How to Use the Lord’s Future Diary-Chapter 38

Chapter 38
One night, about a week after Iron had started training with Leisha.
A black shadow suddenly surged over the northern fortress gate, racing along the mountain path.
It was Leisha, dressed in casual clothes.
“Damn it, fuck.”
A curse slipped from Leisha’s mouth.
Not the stiff words of a human, but the natural speech of a beastman.
She was clearly very annoyed.
“Damn. Damn.”
Leisha loved her tribe like any other beastman.
But sometimes, the black lions were just too much.
Insane aggression.
Troublemakers causing accidents at any time.
‘And the amount they eat… It’ll break my back.’
Why were she and the other warrior women even doing these absurd mercenary jobs in the first place?
Wasn’t it all to feed those idiots?
Even among the lion tribe, black lions were a minority, yet just because they fought better, they received far more rations—a very conspicuous act.
Thankfully, the current chieftain was a fairly wise warrior, so he treated the black lions moderately.
Still, complaints about the black lions were not few within the tribe.
‘Half of it is their own fault, so it’s hard to even make excuses.’
Leisha had been lucky enough this time to score a big haul.
She thought that if they returned to the tribe with plenty of meat, they could manage through this winter.
But an unexpected crisis appeared.
From one side of the mountains, she sensed the presence of her own kind.
For some reason, it seemed that the black lion warriors were moving this way.
‘Why the hell? And bringing all the warriors with them.’
Pondering this for a moment, she realized something.
The warrior women had left for the village earlier.
Plenty of meat.
Checked the horned rabbit ranch.
The black lions’ eyes would go wild with greed.
This was a crisis.
If she hesitated and those thoughtless tribe members attacked Johnson Territory, it would be a real disaster.
As she climbed the mountain path, a group of black lion warriors waited for her.
They, too, seemed to be sensing her presence and were on standby.
“Leisha! Ugh!!”
“I told you! I told you to stay put!”
“Chieftain, calm down. Rimond will die!”
Upon reaching the group, Leisha immediately began beating one of the black lions at the front.
The target was a black lion named Rimond, the one who had led this group down here.
“Arrgh!”
Knowing the warriors’ chain of command inside out, Leisha immediately recognized that Rimond was the cause of this mess and punished him on the spot.
While Leisha was the great warrior leading the black lions, in her absence, the strongest male, Rimond, would take charge of the warriors.
The answer was obvious.
The warriors moved because of Rimond.
“Our great warrior sure is something, huh.”
Leisha, infamous in the lion tribe village of Rotsy as a madwoman, was unstoppable once she lost her temper.
Even the mighty chieftain of the lion tribe couldn’t restrain her.
The way to deal with someone as furious as Leisha was simple.
‘First, throw her a target to take out, then wait for her to calm down.’
The black lion warriors, knowing this better than anyone, decided to throw Rimond as bait and wait.
“…Done beating him, Great Warrior?”
“Not yet, but let’s wrap it up for now. Why the hell did you crawl down here?”
Only after Rimond had been beaten into a pulp did they cautiously explain the situation.
Leisha accepted their explanation, as she had things she needed to confirm with them.
Except for Rimond, everyone else was relatively satisfied.
“There’s an enormous horned rabbit in the human territory.”
“So?”
“They led the tribe out here.”
“Why?”
“Rimond would know, wouldn’t he? He was the one who said to go.”
“Ha, these idiots…”
Among beastmen, black lions are unmatched in combat.
Even the brave warriors of the lion tribe were a notch below the black lions.
But these guys were brilliant fools; aside from fighting and eating, they couldn’t do anything else.
Considering that most lions also excel in productive tasks like mining or smelting, the difference was stark.
The current chieftain was a relatively rational lion, so she felt safe leaving the area, but they couldn’t resist causing trouble for even a moment.
Overwhelmed by a pounding headache, she momentarily lost her words.
“Fine. How many did they bring?”
“All the black lions.”
“What? Over eight hundred? They brought all of them?”
“Yes. When it was for the Great Warrior, they followed without question.”
Insane.
Truly insane.
The warriors here were just the vanguard.
Over eight hundred black lions waited above for Leisha.
From Leisha’s perspective—planning to return to the tribe with meat—it was maddening.
“Did you tell the chieftain?”
“Yes. It’s not exactly something we could hide.”
“What did you say?”
‘We’re going to paradise with the meat. Don’t look for us.’
“…Are you crazy?”
They even declared their independence outright.
Black lions were already somewhat marginalized within the tribe.
The tribe’s overall strength didn’t need the black lions’ power that desperately.
Though weaker than Leisha, there were still two great warrior-level warriors among them.
The chieftain, always troubled by the black lions, would probably nod in gratitude.
What on earth was she supposed to do with these lunatics?
“Damn it. This is really insane.”
But it was too late.
With all the black lions leaving the tribe, returning was impossible.
No tribe would ever take back a lion group that had left, so they had to fend for themselves.
It was a situation she truly didn’t want.
But surely, these idiots had some sort of plan, so I had to at least hear what they were thinking, dragging themselves all the way out here.
“So what the hell are you trying to do?”
“Well, uh…”
“What? Spit it out.”
“Rimond will explain.”
Much time passed.
“Hey, bastard. You awake?”
The leader of the group, Rimond, who had been unconscious, finally woke up.
A few warriors immediately rushed to haul Rimond up and sit him down in front of me.
It was clear now that bringing the black lions all the way here had been entirely Rimond’s plan.
“I’m still your brother, you know. Did you really have to go this far…”
“Cut the crap. If you’re not a Great Warrior, then stay out of the way.”
Shockingly, Rimond was my real older brother.
He wasn’t a Great Warrior, but he was still a pretty skilled fighter and held in some esteem among the black lions.
The reason the warriors dragged Rimond to me wasn’t just because they were scared of me.
Even they had no clue what Rimond’s exact plan was.
Without thinking much, they had simply followed their leader, tearing themselves away from the tribe and crossing the mountains.
They were really that simple-minded.
“Enough talk. Tell me the plan.”
“This land, full of horned rabbits—we eat them. With the Great Warrior and black lion warriors, one human territory is nothing, right?”
“…Are you insane?”
Hearing him suddenly say we should take Johnson Territory, I couldn’t fathom what lunacy was going through his head.
“Don’t you know Johnson Territory fought with us to drive out the pigs? They’re comrades, comrades.”
“That was before the Great Cataclysm. The young beastmen barely even know about that past.”
“Even after the Great Cataclysm, when we met in the Monster Mountains, we got along well enough.”
“Isn’t the tribe’s survival more urgent than that?”
“No, in the first place…”
The words—why the hell did you leave the tribe when you could’ve just stayed quietly—rose to my throat, but I swallowed them down.
It would only start a fight.
Every time the black lions received larger rations than the others, they drew countless stares.
Even I, at times, had thought about what it might be like to have a tribe of only black lions.
‘Honestly, it’s frustrating. The black lions fought so hard. Sure, they caused little accidents now and then, but do they really deserve that much resentment?’
Still, this plan was too extreme.
Lions stabbing comrades in the back?
How was that any different from the pigs?
‘Better hear him out first.’
Attacking Johnson Territory was absurd, but I didn’t cut him off immediately.
I wanted to know if my brother had really thought this through, or if it was just a whim.
If he actually had a decent plan, then leading the group to settle somewhere else and form a black lion-only village might be worth considering.
If we could properly manage a territory, then surviving on our own was possible.
“Fine. Say we take that land and settle there, like you want. What then?”
“What then?”
“Yes, what then.”
“What more do we need? There are plenty of horned rabbits. We catch them, eat them, and live.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
I felt like an idiot for even expecting something more.
Then again, that really was about the average level for black lions.
Leon, who could actually negotiate on equal footing with humans, was more of an exception.
‘Stupid idiots. They should’ve thought about how the humans managed to succeed in horned rabbit ranching when lions failed.’
I still didn’t understand how the humans had managed it.
‘No matter how I look at it, I don’t see the difference.’
Even smart Leon admitted he didn’t know.
So I had half given up.
‘If there’s a difference, maybe it’s that the Bear is the guide of the Rabbit Tribe?’
Could there be some connection between a magical beast like the horned rabbit and the Rabbit Tribe’s guide?
They said magical beasts appeared with the monsters after the Great Cataclysm.
But one thing was certain—the Bear Lord had done something.
He had saved many from the Rabbit Tribe, become their guide, and became the master of a massive horned rabbit ranch.
Even an idiot could see it:
If something happened to the Bear, the horned rabbit ranch might not run properly.
That’s why I hadn’t gotten greedy.
Of course, I wanted those horned rabbits badly.
“Forget it. No point dragging this out. Rimond, did you even know the human lord is the Rabbit Tribe’s guide when you came down here?”
“…Guide? A human is a guide? How?”
“I don’t know either. But I saw it. The Black Rabbit spirit. The Rabbit Tribe all see the lord as their guide.”
“…I didn’t know that. That complicates things.”
Beastman faith was different from humans, but their devotion to the beast god, Bestia, was real.
The way they worshipped might differ, but Bestia was still their spiritual pillar.
Bestia had even sent down many guides during the hardest times.
Thanks to them, beastmen suffering as slaves were freed from the empire.
A guide appointed by Bestia was a very special being to beastmen.
To harm the Rabbit Tribe’s guide meant becoming their eternal enemy.
Even after the Great Cataclysm, beastmen and the empire’s survivors were still enemies—because the empire had enslaved beastmen, and because all the guides had died helping beastmen escape.
No matter how much they liked meat, to take it by harming another tribe’s guide was too risky.
Proud lions would not stoop to being treated like pigs.
Though Rimond had been about to betray an old comrade, attacking a guide was another matter.
Fortunately, he had at least that much sense and abandoned his foolish dream of conquering the human territory.
If he hadn’t, I would’ve beaten that lesson into him myself.
‘But what now?’
Abandoning that delusion was good, but the future was still grim.
Eight hundred insane black lions had recklessly declared independence from the lion tribe.
Could I even handle that?
‘No. Why should I handle it?’
People become stronger when cornered.
And when desperate, a path always opens.
My mind began working furiously.