The humans did not look upon Adam with gratitude or awe. Their fear curdled into something uglier: greed.
"The beast... it's intelligent! It helped us!" the scout argued, her voice strained as she watched Adam disappear into the canopy. "We should retreat!"
"Retreat?!" the axe-wielder spat, his eyes gleaming with avarice. "Are you blind? That thing is no mindless monster! Its scales, its wings... the Alchemist and Beast-Taming Guilds would pay a fortune for a specimen like that! It's tired from the fight! This is our chance!"
The Captain's face, once marked by caution, now twisted with calculation. The mage nodded eagerly. "He's right, Captain. The power it displayed... we could harvest components of incredible potency."
Their words, spoken so clearly in the common tongue he once used, felt like physical blows to Adam. The fragile hope that perhaps connection was possible shattered into a million pieces. They didn't see a person, they saw a prize.
