Chapter 709: A Monster That Rattles The Cage
There used to be a legend of a man, a man who travelled with a band of monsters. Sometimes he rode on their backs, the others they followed in his footsteps. The man was my father, a merchant at heart and the owner of the only circus in Aesteradia. But then, I was born and everything went to hell. My mother died in labor and he lost his mind drinking against the creatures until he himself became one.
The rattle of his cage and the rabid barks, it still echoes in my head till this day. But what could I do except put him down, that was no way for a man to live, with no dignity nor coin. And then it was turn to kill the beasts, I used the same poison on them until nearly all of them slept their final sleep. However, one monster persisted, a fairy. A bloodfed fairy. She’d been hexed in some way by my old man, and although I tried to kill her nothing worked.
Then one day, she extended her hand with an offer. I bring to her blood, she would bring me riches and power. At first it was nothing more than selling weapons to rival clans, but as her powers grew so did her hunger, and before I realized I was feeding a monster and had become one myself, wing and all and looked pretty much like her as well.
Mercedes Copperhint, that’s my name, but compared to me and my father–this new band of monsters, we were nothing, nothing at all. Men and women of cloth clad in armor riding giant land birds with tall flags, lances and all manner of weapons as the charge. Boats that paddled through the blazing desert and a god that controls the tide and guides us forward. Not to mention the countless others, the people of the supposed town that had sunk into the hells, marching with the same people who’d done that to them.
Looking around some more, there was a frost dragon with a little girl riding on top, then another giant creature, a spider woman and a lamia just as large as her. Accompanying those monsters were translucent spirits of minotaurs with a lone female riding on a carriage with her legs crossed and her eyes covered by some magic that I couldn’t understand.
’What in the world did I get myself into?’ That thought has been floating in my head since forever, but today as the hero’s army marched through the desert towards the hermit kingdom, I can’t help but wonder just where the hell it all went wrong. ’Was this how my father felt in that cage? A monster amongst other monsters?’
Looking down at my arms, I could see my fingers quivering. The magic imbued within me by my patron devil, it helped me keep my nerves, but each day seemed to be getting harder and harder.
"I can’t believe we’re still doing whatever this bastard orders us to!" Barked the cat boy, Felix. His ears were all perked up in anger and the woman next to him, Astra, gave him a mean, rotten glance.
"This is all your fault you fucking loser! If only you had some balls maybe we could’ve gotten away from this enslavement!" While the two bickered with each other, the boy’s aunt, Hilma remained quiet, her gaze turned to Jenna–who’d only joined us in our little cabin to meet up with her old friends.