ebonymovies Chapter 165
Chapter 165
The Squirrel Friends—the Mouse Tribe—had originally visited our territory to welcome the Bear Tribe's Divine Relic.Then, just as the war broke out, they ended up helping us with quite a few things.
They produced the canned meat that the Beastmen absolutely loved, and during the war, they played an important role in supplying our forces.
Most importantly, the Metal Slime storage containers were an exclusive Mouse Tribe technology.
Even the Alchemists and Builders in our territory couldn't properly handle Metal Slimes.
There was no reason for me to let such excellent workers leave.
That was why I'd been determined to make them settle permanently in our territory.
But now, roughly two months after the Mouse Tribe first arrived, signs of them leaving had begun to appear.
These free spirits had wandered their entire lives.
A settled lifestyle was starting to make them restless, and they were itching to head back out again.
At least they promised to stop by and pay their respects from time to time, since both the Mouse Tribe's and Bear Tribe's Divine Relics were being kept in our territory.
But that wasn't what I wanted.
What I wanted was for the Mouse Tribe to remain firmly rooted here.
‘The canned meat business alone is doomed without them.’
The problem was that I simply couldn't understand why they wanted to become wanderers again.
We had already secured the Bear Tribe's Divine Relic, which was exactly what they had wanted.
That was why I'd gathered all the Mouse Tribe village chiefs today.
I intended to hear their reasons directly.
“Everyone's here. So then... why do you want to return to wandering?”
The Mouse Tribe didn't have a single Chieftain.
Instead, each village chief led their own group as they wandered.
There were roughly fifty such village chiefs.
Every one of them was gathered here.
“Well...”
“It's not really because of anything...”
“It's just... this kind of life...”
When I asked why they wanted to wander again, their answers were painfully vague.
There wasn't any particular reason.
They simply wanted to.
The lack of a clear reason made things even more troublesome.
How was I supposed to stop people whose only explanation was, "Just because"?
There was no more difficult reason to deal with than "just because."
‘Damn it. There's seriously no solution.’
Beastmen were incredibly sensitive to coercion and oppression.
Having spent generations as slaves of the Empire, they reacted strongly whenever someone tried to force them into something.
I had built a good relationship with the Beastmen.
I couldn't afford to make such a reckless move.
That meant I had to persuade them somehow.
But no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn't come up with a good solution.
“For now... let's think about it a little longer.”
In the end, I had no choice but to conclude the meeting by asking them to postpone their departure.
‘What am I supposed to do now?’
At this rate, all of our excellent workers were about to leave the territory.
Still...
Life really was unpredictable.
“No... what is this?!”
The Mouse Tribe's departure was resolved by something none of us could have possibly foreseen.
It was a development I never could've imagined.
Just as winter was beginning...
The territory—or rather, all of us in the leadership—rushed out in a panic after receiving sudden news.
Sir Celine, Rudick's wife and Vice-Captain of the Crimson Comet, was about to give birth.
Honestly, I was shocked.
The birth was happening a full two months before her due date.
Sir Celine had always been incredibly healthy and had been extremely careful throughout her pregnancy.
Yet somehow, she had gone into premature labor.
Perhaps because of that, the atmosphere around Rudick's family was incredibly tense.
“Hah... Surely nothing's gone wrong?”
Rudick usually wandered around with a goofy grin, completely oblivious to the mood around him.
But today, he was visibly shaken.
His fingertips trembled so badly that I couldn't even bring myself to tease him.
“Sit still. It'll be fine. You were born a month early yourself, weren't you? Some children are just impatient and decide to enter the world ahead of schedule.”
“Y-Yeah... That's got to be it. It has to be.”
If it weren't for Lady Viola—Rudick's mother and my wet nurse—Rudick probably would've lost his mind by now.
To be honest...
I was pretty nervous myself.
“I hope Sister Celine will be alright.”
And standing here was another person just as anxious as the family themselves.
Sir Irene.
Who regarded Celine as an older sister.
She nervously bit her nails, unable to hide her concern.
“This feels strange. It's way too early. It's not like she's a Beastman.”
Perhaps because it was such a major event, both Yuria and Leisha were here as well.
All the men had fled far away out of fear of bringing bad luck.
The two women, however, remained to watch everything unfold.
Neither of them looked particularly optimistic.
-Hmm... Something feels rather strange.
‘What is?’
-For a premature birth, the mother seems far too healthy. And the feeling is... somehow...
‘Why? Did something occur to you?’
-No... I simply thought it felt odd.
Just as the rabbit finished speaking in his usual cryptic way...
A baby's cry echoed from inside.
Thankfully, the child had been born safely.
“But...”
Rudick's child was an incredibly healthy baby boy.
His arms and legs were perfectly normal.
He was impressively heavy.
The sort of robust newborn that made people instinctively say, "He's going to be a great general someday."
Then again, perhaps that was only natural.
His father was Rudick—a mountain of muscle standing well over 190 centimeters tall.
His mother was Sir Celine, a female Knight over 180 centimeters tall.
A child born from those two was bound to be exceptional from the very beginning.
However...
The child possessed something he never should have had.
Two upright ears.
And a fluffy tail.
To everyone's astonishment...
Rudick's child was a Beastman.
A Bear Beastman.
A member of the Bear Tribe that had already gone extinct.
Everyone stared at the child with eyes wide open.
-Good heavens... This is a miracle.
‘A real miracle? Isn't this basically cheating?’
-Watch your tongue. This is Lord Bestia's blessing.
‘What kind of blessing makes a Bear Beastman born from two humans?’
-Hmm. That muscular male must have been descended from Bear Beastmen. I've suspected as much for quite some time. How else could a human male possibly become like that? If he's descended from Bear Beastmen, everything makes sense.
‘Oh, give me a break. Didn't you say humans and Beastmen couldn't produce mixed-blood children? What do you mean "descendant"? This isn't some bizarre case of atavism.’
Honestly...
I'd thought something strange was going on.
All the Divine Relics gathering here.
Bestia subtly encouraging it.
I'd wondered why she was doing all of this.
Now I finally understood.
It had all been for this.
Otherwise, there was no explaining what had just happened.
At this point, I had no doubt this was entirely Bestia's doing.
Everyone else, however, reacted quite differently.
“Then again, wouldn't it have been stranger if Commander Rudick were a completely ordinary human?”
“A Bear Beastman? Then where did his ears and tail disappear to?”
“Maybe he wasn't a Bear Beastman... maybe he was just an actual bear.”
“A bear pretending to be a human... What a terrifying world.”
They accepted it as though it were perfectly natural.
As if Rudick being a pure human would've been the truly unbelievable part.
“Our territory always had a very close relationship with the Bear Tribe. There were even residents who started families with Bear Beastmen. Perhaps Sir Rudick is one of their descendants...”
“I seem to remember hearing that one of our ancestors married a Bear Beastman...”
Then Butler Harold, one of the territory's elders, and Lady Viola, Rudick's mother, added their own strange theories.
Before long, everyone accepted it as fact.
According to them, Rudick had inherited the blood of the Bear Tribe, and it had simply awakened in his son.
No matter how I thought about it, it sounded utterly ridiculous.
But people always believed what they wanted to believe.
‘At least nobody's saying anything truly weird. Well... anyone can tell this is Rudick's son.’
Two humans had somehow produced a Beastman.
An absolutely unbelievable situation.
Yet not a single person questioned the child's parentage.
The thought didn't even seem to occur to anyone.
Had it been another Beastman, perhaps people might have suspected something.
But the Bear Tribe had already gone extinct.
And the child looked exactly like Rudick when he was a baby.
Lady Viola checked the child over again and again.
She couldn't stop saying that aside from the ears and tail, the baby looked absolutely identical to Rudick at birth.
“B-B... Lord Bestia!”
“A... A Bear!!!! A Bear!!!!”
The moment the Mouse Tribe learned the news...
They burst into tears.
Some even fainted on the spot.
To the Mouse Tribe, the rebirth of the Bear Tribe was that shocking.
That historic.
‘Wait a second... if that's the case...’
Didn't that mean the Mouse Tribe leaving our territory was no longer even an option?
A Bear Tribe child had been born.
How could they possibly leave now?
Just as I'd expected, the Mouse Tribe members who had been preparing to depart immediately abandoned the idea without a single complaint.
Instead, they began preparing to settle down permanently.
It was the most unbelievable way imaginable to convince the Mouse Tribe to stay.
‘Of course, I can't just leave things like this forever.’
Still, this was only a temporary solution.
We had to think about the future.
The Mouse Tribe's wandering instinct couldn't be completely erased by the birth of a single Bear Tribe child.
Once the child grew up, they might suddenly decide to wander off again.
So we still needed to satisfy their urge to roam.
“Alright. Everyone's here. Let me explain the plan from here on.”
First, I gathered all of the Mouse Tribe village chiefs once more and laid out my proposal.
A way to minimize the number of Mouse Tribe members leaving while still satisfying their wandering instincts.
“There will be three locations. First, Johnson Territory. Second, Henil Territory to the east. And finally... the Ape Tribe village.”
First, roughly half of the Mouse Tribe would remain in Johnson Territory.
Their cooperation was essential for the canned meat business that would continue into the future.
Next, about a quarter of them would be stationed in Henil, the eastern coastal territory.
Henil's seaside scenery made it an excellent place for a change of pace.
It also desperately lacked manpower.
Part of the Dog Tribe was already stationed there because of the Horned Ostrich ranch.
If the Mouse Tribe worked alongside them, things would develop nicely.
The grasslands where the Dairy Beasts lived were vast enough for them to simply pitch tents and live there.
Lastly, the Ape Tribe village.
Among all the Beastmen, the Ape Tribe wanted the Mouse Tribe the most.
They needed Metal Slime storage containers to preserve their liquor for long periods.
High-proof alcohol was fine.
But most of the Ape Tribe's liquor had relatively low alcohol content and didn't store well.
Without Metal Slimes, they wouldn't be able to brew large quantities.
‘Liquor is precious.’
If nothing else, I absolutely refused to give up fantasy fruit wine and monkey-brand beer.
“So? What do you think about rotating between these three locations?”
“If it's only that much...”
“It might actually be alright...”
“And besides... there's the Bear Tribe child...”
The Mouse Tribe responded rather positively.
Naturally, it wasn't quite as satisfying as wandering freely across the entire north.
But it was enough to satisfy their urge to travel.
More importantly...
Now that a Bear Tribe child had been born, they would have to visit Johnson Territory regularly anyway.
If they spent roughly one-third of every year here, they could watch the Bear Tribe child grow up.
It was a compromise that balanced both their wandering instincts and their love for the Bear Tribe.
‘Yeah... this should be enough. I never imagined things would work out like this.’
Personally, I was already more than satisfied simply because these excellent workers had put down roots here.
Even if they rotated between locations, spending one-third of every year in Johnson Territory practically made them our residents.
No matter what happened, roughly half of the Mouse Tribe would always remain here.
And during that winter...
Nearly twenty members of the Bear Tribe were born in Johnson Territory.
Perhaps Bestia had exerted an enormous amount of power.
Far more Bear Beastmen were born than anyone could have expected.
The first of them—Rudick's son, Baeyan—would one day become the Guide of the Bear Tribe.
Gathering together all of the newly born Bear Beastmen, he would declare the complete restoration of the Bear Tribe.
Though...
That would happen many years in the future.