Chapter 237: Campaign Manager Kael?

Ren stared down at the weeping mother and the frail, barely-breathing tiger cub in her arms.

A cold sweat broke out across Ren’s forehead. ’Oh my god,’ she panicked internally. ’I am a Michelin-star chef, not a pediatrician! I don’t practice Beast World medicine!’

What would happen if the stew couldn’t make the cub feel better? What if the baby just had a normal, non-feral cold? If this seasoned elk meat didn’t immediately revive the kid, the clan would absolutely lose their minds. Would she get stoned? Would they beat her to death with her own wooden bowls?!

Despite her mounting panic, the mother’s tears tugged painfully at Ren’s heartstrings. She couldn’t just stand there and do nothing. Ren grabbed the ladle and moved to serve a fresh bowl of the rich, warm stew.

But before she could even dip the wood into the broth…

“Katleen! Get off your knees!” the elder suddenly roared, his voice cracking like a whip across the clearing.

Ren paused, ladle hovering mid-air.

The elder marched a few steps back toward the fire, his face twisted in absolute fury as he glared down at the young mother. “Have you lost all of your pride?! We can find herbs in the forest! We do not need her scraps! Get up! That hairless female is no divine savior!”

Katleen slowly got off her knees. She clutched her dying cub tightly to her chest, her knuckles turning white. But she didn’t walk toward him. She stood her ground right next to the roaring fire.

“The herbs aren’t working!” Katleen screamed back, her voice breaking with raw, desperate agony. “My cub is dying! We are all starving! My cub’s life is more important than my loyalty to your stubborn pride!”

“We are eating rotting scraps!” Katleen sobbed, gesturing wildly to the gaunt faces of her kin. “You just drank a full bowl of that stew! I saw you! Why should my baby die just so you can pretend we are still mighty warriors?!”

The rest of the White Tiger Clan gasped. Katleen was arguing all the terrifying, unspoken truths that the rest of the clan had been too afraid to say out loud to the dictatorial elder.

The elder’s face turned an ugly, mottled shade of purple. The veins in his neck bulged.

“Stop this nonsense at once!” the elder bellowed, slamming his wooden stick into the dirt with a resounding thwack. He pointed a trembling finger at her. “If you do not come with me right this second, you are no longer a part of the White Tiger Clan! You will be exiled!”

Katleen’s breath hitched audibly. The threat of exile in the Beast World was practically a death sentence for a lone female. The surrounding tigers murmured in shock, stepping back from the young mother as if she were suddenly contagious.

But Katleen didn’t back down. She looked down at her baby, then up at the elder, her tear-filled eyes hardening with a mother’s fierce resolve.

“Then I am exiled,” Katleen said, her voice dropping to a deadly calm. “I am going to stay.”

The elder was utterly enraged. Spit flew from his lips. “Fool! You are throwing your life away! Abandoning your family for these tricksters and liars, and a fallen King who abandoned us!”

Before Ren could unleash a barrage of insults on the old boomer, Kael stepped forward.

He puffed out his broad, muscular chest. He looked at the exiled mother, then at the rest of the hesitant clan, and finally, he made a grand, booming declaration that made Ren’s soul temporarily leave her body.

“Ren is going to build a village!” Kael announced to the clearing.

“She is building a new home!” he continued smoothly, acting like the world’s most confident, unprompted campaign manager. “But she is going to need help to build it! If you stay, she will feed you! She will take care of you! She will be your Queen!”

Ren’s jaw unhinged. She wanted to tackle the giant tiger to the ground. Queen?! She couldn’t even manage her own sleep schedule, let alone a village of traumatized, shapeshifting predators!

The elder stared at Kael for a moment before bursting into a harsh, barking laugh of pure mockery.

“A village?” the elder scoffed, his gaze sweeping over Ren’s small, curvy frame in her grey fur dress. “Led by a female?! Is that a joke?”

He spat on the ground in disgust. “Females are for breeding and taking care of the dens! They are far too emotional, too weak, and too stupid to lead a clan! They belong on their backs, not on a throne!”

Ren’s eye twitched.

The sheer, unadulterated, prehistoric sexism hit her ears like a physical blow. Every single feminist sensibility she possessed, honed by years of surviving the male-dominated culinary industry, ignited into a blazing inferno.

’Oh, hell no,’ Ren thought, her blood boiling.

Ten seconds ago, Ren had absolutely zero interest in leading anyone. She didn’t want to be a Queen, a mayor, or a manager. She just wanted to cook her food and enjoy her hot husbands.

But now? Now she was going to build the biggest, most prosperous, most incredibly successful village in the history of the Beast World, just to rub it in this sexist, fossilized old tiger’s face. She was going to construct a metropolis out of pure, unadulterated spite.

Ren grabbed the ladle, dipped it into the cauldron, and filled a wooden bowl to the absolute brim with steaming, rich stew.

She marched forward and put the bowl into Katleen’s free hand.

“Eat,” Ren ordered the mother gently.

Then, Ren turned on her heel to face the entire crowd. She stood tall, squaring her shoulders, channeling the authority of an executive chef commanding a three-star kitchen.

“He’s right!” Ren announced, her voice ringing out crystal clear over the crackling fire. “I am building a village! And my village will be free to any and everyone who needs a safe home! I don’t care if you are a tiger, an ape, a stray, or a lizard! If you are hungry, I will feed you. If you are sick, I will take care of you!”

The crowd watched her in stunned, breathless silence.

“And hear this,” Ren continued, pointing a stern finger. “I won’t force anyone. Just because I feed you today does not mean you are obligated to stay and serve me tomorrow. You are not my prisoners. You are free people.”

Ren looked at the gaunt, conflicted faces of the White Tiger Clan, and the hopeful, teary eyes of the rogue strays. She felt exactly like a politician delivering a stump speech on the campaign trail, but the words flowing from her mouth were entirely genuine.

She shot one final, lethal glare at the elder before addressing the masses.

“The choice is yours,” Ren declared, crossing her arms. “And no one else’s.”

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