"...It sounds kind of noisy?"
Noticing the commotion carried by the breeze, Leticia hurried over.
Perhaps the pedlars had come, but they had just been here last week.
The next visit should have been a month away at least. Puzzled, she headed for the square.
There, the adults had gathered for some reason.
"Has something happened?"
Leticia asked one of the village men who was practically family to her. He was also Lily's father.
"Leti-chan, no. Lily's over there, so go and wait with her."
"Hm?"
When Leticia looked where Lily's father was pointing, she saw Lily, Rodney and the other children gathered under the largest tree in the village.
She hurried over to join them.
"Lily, what's going on?"
"I don't know either. But there were people I've never seen before."
"People you've never seen?"
"I know who they are. Those are beastmen."
Rodney announced smugly.
"Beastmen?"
Leticia tilted her head at the unfamiliar word.
"They're people with things like ears and tails, just like animals. I hear they're incredibly agile, strong enough to take down a human in an instant."
"Huh. How come you know that, Rodney?"
Impressed, Leticia wondered how Rodney came to have such knowledge.
After all, for all his boasting that he'd leave the village and make it big, he hated studying more than any child in the village.
It was odd that he could answer a question even Lily couldn't, and without hesitation at that.
"I'm aiming to be an adventurer, you know. Knowledge about beastmen is the most basic of basics."
Rodney puffed out his chest proudly, and his answer satisfied Leticia.
Rodney, who aspired to be an adventurer, avoided reading and writing but actively asked the knowledgeable villagers about things like monsters.
No monsters had appeared around this village for over a decade, so it was only natural that Leticia, who had no intention of leaving the village, wouldn't know.
Even so, why was it?
The moment she heard the word "beastmen", an unpleasant feeling washed over her.
Even though it was the first time she'd ever heard of them.
"Oh, someone's come out."
At Rodney's voice, a tall person emerged from the village chief's house just beside the square.
On his head were small, round animal ears.
His clothing was also of a quality unlike anything she'd ever seen in these parts.
They were nothing like the rags Leticia and the others wore, patched with scraps when they tore and never the right size.
"Wow, he's so handsome..."
The one who murmured that was Lily.
Her cheeks were flushed in a daze, and her eyes were glued to him.
"Is that your type, Lily?"
When Leticia teased her with a little chuckle, Lily hurriedly defended herself.
"W-well, he really is handsome, isn't he?"
"Well, true..."
Leticia stared at the man who had made Lily blush.
He was certainly handsome, and his clothes were top quality.
He had a sturdy build, and just as Rodney had said, seemed highly athletic.
"But why, though?"
Why did a beastman who she had never seen before come to this village?
It was nothing to be proud of, but the only people who ever went out of their way to stop by were former residents coming home or pedlars.
This village didn't have any notable local products either.
"He looks super strong."
Rodney, who, unlike Leticia, harboured no doubts and looked at the beastman with sparkling eyes, wore much the same expression as Lily.
Truly brother and sister, she thought, impressed. Then the beastman seemed to start. He stared in their direction before walking straight towards them.
"Whoa. He's coming this way."
The children began buzzing.
The beastman was bigger than Lily's father, the biggest man in the village, and while the boys got excited, most of the girls shrank back in fear.
Leticia too sensed something unpleasant in the man's eyes and tried to step back, but as though he wouldn't let her get away, he closed the distance in an instant and lifted her into his arms.
It happened so fast that Leticia wasn't the only one whose mind stopped working.
The children who had been making a racket fell completely silent.
Leticia was the quickest to come to her senses, and she let out a loud cry.
"No, what are you doing? Let me go!"
She thrashed desperately to escape the man's arms, but he didn't budge in the slightest.
Of course not. He was more solidly built than Lily's father, the biggest man in the village.
Besides, as a beastman, he was undoubtedly strong.
Leticia, still a child, was no match for him.
The man stared at Leticia's face, then clicked his tongue as though vexed.
"Of all things, my fated mate is a human."
His words carried a clear sense of contempt and hatred towards Leticia.
The man didn't even try to hide his anger. Overwhelmed by his intimidating presence, Leticia gasped.
Her mouth opened and closed, but no words came out.
Then the adults, who had been watching the scene unfold in a daze, came to their senses and hurried over.
"Now wait a moment, what are you doing to a child?!"
The one to speak up before anyone else was Lily's father.
Leticia's father hurried over next.
"That's my daughter. Give her back!"
They must have thought the man was about to do something.
The air around him was tense enough to make them worry.
"Dad!"
Leticia stretched out a hand towards her father, desperately begging for help.
Her father reached out to take his daughter back, but the man kicked him in the stomach and sent him flying.
"Guh..."
"Dad!"
Seeing her father clutching his stomach and writhing in pain, the colour drained from Leticia's face.
"What are you doing?! Don't you dare hurt my dad! You...!"
Seeing Leticia resisting with her whole body, the man clicked his tongue and grabbed her chin.
"Stay still. Or do you want me to hurt that guy even more?"
It was as though he were threatening her. No, he was in fact threatening her.
Faced with such words, Leticia had no choice but to stop resisting.
Perhaps satisfied that she had quietened down, he snorted disdainfully and tightened his hold so she couldn't escape.
"Listen well. You are my fated mate."
"Fated... mate?"
Leticia blinked blankly at the unfamiliar words.
"That's right. A fated mate is a partner granted from birth by the gods to us beastmen, who stand at the very summit of this world. I don't want to believe that the fated mate of one as nobly born as I, second only to the king among beastmen, is a loathsome human like you, but this scent that calls to my instincts belongs without doubt to my mate. I shall welcome you into my nation as my wife. Be grateful."
His arrogant tone, demanding she weep with joy at such an honour, evoked an emotion in Leticia that was the exact opposite of joy.
"I don't want that!"
Leticia's eyes widened as she rejected him with all her might.
"What did you say?"
She could tell the man was angered by her reaction, but she couldn't care less.
"I'm going to live here forever. I'm never going anywhere with you!"
She wasn't about to listen to someone who'd appeared out of nowhere spouting nonsense.
Especially since he'd attacked her father right in front of her.
There was no way she could forgive that.
"Hmph. It doesn't matter what you think. You're my fated mate, so I'm taking you."
With that, he tried to take her away without any regard for her opinion.
The ones who stood in the man's way were Lily and Rodney.
"Leti!"
"Hey, you! Let Leti go!"
Rodney took up a sickle that had been left lying nearby and raised it with trembling hands.
But the man brushed Rodney aside as though he were a pesky fly.
"Gah!"
"Rodney!"
Lily rushed to Rodney, who had been slammed into the wall of a house, and seeing that, Leticia glared at the man.
"Stop it! Don't hurt them!"
The man watched Leticia thrash about with an exasperated gaze, then seized her by the throat.
Leticia's slender neck, which he could easily encircle with one hand, was squeezed until she could hardly breathe.
"Khah..."
Her consciousness receded, and when she came to, she was imprisoned in a birdcage of a room with no windows, just as she was now.
Leticia rose from the cold stone floor and moved onto the bed to keep herself from getting cold.
Then she took another look around.
The bars surrounding her had been enchanted, and she could tell they were meant to keep her confined here.
Well, that didn't pose a problem for her right now.
The problem was that her memories of the time right after she was kidnapped and brought here were hazy.
All she remembered was going on a rampage, driven solely by the desire to escape.
Memories of crying out for her father and mother also flashed through her mind.
But there was no way human strength could match a beastman's powerful body, and every time she lashed out, the way she was treated grew worse and worse.
"Of all things, to be made a beastman's fated mate."
Those words contained a grudge against the beastman that she hadn't fully come to terms with.
Not every beastman was evil.
Even so, it was a beastman nation that had brought the being called the Evil Dragon into the world.
And the one at the forefront of it had been Akashitrobia, a large nation even by beastman standards.
An arrogant nation with a closed-off, self-righteous ideology that refused to acknowledge other races.
Their discrimination against mages in particular was stronger than anywhere else.
Leticia had lived as the daughter of ordinary farmers.
Hers was by no means a life of luxury, but it had been full of smiles.
Just remembering the face of the man who destroyed it made her sick.
"I'll never forgive him..."
Leticia's eyes were more full of life than they had ever been.
Anger filled her heart, but she no longer had any thought of throwing her life away.
If anything, it was her turn to strike back now.
He was a despicable man who had kidnapped and imprisoned her. She wasn't attached to him in the slightest.
"Still, why did you have to make a thing like fated mates? Curse you, Supreme God-sama."
She hit her pillow a few times.
Her anger at the Supreme God came flooding back all over again.
Leticia had been granted the Supreme God's blessing and had been forcibly summoned to the World Between countless times.
She was probably better versed in the affairs of the gods than anyone else, but that didn't mean she knew everything about this world.
If anything, what she didn't know far outweighed what she did.
The Supreme God had no intention of teaching Leticia either. He always called her up and sent her back as he pleased.
It was an utterly infuriating way to be treated.
Perhaps because their relationship was so one-sided, she didn't know why beastmen had fated mates and humans didn't.
The gods had granted beastmen instincts that humans lacked.
That in itself might not be a problem, but if it meant being abducted the way Leticia had been, it was a very serious problem.
What made it impossible to deal with was that, because it had been that way since ancient times, they didn't question for a moment that keeping a fated mate at their side was only natural.
That was true of every beastman.
That was precisely why the man had abducted Leticia with an air of entitlement, and why he couldn't stand it when she resisted.
He genuinely believed that Leticia was in the wrong for refusing to accept him.
That might be fine for the beastmen, but Leticia had no concept of a fated mate.
So as a result of trying to escape, the tendons in her legs had been cut and she had been bound with chains.
If anyone were left in a situation like that for years on end, it would be no surprise for them to despair and wish to die.
And yet the beastman never showed any consideration for Leticia's feelings.
That was probably due to their deep-rooted sense of superiority.
In particular, beastmen looked down on humans as weak, inferior creatures.
He was convinced that since he was the one who had chosen her, she should naturally love him.
While forcing his affection on her, he also felt irritated that his own fated mate was a human.
It was thoroughly troublesome.
Why on earth had the gods created such a race?
Leticia couldn't forgive that other races were being dragged into this when the gods could have simply limited fated mates to beastmen alone.
There were probably others out there suffering the same fate as Leticia.
Beastmen were nothing but a plague.