Chapter 287
Chapter 287
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 287
Chapter Title: Dog and Wolf (12)
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A hundred years ago.
The Majin army invaded the Khan Kingdom.
The Majin, who had inherited the power of the Heavenly Demon, were formidable, and the demonic beast legion they led was vast enough to cover the wide plains.
As screams and shouts were the only things echoing through the once-peaceful kingdom.
Two wolves appeared.
Horus of the Black Mane Tribe.
And Riak of the Silver Mane Tribe.
The two wolves united the beastkin warriors and waged war against the Majin.
Thanks to the two wolves who fought more bravely than any other warrior, hope began to sprout again in the kingdom that had been on the verge of collapse.
Spirited young men, children who should have been playing, and elders who had turned their backs on the world to live in peace all joined the war.
The embers of hope kindled by Horus and Riak spread throughout the kingdom, blazing like a wildfire.
An endless war.
The Majin army, which had been confident it could topple the kingdom in a year, failed to conquer it even after five years, thanks to the efforts of the two wolves.
But eventually, they reached their limit.
The two wolves continued their desperate resistance against the Majin, but they could not defeat the Majin who wielded the power of the Heavenly Demon and the endless tide of demonic beasts.
Defeat loomed before them.
The Majin, who had suffered unexpected losses due to Horus and Riak's valor, made an offer to the two cornered wolves.
A sweet proposal: if they became their dogs, the lives of their tribes would be spared.
Riak resisted fiercely, but Horus was different.
He bowed his head at the feet of the Majin and declared his surrender.
The Majin then presented another condition to Horus.
A cruel command was given: to prove his loyalty, he must stab Riak in the back.
And so, Horus ambushed and killed Riak, his precious comrade-in-arms and his one and only friend.
No.
He *thought* he had killed him.
"...You were alive, Riak."
"Yes."
Riak gave a quiet nod.
"......"
"......"
Horus and Riak looked at each other, their eyes filled with complex emotions.
They were longtime friends, comrades who had fought back-to-back, brothers who had shared their souls.
Now, a hundred years later.
They met again.
As a dog and a wolf.
"Do you..."
Horus began, his voice trembling.
"Do you resent me?"
"......"
Riak’s jaw tightened as he bared his claws.
How could he not resent the traitor who stabbed his dearest friend in the back?
The betrayer who sold out his country?
But more than that.
He resented himself for being unable to do anything until things reached that point.
He was filled with endless regret.
The past, where he couldn't protect anything.
"I... had to protect them."
Horus's shoulders trembled slightly.
To protect his family, his children, his tribe.
He had no choice but to kneel before them.
He had no choice but to become a loyal dog.
"I know."
"Then!"
*CRUNCH!*
Horus stomped his foot violently.
"Why... why didn't you submit!"
If Riak had surrendered with him back then.
He would never have had to stab his friend in the back with his own hands.
"You knew it was a war we couldn't win!"
"Yes."
"No matter how much we struggled! We couldn't protect anyone!"
"That may be so."
"Just once! All you had to do was swallow that damn pride just once!"
If he had.
So many more of their kin would have survived.
"So why didn't you... why didn't you kneel!"
Horus glared at Riak with blazing eyes.
Before attacking Riak.
He had tried to persuade him time and time again.
He told him that continuing to fight would only lead to a dog's death.
That they had to surrender to protect their people.
But.
Riak did not yield.
He did not become a dog.
Even as countless kinsmen became cold corpses on the battlefield.
He never stopped fighting the Majin.
"Why... why didn't you become a dog... Riak."
His pride as a wolf was trampled.
But because he became a dog, the Khan Kingdom survived without falling into ruin.
Because they knelt and surrendered, the beastkin survived.
"Do you think... you were the only one who didn't want to become a dog?"
"...Horus."
Riak looked at Horus with sad eyes.
Horus bit his lip until it bled.
A hundred years.
The emotions he had suppressed in his heart for that vast expanse of time.
The words he could never bring himself to say erupted like a volcano.
"I!"
*Thump! Thump!*
He beat his chest violently with his clenched fists.
"I didn't want to become a dog either!"
He wanted to fight to the very end.
He wanted to die a proud death as a warrior.
But.
But.
But.
What about the remaining kin?
The children who had just been born into the world?
The comrades who were too wounded to even fight properly?
"Were you just going to let them all die! So you alone could remain a noble wolf!"
The emotions that had festered for a hundred years, trampled and rotten, burst out as a scream.
"......"
Riak looked at the panting Horus with deeply sunken eyes.
The cry he had repeated to himself countless times over the past century.
Those words, now flowing as a scream, tore through his heart with a piercing sharpness.
"So."
Looking at the friend who chose to become a dog to protect everyone.
Riak asked in a heavy, low voice.
"By surviving like that... what do we have left?"
Over the past week in the kingdom.
While Oh-jin's party was digging around for information.
Riak had wandered the kingdom aimlessly, taking in the daily lives of the beastkin living there.
Beastkin living with expressions of terror etched on their faces.
In a way, the beastkin living inside the kingdom lived in greater fear than the Silver Mane Tribe hiding outside its walls.
A life spent holding their breath, watching their ‘masters,’ terrified day after day.
Could that.
Truly be called survival?
"If you die... you don't even have that."
"Does living change anything?"
"......"
Horus bit his lip and lowered his head.
"I have one thing to ask you, Horus."
Riak took a step toward the downcast Horus.
"Why did you not become the 'Khan'?"
"......"
"If you truly believed the path you chose was right."
If a life of trembling in fear.
A life of being grateful for simply 'being alive' was what he truly desired.
"Why did you not take the throne?"
"That's..."
Horus's words trailed off.
*Throb.*
Riak's words became a sharp dagger, stabbing him in the chest.
As he averted his gaze, unable to find an answer.
"What are you doing?! Kill them, now!"
Kalike's sharp voice rang out.
Horus turned to look at Kalike.
He was panting heavily, seemingly struggling in his fight against the unknown human who had come with Riak.
"If you don't kill them immediately, I will activate the 'leash'!"
The leash.
It was a sacred relic fastened around his neck to prevent him from betraying them.
If the leash was activated, he would lose consciousness amidst excruciating pain.
In the worst-case scenario, he could go into shock and die.
Furthermore, the leash wasn't just on Horus.
All the members of his personal guard, those who protected and followed him most closely, wore one as well.
"...Understood."
Horus gritted his teeth and nodded.
He shouted to his royal guards, who were awaiting his command.
"Subdue the Silver Mane Tribe!"
"Yes, sir!"
Following Horus's command, his royal guards began to move.
Horus's personal guard, composed of the strongest warriors from various tribes, including the Black Mane, Red Mane, and Brown Mane tribes.
The guards, transformed into their half-beast forms, surrounded the Silver Mane Tribe.
"Grr!"
Riak rushed toward Horus's guards, but their numbers were too great to take them all down at once.
"Ugh!"
"Let go, let me go!"
Already exhausted from a fierce battle with the hundreds of Black Mane tribesmen guarding the royal castle, the Silver Mane Tribe was helplessly captured by the guards without putting up much of a fight.
"You bastards!"
Only Leoru managed to take down a few of the charging guards.
"Out of my way!"
But when Horus joined the fray, Leoru too was quickly captured.
"Ho-Horus... you...!"
"Quiet."
*SMACK!*
He brutally struck the cheek of Leoru, who was lunging at him with bared teeth.
Leoru collapsed to the ground, his head hanging low.
Horus grabbed Leoru by the neck and turned to face Riak.
"Move, and these ones are dead."
"...Horus."
Riak, who had just finished off the guards rushing him and was about to charge forward to help Leoru, froze in his tracks.
With ice-cold eyes, Riak glared at Horus, who held the Silver Mane tribesmen hostage.
"I have something I want to ask you too, Riak."
Horus continued in a heavy, low voice.
"If you weren't dead... why didn't you show yourself for a hundred years?"
"...That's."
"Where were you and what were you doing all this time, only to show up now and force your standards upon us!"
For the past hundred years.
It was Horus who had protected the kingdom that had fallen to the Majin.
"I, I... while you were gone."
Horus clenched his fists until they bled.
The Majin, who had become the rulers of the kingdom, indulged in endless luxury and pleasure, draining the treasury.
Countless beastkin starved to death, and if they displeased a Majin in the slightest, they were executed on the spot.
Children who once smiled brightly.
Youths who were once full of pride.
Elders who were once wise.
They all died, becoming mere playthings for the Majin.
"The despair I felt, having no choice but to watch it all... What do you know of it to speak so freely!"
Horus lowered his head, his face contorted.
"The despair I felt... I will make you feel that same misery."
Glaring at Riak with eyes full of hatred.
Horus slowly raised the hand that gripped Leoru's neck.
"Gah, kgh! Ugh!"
Leoru let out pained groans, struggling.
"Kneel, Riak."
Blazing eyes turned toward Riak.
"If you do not become a dog right here, right now... I will kill every last one of your remaining kin before your very eyes."
"......"
Riak's expression hardened.