Chapter 349 - 298: The Beastman Who Becomes the Great Thief King

Little John's eyes widened as he stared at the brown-skinned man before him. From the sound of his voice, he didn't seem old, yet his skin was so dark he looked as if he'd spent his whole life doing hard labor.

The tusks jutting from the corners of the man's mouth only added to his confusion. He didn't look like a goblin, and certainly not a Demon.

"Hmm? A friend of yours?" Mamadou glanced at Little John, who was standing to the side, and noticed his stare. "Hello, my name is Mamadou. My appearance is pretty strange, isn't it?"

"Uh..." Little John hesitated. He knew it would be rude to ask directly.

"Actually, I'm a Demon from the lowest levels of the Abyss. I was summoned to feast upon the blood of the mortal world—a taste I just can't get enough of. Human, are you prepared to meet your death?" Mamadou grinned, a roguish smile on his face.

SHING— Little John slowly drew his longsword, his expression serious as he faced the strange-looking man.

"Little John, put your sword away. He's a friend." Standing by the door, Uncle Musa couldn't help but shake his head at the two. However, he didn't move from the warehouse entrance, remaining at its side to listen intently to the sounds outside.

'A friend?' Little John did as he was told and slid his longsword back into its sheath, then looked Mamadou up and down again.

"Sorry, that was just a joke," Mamadou said with a shrug, holding his hands out. "I'm not a Demon. As you can see, I'm just a Beastman."

"A Beastman? But I thought that Race was already..."

"Extinct, right? Vanished just like those ancient creatures," Mamadou said, tilting his head. "But those are all just rumors. See? I just popped right out of the ground."

Little John's mouth twitched. The answer "Beastman" was even more unbelievable to him than "Demon." All the legends he'd heard claimed that the Beastman Race had been exiled during the Ancient Times for blaspheming a Divine Being. Millennia had passed, and the story was usually capped with the line, "They must all be dead by now." Yet here was someone claiming to be a Beastman, appearing so brazenly before a human.

After all, Demons still appeared from time to time in the songs of Minstrels, and there were tales of heroes or Knight Orders slaying them.

However, he didn't show much surprise. Instead, he simply extended a hand. "Hello. You can call me Little John."

"Oh, I know this one. A handshake." Mamadou smiled and took two steps forward. He wiped his hands on his clothes before taking Little John's outstretched palm. "My teacher taught me. It's a human custom."

"Teacher?"

"Mamadou is a disciple of Great Mage Victor. Of course, you probably know the young master's sister is his disciple as well," Uncle Musa explained at just the right moment. He hadn't moved from the doorway the entire time.

"Uncle, is something wrong?" Little John, noticing Uncle Musa's tense posture, tiptoed over and asked in a low voice.

"I don't know. It's just that this might attract some unwanted attention." Uncle Musa glanced at Mamadou. After knocking a few times, the reckless oaf had used Earth Magic to tunnel in through the ground. The people hiding in the shadows might have noticed.

"Rats?" Mamadou immediately perked up. "Oh, right. 'Rats' is just trade talk. It means spies."

'Trade talk?' Little John felt like he understood this self-proclaimed Beastman less and less.

But, as Little John scrutinized him, Mamadou opened his palm. Wisps of dust floated up from the floor into his hand, where they spun and coalesced into five small, thumb-sized balls of earth. He then clenched his fist, and the balls burst into five puffs of dust that drifted away on the air, slipping out through the cracks in the walls.

Little John glanced at the warehouse door. He didn't know what Mamadou had just done, but then he heard the man chant, "Hey buddies, your pal needs a favor. Help me shape something up."

The words had barely left his mouth when the ground before him began to ripple. Clumps of dirt rose rapidly, soon forming the image of a street, just like a miniature street Model.

"Is this... the terrain around my warehouse?" Uncle Musa asked, seeing what Mamadou was doing. He walked over quickly and quietly.

"Uncle, now we can see if anything's out of place." Mamadou crouched down, scanning the miniature earthen Model. He soon pointed to a building at the side. "Something's off with this person."

Following the Beastman's finger, Uncle Musa and Little John spotted it: inside the window of a miniature earthen house no taller than their shins was a tiny "person," also made of dirt.

"This is your Magic?" Little John asked, raising an eyebrow in surprise.

"Yep. It's one I created myself: the Earth Magic 'Stepping Skill'." Mamadou kept his eyes on the "dirt person." "This guy has been huddled behind the window. You probably couldn't see him from the warehouse door's angle, but he's been hiding there the whole time, barely moving."

"So, that means someone really is watching the warehouse." Uncle Musa circled the miniature street Model. This was the first time he had ever seen the surrounding terrain from this perspective.

"For now, I've only found this one rat, but we can't rule out others hidden more deeply." Mamadou continued to scan the area around the warehouse. Little John came over too, and the three of them stood huddled around the miniature street "Model," examining it.