Curiosity killed the cat, but something bigger might survive.

 

My name is Fiubun, and I'm the youngest child of a fatherless family. It's just me, my older sister, and my mother.

Mom says that Rigru, my father, was a muscular, tiger beastman warrior, but I don't even remember his face because he died when I was too young. I only know him from Mom's stories, and he was an accomplished Tear Explorer before he met her, then he settled down when they married and he became a soldier in the City Militia. But he never lost his bestial nature, so one day, he bit more than he could chew and died in battle.

My mother, Unjer, is a stunning beauty of pale skin, white hair, and red eyes, so a lot of people comment that she might have some angelic blood, and even our grandparents believe so because they gave her this name, which means "Angel" in our ancient language. She doesn't have any significant magical power even though she might have angel blood, but she has an almost divine voice, so she became a songstress that traveled the Central Realms until she met Father, then they settled down in Hatarvros, and she started singing at an inn while he fought to defend the town.

My sister, Elina, was born unlucky. She got some of Mother's beauty, part of Father's tiger body, but neither his strength nor her charisma, so she's as average as any other beastman, except she's sexy, but that just attracts unwanted attention. She even has to cover her front with cloth because she doesn't have any fur, unlike me, who can walk naked. Her only advantage is that her tiger beastman race makes the men of most other races scared of angering her, so she's a great waitress that gets a lot of tips due to her "suppleness."

And as for me, I'm luckier. I got some of my father's magic power along with his pure tiger beastman race, though none of his muscles and height (if Mother is to be believed), but at least I'm a bit above average the other beastmen in strength. My only problem is that I'm a weird kid, too curious for my own good. Be it peeping on Mom, Sis, or the other waitresses, or reading the Scriptures (then really disappointing the priest when I said that I didn't like them and I don't want to become a priest), or inspecting spell tools, or simply searching for shinies, I'm always causing trouble for Mom, and this makes her sad, so I'm trying to be smarter about it.

But this time, I'm curious about something harmless, it's just that Sis is annoyed that I'm spending way too long staring at a cute blue flower instead of paying attention to her.

I know it's weird for a "carnivorous," just-matured man like me to ignore the hot, naked woman right beside him as we sunbathe, but this flower is special.

The school's priest said that I was born with magicsight, the ability to (sometimes, because I'm still not very good at it) detect magical things (duh), so it really catches my attention whenever someone does anything magical near me, and this flower is definitely doing something magical.

Everyone has some innate magical energy in them called Lifeforce, but it lies dormant in our blood, so it's not like I can see people through walls with my magic sight. I don't know if this flower is using Lifeforce, though, I can just see that it's, every once in a while, blowing small clouds of something that has a color that I don't know how to describe, and this "something" is obviously magical since I can see it with my eyes closed while Sis can't.

I decide to touch the flower, and I feel a mild stinging sensation when my paw pads (my hand is in the shape of a human's, but it's furry, clawed, has a thick hide, and pink pads at the underside) brush against the gentle blue petals. Anything that stings is bad… but magic!

Then I remember that there were sightings of the Roaming Rain of the Water God a few days ago, and people always follow it because a lot of valuable stuff grows where it rains. I've never seen anything magical around here before, possibly because greedy people hunt everything down that grows near Hatarvros, but I believe this plant is likely one of the "valuables" that grew because of the Water God.

As I gently rub a petal between my fingers, I accidentally break it, releasing a glowing blue liquid from it that stains my pink pads, and my magicsight starts tingling.

Magical energy!

"Did you find liquid Mana?!" Elina suddenly exclaims in surprise and crawls closer. It seems that the blue glow is visible even for her, and we know that anything that glows is likely magical.

But I snort and grumble back, "Fuck no. Only in the Dream Realm would the Dark Forest have any liquid Mana." Liquid mana is liquid money, and Hatarvros is not known for being a wealthy place.

Then I rub my fingers against each other and the blue stain spreads, but the glow fades and the stinging remains. This means that the liquid isn't raw magical energy made physical, it's just a blue liquid, and it's the glow that is the energy, which was absorbed by my finger.

"Then… this is a magical energy, yes?" she asks curiously.

"Most likely, yes," I answer with a nod, then I rub the petal between my fingers again, spreading more glowing liquid on my skin.

Elina crouches beside me, and my eyes are attracted to her naked body for a second, but I immediately focus back on the magic flower. "Well, the priest says it's bad to mess with magical energies," she reminds me with a pout.

"The Speakers say it's bad to drink alcohol while the Blossomites say it's okay as long as you don't get sick after," I dismissively reply, then I suddenly get the feeling that I have something at the tip of my tongue, but I don't know what or why.

"But no priest says it's okay to play with magical energies that you don't recognize," she bothers me again.

I want to stare at her round, supple tits, her pointy, pink nipples, the meaty pussy lips that peek out of her hood, but goddamn… MAGIC!

My red, spiky club starts to peek out of its sheath in excitement even though I'm still concentrating on the flower, then I hear Elina snort, and she moves closer to me, but I continue to ignore her and stare harder at the flower. The more magical energy I absorb through my paw pads, the stronger the feeling of "having something at the tip of my tongue" becomes along with the stinging, but I'm too curious to stop now.

My head suddenly moves on its own, making me glance at Elina, and I lose my train of focus as I see her with her legs and pussy lips spread wide, her furry finger slowly entering her fleshy pink hole, then coming out slightly wet. My red club rushes out of its hiding place, already dripping with excitement, and the smell of our arousal becomes thick in the air.

"You want to fuck me, don't you?" she teasingly asks with a sexy purr, her tail waving mischievously behind her.

It's embarrassing to admit, but I can't lie, so I nod, and her pointy fangs appear from behind her grin as she slowly rubs her clit. Her head is human, unlike mine, but she still has stripes of orange and black fur going across her cheeks, and also tiger ears in place of a human pair, giving her a ferocious and wild look, but due to Mother's genes, the human part of her face is really fucking gorgeous.

But just as I start to get lost in her feral smile, she suddenly turns her grin upside down as she hisses at my cock, "Disgusting bastard, put it back in."

"Go fuck yourself," I growl angrily and turn my head away from her.

"Gladly," she purrs as she fingers herself again then moans loudly, which makes my cock throb, and she notices it, so she laughs out loud like a fucking imp. "You men are all the same!"

I'm starting to get tired of her shit today, so I snarl back, "Of course we are! This is just how our bodies react when you tease us with pussy!"

"And it'll never stop being fun," she replies with an infuriatingly smug tone.

Keep teasing me like this and one day I'll fucking pounce on you and give you a rough dicking.

"Grah!" I hiss at her as I touch the broken petal, then I feel something weird.

My fingers suddenly become "itchy" on the inside, a feeling similar to when you stretch your body, but more intense. Then the itching spreads to my hand and arm, and it's so intense that I simply punch the ground.

"Nyah!" Elina meows cutely in surprise, and I'd have likely hissed too if I wasn't too stunned at what's happening. "What's up with you?! Have you become an orc now that you couldn't get your dick sucked?!"

My whole fist sinks halfway into the soft earth, but once I try to pull out it seems to be stuck, then the pain comes, and I lose the capability to speak.

"Guh… raaah-FUCK!" I groan and shout as I forcefully pull my fist out, then just stare at my hand in confusion. The "itching" still hasn't gone away, but the pain has disappeared as suddenly as it had come, for some reason. "My arm wants to punch something, but it hurts!"

"Yehws fuck, you did become an orc!" she exclaims in disbelief and shuffles away from me, but she's still fingering herself.

"The Speakers will slap you if you mention Yehws," I joke, my voice trembling as I hold back the impulse to punch the ground again.

"Fuck the Speakers," she grunts annoyedly.

"But not literally," I joke again with a grin and hold tightly my "itchy" arm.

And she snorts, then simply stares at me as she slowly rubs her clit.

The joking calms me up a bit, and I find it easier to control my arm. But then a stray thought ruins everything. I imagine what would happen if my cock was the one who got the "itching" instead of my arm, but the problem is that, with raw magic, your imagination becomes reality, and the "itching" seems to be exactly some sort of raw magical energy because it immediately goes to my cock.

The thick red spear bursts out of its hiding place, throbbing and leaking from extreme arousal, but the real kicker is that lust floods my mind, and there's a very hot woman right next to me with her legs spread.

"Fiubun…?" Elina calls my name fearfully, and my head jerks towards her.

I instinctively growl as her moist pussy comes within my sight, and I release a sound so low and powerful comes out of my throat that it even scares me, not to mention my sister, who looks at me like I'm a wild tiger, though I do feel like one.

I'm a beastman who has just become a man, so my animal genes tell me that I'm ready to breed a woman, and the smell that's wafting out of my sister's pussy tells me that she's ready for my cock. Her gorgeous face is that of fear, but a blush of arousal quickly takes over her pale skin. Though she's scared of me, she isn't trying to run away… because she wants it.

I crawl up to her, and she instinctively lays down on the grass, then I notice that my breath is making small clouds of steam with how heated it is. My whole body feels like it's on fire, but it's only my cock that "itches" with intense desire, and so the only sliver of sanity that remains in my mind struggles to regain control of my body.

Elina's amber cat eyes look down at my red meat rod, then her large furred hands wrap around its thick girth, but her touch is still the gentlest thing I've ever felt.

"Fiubun, I'm scared…" she whispers softly, then her hands begin moving up and down its length, the natural lube that my sheath produces making her paw pads glide along my sensitive skin.

Her pouty lips, her fearful eyes, her shy posture. I've never seen my sister acting so goddamn cute, which just increases my desire to rape her, but a part of me knows that this is wrong… the rape part, not the incest part.

Lucky for me, I'm so godsdamn excited that I cum after a few strokes before I can do anything else. My balls throb intensely for long seconds as I cover her face and chest with my white milk, and all she can do is stare in awe at the amount coming out of my spiky cock.

Once it's finally over, the desire to rape her immediately goes away, and I fall beside her, out of breath and my whole body feeling quite exhausted, then my cock slides back into its sheath.

"What the fuck, Fiubun…" she whispers, and I hear shuffling, but I can't move right now.

"The plant… magical energy… on my cock…" I try to explain between breaths.

"I… figured that out… but that's not the problem…" she quietly hisses back, and I sense a wave of rising anger in her tone. "MY FUR, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE! YOU CAME ALL OVER MY FUR, TOO!"

My eyes finally focus on her, and I see something that I'll never forget. My naked, sexy sister is covered in cum. Sure, her front is mostly naked, but she still has fur covering everywhere else, and in my personal experience, fur and cum don't mix well.

"I'm sorry…" I apologize earnestly. I really do feel bad, and I wish I hadn't came all over her.

But of course, magic is still working, so my wish becomes true.

"Nyah…!" she meows in surprise, and her whole body quivers as I witness my cum simply falling off of her as if her body was hydrophobic, or rather, cum-o-phobic.

Then I sense something "snap" within me, followed by the feeling that something magical was just turned off.

The magical energy finally ran out!

I immediately test my theory and make a bunch of different wishes, but nothing works, so I guess I really did spend all of the magical energy I absorbed from the plant.

Wait, if I absorbed and manipulated a magical energy, then this means that I'm a natural mage!

I feel a prick on my shoulder, and I finally notice that Elina is standing beside me, pressing her clawed feet against my shoulder.

"You okay now?" she asks worriedly, then I see a drop of arousal come out of her pussy and run down her leg.

But I frown guiltily. "I guess… I'm sorry for almost raping you…"

She looks away awkwardly, her tail waving casually. "That was far from rape. Just a handjob is fine, and you got the cum out… somehow."

"Thanks… and I'm sorry?" I confusedly reply.

She shakes her head softly with a snort, then stares at me again. "It's fine; stop apologizing. But that was magic, right? Is the plant an aphrodisiac?" And an odd excitement starts to appear in her tone.

I'm also a bit excited, so I quickly explain, "It's 'technically' an aphrodisiac, but it's actually a type of magical energy that I manipulated with my imagination. Sis, I think I'm a natural mage."

And her vertical-slitted eyes open wide.

I weakly sit up and stare at the blue flower again. The broken petal still has a faint blue glow from the magical energy within it… energy that I could have for myself.

"I have to learn how to control this energy…" I whisper softly as I narrow my eyes.

"I'll… I'll stay here to 'help'… or you might rape something dangerous or even someone," she hesitantly states. I feel my cock twitch as I process her words, but then she soberly continues, "But if you're really a mage, you should be able to take the energy out of your cock if you accidentally put it there again."

"I should…" I softly repeat, and the talk about magic puts my mind back on the proper path. "And even if I'm not a mage, anyone can become one with enough training."

Her tone also softens. "But the priests at school said you can sense magic, so it makes sense that you're a natural mage."

"It does," I agree, then I crush the flower with my paw as I think about the same thing that I was thinking when I hissed at her: rape, to forcefully take something that isn't mine. It makes me feel conflicted that the energy obeys this type of command, and then my body is flooded with the "itching," but this time, I'm prepared for it.

People think that the Scriptures are something obscure and mysterious like ancient machines, but most of it is just random bits of useful knowledge for us. It's just that they've been written in a weird way, so it's hard to read. But I understood from the Scriptures that mages control magical energies with their will, and as a beastman, my willpower must be higher than average.

And a mage can't do shit without magical energies, so I wish very hard to store this magical energy somewhere within my body. Unfortunately, this energy isn't so easily stored for the same reason that you can't use fire elemental energy to conjure water, so all that happens is that I feel the "itching" gather in my heart. At least it didn't go for my cock…

Unfortunately, that isn't a stable or even safe location to store magic energy. Imagine if I accidentally conjured a rock inside my heart with a stray thought… like this one I just had.

FUCK!

I gasp in fear and push the energy out of my heart… but nothing happens, so I guess this energy also isn't able to conjure rocks. What this energy can do is give me a massive boner along with the desire to punch things (and I have to stop the energy from going to my cock or arm due to this thought), so what the fuck is this magical energy, after all?

The little ball of energy has gathered in the middle of my chest, just under the skin, and it doesn't seem to be able to come out of my body again, at least not easily. I still need to find a way to store the energy before I can think about taking it out, so I focus back on that.

I absorbed the energy from the flower's sap, so maybe I should be able to store it in my blood?

And that does it. The energy immediately spreads all over my body through my veins, but not my muscle or skin, then I feel the "itching" settle down, but not disappear entirely.

"Did you do it…?" Elina suddenly asks hesitantly.

I nod. "I think I did. How did you know?"

"Your grin…" she answers flatly.

I blink blankly. "Oh…"

She rolls her eyes. "Duh."

And we both snort, then we fall silent, and she decides to crouch beside me.

"But now what?" she curiously asks after a moment.

I stare at the knuckles in my right hand. I punched the earth and actually managed to sink my fist into it even though it hurt so much, but now there's not even a bruise, so maybe the energy healed it. "I need to understand what I can do with this energy," I answer with an excited smile.

"You can punch stuff, cum a lot, and control your cum," she dryly states.

But I sagely reply, "Exactly, which means that it's an energy related to the body."

And she becomes skeptical. "How did a flower produce such… wild energy?"

I turn down to the flower itself. Its blue petals have been crumpled into a ball, but the sap doesn't glow anymore and the magic it was doing has stopped, so I have no leads to investigate.

"I don't know," I hesitantly admit.

And her skepticism becomes worry. "This is why unknown magical energies are dangerous. What if it makes you grow roots? What if it conjures something toxic in your body? What if it makes you go insane? It already almost turned you into a rapist."

But I'm fucking stubborn, so I cross my arms angrily and glare at the little plant. "It doesn't make sense. It's just a stupid little flower that was puffing some magical mist. How would a fucking flower be that violent?"

"Ask an apothecary or alchemist once we're back," she suggests, but I ignore her. I want to find out on my own.

I think I saw some magic wisps going up the stem, so maybe there's something at the roots?

I grab the stem and try to uproot it, but it just breaks and releases a bit more of the glowing blue sap, which I immediately scoop with the palm of my hand, then I crush it completely and forcefully steal the magical energy again, which I store in my blood.

With the flower and the stem fully drained, I start digging into the earth, and through my clawed fingers, I feel a faint magic coming from underground. A flower's roots can't be very deep, so I only need to take out a little bit of dirt before I find the source of the magic.

And it's a creepy mass of wriggling white roots.

"What the fuck… are these the roots?" Elina asks in both curiosity and disgust.

"They're… burrowing," I comment thoughtfully.

Then she suddenly points with a claw and whispers excitedly, "Look, a new stalk is growing."

Yes, a new stalk is growing from the center of the wriggling clump, which also seems to be spreading out further and deeper.

We both watch in awe for a couple of minutes as a new stalk grows, and then we stare at the newly grown blue flower, which quickly blooms and begins doing its magic again.

"This plant is likely valuable," I concernedly remark. Sources of magical energies always are.

"Unless its magical energy is dangerous or the flower is hard to care for," she speculates with a pointed look.

But I frown stubbornly. "If we ask an apothecary about it, they could try to swindle the plant from us."

And she snorts, then skirts any responsibility, "Us? I don't know how to manipulate magical energies like you do, and I also don't even want to. This flower is yours."

I shrug and glance at her. "You just imagine things and the energy obeys."

But she just stares sternly at me with her amber cat eyes. "Until you imagine the wrong thing and die."

It makes me feel bad how much worry I'm causing her, but this is the first time that I have access to a magical energy… and I want more.

I scratch my chin as I ponder, "What about the church's public library? Maybe we can ask the priests at school for books about the plants of the region."

"They'd be suspicious that we found something dangerous," she cautions me.

"But it's easier to run from an annoying Crusader than out-swindle a greedy apothecary," I answer with a smirk.

She rolls her eyes and relents, "Fine. But we'll do it another day. I don't want to study on my day off."

And I smile warmly at her. "Thanks for not abandoning me."

She hugs her knees, giving me a very nice view, then she pouts as she mumbles, "You're going to do something stupid… so I have to stick with you."

Well, I'm happy she'll follow me, regardless of her reasoning.

 

We lay down on the grass and chat for a little longer while I casually play with the blue energy inside me. I learn that I can call it out of my blood with a mere wish and use it to give my body a boost of energy, though it does make me a bit violent, and I should never use it on my cock unless it's with a woman that wants rough sex.

The fact that the energy's power seems to still faintly affect me even when it's in my blood is slightly concerning, but I think it won't disrupt my sleep too much. The bigger issue is that I think that it's still being consumed even though it's supposedly being "stored," so I'll run out of it eventually.

If I can take that flower home and care for it, then I'll have a steady supply of magical energy. But first, I have to learn more about the flower before I accidentally kill it by extracting too much magical energy, so Elina and I will visit the priests in the school tomorrow after lunch, once we finish our job at the inn.

"Wait, is that-…?!" Elina suddenly exclaims and points up to the sky.

I come out of the world in my head and back to the land of the living, then easily spot what she's talking about. There's a long conical shape is flying above us, and once we focus our sharp, bestial eyes, we spot the symbol of the Tear Explorer's Union at the wooden underside of the warpship: a sword, a crack, and a pickaxe all crossed over a white kite background.

"That's a warpship," I agree with her unfinished question.

A warpship is a long, triangular vehicle that can travel through the Warp safely. Its outer hull is made of enchanted black wood that can resist the chaotic energies of the Aether magical energy, but there's no other detail on it aside from the Union's symbol. The Holy Scriptures of Physics describe a Slipstream Engine that allows it to travel through Warpspace, but even I couldn't understand how it worked, and it's disabled while flying through the sky, though I do see some sort of magic coming out of the sides of the warpship, which must be some powerful shit considering I can see it from this far.

Then I casually question, "Over there is the Vulcan's Wrath Tear, right?"

"I think so. There's no other Tear near the outskirts that I know of," she hums back.

The sky suddenly cracks in front of the warpship, then a huge slit gradually opens, letting out a red glow out and also answering my question.

A Tear is a small Broken Realm that often gets lodged inside of another Realm. Those Tears can have a lot of valuable stuff within, but also a lot of dangers, so the Tear Explorers Union gathers those both stupid and greedy enough to explore Tears and organizes expeditions into them. And our late father used to be one before he found something that stopped his death-wish: Mom.

"Isn't this the second expedition this week? What do they even go there for?" Elina asks as she stares at the huge warpship slowly crossing into the mass of red glow that is the Tear.

I answer thoughtfully, "I heard a dwarf say that they mine metal ores there, but he also said that it's a shitty place to mine because the ores are very impure."

"I didn't hear anything about them finding something new there," she replies with a confused tone.

And I scratch my furry chin as I ponder, "So they must really want these ores… but what will they use the metal for?"

"Guns?" she worriedly suggests.

"Why guns?" I reply and frown at her.

"I heard something about the governor wanting to expand the militia," she gloomily answers.

"Fuck…" I mumble as I watch the Tear suddenly close and disappear again.

That ain't good.

"Well, I mean, we always need weapons to keep the monsters away, right?" she guesses and glances at me with a forced smile that shows her fangs.

But The Scriptures always have an answer. "The Scriptures of War say that 'you must procure guns and hardware in secret before you announce mobilization so that your enemy has less time to prepare.'"

"What the fuck does 'hardware' mean?" she hums confusedly, making me chuckle.

I shrug. "No idea."

"I'd guess it's equipment? Like, armor?"

And I nod. "Same."

Then she prickles my shoulder with a claw and questions, "Okay, but what's the point of that passage?"

"The Mayor didn't announce that he's expanding the militia because he's preparing for war," I grimly point out.

She furrows her orange brows in confusion. "But I heard about it?"

And I sagely reply with a smile, "'Rumors will always spread, no matter what you do,' that's another passage."

"Alright, wise man…" she mumbles tiredly but doesn't retort.

Then we fall into a silence that gradually becomes gloomy. That was a bad topic to talk about when all you want is to relax.

The sun slowly hides behind dark clouds once again, so soon there will be rain… for the third time today. We're in the Vorosza Kingdom of Clouds and Moss, after all, very different from the (in)famous Merlivux Pentarchy of Sun and Spring that so many travelers just love to talk about.

Seriously, it sounds like that place is made of candy and happiness with how the travelers keep harping on about it. But I've only ever seen humans and halflings talk about Merlivux, so I'm suspicious about it, and the other beastmen are also all tired of hearing about it, so I'm pretty sure it'd be a shitty place for my family to live in.

Well, they aren't outright murderous like the Fae are to any non-Fae entering the Fae Realms, so at least there's that…

 

We continue laying on the grass even though a faint drizzle starts to fall on our bodies. Sis and I are both beastmen, and we feel at home in the wild, no matter the weather, except for storms because fuck lightning.

But eventually, we decide to go back before it gets dark. It's the Dark Forest, after all, not smart to stay here when it gets… dark. So Sis puts her brown poncho back on to hide her woman parts from lecherous men, but the simple sheet of cloth with a hole for the head she calls a poncho is open at the sides, so you can see her pussy and nipples depending on what she's doing. Well, it works as intended as it kills my excitement, so I pay attention to our surroundings as we walk.

The forest itself isn't that pretty, but I kind of like the smell of moss and the gloomy air around here. The trees are all crooked and thin with dark bark, dark green leaves, and multi-colored moss, giving the Dark Forest its name, but it feels… I don't know… "comfy," but maybe that's just the beast in me talking.

We didn't go deep into it because we ain't dumb, so we quickly reach the city of the Dark Forest of Hatarvros. Yes, there is the "Dark Forest," a forest that's dark, and the city called "Dark Forest of Hatarvros." I've read in the Scriptures that the Gods like weird names (like this one and that of the two kingdoms I previously mentioned), so it caught on in the Central Realms. Even the priests say that the Gods' naming sense is weird, but if you call the Gods weird, then the priests get mad at you, which is also weird.

Anyway, once we come out of the woods, we spot the mossy cobble walls of the city. They're tall, thick, and lined with bronze cannons to protect against attacks from the soulless monsters that spawn at the Edge of Reality, which is only a few days away from Hatarvros. This city is near the border of the Realm, and its proximity to the Edge is why it's so shitty, though Mom said it was a lot better when she first settled here.

But now every traveler that comes from deeper within the kingdom says that this city sucks, and I kind of agree.

We walk along the unmaintained moat, now merely a pond where frogs and other small animals live, then we reach the wide gatehouse and are greeted by a group of pleasant fellows. Two scummy-looking humans and two lazy dog beastmen stand at the entrance, and their bored faces make Sis and me wary. They have no guns, just spears and some shitty padded clothes, so they ain't much of a threat, they're just annoying.

"Back from your little stroll, hm?" a shit-color-haired human called Fodor asks mockingly while leaning on his spear. He's a scrawny shit stain that nobody likes.

"It's a sunny day, so it was nice to lay down on the grass," I reply without hostility, but Fodor keeps his eyes on Sis, trying to get a peek at her pussy.

"Ain't that right," one of the dog beastman hums absentmindedly, and the other nods in agreement.

"Saw the warpship?" the other human asks and pulls a drag of his smoking pipe.

"Yeah, beauty," I hum back.

"Went into Vulcan's Wrath," Sis adds.

"Right…" the smoking human hums as his eyes run down Sis' body.

And so we continue walking, but just as we move past Fodor, Sis hears him move, so she jerks her head back and grabs his hand as he tries to get a feel of her ass.

"Fuck off," she snarls at him and pushes him away, but the shit stain just giggles like a demon.

"If she scratches your face we won't help," one of the dog soldiers remarks tiredly.

"Alright, alright," Fodor replies and lifts his hands in surrender, but I know his eyes are that of a crook.

The magical energy still in my body fills me with confidence, and I snarl at Fodor as I bare my teeth to intimidate him. His eyes immediately turn to me, and the evil flies out of his body as he tenses up in fear.

But then I feel a spike of pain as Elina yanks my tail, so I turn around and frown at her.

"Getting angry will just make him mad at you," she whispers harshly.

I don't agree but I also don't want to argue, so I just walk away along with her.

 

Hatarvros is a muddy place full of moldy houses made of dark timber or mossy cobble. There are some tarmac roads here and there, but they're all full of holes, though they're the only way big wagons, carriages, and the rare car can easily get across the city after rain, and it rains every day.

Most of the people here are dog beastmen, equal parts "half" and "pure." It used to be a "pure" beastman town, but then the humans came and caused a baby boom of "halves." I can't really complain since I'm not a native myself, and I'd be a "half" like Sis if I wasn't lucky with my genes.

Sure, halves are a lot more popular and well-received than pures, but halves are weaker and shorter because of their human genes. They say that humans are better mages, but most of the people I've seen with Magical Energy Morphism are humans, so I guess they're also weak to shit like that.

Talking about Morphism, we pass by a botanist human who has two tree branches growing out of his forehead like horns. Might actually be able to grow fruit, but I'd rather not have it happen to me even though I'm such a sucker for magic.

And Morphism tends to happen when you mess with unknown magical energies, the priests told us.

I'll be fine, I think… at least I ain't a flimsy human.

The houses and the streets gradually become wealthier and better maintained the further away we get from the gate, and eventually, we reach the Great Swan Inn, a comfy cobble and timber building with a little pond at the front where a swan illusion appears every time someone gets near.

This time, the swan has its wings spread wide as it looks up, and its beak open, showing its set of sharp teeth. I can just hear the demonic being's honking, and I really don't know why anyone actually thinks it's beautiful; must be a human thing.

We walk around the main entrance and enter from the back, directly onto the kitchen. Everyone has already started making dinner, so we put on our aprons and help them out.

"You're already back," Mom's gentle voice greets me from behind, so I turn around and my eyes meet with her red jewels. Even with a cloth wrap hiding her white hair, her face is so beautiful it's still stunning.

"It was going to get dark soon, and since it started to rain, we came back earlier," I explain as I happily stare into her eyes.

Mom smiles back at me, making my heart so happy my tail waves on its own. "Thank you. If you can watch the pots, I'll take a break before it's time to sing."

I nod. "Sure."

She walks up to me and kisses my furry cheek, then pats my arm and walks away, leaving me with a fast-beating heart and a sigh that I let escape my mouth.

But now's time to work, so I turn to my table and start preparing the veggies while keeping an eye on the soup pots on the fire. I'm actually the second-best cook in the inn, so I get all the important plates when Mom isn't around, but since I have big hands, my specialty is dealing with large and hard stuff while Mom takes what's more delicate.

Most of the veggies we eat are hard roots or grow underground, so humans have a harder time dicing them up, making me better suited for this task. At least we still have many animals living in the Dark Forest, so we aren't forced to eat greenskins like in the poorer villages. Goblins and orcs aren't appetizing at all.