Chapter 370

There is a big crowd that’s shouting encouragements and waving mugs full of beer around, laughing. And Captain Saveliy doesn’t understand what could possess his men to make it so that they would abandon their usual seriousness and brooding mood and create such a ruckus.

So he goes out of his tent, after several divination spells to get a rough position of the eggs in the valley, and sees the weirdest spectacle of his entire life.

There are all fifty Beastmasters gathered around the two cages where he sent those two trap experts — who, despite being Mithril Rank trappers, are also just at Intermediate Imperium Rank in terms of power, which would usually not be nearly enough to attempt to tame a drake horse. Still, Captain Saveliy sent them there, thinking that they would learn the lesson on their own and would know better than to bother the dangerous beasts.

But when he gets to the cages, he sees that the girl, Talia, is sitting atop the giant drake horse. And the creature is just napping as she pats it and laughs at the same spectacle everybody else is laughing at.

And so, when Captain Saveliy looks, he finds John almost fully naked — just with some underwear on — covered in mud and other liquids he does not dare guess the origin of, dancing like a fool around the drake horse.

“What the hell is he doing?” Captain Saveliy asks Breslav, who can’t hold his laughter anymore.

“Well, apparently the drake horses have this whole hunting dance that they do when they form a pack. Cabbage says that he’s too weak to face one directly. The girl didn’t even have to. The thing just ate the biscuit and basically became her pet.”

“What are you talking about?” Captain Saveliy frowns.

“Well, as I said, the girl didn’t even have to try. The thing just submitted to her. But Cabbage—”

“Who is Cabbage?” Captain Saveliy snaps.

“Oh, right.” Breslav scratches his head. “I forgot to mention it, Captain. The young man’s name is John Cabbage. And the girl’s name is Talia Carrot.”

Captain Saveliy wasn’t a man known for his humor. So he just stared at Breslav, waiting for the man to say that this was just a poor joke, and that he would indeed dig the latrines for all the men and their beasts for the next six months. Unless he wanted to wait for Captain Saveliy to say so, and dig them for a year.

But when nothing else came out of Breslav’s mouth, the captain asks, “Are you not pulling my leg?”

“I am not, Captain. Those are their names. I checked with the guild — with the Adventurers’ Guild, too. They’re registered adventurers. John Cabbage and Talia Carrot.”

Captain Saveliy turned to John Cabbage, dancing around the drake horse — which looked very amused, and had started dancing in circles together with him — and asked, “How long has this been going on for?”

“About thirty minutes, sir. Apparently it takes roughly an hour of this.”

At that point, Captain Saveliy wondered if letting the young man finish this dance was the right thing, given how much distraction it was causing. But he had to admit that looking at that John Cabbage dancing around like a fool was indeed quite entertaining.

And so he stayed and watched as, at the end, the drake horse did indeed take John Cabbage’s biscuit and bonded with him.

The young girl was the first to reach her partner, pat him on the shoulder despite the filth that had been smeared there, and tell him that he had done a great job. He just stared angrily at her. But all the others took him up and started throwing him in the air, laughing and calling him the drake horse charmer.

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It took Captain Saveliy’s direct orders for them to stop and actually return to their duties.

- - -

Since Jacob and Taya have an unorthodox spot in the Beastmaster ranks, they get assigned to Breslav, who’s the one who has overseen their test. And after Jacob cleans up, they finally have lunch together, so that Jacob and Taya can inquire about more information, now that they are officially part of the Beastmasters.

“So why are these eggs so important? And how come you guys evacuated everybody? Is it because of the hordes? But wasn’t that the whole point of Hunters and adventurers?”

Breslav looks alarmed at the question and turns around the tavern. Thankfully, there’s just a handful of Beastmasters and a couple of adventurers and Hunters who are stuck behind, waiting to gather all their materials from the butchers before going back.

“It’s more complicated than that,” Breslav says in a low voice. “The two vice captains of Saveliy’s team actually carry as much influence as the captain in our midst. They are Mitrofan and Yulian.”

“So what does that mean?” Jacob says.

“They’re brothers, and their father is Elder Vladimir, who’s most likely going to be the next head of the Beast Hall once the current one steps down. And with all the Nightmares’ numbers going down, if we’re moving toward a period of more peace, it’s almost guaranteed that the head will step down. He’s old and tired. And it appears like the war is coming to an end somehow, even though nobody knows why.”

Jacob and Taya look at each other. They’re probably the only two people knowing what Apocalypse’s real plans are, and why the Nightmares at the front are not regenerating anymore.

“So once the cleanup is done, Elder Vladimir will take over, and his children will be promoted to captains. But they don’t have the achievements that Captain Saveliy has.”

“And so that still doesn’t answer the question,” Taya points out.

“It does. Since they were not always on the front lines and on the most dangerous missions — since Elder Vladimir doesn’t really want them close to danger — they need something in their hands to be promoted to captains. And that thing is what we’re looking for. Eggs.”

“So the eggs just automatically go to the vice captains?” Jacob says.

“Well, usually they would go to whoever found them first. But the captain has received pretty clear orders. Mitrofan and Yulian are the ones meant to get the eggs. Once they hatch an ancient beast and bond with them, even though their war contribution was pitiful compared to other candidates, they will be immediately promoted to captains.”

“Man, that sucks,” Jacob comments.

“Yeah. So we’re coming here, and after fighting nonstop on the front, we just have to be the lackeys of spoiled kids. Say what you want about the war, but on the front, sure, they can avoid participating in battle. But if anything happened on the battlefield, and they tried to be smart about it, we would have executed them on the spot, and nobody would have court-martialed us. Here, instead, if anybody tries to get the eggs for themselves, it’s going to be a shit show. The Hall would immediately claim we tried to steal them. Politics are really messy away from the front.”

“So there’s an expectation that whoever finds the eggs has to deliver them to these two?” Taya asks.

“Yeah. And don’t get any ideas. Now you two fall under the responsibility of the Beast Hall. Even though you’re not officially members, you would attract a bunch of trouble if you tried to keep the eggs for yourselves. Well — that is, if you manage to find them.”

“Got it,” Jacob says. “We would never do something like that. We’re here just to help and, you know, kill some monsters, get the materials from them.”

“That is allowed. In fact, it’s expected. The real reason we want to handle the horde ourselves is so that this cohort gets rewarded for doing Vice Captain Mitrofan and Vice Captain Yulian’s dirty work.”

“That’s the minimum they can do,” Jacob points out.

They finish eating, and then go out of the tavern and join the second meeting of the day.

Captain Saveliy tells everybody, “We have identified the rough location of the eggs, and the scouts say that the early movements of the monsters are coherent with this area we have identified. So, since now we have two Mithril Rank Trap Masters, they will each be assigned to Vice Captain Mitrofan and Vice Captain Yulian.”

Jacob sees two armored men with the cleanest armors in the entire group remove their shiny helmets. They’re young — thirty at best. And one snaps at Jacob, “What are you waiting for, kid? Come on. We have to go out before some damn monster takes the eggs.”

Jacob looks at him and nods. “Sure.”

Then he sees that Taya is walking toward the other guy, who’s holding his gaze on her a little too long for Jacob’s taste.