The wolfman Aoteman stood among the crowd, trying hard to straighten his habitually hunched back. He stared ahead, doing his best not to glance around, and tried to look full of spirit.
The companions standing around him held much the same posture, but the other wolfmen were considerably scrawnier than Aoteman and naturally looked far less imposing.
That gave Aoteman great confidence. He was certain the Xinfei Merchant Guild Guard Corps would select him, making him a guard of the Xinfei Merchant Guild-an position all his tribesmen envied!
"Hey, you over there! What are you grinning at? Look serious!" A roar suddenly came from ahead and to his right. Startled, Aoteman hurriedly suppressed the smile tugging at his lips and tried to arrange his face into a solemn expression.
Yet a wolfman's facial muscles were nowhere near as expressive as a human's, leaving him with a limited range of expressions. Tensing his face like that actually made him look rather comical.
Fortunately, the tigerman who had roared, dressed in the uniform of the Xinfei Merchant Guild Guard Corps, paid him no further attention. Instead, he continued sweeping his gaze over the beastmen crowded below the platform and shook his head in dissatisfaction.
"What is it, Tiger? Is something wrong?" Miss Karimonton, the human manager of the Xinfei Merchant Guild Guard Corps' Human Resources Department, gave him a puzzled look. She was overseeing this recruitment drive alongside Tiger, captain of the Guard Corps' third beastman squad.
"These fellows are all too scrawny. I can hardly see any beastman warriors who meet my standards." Tiger snorted. "I really wonder if they've had it easy for so long that they've forgotten even their most basic strengths. They're a disgrace to us beastmen."
Miss Karimonton swept her gaze over the beastmen below the platform,