In a spacious room inside a four-story building at the heart of Ket Nya, the tribal chiefs sat gathered for a meeting, their expressions grim.
Cyclone, a one-eyed giant of the cyclops tribe, slammed his fist onto the table and shouted at the top of his lungs.
"That is entirely out of the question!"
"Even if you say so, we're completely boxed in at this rate, and Mr. Gil's proposal is right on the money. At least, that's how it looks to me."
A young lizardman offered his opinion, only to be withered by the cyclops's single-eyed glare and hurriedly clamp his mouth shut.
"Put me down for Cyclone's side. The one we put our faith in was Gil, not mankind! There's no way in hell we're begging for help from the very humans who've slaughtered so many of our kind!"
A Garuda woman chimed in, backing Cyclone up.
"I agree! We owe Gil our lives for saving the high ogre tribe, and I trust him with all my heart! But that doesn't mean I trust humans as a whole! Above all, I still haven't forgiven the cowards who trampled my brother's soul underfoot!"
A horned youth forced those words out, his face twisted in venomous hatred.
He was Orgo, clan chief of the high ogre tribe, one of the warrior clans. Following the subjugation of the Great Blue Dragon, Cetus, we had launched a major counteroffensive and reclaimed the entire southern region from our enemies. In the process, we had liberated the high ogre settlement as well.
Though to call it a liberation was perhaps giving ourselves too much credit, given that their main force had already pulled out for some reason, allowing us to free the village without any real fighting.
"Be that as it may, it remains true that our backs are against the wall. Not all humans are our enemies on sight just because we're monsters—look at Gil, or that hunter who saved us in the past."
Kiji immediately jumped in with a counterargument to support me, but—
"Yeah, well, my little brother got hunted down and killed by that very same hunter! Humans are the enemies of all monsters! That's an undeniable fact! Come on, you all know I'm right!"
One of the monsters leaped out of his seat, scanning the room as he bellowed for support.
"Damn right! As if we could ever trust a human!"
"We ought to protect our monster city with our own two hands!"
Shouts of hatred and rejection toward humankind erupted one after another. Over the past two months, all sorts of troubles had cropped up, and I believed we had gradually reached a mutual understanding through resolving them together. Or rather, seeing the figurative wall in their demeanor steadily break down, there was no question I had formed a genuine bond with them.
Yet that was strictly a bond with me, Gil—not with Gil of the human race. That was just how deep the chasm between monster and human ran, lying before us as an insurmountable divide.
Pushing them any harder to forge an alliance with the human race would only backfire. It might even cost me the very trust I had worked so hard to build. Sowing internal discord in a dire crisis like this, where an enemy offensive could strike at any moment, would be sheer suicide.
—Or so I tried to tell myself, but the reality was that I was simply terrified of watching the trust I'd earned slip through my fingers. That was why, I think, I mistook their outcry for an immovable conviction and just let myself go with the flow. As a result, I didn't have the slightest inkling at the time of the catastrophic tragedy this foolish escapism of mine would bring about.