18 Guardian beasts

"You don't need to know that. All you need to do is sit there and be stubborn."

Helena's face was filled with horror. She had probably been thinking that her knowledge of the instigator could be used as a bargaining chip.

Knowing the force that could provide superior weapons, poisons, and other materials was crucial for the tribe. As for me, I could leave at any time so I was mostly just curious who was behind all this.

However, with me being able to read her mind that bargaining chip had just slipped through her fingers. She was virtually defenseless against my subtle entry into her mind.

"You are reading my thoughts! I won't give you what you want. Have some pain!"

A typical misconception of people who have never in contact with mind magic before. The disciplines of thought- and mind-reading might sound synonymous but they most certainly weren't.

Thought-reading is seen as an inferior technique by many because it concerns the ability to access the target's active thoughts. Like in this situation Helena assumed that I had asked her those questions in order to make her think of the answer. After she would think of the answer I would then be able to know it.

Hence Helena was now presumably attempting to think of extremely painful and disturbing things in order to prompt me to give up on reading her thoughts.

Too bad for her that I wasn't doing what she thought I did. I was reading her mind, or the soul how some call it. The differences are hard to discern and may differ between individuals. Since I was within her mind I had access to all her memories without restriction while even being able to see things she herself might have forgotten about.

Based on her memory Helena had been approached by a completely armored individual. Based on the armor's build and the body language of the figure I judged it was a male. The voice that had spoken from within was female and had introduced herself as Alex, a knight of the solar empire.

The chances that the solar empire was matriarchal were low so my guess was that the knight was male and used a spell to sound female. A necessary strategy due to the tribes' matriarchal structure and Helena's hate for men.

The proposal given was also quite substantial. This plan didn't stop at making Helena chief of this tribe, no, it was to make her the chief of all tribes. I also discovered the hidden trump card of the tribes.

Every tribe was backed by a guardian beast that allowed the tribe to live in its territory and protected them in return for offerings. The point of interest here was that guardian beasts were expected to fight alongside the tribe should they enter conflict with one another. This was originally meant to ensure that the guardian beasts wouldn't make humans their foot soldiers.

If my guess wasn't wrong, and it rarely was, the empire also knew about the guardian beasts and had maybe even fought some of them. After all the only benefit they could possibly reap from war among the tribes would be the death of a number of guardian beasts.

'Come to think of it, Diana, your shaman is currently meeting with the guardian beast of your tribe, isn't she?'

Diana was still connected to me and I had naturally shared my findings with her in all detail.

'How do you know that?'

'Conjecture mostly. You wouldn't tell a stranger about your only trump card so easily. I believe we know all we need to know. What will you do with her now?'

'Why do you ask...'

'Just curious.'

'Sigh... I will keep her here until the next meeting of chiefs. Her fate will be decided then. What will you do?'

'I'll meet with your shaman and ask about suitable prey and resources in the surrounding area. Then I'll return to meet her Majesty.'

'Who is Hermagisty?'

'Majesty is a term of honor we use for our chief. I am part of the grey empire ruled by the grey queen.'

'So the ruler, as you call it, of an empire is called queen?'

'No, she is female and should therefore be called empress but she has kept her old title from when what she ruled was only a kingdom. A male would be called emperor or to match the title of queen it would be king.'

'A male chief? That is absurd!'

'It's actually far more common than the opposite. Of all the empires I know of the vast majority is governed by men.'

'Is that so.'

I wasn't expecting Diana to believe me right away. After the inevitable confrontation with the solar empire, she would very likely believe me by herself anyway.

'Can we leave them here?'

'I'll set a sentry formation to make sure nothing happens but I doubt any of them could struggle out of those ropes.'

With a flash, a transparent figure appeared in the tent and began to vigilantly guard the three captives. Diana and I then left the tent. While I was following her I didn't really know what to do.

As I stepped out of the tent I felt a sharp gaze from the left. I turned to see who was so openly sizing me up and discovered an elderly woman looking over. Her body gave off a very noticeable aura of magic. Generally a sign of weaker mages or those who had no need to restrain their power.

Irene was standing next to the elderly woman who I assumed was the tribe's shaman. Behind them lay the four accomplices I had knocked out. The four were tied together with vines and one of them had even regained consciousness.

Safe to say the shaman knew what was going on. Diana had noticed that I wasn't following her anymore and turned around. Upon seeing the shaman an expression of respect appeared on her face and she hurried over.

The shaman raised her hand motioning for Diana to stop. Then her gaze returned to me and she sketched a bow.

"Greetings to you great shaman. I am Rona the shaman of the Kaleidos tribe. I thank you for saving the future of our tribe not once but twice. We will be forever in your debt."