Who is it at this hour?
Instead of moving rashly, the rabbit sniffed the scent drifting from beyond the door. Originally, people each had different body scents, and rabbits had an excellent sense of smell. However, the problem was that even after smelling it, he couldn’t tell who it was.
It was an ambiguously familiar body scent, but no face came to mind. Still, the demons here don’t fling open doors and come in…
“Spirit Ravencoat, it’s urgent so I’m coming in.”
Click—the doorknob turned, and the rabbit jumped up with a start. He had to undo the animal transformation right away, but that took time. He was obviously going to be discovered. Beni, thrown into confusion, tried to go under the bed to hide his body immediately, but it was already too late.
The door opened.
“…Spirit Ravencoat?”
The room was excessively quiet. Marcel stopped at the entrance, looked around inside, then carefully closed the door. The room wasn’t very large, so one look around revealed every space.
Beni was nowhere to be seen in the room. Marcel looked at the empty bed with a somewhat bewildered expression before approaching the bathroom.
“Spirit Ravencoat, are you here? This is Marcel Chardiet, Captain of the Royal Guard. His Majesty the Demon King has words to convey, so I’ve taken the liberty of coming to see you.”
Marcel knocked on the bathroom door and waited, but no sound was heard. The sense of strangeness Marcel had felt from the moment he entered the room grew thicker. Swish—he turned his head to look at the bed. The neatly spread blanket, one pillow and two cushions, and…
A sleeve slightly sticking out from under the blanket.
Marcel approached with quick steps, grabbed the blanket and yanked it away—inside, only Beni’s clothes remained as if he’d shed his skin.
“What is this…”
If he’d left the palace, he wouldn’t have left all his clothes behind like this. Then, kidnapping? This too was laid out too neatly to say the clothes were forcibly removed. It was excessively awkward how the limbs were spread out as if only the body had been extracted.
At that moment, Marcel recalled that Beni was a half-blood with rabbit beastkin. Could it be he wasn’t a half-blood but just a beastkin? No, that’s impossible. A beastkin who wasn’t even a half-blood couldn’t have stayed long in the Demon Realm.
The Demon Realm had such dense mana concentration even in the air that beastkin suffered resistance to excessive mana just from breathing. The only beings who could freely come and go from the Demon Realm were dragons or superhumans who had surpassed some boundary.
But did Spirit Ravencoat look like a superhuman? Not at all. Even to say he was hiding his strength, the Beni he’d seen throughout the coronation ceremony earlier was far too much the appearance of a weakling. How he didn’t know what to do when poked from the side, how he turned deathly pale as if he’d faint when the Demon King looked at him—it all seemed genuine.
Then the possibility he’d done beast transformation should be considered nonexistent. But… other than that, it was difficult to clearly explain this situation.
Marcel stared intently at the clothes like snake shedding before raising his gaze toward the bed headboard. Two white cushions with fluffy fur. Marcel glared at those cushions before stretching out his arm and snatching one up.
“…Just a cushion.”
Putting the cushion back down on the bed, Marcel moved. Now that it was certain Beni had disappeared, he had to inform the Demon King immediately. This castle wasn’t a place one could easily escape from, so he was clearly still somewhere nearby.
Marcel quickly exited the bedroom, and silence flowed through the room once more.
Puhah—the cushion that had been lying neatly beside the pillow stirred, then two long ears popped out.
‘I-I thought I was going to die…!’
Beni gasped urgently for the breath he’d been holding and looked at the closed door. The memory of when he’d first come to this room and touched this cushion because it somehow seemed similar to himself flashed through his mind. There wasn’t enough time to go under the bed, so he’d risked his life pretending to be a cushion once—and it worked!
‘Thank goodness…’
Marcel, Captain of the Royal Guard. Beni etched information about the demon who had just come and gone into his mind. The owner of this cold, sunken scent was Marcel.
But if he’s Captain of the Royal Guard, that seems like an incredibly high rank…
Had he safely deceived such an amazing demon’s eyes? Realizing this belatedly, Beni somehow felt proud. To think playing hide-and-seek frequently from before would be this helpful. Though it wasn’t voluntary and was almost forced.
Trellou had called him over whenever he was bored to play hide-and-seek. Trellou was always “it,” and if caught by him, Beni had to be his wooden sword sparring partner for a long time. Though rather than sparring, he only had memories of being unilaterally beaten by the wooden sword.
Nevertheless, there was a reason Beni had no choice but to participate in that hide-and-seek. Though there was the fact he couldn’t defy Trellou, it was because it was the only opportunity to come out of his room and move around freely.
Therefore, Beni knew very well how to hide for as long as possible without any presence. He had to hold his breath as if dead and not show any sign of tension as if he couldn’t hear or see anything. Presence could be felt not just through simple sounds but also through the subtle flow of space, so he had to be as much like an inanimate object as possible.
He’d thought it was an insignificant ability.
The rabbit quietly hopped down from the bed and put his long ear to the door. No sound was heard.
Beni felt like he’d somehow found a way to stay without leaving this castle.
* * *
Even in late autumn, the sunlight beat down hotly and struck the farmer’s cheek. Even the fields at the Demon King’s Castle had very fertile soil that was well-maintained, so not only crops but weeds grew vigorously.
“Phew, it’s hot enough to die.”
The farmer wiped away the sweat flowing down his forehead, straightened his back fully, and looked around the field. For a field at the Demon King’s Castle, the weeds were lush and growing quite energetically.
Looking at the vast field, the farmer cried out despairingly as if for someone to hear.
“Oh my… when will I finish pulling all these weeds… I wish someone would help!”
The farmer moved his steps while exaggeratedly patting his back that had been bent for a long time.
“I’m tired, so I need to rest.”
While alone in the field, deliberately saying out loud where he was going. When the farmer had gone far away, the nearby bushes rustled, then a white ball of fluff popped up.
Beni—no, it would be more correct to call him a wild rabbit now.
Beni, who had been living as a wild rabbit at the Demon King’s Castle without permission for three months now, began to pluck and eat the weeds in the field.
