#084. The Brainwashed Legion is Too Kind (2)

#084. The Brainwashed Legion is Too Kind (2)

The leadership of the Beastkin Revival Society crumbled utterly.

No matter how great the Beastkin’s strength, individual power has its limits.

Even those blessed with might rivaling superhumans were matched in numbers by powerful individuals within the Human ranks.

“We could readily find those of this caliber, even amongst the higher echelons of the Beastkin Revival Society! Where are our warriors now? They flee, and only enemies remain!”

Chairman Drakosar and the rest of the leadership couldn’t overcome the sheer force of superhuman combatants.

In the end, they all fell, suffering the indignity of being captured as hostages.

“Ian. What do you want to do with this Beastkin? He is the head of a faction that has threatened you time and again, often at the behest of the Council of Nobles.”

Ian spoke, addressing the subdued Drakosar.

“What have you been fighting for?”

“What for? How amusing. To stand on the battlefield and ask such a childish thing. To have ‘more than others,’ of course.”

“More of what?”

“Anything and everything.”

There existed a vast chasm between Ian and Drakosar’s ways of thinking.

“For those of us born as apex predators, Beastkin blessed with brute strength, this world is full of human laws and systems that stifle our power. A predator, neutered like a pet, forced to hide fangs and sheathe claws. That is not a proper life.”

“Don’t you believe there is peace, and greater gains, to be had if everyone yields a little?”

“Never. Rights are things one conquers and forces upon others. Until now, human nobles were the conquerors, but now we are. You, the new victors, will foolishly return the rights you’ve seized to those Southern nobles.”

There was no deceit in Drakosar’s convictions, be they right or wrong.

He sought only the purest form of desire, speaking its truth aloud.

A repulsive, yet pristine, bestial instinct.

But Ian stared ahead, toward a more distant future.

The calamity that was the Demon King’s army of the Northern Front, could not be averted merely by rejecting those whose desires took a different shape or whose values differed from his own.

And so, he reached a conclusion that no one present had considered.

“Your desires have caused so much suffering. They have driven countless docile Beastkin to despair, shaken their place in Human society, and turned them into expendable tools within Beastkin society.”

“Then kill me.”

“No. I could never do that. A single life, snuffed out, is too light a price to pay for the crimes of one who so carelessly twisted the values of so many Beastkin.”

Drakosar’s instincts knew no pause.

No common sense, no reason.

Without the constraints of logic, he conjured the most dangerous future at breakneck speed.

A flicker of flames danced in Drakosar’s eyes.

“You little– Are you trying to brainwash me?”

“Save as many lives as those you have taken. That is the sentence I pass.”

“Spare me your drivel. Such restraints have no hold on the mightiest Dragonewt. My mind will not yield, and will cling to righteous hatred for you, who would shake my desires.”

To Theresa, the standoff looked exceedingly precarious. Drakosar, who could devour Ian in a single bite, and the young boy, Ian, standing against such danger with indomitable courage.

But in Ian’s eyes, she saw starlight, clearer than she had ever witnessed before.

The nemesis of the Fourth Act, the Demon King.

The final piece to be fitted, in order to defeat the Demon King.

The final, most perilous hurdle stood right here.

If only the ambition of Drakoshar alone could be quelled, the faint starlight in the back alleys might finally blanket the world.

“So, I will build it. A future where beast-kin live by reason, not by instinct.”

“You… gone mad, have you? Considering how much you’ve abused mind control to create those brainwashed legions, how much more do you think you need to indoctrinate *our* kin into another one?”

“Not a small amount, perhaps. But it doesn’t matter. Even at the risk of rampaging, I won’t yield.”

As a beast cannot hide its instincts, neither can a spoiled child hide its whims.

Whims too are a form of desire.

If Yong-in was the most avaricious of the beast-kin, Ian was the most avaricious of humans.

“And in the end, I will devour even you, and surpass you.”

Ian was a mind-weaver.

A deceiver who twists and manipulates the hearts of others.

Using this wicked power, Ian…

[Mind-Weave Triggered]

[Designated Target – Drakoshar]

[Command – Because you are also half human.]

Dominating the half of a beast-kin that did not belong to instinct.

The half that belongs to reason.

An act of reducing beast-kin into human beings.

Ian’s challenge was all the more terrifying.

“To degrade us from beast-kin to mere humans? Risking your insignificant little life?”

“It’s rational. If the identity of an entire race can be achieved with the life of one, and a broader unity of humanity besides. Only then can humanity achieve more than desperately defend the northern front.”

“Is that all your ambition amounts to? To be satisfied with the happiness others enjoy after your own destruction? That’s not rational.”

“No. It can be plenty rational. If there is a dream that continues forever, even after death, if that dream can be realized through the hands of all. That is the ultimate avarice.”

“…!”

“Everyone in this world lives for my greed. Living or dead, generation after generation.”

It was madness.

A madness that utterly eclipsed the fanaticism of the cult Ian used to mock with talk of blind faith and devotion.

The madness of an individual wielding the will to shake the laws of the world, the very principles of survival of the fittest.

“… We’ll see. I will watch until the day your ambition breaks. And when that day comes, I will laugh. I will show you just how small and insignificant you were in trying to overcome the instincts of us beast-kin. You can be sure I will thoroughly witness the end of a Rampage Adept.”

Drakoshar, the foremost of the Beast-Kin Alliance, had declared his surrender.

But the new battle formed between Ian and Drakoshar had begun that day.

* * *

Ian thought of himself as a spoiled child.

A spoiled child who could do nothing but twist the hearts of others, relying on his mind-weaving ability.

He was far past the age of a child.

Even if the concept of a ‘child’ might not exist in a fantasy world not unlike the medieval ages.

A small adult.

An immature adult.

A stripling.

That’s the age he was.

He was no mere four-year-old.

And yet, he lived clinging to the hearts of others, whining and stubbornly demanding, like a child.

What a wretched life, truly.

“Saint Ian, I refuse brainwashing.”

“We can live without brainwashing.”

“Don’t you ever think of brainwashing us again!”

The time when everyone indulged his childishness was over now.

No sooner had the brainwasher’s identity been revealed than everyone drew a line, declaring they wouldn’t even dream of brainwashing him.

He began to live his life proactively.

The cracks in the heart.

The frailty of someone.

The brainwasher’s life, forced to rely on such cracks to find a place for himself, someone to manipulate, had ended.

“Mother.”

“What is it?”

“I… I think I should retire from the Adventurer’s Guild staff after this war.”

“…Suddenly?”

“I just… I feel like there’s nothing left for me to do.”

Well, he *was* an exposed brainwasher.

It wasn’t like being a carpenter or guard, a profession easily accepted into general society.

“Don’t talk such nonsense. Everyone is watching you.”

“Are they?”

“Show them your unchanging self. Everyone will like that more. So… give up on the idea of doing anything to the beastmen. If you push yourself, you’ll lose everything you need to protect.”

“I can’t.”

“Do you want to end up like Shoa? Didn’t you see the end of a berserker with your own eyes!”

Doping potions showed what could happen to a person’s body as it collapsed under growth that the human frame couldn’t handle.

Rapid growth of abilities, the ruinous end of ability rampages – there were no exceptions, even for mental abilities, not just physical ones.

“The world becomes peaceful when a spoiled child stops being stubborn. Nothing changes, and just one more obedient child is born.”

“That’s how everyone lives. You can do it too. You can even enjoy power and a future that others envy as the son of a Great Lord.”

“It’s too much. I couldn’t. If a brainwasher surrenders to the world’s common sense and is brainwashed, that’s a disqualification as a brainwasher. If I was going to yield, I wouldn’t have even stood up in the first place.”

Ian, with determination and resolve, began brainwashing the captured beast-type demi-humans.

Teresa’s heart burned with each passing moment as she watched her son.

She realized.

She couldn’t stop Ian.

At least, she wasn’t qualified to.

Stopping the brainwashing would be like robbing that child of his reason to live.

It was no different than telling him to return to his incompetent self and his wretched childhood.

Even if Teresa became a different person from what she was then, Ian’s heart would plummet into the abyss of despair.

‘I have to achieve it. Ian, my son, *must* fulfill his lifelong ambition of defeating the Demon King before he faces brainwashing berserker mode.’

The fighting on the Southern Front had barely ceased, prisoners barely processed, when the Westwood Army was already preparing for a new deployment.

Destination: the Northern Front.

Deadline: before Ian could fully succumb to his berserk state.

Taking the shortest route, traversing the most dangerous battlefields, to carve out peace for Sodom, for the kingdom.

Nothing special, really. Just the work they’d always done.

“Cecilia, the Order’s Holy Army?”

“They can be mobilized. But… the Order’s headquarters sent a concerning communication. I imagine the lord’s castle has received something similar by now.”

“…What is it?”

“An envoy from the Empire has arrived. They’ve come to offer a tempting proposal to a kingdom on the brink of a great war.”

Cecilia then revealed one of the shortcuts that would advance that path.

“They’re offering to construct a large-scale mana waste disposal facility in the kingdom, taking 10% of the Empire’s mana waste. In exchange, we’d receive the necessary war funds and advanced weaponry for the conflict.”

“That’s…!”

“Monsters will increase exponentially. But the Empire’s weapons are powerful. They might even be able to defeat the Demon Lord.”

“But, in exchange for sending troops to subjugate the Demon Lord, the region where the facility is built…”

“Will be decimated. Many people will perish. But the South cannot refuse. If offered the restoration of those worthless nobles in exchange for hosting the facility, they will not refuse.”

To end the war on the Northern Front before Ian’s berserk state takes over, will she risk endangering all the citizens of the South?

Or, to protect the safety of all citizens of the South, will she risk Ian’s berserk power and refuse the Empire’s proposal, drawing the ire of that vast, lumbering beast?

Theresa stood at a crossroads.