"So, our mission this time is to go to the Piña Forest and help a Beastman tribe fight Greenskins?"
Stephanie frowned while wiping her scimitar, questioning the leader of the team.
"The Bilbalians hired us for this?"
Rodrian Kalenborg, an officer who had retired early from the Reikguard due to a certain incident, had traveled west to Marienburg.
After spending his last copper on wine and women, he decisively joined an expedition heading north to Norsca.
Following a series of events, he had successfully established himself.
He was now the head of this well-equipped "Veteran" mercenary band whose main business was in Bretonnia and Estalia.
The man had three scars on his face that looked like knife wounds, or perhaps claw marks from some beast.
They were deep; one scar cut right below his eye socket.
Beyond making him look deep and ugly, it left Rodrian's face with nothing but a silent, grim resolve.
Stephanie was from Kislev. Her name sounded Bretonnian, but it was much the same.
Her ancestor was a Kingdom Knight who, after the victory of the Great War, had lost faith in his homeland during the Great Split of Bretonnia.
Unwilling to follow the Grail Council and persist in the faith of Virtue, he had planned to retreat into the deep mountains for seclusion.
Instead, per the requirements of the Grail, he announced the abandonment of his ruling power and noble status.
He sold or abandoned his lands and manor, purchased a full set of armaments for himself, and recruited a group of landless, homeless peasants.
They boarded a ship at what was then Bordeleaux (now Mannanen) and sailed all the way to Kislev—the nation that suffered most among the human kingdoms during the Great War.
A land of a thousand leagues of barren waste, where Chaos remnants, beasts, and bandits rose and fell.
A powerful knight who brought his own supplies was quickly given a heavy responsibility by the Tzar.
As the Kislevite permafrost melted and the world entered a climate recovery, gods like Shallya and the Bear God Ursun bestowed massive divine grace before the gods went into hiding.
This allowed the Kislevite population to recover rapidly, now exceeding its previous peak and still climbing.
Unfortunately, Stephanie's ancestor died far too early.
Had he continued to fight under the Tzar, his family might have a place in Kislevgrad or Ursungrad today.
But that had nothing to do with Stephanie anymore.
From her earliest memories, she was the daughter of a fallen Kislevite Boyar—a class of feudal lords who once held hereditary lands.
Compared to Imperial nobles, they held greater power in their territories and were responsible for governing regions, provinces, and armies for the Tzar.
None of the rest mattered, and Stephanie didn't mind mentioning it.
In short, it was the story of a rebellious girl with knightly martial virtue in her blood leaving her broken home, picking up her ancestor's skills, and joining the ranks of mercenaries to live by the blade.
Today, Stephanie was a very capable mercenary, yet she couldn't avoid some feminine pickiness.
Stephanie, her brown hair tied into a braid hanging behind her back, sheathed her scimitar and said with dissatisfaction: "I don't like Beastmen. I hate them."
"They are always... tsk. Hair, horns, stench. Revolting Chaos mutants."
Rodrian did not respond. This man spent most of his time in silence.
Only on the battlefield could friend and foe alike see the true nature of his activity.
"We defeated the Greenskins, wiped out the rat plague, beat the Northerners into submission, and made the Undead stay in their kingdom of the dead. Why can't we just clear out these horned, hooved beasts too? Even if we just load them onto ships and dump them all in the colonies!"
A brawny man nearby, bare-chested and chopping wood for the night, let out a hearty laugh.
He slammed his axe into the stump and walked toward Stephanie and Rodrian, grabbing a cloth along the way to wipe his sweat.
"In the entire Old World, even just looking at the Empire, there are at least a million Beastmen. In our Kislev, there are nearly a hundred thousand around Ursungrad alone."
"Neither our 'Small Mother' [The Tzarina] nor the Imperial Emperor would pay out of their own pockets to ship such a massive group of Beastmen to the New World."
"Like insects, they are everywhere," Stephanie sneered. She hated Beastmen because of an experience in her past.
"But they are far more useful than insects: plowing fields, mining, hunting, herding; workshops, factories, slums—they are everywhere. They are hardworking, better than just using slaves. Oh right, and they are slaves too."
The big man laughed as he stood before them.
Stephanie caught a whiff of the strong scent from the cloth he used to wipe his sweat and took several steps back.
Rodrian, however, showed zero reaction, standing like a statue of The Thinker.
"Beastmen in Estalia seem quite rare. I rarely saw them in Bilbali," Stephanie recalled.
"Because most Beastmen in Estalia usually find ways to run off to the New World colonies. Some even go off on their own to carve out a territory and build a Beastman colony."
Rodrian suddenly spoke.
"During the Great War, Beastmen and the Skaven plague almost destroyed the entire South. After the liberation, the Estalians loathed them. The rat plague was purged and driven away, while some Beastmen who showed signs of 'goodness' and left the evil faction were permitted to stay."
"But the Estalians still hated them intensely. So many Beastmen chose to head to the New World to seek a new life under the weight of discrimination. But in the New World, they couldn't avoid competing with human colonists. This made the overall atmosphere even more discriminatory. The more they were discriminated against, the more they wanted to run away. The more they ran, the more they were discriminated against. That's just how it is."
"Why would the Estalians allow them to go to the New World and compete with themselves?"
Stephanie asked in confusion. "Can't they just drive them all out and ban them from building colonies? If they aren't given ships, how can they reach the New World?"
Rodrian lightly pinched his nose. "That's the issue. The New World colonies need a constant supply of labor. That doesn't conflict with the local human commoners discriminating against Beastmen for stealing jobs. The New World doesn't want Beastman-run colonies, but the Estalian homeland wants to find a 'trash dump' for the incredibly fertile Beastmen who pop out litters at a time."
"But the benefit of the New World for Beastmen is that there isn't a powerful ruler there like the Tzar or the Emperor. Even if some places have worse xenophobia and discrimination than the Old World, it is still a land of greater freedom and opportunity."
Stephanie pondered for a while. "Interesting."
"I'm a bit tempted to see the New World. Maybe if I'm lucky, I can strike it rich there."
Rodrian raised an eyebrow, his scars twitching.
"Once we enter the woods, don't pick fights. The people from the Northern Council said this Beastman tribe is not simple... The power they possess might be greater than those Beastman colonies."
The mercenary band finally finished setting up camp. The crates of equipment and supplies were safely stowed. Rodrian dared not slacken his focus for this mission. This was the largest contract he had received in years, and likely the riskiest. But as long as he completed this task—even if he only got half the pay—he would have the chance to implement his own grand plan.
"The New World..."
Rodrian gazed toward the north, as if he could see the coast where gold and blue intertwined, and the ships raising their white sails.