"...Boring."
"Hah?"
"These kinds of threats, they're so boring," Ash merely sneered coldly with a blank expression, seeming to have not the slightest interest in the threat.
"Bastard... didn't you jump down just to cast spells at close range? What are you pretending for!"
"No, I just had something I wanted to say to Gyes, and it wasn't convenient for the kids up there to hear. As for you..., With a look of disdain, he gazed down at the furious Gallus, slowly shaking his head, "Setting aside for now that using a little boy I don't even know as a hostage means nothing to me. I'm not an orc, after all. Secondly..."
"What! Gah...?"
Before Gallus could even finish speaking, he found the figure not far away suddenly arriving before him as if by teleportation. Before he could even widen his eyes, he was seized by the throat with one hand, his body easily lifted, his feet leaving the ground.
Instinctively he tried to swing his blade to slash, but to his horror he discovered that his hands had at some point been cleanly severed at the roots. His neck was gripped tightly, his breathing completely cut off, only a duck-like hoarse sound able to escape his mouth, his legs kicking in the air as if by instinct.
Ash, however, merely continued with a blank expression, increasing the pressure of his grip while speaking to the Gallus before him whose eyes were filled with despair and terror, "You're too weak, so your threats are meaningless."
'Me? Weak? I'm a North Saint!', Gallus roared in his heart in disbelief, but Ash, at the end of his words, directly gave a casual twist.
Gallus's throat and neck, immediately in a "Crack!" of bone-shattering sound, were violently snapped by him.
Then, like discarding a piece of worn-out garbage, he casually tossed the corpse to the side, not even bothering to give it another glance.
And just as everyone was silent as cicadas in winter, Ash looked toward Gyes again, calmly saying, "String up these guys' corpses and hang them on the trees at the entrance. That should serve as some degree of deterrent."
"Huh? O-Okay! Ah, no...", Gyes, who had nodded instinctively, was stunned by his words, but soon a trace of hesitation and difficulty appeared on his face, "B-But... isn't this a bit..."
"What, someone wanted to humiliate your wife and child, and you can't even bear this much?"
"No... it's not that... it's just, the girls will be scared, right? And that way, what's the difference between us and them?"
"..."
'Why does it feel like, all of a sudden, the only bad guy left here is me? No, they're just too naive, aren't they?', Ash suddenly felt a headache coming on, but couldn't be bothered to say more. Silently leaving behind the hellish scene painted as if in blood and ice, he turned and walked away.
The people on scene, however, all seemed somewhat troubled by this, even somewhat afraid of him, until... he was surrounded by two beast-eared girls, and without changing his expression, crouched down and pretended to have no choice but to stroke the children's ears, only then did the atmosphere gradually return to normal.
Normally, everyone had been rescued, the criminals had met their punishment. Or rather, the crime had been snuffed out the moment it was about to be carried out, so it should be time for all to be well and celebrations to begin.
But the next day, officials from the port city came running over with soldiers to protest, accusing the Dedoldia tribe of attacking humans and soldiers, and claiming the ship had only been carrying important cargo. They declared the earlier attack on the ship a serious crime and demanded severe punishment of the perpetrators.
However, between the Milis Holy Kingdom and the chiefs of the Great Forest, there had originally been a treaty prohibiting the abduction of beastfolk and their use as slaves. But the current situation... was clearly one where almost all officials had participated in the crime.
Ash simply announced his name, and when everyone refused to believe it, he instantly cut down half of the soldiers who had come to threaten them, and made the remaining half, under threat, drag three officials to the port city.
Along the way, as if entering uninhabited territory, killing ten men in ten steps while harvesting souls, he dragged out the port city's lord and the relevant corrupt officials.
Afterward, under his threat, the officials and the local lord were hung on the city gate by soldiers. Before leaving, he even turned and slashed once, cutting the city wall beside the gate into two halves.
"If you have the ability and want revenge, you can come find me directly. But next time... it won't just be a few people."
Leaving only these words, he drifted away on his own amid the billowing dust and the fearful gazes of the people.
His actions not only thoroughly declared his identity and deterred everyone, causing no one to dare rescue those officials, the lord, even because of his decent strength, suffered the most... not dying immediately when dropped, but suffocating to death on the city gate.
But even though he had done such things, the Milis Holy Kingdom could only pretend nothing had happened, silently making new appointments, treating it entirely as these people having encountered an unfortunate natural disaster.
And on the other side...
That night, Ash had thought he would be feared, but... he was received as a complete hero.
Even that night, the little fox and little cat excitedly clung to him, letting him once again feel the warmth of "small animals" after so long, and he was even unusually not pried apart by Roxy and the others, wearing a face full of enjoyment, burying his head in fox ears while also playing with a cat tail.
Only the father of the two children, Gyes, had a more subtle expression than anyone at this scene, because he, like the beastfolk on scene, had smelled...
"The smell of estrus... but..."
This smell, it seemed, was not coming from the most suspicious Ash.
———
After the surrounding criminal organizations were thoroughly eradicated, and the officials in the port city who had colluded with them were purged for the first time, the beastfolk village finally welcomed long-awaited peace.
They quickly cleared the mountain of corpses piled on the ground, then lit a roaring bonfire in the center of the tribe to celebrate the arrival of peace and express gratitude for Ash's deeds.
Although Ash's identity was completely exposed in this incident, this didn't seem to be entirely a bad thing.
After hearing of his deeds, various factions eagerly desired to meet and converse with him.
But when those envoys saw Ash busy teasing cute beast-eared girls, one moment stroking Mini's and Nona's ears, the next pulling Nona into his arms, paying no attention at all to their requests for an audience, these people gradually reached a consensus in their hearts.
Ash was perhaps no different from those perverted nobles with special fetishes, having a particular fondness for beast-eared girls.
Many also believed that it was precisely because of this unique preference that he had lent a hand when the beastfolk were in trouble... no, rather, he probably treated all the beastgirls of the entire Great Forest as his own private property, didn't he?
Although everyone had some criticism in their hearts about Ash's behavior, but... there was no helping it. Who let him be a great power, an evil god? Even if the other party acted arrogantly and domineeringly, so what? They could only slander him a couple of times in their hearts.
And Ash himself didn't mind any of this at all... Anyway, rumors about him were already countless; adding a few more slanders wouldn't hurt. He rarely had time to enjoy the happiness of petting girls without having to raise them, why bother caring about other superfluous people.
But as he buried his head in fox ears while tugging at a cat tail, the expressions of the beastfolk elders around him, one by one, for some reason began to turn strange, making Roxy and Eris sense something was off and hurriedly rush up from left and right, grabbing his hands.
"Wait? What are you doing?", Ash looked bewildered, but received no answer as the two silently pulled him out of the room, and then...
"You! Didn't you notice? What kind of expressions did those girls' parents have?", Roxy wore a look of disappointment at his failure to meet expectations, but he...
"Not interested."
"At least care a little!"
"Don't want to, troublesome," Ash's face was full of resistance, simply not wanting to care about such troublesome matters.
He'd done so many things at once, even accelerating the worsening of his already terrible reputation, couldn't he at least enjoy himself a little? If not, was this world not just too unreasonable?
He was just about to express his dissatisfaction, but Eris also crossed her arms and said loudly, 'You! If you're really that lonely! I... I suppose I could keep you company a little!"
"Huh... you? Forget it, yeah, I'm going back to sleep."
Glancing at this hot-tempered red-haired girl, he was dumbfounded for a moment, then waved his hand as if losing interest, and silently headed toward his room.
For a moment, both Eris and Roxy were left stunned in place by his decisive action.
Eris, even more furious, her face flushed red, chased after him in a single stride, wanting to have a proper argument with Ash, "What?