Empire Building With Infinite Warehouse-Chapter 96: The Speaking Monster

The giant looked right at him from the deep shadows of the steel cage, its arms tightly bound in thick iron chains that dug painfully deep into its scarred, greyish skin.

Despite the heavy restraints holding it back, the enormous creature still managed to step forward and extend one giant hand toward the front bars of the enclosure.

The metal actually groaned and bent slightly under the immense pressure of its grip as the giant stared directly into Julien’s eyes with a look of pure desperation.

Then, a rumbling sound vibrated through the quiet underground room.

"H..E..L..P... M..E..."

It was a slow moan of a plea that sounded like grinding metal rubbing together in the dark. Both Julien and Kyle instantly went completely pale upon hearing those words, taking a collective step backwards as the reality of the situation hit them.

’A giant actually exists in this world?’ Julien thought to himself, his mind racing at a million miles an hour to process the impossible situation standing right in front of him.

’They are definitely not recorded monsters in any of the official Hunter Association databases. Everyone knows that the gates only spawn mindless beasts and aggressive boss monsters, not entire other sapient species that can actually reason and speak our language.’

He was trying to think through all the crazy, world-breaking possibilities when a sharp, cold voice suddenly interrupted his internal monologue.

"Oh my, I am so sorry for that."

Eric walked out of his private office and stepped back into the main underground room, his leather shoes clicking softly against the concrete floor.

The mysterious market boss looked at the chained figure, and the fake, highly polite smile was completely gone from his face.

His dark eyes were filled with pure, terrifying anger as he glared at the captive giant, radiating a silent threat that filled the entire space.

The giant reacted instantly to the look of hatred.

It let go of the thick iron bars and scrambled backwards into the darkest corner of the cage, shaking the entire steel structure so hard that the floor actively vibrated beneath their heavy boots.

"What the fuck was that?" Julien asked Eric, making sure to sound totally dumbfounded and slightly terrified by the sudden encounter, so he would not blow his cover as a simple travelling merchant.

Eric just let out a soft sigh and waved his pale hand dismissively, his creepy, calculating smile slowly returning to his face as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

"Oh, it is absolutely nothing for you to worry about," Eric lied smoothly, casually adjusting the dark cuffs of his priest outfit.

"It is just a very rare, exotic species we managed to capture from one of the newer dimensional gates out in the dead zones. It simply mimics human speech to trick unsuspecting hunters into getting close, just like a giant, ugly parrot."

Julien knew for a strict fact that gates did not bring other speaking races into their world, but he wisely decided to play along with the obvious lie.

He had to gather a lot more concrete information about this hidden black market operation before confronting a guy who could seemingly knock people out with a single, effortless touch.

"Right," Julien said, giving a slow, exaggerated nod of understanding.

"Well, we are going to head upstairs and figure out a good place to set up our stall now."

Julien and Kyle turned around without waiting for any further explanation and climbed back up the rusted iron ladder, happily leaving the creepy boss and his chained prisoner behind in the freezing dark.

They climbed right past the crazy astrologer who was still sitting on her woven rug and stepped back into the loud, bright chaos of the stadium bazaar and quickly grabbed the three terrified bald thugs and their heavy wooden cart, making their way toward one of the empty concrete shops built directly into the lower seating levels of the old sports stadium.

The entire walk through the crowded, noisy market was spent in total silence between the two friends.

Kyle kept his hand resting dangerously near the hilt of his massive black sword, keeping a very close watch on the surrounding crowds of raiders to ensure nobody tried to ambush them again.

Julien was entirely too busy analysing everything he had just seen down in that basement to pay any real attention to the noisy merchants yelling out their inflated prices for basic canned food and rusted weapons.

’Why are they going through the trouble of keeping a giant locked up down there?’ Julien thought, walking slowly behind the heavy wooden cart while his eyes scanned the concrete path.

’What are they actually using it for? Are they keeping it down there as an ultimate protection measure against gate breaks, or are they planning to eventually use it as a living siege weapon to conquer the other safe havens in the district?’

Every single scenario was a very real possibility in this ruined world, and Julien desperately needed to figure out exactly how he could turn this hidden secret into a profitable advantage for his own team.

He was thinking so deeply about the political and financial implications of a captive, speaking giant that he completely stopped paying attention to the busy foot traffic moving around him.

He stepped blindly around a busy food stall selling monster meat and walked right into someone incredibly solid.

"Ah, sorry about that," Julien said quickly, taking an immediate step back and brushing the dust off his jacket while preparing to defuse another random street fight.

His gaze moved up, fully expecting to see some random, dirty scavenger or another heavily armed mercenary looking for an excuse to draw their weapon.

Instead, he found himself looking directly at a woman who was significantly taller than he was.

She was wearing a high-ranking military dress uniform that stood out completely against the mud, blood, and dirt of the unregulated scavenger camp.

Her hair was a pure silver colour that caught the bright glare of the portable construction lights overhead.

But the most intimidating thing about her was her eyes.

They were a piercing, cold gold colour, and she was looking down at him with an expression of undisputed authority.

Even though she was just standing there doing absolutely nothing threatening, her aura was heavily emitting into the air around her.

It created a suffocating pressure that made it physically hard to breathe, proving without a shadow of a doubt that she was easily an S-class Awakener who had killed hundreds of high-tier monsters without breaking a sweat.

The surrounding crowds of rough raiders and tough scavengers were giving her a large amount of space, clearly terrified of even making accidental eye contact with her.

She looked down at Julien, studying his plain merchant clothes and his relaxed posture for a few silent seconds before finally speaking.

"You are new," she said, her voice smooth but carrying a dangerous weight that commanded immediate attention from everyone within earshot.