For Duanmu Huai and the others, taking this Beastmen lair had been a minor matter. After they had wiped out the Beastmen soldiers here, they pressed on—after all, by following this route they should reach the Beastmen nest if they kept walking.
The Beastmen obviously disliked anyone getting too close to their lair. They swarmed and launched attacks against Duanmu Huai's group; besides countless Beastmen soldiers, they even used the subterranean creatures they had tamed. Yet even those hard-shelled, seemingly ferocious underground beasts were no match for Duanmu Huai and his companions. They had cut through them as if slicing melons; everything that stood in their way had been slaughtered to the last.
Those savage Beastmen were like pigs led to slaughter before Duanmu Huai—utterly without threat.
"You people… what are you?"
By then Kate looked at Duanmu Huai with nothing but confusion and unease; these people had become incomprehensible to her. She did not understand who they were or where they had come from.
"I already said, you don't need to know that."
Duanmu Huai swung his hammer head, smashed a spider-like subterranean monster flat, and then said, "We are only doing what we must do. Either shut your mouth or leave. As for everything else, you don't need to know it and you shouldn't know it. Understand?"
Kate opened her mouth but had no reply; an awkward silence settled until Anne's lively voice broke it.
"Sir Knight, Miss Phylin says she sensed a lot of human auras not far ahead."
"Oh? Is that so?"
Duanmu Huai raised an eyebrow. "Let's go see."
They continued forward, passed through caves, and entered a relatively open cavern. The place looked more like a prison: huge iron cages lined the area, and beside them were many coffins that seemed made of steel.
"Open those things."
Duanmu Huai walked to one steel coffin, put his hand on it, and tore the lid off with a single pull. A ragged man tumbled out; he stared at Duanmu Huai in terror, screamed, and fainted.
Duanmu Huai rolled his eyes and looked at the others. "You take care of the rest."
The girls stepped forward and opened the coffins. They were surprised: each coffin contained a person—men and women, old and young, even some burly soldiers. Kate recognized a familiar face among them.
"Uncle Barrek? You were captured here?"
"Ah, it's you."
Barrek, the leader of the migrant group that had hired Kate as an escort, blinked and looked toward her. When that caravan had been smashed by Beastmen, Kate had thought he was dead; she had not expected him to have been captured and brought here.
Most of those rescued were from the migrant group; Kate did not know them well, though a few soldiers were among the captives. After counting, they found over a hundred survivors. According to Barrek, there had originally been many more, but the Beastmen had taken most of them away. Only these had been left behind.
"I heard those Beastmen plan to take the captives away for transformation… I can't even imagine what they mean to do."
Barrek shuddered at the memory, glanced at Duanmu Huai, and whispered to Kate, "Kate, who are those people?"
"I don't know either, but they came here to exterminate the Beastmen."
"To exterminate Beastmen? Come here? With just these few?"
"Of course not. They brought several thousand—very powerful warriors."
Before Kate finished explaining, Barrek's face went pale. Kate turned and saw Duanmu Huai walking toward them.
"Do you need something?"
Even normally unflappable Kate felt tense in his presence; his aura carried an unbearable pressure. She forced herself to remain upright and not kneel before the terrifying black-armored warrior. Duanmu Huai glanced at her and said flatly, "I've sent for another squad to escort these people up. Until then, they're under your charge."
"Eh? Just me?"
"Lorena and her team will stay to treat the wounded."
Before he finished, a figure stumbled out from the rescued crowd and threw herself at Duanmu Huai's feet.
"My child—my child, please save my child!"
A woman sobbed and clung to him. Duanmu Huai frowned. "Her child was taken by the Beastmen too?"
Kate shot Barrek a questioning look; he shook his head violently. "No, no—that's not it! Sir, please don't mind her—she's mad!"
"Mad?"
"Yes. Her child was killed by the Beastmen long ago. She went insane and has been searching for her child everywhere. She wandered into our caravan."
"Have Lorena examine her."
Duanmu Huai nodded and Kate hurried to the woman, gently helped her to her feet, and comforted her. The woman calmed and Kate guided her to Lorena. After that brief pause, Duanmu Huai resumed the advance with the rest, leaving Lorena's angelic squad behind as medics and rear support. The rescued migrants scavenged weapons from the Beastmen corpses and armed themselves, gathering anxiously to await reinforcements.
Kate explained the woman's situation to Lorena in a low voice. Lorena listened and said with a trace of sadness, "I can understand a mother's grief. Perhaps she still lived in a dream, refusing to wake—pretending her child wasn't dead so she could keep going."
"Um… Miss Lorena, can you help?"
Kate half expected a priestess-style intervention that might be crude; she still remembered Lorena smacking that berserker she-Beast with a holy book. If Lorena really hit her with that book... Kate thought, a human skull isn't a Beastman's; she might crack this poor woman wide open.Maybe she'd finally see her daughter then?
Fortunately, Lorena did not attempt any physical "treatment." She took the woman's thin hands, looked into her eyes, and spoke softly: "Do not worry. The light of the gods will shine upon every kind soul."
She then looked to the Melody Angel standing behind her. "Please."
The angel—a slender girl with flaxen braided hair and a thin white dress—nodded. She produced a harp and plucked the strings, then began to sing.
"O gods above, hear my plea. I do not seek to steal your power or life. Every life in this world is special… Though I was not chosen by fate, grant me hope again… Even knowing mankind is far from pure, I would bring hope to those who pray for forgiveness…"
Her voice was clear and pure, as if it pierced the soul. Though she sang in a tongue Kate could not understand, hearing it filled Kate with a strange, profound awe. Even the anxious migrants grew still; clutching their weapons, they watched the angel and felt a long-lost calm wash over them.
For a moment, they seemed to have found—peace they had not known for a long time.
(End of chapter)