When Rowan said that Ashen would be sent that night, it turned out he really wasn't jesting.
That very evening, someone visited his tent and debriefed him on the route he would take, the location of the gathering spot of the defectors, and even how he had to behave so as not to seem suspicious.
After assessing that his acting was passable enough to blend, he was finally sent on his way.
And now, after more than an hour of horse riding in the middle of the night, he finally arrived at the meeting point.
SKRRT—!
The horse skidded to a halt, hooves scraping the dirt. It tossed its head back with a loud, proud neigh.
That effectively got everyone's attention. More than a dozen pairs of eyes landed on him, eyeing him warily. Some were already reaching for their weapons.
Ashen jumped down from the rowdy horse and pulled it along as he approached the crowd, completely unconcerned by the aggression in the air.
His posture was slack, his smile half-dazed, and sometimes he shivered out of nowhere, as if he were a junkie with withdrawal symptoms.
By the time he reached the moonlit grove, the aggression had all but vanished. In its place, an almost welcoming atmosphere took hold.
How could it not, when his expression was mirroring every one of them?
"I heard this is where a guy can score more of that fox pussy. Yeah? Anyone taking orders? I'm running real low on that sweet fox-magic, if you know what I mean… hehe."
A chorus of hoots answered. "Hell yeah, you're in the right place, asshole!"
"Step up, man, they're waitin' to drain your ass dry!"
"Don't choke, or you're walking out with empty hands!"
Ashen almost felt like he'd known these bastards for decades. There was some twisted magic in it, how men could become instant brothers just because they shared a mutual appreciation for pussy.
He shook his head, chuckling. Only in a grove full of fox demi-humans would camaraderie come wrapped in this much filth and vulgarity.
A flicker of movement above made the men pause, and then she appeared: a fox-woman with three swishing tails, perched on a branch.
Her low-cut kimono barely contained her breasts, a single geta dangling from one foot, her thighs exposed like an open invitation. Perhaps it was.
She tilted her head, a smile dripping with mischief, and her voice slithered through the grove.
"Ohh, that stud was the last one~" she purred, eyes glinting at Ashen. "Lucky me, getting to watch you squirm all to myself."
With a practiced flick, she vanished into nothing but illusion—then reappeared, commanding. "If you want a taste, boys, follow me!"
The crowd roared, mounting their horses with shouts and whistles, and chased like some kind of new breed of horny lunatics.
She leapt from tree to tree with swift steps, a blur of silk and tails, teasing and taunting them all the way. Ashen found himself grinning despite himself at the sheer absurdity of it all.
'God… the things I have to do just to find you, Alice…'
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Ashen finally arrived at the infamous demi-human camp after making his horse run until daylight.
By that time, everyone was exhausted, but despite that, more than a couple of men still followed the fox lady as she sashayed to a tent. What they were going to do was obvious.
Ashen shook his head and looked around.
This place was filled with more humans than foxes. It was obviously some kind of intermediary camp and not the real heart of their base.
'Figures. There's no way they'd let just anyone in.' He took a deep breath and decided to explore.
The camp was just as he'd imagined. It was filled with decadence buried under debauchery and pleasure.
As he walked by the tents, all he could hear were the deliberately sultry voices of fox ladies or the pathetic grunts of human soldiers.
He kept walking until the atmosphere gradually changed into something less degenerate but more depressive.
Here, another type of corruption prevailed. Drunk men on the side of the roads, druggies shivering in the shadows of tents, some even looked half crazy.
'This is most likely the work of the male foxes…' Ashen concluded as he watched grimly.
It only took one look to know that the female foxes were countless times more merciful in their "persuasion" than their male counterparts.
But Ashen didn't give much thought to either and kept walking onward.
Finally, he reached a very large tent. One glance from the outside clued him that the tent would be able to hold at least fifty men.
A sign was hung on a pole near the entrance. It read: Bar.
Ashen naturally moved to enter since this was the last unexplored place. He couldn't deny that he was intrigued, though.
'How could there be a functioning establishment in this place…?'
Lifting the flap, he was met with a surprisingly subdued environment. A dozen tables surrounded by two chairs each were spread across the dim space.
More than half of them were occupied by men who drank or ate, and despite the lingering dizziness and depression, they looked normal for the most part—at least if they were compared to the bunch outside.
Ashen adjusted his own acting to be more subdued to match the environment, then walked slowly to the makeshift counter at the other end of the tent.
The moment he sat, a drink was slid to him by the barkeep. Ashen raised an eyebrow.
"We only have ale here." Came the barkeep's unconcerned voice. "New here?"
Ashen nodded and took a long gulp from the tankard, then answered, "Just arrived. Any tips?"
He noticed that the barkeep was unusually clear-headed from his eyes and the absence of slurring in his speech. He was actually the sanest person Ashen had encountered in this place.
"You don't look like you need any tips, though. Compared to your buddies, anyway."
Ashen didn't get flustered at being called out. "Army flunky… fox junkie… but still not a brain-funky. 'That a problem?"
The moment he'd reached this place, Ashen knew that it was a garbage trench, and to get out of this pit, he could only show that he was different, even if it was somewhat risky.
Showing that he had an actual functioning brain was a good first step, in his opinion.
"…No problem." The barkeep's unconcerned tone became a touch more serious. "As for tips… Look out for the foxes' visit in a week. They come from time to time to check if someone is still useful in this trash dump."
Then, smirking, he added, "You fit the description to a tee, so maybe you can go to a juicier place, if you catch my drift…"
"…Juicier?" Ashen asked back.
"…Some say that you can enjoy more than three tails there." He explained in a whisper.
"Oh." Ashen instantly understood.
A fox's tail was an indicator of their power. This wasn't because of a racial trait or obscure reason. It simply was because tailed foxes stored mana in their tails.
Each strand could hold mana. So naturally, the more tails, the more mana, and more mana translated to a more refined body since there was vastly larger mana constantly nourishing it than any other individual.
That was aside from the potency of spells they could sling with more fuel and their absurd endurance on the battlefield.
Unfortunately, most of the tailed foxes' spells tended to lean more toward mental interference instead of being the destructive kind since their talent lay in that field. Otherwise, the human race wouldn't have been able to hold on until now.
And while that limited their destructive capabilities, it made them masters in the mental domain. Some of the more skilled ones could go as far as inducing mind-blowing ecstasy and pleasure or even plunge their victims into their worst nightmares.
The foxes weren't without limitations, naturally. The most obvious being able to grow only up to nine tails, and the difficulty of growing those tails.
First, they had to infuse them with enough mana before even hoping to grow another, and the more mana-infused a tail was, the less time they had to wait for the next.
But that was easier said than done.
A tail was composed of millions of strands, and infusing each strand with mana while keeping hold of everything would require an insane amount of mana control and concentration.
And each tail made it exponentially harder. Above all else, there was another factor that had equal weight.
Bloodline.
Ashen's thoughts stopped there as he brought his brain back to think of his next steps.
'First, I'll use this week to comb through this camp for Alice, then I'll see what this visit is all about,' he decided.
Passing an extra coin to the barkeep, he got up and turned to head back, thoughts on how he would go about his search.