novelGlobal Chapter 51: Call Me The Archery Genius (1)
Chapter 51: Call Me The Archery Genius (1)
Humans and beastfolk didn’t have a great relationship to begin with, but their full-scale confrontation began with the Samael Empire.
Two hundred years ago, there was a craze for beastfolk slaves in the Samael Empire. Various sports involving beastfolk became popular, and nobles who didn’t own a beastfolk slave were unable to participate in high society.
Despite such oppression, the beastfolk were unable to resist. There were various species of beastfolk, but they didn’t communicate with each other, and each species had less than a hundred people because of their insistence on living in tribal units.
Moreover, the dominant belief among the carnivorous beastfolk was that being enslaved by humans was also a part of survival of the fittest. As such, the herbivorous beastfolk, who had weaker combat abilities, had no choice but to live as human slaves.
However, a certain event triggered the collective fury of all the beastfolk tribes.
The incidents of this event were so horrific and brutal that the records were erased. However, the atrocities reached the carnivorous beastfolk through a rain horse that escaped from the beastfolk racetrack.
The elders of the Flying Wolf Tribe and the Nine-tailed Fox Tribe, the two leading factions of the beastfolk, went to the emperor as representatives and delivered an ultimatum: abolish the beastfolk slave system immediately, or they would destroy the empire. That’s how the war between the beastfolk and the empire began.
The war lasted fifty years and ended in the defeat of the beastfolk. The emperor and his army showed no mercy, and during this time, many beastfolk tribes were driven to extinction. Fearing the same fate, some tribes chose to surrender, and the emperor welcomed them, calling them subjugated tribes.
The emperor gave these subjugated tribes three choices: live as slaves forever, join the Imperial Army and serve for fifty years to earn their freedom, or capture the remaining members of the seven beastfolk species, known as the Seven Cursed Species, who had led the war of humans and beastfolk.
Most of the subjugated tribes chose to enlist in the Imperial Army. Though they had surrendered to the emperor, they didn’t want to hunt down fellow beastfolk and deliver them to the emperor. They judged that it would be better to serve in the army and kill humans instead. Moreover, for beastfolk, who generally lived for three hundred years, fifty years of service did not seem like an eternity.
However, this was a dangerously naive underestimation of the emperor. Only three out of one hundred beastfolk who enlisted completed the full fifty years of service and were discharged. Although they were called soldiers, they were never treated the same as human soldiers. They were forced into unreasonable missions, deadly battles, old tents with holes, and scarce food and military supplies.
In such harsh conditions, there was only one way to survive: accepting that they were nothing more than pets for humans. One of the tribes that survived this way was the Blade Bird Tribe.
Deo and Derant, the twin brothers of the Blade Bird Tribe, were furious. Their wings, which were soft, suddenly stiffened, becoming as hard as steel.
Their father, however, calmly continued to persuade them.
Their father, at ninety years old, was still considered young by the standards of their species, yet he was on the brink of death. The years of harsh military service had nearly destroyed him. The twins didn’t even know their mother, as they were not born out of love but out of necessity.
So, Deo and Derant recklessly left the empire to find the Seven Cursed Species, but it wasn’t easy. All the Seven Cursed Species that had been discovered and captured were executed, their heads mounted on stakes in front of the palace gates. There were even occasional rumors that the entire Seven Cursed Species had been exterminated, as their numbers had completely dwindled to nothing.
The twin brothers were given a ten-year grace period, a result of their father pleading with General Carlos, to whom he had connections. The Blade Bird Tribe was one of the beastfolk who had been officially pardoned by the emperor, so they were treated as semi-nobles. Because of this, it wasn't difficult for them to receive cooperation in the
Survival of the fittest and surviving and growing stronger—that had been the essence of Keter’s life and the source of his strength.
Deo, leaving the nearly-dead Jordic behind, hurled his steel feathers toward Keter. To Deo, Keter was nothing compared to Jordic—barely worth his attention.
Keter smiled as he let the arrow fly.