Chapter 87: The Strange Minotaur Squad

After Baird had left, Willin once again entered his private treasury and opened a delicate chest, inside which lay eight Seven-Colored Flowers of Life. Leaving one as a reward, Willin took the remaining seven flowers and carefully placed them in a small wooden box.

“My most precious possession, as the prompt suggests—this must be it. I hope it won’t disappoint me,” he murmured, handling the box with utmost care before closing the treasury doors and heading straight outside.

At the castle gates, Kyle stood quietly, awaiting him.

“My lord.”

“Let’s go. Time is short; we must travel through the night.”

“Yes, sir.”

The two mounted their Crimson Phosphor horses and galloped westward without pause. Across the wilds, they raced relentlessly, not once slowing. Though the straight-line distance was three hundred kilometers, the actual journey would likely span over a thousand, leaving no room for delay.

Along the way, Kyle followed his master in silence, neither questioning their purpose nor expressing curiosity about their destination, simply keeping close behind Willin.

“My lord, there’s a light moving toward us,” Kyle said.

Willin tightened the reins, bringing the Crimson Phosphor horse to a halt and gazed in the direction Kyle indicated. He could see numerous figures moving about.

When their forms became clear, Willin realized they were minotaurs, and exclaimed urgently, “Quick, head north!”

“My lord, I can’t! The horse’s legs are stuck in the earth,” Kyle responded in panic.

Willin saw that, without his noticing, all four legs of their mounts were nearly buried in soil. Without hesitation, he drew the knight’s longsword from the saddle and touched the token hanging at his chest, considering whether he would have to use this artifact once again.

“Damn it, my luck is terrible today.”

Just as Willin braced himself for confrontation, a gentle voice drifted toward them.

“Friends across the way, do not be afraid; we come without hostility.”

Suddenly, a minotaur with snow-white skin appeared before Willin, nearly causing him to gape in astonishment.

In his understanding, minotaurs usually had brownish skin and worshipped either the Minotaur God or the Great Bull God. By faith, those who worshipped the Minotaur God tended to be smaller—mostly two and a half meters tall—and were notorious for raiding spouses of any race. Those who worshipped the Great Bull God were larger, with adults reaching four meters in height; upon advancing from Silver to Gold rank, they grew an extra pair of arms and were known as Four-Armed Minotaurs.

“Human friend, we are followers of Lady Suren, the Moon Goddess. Please do not fear us,” said the minotaurs surrounding Willin and Kyle. They shed their brown-skinned appearances, revealing snowy skin and gentle features that inspired instant goodwill.

“This…” Willin began.

“You may call me Sara, friend. I am a priestess of Lady Suren,” said a two-meter-tall minotaur among the group, speaking softly in the common tongue.

“Priestess Sara, may I ask why you have stopped me and my companion?”

“We are lost and hope to receive guidance from you. Of course, we will pay you for your help,” the white minotaur priestess replied kindly.

“May I ask where you come from?” Willin asked, noting that Sara was clearly the leader.

“We hail from Alpe Island, sent by Lady Suren’s divine command to journey to the Misty Forest,” Sara explained simply.

“Alpe Island—I recall it is an isolated isle north of the Synapse Subcontinent.”

“Yes, friend.”

With this information, Willin asked no further and pointed southwest, saying to Sara, “You are at the border of the Kadro Province of the Kingdom of Illya. To reach the Misty Forest, you must travel southwest, crossing the entire Graylight Wasteland.”

“Thank you,” Sara replied gratefully, then produced a moonlit stone and handed it to Willin. “This is a Moonstone, equal in value to a mid-grade magic crystal—a token of thanks for your guidance.”

Willin accepted the Moonstone without protest, tucking it into his pocket, and offered one last piece of advice: “Priestess Sara, if you are heading to the Misty Forest, I suggest you follow the kingdom’s border south to the Great Laia Forest, then west, and enter the Misty Forest via the Principality of Laicots.”

“Thank you for your counsel,” Sara said with renewed gratitude, then lifted the magical effect binding the Crimson Phosphor horses.

“Farewell, Priestess Sara.”

Willin and Kyle remounted their Crimson Phosphor horses and resumed their westward journey.

“Farewell, my friend.”

Ten minutes after Willin’s departure, Sara cast another divine spell, transforming the dozen white minotaurs into human forms two meters tall, and they set off southward.

Once they were more than a hundred kilometers away from the minotaurs, Kyle could no longer restrain his curiosity.

“My lord, what was the story with those minotaurs?”

“I don’t know exactly—perhaps a minotaur tribe has converted to worship Lady Suren, the Moon Goddess.”

Such shifts in racial faith were not unheard of. The most famous in the Synapse Subcontinent was the Blackya Beastmen’s faith rebellion, though among humans it was called the Holy Xiya Incident.

In the year 6527 of the Radiant Calendar, over three thousand years ago, a vast branch of the beastmen—the Blackya Beastmen—lived east of the Death Desert in the southern region of the Holy Third Dawn Kingdom.

At their height, the Blackya Beastmen spanned the south of the Synapse Subcontinent, nearly severing all communication between East Synapse and West Synapse.

Two centuries later, a war split the Blackya Beastmen. The human alliance of Synapse threw its full support behind the rebels, turning the advantage into a disadvantage for the Blackya, and the rebel factions surged.

The war lasted three centuries.

In 7027, the Holy Xiya Beastmen Kingdom was established, changing their racial name to Xiya Beastmen, worshipping the Xiya God, a subordinate deity of the Dawn God.

The northern territories of the Blackya Beastmen were seized by humans; the Holy Third Dawn Kingdom annexed part, and the rest saw the creation of the Principality of Libervi, the Kingdom of Belfast, and the Principality of Dawnlight. These human realms became shared faith zones, open to all human deities, but the price was the deliberate suppression of Blackya Beastmen power.

To counter the new Holy Xiya Beastmen Kingdom and the human nations, the remaining Blackya Beastmen united, forming the Kols United Beastmen Kingdom, bolstered by other beastmen factions, barely holding their ground against their rivals.

After this event, the Blackya Beastmen God, once of lesser divine rank, was reduced to mere flickering power.

Other gods marveled at the Dawn God’s schemes, and all factions grew wary, lest they lose swathes of believers and see their divine rank fall.

After nearly twenty hours of travel, Willin and Kyle finally neared their destination.

Note: In this world, deities cannot act without cause unless mortals offend them.