"You can come out now." Leo said as he turned his gaze toward the forest.
"What should I do?" Sheila thought as she heard Leo’s words.
"Hum, looks like our little peeper is a little shy." Celia said when the person Leo sensed didn’t come out after being called out by him.
"Can you make things easier for us and come out by yourself? I am not sure I’ll stay as nice as I am now if I have to come and look for you by myself." Leo said. At the same time, he also let a little bit of his aura out to give more weight to his words.
With Leo's current power, that bit of aura alone was more than enough to help anyone make their minds. Even more, if they were directly targeted by it.
Sheila wasn’t an exception. The moment Leo’s aura descended upon her, her body and her mind froze as she understood that the existence that aura belonged to wasn’t something she could afford to or wish to offend.
While she already felt Leo’s aura before, it was just some remnants. However, now, being directly targeted, she was able to feel firsthand the sheer majesty of the power Leo held.
Thus, as soon as Leo retracted his aura and she regained control over her body, Sheila immediately stopped hiding and slowly left the cover of the forest, showing herself in front of Leo and Celia.
'I should be able to live through this.' She thought to calm herself down. While Leo’s aura was terrifying, it didn’t contain any bloodlust toward her. That would mean that the beast has no intention to harm her, yet.
"You see, it wasn't too difficult, right?" Leo said as he saw a figure emerge from the forest.
'Could it be that the mana in this world make everyone look more beautiful? Or is it that earth’s standards were too low?' Leo muttered as a girl with a look that could put any of his old life models to shame appeared in front of him.
Still, while the girl was indeed very beautiful, her beauty wasn’t what attracted Leo’s attention the most.
'A lamia. And it is the beautiful version, not the monster like one.' Leo muttered as he curiously looked at the girl with a human upper body and a lower body which was replaced by a meter-long snake tail covered in glistening purple scales.
As she made her way toward Leo and Celia, she looked relatively calm and composed.
Unlike what one would expect from someone in her situation, not a single trace of fear or wariness could be seen on her beautiful face.
Instead, her enchanting yet cold amber eyes wandered between Leo and Celia, looking at them with interest and a little bit of respect.
There was no fear to see. At least that was what she wanted them to think.
If not for the fact that Leo could clearly hear her heart beating wildly and could see how tightly she held her spear, he would have believed that the purple-haired lamia girl wasn’t afraid of him at all.
*
"Leo you are staring again." Celia said as she elbowed Leo, some trace of annoyance visible on her face.
"I am not staring." Leo said as he turned his gaze away from Sheila.
"Yeah, do you think I am blind?" Celia humph-ed and turned toward the young lamia.
"Ha-ha, I was just curious. It is the first time I saw one of her kind." He said helplessly.
'Yes, I would make it.' Sheila thought as she was able to be more relaxed after seeing Leo and Celia's behaviors.
"So who are you and what are you doing here?" Leo asked as he turned toward the young Lamia.
"I am Sheila. It is an honor to meet the new king of the forest." Sheila said as she bowed toward Leo.
"Oh, look like you knew about me even before coming here? And by the way, I am Leo and I am no king as far as I can remember." Leo said.
"I am not surprised that she knew about you considering that she is the daughter of that annoying bitch." Celia said as she looked at Sheila with some hostility.
"It would be nice if you could avoid calling my mother a bitch in front of me." Sheila said.
"She deserves to be called a bitch. I don’t care if you like it or not." Celia said.
Ignoring Celia’s provocation, Sheila continued as she looked at Leo. "My mother did tell me about you before I came here."
"Okay, I guess she has her way. But that still didn’t explain why you were calling me king of the forest." Leo said. For him, the forest king title was just another title on his status screen but it looked like its implications were much more than he thought.
"Don’t tell me you killed those beasts without knowing." Sheila said as she pointed at the three shining cores beside Leo. "Your companion should have told you how things worked." She added as she threw a glance at Celia.
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"As you can see I don’t know what you are talking about." Leo said as he glared at Celia.
"Don’t look at me like that. There was no way to negotiate with them anyway." Celia said while avoiding Leo’s gaze.
"Okay, just tell me what I am supposed to know."
"Well, I already told you. As you felled its previous rulers, you became the de facto new king of this forest. This is your domain now." Sheila said.
"Oh, is that all?" Leo asked, a little disappointed.
"Yes, you can do whatever you want. However, you will naturally have to protect your domain from outside threats and keep things in order."
"Okay, I get it. To put it simply, I just have to leave things as they were." Leo nodded in understanding.
"I don’t think you get it." Celia shook her head. "The existence of something like forest kings serve to suppress two parties: the humans first and then the beasts living inside the forest themselves." She continued.
"Due to the existence of forest kings, the humans exploring the forest will be mindful of their actions. For example, they won’t go on random massacres or arbitrarily destroy the forest. Because if they went too far, they could attract the attention of the forest king. Something they wouldn’t want until they have the confidence to face them." Celia said.
'Well, this looks like a great environmental protection system.' Leo thought.
"However, that isn’t what you have to worry about right now." Sheila said. "What you should worry about is how the death of the forest king will affect the beasts living inside. Before, with the suppression of the forest king, the beasts too wouldn't randomly leave the forest and run amok inside human territories." There she stopped and looked at Leo, checking if he understood her.
"So without the suppression of the forest king, we aren’t sure how the beasts are going to act from now on. But they don’t have any reason to attack human lands, do they?" Leo asked.
"Yeah, normal beasts may not be a problem. But the same can’t be said about the beasts who were directly under the kings." Celia said. " As the defeated party, they would obviously try to escape. And between heading toward territory with stronger beasts and heading into human lands, the choice is obvious."
"As those beasts run away, the beasts on their path too will naturally try to escape."
"Simply put, due to your actions a beast tide will be formed and would threaten nearby human towns." Sheila said.
"Well I get it. But why should I care? I mean it is the humans and the remnants of my enemies who are going to suffer." Leo asked as he took all that in. No matter how he looked at this, he was unable to see how the situation could be detrimental to himself.
"You are still unable to understand!?" Sheila said angrily. "Once the humans have dealt with the beast tide, they will naturally turn their attention toward the forest and try to thin out the numbers of beasts inside the forest.
Don’t you see the chaos this is going to create? Even you won’t be able to escape unscathed. You have to prevent all that. Sheila insisted."
"Well, I.."
"Go talk about duty with your bitch of a mother." Celia suddenly said, interrupting Leo.
"Stop saying that." Sheila said as she angrily threw her spear at Celia.
'The heck is this about.' Leo thought, surprised by the sudden turn of events. One second they were talking about him and the next they were at each other's throats.
"Who is her mother?" Leo asked curiously.
"Well, she is the chief of the Lamia clan. Of all the beastkin clans in this area, it is the clan with the strongest fighting force. And until tonight she was the only rank C among us." Celia said as she looked at Sheila.
"However, despite holding such a power, we Lamia never helped the other beastkin communities of this forest. We always watched from the side, no matter how bad the situation was. That’s what you want to say, right?" Sheila said as she glared at Celia.
"Yeah, you guys are truly a bunch of self-centered pieces of shit. So what gives you the guts to talk about duty in front of us." Celia growled.
"Don’t talk as if you were any better. You neither would put aside your safety for the sake of strangers. Could it be that because we are all beastkins then we are all family and have the duty to help each other?" Sheila retorted as she glared at Celia.
"Yes, but unlike you, we at least tried to support each other from time to time. Also, as the only rank C beastkin of this forest, she could have united us had she stepped forward." Celia said.
"And then what? We would have created a bigger community that could resist the harassment of slave peddlers and other beasts. Then we would have become a bigger threat for the humans and would have to deal with an extermination force. Do you think my mother’s invincible because she is a rank C?"
"No matter your reason, it still remains true that you did nothing while hundreds of our kin were killed or captured." Celia said as she took a deep breath and calmed down.
"I.." Sheila stammered, unable to say anything after that.
"Girls, calm down and put your grudge aside for a minute. We are going to have some company." Leo who was left out of the discussion said as he felt a group with relatively strong auras heading their way.
"Not again? Don’t they ever have enough of this?" Celia complained.
"Apparently, they do not." Leo sighed.