The Academy’s Ankle Reaper

“Are the warriors not coming back?”

The cat beastman, leading the Blue Cat Tribe with its rare blue fur, frowned upon hearing the report.

He had sent his warriors to a human village, which seemed to be referred to as a territory. Just half a year ago, their relationship was quite good.

Back then, the human village had shown very friendly eyes towards the beastmen. The Blue Cat Tribe would send them meat and fur, and they would reciprocate with wheat and grains, supporting one another.

But at some point, that relationship soured.

“…So they were just humans after all.”

He never trusted humans like that anyway. They had clearly drawn a line, saying they had no connection to the matter, and the chief had believed them.

However, as the same incident kept repeating, he instructed his warriors to investigate, only for them to lose contact entirely.

This wasn’t something that could just be overlooked.

When they had known each other, there had been no one among the humans who could defeat the brave beastman warriors. After all, the territory was slowly withering like dried blood from a past event.

“Can I help?”

At that moment, someone among the guests at the banquet spoke to the chief.

Everyone else had pointed ears like cat beastmen, but he alone had round ears like a tiger beastman.

“This is our tribe’s matter. There’s no need for a guest to worry.”

“In that case…”

The chief humbly declined his words. The banquet had been held to welcome him, so it would be disgraceful for the guest to interfere in their personal affairs.

The tiger beastman, Bolt Jin, understood this and agreed to bow out.

“This time, I’ll go. I won’t return until I find out the whereabouts of the warriors, so gather ten elite members by dawn.”

“Yes!!”

——————–

As I entered the room guided by Amy’s mother, I flopped onto the bed.

The room, though worn, wasn’t dirty at least—it seemed like the management had put in some effort.

It was a bit small, but compared to what I had before, which was too big for a single room, it felt just right.

‘Looks like there are circumstances here too.’

As I lay there trying to sort out my thoughts, the first person I worried about was Amy.

She had finally returned to her hometown, but her condition was far from good.

The trouble started as soon as I arrived; I saw her in a distressing state.

Since returning from the conversation with our father, whatever they had talked about seemed to have left her troubled, so I felt anxious that she would go spiraling down a weird path if left alone.

Amy had a history of getting overwhelmed when she was like this, so I couldn’t just leave her as she was.

Resolving my thoughts, I jumped up from the bed and headed to Amy’s room.

“Amy, can we talk for a minute?”

“R… right now?!”

I meant to have an earnest conversation.

.

.

.

Amy had been helping her mother by guiding the guests, but now she was heading back to her room. She looked quite troubled, and when I suddenly showed up, she seemed shocked.

“This is your room?”

“Yes…”

Amy’s room felt very cozy. Just like my own, if it hadn’t been completely revamped, traces from childhood would likely remain, and Amy’s room was no different.

Though well-hidden, I could see faint scratches made with something sharp on the bedpost.

There wasn’t really a chair—just a couple of them scattered about.

So, I decided to simply sit on the bed.

“Ugh… Are you feeling any better?”

“…I’m alright. Compared to what Atlas went through, it’s nothing much.”

She answered alright, but her face told a different story.

“Amy, do you know why I’m here?”

“You’re concerned, right?”

“Exactly.”

I felt it too, but Amy had plenty she was hiding from the rest of us. Tales of hunting demons or other secretive activities.

If we gathered people who shared secrets, a more honest conversation could happen.

“…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you…”

As soon as I stepped into the room, Amy let out a weary sigh.

“Stop with the ‘sorry’ already. You’re banned from saying that.”

“Then… I apologize.”

“That’s the same thing.”

Amy seemed to ponder for a moment but quickly opened her mouth.

“…It’s not that it’s hard to say or anything!”

Although that still didn’t mean she actually said anything properly.

“Speaking of which, Atlas… you never properly told me what happened in Narni after you got back.”

“Well, that’s because you didn’t ask.”

I realized, thinking back, that I hadn’t shared my experience in Narni very well.

When I came back from Shimoa to Narni suddenly, there had been a lot that hadn’t been explained.

But that was because Amy never asked me directly either.

“It’s all in the past anyway, so what difference does it make? I’ll tell you, but you have to share too after.”

“Right now?!”

Amy looked surprised, but I started explaining why I was running around here and there that night in Narni.

.

.

.

“Ugh, that’s heavy… I would have preferred not knowing.”

“I told you everything, now it’s your turn.”

I recounted most of my story. The doubts I had that night, why I hesitated, the secrets kept by our family… I laid it all out there.

It seemed like Amy had guessed some of it, but hearing it all left her looking bewildered, overwhelmed by such a heavy topic.

“…It’s not something you just brush off that someone appeared looking like your deceased father.”

When Amy heard the characteristics of Rex that I had witnessed, she thought deeply for a moment before speaking again.

“That guy you called Rex… He could really be an artificial being made using your father’s corpse, like the dragon mentioned before.”

“Is it really possible for demons to do that?”

“It’s not about resurrecting someone; it’s an artificial being. The Great Demon could create demons; it’s not strange at all. Didn’t you say that person transformed like a dragon beastman? We need to report this to the Church Country and come up with a countermeasure… This can’t just be brushed aside.”

“I was planning to go there right after the break.”

There were things to consider about the dragon’s bones and the trip I was planning anyway.

“You’ve had it rough too, Atlas. Your family went through such a thing…”

“Everyone’s got their own circumstances. No one is without them.”

“That’s true.”

But after I shared, Amy’s expression relaxed noticeably.

“Even if it’s hard to say, you should. Last time, you left by yourself without saying anything.”

“When did that happen…”

“It wasn’t even three months ago.”

“…The reason I didn’t say anything was that I wasn’t sure if it was definite. Our territory… I mentioned before how we were attacked by demons, and that we were short on people, right?”

“Right.”

“So my father, the lord, did his best to allow outsiders to settle down. He offered the houses of those who left and worked hard to make it easier for them to settle.”

It’s a common practice.

If it’s tough to grow a population on your own, then accepting outsiders is a strategy that makes sense.

Countries do that, and it happens often in such territories as well.

But… accepting outsiders in a world where verifying identities is hard always carries huge risks.

“Were there issues with those who came from outside?”

“Yes, they suspected that some of the new arrivals were former slave traders,” the beastmen reported.

Could a former slave trader really be hiding among the newcomers?

In an instant, pieces of the situation came together.

If it’s something a slave trader would handle, it would undoubtedly be beastman slaves.

This race resembles humans, but their animal traits scattered across their bodies mean they’re not treated entirely as people.

Similar-looking but having far superior physical abilities, they can often withstand harsher treatment than human slaves, and since beastmen were historically treated as lesser beings without personhood, nobles who can’t forget the past would have an interest in them.

It was said that the Beastman Alliance wouldn’t sit quietly while their kind were forcibly taken, but beastmen continued to be secretly abducted and traded.

“Is that why the Blue Cat Tribe came here?”

“They all passed out, but it seemed it was for that reason.”

“Then what’s the problem? We can just catch the person and hand them over to them, right?”

“While that sounds simple, there are several issues. First, who even knows who among them is a former slave trader. There could be more than a few of them as well. So many people have arrived—over twenty—that it’s impossible to interrogate everyone without evidence. Plus, there’s no one who can do that. And… while there are allegations of slave traders, the reality of whether they were dealing with beastman slaves is still unclear.”

Even if there are suspicions, they couldn’t even say who raised them.

The rumor had spread in the village, and once the members of the Blue Cat Tribe began to go missing, those whispers gained traction.

No one even knew how the rumors started.

“And the Blue Cat Tribe people keep coming here because a few are disappearing from their tribe… But it’s possible that it was someone who was a former slave trader from a long time ago who really did the kidnapping, or it could just be that they are mistakenly suspecting that this place is suspicious after being taken from somewhere else.”

“That’s quite a dilemma.”

“Exactly, and that’s what I’ve been pondering…”

There wasn’t a single certainty.

Whether a former slave trader was among the newcomers, how many there were, whether they were handling beastman slaves, or if the person actually responsible for the abductions was indeed one of them—all of these were muddy questions.

No one could shed light on such matters.

But at least Parker is in a bit of luck here.

“So if we can uncover what you’ve just mentioned, doesn’t that solve it?”

Because now, there was the Master of Near-Death who could draw out the unwitting truths hidden within this very territory!

If it felt like an incident was spiraling into a maze, then just break it open!

“Atlas, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but that seems a bit off.”

Amy gasped and stopped me, completely unaware of my intentions.