"Well, well... Did we take them down?"
Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Rest felt the heat of the flames radiating from all around him.
The subjugation of the Crazy Apes had largely gone according to plan.
Before him, the pit trap had caught the fleeing Crazy Apes, and they had been impaled on the earthen stakes planted at the bottom, dead.
The strategy Rest had used to subjugate them was "Besiege the Enemy, But Leave One Way Out."
It was a traditional strategy that had existed since the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods.
The magicians from House Rosemary, who had accompanied him this far, simultaneously unleashed flames from three sides of the Crazy Apes' nest — no, from all directions except one.
The Crazy Apes, pursued by the raging flames, fled into the area without fire, but Rest had set up a pit trap there using magic.
They plunged into the pit with their own momentum and were immediately impaled on the stakes.
If he had completely surrounded them on all four sides with fire... the cornered Crazy Apes might have thrown themselves into the wall of flames and tried to force their way through with brute strength.
By deliberately leaving an escape route open, the fleeing apes had fallen right into the trap.
"I did get a little nervous when that one tried to jump over it, though..."
"It was a good thing I was there, wasn't it, Rest?"
Yuri said with a beaming smile.
Yuri had accompanied Rest and kicked a Crazy Ape that tried to jump over the pit back down into it.
He was amazed at her raw strength — to think she could kick away a great ape that must have had three times her body weight.
"Let's finish every last one of them. It's a clean-up sweep."
Just to be safe, he used [Presence Detection] magic to search for any surviving Crazy Apes.
He cast a finishing spell on the monkey playing dead at the bottom of the pit, and without letting his guard down, he subjugated those who had dug holes to hide underground as well as those who had climbed trees to try to escape.
The Rosemary household’s magicians, who had also set fire to the area, must be carrying out their own sweep for survivors. He had given them those instructions, after all.
«Winning without any casualties is good, but… this smell is going to give me nightmares.»
Why was the stench of burning corpses so incredibly repulsive?
Rest looked down, his expression turning slightly queasy, as he examined the remains of the Crazy Ape at the bottom of the pit.
One of the Crazy Apes had spoken human words, begging for its life.
It was startling that a monkey could speak human language… but upon realizing the reason why, a wave of unpleasantness filled Rest’s chest.
If it could speak human words, then naturally, there must have been a human who taught it.
It wasn’t taught out of some desire to educate, of course.
It had likely just learned the words of desperate pleas for mercy from the humans it had captured and eaten.
«Rest, are you okay?»
«Lord Rest, are you unharmed?»
Viola and Primula approached Rest.
The two of them had been responsible for setting fires and driving the monsters back, working alongside the other magicians.
«Yeah, I’m fine. You two weren’t attacked either?»
«No, there wasn’t a problem.»
«There were no monsters near us. And thank you for your hard work, Lord Yuri.»
«Yeah, you both worked hard.»
Yuri raised a hand in acknowledgment, praising Viola and Primula.
«Still… it ended too easily. It was almost anticlimactic. If only they’d at least been some delicious-looking monsters.»
«Don’t eat them. It’s dangerous to eat monkeys.»
Eating monkeys is dangerous.
Apparently, long ago in China there was a delicacy called "monkey brain" that was quite literally the brain of a monkey served as food. But it carried risks like triggering prion diseases, making it genuinely dangerous.
Rest didn't know the exact mechanism, but he vaguely recalled reading in some book that the reason had to do with how genetically close humans and monkeys were.
"I'm not eating that. It doesn't even look appetizing."
Yuri shook his head vigorously.
At least he had enough common sense. He seemed to have more wisdom in choosing what to eat than a crazy ape, which was a relief.
"Well then, once the flames die down, it's cleanup time... Dealing with the corpses is going to be a pain."
Since they'd already gone to the trouble of digging a big hole, they might as well bury everything there in one go.
The cleanup after a subjugation seemed like it would be harder than the actual fight. Rest let out a weary sigh and shrugged.