The Predator's Duty

When Lude led the three of them into the tavern, the first person to greet them was the bartender.

"Sir, you have returned. Your room has been prepared for you, right at the end of the third-floor hallway."

The bartender spoke respectfully, then glanced at the three people behind Lude: "These three... do you need a room cleared for them as well?"

"No need."

Lude waved a hand: "Prepare a private booth for us, and bring out whatever good wine and meat you have."

Lude and his group had barely stepped into the second-floor booth when the bartender followed close behind, carrying a mountain of plates, cutlery, and glasses. Soon, four massive dishes were laid out on the table: a whole braised pork knuckle, a whole roasted fat chicken, a rock-salt baked wild hare, and a smoked sheep's head.

The soup was a cabbage broth made from a rich stock, and the wine was a farmhouse-distilled brandy served in an earthenware jug.

These dishes clearly couldn't have been prepared in the short time since Lude had spoken, so their origin was obvious; one could only wonder which unlucky guests had ordered them, as they would likely be waiting another half hour.

However, that was none of Lude's concern. He simply spread his hands toward the three, whose eyes were fixed on the food: "What are you waiting for? Eat!"

Silverback was the first to act. He didn't bother with cutlery, tearing half the fat chicken off with his bare hands and chewing it down, bones and all. Crow sliced a piece of fat as rich as cake from the pork knuckle, slapped it onto a piece of lye bread, and swallowed it in a few gulps.

As for Sally, she didn't stand on ceremony either, tearing off a hare leg and devouring it in seconds.

Lude didn't spoil the mood by asking questions at this moment; he simply tore into the meat, alternating with sips of wine. He didn't mind discussing business at the dinner table, but that should be done after everyone was full, while picking at cold cuts and sipping dessert wine.

When eating, one should properly savor the taste of the food. This was not only beneficial to one's health but also the duty of a predator.

One must understand the environment in which the food lived, taste the vitality the food possessed while alive, and listen to the dying wail of the prey—then possess the resolve to have taken a life for the simple purpose of sustenance, and accept that fact as a matter of course.

If one couldn't even manage such a simple thing, they might as well go back to being a vegetarian.

The same held true in human society; only those with the heart of a tiger could claw their way to the top of the food chain through struggle and slaughter. Those pampered fools who didn't know where the meat on their plates came from were nothing more than fattened pigs waiting for the butcher, no matter how much wealth they possessed.

However, one must note that the price of choosing to be a tiger or leopard rather than cattle or sheep is the loss of the protection provided by the shepherd.

Therefore, Lude never resented the person who had plotted against him; he never resented any enemy. They were all tigers and leopards who had abandoned the shepherd's protection. Being able to catch prey was a testament to one's own ability, and being hunted in return was merely a consequence of one's own inadequacy.

If your skills are inferior and your move is a step behind—this world does not believe in excuses. A loss is a loss.

These four large dishes were, at most, appetizers for the four of them, especially since they were all technically still at an age where they were growing. Thus, the bartender soon brought out more delicacies, one after another, until Sally and the others were eating with grease smeared all over their mouths.

This time, even Lude pulled a butter-pan-seared wolf bass, deboned and served with asparagus, toward himself to eat.

The meal lasted over an hour. It wasn't until Silverback stopped to pick his teeth that the bartender finally brought out the dessert wine. The food here wasn't high-end, and the entire meal had only cost 3 Sol and 650 Pfennig in total.

Interestingly, the person who ate the most wasn't Silverback, but the refined Lude.

"Now, I think it is time we had a chat." Lude raised his glass in a toast to those at the table: "About you, about this town, about that Collector, and how Miss Sally discovered the special nature of that small knife."

A slightly tipsy Sally glanced at Silverback, then at the taciturn Crow, and sighed: "I'll tell it."

"The three of us were orphans living at Blaney Orphanage. From the moment I was sent there, the director put me to work. Crow and I mostly worked as cotton cleaners in the textile mill, while Silverback was sent to the dye house to work as a porter because of his size."

"Later, when we were twelve, the orphanage shut down due to a serious accident."

"Many children were sent elsewhere, but the three of us stayed behind for our own reasons. Since then, we've had to fend for ourselves."

"I don't have a physique like Silverback's, capable of chasing wild boars up a mountain, nor am I like Crow, who is skilled in stealth and can hunt wary hares and antelopes. But I have my own way."

As she spoke, she pulled out a small lens: "My way is trading with the [Collector]."

"No one knows the Collector's real name, nor does anyone know how she manages to earn so much money. I once heard her servants say that she is a department head for a very large organization, responsible for managing that organization's operations in the Duchy of Bohemia."

"In her spare time, the Collector is exceptionally interested in certain strange objects."

As she spoke, Sally shook the lens in her hand: "This is the only heirloom my father left me. I never knew what it was for."

"But one time, I saw the Collector's subordinates buying strange things from foreign travelers. I don't know what possessed me, but I used this lens to look at those items and discovered that several of them were shrouded in... mist? Radiance? Or some other kind of aura of different colors and densities."

"In any case, after that, I specifically sought out similar things, handed them to the subordinates who collected these strange objects for her, and told them I wanted to meet the Collector."

"Things went as I expected. That very afternoon, I met the Collector—uh, sorry, Mr. Hastings, let me catch my breath. I still remember that stench to this day..."

With that, Sally took a deep breath, her face turning slightly pale: "I always had a question: why did the Collector only ever send her subordinates to make purchases and never appear in person? But that day, I understood. It wasn't that the Collector didn't want to go out; it was that she couldn't go out at all."

Lude raised an eyebrow in curiosity: "Is the Collector a cripple, or just super obese?"

"Super obese!"

Sally said without hesitation, her pupils even dilating slightly: "Super, super obese. She is three meters tall, and her weight... I once heard the Collector's subordinates discussing it. According to them, the Collector must weigh at least three thousand kilograms!"

"Three meters... three tons?"

Lude's eyelid twitched slightly as the image of Big Mom surfaced in his mind.

"Yes."

Sally took a deep breath, as if that were the only way to dispel the scent lingering in her mind: "That is what you wanted to know, Mr. Hastings. A nightmare composed of writhing fat and foul stench, and I have to go and make a trade with her every week... Ugh!"

"Alright, alright." Lude raised a hand in a gesture to stop her: "Miss Sally, let's talk about something else, like information about other aspects of this town, such as where the blacksmith, the market, and the tailor shop are."

"...Okay." Sally nodded, gasping for air.