Chapter 184: Like they were in mourning.

The health outpost on Regal Hill was buzzing with activity but thick with a tension you could cut with a rusty butcher’s knife. Bandits stood around in awkward groups, sweating through their patched armor, waiting for Druski to announce that the transport beasts were finally ready to take off. The sooner they got revenge and found the boss’s son; the sooner peace and joy would return to their home. Right now, nobody even dared to smile. It was like they were all in mourning.

Duncan marched through the crowd like a runaway storm, holding a heavy gun in one hand and practically dragging the rest of the outpost’s air behind him. His wife, Blakely, scrambled right behind him, her eyes red, swollen and desperate. More than anyone on this hill, she wanted her son back, and she wasn’t in the mood for administrative delays.

The moment the others saw Duncan’s face, they practically melted into the walls. Men who had raided three different villages and two small towns last week with arrogance were suddenly very interested in looking at the dirt on their boots, backing away as Duncan stormed past at high speed.

"Druski?!" Duncan roared, his voice bouncing off the wooden beams of the porch. "Where is that dumb idiot?!"

A small, wooden side door banged open, and Druski scrambled out like a disturbed rat. He bowed his head low, but you could still see his eyes were bloodshot and watery.

"Your time is up!" Duncan barked, stepping into his space. "Bring out the injured transport beast. Now!"

Druski reached up with trembling, blood-stained fingers to push his thick glasses up the bridge of his nose, accidentally smearing the red liquid right across the left lens. He looked up at Duncan with the face of a mortal who had just been ordered by an Immortal king to empty the ocean with a teaspoon.

"Don’t look at me like a stupid cave bat," Duncan growled, leaning in. "Speak!"

"I_ I c-cannot, Boss Duncan!" Druski stammered, wiping his sweaty palms on his dirty robes. "The transport beast is_ well, it’s just regaining consciousness! It’s still terribly drowsy from the pain numbing powder we gave it before the operation! We used every high-grade herb we have and it’s barely survived. I reckon, it will not live longer than a week."

That was the wrong answer.

Duncan didn’t just get mad; he turned into a wounded feral beast. A terrifying growl ripped from his throat, and he reacted as if he had lost his mind. He lifted the heavy gun and pointed it straight at Druski’s head.

"You wasted my good medicine for such results?!" Duncan screamed, grabbing a metal pitcher from a bench and chucking that too. "We barely have enough herbs for the men, and you poured them all down the throat of a giant lizard?!"

Druski ducked and squeaked as the pitcher smashed into the wall behind him. He ducked again when the butt of the gun swung his way. But his luck ran out on the third strike. Duncan threw an empty wooden crate that caught him right on the side of the skull.

The weak crate shattered into splinters. Druski hit the dirt with a painful groan. Blood began to pour from a fresh cut on his forehead, mixing with the smashed, cracked lenses of his wire-rimmed glasses, which had clattered onto the dry ground.

Druski didn’t even check if his head was still attached. On hands and knees, groaning softly, he began blindly feeling around the dirt, trying to pick up the broken pieces of glass. "My_ my specs_ I can’t refine_ I mean, I can’t see_ "

Blakely took one look at the half-blind, bleeding fake doctor groveling in the dust and nearly lost her temper completely.

"Oh, brilliant! Simply marvelous, Duncan!" Blakely shrieked, throwing her hands in the air. "Great! Now the idiot can’t even see! How is he supposed to fix the beast if he’s blind as a bat?!"

Her words dissolved into a loud, frantic wail. She stepped up behind her husband and began beating a furious rhythm against his back with her fists. "You muscle-brained baboon! You pig-headed idiot!" she sobbed, slapping his iron-like back while Duncan barely even flinched, used to the storm. "If my boy isn’t back by sunset, I’ll skin you myself and feed you to the beasts!"

Duncan ignored his wife’s fists, though he winced slightly at the loud wailing in his ear. He stepped forward, hovering over the pathetic figure of Druski, and jabbed a calloused finger down at the doctor’s bleeding face.

"I’m giving you a few hours, Druski," Duncan said, his voice dropping to a low, deathly whisper that froze every bandit in the courtyard. "When that beast wakes up and clears its head, we will tie it to the back of another transport beast and fly. Even if it can’t fly, it can communicate directions to the other beasts. If its eyes aren’t clear by then_ yours never will be again."

Druski froze, holding two jagged pieces of broken glass in his trembling hands, and swallowed hard. "U-Understood, Boss_ "

***

Zyra stepped out of the morning shower, the warm steam still clinging to her skin after a brutal training session with Bianca, and Xavier. It had been a rough one, and they attacked like they were determined to kill her. It was because Hunter had been watching through Scotty’s link band so they didn’t dare to slack off.

But training was over, and now, she could relax a bit before spear practice. She grabbed a jar of homemade vanilla lotion and rubbed it into her arms. The soothing scent immediately filled the room, making her sigh in satisfaction.

Nanny Rosita really was a genius when it meandered into crafting things from scratch. She had ideas to transform everything from the frozen wild lands into finished products.

[Ding!Host, you are not the only one in this place who deserves to smell good. Distribute 50% of that vanilla lotion to the beast pavilion for the beasts.]

Zyra chuckled, wiping a stray drop of lotion off her wrist. "Sure thing, Beauty_ as long as you pay me for the finished product and errand. A few points, maybe a rare healing pill?"

On the screen, Beauty’s snake avatar huffed, crossing its arms. [Why is it so hard for you to just be generous for once? Must everything have a price?]

"Because nothing in life is free, and your system certainly never hands out freebies," Zyra replied coolly, grabbing her comb. If she was a capitalist, it was because she had learned from the very best.