Mia found herself lined up with the few surviving villagers, about fifteen in total, just outside the village. she had been ordered to stand in a line and be silent, the collar forcing her to fulfil the order lest it tighten or shock her. She had leeway with the order to look around and see her surroundings. The light still falling from the sky as she did so.

In the line of villagers were mostly adult females, the rest about four kids. Two she recognized as Kyle and Riley, Kyle was silent and was looking towards the ground with his tail tucked between his legs. Riley was looking straight forward, unmoving and appearing to be unafraid like the other children. Mia also noticed the ends of her hair and her tail had noticeable blotches of red stained into them, noticing this caused Mia to shiver, the red reminding her of the all to recent events of her mother passing.

Tears started to accumulate in her eyes, but she shook her head to stop herself from crying. As much as she wanted to cry she couldn’t or the collar around her neck would punish her, she understood that much. She brought her attention to the adults of the group, not seeing any of the males that didn’t go hunting. She also didn’t see any of the parents of the kids present, this dread caused her tail to mimic Kyle’s, the tail wrapping itself around her leg in a poor attempt to comfort herself.

Three men walked out from the village, one of these men Mia recognized as the man in the golden trimmed robes. The other two she didn’t as they were wearing plate armor, covering their faces. “Is this it?” The man spoke “Are these all the beasts you managed to capture?”

One of the armored men nodded “Yes my liege, A few of the bandits got a bit…overzealous. We have marked them accordingly over at their holding site.”

The man scoffed “Even if they did, this is too few.” He said, walking over to one of the females and placing a hand on the women’s chin and forcing her to look side to side, the women grimacing as he did so “Quality is decent… for a beast.”

“Yes, about that my liege…” One spoke “A few of our men expect a large number escaped, almost no males were in the village when we approached.”

“Hrm…” The man let go of the villager’s cheek “Answer with only the truth, where is the rest of your village?”

The women’s eyes went wide, her face contorting as she struggled not to speak. The collar around her neck let out visible sparks as her lips parted “T-the o-others w… w-“ As she spoke, the women besides her tackled her to the ground, interrupting the women. This blatant breakage of the order caused her to writhe on the ground as the collar issued out punishment to the both of them.

The man took a step back, then regained his composure and shook his head “Dumb beasts! How much suffering do you intend to place upon yourselves!” He then pointed to the knights behind him “Knights! Once the collars are done with these two clean up their mess. Now what these idiotic beasts don’t realize is their efforts are futile.” He then approached Riley, stopping in front of the child “Why is this one covered in blood?”

One of the knights perked up, the other had run off to get help “Oh, that one…after one of the bandits we hired injured her mother she attacked and managed to kill him before others arrived.”

“Hoh? As expected from a cornered beast… this one shows some promise, did we appraise them already?” he turned to the knight who nodded and brought out a parchment from a pack at his waste.

“Yes sir. He had moved on to the bandits but here is the report for the ones here.”

With a simple nod he took the parchment and opened it. “Hrm, strength of 15 for this one… “ he looked up at Riley “Very above average for a child, even has [Unarmed Combat] at level two? Just what did they have this kid doing? Savage beasts.” He shook his head “very promising indeed.”

By now, more knights had come over and picked up the two women, refreshed their order to stand silent, and gave additional orders to the women who acted out. As their leader went down the line inspecting their catch.

“Hrm, the rest are about what we expected…” He stopped and looked at the women right next to Mia “You, girl, Answer with only the truth. Where are the others?”

Just like before the girl tensed up, as she struggled not to speak but eventually caved from the pain. “The… males… went hunting.” She gasped, covering her mouth.

“Oh? And when will they return? Answer with only the truth.” The man asked again.

“Before… the harvest…a few days… “ The women choked out.

The man chuckled “Well didn’t we get lucky.” He then glanced up at the sky “Probably didn’t need to prepare as much as we did then…oh wait no… you knight” he turned quickly, pointing towards one of his knights who stood at attention “What happened with the house on the hill?”

Worry spread among the faces of the adults at the mention of the shrine maiden, a lot of the adults shifting where they stood.

“Yes, while efforts to catch the women there were strong, she overpowered us even with the barrier. We had to result to using the Popes gift to subdue her. The girl perished and the gift received heavy damage and has been sent back ahead of us to receive treatment.”

The adults started to panic, but were silenced by the collars.

The man gave a heavy sigh “Not looking forward to that…” He opened up the parchment again in an attempt to distract himself, stopping in front of Mia he blinked “Hrm…HRM?!” His eyes went wide, he brought the parchment up close to his face, scanning it repeatedly. He then turned to one of the knights “How accurate is this appraisal?!” he asked in panic.

“huh, uhm… the appraiser should have been very accurate… while he isn’t able to see hidden skills…why?” The knight asked, taken aback by his leader’s apparent panic.

Mia crooked her head to the side, unaware what was going on, she glanced over to her side towards the adults to see if she could get a better idea of what was going on, only to see that their tails were standing on end, their ears alert.

“Why didn’t he alert anyone to this? This girl is eight and has a magic power level like this?” He laughed to himself “Even has [Ice magic]… what is a girl like this doing in this village, as a beastmen no less! Oh truly god has played a sick joke on you young lady.” He then crossed his arms then looked off into the distance for a bit, then shook his head.

“Knights, put an upgraded collar on her, just to be safe.” He said, turning to his knights ‘She hasn’t done anything yet, but I’d rather not have any surprises in transport.”

It was at this moment Mia had noticed something had changed in the adults, they all looked at each other briefly, nodded, and charged the man in the white and gold trimmed clothes. The man himself turning around just intime to see the group of adult beastmen tackle him to the ground, punching and clawing away at him.

“Stop! Cease! This is an order! Return to your line and stop attacking!” The knights yelled, upon seeing their orders were useless and they were just ignoring the collar to continue their assault they came up to stop them physically. As 3 knights approached the dogpile they too, were attacked, some of the women from the group separating to delay the knights.

“Protect her!” “Protect!” “Don’t let another fall!” The adults screamed as they ripped into the man’s flesh.

The children, Mia included, watched the scene unfold. Unable to move if they wanted to because of their own collars, all they could do was helplessly watch.

“What is going on here?!”

Mia turned to see a much bigger knight come from the village after hearing the commotion, followed by 10 other knights they ran into action “What are you fools doing allowing slaves to act out like this! Men! Restrain them! Get them off the priest!”

“” Yes sir!”” They shouted, charging in and with their numbers managed to finally bring everything under control. Ripping the slaves off the priest, who now lay still in his own blood.

The large knight, the knight commander, knelt down next to the priest and checked his pulse, shaking his head he stood and looked at his surroundings. The attack on the priest was not without casualties, five adults had succumbed to the collars and perished, while others were on deaths door and still struggling in the grasps of the knights who restrained them. “Put them to sleep! We cant afford anymore losses to these beasts!” he then pointed towards one of the knights that had been here at the start “You! What is causing this outburst?!”

The knight panicked “I-I don’t know! They just suddenly attacked!”

“Hmpf.” The commander walked past the struggling women and pulled out his sword, stopping just in front of Kyle, who had not looked up from the ground this entire time “Listen up you savages! Unless you want your children to die off then heed this order! Stop this madness at once!”

Upon seeing the children were threatened, the women stopped, calming down.

“Good, men! Gather them up again, put restraints on the adults and pack it up! With the priest dead I don’t want to stick around here any longer! We leave before dark!” he shouted, then proceeded to walk past the dead priest, stopping briefly to shake off a muddy and bloody peace of paper, which he quickly shook off his boot “… and prepare to transport the body of the deceased priest… with any luck we can blame it on the bandits…” he mumbled the last part before continuing on.

Mia breathed out, the tension in her body leaving her as everything calmed down and the commander was out of sight. She could barely register what had happened in the last few hours, too much had happened. She watched as another group of knights came over and placed metal restraints on the adults then ordering them to rejoin the line before all of them were ordered to march.

As they were lead through the outskirts of their village, many looked to see the state they were leaving it in. a few houses on fire and the bodies of their loved ones that were in view. Some started to cry and morn the loss of them but were quickly ordered to remain silent and march. Eventually the village was behind them and the weather returned to normal as they came up to a caravan surrounded by knights and a plain looking man with glasses who Mia noticed kept glancing at her.

When she met his gaze he quickly looked away, huffed, and then went behind one of the many horse drawn carriages. Mia’s attention was then brought towards the knight commander who spoke loudly next to another carriage that was being loaded with the bandit slaves.

“Get them all on there! Then the rest on another! I don’t care if we have less then planned, shove them all in as close as possible!” He shouted, then came to approach the newly arrived group of beastmen, looked them over once, then coughed to clear his throat “Usually its not my place to say this…but the priests, but considering the circumstances that a bunch of bandits attacked us and managed to kill the priest during a crusade…”

He then stood up straight, cleared his throat once more and spoke loud and clear. “This is an order, from now on when ever you are asked what has taken place here you will reply as follows. You were under the direct control of the demon king! Reduced to nothing but beasts! Us knights and holy priest have freed you from your curse, at the cost of having to restrain you with slave collars to keep your beast nature under control! You are grateful towards the knights and holy church for your freedom! Breaking this order will result in your death!”

Mia blinked, who the heck is the demon king? She thought and judging by the expressions of everyone else, they shared the same line of thinking. They were not given enough time to think on it, however, as the next order was issued out.

“Now with that out of the way, this is an order! Board the carraiges and sit quietly as we make our way to the Holy kingdom of Eldaha!”