Chapter 110: Assimilation
Chapter 110: Assimilation
Because the Black Hand Clan had a small population, every member was trained as either a soldier or a technician.
Art was acknowledged only as a hobby, and becoming a professional artist was forbidden.
For menial work, they relied on servants, maids, and slaves from other races. Their distrust of humans ran so deep that all of those workers were beastkin.
"This is the communal dining hall. Everyone eats here except on special occasions. They said they'll open additional halls once the resident population grows."
The werewolf young lady who was guiding Cassandra and her subordinates bowed politely.
She had been orphaned by war and taken in by the tribe. The clan valued trust, so it preferred to adopt children with nowhere else to turn, raise them, and later employ them.
Dog and wolf beastkin were valued especially highly because their peoples were known for strong loyalty and excellent physical ability.
"Are the seats assigned?"
"Nothing like that. The Castle Lord banned assigned seats because they could easily turn into territorial behavior by old-timers. Sit wherever you like."
"Rather meticulous, isn't he? A noble who pays attention to such trivial details is rare."
"He is the sort of lord who even considers the feelings of lowly folk like us."
"Hmm."
Cassandra took a strand of her side hair and twisted it around her finger.
She would learn soon enough, but every resident had spoken with Eugene at least once, even if it was only a greeting in passing.
Since the head count was still small and they all rubbed shoulders in a confined space, Eugene made an effort to remember and call people by name whenever possible.
To Eugene it was a small courtesy, but to them it meant a great deal.
He was the strongest knight they had ever seen, a special lord chosen by a legendary castle. Yet a man like that still treated each of them as an individual.
"Well now, the lord here knows his business."
The warrior women touched the tapestries and handcrafted works adorning the dining hall walls.
Every corner was decorated with traditional dark elf ornaments. Because of this, even though it was their first visit, they felt a cozy ease as if they had come home.
Twitch, twitch.
The nose of the werewolf lady guiding them moved cutely. With her keen sense of smell, she was responding to the aroma wafting from the kitchen.
"The scent is lovely."
"A special dish the Castle Lord created to celebrate the rescue and arrival of your hundred-man unit is being served today."
"You're not joking? Really?"
"How could I dare lie to you, Lady Cassandra?"
This went beyond what one could call a meticulous noble. The reason the chieftain, the elders, Rex, and the other warriors had assimilated so quickly was surely not due solely to military might or the castle.
"So, what is the name of this dish?"
"It is called a hamburger."
"I've never heard of it."
"The Castle Lord said you may look forward to it."
There were several serving windows and the food came wrapped in large green leaves. Thanks to that, they were able to receive their portions quickly.
"My lady! Thank goodness you returned safely."
"Granny, you're here too?"
Between the familiar decorations and the familiar faces she kept seeing, Cassandra hardly felt like a stranger in the castle.
The cooks beyond the serving counter were all dark elves.
-What we eat and drink we make with our own hands, without fail.
That was an iron rule of the clan. Anyone outside the tribe, no matter how long they had served, might still be bribed.
"But why are they all bundled up so tightly?"
The old woman beyond the counter wore an apron, a headscarf, and even a mask.
"It is the Castle Lord's policy. He says one cough from us could reduce the fighting strength of dozens of people. I do not fully understand it, but if he says it is so, I am sure he is right."
"..."
The Castle Lord gave them a refuge from the foretold destruction, but the bond between him and the mercenaries had already grown beyond that. It had become trust.
From warriors to servants and maids to the elders of the tribe, the knight's influence had reached into every corner of clan life.
"This would be convenient to carry when we detach from the main force for a while on a scouting mission, wouldn't it?"
Cassandra looked at the hamburger, neatly wrapped and resting in one hand, and spoke.
"The Castle Lord also said he plans to issue these to scouts as field rations. Serving them to you today is partly to gather feedback."
Cassandra and her subordinates took their hamburgers to a table and, hearts beating with anticipation, unwrapped the leaves.
WHOOSH!
At once, their nostrils flared helplessly at the scent of freshly baked bread that rose as if to blanket their faces. Everyone lifted their hamburgers in both hands and took a bite.
CRUNCH!
"...!"
"...!"
The soft buns were rich and savory, while juices ran from the meat patties. The strong aroma of melted cheese and the crisp freshness of the vegetables competed in harmony. Then came the burst of sweet-and-sour ketchup, followed by barbecue sauce made with honey and soy sauce.
"Whoa, do people here eat like this all the time?"
"She said it was a special dish. It won't be every day."
Meals in this era were monotonous.
Even for dark elves, who ate comparatively well, a meal meant piling up a few basic types of food — grilled meat, fruit, bread, dairy — and eating them as they were.
When active outside, even that was limited to hard jerky or dried fruit.
Even stew easily became a hodgepodge that prioritized filling stomachs and convenience over taste.
Bread, meat, vegetables, cheese, sauce—ingredients from entirely different domains all working together to create one flavor.
It showed the warrior women a kind of pleasure they had never known existed.
Everyone fell silent. Pink tongues kept darting out as they savored every trace of sauce and filling.
Eugene was eating with Rex at a spot a little removed, observing the new family members.
"I'm glad they seem to be settling in better than expected. I was worried because they came from the opposition faction."
"Sir Knight, Cassandra is the most politically calculating person in our tribe."
"You mean she's the type to switch sides easily?"
"Absolutely. Right now Cassandra's head will be filled with thoughts of how to grow her influence within this castle."
"She must be extremely ambitious. I got that impression from the moment we met."
"Mm..."
After hesitating briefly, Rex carefully opened his mouth.
"To be honest, the tribe had intended to use her as a bridge to strengthen our relationship with you."
"Even now I trust you people more than anyone in the world."
"You can keep saying nice things, but you will not get anything extra out of us, you know."
Contrary to his words, Rex and the tribe warriors were all beaming broadly.
"In any case, the elders are ever full of worry. Talk of a political marriage came up quite persistently."
"And that candidate was Cassandra?"
"Yes. She carries two noble bloodlines in one body. She is beautiful and an excellent warrior herself, so the elders expected strong heirs."
"...I honestly had no idea that such talk had been going around."
At times like this, Eugene felt keenly that he was a noble before he was a knight. As his power and fame rose, what always increased was talk of marriage proposals.
"Even now, quite a few elders seriously want to pursue it. They want a firm guarantee."
"The nobles who proposed marriage into your house and were rejected must be furious."
If it happened, it would be recorded as the first union between the Black Hand House and a human noble house.
"Actually, the one who was angriest about it was Cassandra."
"That's understandable."
The way she had vented her anger on the human mercenaries, including Jerico, had not been born of simple grudge alone.
It had been thickly steeped in contempt and loathing for the human species itself.
"A political marriage with a human-hater, then."
"That is why it gave the chieftain such a headache. There was no better bride than Cassandra for joining the two houses."
Eugene, stroking his chin, tossed out a remark offhandedly.
"If it comes to that, I wouldn't mind if the chieftain herself stepped forward. I've heard she has no husband."
"What?!"
"Cough!"
At the unexpected remark, Rex, Haind, and the nearby tribal warriors were aghast. Some of them choked and coughed violently.
"Don't take it too seriously. It was half in jest."
Eugene grinned cheerfully at his subordinates' reactions.
"Which means the other half was serious. She is more than twice your age, Sir Knight!"
"Even when I'm an old man, she'll still look younger than me, won't she?"
"That is true, however..."
In a sense, it was a joke aimed at the family's supreme leader, but no one took offense. They had long since moved past that stage.
Of course, if a human noble had uttered such words, blades would have been drawn immediately.
Sufficient time had been given for the new family members to settle in. It was about the right moment to begin a tour of the castle.
But Eugene received a report that Cassandra and the Decurions were training in the gymnasium.
"They could afford to rest a while longer."
Eugene looked almost appalled at the sight of the warrior women already exercising in groups across the clean floor.
"A warrior grows dull if they go even one day without moving their body."
Cassandra approached and gave a slight bow.
"I'm relieved to see no one appears particularly injured."
"We saw little direct fighting. What built up was fatigue and hunger, and a day or two of good food and sleep will take care of that."
Eugene sensed that Cassandra's tone and manner of speaking had changed.
When he had first met her at the temple, she had overflowed with nothing but pride and self-assurance, but now something subtly different was mixed in.
"The exercise methods you taught the tribe, Lord, have proven especially useful to us."
The warrior women were doing bodyweight exercises throughout the room, working their muscles.
"There is also a separate training room for weapons, so please make free use of it."
"Yes. We have already been told the location. However, we are primarily tasked with rough-terrain reconnaissance, infiltration, and special guerrilla warfare rather than direct combat."
Where Cassandra pointed, women were loosening up in the strange, traditional postures of the tribe.
"Our usual training focuses on strengthening stamina and developing agility and a sense of balance."
'As I thought, it really does feel more like yoga or Pilates.'
Exercises to increase the range of joint motion and enhance muscle flexibility. Much of this was similar to what Eugene knew. A case of convergent evolution, in other words.
"For we can scale even sheer rock faces with just a single dagger."
"I heard about how your unit scaled the rear of a castle built on a coastal cliff and captured it that way."
"You mean the Battle of Dweir Castle. It is the pride of our unit."
Cassandra puffed out her chest with a satisfied look.
"Do you happen to know of something called climbing?"
"I have never heard of it. What is climbing?"
Seeing Cassandra tilt her head in curiosity, Eugene formed a plan to renovate the gymnasium.
Rock-climbing training equipment would probably delight these women.
As he observed the various stretches—shoulder stands, prostrating poses, leg splits—Eugene suddenly realized something.
'They truly are a different species from humans.'
The exposed soles of the stretching young women's feet. Long, neatly lined toes.
Their color was identical to the skin of their limbs and necks. Pale brown, dark brown, blue-gray, silver-gray, pale violet, and rarely, a black like onyx.
In contrast, human hands and feet were white even in darker-skinned individuals, due to the keratinous skin layer which was hard for pigment to penetrate.
They were all casually lumped together as demihumans, but details like this made it clear they were separate species, with a gulf wider than the one between dogs and wolves.
Cassandra took her close aides and Decurions around various parts of the castle, following Eugene.
"Of all the places you have guided us to, Lord, this is the one that pleases me most."
On the rooftop overlooking the outside landscape, Cassandra smiled with satisfaction. True to her nature of loving power, she seemed fond of high places.
"It's a spot everyone comes up to at least once whenever we move the castle. Because you can survey the completely transformed scenery all at once from here."
"Such high castle walls likely have no equal in the world."
"We once ended up smack in the middle of the Demon Forest. That was truly a grand spectacle."
The warrior women, who had been enjoying a panorama encompassing both desert and jungle, pricked up their ears.
For hunters, warriors, and explorers like them, the Demon Forest was exactly the sort of place they dreamed of challenging.
"Dangerous monsters, difficult to even glimpse normally and requiring you to stake your life the moment you see them. Grotesque variant creatures whose very existence was unknown. You could observe such things from a place of safety."
Eugene stroked his chin as he rummaged through his memories.
"When they fight bloody battles over territory or prey, it's quite a sight. Once, a giant serpent, big enough to swallow a bull whole, fought an ogre."
"An ogre!"
"A tyrant of nature!"
The warrior women let out exclamations.
"The giant serpent coiled itself around the ogre's torso and squeezed with the force to crush it. The resisting ogre went limp, and perhaps the serpent thought it had won? It tried to swallow it just like that, but the creature began rampaging inside its mouth as if it had been waiting."
"Wh-what happened then?"
"The ogre clung to the tongue with both arms while the serpent tried to spit it out. They wrestled for a long time, then suddenly—RRRIP! I could hear it even from the top of the castle."
Eugene explained, mimicking the ogre's stance at that moment. His audience's bright, sparkling eyes encouraged him, and he got into the spirit of telling it.
"Green legs stuck out from the serpent's mouth, kicked about, and shortly after, it emerged holding the ripped-out tongue. Blood spurted from the gaping serpent's mouth like a fountain. My, what a magnificent fight it was."
"Truly, a battle of tyrants."
"Should the chance arise, we dearly wish to observe such a thing as well."
The Decurions let out deeply satisfied sighs.
Some looked around eagerly, but there was nothing here large enough to stage a fight on that scale.
"Now that you're family, perhaps another opportunity will come someday. Since you live a long time."
"But Lord, your own..."
"Hey, hey, what nonsense are you spouting."
A Decurion who had carelessly brought up the subject of human lifespan was suddenly cowed by the scolding poured from all sides.
"No, I meant we should hunt something good for your health. An owlbear's gallbladder, for example."
"Isn't that an aphrodisiac? He doesn't even have a wife yet, and while it might be good for the body, it has nothing to do with prolonging life, does it?"
The cheerful chatter of the Decurions left both Eugene and Cassandra bewildered.
Eugene was bewildered by the warrior women's uninhibited banter; Cassandra was bewildered by how comfortably he treated them, as though he had always been one of their own.
One could not spend time only in pleasant company with dear family. There were times when one had to endure ugly hours with filthy wretches.
Once the tour was over, the place Eugene sought out alone was the interrogation chamber.
"I greet the Lord of the Castle."
A mercenary, clad in cloth and toying with a dagger, spotted Eugene and rendered a military salute.
"The adventurer?"
"He is still alive. It seems he has told us almost everything worth knowing."
Knock, knock.
"Commander. The Castle Lord is here."
As the mercenary rapped on the door, a clanking sound came from within.
When Eugene entered, a blood-soaked man was bound to a chair, flanked by two veteran mercenaries standing rigidly at attention.
The bound man was the adventurer bribed by the Condor Mercenary Company and the main instigator of the betrayal. He was the only person they had captured alive and brought back from the battle at the abandoned temple.
"You've worked hard."
"Not at all, sir."
"Did you find out which slave traders they were working with?"
"Of course. Just as you expected, none of them were operating legally."
It wasn't the abduction of one or two people, but a hundred—and they were members of the Black Hand Tribe.
Dealing with it openly was absolutely out of the question. If that happened, the entire tribe would march out in force to crush the slave traders.
That meant people operating secretly through the black market had to be behind it.
-Sir Knight. We are grateful for your concern, but you need not go this far...
-Rex. I have heard that your people never let go of those who unjustly seek to harm the tribe. Is that not so?
-That is true.
-A policy of retaliation cannot make exceptions. Enforce it absolutely and spread fear through the world; that is how the invisible armor around you grows stronger.
-...
-As a bonus, we can also claim the gold coins they've amassed and the freed slaves. That is a benefit as well.
-Hearing you say that puts my mind at ease.
The facilities undergoing repairs were growing one by one, and various shops were about to open inside too. The more hands, the better.