Chapter 16: im not in the mood for a cute one-liner, alright?
Lower Wind Month, 21st Day, 600 AGG
"Load 'em up!" Sinkh yelled at Aardev. "We don't got all day!"
"You're supposed to do it quietly," the Werebear grumbled as he put the despondent humans into the massive cart. "You know the bosses hate it when protocol isn't followed."
"Fuck that, who's gonna know?" Sinkh scoffed in irritation. "Not like the supervisors will bother comin' all the way out here."
'Still,' Aardev thought to himself with a scowl. Mess up too much, and he'll lose this job. He couldn't afford to. Not with a crippled father and two younger siblings back home. "Don't get me in trouble along with you."
"Psssh, you need to live it up a little," the Lion Zoastia smacked the side of the Auroch, startling the slow beast into motion as it dragged the cart back towards the city. "We're already stuck out here in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere. Don't gotta live like it though."
Aardev didn't dignify that with a response, steadfastly ignoring his coworker. Sinkh didn't notice or didn't care, choosing instead to belch out some raunchy song or another as the rudimentary vehicle rattled along the countryside.
He allowed his mind to wander, wondering not for the first time how his younger siblings were faring. Their place as Sudapra in the Republic was but a mere step above slavery and the rights afforded to them were… lacking, to say the least.
'They meet the wrong person and—don't think about it, not now. Focus on what you can do.'
"Y'know," Sinkh spoke up again. "Think that monkey bastard would notice if we just took one out and ate it?" The people in the back of the cart paled in fear, huddling tighter together even while they shook in fear.
"Shut up," Aardev's eyes twitched at the idiotic suggestion. "Higher ups keep a close eye on their numbers. If there's even a little bit that's off, we're done for."
"Yeah, yeah," Sinkh scowled with a look of deeply rooted resentment. "This shit ain't something we could touch in our entire lives, huh? Fuck, we do all this work, and we can't even get a taste."
"Doesn't matter," Aardev kept his eyes ahead on the city approaching in the distance. Stockyard-H Two, or Caldevera as the humans had called it. The second of two major specialty livestock facilities in this region that catered to the wealthy and powerful. "Just do your damn job and forget about shit like that. People like us can't afford to bother with anything else."
"You really ruin the mood, y'know that?" the lion beastman laughed uproariously, a fearsome voice that caused some of the humans in the back to start crying in fear. "Once I get outta here, I'm heading to the frontlines. Heading out there right with the damn Endless Slaughter himself. They say he accepts anyone, and to hell with their status."
'Faa'zh Ro Kroh'or,' Aardev grimly thought. On one hand, it was only thanks to the legendary Tiger Zoastia's efforts that he was even able to get the job he had. On the other, the tales of the beastman painted the image of an utterly insane bloodthirsty berserker. And of course Sinkh was someone who aspired to become a person like that.
There were worse people to idolize, he supposed. Aardev just wished there was more room for less… violent occupations in the Republic. Craftsmen clans jealously guarded their secrets so as to preserve their relevancy and membership was difficult to obtain. He didn't have the aptitude for it either, unfortunately.
Getting a position in the Archives was equally as laughable, if not more so. The study of the arcane was something that completely flew over his head.
Aardev was no coward who feared combat, but with a family that he was single-handedly supporting, death was an unacceptable risk. At least until his siblings could look after themselves.
"Not with the Sword Saint?" he huffed in response.
"Huh?" Sinkh looked at him with a disbelieving stare. "Didn't you hear? She got her ass killed tryin' to capture another one of those human cities. Monkey bastard was talking about it a few days ago. Don't know how she died, but probably did some real dumb and crazy shit."
The humans in the back slightly perked up at that. He felt a small twinge of pity; what happened leagues away wouldn't change their fate.
"I didn't hear," Aardev frowned in concern. The Sixth-generation Sword Saint had fallen? Her reputation was less than stellar, but her strength was uncontested. What manner of human could have possibly killed her? "Isn't that bad news? If they're pushing our offensive back—"
"Fuck! You worry too damn much!" Sinkh growled. "Bitch like that was gonna end up dyin' like a chump sooner or later, y'hear?"
"Right," Aardev dropped the topic. Whatever happened, he just hoped it wouldn't affect him. Maybe it really was just a fluke; what were the chances the humans could suddenly change the tide of the war now? "Hey, we're getting close. You got your identification?"
"I'm not that dumb, man," Sinkh rolled his eyes and flashed the copper plate tied around his stout neck. "Asshole."
"Just checking," Aardev muttered under his breath. For a stockyard, the higher ups were awfully keen when it came to security. Of course, many of them would never bother to set foot in such a place, so security gradually relaxed and deteriorated without oversight. After all, what human would be crazy enough to dive this deep into Republic lines?
'Unless the front lines have been destroyed,' Aardev tried to shove the chilling thought out of his mind, but a small figment remained, tormenting him. 'It'll be fine. I have to believe that.'
"Oi, you bastards are back already?" one of the beastmen on guard duty yawned and smirked at them while his partner continued to snore. "How's the meat this time around, eh?"
'Fucker keeps acting like he's better than us,' Aardev bristled. 'You're stuck here in the backwaters with us too, asshole.'
He looked at the back of the cart where the humans were cowering and snarled, laughing as the livestock whimpered in terror. "Got some good, tender ones this time, huh?"
"Oi, stop fuckin' with the merchandise!" Sinkh let out a threatening rumble. "Or your ass is grass." Aardev silently agreed.
"Calm down, boy," the guard backed away with a chuckle and let them continue into the city. "Don't gotta take your jobs that seriously."
"Fuck him," Sinkh spat on the ground once the guards were out of earshot. "Bastard thinks he's hot shit just 'cause he don't haveta spend all day in the 'house with us."
"Just forget about him," Aardev replied as they reached the abattoir. "Lose your focus, and you'll regret it. Remember what happened to Bilmsa?"
"Yeah," Sinkh grimaced. "Poor sonuvabitch. Got his hand a lil cut up, and the boss just told him to get rid of the whole damn thing. Guy talked shit all the time, but that was fucked up."
Aardev grimly nodded in agreement. Work conditions in the stockyard started at 'awful' and went down from there. Injuries were common as Sudapra's or other disgraced beastmen gradually lost concentration over the course of a long and tiring work day. Infections were a near certainty each time, which meant that a small cut was very likely to result in an amputation in some way. Not like the clerics would waste precious mana on healing every single 'little' wound. The meat was far more important.
Aardev was lucky to have been careful so far, but even he didn't know how long that would last. It was true that processing days were the worst, but all other days were spent keeping a close eye on the human population and assisting brought-in experts with various long and tedious experiments to improve productivity. The Werebear released a heavy sigh; if only he had more options.
'Maybe the gladiatorial arenas,' he mused as he carefully grabbed the squirming kids, tuning out the humans' screaming and begging. The higher ups should really stop telling them to take kids at the same time they took the parents. They wanted to reduce the stress of the livestock, yet allowed these kinds of situations to happen… 'Problem is, I've never fought in a scrap like that.'
"Hey, Sinkh!" Aardev shouted. "Hurry up and get Hanu'va! They won't shut up!"
"Already doin' it!" the lion beastman walked over to one of the side doors and pounded on it. "Oi, Monkey bastard! Time to work."
"Argh, it's you cunts again," an Ape Beastman dressed in the sterile robes of a stockyard arcanist yawned and stretched as he made his way to the cart. "Gimme a sec. I'm bone tired right now."
"Fuckin' liar!" Sinkh chuckled. "I bet your lazy-ass just woke up!"
"Shut up," the ape grumbled as he inspected the humans. "Ain't I your supervisor? I swear, none of you guys would know what respect was if it shoved a spike in your guts!『Sleep』."
The humans immediately stopped screaming and crying as they slumped over in deep slumber. Aardev heard the sniffling of the kids he was holding and groaned.
"Ugh, why'd you take them out first?" the ape rubbed his face in exasperation. "I ain't casting another one for that bunch, so you can deal with them yourself."
"It's fine," Aardev sighed and lifted the kids in his hands. "These ones go in the live batch."
"Wonder which lucky rich bastard is eating those," the ape grumbled as he held open the door to the room he had come out of. "Hurry up and get 'em in there! Just about to finish the last batch, so you fellas are cutting it reeeal close."
"Don't gotta tell us twice," Sinkh bit back as he threw the humans over his shoulders. "Hurry up with those damn brats too, Aardev!"
"Already on it," Aardev rolled his eyes and headed over to a newly constructed warehouse. "Open up! Got new arrivals!"
"Inspected them yet?" the beastmen he assumed was the manager of the warehouse appraised the kids. He looked new, Aardev noticed; maybe the higher ups were planning on expanding again? "You know how some of the Viziers get when they don't meet standards."
"It's fine, Hanu'va gave them a once over already," Aardev passed the silently sobbing kids over. "I need to get back to the abattoir."
"Yeah, go ahead," the manager dismissively waved him away. "Oi, Rayam! Get your ugly mug over here!"
Aardev watched as the manager closed the door behind him, muffling the shrill screeching of the kids. 'They sorta remind me of—no.'
Working here was messing with his head. He knew that. A person couldn't butcher living beings day in and day out without being affected by it in some way. It didn't matter if the livestock were sapient or not, it still dulled a butcher's sensibilities all the same.
"Aardev!" one of his colleagues shouted at him. "We need you to help with the eviscerating!"
"Got it!" the bear beastman grabbed a pair of boning and breaking knives and headed over to the racks, joining a few others hard at work disemboweling and removing the heads of the drained and scalded corpses.
Decapitate. Cut. Pull. Dig out. Decapitate. Cut. Pull. Dig out. Aardev wasn't sure how long he mechanically repeated the same motions. His eyes grew heavy along with his body, as his mind slowly drifted off…
The processed meat would then be sent to the Stasis Warehouse—a different one from the place he left the kids at—where clerics would run one last check on them, purifying them with magic if needed, before a convoy came around to pick all of it up.
"How many more batches do we have left?" Aardev asked the wolf beastman busy disemboweling a carcass beside him. "Can't be that many left now."
"Probably just another one or two," the wolfman replied after a grunt. "Gonna hit the sack right after this."
"Yeah," Aardev commiserated. "Yeah, it's been a long as hell day, huh?"
The main door to the abattoir opened.
Aardev caught a glance from the side of his vision, then snapped his head around to do a double take.
A long, raven-haired human—a female, Aardev absentmindedly noted—entered, accompanied by a pair of four-winged armored beings with white-hot flames pouring out of the holes in their lion-like helmets.
The human slowly looked around the entire slaughterhouse, acknowledging and judging every being within. Aardev shivered.
Her eyes were lightless. Not a trace of warmth or mercy could be found in her teal-green gaze.
'We're going to die,' Aardev realized, with a calmness that surprised even him. 'We're all going to fucking die.'
"Oi, who the hell are you—?" Sinkh let go of the carcass he working on and walked towards the human until—
"Kill him."
Until he didn't have a head or an upper torso. Red mist settled over the entire abattoir, blending in with the blood already present.
"Oh, shit," Aardev didn't know if it was him or someone else who said that aloud, but he did know that everyone dropped their damn tools and ran for the exit in the back.
'Shit, shit, shit! What the hell is this?!' Aardev cursed as he ran with all his might towards the door and—
"Alright, secured all the residences outside the city!" Yuriko spoke with a peppiness that seemed all too fake. "Next stop, the city!"
"Yes," Draudillon pensively replied. "Are they…?" Her words failed her. She could reach out and give a slight tug to all the souls of her subjects in the city, but—
'Do I really want to know what they're feeling?' she sneaked a small tendril of—connection?—outwards. A small frown creeped over her face when she wasn't suddenly overcome with the massive amounts of sheer terror she had expected. Overall, the general sentiment of her people was one of resignation and a few strong spots of grief here and there.
"I dunno," Yuriko's expression dropped. "Summon communication is only one-way, but I think so?"
"Okay," the dragon queen took in a deep shuddering breath. "Okay. Let's go."
Yuriko nodded, and an angelic host flew forwards towards the city. "Just gotta wait a few hours and they should be done, I think—"
"Could we go closer?"
"Wha-," Yuriko gave her a worried look. "Why?"
"I just—" Draudillon swallowed the lump in her throat. "Please."
"... Okay," the angel acquiesced, following the flock she had sent before them as her wings enveloped Draudillon. "Keep your head down in case they have any crazy strong rangers or something."
Draudillon nodded. Keep her head down. She could do that.
The pair neared the center of the city where Draudillon saw a number of buildings that exuded a feeling of dread that she swore she could nearly feel. It was surprisingly quiet. Were the guards not paying attention to what was approaching them from above? Did the city even have any beastmen guarding it?
'Easier for us then.'
As they descended, the sounds of things breaking grew louder, likely from the struggling between the summoned angels and unwelcomed occupants of the city. The lack of radiant light and fire was a welcome sight; there wasn't anyone here strong enough to warrant a response that might cause collateral damage.
"So what did you want to do?" Yuriko's feet touched the ground. "We're closer and all now—Hey!"
Draudillon hopped out of the startled angel's arms and ran towards the nearest of the white buildings, blood pounding in her ears.
"Oh gods," Draudillon softly murmured in horror. "Oh gods."
She didn't need any special sense or skill to guess what lay within. Even still, morbid curiosity overcame any semblance of rationality inside of her.
"Draudillon, maybe you should stay back—"
She ran ahead, the thumping of her heart drowning out the angel's voice. Her people had looked mostly fine, if a bit resigned and depressed, when she had seen them in what may as well have been holding pens on their flight over, but these buildings before her…
She didn't know if she wanted to see what was inside. The metallic stench of blood and viscera overwhelmed her nose before she even entered.
Draudillon took a deep breath and pushed open the door.
It was a slaughterhouse. There were no other words to describe it. She immediately wanted to throw up.
'This is what I've let my people suffer through?'
"Oi, who the hell are you—?" one of the beastmen working there, a thickly built lion Zoastia, scowled as he dropped the corpse he was in the middle of disassembling.
'This is… This is all my fault.'
"Kill him."
The Gatekeeper's lance arm flickered, and the head—along with the entire upper torso—of the demihuman vanished in a mist of red that settled over Draudillon. She didn't care.
"Oh, shit," the other beastmen immediately dropped their tools and tried to run away through an exit in the back of the abattoir.
"Don't let a single one of them escape," her voice sounded so flat, so devoid of emotion, even to herself. She didn't care.
The beastmen didn't get far before the two Cherubim Gatekeepers tore all of them apart with precise, casual sweeps of their lances. They weren't even granted the chance to scream.
Draudillon looked around the slaughterhouse. It didn't look all that different from the ones in the Draconic Kingdom that processed livestock.
Livestock. She felt sick.
There were giant separate vats filled with offal, skin, bones, and fat respectively. The by-products of her people. What the beastmen were unwilling to immediately eat and would likely later send to another facility to be reprocessed.
"Hey, what's with all the racket—how did you get out?" an apelike beastman in garbs evocative of an arcane caster walked out of a side room, his eyes gradually widening in terror as he saw the scattered chunks of his coworkers littering the killing floor. "『Slee—"
He died before he could finish casting his spell. Draudillon walked over the pieces of his body, a pair of angels silently following behind her, and looked inside the room where the spellcaster had appeared from.
It was packed full with poorly dressed humans—the people she swore to protect—all asleep, presumably from a 『Sleep』spell. A few of them seemed to be stirring awake.
'We're here to save them,' Draudillon tried to think past the frozen veil of hate and remember what they were here for. 'Justice can be set aside for later.'
"Find more of your fellows," she pointed at one of the Gatekeepers. "And take all of these people to somewhere—somewhere safe."
Laughable. As if they could ever see a place in this city as safe ever again.
One of the four-winged angels quietly floated away, and Draudillon was left in the cold, cold silence of her own thoughts.
AN: Hello! Eruthoth from the Overlord Fanfiction Discord has kindly made some really, really awesome fanart for this fic. You can check it out on his instagram ( barnaud_evan), the AO3 version of this fic, or on my channel in the aforementioned discord.
Thanks for reading!