Chapter 140: 138 – Immortal Beast

“Right, the matter of what I am, as you doubtlessly wish to know - I am what Kargarians call an Immortal Beast. Their folk myths - and, as I’ve found, those of many other cultures - state that an animal which lives for a certain length of time or achieves some other feat of longevity will take on more and more supernatural traits over time until it becomes a sort of minor god, gaining speech and even the ability to change into a humanoid form. This is… Not entirely incorrect, if a gross oversimplification. The fact of the matter is, a mundane animal that happens to take the first step into cultivation becomes orders of magnitude more likely to survive longer and cultivate further, as it joins the arcane food chain and effectively is forced by other cultivator-beasts into further cultivation as a survival mechanism. Those who survive for a sufficiently long time in this savage society eventually gain the capabilities to leave it, though few choose to do so.”

The Moneychanger’s upper eyes independently darted back and forth whilst the lower maintained eye contact, her six-fingered hands deftly operating the strange device and counting coins at a blistering pace as she talked. Her voice was relaxed, almost resigned - it was obvious she had come to terms with explaining her state of being over and over again.

“How old are you, then?” Zel asked with an amused tone before Zef could.

“Oh I’ve lost count, and my memory grows hazier the further back it is besides, being that my mental faculties had not developed to this point until some four and a third centuries ago.”

Zel held her tongue, seeing that Zef had a question on her mind. To her amusement, it was the same exact question that she was going to ask.

“This may sound stupid, but why do you have-” Zef began.

“What, breasts?” laughed the Moneychanger with great amusement. “For the same reason I have opposable thumbs and an upright gait. The process of transition from an animal form to a humanoid one tends to impart traits that have little to no use considering the original animal form, though it depends on the methods. I do not recall my method, as I had achieved this form before I achieved clarity of thought - for all it matters, these mounds on my chest are no more than sacks of fat that grow and shrink as my own fat reserves do.”

“Really? Is there any more to that story, or would you rather not say?” Zel prodded, instinctually feeling that the lizard woman was holding off on details.

She looked Zel up and down, her milky-white eyes damn-near staring a hole through her stomach for a moment before she put on a toothy grin and shot right back, “I’ll tell you if you tell me something. My lower pair of eyes sees beyond the material, even if not too clearly - why do I see a faint outline of antlers upon your brow?”

---

Zel smiled, and gladly regaled the Moneychanger with a tale of her hunting the Maneater of Retribution, then continued on by detailing how she had delved into a Dungeon and used its arcane powers to purify the beast’s Azoth Stone of its maddening properties.

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“The antlers are the only thing left behind. One of them forms as a visible manifestation when I use a portion of the trait bestowed by the beast’s Azoth,” she finished. By this point, a significant portion of the money had been processed.

"An entertaining tale, and a truthful one if my senses have not yet betrayed me in my young age,” the lizard-woman commended, the boredom gone from her voice. “I suppose it is only fair that I detail the real reason I have these mounds on my chest - they are not mere sacks of fat, but poison sacks. They are as they are because when I had just obtained clarity of thought, I had presumed that human breasts were simply your kind’s equivalent to poison sacks, not unlike the external poison sacks of some other reptiles. So, in my presumptuous foolishness, I spent several moons in seclusion remoulding my own poison sacks to move them down there. I could change them back now, but as it turns out, more humans like a lizard-person with breasts than without. I’ve gotten propositioned by one of those feather-haired Gorth’Itans more than once."

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The total came out to ten thousand, four-hundred, and two-thirds of a Gelt, which Zel told the Moneychanger to just round down to one-half.

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It was an altogether amusing coincidence that a conflux of entirely disparate numbers would total up to such a round sum - especially since it just about surpassed the total payment she had received for the extermination job, and she still had most of her share of the hoard. The Moneychanger proceeded to hoist a small crate onto the counter.

She’d expected the lizard to just start doling out two-hundred and eight Cold-iron Sovereigns, but instead, she started stacking thick, palm-sized coins into the crate. One side bore the Grekurian Aquila and the other a detailed depiction of the Inquisitorial Aquila Calibur surrounded by the Eight Stars of Calamity, the guns pointing at eight star-like shapes. The bottom portion of the side depicting weapons also showed the denomination - two hundred. Around the coins’ borders snaked some phrase or other, which Zel didn’t bother trying to read.

Clang.

Clang.

Clang.

Clang.

One after another, those unwieldy plates of cold-iron clattered into the crate. They rang just like Sovereigns, but… Different. Clearer. Even their colour was subtly different. 

Lastly, there came a singular copper Gelt, which she snapped in half with her fingers before dropping half in and pushing the crate through the opening in the bars. 

As Zel was busy heaving those great big coins into the Fog vortex, she felt an unearthly rumbling in her gut. For a moment, there was a pang of fear that the uni and plum wine might be wreaking havoc on her insides, but then it returned, and she realized it had not come from within.

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