Ch.250Rampaging Beast of Fury

The Leopard-headed Suwaong, Lakan Viella Kasim’s life was marked by humiliation and rage.

His father Lakan died after being captured and brutally tortured by pioneers during the Riverside Front, while his mother Viella was mercilessly killed by pioneers who were “hunting Suwaong” after being discovered while fleeing with Kasim, who was only 7 years old at the time.

Before even discussing Viella’s capabilities as a warrior, she couldn’t offer any resistance with her young son held hostage.

Captured by the pioneers, Kasim was sold to a slave trader, and after about 2 years of “etiquette training,” he was purchased by a human businessman named “Benjamin Hawkins.”

Initially, he did odd jobs at a canning factory, then carried toxic materials at a dye factory when he grew older, and after turning 15, he was dragged to a secret fighting arena on the outskirts once a month to engage in life-or-death battles with monsters.

This atrocity was possible during a time when slave-related laws were not properly established, and when pioneers’ sentiments toward the Suwaong were at their worst.

As time passed and the slave system became more regulated, Kasim was able to escape such inhumane treatment, and for several years afterward, he continued working at factories, handling heavy labor and dangerous tasks.

No one working with him was allowed to speak to him, and under the pretext of “not letting him forget his place,” he endured one-sided violence and insidious harassment daily.

However, with the collar of subjugation preventing any violence against pioneers, Kasim could only silently swallow his humiliation and anger.

Then one day, Benjamin’s only daughter, Josephine, demanded that Kasim’s ownership be transferred to her.

She claimed it would be a waste to use a Suwaong like Kasim as merely a porter, and wanted to use him for a new business she was planning.

Benjamin, who had been contemplating Kasim’s “usefulness,” handed over his ownership to his daughter without hesitation, and from then on, Kasim waited in Hell’s Garden’s staff waiting room as both a training partner for Sweepers and the “final Sweeper.”

“Listen carefully, Kasim. From now on, you’ll live comfortably, holed up on the second floor of this building, eating free food and wearing free clothes. That is, if you faithfully perform the two tasks I assign you.”

Josephine enthusiastically explained how generously she was treating Kasim compared to her father.

Be a sparring partner for the Sweepers to enhance their capabilities, and if the time ever came for Kasim himself to enter the ring, he must win that fight no matter what.

She boasted that if he faithfully fulfilled these duties, Kasim would live more fortunately than any other slave, and that such a generous master couldn’t be found anywhere else in the world.

However, the reality that befell Kasim was being an “experimental subject for combat techniques designed to injure opponents more efficiently,” and even the limited violence allowed against pioneers was ultimately meant to improve the Sweepers’ defense and counterattack techniques.

And even when that failed, Sweepers who were knocked out by Kasim’s brute strength would often seek him out during their personal break time to vent their frustrations, but Josephine never intervened or admonished the Sweepers for their atrocities.

Like her father, she viewed Kasim, the Suwaong slave, as merely a “toothless beast.”

Because of this, she failed to gauge the depth of anger suppressed in Kasim’s heart,

and couldn’t imagine that a slave who had obeyed her and her father for 20 years would now bare his teeth.

Thus, the foolish Josephine Hawkins, who unleashed the collar of an angry beast,

“Kyaaak!”

died when Kasim, who burst out of the arena and broke through the staff-only passage, bit through her neck.

She was the first victim of what would later be called the “Hell’s Garden Tragedy,” a series of murders.

~ ~ ~ Kasim’s Perspective ~ ~ ~

Free from the bonds of subjugation after more than 20 years, Kasim ran, bit, and swung his fists as his instincts guided him.

The cat-folk girl he had been facing in the ring was already forgotten.

Looking around, all he saw were pioneers, pioneers, pioneers.

The enemies of his father, the enemies of his mother, and the hateful pioneers who had humiliated him for 20 years.

However, it’s also true that even within the same hatred, priorities exist.

The anger toward individuals who directly tormented him naturally took precedence over the vague anger toward the entire group they belonged to.

That’s why, as soon as the collar of subjugation was removed, Kasim tore off the arena’s iron gate and rushed into the staff-only passage.

To kill those with the deepest grudges first among the pioneers present here and now.

‘After 20 years, the first meat I taste is a human woman’s neck. What a waste of my palate.’

The first person he killed was his owner, Josephine Hawkins.

If her father Benjamin tried to break Kasim’s pride through explicit beatings and oppression, Josephine used dismissal and gaslighting as her standard methods.

There was no reason to spare her just because she had “improved” his meals from “garbage leftover canned food” to “unsold food ingredients.”

“S-stop! Aaaagh!”

Next, he killed the Sweepers waiting on the second floor.

These clowns would one-sidedly beat Kasim, who couldn’t fight back, while snickering about which techniques were effective or which looked impressive to the audience.

Among them was a pathetic man who, after asking Kasim to attack him to practice counterattacks, fell and couldn’t dodge, then held a grudge and burned Kasim’s arm with a cigarette.

“Gun! Bring a gun! Who has the key to the gun cabinet… Argh!”

“Damn it! I told you we should have been allowed to carry guns!”

If the Sweepers had been carrying personal firearms, even Kasim couldn’t have killed them all.

However, Josephine, who wanted absolute power within her establishment, didn’t allow anyone but herself to carry firearms, and the result came back in the form of the Sweepers’ annihilation.

“Ah…aaaah…!”

Finally, Kasim spotted three women huddled together in a corner room on the second floor.

Hell’s Garden’s strip dancers were assigned as round girls for the underground arena in groups of three per day, rotating whenever the winner changed.

These women were today’s round girls, and one of them had just come up after failing to drug Seti while naked in front of the audience.

‘These women…’

Strictly speaking, these round girls had never done anything particularly cruel to Kasim.

This wasn’t because they pitied him, but simply because they were too afraid to approach him, though such details didn’t matter to Kasim.

Even if they were hateful pioneers, it would be dishonorable as a warrior to harm women who couldn’t fight back.

So Kasim indifferently turned away to find other objects of hatred, but…

‘…How ridiculous.’

Soon, Kasim sneered at his own softness and steeled his resolve.

What meaning was there now in choosing who to kill and finding reasons to kill them?

He no longer had a warrior’s pride to maintain, nor a homeland or family to return to.

“I will become the pioneers’ calamity. Just as you were to us 20 years ago.”

After convincing himself thus, Kasim mercilessly killed the terrified women, then broke the window and jumped outside the building.

The alley outside Hell’s Garden was in chaos, with customers and strip dancers who had fled the establishment mixed with citizens who had approached to see what the commotion was about.

In the midst of this, a leopard-headed beastman covered in blood jumped out from a second-floor window, inevitably intensifying the confusion.

“It’s a Suwaong!”

“Kyaaak!”

“Call the sheriff! Quickly!”

Sheriff.

The gunslinger responsible for maintaining order in the western city.

If they arrived, Kasim, who had no weapons, would be killed instantly.

Therefore, Kasim believed that his only remaining path was to kill as many pioneers as possible before that moment came.

“Kraaaa~!!”

The war cry of the Suwaong who had decided his place of death echoed through the night streets of the 7th Western City.

Although he was unarmed, it wasn’t difficult to kill pioneers with just his sharp teeth and grip strength.

One by one, those who lagged behind were turned into corpses.

If even one of them drew a gun and fought bravely, they might have been able to take down Kasim, but everyone was too busy saving their own lives, believing someone else would handle it.

Man, man, woman, man, man, elder, man, woman, man, man, child-

Kasim’s fist, about to swing, suddenly stops.

Before him is a small child who had fallen while fleeing and was crying.

Five years old? No, was he even three? It’s difficult to gauge a human’s age.

‘……’

Even for Kasim, who hated the pioneers, his hand wouldn’t move in this situation.

This was because Kasim had never been this close to a human child before, face to face.

His masters, Benjamin and Josephine, had tried to keep Kasim out of the public eye as much as possible, and his workplaces were limited to areas difficult for minors to access, such as factory warehouses and strip clubs.

This alley was one such place, so why was such a young child alone and fallen here?

As Kasim pondered this question, the corpses of citizens he had just killed entered his field of vision.

‘Did I kill them? Did I kill this little one’s parents right before his eyes?’

In that moment, a feeling of heat draining from his head, accompanied by a violent surge of nausea.

The trauma that had weighed on Kasim for over 20 years darkened his vision.

His mind reasoned: he had suffered the same at the hands of pioneers, so why shouldn’t he repay them in kind?

But his heart denied it. The instinct of the Suwaong, who valued the parent-child bond above all else, sounded an alarm.

If his anger-consumed mind won, this human child would be turned into a miserable corpse in less than a second.

If his heart, carrying the Suwaong instinct, won, this child might be able to save his life.

However, the outcome of that battle was never determined.

‘Thwack!’

Because a silver spear blade extended with fierce momentum from behind, piercing through Kasim’s chest.

It happened just about ten minutes after his rage, suppressed for 20 years, had been unleashed upon the world.