Chapter 395: Silver Promotion

Eugene had been slaying monsters that others couldn’t catch, and one difficulty that came with that was:

“So which parts of the Kraken are actually useful?”

At Eugene’s question, everyone looked at each other.

“I don’t think anyone here knows that, though.”

“Your Majesty. The Kraken is a monster that has never been hunted, even in legend.”

After the subjugation, they didn’t know how to use the corpse. Even with veteran tribal warriors and Eastern and Western mages gathered together, no clear answer emerged.

This was the exact opposite of trolls, who were constantly summoned in these kinds of stories. Every part of a troll, down to its cartilage, had a known use, and methods for preserving its blood had been developed in various ways.

“The meat would be incredible, though.”

“Everyone saw it eating sailors out in the harbor. Who would eat something like that? It’s not like this is a poor city.”

Neither East nor West was entirely without cannibalism. Cases had been confirmed during extreme famines or desperate siege situations where food ran out.

But since both noble law and church law severely punished it, discovery meant death by execution. Eating the meat of a monster confirmed to practice cannibalism was also considered indirect cannibalism and was condemned.

Interestingly, while eating the meat of a cannibal monster was prohibited, using its blood in potion-making was considered acceptable.

“They use troll blood just fine, but…”

“Don’t be tactless. It’s polite not to question that.”

Trolls enjoyed human flesh and were faster than humans. They often raided villages to devour helpless peasants, only to be killed by the lord’s army that sortied in response.

In those situations, abandoning the valuable blood was out of the question. The nobility and the church had reached a tacit agreement for the benefit of the privileged class.

“How did they take down something this big?”

“It doesn’t seem like the knights’ swords could have pierced it all the way through.”

“Look over there! Look at that enormous lance!”

“Ignorant fool. That’s not a lance — it’s a lance. Never seen a tournament?”

“I’ve never seen one that long even at tournaments…”

Curious residents who couldn’t hold back kept emerging. Torches, lanterns, and even candles — it seemed there were thousands of light sources alone.

Among them, merchants selling torches and snacks were already visible in the dozens. True to being a merchant city.

“Does this make our mercenary company Silver?”

Tribal warriors who had been mobilized as archers stretched with refreshed expressions.

“Si… Your Majesty. We’ll go straight to Gold promotion, right?”

“Maybe we should look for a hydra instead of another big one this time.”

Both Eugene and his subordinates had half-resigned themselves to the lack of loot usage. Promotion was good, but hunts that didn’t bring in money left a bitter taste.

Just then, people from the Alchemy Guild arrived with hundreds of workers and dozens of wagons. wondering why they were so late, it seemed gathering manpower in a hurry had taken time.

The Alchemy Guild Master looked at the blue blood spilled on the ground with an expression that said it was a terrible waste.

“Your Majesty! Now isn’t the time! We need to take preservation measures immediately!”

“We’ll begin at once. You seem to know the Kraken’s uses.”

“Among sea monsters, those with blue blood share common properties.”

The Alchemy Guild Master took out a small reagent vial and mixed in a spoonful of Kraken blood. He stirred and stirred and stirred and stirred.

“Oh my?”

It turned into a rich, luxurious purple.

“It can’t be used as medicine, but it’s a material for making dyes. It’s truly a god-given substance. Combined with specific reagents, it can produce any color. And of the highest quality.”

“What are you all doing?! Everyone, move!”

Before Eugene could shout, the dark elves were already running as if their feet were on fire. They cracked whips with murderous eyes.

“Out of the way!”

“Everyone, move or else!”

The onlookers who had been curiously touching the Kraken screamed and fled.

“If I’d known this would happen, I would have postponed the trip!”

The Alchemy Guild Master was furious. He had been dispatched to a northern kingdom on business. During his absence, Eugene had arrived and caught the Kraken.

-You idiots! You had no preparations at all? I’m the fool for appointing such morons as executives!

-S-sorry!

Only the Guild Master knew how to utilize Kraken blood, so the Alchemy Guild had been standing around helplessly. If he had shared his knowledge with everyone beforehand, this wouldn’t have happened, but it couldn’t be helped.

In a world where knowledge was power, survival, and a means of making money, precious information wasn’t shared but monopolized by the few. It was such an established custom that no one questioned it.

“We can just make it all into purple dye?”

“Naturally. Kraken blood is a concentrated raw material. Combined with reagents, you can extract more dye than the volume of blood.”

Red, blue, yellow, green, brown — anything was possible, but unless you were a fool, purple was the fixed choice.

A specific sea snail found only in certain habitats, ten thousand of which produced just over one gram of purple dye. It was so enormously rare that only those of kingly stature could wear purple clothing. A commodity as expensive as the same weight in gold.

“What about other parts?”

“Apart from the blood, there aren’t many profitable parts. The most meat would come from it, but since it’s a cannibal…”

At that moment, Might stepped forward. If humans eating it was problematic, feeding it to an animal was fine.

Chomp chomp.

Ptoo!

But it didn’t suit Might’s taste either. The beast spat out the meat it had been chewing and stuck out its tongue in disgust.

“He’s not usually a pickpy eater. Was it true that the bigger cephalopods are, the worse they taste?”

Eugene gestured to Might.

“Here, rinse with this.”

He poured wine over the enormous tongue, large enough to use as a fan. Might flipped it this way and that to make the rinsing easier. He was probably the most easygoing horse in the world.

Meanwhile, Homi wiped Eugene’s neck and face with a handkerchief.

“Don’t try to fill every container! Once it’s about seventy percent full, swap immediately!”

“Not a single drop should be wasted! One drop of this is worth more than all the blood in your bodies!”

‘Isn’t that a bit harsh?’

Unlike Eugene’s sentiment, no one complained. The purple dye, also called the king’s color, was worth exactly that much.

“We need to puncture this.”

“A spear won’t work. Run to the dock and strip the equipment from the whaling ships.”

“Bu-but the fishermen will be sleeping. How do we know whose house to get permission from?”

“Just strip it! We’ll compensate them double later.”

The Kraken was so massive that bloodletting had its limits. While the workers sweated and carved into the Kraken, Eugene felt a peculiar sensation at his waist. A vibration unique to this era, which shouldn’t exist.

“Ah, I almost forgot.”

Eugene drew the Bloodletting Dagger.

“You’d better not expect much from the taste.”

The Bloodletting Dagger answered with an even more intense vibration. Well, Kalash was a god who accepted even rotten meat, as long as the quantity was sufficient.

Bears were said to deliberately ferment their meat before eating it — was this something similar? The giant squid, with its strong ammonia smell and bad reputation for taste, was a staple for sperm whales.

“Move aside.”

“Your Majesty?! For someone of your stature to do this…”

Eugene passed by the workers, who tried to stop him but didn’t dare lay a hand on his royal person.

Pwoooosh!

“Aaaah!”

“Take it! Bring the containers!”

The astonished alchemists and workers rushed over with containers. They marveled at the blood gushing from areas structurally unsuitable for bloodletting.

Eugene opened approximately eight faucets in the Kraken’s corpse and completed a secret offering to Kalash.

Eyes and brain, heart, liver, intestines, reproductive organs. Kalash was satisfied with a sacrifice where all the organs were neatly packed into a single hilt.

‘Is this like eating meat wrapped in a leaf?’

Eugene was an unrivaled expert in offerings and communion with gods. When making offerings, he could roughly gauge what mood the god was in and what sensations it was enjoying.

* * *

When the work was done, the knights who had participated gathered and waited for Eugene.

“We still have a duty to mourn.”

“Please, comfort the fallen. They died honorably.”

The knights had gathered the fallen and laid them in one place. Eugene, along with Homi, distributed wine bottles he had brought to everyone.

“To our fallen comrades.”

Clank!

“To our comrades!”

The knights struck their boot heels together and raised their bottles. Drinking straight from the bottle, they emptied nearly a third each.

Mourning for the dead knights, the thrill of victory in the Kraken hunt, and the reward they would receive at the settlement. They could drink heartily even without snacks.

“I’ll hold a brief funeral here and then send the bodies to their hometowns. I’ll cover all costs — will you provide their locations?”

“Your Majesty. More than half of the dead knights have no family.”

“???”

Eugene briefly considered disownment, but that couldn’t be right. Even Kalas, who had been exiled, had left a will in the boneyard before going into a duel to the death.

-If I die, cremate my body and send the ashes to my family in a Samur ceramic vessel.

No matter how bad the relationship, there was no family that wouldn’t accept the dead. But the circumstances the knights described were beyond Eugene’s expectations.

“They were slaves of the previous Caliph.”

“Your Majesty of honor. Please, hear us calmly and listen.”

The Eastern knights watched Eugene’s reaction. He was a king, but first and foremost, he was a legendary knight among knights. In the West, slavery was synonymous with low birth. Connecting it to knighthood would naturally cause displeasure.

“Calm yourselves. I too have Eastern slaves, so I know something of the circumstances.”

“Ah! Come to think of it, you defeated the Immortals sent by the Caliph.”

The Eastern Empire’s customs were quite different in many ways. Even a slave, if they had ability and their master’s favor, could rise to general or high minister.

The Caliph’s harem, including official imperial consorts, concubines, and bride trainees, was composed almost entirely of slaves. Even the prince who would one day become the Empire’s master had half slave blood.

This hadn’t always been the case, but it had changed during the previous Caliph’s reign for political reasons.

“There’s a saying: wherever you lie down becomes your homeland. Being buried where you died honorably in battle is fine. When dawn breaks, I’ll personally speak with the council to ensure you’re buried in the best place.”

“Thank you! Thank you!”

“Thanks to Your Majesty’s grace, they can all rest in peace!”

The knights gave a military salute with moved faces. Though they were elite, they didn’t have enough standing to negotiate with the Veros City council.

A desire they harbored deeply but couldn’t dare ask of the king. This young knight-king had scratched that itch with refreshing candor.

* * *

The Kraken’s mouth was roughly divided into two stages. First, the outer appendages that resembled spider legs, which seized large prey to immobilize it.

Then, dozens of teeth growing around the mouth opening chewed and swallowed. The teeth resembled those of a lamprey but were much longer.

“All right, now pull!”

At Rex’s shout, the ropes tied to the appendages were pulled taut in a full 360-degree radius.

“Good. Hold it there.”

Eugene, lightly dressed, swung Blackout down. The Kraken’s body fluid sprayed as the mouth section began to be sliced off whole.

“No wonder that big tentacle was cut in one blow with that thing.”

“Butchering and fighting are different things. Why is he so skilled at both?”

“I heard he was a hunter before becoming king.”

“Oh my! How irreverent!”

Even the massive Kraken fell quickly under the sweep of the giant axe. That satisfying spectacle was certainly a treat to watch.

“But why are his eyes…”

“S-something about them is scary.”

In the darkness descending on the Kraken’s corpse, Eugene’s eyes gleamed with a dragon’s glare.

The onlookers felt that Eugene was fundamentally different from them. It was a feeling separate from the intimidation of his royal status or overwhelming martial prowess.

Rather than a knight who had subjugated the Kraken, it was more like a stronger monster hunting and devouring another monster.

‘There are bones here too.’

Thermal vision also helped with deboning. Up close, the subtle temperature differences between bone, body fluid, and muscle tissue were visible.

The Kraken was truly different from an octopus, a complete mollusk. The upper twenty percent of its tentacles had bones serving as support, and its massive, grotesque mouth also had concentrated bone distribution.

-If we remove the entire mouth area and preserve the scalp and eyes, we can hang them vertically. Even without the skull, we can display the Kraken’s living appearance impressively.

-Good idea. It’s also perfect for submitting as evidence to Spardia City.

-Who would dare doubt Your Majesty?

-Fair procedure is important.

Following Homi’s suggestion, Eugene immediately drew his axe, leading to the current situation.

Other subordinates had also thought of this idea, but they couldn’t bring themselves to speak up. This was a butchering operation where skin and bone had to be cut simultaneously without wasting blood.

In practice, only Eugene could do it, so advising him to do so was essentially asking him to do the hard work. Even a ruler who treated his subordinates familiarly found it difficult to request butchering labor.

Only someone like Homi could speak comfortably about it. One of her primary roles was to serve as a bridge in matters like this.

“Aren’t we giving too much of this expensive stuff?”

Meanwhile, tribal warriors glared disapprovingly at the Eastern knights. Eugene had distributed a barrel’s worth of Kraken blood to each knight as a reward for the subjugation.

Since it was such an expensive item, they had all become fabulously wealthy. They could retire now and live in luxury in the imperial capital until death.

“Let’s be honest — His Majesty delivered the killing blow, and those guys just served as meat shields to draw attention. That’s all they did.”

“That’s enough. It may be a waste, but being stingy about this will make it hard to recruit people later.”

Honestly, even Eugene felt it was a waste. By convention, there was no need to give this much. But a reward with symbolic impact like ‘a barrel’ was necessary to make a proper story later.

“And money, once spent, is gone. But a taxidermied set of teeth will last a hundred years, even a thousand.”

“That’s true enough.”

A Kraken taxidermy, the first and last in history, was a treasure beyond monetary value.

The blood, organs, or chest skin of a subjugated monster could be claimed in part by those who participated. But the head traditionally went to the contributor of the greatest merit.

“Cassandra, how about hanging this in the lobby? It’ll give a different kind of intimidation than the dragon’s head. Sorry about last time.”

“…Thank you. It will look wonderful.”

For the first time since he’d known her, Eugene saw Cassandra blush.

“What, the princess too?”

“Captain?!”

Even the tribal members who had watched from the side seemed stunned. Shocked gazes converged in one place.

* * *

“In the name of the honorable King Meyer, I declare the harbor open! Brave captains, set sail and announce our city’s continued vitality!”

With the Veros mayor’s declaration, the harbor blockade was lifted.

“Spread the sails!”

“My joints were about to rot from sitting idle!”

“Sea, I’ve returned!”

The packed ships all set sail simultaneously. It was like watching ants departing on a mating flight.

In commerce, time was life. They had to move diligently from now on to minimize the losses and restore relationships with trading partners.

“If you ever visit the Empire, please come to my house. I wish to repay the debt of saving my life.”

A knight named Ibrahim bid farewell to Eugene. He was the one who had been blown into the sea and saved by the External God’s intervention.

“It was Hassan who saved you, not me.”

“But it was all possible because of Your Majesty’s participation. If Your Majesty hadn’t been there, I would have sunk as I was. Even if I’d been pulled out, I’d have ended up in the Kraken’s belly.”

It wasn’t entirely wrong. In addition to Ibrahim and other knights, imperial nobles also expressed their gratitude.

“If the Kraken hadn’t died, who knows how long we’d have been trapped here… When I return, I will be sure to tell my father of Your Majesty’s exploits.”

Aishe, who had befriended the special forces warriors at the hamam, greeted Eugene in the Eastern manner.

“We eagerly await the Silver Mercenary Company’s return visit. Would you look at the map? Here, here, and here are good places to camp the castle.”

The Veros council had also granted the right to camp the castle near the city, along with certain privileges.

The final reward of this expedition, which had gained so much, awaited them in Spardia City.

“In praise of Your Majesty’s great exploits in our allied city of Veros, we present a fitting token.”

“I shall accept it gladly. I will strive to contribute further to the peace and prosperity of the peninsula.”

The Silver Mercenary Company was no longer Bronze. Its name now gleaming Silver! This was the new status of Eugene and his subordinates.

“Let’s go get it plated right away!”

“Plated? We should make it one hundred percent pure silver!”

The subordinates who had previously pouted, saying Silver wasn’t enough and asking when they’d ever reach Mithril, seemed genuinely pleased now that the promotion had come.

The Silver Mercenary Company had officially begun.