Yet in his heart, he still silently separated Ghislaine from the beastgirl category.
After all, Ghislaine was hard from chest to butt. Her overly firm muscles made a thump thump sound when tapped with the back of a finger, no different from steel plate.
But these girls were definitely soft... Though he hadn't touched them, and never would.
"...Big brother, what are you looking at?", The cat-eared girl noticed his gaze on her and tilted her head in confusion.
He'd unconsciously glanced at her and silently withdrew his gaze, "Nothing. Just something on my mind."
"Something on your mind?", The cat-eared girl looked at him with pure, innocent eyes, making it impossible for him to voice the question no matter what.
After all, her grandfather and father were right there. If he said what he was wondering about... setting aside his reputation, it wouldn't be strange to get chopped down on the spot by her parents.
So he silently pushed down his curiosity, patted his own head, and muttered quietly, "I am an upright and correct adult! I can't become strange!"
"Lewd!", Eris suddenly, "without distinguishing right from wrong," kicked him from behind.
"What? You were happily petting them too just now, weren't you? Trying to pin all the blame on me?", He tried to drag Eris down with him, but Eris just crossed her arms and looked at him coldly, "Hmph! This is why men are..."
"...Master," Helpless, he looked at Roxy, but...
"Don't look at me, and don't use honorifics right now," Roxy's face was stern with disappointment, "Right now, I've already regretted being proud of you."
"No... You regret it just like that? What about our years of bond together?", He tried to evoke Roxy's memories, to salvage her trust in him.
"Then starting today, be a proper person."
"...I've always been a proper person."
'And what's wrong with liking fluffy things? Isn't that a hobby of decent people?', His words and heart at odds, he was now genuinely a bit worried they'd take him for a strange person, though he understood he couldn't blame others for misunderstanding.
Because considering the other party was a girl, his behavior might have been just a tiny bit... not entirely appropriate.
Just then, the children's parent, the old beastman, gave a light cough, drawing everyone's attention before slowly saying, "My name is Gustav Dedoldia. I haven't yet asked your esteemed name."
"Ash," Having a chance to change the subject, he immediately put on a smile.
"Ash... is it? Why does that name sound familiar....", Unable to immediately recall where he'd heard it, the old beastman, finding it somewhat familiar, didn't dwell on the question. Instead, with a troubled expression, he continued, "This debt of gratitude must be repaid. However, our tribe is currently being harassed by an illegal armed group, and quite a few children have been taken. But these little ones aren't suitable to bring along either. We need to first...."
"I understand. I'll help you. I happened to notice several more slaver operations appearing nearby. As for Roxy and Eris... take these children back first!"
Feeling he should calm down and not be tempted by little foxes and kittens, Ash, for the first time, spoke up to offer help before the other party even finished asking.
But his words inevitably made the two beside him doubt his true intentions... Or rather, they simply suspected he was helping because the victims might include beast-eared girls.
But in truth.... He really just wanted to shift his mindset, and help the children and the poor parents whose children had been abducted.
———
Because beastman children could fetch high prices from certain perverted nobles.
So, with the rainy season approaching, when rain would hinder the beastmen's overly keen sense of smell, and floods would not only block their sense of smell but also prevent pursuit, making operations easier. These slavers, or rather smugglers who also dealt in slaves on the side, joined forces and planned a large-scale operation.
Within just these two days, in the great forest that occupied half of the northern Milis Continent, quite a few beastman villages had been attacked separately.
Over fifty children and many women had been abducted. They first launched diversionary attacks on villages in different directions, forcing the warrior corps of the Doldia tribe, the clan of the great forest's chief, to rush all over the great forest, exhausting themselves and becoming extremely spread out.
This left the main village's defenses empty, and the chief's granddaughter and the sacred beast... that is, the big dog, were caught off guard and taken.
And now.... When they parted ways with the group, the old beastman chief was still agonizing over which ship held the abducted tribespeople. Because the enemy seemed to have used a special powder to fool their noses.
But Ash didn't need the old beastman's sense of smell to guide him. Using his own vast magical detection, he easily located several suspicious locations.
And he led them in a frontal assault on the underground strongholds and ships near the port, where the children and women had just been quietly transported from all directions. Or rather... he single-handedly crushed the criminal organization that had been tormenting the beastmen.
So while the beastmen cheered and reunited, Ash naturally got to relive the wonderful experience of being surrounded by beast-eared girls.... Though he emphasized he had no strange hobbies, who would dislike being surrounded by cute things?
With this thought, he followed the group of beastmen to the great forest chief's tribe, and before his eyes slowly unfolded a dreamlike scene.
Because this place was truly a fantastical village hidden within the dense sea of trees.
Those giant trees were different from the ordinary trees below in the great forest. Each stood tall like a skyscraper. Their trunks were so thick that "several people linking arms" couldn't measure them. Trunk diameters were basically twenty to thirty meters thick, and heights basically exceeded a hundred meters. Completely beyond what Earth's plants could achieve.
Many of the giant trees supported delicate wooden houses. Wooden stairs like cliff walkways stably encircled the trunks, spiraling upward to connect each house, the whole both magnificent and harmoniously integrated into nature's embrace.
Between the trees, sturdy wooden suspension bridges connected them like the veins of nature, allowing villagers to stroll through the air without touching the ground.
Below ground, it seemed rather ordinary and quiet, with only a few crude huts and mottled field remnants, but clearly barely used. Basically everyone lived up in the trees, except for occasional hunting and fruit gathering.
The wooden dwellings were basically all built at heights of twenty to thirty meters, allowing the people here to easily use that height to overlook a fairly vast surrounding area.
And in this fantastical village.... Normal people might be fine, but anyone with acrophobia would have a hard time living here.
After successfully helping rescue a group of children from the village, Ash naturally received the tribe's highest honors.
He not only once again thoroughly enjoyed the wondrous feeling of a dreamlike zoo day trip, surrounded by a group of cute beast-eared girls, but the village children's parents also came one by one with immense gratitude to express their thanks.
And in the guest room prepared for them, after the people finally left and the children were taken away, Ash sat cross-legged at the desk specially made for him, gazing in the direction the beastman parents had departed, and couldn't help but sigh, "As expected, most beastmen are different from Ghislaine. Even when adults walk, their chests bounce..."
It wasn't that he was being lewd, paying attention to such a strange place. It was purely that Ghislaine's impression on him was too strong. Especially her chest, which was clearly large when running yet almost didn't bounce at all, making him almost suspect his common sense didn't apply to beastmen.
"Lewd!", Eris, sitting beside him, heard his words and immediately furrowed her pretty brows, kicking his foot under the table.
"...Don't you think it's strange? Why is the difference within the same species so big?"
"Aren't you just using curiosity to mask your true feelings?"
"You're an idiot, you wouldn't understand."
"I'm not an idiot! And I heard, you only touch girls' ears and tails. How do you explain that?"
Eris, hit where it hurt and unwilling to admit it, stood up abruptly, aggressively placing her hands on the table, looking like she'd explode any second.
But he silently opened a book he'd swiped from the port city, and without looking up, "Think about it yourself. If I were happily touching a boy's ears and tail, what kind of picture would that be?"
"You happily touching..... Eek~!", Just recalling his earlier scenes of petting the fox and teasing the cat, replacing the girls with a young boy, Eris shuddered with revulsion, her hands rubbing her arms, "D-Disgusting!"
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