??? POV

The ground brownish-red, the air pinkish, and the sunshine that broke barely through the Pollution enlightened all living beings. An area where life only exists as nourishment for this forsaken land.

"So annoying. I tried so hard not to kill him, but who knew that he had a scroll of teleportation?"

Arlgo shrugged his shoulders. "Well, now we can forget the ransom."

I sighed. "Whatever, what does he have in his space bag, and what does the Journal say?"

He looked a bit too hard at the journal. "I can't read his handwriting."

I took the journal away and giggled. "You mean you can't read any handwriting because you can't read?"

He just ignored me and laughed too. "I am not here to study but to hunt, kikiki."

I started reading the enchanted journal, it looked like it had only 100 pages, but it had actually more than one thousand. 'Damn it, if we could catch him, we would get a nice ransom. Whoever has an item like this has incredible supporters.'

While reading and using my relatively low leveled [Reading] Skills, I could combine it with my hunting Skills like [Concentration] and [Extreme Focus] to enhance the speed of reading and comprehension.

After flying over most of the trivial stuff, I already thought that we caught only some blood Demons. Maybe we could use them as a ransom to get some rations and equipment, but it all ended then the subject "I3" caught my eye.

Sweat built on my forehead and a smile rose on my face. 'This is the chance I was waiting for!'

Full of panic, I screamed at Arlgo. "Hey! We need to quickly find two blood Demons! They are running around here somewhere!"

He looked visibly confused while eating some rations he took out from the space bag, the Dragon-kin's one we attacked. "Wrat du yu m..."

"NOW! Go and find two blood Demons who are crawling here around! They are worth a ton of coin!" I screamed, almost spitting saliva all other the place.

Like an oiled thunder, he used all his skills to detect anything in the vicinity. I wasn't standing still either and used all my skills to find these superior blood Demons in their lower Tier!

The journal said that I3's child is now shedding, so I need to look for something on the ground, but I am pretty empty after reading this at top speed. I have barely any Mana and Stamina left to use my Skills.

Grabbing a Mana potion out of my bag, I gulped it down and started my search too. I had already an idea for what we could use them for.

After some hours of searching, we found the little blood Demons. One of them was pretty annoyed and gave off his Aura in irregular intervals. "... peak Tier 1? This is fast!"

Like the journal described, he was inside a greater imp that felt stronger than usual. 'This is fantastic...'

Drawing my short sword, I flashed towards him, to the front.

*Slash!* A slash from this 1.5m small Imp, and he went right through me, or it seems like so as he only hit my after-image.

Standing behind him, I used [Fast slash].

*zing*zing*zing*

After less than 2 seconds, the fight was over as his arms fell off, and the body fell to the ground, separated from his legs.

Looking closer towards the Imp, I tried to figure out where this little parasite was. 'Probably the head? The journal said something about it.'

*zing*

I Took the head and crushed it slowly and carefully so I wouldn't damage this little treasure. 'Found it!'

He was somewhere inside his brain and looked like an average blood Demon. 'The journal said that he is much bigger than the usual ones, but I don't see any differences? Well, I am not a scholar.'

He wriggled in my hand, manically trying to invade me or flee. After some moments, I felt another Demon beside my feet, being aggressive towards me. '...hivemind...'

I took his child too, returned to our meeting spot, and called for my friend.

Arlgo came close to me and looked at the little worms and how they wriggled around in my hand. "They are just some blood Demons at Tier 1? What so special about it?"

My smile and eyes transformed into crescent moons. "This little thing will bring us out of this hellhole!"

My Scavenger friend looked even more confused and scratched his head. "I don't get it."

"Don't worry, if we are back, I will tell Chieftain my idea... do you have everything?" Looking at the purple-colored space bag in his hands.

Arlgo nodded. "Yup."

I affirmed it. "Good, let's go back! I need to talk to the Chieftain about my idea as fast as possible!"

Putting the blood Demons into two clay jars, we made our way back.

{A couple of hours later}

Walking through our camp, towards the Chieftain, I glanced at our area. Since coming here as outcasts, we couldn't build more than tents to live in. It was impossible to create something out of this earth since it was full of demon Aura.

We already tried it: The polluted earth, even if made into bricks or clay, would radiate slightly out and increase the chance of poisoning or/and corruption and, thus, death. We also can't clean it... or at least we don't know how to do it.

Other materials like trees (wood) were so brittle that you could only use them as fuel for a fire.

But there was another resource: Demons. They have bones, skin, and other valuable body parts, obviously depending on the Demons themselves.

They are in some sense polluted, but we figured out how to clean them with their own blood. Sadly it doesn't work for the clay or bricks.

Through this, we could lower the rate of Pollution from below to a minimum: We killed hundreds of thousands of Demons, took their bones, purified them, processed them, and used them to plaster our streets and floors in our homes.

The homes themselves are "tents" made out of demon leather - it is actually not bad as it also absorbs a lot of that Pollution and protects us from poisoning after we clean them.

On every corner were jars filled with the blood of Demons, which is there for absorbing the Pollution around us.

We need to "clean" the street every ~40 to 50 years, the homes every ~20-30 and change the "charm jars" every week. This is due to the accumulation of Aura inside the materials, which could sip through if it is over-saturated.

We need a massive amount of Demon blood, which is easy to find but hard to get since we need to kill them and bring them back, hopefully with no or minimum blood loss.

The ones who clean are... the weak. Only they do it since the "strong" need to hunt and put their lives on the line. What a cruel system, but even the former Chieftain did it when he grew old and weak - it is all to survive! For the greater good!

This suffering... of my brethren and other races who were prosecuted like us... expelled from Human, Dwarven, and Elven Kingdoms. Memories from stories of our elders emerged in my head while walking through our territory with Arlgo.

~100 years ago, a significant part of the Night-elves, all Scavengers, and all Wind-djinns were expelled from Kingdoms and Empires. Why?

A famine happened, and they needed a scapegoat. While the Nobles did nothing wrong to cause the famine, their monoculture planting of just one plant was a terrible idea.

Something infected the plant, and they were inedible, even poisonous, and it spread fast. After half a year, every potato was infected. Even some Kingdoms far away closed the border to protect themselves and forbid imports or exports.

The territories in Mal-Gil barely felt it since they have so many different kinds of beast-kin who all have more or less different types of tastes, so they had very diverse agriculture, and this was important.

The nobles needed to save their heads from ordinary folks - while they could defend against hundreds or thousands of hungry commoners, at some point - even they would fall. This gave our old homes the idea to use us as scapegoats since we were mainly the lowest ones in society.

They said that our Mana "infected" the plants and that we worked together with Mal-Gil since they had no famine.

Most who had no idea about Mana and/or politics would believe it - so most believed in it. Those who knew about Mana and how politics worked didn't care since they were consistently higher in society's hierarchy.

We had no real representation inside the noble circles.

The result was that they sent us to war against Mal-Gil to plunder to alleviate the situation until the new crops were ready.

With this, they could hit multiple birds with one stone. Use us as scapegoats. Use us to invade territories. Because they didn't provide us any resources, they basically could manage through the crisis with our sacrifice and use us to alleviate their situation with the resources we provided.

We lost ~60 - 70% of our people and barely got through. It mainly was enough for the nobles and other influential people. Obviously, common people who had no food and were starving hated us to the core and instantly wanted us expelled after the war. The nobles did it; otherwise, a revolt would break out because of the populace's dissatisfaction.

Before a mass execution could break out, most of us fled towards Mal-Gil, searching for Asylum as all the other territories had closed their borders.

Luckily, Mal-Gil signed a neutrality treaty with us and sent us to Kratikal, the Area where Demons live... not caring if we live or die at that point. Can't really blame them, though - we slaughtered and stolen not a little to get such a grudge. We were actually lucky that they didn't execute us.

They left us alone because their intelligence knew about all the reasons we attacked, but in the end, they also couldn't go against the populace's mind and accept us into their territory.

But now, after ~100 years... we can't keep on living like this.

~40 - 50% of our children die by birth due to the toxic Aura around us. The rest has even problems surviving the first year. This means only around ~30% of our children outlast.

Then there are water and food management problems... we need to persuade older and weaker ones to go and die since we don't have the reserves for their nourishment - so we created the "suicidal work" of cleaning for them.

Some of them weren't even weak... they had excellent Spirit guidance, Major skills, or Territorial mastery. It just so happens that most of that could be non-existent in the first place, as nothing could resonate in our... home.

I clenched my fist and bit my lips while walking through our camp. 'This can't go on... we need a piece of land where we can actually live... you can barely call this surviving!'

I need to do something, and with this little treasure, I already thought everything through while walking back.

*tap*tap*tap*

I need to persuade the Chieftain to use the blood demon to get part of Leonandra's territory or else… there is no else. Only death awaits those who are waiting.

Standing before an enormous tent, colored in green and brown and covered with bone tiles, it looked like a grim forest from the outside... it was painted by some artist 100 years ago, as a sign for a better future.

'Soon...'

*swoosh* I got the curtain out of my way. What welcomed me was the Chieftain main hall, painted on the inside, was our people's history. Everybody knows the artist who did this - as it was a Djinn who drew this before choosing to die on her own accord and her last words became like an echo into our ears. 'To survive, we need to sacrifice.'

*tap*tap*tap*

Before I sat, our Chieftain circled by some administrators, his head rested on his fist as he held some documents and read them.

Around him were stuffed giant demons killed by him as a sign of his strength - only the strong shall rule us. This is our only law.

The Chieftain is the only one who can command us. A mix-blood of Djinn, Elf, and Human blood and the strongest here.

Red hair, Green-whitish skin with some typical scavenger red skin formed like tribals, and eyes of the night elves, which have 3 pupils in a triangle formation - showing our ancient royalty blood.

"Chieftain Habog!"

"What is it, Makol?"

There was no etiquette. Since we got expelled, we threw it away, so Arlgo and I just stood there.

Listening to the stories of my ancestors, I knew that acting like that would make me a head shorter if I showed this attitude towards nobility 100 years ago or outside this enclave.

Being ecstatic, I couldn't hide my wide smile. "We found something, and I need to speak to you about how this can help us escape our situation."

The Chieftain sighed and waved his hand. "Leave us both alone. You go too, Arlgo."

*tap*tap*tap*

"We already talked about it a dozen times, if we go for the west, we will go against our treaty, and a war will break out."

"Chieftain! Listen to me, at least."

He waved his hand. "Fine, go on."

Taking a clay jar out of my bag, I put it in front of him. The Chieftain mumbled “...peak Tier 1…“

"This is a blood Demon we found when we attacked a Cathedralian Scholar. It was probably one of his projects, and these recordings are here." I took the journal out of the space bag and put it on the closed jar.

The Chieftain looked skeptical. "Hm, ok, but what do you want to do with this?"

Looking deep into the eyes of Chieftain, I answered with determination. "I want to use this as a weapon and get the southeast of the Moorgrel territory, where Puru is, also..."

He raised his hand to stop me before I could keep going with my explanation. "You know about our agreement? Doing this will only ensure our certain death. In that sense, we can't go against the Leonandra's, Moorgrel, or Mal-Gil."

I shook my head. "We will do nothing, I assure you. We will use this little blood Demon, raise him while taking his children and send them to control other demons. With this, we can overwhelm them without attacking or even doing a thing!"

The Chieftain frowned. "How can a blood Demon help us as a weapon?"

I pointed towards the journal. "This is a dangerous mutation which can reproduce exceptionally and is way stronger than normal blood Demons!"

The frown got only stronger. "So, you want to unleash a strong and unpredictable Demon onto the region around Puru and push them back so we can take that area?"

I shook my head. "No and yes. We will unleash it to the north and take Puru ourselves!"

He started massaging his forehead. "You... we can't do it."

Slightly agitated, I tried to argue. "But Chieftain! If we thin them out..."

Before I could continue, he held his hand up. "Stop, let me ask you a couple of things."

I nodded. "So, let us say it will work. We thin their military out by using the blood Demon. Then we go from another direction and take over a part of Puru or close to it. What then?"

I tilted my head. "What do you mean, Chieftain?"

"If they are done with the blood Demon, we will be the next one."

"I know this, but I have a solution for this! But they need years to do it, and by then, we can bring up some resistance and use the blood Demon and his specific ability as blackmail to get at least a small part of the territory!"

The Chieftain shook his head. "You are insane. Trying to blackmail Moorgrel is a certain death sentence."

"But they are fighting in the west, and we would only fight against the Leonandra's with...!"

"STOP! You are mental if you think that we can do something!"

This was the point where I needed to stop as the air became heavy..."Yes, Chieftain..."

Even if the discussion was over, it was not for me. But he also kept on talking. "Where is the Scholar you attacked?"

Standing motionless, I thought if I could do something else to change his mind. "He escaped through a scroll of teleportation."

He narrowed his eyes. "So, you say that the Cathedral knows about your attack?"

He is correct, but I accidentally hit him in the stomach for some reason, so he should be dead - this is the most likely scenario. "He is probably dead... I made a mistake which turned for the better."

Clearly annoyed by my stay, he commanded me. "Fine, I trust you - now take all that stuff with you and destroy it."

I gave him a forced smile. "Yes, Chieftain."

Taking everything back in the space bag, I left the Chieftain tent.

While walking through our camp, my mind went wild, and I saw the suffering again. Elves are dying like insects because we are the most sensitive to this Aura... we only make up around 2% of this enclave and need to breed with other races... Skinny Scavengers who barely have enough to eat a fill per day, Djinns who are too weak to hunt, need to prostitute themselves to get food.

'I can't let this possibility fall through... I need to do it on my own!'

*****

??? POV

"Mom! I am going out! Sleep well!"

A rough and crackling voice answered me. "Ok! Don't get into a fight, or I will slap your butt."

Giggling, I love how Mom is always trying to act so toughly... I hope she gets better. "Sure!"

*swoosh*

Going through the Djinn district, I could see the misery of my race... We are all too weak and are primarily in the horizontal business because we are naturally very beautiful.

Most of our Spiritual guidance is nature-based... being in a forest, that is. We would be far stronger than Scavenger's, but... there is no damn nature anywhere! Only wasteland!

If we don't want to end as sex servants for the next generations... we try to change it slowly, and surely it works as procreating with other races, the spiritual guidance we get is different and more in line with what the Scavengers have.

For example, my spiritual guidance is excellent, and I am a great scout! It is a blessing in disguise, as my skills work better, the less nature there is.

I am also some mixed breed and don't really care about such things, but this is weird that finding a partner, we need to look towards a specific race, as combining our strengths is everything we need... love is unnecessary and will only blind the primary goals of ours - surviving.

Smiling at such thoughts, I actually had no problem with such conduct as I had my lover - the gods who rule over death, and the closer I am to them, the more I feel alive. Even thinking about it brings me towards ecstasy!

*tap*tap*tap*

'Is it here?' Walking inside a bigger than usual tent, I got to the meeting point mentioned in my newest briefing.

What is it this time? Does some rich Scavenger get cheated by his wife and need some spy, or does some Night-elf wants to sleep with someone else and needs a lookout - I mean, it is easy money for nothing more than being a bit of a watch.

*swoosh*

"Hey ho! I am here for..." Before finishing my sentence, I saw that more than 40 glances darted at me. What is going on? Why couldn't I feel their presence from the outside?!

"Hey youngling, come in and wait for the boss!" Boss? It seems that this job is evolving more and more pleasurefully! The possible pay and danger level will increase substantially if the boss is involved.

I walked towards one of the cushions made of leather, lying on the floor, and sat down like everyone else.

While waiting, I tried to get to know what I got into, so I used my skills stealthily and spied on the conversations. No problemo. I could even listen to the quietest whispers and understand them as they would talk right to me and even do this with multiple exchanges simultaneously, which I could also understand perfectly.

"What do we wait for? My time isn't cheap, fuck that guy."

"Shut up. You have more than enough time, you lazy bastard."

"What did..."

"Shit, I had such a cute girl - she will probably be away by the time I am back."

"Of course, with your ugly face, hehe."

"Fu..."

"Hm, I didn't think that this son of a bitch would get us all here. He is planning something big." A smirk appeared on my face.

"Didn't he come back from the outside? Maybe he found something or someone?"

"Hm, surely. But you know what it means that we met here in Secret, right?" 'Secret? That is new but makes sense since I couldn't even sense them from the outside.'

"Yup, that bastard was rejected by the Chieftain... I hope he is not absolutely brain dead and wants to start a riot... even all of us against the Chieftain wouldn't survive."

...

'This... ' Interrupting my thought, the leader of our little group came in, who always sends out all memos and gives us all the jobs, the leader of the black market "...Makol..."

Walking to the front with a box made out of bones under his arm, he laid it down and stood on top of it. Everyone got silent, the atmosphere around him became tenser by the second, and we waited till he started to talk.

...

"Today, I came back from an observation and found what we need the most - the key to flee from our destiny!"

"I called you today because I need you. Everyone one of you is unique. Morality, Skills, Strength, or Determination - there is no need anymore to stand down and await your or your loved one's demise if you stake everything on me and follow me!"

Murmurs started to fill the tent since it was something nobody expected.

"What does he mean?"

"Is he gotten crazy?"

"I don't really want to follow..."

Boss screamed angrily at us. "Silence! Do you really want to keep living like insects just to survive for the next day!"

Someone yelled from the crowd. "What do you want us to do? I am not really into being one of the suiciders!"

'Is this one fake? I can discern emotions, and this one sounds like an actor...'

He inhaled strongly, and a firm look emerged on his face. "Do you want to keep on living like farm animals? Waiting to copulate and die - hoping your next generations could do the same. Not changing anything for the better!"

Silence prevailed. He didn't answer but only stated our situation. It was true. We couldn't develop because of our stagnant population and the focus on survival over everything.

My mind went somewhere else when he said it. 'I would love to hear musicians or see art...'

His voice was raised while he talked. "Are you truly satisfied with this outcome? Throwing away our potential, our children, our FUTURE AS SUICIDERS SO WE CAN LIVE FOR A LITTLE LONGER!"

Well, he is not wrong - but to be honest, as long as this job is fun, I am down for it.

The silence inside the tent showed that everyone knew of this. Even if we had better lives than most of the ones in our whole enclave, we would instantly trade it with some farmer in any village in the West.

It was this bad. Demons, hunger, diseases, death... not even thinking about the guilt we have to send our children to die if they are too weak and have no luck in the legacy.

"I see your reactions, but I have a solution to end this misery! If you decide to leave, nobody will have any consequences, but those who stay will put their lives on the line... not only for you but also for your future! OUR FUTURE."

He took out a small knife and held the blade to his palm. 'How dramatic...'

"...the same fortune which has imposed the necessity of fighting out to you, if victorious, rewards than which men are not won't to desire greater, even from immortals, will be bestowed upon you..."

He slid the knife on his palm, and his blood gushed out. This was an old ritual done by Night-elves as a declaration of war.

"You will die, but death also awaits you if you do nothing, so, should you not at least fight till your last breath?!"

Licking my lips, this was more of my thing. 'This will be fun! I don't really care about all that reward shit - what I seek is entertainment, but this son of a bitch used a manipulation skill on us right now... he probably got everyone with this... well, not my problem.'

Nobody left, and everyone awaited him to keep talking. The night flew by as he told us what he wanted to do.

'The goddess of luck really has pulled up her skirt for me this time!'