Chapter 29

Inside the breeding pens dried grasses covered the ground and the air stunk of musk. Muffled voices hidden by wooden walls broke the silence.

They paused at the corner of the first wall and Rain poked his head around. A pair of Goblins were arguing beside some kind of lumpy blanketed table.

“It’s my turn!”

“Your turn? This is the end of the tribe. If we’re all gonna die I want to go out riding dick!

“W-what! That’s ridiculous! I’m on the schedule for today, look, look, my mark is on the schedule. It’s clear that you haven’t a leg to stand on, he’s all mine.”

“Fuck the schedule, and fuck you.”

The Goblin punched the other Goblin in the eye, she went reeling and sat down with a thump.

“You bitch!” said the Goblin, rubbing her eye.

The Goblin who had thrown the punch was no longer looking in her direction however and was pulling aside the sheet. A pair of stumps, legs that had been severed at the knee, were revealed, as well as a wrapping of chains, then as she pulled the sheet back further a loincloth.

She licked her lips and crawled up on top of the table.

A growl from behind made her freeze up and slowly turn around. Her eyes glanced over the corpse of the punched goblin lying on the ground and then up to the massive blood covered black wolf monster.

“Ahaha heyyyy there. Don’t suppose you’d let me have a little fun before you get me? maybe?”

“No.”

A paw flashed out and she was dragged into his jaws with a squeal of fear, swiftly ending her life.

Rain tugged on the chain and the Elf-sheep who had been holding onto the wall to keep herself up whimpered and tottered after him. Her entire lower body was trembling uncontrollably now and she looked near ready to keel over.

Rain walked to the far end of the table and pulled back the sheet. A pure blood Minotaur’s head was revealed, his head encased in a metal frame and his jaw forced open with a metal bar. Scars marred his face and one of his eyes was missing. The good eye looked up at Rain, pleading. Rain tilted his head to the side, he didn’t think anyone about to die by his jaws had ever given him that look before. He gave the Minotaur what he wanted and ripped out his throat. The look of sheer peace that crossed the Minotaur’s face gave Rain a moment of pause. It was incongruous with his experience and it bothered him, prey normally did not want to die like this.

The elf-sheep appeared at his side.

“He was a Minotaur, one of the most prideful species. I think this must have been a hell tailored to his worst nightmares, poor guy.”

“I assume he tried to escape more than once going by the wounds.”

“Most likely. Some species do much worse than others in captivity, some better. This tribe should have been exterminated a long time ago, if only the local town ranker wasn’t a lazy asshole.”

“I know of him. He is on my list.”

“What list is that?”

“The list where they get eaten bit by bit while still alive.”

The Elf-sheep shuddered and gave him a wary glance.

“Is this what you wanted to show me? Because it’s not enough to save your life.”

“N-No! No, this is something else, I didn’t know about this guy or what was being done to him. What I wanted to show you is further in, I think ... I hope.”

“Hope?”

“Know with absolute certainty to be one hundred percent factual. I have supreme confidence that it is the case with zero doubt whatsoever that it is anything other than what I know to be true.”

Rain squinted at the nervous looking Elf-sheep. Then tugged on her chains and they passed through to the next partition. A pair of human women were curled up in the piles of dry grass. Rain realised that this was what the Elf-sheep had wanted to show him for they were both clearly pregnant. The pair looked up at him with fearful eyes and scrambled back.

The Elf-sheep stepped forward.

“It’s okay now, everything’s going to be fine.”

She turned on Rain with a quietly confident look.

“See, told you, it’s something you wouldn’t want to deal with.”

“Why.”

“Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it. You’re not going to eat pregnant people!”

Rain furrowed his brow in thought.

The Elf-sheep blinked and then worry crossed her face.

“Y-you a-aren’t are y-you?”

Rain knew he was now a monster and no longer Human, it was just a fact, not that he had led a particularly normal Human life. Still, he remained at his core Human, even if he was now drenched in so much blood.

This feels like a line that Human me really doesn’t want to cross. I don’t want to cross it either, but I’m just so hungry, so painfully hungry, and they are just there, but they’re not like bloodthirsty monsters, or even regular callous and cruel levelers, or the already dead, this is...

Conflicting emotions and powerful instincts wracked his mind and he worried the problem. He could practically hear his animalistic hunger roaring in his ear, telling him to eat! eat! eat the prey!

“H-hey, hold on, there’s another reason!”

Rain looked up and blinked.

“There is?”

“Yes! There was an old fisherman who lived by a lake.”

“What.”

“J-just listen. The old fisherman fished everyday, he fished and fished and he ate every fish that he caught. Now the old fisherman had a brother who lived by a different lake, that fisherman did not eat all of the fish he caught and instead threw back the pregnant fish and the young fish. One day the first fisherman went to the lake and fished and found that he did not catch anything. He put his head below the water and found that the lake was empty of fish. He then starved to death while his brother lived on because the fish in his lake kept making more fish. So, you see, you need to let some fish go to keep fishing in the long run.”

“Or I could go to the brother’s lake and eat him and then eat his fish.”

“I- I don’t think fishermen eat other fishermen normally, fishermen eat fish not other fishermen.”

“Hmmm.”

“I-it’s a metaphor uhmm.” She pointed at the pregnant Humans. “They’re fish, see, and the dungeon is the lake.”

“Hmmmmmmm.”

He abruptly strode toward the Humans and crouched down in front of them. They obviously freaked out and tried to scramble away but his paw came out and clamped down on one’s wrist like a vice. He dragged her toward him.

“Fish! She’s fish! You can’t eat her! Sustainable fishing!”

Rain brought her hand up to his mouth. The pregnant woman was hysterically bawling her eyes out by this point. Rain paused.

“Fish ... Fine.”

He dropped her hand and she scrambled back into the pile of dried grass.

The Elf-sheep let out a desperately relieved sigh of relief.

Rain wasn’t actually sure whether the morality of it or the consideration for ‘sustainable fishing’ had let him overcome his currently screaming visceral hunger. Maybe the latter had allowed the former, he couldn’t say, still, this felt like a turning point in better controlling himself, one where he could have gone down a different path. The Elf-sheep had led him here.

As if remembering something he suddenly stood up and turned back to her.

“You got what you wanted, but you seem to be forgetting something.”

“I, uh, am?”

“You are clearly not pregnant.” His eyes came to rest on her flat stomach.

She blushed once more. “That’s something I was getting to! H-hold on!” she said as Rain took a step toward her and she quailed, her legs nearly buckling under her. “I’m not pregnant, but you need me still!”

“No, I do not.”

“What do you think is going to happen to these fish!”

“I do not care.”

“Sustainable fishing! Sustainable fishing!!” she cried as though it were a ward against him.

“Stop saying sustainable fishing at me.”

“It’s true though! Just letting them go in the middle of the dungeon is not that, they wouldn’t last five seconds out there, without the tribe protecting them they are all dead dead dead!”

Rain glared at her. “That is ... annoyingly true. What of it?”

“Well, I’m glad you asked.” She gave him a winning smile and pointed at her chest with her thumb. “Expert danger navigator and avoider of monsters, well-renowned saver of persons and items. I am your best bet, and best value, for rescuing such things from places of peril as I have the legendary and famed Rescuer Class! My prices are quite reasonable and I have excellent reviews.”

“You expect me to pay you to take food away?”

“Oh no no! Sorry sorry, force of habit, this will of course be pro bono.”

“Hrmm. Avoider of monsters? I don’t think you are doing particularly well at that.”

“Hey, that’s not my fault, that stupid witch had some kind of locating spell, they swarmed me before I could do anything!”

“I saw she could do that. Well, that’s not something you need to worry about any longer. There’s nothing left of her but a crater in the grass.”

“Good! Stupid Spider-goblin. Come on, help me break their chains.”

Rain watched silently as the Elf-sheep scooped up their chains and tried to fruitlessly pull them from where they were attached to the wall. After a moment he sighed and grabbed up the chains with one paw, with a grunt he pulled them both from the wall with a shower of splinters then put the ends in the Elf-sheeps hands.

“Yours.”

“Thank you, just a few more places to check now!”

Rain stepped toward the next stall as the Elf-sheep encouraged the terrified humans to their feet. They reluctantly followed, keeping the maximum distance from Rain that their chains would allow. The next stall was empty of people, although talon marks marred the walls, including a crudely made picture of a pair of wings plus a crown, below which someone had written ‘Harpy Reign’. In one corner was a shattered pair of chains, in the other was a pile of discarded clothing.

The Elf-sheep wobbled over to this.

“Oh! My clothes!! My precious stylish clothes! Oh, how I have missed you!”

She quickly snatched up a pair of shorts and wiggled into them and grabbed up a jacket and a few other things. She threw a pair of blankets at the pregnant women as Rain pulled on her chain and moved onto the next stall.