Sighing, Marcus was not sure what to think about what Amos had just told him.
He was conflicted with how to handle Andrea and her tribe. Since while they had forced the village into accepting them as their security. They had also been doing a good job to keep their word.
Certainly, he could easily toss them all out, as he was confident that he was stronger than Andrea or anyone else in her tribe, but to what end.
If he did that, he would just be making enemies of them, and while it would save the village on their food stores. It would also make them wholly unprotected unless he stayed here.
Unfortunately, he had his own mission, and while he might be able to do some clean up in the woods around the area. It would be impossible for him to plant himself here though the entire winter.
“Okay I seem to understand the gist of things, but how is the village doing on food? I know these winters are tough to get through, and pretty much the entire year everyone makes preparations to store food. Still, I cannot imagine that you have enough to feed what, thirty to fifty more mouths?”
A complicated expression came over Amos’ face as Marcus asked this, and it was pretty obvious that the food situation was not at its best.
“Truthfully, we normally would not have nearly enough to feed all of Andrea’s tribemates and our own people. Also, they all eat quite a bit, so we have sent a majority of our food to them. Like you guessed there are forty-three of them including their children, and at first it was a challenge, but we did come to a solution. We slaughtered all of our goats other than the one that were producing milk and the new batch of children. With that we were able to produce enough meat to feed Andrea and her tribemates for quite some time.”
Laughing disparagingly, Amos was trying to play this off, but Marcus knew how big of a deal those goats were..
They were the main livelihood of this village as they received most of their money from selling the fur from these goats to River Landing.
Even if it were to help them get through the winter, slaughtering almost all of their goats was going to take a huge hit on this village. As next year they were going to be missing out on the majority of their income.
Not to mention that all of this meat from their precious goats was not even eaten by the villagers, and was instead given to Andrea and her tribe as tribute.
Of course, normally getting security from such high level and experienced warriors would cost a lot more than a few hundred goats, but it was still pretty much all this village had.
Bowing his head Marcus felt a sense of shame and rage.
Shame because he had not gotten here to help out sooner, and rage because of what Andrea and her tribe had done here.
He knew that truthfully she had been protecting the village, but it still made him angry to think about her and her tribe eating like kings, while the villagers survived on roasted nuts and dried vegetables.
With Irene’s memories he knew how harsh it was up here and how much the people of this village loved their goats. They were treated almost like part of the family by many of the villagers.
‘It was a bad situation all around. It was either sacrifice their livelihood to Andrea, or potentially lose all of their lives to beasts and monsters. However, now that I am here, things are going to be different.’
Raising his head, Marcus looked at Amos with fierce eyes, and said, “I am sorry Amos that I did not get here sooner to help. If I had, you would have been able to save all of the goats you and everyone have cared for through all these years. But I will make sure that you can replenish them come spring. I will not let all of you be forced to live in destitution. Now, I need to go and work out some new detail with the deal Andrea has made with you.”
Getting up, Marcus turned towards the door with a determined expression on his face.
Yet before he could go, Amos stood up and said, “Please Irene, do not antagonize them. I understand that you are angry that we were forced to give up so much, but honestly the six soldiers that were here could not keep up with the frequency of beast and monster attacks. They were just too weak and too few, but Andrea and her tribe have not let a single person die since they arrived. Certainly we paid a high price for their services, but nothing is more important than the lives of everyone here.”
Having seen the look in Marcus’ eyes, Amos naturally thought that he was going to go and cause trouble with Andrea.
He thought that he might start a fight with them, and either make them angry enough to leave or get himself killed.
Smiling, Marcus looked back towards Amos, and said, “There is no need to worry. I am not looking for a fight. I really am just going to renegotiate their terms as I have something I want them to do. I have no intention of running them out of the village or stirring up trouble over the goats. What’s done is done, and as much as I may not like it, the village is safe because of them. So, I know this may be presumptuous of me to butt into the village’s business, but let me go take care of everything.”
Slumping his shoulders, Amos said, “Very well, if you want to help us out again, I do not think it would be right of me as chief to prevent you for something stupid like pride. We will humbly accept any assistance you want to offer.”
“Thank you, Amos. This village is the closest thing Lilia and I have to a home, and while we may not live here anymore, it holds a special place in both of our heats. It would sadden both of us if something were to ever happen here.”
After saying that Marcus exited Amos’ and his family’s home and headed straight for Andrea.
‘I am going to assume as the leader her yurt is the biggest and nicest one.’ Marcus thought as he headed over towards the area where Andrea’s tribe had set up.
However, as he entered the area, three beast people approached him with scowls on their faces.
“Are you the intruder that everyone else is talking about? You do not look tough to me, so why is the leader saying not to mess with ya? You walked onto our turf, and you think you can push us around? “
Internally groaning, Marcus could not believe how stupid these three were.
Just from one look he could tell they were pretty young and inexperienced, otherwise they would have been able to tell that he was way stronger than them
‘Honestly never thought I would get harassed by some kids pretending to be thugs in this world. I mean, they are all just teenagers and the weaker two are level fifteen and the strongest one is only level sixteen.’
Shaking his head, Marcus could see that things were hopeless already, and these three planned to pick a fight with him.
“Why don’t you all just take a nap and cool off.” Marcus said as he exerted his phantom pressure.
Immediately the three young members of Andrea’s tribe fell unconscious, as the power of Marcus’ soul overwhelmed them.
At the very least he held back tremendously in order to not kill them, but it was likely they would not be waking up anytime soon. And when they did, it would be with a raging headache.
Picking the three of them up, Marcus dragged them along with him towards Andrea’s yurt.
Normally he would have just left them down on the ground, but there was a good chance they would freeze to death if he did that, and he did not want to end up killing some kids.
As he made his way over to Andrea, a few other beast people spotted him and saw who he was dragging behind him.
Still, none of them made a move to help, as Marcus was now radiating enough hostility to make all of them with their heightened senses know to stay away.
To them Marcus looked like the walking embodiment of death right now.
When he arrived at Andrea’s yurt, he threw open the door and tossed the three young members of her tribe in.
Then he closed the door quickly and looked over to Andrea, who along with four other beast people were stunned to see Marcus come in so brazenly.
“These three here just tried to make trouble with me so I put them to sleep for a little while. I do not care what you do with them, I just did not want to let them freeze out in the cold.”
“Now I have some business to discuss with you about this village and the outbreak of beasts and monsters.” Marcus said as he walked right up to Andrea.
Her tribe members however, were not happy to see Marcus, and were irate at his lack of respect and for what he had done to some of the younger members.
Nevertheless, Andrea said, “Sorry about that. I will have those three punished later. It is high time they learned to be stronger anyway instead of letting their parents baby them. Now the rest of you leave and take those three with you. I will talk to Irene alone.”
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