Chapter 51: Call Me The Archery Genius (1)
Humans and beastfolk didn’t have a great relationship to begin with, but their full-scale confrontation began with the Samael Empire.
Two hundred years ago, there was a craze for beastfolk slaves in the Samael Empire. Various sports involving beastfolk became popular, and nobles who didn’t own a beastfolk slave were unable to participate in high society.
Despite such oppression, the beastfolk were unable to resist. There were various species of beastfolk, but they didn’t communicate with each other, and each species had less than a hundred people because of their insistence on living in tribal units.
Moreover, the dominant belief among the carnivorous beastfolk was that being enslaved by humans was also a part of survival of the fittest. As such, the herbivorous beastfolk, who had weaker combat abilities, had no choice but to live as human slaves.
However, a certain event triggered the collective fury of all the beastfolk tribes.
The Letwood Beastfolk Racetrack Mutilation.
The incidents of this event were so horrific and brutal that the records were erased. However, the atrocities reached the carnivorous beastfolk through a rain horse that escaped from the beastfolk racetrack.
“They are not just looking down on the Rain Horse Tribe; they are looking down on all the beastfolk.”
The elders of the Flying Wolf Tribe and the Nine-tailed Fox Tribe, the two leading factions of the beastfolk, went to the emperor as representatives and delivered an ultimatum: abolish the beastfolk slave system immediately, or they would destroy the empire. That’s how the war between the beastfolk and the empire began.
The war lasted fifty years and ended in the defeat of the beastfolk. The emperor and his army showed no mercy, and during this time, many beastfolk tribes were driven to extinction. Fearing the same fate, some tribes chose to surrender, and the emperor welcomed them, calling them subjugated tribes.
The emperor gave these subjugated tribes three choices: live as slaves forever, join the Imperial Army and serve for fifty years to earn their freedom, or capture the remaining members of the seven beastfolk species, known as the Seven Cursed Species, who had led the war of humans and beastfolk.