.

“So you turned against your childhood friend. You are such a bad girl, Dalia.”

He wrapped an arm around her and used his massive hand to firmly grab onto one of her generous breasts, squeezing it until it almost popped out of her maid dress.

Dalia let out a moan at the sudden violent touch. “M-Master!”

“I’ll make sure to reward you tonight… but now we have a little rat to capture,” the Beastman said, his orange eyes meeting Zephyr's silver ones.

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Zephyr took a few steps back by instinct. He could not worry about Dalia's betrayal at the moment.

‘Identify,’ he thought while looking directly at the Celestial.

[????, Race: Beastman of the Golden Wolf tribe, Level: ??]

‘I can't see his level… and his information is in red letters.’

He had little experience using the ‘Identify’ spell on other living creatures, but he remembered the wolves he had previously killed were shown in white letters, and their levels were between two and three.

‘He must be too powerful to measure with my current skills.’ It seemed like a reasonable conclusion to reach.

“Oi, human!” The Beastman called for his attention. “I’ll give you a minute of head start.”

“Head start?” Zephyr did not understand what he was talking about.

“It means you have one minute to escape before I send my ‘dogs’ to hunt you down.” The Beastman gave Zephyr a toothy smile. “Don't waste it.”

He understood now. He was being treated like common prey, and he was supposed to attempt to escape to amuse this Celestial.

As much as he hated this situation, he was in no position to waste an opportunity, no matter how small.

Zephyr turned on his heels and ran back into the small forest he had used to get here in the first place.

“Dogs, come here!” The Beastman called.

Two individuals jumped over the wall, landed close to him, and knelt down. “Master,” they said together.

He pointed at the forest. “That human who was just here… I want you to hunt him for me.”

The two ‘dogs’ he had just called were, in reality, a pair of Celestial Beastmen just like himself.

However, they came from the black wolf clan, and their status was much lower than his. They were to follow all his orders and act as servants.

The Beastmen looked into the forest. There was no sign of Zephyr, and since they had been on the other side of the wall during their conversation, they never got a chance to see what Zephyr looked like.

But this was no problem for them. Their acute sense of smell allowed them to pick up Zephyr's scent very easily since he had been there just a moment ago.

“What shall we do with the prey?” One of them asked. He already found the direction Zephyr had run to.

“Do we kill it?” The other one added.

“Normally, the sentence for his crime would be death,” the leader said.

“But this particular awakened human has an interesting appearance. His silver hair and eyes are something I have never seen before in one of those lowly creatures. So I want you to capture him alive and bring him to me.”

“It shall be done.” “Leave it to us, Master.” The two black-haired beastmen took off into the forest.

“Mmm… I'm sure that old elf will be interested in this human. He is always looking for peculiar specimens for his experiments,” the Beastman said.

Dalia looked up at her Master, and for a moment, it looked like she wanted to say something, but eventually decided against speaking.

The Beastman was very sharp and noticed this.

“Something you want to say, dear?” His hand was still grasping her breast, so he gave it a good squeeze, making the girl yelp in pain.

“N-no, Master… I live to serve.”

“You do. And don't you ever forget that. Let's go inside and wait for my dogs to return with your little friend.” He then picked up the girl on his shoulder and jumped over the wall with absolute ease.

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Meanwhile, Zephyr had been running non-stop.

He was close to the forest exit when he heard some noises behind him.

[Hostile presence detected]

He looked back and spotted two black shadows jumping across the tree branches with tremendous speed and agility.

“Identify!” He tried to gather information on his pursuers.

[????, Beastman of the black wolf tribe, Level 9] [????, Beastman of the black wolf tribe, Level 10]