Exiled Villainess: They Threw Me Out, Now Every Beastman Wants Me

”You will stay here.”

Moments after Xavi had literally dropped her, he had turned to speak to a few beast kin and returned to her with the command to stay put.

It turned out he needed to go hunt for some more food with another group of beast men. And before he left, he had told the beasts around her two things. Keep an eye on the shiftless female so she doesn’t leave, and give her some of the meat to eat.

The first instruction, they followed enthusiastically. Every beast-folk in the settlement had at least one eye on Tera at all times. She couldn’t scratch her nose without three people noticing.

And as for Ermin. He was very deliberately not looking at her, his jaw tight and his shoulders rigid. But she could feel his awareness of her presence.

But Tera was puzzled.

How was Ermin here, too?

The Jackdaw tribe had exiled him alongside her, and when she didn’t see him, she had assumed, in the chaos of everything, that he might have been un-banished, taken back into the fold after she was gone.

But no. He was here. Naiya had really thrown away her future mate over one drugged night.

What a heartless woman.

However, the coincidence of them ending up in the same place was a bit funny.

A gnawing ache in Tera’s stomach reminded her of her predicament, and her eyes strayed to the thick slabs of meat piled on neatly arranged leaves on the ground. Some beasts were still cutting the meat with crude knives, while a few others were preparing the fire.

One of the beasts in particular was hitting two rocks against each other, igniting sparks.

A fire pit had been dug near the middle of the area, ringed with flat stones that had seen better days. Once the flames had been stoked, a few slabs of meat were suspended on a crude spit, and a young beast-man with floppy ears and an anxious expression was turning the meat with the enthusiasm of someone who had been given this job as punishment.

Around the fire, a handful of beast-folk were gathered, some waiting for the first rows of meat to finish, while the others simply warmed themselves.

A few of them had taken raw slabs of the meat and transformed into their beast forms to eat the raw meat like that.

Everyone was getting warm, cozy, and relaxed, but where was Tera’s meat?

That was her first concern. Her other concern was the lack of control over the flames and how they were lapping at the slabs of meat so quickly that the meat was black on one side and raw on the other.

Tera stared at it in quiet horror before approaching the fire pit, her stomach growling loud enough to announce her presence before she could.

It was already one thing that this meat was going to be so bland without any seasoning, there was no way she was going to eat such badly cooked meat.

One of the beasts looked up at her. ”The meat is not ready yet. What do you want?”

”I want to help.” Tera gestured at the meat. ”That is not going to cook evenly if you leave it like that.”

The young beast-man at the spit looked up with the expression of someone who had just been thrown a lifeline. The other beasts looked annoyed.

”Go away. We don’t need help from a schemer like you.”

Tera’s eye twitched. ”I’m not scheming anything.”

[(ᵕ—ᴗ—)]

[What makes you think they would trust you, considering your antics with Ermin?]

[System understands their plight]

Tera felt irritated, but understood, too. She was still a bad person to them as long as she was in this body. However, were these idiots blind?

Couldn’t they see that the meat was literally burning?!

”Okay, fair.” She sighed. ”But I’m also hungry, and your leader said you should share meat with me.”

Tera wanted to add that she had a vested interest in that meat not tasting like charcoal, but she thought better of it.

A few of the beasts looked amongst one another.

”The leader did give the order.”

”Are you stupid? He said to give her meat, not let her meddle with it.”

”Oh, that is true.”

Some of them started to snicker amongst themselves, and Tera wasn’t sure she liked where this was going.

She considered just asking for her piece of meat, but wasn’t sure how good an idea that would be when one of the beast men grabbed one of the raw slabs and ripped a piece off with his bare hands.

He flung it to her.

Tera jumped, catching it on time before it could drop to the floor.

Her mouth hung open.

”There, you have your meat,” one of them said.

[Host has been given the official ”pest gets the leftovers” treatment]

[This is a classic rejection ritual in many primitive cultures]

”Shut up,” she gritted out with a tight smile.

[System is merely providing cultural context]

’Cultural context, my ass! You are enjoying this!’

[ಡ ͜ ʖ ಡ]

[System is merely observing the situation with... enthusiasm]

Tera stared at the raw chunk of meat in her hands.

She then looked over at the fire pit, where the rest of the clan was roasting their portions. They had already pulled away the first batch and were cutting it up for the others, acting as if she wasn’t standing right there, while several of them were watching to see what she would do.

”What are you waiting for?” One of them started to shoo her away. ”Go and eat. Don’t expect more until the leader returns with more.”

”Surely, you don’t expect me to eat it like this.” Tera fought the urge to smack their faces with the raw meat.

”What is the problem with it?”

”Some of us are eating it like that!”

Tera held her annoyance in and controlled herself before she flipped out from the stupidity surrounding her.

They knew she was shiftless, and even they themselves in their current forms could not eat raw meat unless they wanted their stomach to turn. This was why some of them who didn’t want to wait for the meat to finish cooking had just turned into their beast forms and had taken the meat aside to eat like that.

Eating raw meat in this state would be a horrible idea, and she would surely get more than an upset stomach.

She looked up to find Ermin looking at her, almost sympathetically, before he frowned and turned his head.

Tera sighed and moved away from the group, mumbling and cursing under her breath.

She was going to make her own fire.