I referred to them as the “ancestral species” because cultivated varieties existed. Casse nuts contained a trace amount of mana that, when carefully extracted and concentrated, became a healing agent—in short, it was potion material. That said, the ancestral species held only the faintest sliver of magic. No matter how much you squeezed out of it, you’d end up with nothing more than a bottom-tier potion. The nut had been selectively bred to address that problem, resulting in cultivated varieties with high mana content being sold on the market. Thanks to that, the original wild strain had been all but forgotten, giving me the chance to harvest them—fortune was on my side.
“Casse nuts have lots of different uses.”
The seeds looked like acorns and had a small amount of oil in them too. Brewed into a potion, they gave off a subtle sweetness, so it could double as a seasoning—they also added a nice crunch to a dish.
“I could whip up all kinds of stuff if I add in some eggs.”
I headed back to my abode with a spring in my step and a smile across my face, even breaking into a skip here and there. Today’s haul had brought me that much joy.
But the moment didn’t last for very long.
Startled by voices coming from a path beyond the underbrush, I dropped low into the shadows. The banter didn’t sound friendly.
“Found ’em yet?” one of the voices called out.
“No,” replied another. “They’ve probably gone far off. We’ve been searching for two days now.”
“Tch! Find them no matter what! You’ve got no idea how much those runts are worth!”
“Y-Yes, sir!”
“Dammit! Where the hell did they go?!”
Judging from their conversation, the thugs seemed to be looking for some runaways. The one had called them “runts.” Were they children? My guess was that the thugs were slave traders.
I decided to head home before I got caught up in the mess. The last thing I needed was to get attacked simply for being nearby. I made sure to move with even more caution and slowly made my way back home, but when I arrived, I immediately noticed something was amiss.
“The entrance wasn’t like this when I left,” I said under my breath.
The sewer’s opening had been dotted with footprints. They seemed to belong to children—barefoot but coated in dirt. The trail of tiny prints disappeared deeper inside.
“This can’t be good.”
Like, really not good!
I scowled as I wiped away the footprints. Anyone who saw them would know that someone had been slipping in and out of the sewer. Intruders were a problem I couldn’t ignore. If they were homeless kids like me, it could mean a turf war, and local kids might let their parents know I was around and blow my cover.
“If these footprints belong to the kids those thugs were after...”
That would be even worse. Those thugs could easily come snooping around here. I needed to find these intruders before they found me, if only because I had no clue who they were.
I silently summoned a Wind Barrier around myself, without uttering a single word. It was actually a spell for blocking out foul smells of pungent ingredients, but with a few tweaks, it could block both scent and sound for covert operations.
The footprints trailed deep into the passage. The sewer wasn’t pitch black; faint shafts of light would pour in from rainwater inlets scattered along the way.
There were two sets of prints. Judging from how dry the mud was, some time had passed since they’d entered—most likely right after I’d left. As I kept wiping away the footprints, I clicked my tongue in irritation; I’d sensed a presence right in front of the hole that led to my hideout. Faint voices drifted through the air.
“M-Myah...” a voice said with a sniffle.
“Hic...” another voice sobbed.
I could barely make out some pained whimpers. There were two intruders, or so it seemed, but something felt wrong. I noticed three shadows, but one had remained completely motionless—without even the slightest sign it was breathing. Was one of them dead?
I carefully moved toward the shadows. One of the figures caught sight of me, stirring a little in response. That tiny movement was enough to alert the other. They both strained their necks and looked at me with wide eyes, the fear in their expressions unmistakable. They looked like they wanted to run, but their bodies wouldn’t budge. All they could muster was a feeble headshake. They’d been so overwhelmed that even the sight of someone younger than themselves had terrified them.
Actually, I’d approached with my hood up, and as small as I was, I’d surely presented myself as a suspicious individual with my face hidden. Then I was overcome with a rush of emotion that was completely out of place at that moment.
“Beastfolk children...!” I said in awe.
It was an inexcusable thing to say to these children frozen in fear, but my gaze had been drawn to their ears. I can’t believe I’m looking at real beastfolk with my own two eyes!
A pair of ears grew out of each of their heads, while long tails poked out from behind them. Their dirt-smudged appearances made it hard to tell, but one had blond hair and pale skin—the other, silver hair and a deep brown complexion.
It made my stomach turn, but I recalled my parents talking about how beastfolk fetched high prices—dozens of times more than humans—due to their rarity and abilities. There was no doubt that these were the ones those thugs had been after.
After observing them for a bit, I was able to piece together the situation. The third shadow that had remained motionless was a rat roughly the size of a small dog—a magical beast called a poison rat that often lurked underground beneath large cities. True to its name, it carried a potent venom within its body. It was inedible unless you removed the toxin—not that people tried to eat it in the first place. It wasn’t a particularly powerful beast either.
Blood oozed from the poison rat’s hind leg, as if something had bitten a chunk out of it. The beastfolk children’s mouths were stained red. Most likely, they had escaped from the slave traders but had gone hungry without any means of obtaining food. That was when they’d encountered the poison rat in the sewer—or perhaps they’d hunted it down themselves using their keen sense of smell.