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~Caballero’s Perspective~
I had one chance, and if I missed it, death would be waiting for me.
I wasn’t afraid to die, and I should have been dead by now.
A carefully planned attack on a group of nobles was foiled by an unexpected presence.
None of the important nobles were hurt, and in fact, more civilians were killed or wounded among the crowd.
To tell my friends why I had failed, to convey the words of those who had been captured with me, I slipped out of my restraints, jumped out of the carriage, and plunged into the hustle and bustle of the city of Krager.
I heard angry shouts behind me, but of course, I didn’t look back. I didn’t know where I was, but I jumped into a narrow alley and ran around like a mess.
I didn’t know how far I had run, but I climbed over walls, ran through gutters and roofs, and sat still in a corner of an unpopulated warehouse, waiting for night to fall.
The darkness of night is the best condition for me, a black catkin, to hide.
Holding my breath, I looked for an opening in the darkness and stole food and other things as I headed for the mountains of my hometown.
The village where I was born, located at the edge of Rodena Village, Count Grobrus territory, was a village built as a base for development, but it was abandoned because the land was too poor.
Our hideout is located further into the mountains from the abandoned village of Rodena.
To be born a peasant in Grobrus territory means to work hard and be preyed upon by the rich.
Especially for those who are striving to cultivate their own land, the land they have worked so hard to carve out is taken from them for a pittance, and they have to keep working until they die.
The money spills out from between the battered fingers of us peasants and ends up in the beautiful hands of the easygoing rich, never to be returned.
We had been spending our days without enough to eat, let alone wear, and we had reached the end of our patience.
Then a young White Tigerkin named Dagouture showed up.
For about a year and a half, Dagouture had been going around to poor pioneers like us, offering them seed potatoes.
There was a limit to the number of crops that could be grown on the barren, newly cleared land, so he selected the kinds of potatoes that would grow in such places and gave them away free of charge.
When I asked him why he was reaching out to poor people like us, he replied that he needed power to change the situation, but he couldn’t even protest if all the people were suffering from poverty and hunger.
When we couldn’t stand the hunger and even ate the seed potatoes that were distributed to us, Dagouture cried with us instead of getting angry.
Dagouture was a child born as a result of a nobleman’s affair with a servant, and her mother was kicked out of the mansion immediately after the pregnancy was discovered.
In order for her child to be recognized someday… Dagouture’s mother raised him alone, but she fell ill and passed away at a young age.
While working as an adventurer using his blessed physique, Daguture sneaked into the mansions of nobles and wealthy merchants to steal their gold and used the money to support the poor.
He told us about his ideal of building a society in which the current system of royalty and nobility would be eliminated and the focus would be on those who work diligently.
What he was doing was undoubtedly a crime, but it is not surprising that we became committed to Dagouture’s ideology.
Dagouture was bringing in supplies from the outside, teaching agriculture, and even providing military training for those who agreed with him.
Among the things Dagouture brought in were pulverization magic circles and magic guns.
When I asked him where he gets them from, he only told me that they come from a dark place behind him…
Dagouture told me why the peasants continue to suffer in the Grobrus territory.
He said that the lord, Andreas Grobrus, took land away from the landowners and imposed an exorbitant annual tax on the farmers for building roads and bridges.
As a result, the landowners’ income is decreasing, and the lives of the peasants are becoming increasingly difficult.
And the royal family and nobles who own fiefdoms in the area continue to turn a blind eye to such tyranny.
This country is completely rotten, and the use of force is unavoidable in order to change the current situation…
We decided to go with Dogouture’s plan and risk our lives to change the future of Grobrus territory… and this country.
The target was a group of nobles passing through Grobrus territory on their way to the royal capital, accompanied by the son of the Marquis Escalante, the current Commander of the Royal Guard, in addition to Viscount Lagart and his child.
If a group of nobles were killed in Grobrus territory, the kingdom would not be able to tolerate the collection of exorbitant annual tax.
And if the Knights Order Commander and the Viscount Lagart, who were said to have the right to admonish the king, were involved in the incident, Count Grobrus would naturally be criticized more strongly.
After successfully escaping from the city of Krager, I proceeded through the bushes by the side of the road, hiding my appearance, and headed for the hideout.
I was told that Dagouture’s hideouts were located in various parts of the kingdom, not only near Rodena Village, which we had been using.
If I had known the exact location, I would have been able to inform them immediately after our escape, but I had no choice but to return to Rodena under the cover of darkness, stealing food and other supplies.
When I finally arrived at the hideout, about five of my companions were stunned and lost.
They had been ill that day and had stayed behind to maintain the hideout, but they had not been informed of the results of the attack and had been unable to decide what to do next.
“Caballero, are you okay?” (Villager)
“No, I’m not safe, everyone attacked but was captured.” (Villager)
When he told them that the raid had failed and that his friends had been taken away to the capital, they held their heads in their hands.
Dagouture, too, had not been seen since the ambush.
“Maybe Dogoutoure was also captured?” (Caballero)
“I don’t know, there’s too much mystery about that guy. …Maybe he didn’t trust us?” (Villager)
“Idiot, he said he would take care of his own contacts with the underworld because if we knew too much, we would be in danger!” (Caballero)
The conversation temporarily picked up with the appearance of a new source of information in the form of me, but in the end, we could not come to a conclusion as to what to do next.
“What are we going to do now?” (Villager)
“Dagouture said if the raid fails, we’re supposed to abandon the hideout.” (Caballero)
“But there’s nowhere else to go but here.” (Villager)
“What about the other hideouts?” (Caballero)
“I don’t know where they are.” (Villager)
I told my friends, who were at a loss for ideas, about a plan I had been thinking about on the way back to the compound.
“Hey, would you like to try that?” (Caballero)
“That… I don’t know.” (Villager)
“Dagouture told me about eating the hearts of monsters.” (Caballero)
The inside of the hideout fell silent.
The last resort to increase the fighting power, Dagouture taught us to eat the heart of a large monster, larger than orcs, raw. [T/N: Someone wants to hide his tracks.]
“But he said it was a deadly and dangerous method.” (Villager)
“If we don’t do anything about it, the nobles and rich people will just keep taking it from us. That’s not good, right!?” (Caballero)
“It’s not strong though…” (Villager)
“I’ll do it, I’m a catkin, I might get killed by monsters, but I’m not afraid to die because I already failed to die once.” (Caballero)
“I’ll do it too… I don’t want to lose to Caballero.” (Villager)
“Okay, me too…” (Villager)
“If everyone does it…” (Villager)
In the end, they decided to use the weapons and magic guns left in the hideout to kill an orc and eat their heart.
This early spring season is also the time when young male orcs leave their herds to establish their own.
It was also a good time to target straggler orcs.
I became the bait, lured the orcs to me, and managed to kill them by using a rope trap to trip and hit them, but my horsekin comrade was killed by a counterattack.
We finally managed to get the orc’s heart out and cut it into bite-sized pieces, and the remaining five of us decided to eat it all together.
“Listen, for now, each person should swallow a fifth without chewing. They told me to use magic immediately after swallowing.” (Ulmus)
Before I knew it, Ulmus, the oxkin, had taken on the role of leader.
Ulmus has the same fire attribute as me, but his magical power index is not that strong.
He probably thinks that if he eats this orc’s heart and his magic becomes stronger, he will be the strongest along with his physique.
As I listened to Ulmus’ story, I remembered what Dagouture had told me.
If I recall correctly, I think Dogouture told me not to eat a large amount of orc heart at once, as the method of eating them is really dangerous.
Just when I thought it might be better to stop, Ulmus gave the signal to start.
“Then let’s eat, ready, go!” (Ulmus)
At the same time as Ulmus gave the signal, my companions began to swallow one after another the sliced orc heart.
I was late to the party, and I was in a hurry, but after swallowing two slices in a row, I felt a strange stirring in my chest and stopped my hand.
“Guaaaaaaa…” (Ulmus)
The first one to shout was Ulmus.
He began to convulse, grunting like a beast, spewing blood from his eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and every other hole in his body.
Unable to control the enormous amount of magical elements that he had taken in, it must have started to break through his body, running amok.
The other three also began to convulse in eerie spasms, spurting blood from all over their bodies.
Something strange is happening to my body too.
As if his stomach was swollen, a huge amount of magical power began to overflow and try to break through my body.
I thrust my left hand up toward the sky and launched a fire magic with all my might.
Up until then, I had only been able to light a small flame that would only serve as a spark, but now I was creating a pillar of fire that seemed to lightly exceed that of a giant tree.
It was good that I had activated the magic with such ferocious power, but I could not control it at all, and even my left arm was about to burn and turn into charcoal.
If my left arm burned up and the magic stopped working, I would end up covered in blood.
On the other hand, if both of my hands burned up, it would be difficult to survive after I was saved.
“Uuuuugh!” (Caballero)
The method I chose was to activate magic with my right foot.
Lying on the ground, I thrust my right foot toward the sky and created a huge pillar of fire.
I could not control the magic at all after all, and my right leg was also getting burnt.
Even if my left arm, right leg, and flesh were burned, even if my bones were reduced to ashes, I was going to continue to use magic. I was going to survive even if it meant sacrificing my left leg.
What was floating in my mind was the one-eyed black catkin adventurer like me.
A shitty brat who was tamed by the nobles, wagging tail his for them.
If I can make this vast amount of magical power my own, I will burn him to death with this flame.
I’ll turn the nobleman and his magic carriage into ashes right in front of that guy’s eyes.
“Fumyaaaaaaaaaaaa!” (Caballero)
I managed to survive by sacrificing my left arm and right leg, but my companions who ate the orc’s heart together all died covered in a pool of blood.
I survived, but my body was tattered. I crawled back to the hideout, and when I got there, I ran out of strength and passed out.
I don’t know how long I was out for, but when I woke up, my jet-black fur had turned to ash gray.
T/N: They should have started with a goblin. Ugh. Dogouture seems like a schemer who uses desperate people for his own goals. What a dick-faced sh*thead.
I hope Nyango gets through Caballero’s head. This is depressing.
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