Dawn of the Empire

Chapter 50: The Cat Beastman Guli

Even Guli’s closest friend from before his capture would surely fail to recognize the cat standing before him now. The once glossy, golden fur had become pitted and rough; not only that, but the remaining hair clung to his body like withered, diseased grass. Fortunately, the weather here was extremely cold, so he hadn’t yet developed parasites. The cat, who had once been as plump as a meatball, now had ribs visible beneath his half-bald fur, along with streaks of blood that hadn’t yet healed. Once a member of the royal family of the Oak Empire and the financial assistant to the Seventh Prince of the Swiftwind Clan, he is now nothing more than a typical mangy cat. However, the cat-beast Guli’s mood wasn’t as dismal as his physical appearance might suggest; in fact, he even felt a sense of joy. During the first few days of his captivity, the cat-beastman Guli was treated extremely poorly. Those barbaric human soldiers showed him no mercy whatsoever; punches and kicks were a daily occurrence, and he lost count of how many rough wooden sticks they’d broken on him. Some bastard even threw burning pieces of wood at him. If it weren’t for the fact that these barbarians had clearly been ordered by someone to keep him alive, Guli figured he would have already been turned into a roasted fat cat. During those darkest days, Guli deeply regretted not ending his own life on the battlefield—not because he felt any extraordinary loyalty to the Oak Empire or the Gale Clan; cat-beastmen, after all, are not a particularly loyal race like the jackal-beastmen or the dog-beastmen. Nor was it that he couldn’t endure the torture; no matter how weak a cat-orc might be, or how pampered he’d been in the past, he was still an orc, and his natural ability to heal wounds was far superior to that of cowardly humans. After all, even Yegu, who’d suffered far worse injuries, had managed to regrow his broken limbs. At that time, he felt utterly hopeless about his future prospects. After the humans captured him, the first outpost they returned to was the village that His Highness the Prince had originally forced the goat-horned humanoids to build. The cat-orc had keen observational skills; he could tell at a glance that these barbarians had not expanded the village after taking it over. For Guli, this was the worst possible news. He had actually been captured by such culturally backward barbarians! No matter how they had defeated the Prince, a civilization like this would certainly be unable to withstand the Oak Empire’s ensuing furious retaliation. In other words, these humans were as good as dead. He, too, would surely be sacrificed by the Swiftwind Clan to accompany the prince in death. Since his fate was already sealed, why should he die on the battlefield when he could instead suffer endless torment, lose all dignity, and then die? During that time, the cat-beastman kept searching for an opportunity to end his life with dignity. However, it wasn’t long before Guli realized that these humans weren’t as barbaric as he had imagined. They hadn’t expanded their village simply because they treated the place as a makeshift camp, not because they failed to understand the importance of a permanent settlement. Because Guli and Yegu, as the most important prisoners, were quickly transferred by the humans to their own town. That town (Anxi Garrison) was considered quite prosperous even by the standards of the Oak Empire. Guli observed it discreetly and estimated there were over five thousand residents; if this was the heart of their civilization, then including the surrounding villages, the population likely numbered twenty to thirty thousand. That made sense. For a civilization like this, defeating the prince and the dozen or so guards around him wouldn’t be difficult. If they could mobilize to the absolute limit, they might even be able to hold off the Oak Empire’s retaliatory forces. After all, crossing the Great Forest wasn’t an easy feat; Guli estimated that the Oak Empire could send no more than two thousand soldiers to the eastern edge of the Great Forest. If everything went according to plan, the cat-beastman believed that, relying on his wit and intelligence, he could free himself from slavery during the war against the Oak Empire’s retaliation—and then, in about two years, rise to become a high-ranking noble in this civilization—perhaps even the king’s new financial advisor. That wouldn’t be a problem—it would just mean enduring two or three years of hardship. For a moment, Guli had thought that the first person to interrogate him—Huang Qianzong—was the leader or king of this civilization. The cat-orc could tell at a glance that he wasn’t the physically strongest warrior here; on the contrary, he appeared somewhat soft and plump from a life of luxury. Yet everyone, including the military commander (Yang Gudai), treated him with the utmost respect, clearly indicating that this leader possessed immense authority. The architectural style of the “royal palace” differed somewhat from that of the Oak Empire, and it was considerably smaller in size (a three-courtyard complex consisting of two-story buildings), though this was well within Guli’s expectations. For a king ruling over a population of twenty thousand, if the royal palace were more luxurious than the imperial palace of the Oak Empire—which once ruled over a hundred million people—then they might as well all be barbarians; such a kingdom would surely have long since rotted away into utter decay. Those humans knew nothing of the Stormspeak of the Oak Empire, and Guli couldn’t make head or tail of the locals’ strange language, with its distinct, syllable-by-syllable pronunciation. However, the cat-beastmen could understand the language of the local beast-people or beastmen, while the local beast-people generally understood the speech of the local humans. Though a bit of a hassle, it was sufficient for communication. The human chieftain asked the cat-beastman many questions, and Guli—who was determined to find himself a new master—naturally answered every question honestly. After a few exchanges, Guli realized that this chieftain wasn’t entirely ignorant of the Oak Empire (Huang Qianzong had also obtained some information from the SF Express), but he didn’t seem particularly concerned about the Oak Empire’s military strength—one might even say he disregarded the threat. His questions focused more on the purpose of the beastmen’s journey, the paths through the Great Forest, and the Orcs’ military deployments near the western edge of the Great Forest. Seeing how eager he seemed to take the initiative, the cat-orc had secretly mocked him in his heart for overestimating his own capabilities. However, the cat orc’s deference and cooperation clearly pleased the chieftain greatly. Not only did he untie the cat orc, but he also bestowed upon him a generous amount of meat, which accelerated Guli’s recovery. The utterly hapless jackal-man, on the other hand, did not receive such favorable treatment. After being untied, this foolish dog actually tried to bite the chieftain’s neck. Unfortunately, there were more than a dozen human warriors nearby at the time, and the outcome was naturally quite tragic—the jackal-man’s limbs were broken once again, and even the fangs filling his mouth were forcibly pulled out. Yet the humans still did not kill him. This made Guli realize that he had likely still underestimated these people’s power—if that chieftain was indeed the king, then having a single prisoner like him, who was familiar with the Oak Empire and willing to cooperate, would be sufficient. Spare the stupid dog’s life—the purpose might be the same as that of the barbarian soldiers who had captured him in the former minotaur village—this chieftain also had his own superiors, and among the prisoners sent to them, one must be kept alive as a backup. Sure enough, early the next morning, the jackal-man was once again roughly thrown onto the sled, while Guli strolled onto it at his own pace, even managing to wrap himself in a cotton blanket for warmth. This left the cat-man quite satisfied with the level of regard shown to him—cotton was no cheap commodity on the Western Continent. By the time they reached their destination that day, the cat-beastman realized that the chieftain had likely given him the cotton item simply because, in the chieftain’s eyes, the blanket wasn’t considered a particularly valuable commodity. For in Guli’s eyes, Military Glory City was simply too prosperous. He entered the city through the West Gate and made his way to the Commander-in-Chief’s office; though he hadn’t seen the city in its entirety, the architectural style of the towering buildings rising everywhere left a profound impression on the cat-beastman. The city’s prosperity and population would be a source of pride for any nation on the Western Continent. As soon as he entered the city, the cat-kin quickly recalled the “Land of Silk” in the distant East that the great nobles of the West often spoke of—in ancient legends, it was a promised land flowing with milk and honey. Of course, over the past hundred years or so, this country has lost much of its mystery. Setting aside the news brought by the steppe cavalry—who had been driven westward by the Land of Silk decades ago—one or two Eastern caravans now emerge from the Great Forest every year, and humans from the Western Continent frequently travel east to trade with them. According to the merchants, this nation is rich in silk and spices; a round-trip trade venture with even moderate luck can yield a profit of more than ten times the initial investment! There was no doubt this was a powerful nation on par with the Oak Empire. Unfortunately, the Oak Empire had little contact with them, and he never imagined that the prince and he would be so unlucky as to stumble directly into this nation’s hands. This speculation was the source of Guli’s delight—a major power meant that, at the very least, the likelihood of him being captured and taken back by the Swiftwind Clan had been greatly reduced. As for his status, striving in a major power would be far easier than struggling in a second-rate kingdom. The cat-beastman was very confident in his own Zhihui.