Chapter 135: "Eating People"
The beastmen crowded into the pen finally experienced everything that the humans they had kept had once felt.
Small. Filthy. Cramped.
The enclosed area wasn't large to begin with. With nearly a hundred beastman women and young ones crammed inside, there was almost no open space between them.
The ground still bore the remnants of the previous occupants — dried excrement and bloodstains. The air was thick with a sharp, acrid smell.
"What is this place!" Dasha's voice rang between the fence posts. "How can they make us stay somewhere like this!"
He kicked the fence hard. The post didn't budge. His toes throbbed and he grimaced.
His mother grabbed his arm and lowered her voice. "Dasha. Stop it."
"But Mama..."
"Stop it." Her grip tightened. Those tiger-slit eyes were full of helpless fear.
Dasha closed his mouth, but the anger on his face didn't diminish at all.
He looked around. The aunts and older women who always smiled at him — they were all huddled together now, as though waiting for some unknown verdict.
Dasha didn't understand.
They hadn't done anything wrong. What right did anyone have to put them here?
Time passed.
The sun shifted from overhead to the west. The fence's shadow lengthened across the ground. Hunger began surging up from his stomach, and Dasha's belly made grumbling sounds.
Finally, the gate opened.
Two soldiers carried a large wooden barrel in and set it down with a clang. Inside was a grey-white paste that gave off an indescribable sour-stale smell. Slop.
"Feeding time." The soldier said flatly, then stepped back out of the pen.
The beastmen looked at each other.
Dasha stared at the barrel of slop and felt his stomach turn.
He could smell roasting lamb drifting in from outside — their village's own lambs. The rich, crackling smell of fat on flame stood in stark contrast to the acrid odor rising from the barrel in front of him.
"This isn't food for beastmen!" His voice went up several degrees. "I want out! I'm going to find those Silver Demons—"
"Dasha!" His mother clapped her hand over his mouth and pulled him into the corner.
"Mama!" Dasha struggled. "Can't you smell it? They're eating our sheep! Those are the village's—"
Her grip tightened until her fingers were nearly digging into his skin.
She bowed her head. Tears fell onto the boy's face.
"Stay alive, Dasha. Please. You're all I have left."
Dasha's struggling stopped.
His mother let go, dried her eyes, and walked to the barrel. She picked up a chipped wooden bowl from beside it, scooped it half full of slop, and brought it back.
"Have a little." She held the bowl out to Dasha.
Dasha looked away. "No."
"Dasha..."
"I said no!" He knocked the bowl sharply from her hand. It hit the ground and slop spilled everywhere. "Only humans eat this! I'm a beastman! I won't!"
His mother looked at the grey-white paste on the ground and was quiet for a moment.
She bent, picked up the bowl, wiped it on her sleeve, scooped it half full again, and drank from it silently.
The taste was sour and bitter, mixed with rotting vegetable scraps and unidentifiable residue.
She swallowed. Her stomach revolted, but her face showed nothing.
Dasha watched his mother's throat work as she swallowed and felt something rise in him that he couldn't name.
But he pressed his lips together and refused. It was the last dignity he had left.
Time crawled through the hunger.
Dasha's stomach felt as though an invisible hand was kneading it repeatedly — the initial grumbling had become a continuous dull ache. His head began to swim. Things in his vision went slightly blurred. He leaned against the fence, his tail hanging limp on the ground, no strength left even to lift it.
His mother sat beside him and held the bowl out several times. Each time he shook his head.
Then —
A smell drifted in.
Rich and heavy, carrying an irresistible meat fragrance — like the lid of a long-simmered broth being lifted.
The smell spread through the air and forced its way into every beastman's nostrils.
Dasha's throat moved.
He knew this smell too well.
Stewed human flesh.
Only during tribal festivals and birthdays did his father ever bring back a small bowl of it. The meat melted on the tongue, the broth was rich — it was the best thing he had ever tasted. He would always lick the bowl clean afterward, not leaving a single drop.
And now that smell was drifting in from outside the pen — close, as though someone were deliberately baiting them.
Dasha swallowed.
He heard the other beastmen around him swallowing too. Some had started moving toward the fence.
The gate opened again.
Germann walked in.
That scarred face wore a smile, the corner of his mouth pulled wide, showing off teeth that were faintly yellow.
He was carrying a wooden barrel, filled to the brim with stewed meat — chunks floating in broth, glistening with fat. Two soldiers followed him in, carrying two larger barrels, equally full.
"Dinner's served!" Germann called out in a rough voice to an audience that had been waiting a long time. "Brought it myself. Don't be shy — there's plenty."
He set the barrel down and gave it a stir with a ladle. Chunks of meat rolled to the surface, steaming.
The smell grew heavier — dense enough to feel almost solid.
The beastmen looked at each other. No one moved.
Germann's gaze swept the pen, then settled on the small figure curled in the corner.
His eyes brightened slightly. He picked up the barrel and walked over.
Dasha looked up and saw the Silver Demon's heavy, scarred face standing over him, a barrel of meat in hand, steam still rising from the broth.
"Eat." Germann crouched and set the barrel in front of Dasha, the corner of his mouth lifting further. "Made this specially for you. Nobody else gets this treatment."
Dasha stared at the chunks of meat in the barrel. His throat moved again.
He was so hungry he had almost lost his mind. The smell was like an invisible hand pulling his soul toward the barrel.
He lunged at it.
"Wait!" His mother's voice came from behind. She seized him by the scruff of his neck and pulled him back.
She bent forward and carefully smelled the barrel.
The smell was right. Just stewed human flesh.
But she still hesitated. Her tiger-slit eyes moved across Germann's scarred face, trying to read something from that smile.
"Something wrong?" Germann raised an eyebrow, hand moving to the sword at his hip. "I bring food out of the goodness of my heart, and you can't even show some gratitude?"
His mother stiffened.
She glanced at the sword, already halfway drawn.
"Eat." Her voice was quiet. She took the bowl from Dasha's hand, scooped a ladle of broth, and drank from it herself first.
The broth slid down her throat. Nothing wrong.
She set the bowl down and passed it to Dasha.
"Go ahead."
Dasha took the bowl and ate in large, rapid swallows.
The meat was soft and tender, melting on his tongue, the broth rich and savory. He ate fast — chewing even the bones and swallowing them.
Seeing someone go first, the other beastmen crowded in. The two large barrels were emptied quickly. The beastmen grabbed chunks of meat and crammed them into their mouths, some not even bothering with a bowl — just bending over and drinking directly from the broth.
Most of the beastmen ate with enthusiasm. After going hungry that long, and with such a rare delicacy in front of them, who was going to stop and think.
Only a small number hesitated — mostly the older women. They held the bowl to their lips for a long time, and only drank when the soldiers' stares forced them to.
But they ate in the end.
In less than a quarter-hour, both large barrels had been completely emptied. Not even the broth remained.
Many beastmen were still unsatisfied — licking the fat from their fingers, eyes wandering, as though looking for more.
Germann watched this and his smile deepened. He clapped his hands and stood.
"Since none of you are full yet," his voice rang with particular clarity in the quieted pen, "we'll just have to trouble the kitchen a little more. My treat — the freshest available."
He clapped again.
The gate opened once more, and another group of soldiers entered.
They moved efficiently. A large pot and a roasting rack were set up on the open ground outside the pen in short order. The water in the pot began to boil. The charcoal beneath the rack was lit, producing a sharp crackling sound.
Then they brought in the ingredients.
Beastman bodies.
The adult male beastmen killed at the village entrance not long ago were piled on the ground. Some still had their heads. Some had been severed at the neck, the cut ends dried to a dark, dull brown.
Part of the material was put into the pot. The rest was placed on the rack.
The beastmen froze.
"What are you... what are you doing?" Dasha's mother's voice was shaking.
Germann didn't answer. He simply nodded in one direction.
A man wearing a chef's hat came forward.
His face was unremarkable. He wore an oil-stained apron and held a long-handled ladle.
He walked to the pot and stirred the boiling water with the ladle, then walked to the rack and turned the iron spit.
The moment the ladle moved through the water, the smell in the air changed.
These were beastman bodies — and yet the smell that rose from them was unmistakably that of stewed human flesh.
Dasha's stomach lurched sharply.
He looked down at his oil-stained fingers. At the broth still at the corner of his mouth.
The meat in his stomach heaved — as though it had suddenly come alive and was writhing inside him.
"..." he murmured. "That can't be right... what I just ate was..."
"It was human flesh all right, wasn't it?" Germann's voice came from above him, carrying unconcealed pleasure. "Why yes, of course it was human flesh. It's just that the humans in question were your own kind."
He bent down, bringing his face close to Dasha's. Those eyes gleamed with a near-pathological pleasure.
"That cook has an [Innate Ability] — can make any demi-human meat taste exactly like human flesh. Impressive, isn't it?"
Dasha's pupils contracted sharply.
He thought of every piece of meat and every spoonful of broth he had just eaten — every bite the finest thing in his memory. But that meat had been carved from his own kind.
His uncles. His father's companions.
Dasha's stomach cramped violently.
"—"
He bent over and brought up everything he had eaten.
Broth and fragments of meat surged up his throat, mixed with stomach acid, spreading across the filthy ground.
He retched again and again until there was nothing left in his stomach, and still couldn't stop.
His mother bent double beside him.
Her hands braced on the ground, mouth open, what came up dripping from her chin.
More beastmen began to vomit.
The sounds rose and fell throughout the pen — retching mixed with crying and cursing.
The older women vomited the most violently — they had known from the beginning something was wrong, and had been forced to eat anyway. Now the meat in their stomachs felt like burning charcoal, searing their souls.
Some beastmen began beating the ground. Others held their heads and crouched shaking. Still others threw themselves at the fence, shaking the posts frantically, trying to break through.
The fence didn't budge.
Germann stood outside the pen, watching the beastmen weeping and wailing. His pleasure deepened.
He looked at Dasha, still retching, and the smile on that scarred face went deeper.
"Can't take it, kid?"
Dasha heard this and raised his head with difficulty.
His eyes were red-rimmed. The corners of his mouth still bore stomach acid and fragments he hadn't finished bringing up. His tiger-slit pupils were shot through with blood.
He looked at this Silver Demon before him. There was nothing he could do. All he could do was stare.
Germann didn't look at him again.
He turned and walked in long strides to the roasting rack.
The charcoal was still burning. The material on the rack sizzled in the heat, fat dripping into the fire, sending up sparks.
Germann reached out, gripped the iron spit, and turned it hard.
Rotating what was on the rack to face Dasha.
"Little beast. Don't you recognize him?"
Dasha's gaze fell on what was on the rack.
A beastman body.
Mostly intact — limbs, torso present, tiger stripes clear and deep. The skin had been roasted to a charred yellow, fat still dripping. The air carried that same smell that had made him salivate not long ago.
But the lower leg was missing a section.
Below the left knee — nothing. The cut end had been charred black by the coals, the original shape unrecognizable.
Dasha's gaze moved from the missing leg — upward, slowly, one inch at a time.
His pupils contracted sharply.
The head.
Even through what the fire had done to it.
Dasha recognized him.
It was his father.
Dasha's lips parted. A formless sound came out.
"Dad—"
But that familiar face would not let him lie to himself.
This was his father.
"'Dad'?" Germann repeated the word, as though tasting it. His mouth pulled wide, showing two uneven rows of teeth. "Didn't I tell you? What you ate was the special portion I had prepared just for you."
He pointed the spit at the body on the rack — the one missing half a leg.
"Your father's leg. Every bit of it went to you. Nobody else got that treatment."
***
Oooaahhhh! the MC is petty as fuck, lol. No way someone has that innate ability at random, the MC probably gave it to him.
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