The Cat Tribe (7): Toward a Brighter Tomorrow
The Cat Tribe.
I learned it late, but among the Cat Tribe, a promise was as good as a blood oath—a vow sealed by sharing one's own blood.
It came from the harshness of the North. In a land already short on food and short on anything worth using, every resource carried rarity. Even words that left the mouth.
Northerners do not speak much. That is why, once a word is spoken, they keep it without fail.
The funny part was that this held true whether you were Cat Tribe or Northerner. It finally explained why Old Man Max had looked at me the way he had—and still, I felt wronged and thoroughly put out.
If it was that important, you could have told me sooner!
There was no way the weight of a word from a twenty-first-century modern man was ever going to match the weight of a word from a Northerner in a medieval world…
But I couldn't quite bring myself to grumble out loud. Memories belonging to this body rose unbidden through my mind, and the realization hit hard: even this flesh wasn't on my side anymore. Resentment piled up thick.
Still, I had no room to nurse a sense of betrayal.
"Grrrr… Is it true that the clan can be freed from the Heavenly Curse?"
The beastman shoved his fangs in close like a debt collector demanding payment.
Ugh, please don't come that close.
Pure physical presence alone was terrifying enough.
"I am Logwell Wintershield. As you may have heard, I am the Second Young Master of House Wintershield."
Even so, I stepped forward and forced myself to look composed. Honestly I was scared stiff, but shrinking back here wasn't going to achieve anything—and somewhere in the back of my mind, I figured that even if things went completely sideways, Darius would at least keep me in one piece.
Right, hyung?
At that moment, Arun, who had been staring at me, flicked a glance toward the rear and spoke.
"I will believe you. You keep a formidable warrior as your escort."
"The one behind me is no escort. He is my elder brother, Darius Wintershield—the Eldest Young Master of House Wintershield."
"Grrrr?"
Arun tilted his head for a second, then seemed to understand and murmured low.
"…So for your people as well, the one who fights and the one who leads are different."
For our people as well?
I cast my gaze past him in turn. There stood Yumi, looking like she had a great deal to say and yet thoroughly cowed by the eyes of the surrounding Cat Tribe.
"The First Claw possesses a talent without precedent in the history of the clan. Yet the First Claw holds both wildness and mercy."
"Wildness, and mercy?"
"Grrrr."
Arun gave a small nod.
"The First Claw does not enjoy the sight of blood."
What was this, some multinational military conglomerate's daughter joining the peace movement?
But it tracked.
Come to think of it, that was the feeling even at our first meeting.
Yumi had been the one to cross the barbed wire first, yet our Northern soldiers had charged her with murder in their eyes. Swords, maces—every vicious thing they had—swung as they rushed in, killing intent thick in the air.
Yumi had brushed all of it aside, and even her overwhelming nyang-nyang punches had only subdued our Northerners to the point of immobility. For the power she held, her nature was soft as a paw pad.
"I agree. So did you come here believing I exploited that mercy to deceive Miss Yumi?"
"Grrn. That is not it. I already know you bear us no malice, at least."
"Pardon?"
"The First Claw has the ability to distinguish malice from goodwill in another."
She had a broken ability like that?
She was basically a walking human lie detector.
"In the First Claw's eyes, the goodwill you carry was visible. Hearing that, the entire clan came here."
Is that so.
Unintended, unplanned—and yet I had landed a massive catch. The deal was so genuinely huge that power started to gather in my shoulders, and Arun spoke again.
"But the world is sometimes cold, and evil deeds are done in the name of goodwill. As the Third Claw who guards the clan, I have come myself to ask you. From long ago, humans have sought to put a collar on the wildness of our Cat Tribe. As one who leads a people, will you swear upon your name that you will demand nothing of us beyond the pact?"
Ssssss—
In that instant I felt an intangible force tighten between him and me. Even I, an ordinary man who could use neither mana nor magical power, could tell that the one before me had worked some kind of technique.
"Young Master—!"
"Hold. For now, let's trust Logwell."
Old Man Max had noticed as well and moved to intervene at once, but Darius, who had been standing with his arms folded the whole time, stopped him.
No, help me out here.
I brought you for moments like this.
I felt like the trusted axe that chops its owner's foot, but then I shook my head.
Thinking about it, it probably doesn't matter much.
I looked Arun straight in the eye. The strange phenomenon had startled me, true—but I understood well enough where his fear pointed. He worried I might use their hardship to feed my own greed.
That was a perfectly natural concern. And in truth, I was moving for my own self-interest. My self-interest—my purpose—was simply that the Northerners I ruled and led would eat well and live well.
However—
"Of course. And I do not mean to put a collar on you of the Cat Tribe. I mean to accept you as Northerners—as a new family."
Why had my proposal been the goodwill and favor they spoke of?
Because the Northerners I spoke of included the Cat Tribe as well.
They're our people!
I held out my hand and said,
"Let us go together—toward a brighter tomorrow."
This was a proposal without a single falsehood. A true one.
Perhaps he read that heart of mine. Arun took my hand and answered.
"Very well."
"With this, the pact is sealed."
The plan to bring in the Cat Tribe was a complete success.
At first I would have been grateful for a dozen or so. Instead I had managed to draw the entire Cat Tribe—hundreds strong—into the North.
Of course, light and shadow always travel together, so there were trade-offs. The immediate problem was that we had nowhere decent for them to stay.
When I was only expecting a dozen, I figured a few hanok rebuilt in a single village would be quick enough.
But at hundreds, clothing them, feeding them, and putting them to bed was work in itself. However tough the Cat Tribe might look, I couldn't dump them in a ruined village—and I couldn't scatter them anywhere either, not while the emotional gulf between them and the Northerners still ran deep.
So what choice was there?
I decided to open one of the Grand Duchy's official residences and house them there for the time being.
Truth is, this much will sort itself out with time.
Our engineer battalion's hanok construction skill was improving by the day. Civilization and technical progress had simply been slow to reach these people; it wasn't that their intelligence lagged. The engineers were tearing apart the principles of the ondol, analyzing them, and remaking them as their own at remarkable speed.
Stack that with the fact that each of them works at the efficiency of heavy machinery, and now they can throw up a single hanok in three days flat.
It was practically the speed of prefab container housing.
At any rate, while the engineer battalion rebuilt the closed-off villages, I would gather the Cat Tribe in the official residence and give both sides time to get to know one another. As part of that, I decided the first day would be a housewarming party.
"This way, this way."
Throwing a party for hundreds of Cat Tribe was no small task. But even if our house was a Grand Duchy in name only—a paper Grand Duke—the land itself was the real thing. I carved out the space somehow, got a banquet hall that could hold them all, and put enough people to work that the food was ready without running late.
And the festive atmosphere that resulted was…
"It does not look promising."
"I see it the same way."
…thoroughly wrecked.
I had gone to the trouble of opening a company dinner—sorry, a party—and the Cat Tribe were only perched on the edges of their seats, fidgeting. I had even filled the room with the subjugation force that had shared that monumental first contact with them, yet neither Northerners nor Cat Tribe could quite shake the awkward distance.
But I had expected this too.
First meetings are always awkward.
At a unit's founding dinner, everyone is stiff with each other—that's natural. You open the dinner knowing that, and after a few rounds of drinks the ice thaws fast. That's what a company dinner is for, right?
So I stood on the platform, raised a full cup first, and spoke.
"Come on, everyone, don't sit there looking awkward—fill your cups. I will offer a toast; please follow along. I will lead with We are, and all of you will answer One! We are!!!!"
"O-one!!"
"Too quiet!! We are!!!!"
"One!!!"
"Louder!!! We are!!!!"
"ONE!!!!!"
I cut a clean, sharp start.
Standing in front of that frozen atmosphere, I wanted to die of secondhand embarrassment myself—but how many times had I emceed dinners while bouncing from unit to unit? I slapped on an iron face and proposed a few more toasts, and the Cat Tribe who had been stiff at first began, one by one, to follow along.
More than that, I had a secret weapon at this gathering.
"G-grrrrng!! W-what is this, nyang?!"
"Whoa, what's wrong with this one?"
"All of a sudden… I feel good, nyang?!"
"This one's weird too!"
"You there! Pour me a cup, nyang!"
"What… me?"
"Hey now, my arm's going to fall off, nyang! How long are you going to make me wait, nyang!"
That weapon was catnip.
Mix a little into the liquor, and it didn't take long for the growling Cat Tribe to start going nyang-nyang. And the Northerners were no different.
"Ah, to hell with it. It's a dinner the Second Young Master himself opened for us. Just enjoy it!"
"Hey now, you're not half bad."
"Keheheh, you dare challenge Cotton the hard drinker with liquor? Fine. A challenge I'll take any day!"
Drinking contests at the table were a traditional sport among real men. The Northerners—handpicked from among the realest of real men—had long favored harsh distilled spirits just to survive this extreme land, and with their Second Young Master personally pouring out vast quantities of the stuff for a festival, they started competing to show off their capacity. The wariness that had been locked tight against the Cat Tribe unraveled just as fast, as if it had never been there.
Good. I would burn this body if it meant keeping this mood alive.
Tap-tap—
As our three-star Octopus General once said, the momentum of the battlefield is like wind, forest, fire, and mountain. Stand still and you are forest and mountain; move, and you must rise like fire and wind.
I burst forward from the platform and shouted,
"Second Young Master Logwell Wintershield! An individual demonstration will now commence!"
What kind of drinking party has drink without song and dance? I set my stance to show off my personal number-one specialty, saved for a moment exactly like this.
I jammed a prepared hat down on my head and bent at the waist. Then I stepped.
Ssssssk—
"W-wait? Look at that!!"
"Is that walking forward, nyang, or walking backward, nyang!"
"The footwork is different, nyang…!"
The miraculous twenty-first-century footwork that flowed forward while advancing backward left Cat Tribe and Northerner alike slack-jawed.
Thump-thump—
On top of that I rolled my hips front to back, and the whole room started dying with cries of, "What shameless bodywork is that…!"
Nice.
In an instant the atmosphere raced toward its climax. If I could land the finishing blow with my secret ultimate technique—Thomas—
Just as I prepared a scorching finale,
"Kyaaaaaaak?!"
Someone's scream cut sharp through the air.
What now?
The moment the sharp scream rang out, my mind went pure white. The phrase that flashed through my head was drinking-related accident. The warnings hammered into your brain every New Year and every promotion season shimmered right in front of my eyes.
Which bastard was it, damn it!
If someone had a few drinks in them and started spouting Northern-racist garbage and caused a scene, my Northern Grand Duke Fist would never forgive them.
But—
"…Hyung?"
"I-it wasn't me!!!"
Why was hyung over there?
Standing beside the Cat Tribe member who had screamed was none other than the original owner of this body: Darius.
Don't tell me our hyung was an actual Northern racist?
While everyone stared at Darius in shock,
"I-I can see, nyang!!!"
the Cat Tribe member who had screamed cried out again.
"I can see in front of me, nyang!!!"
What?
The banquet hall flipped upside down all over again.
The dinner I had prepared with such ambition was halted.
But that did not mean bad news. No—it was the preparation for even greater good news.
"How many of these?"
"Three, nyang!"
"What color is this?"
"Green, nyang!"
The moment a Cat Tribe member appeared who claimed to be able to see, the dinner stopped on the spot, and vision tests began at once. Counting chopsticks held up, naming the color of objects. It was inspection at the level of a basic intelligence test bordering on an IQ exam—and through it, the claim of the Cat Tribe member who said their sight had returned was proven to be no lie.
"Th-they broke free of the Heavenly Curse…?"
"Impossible…"
"So it was true…!"
And the Cat Tribe member whose sight had returned was not only one.
"I-I can see too, nyang!!!"
"Grrrrng! Me too!!!"
Out of hundreds of beastfolk, a dozen or so claimed their vision had returned. Live testing proved it was more than claims. Beastfolk who had carried gray-white retinas had, before our eyes, reclaimed the light of the world—and with that reclaimed light they grew lively, joy plain on their faces.
"Mom, Mommmmmm!!!"
"My son, my boy!!"
"Grrrng!! My daughter!!!"
Restoring their sight was not simply restoring one of the five senses. Given the Cat Tribe's nature of gradually losing vision with age, Cat Tribe who had borne children often reached a point where they could no longer see those children with their own two eyes. Other senses sharpened enough to manage daily life, but being unable to look upon one's own blood with both eyes was little different from a living separation.
And now they had been reunited.
"Thank you, nyang, thank you, nyang!!"
"Waaahhh!! Daddyyyyy!!"
"I will never forget this debt, nyang!"
It was a scene out of a family reunion. Adult Cat Tribe poured gratitude toward me without pause, while the young ones buried themselves in their parents' arms and broke into tears. Thanks to that, the dinner turned into chaos in an instant—but
Well. Not bad.
Better to have it come loose like this than stay frozen stiff. Isn't that the real charm of a dinner party?