“Where on earth did you pick up something like this?”
After feeding Belly, the place I headed to was Rose’s house. Rose had given me her house key, telling me to visit anytime, but I usually almost never went there. Though I personally thought of her as a close older sister, Rose had a professional position to consider.
But in this situation, she was the only person who could help us.
Rose seemed to have been working late into the night, as she looked at us tiredly while exuding the scent of coffee. Well, given what I’d done at the auction house, she probably couldn’t rest.
“Um… I just picked him up while wandering around.”
Rose looked Belly up and down from various angles as he clung tightly to my back, refusing to let go. It was a gaze like examining a zoo animal.
“A beastman…”
Belly glared at Rose with sharp eyes. Well, even I would feel bad if someone looked at me the way Rose was looking. But we were in a position where we needed her help. And if Carl pulled another stunt like this time, I might have my nose cut off with my eyes open.
I sighed deeply inside. When I first brought Belly along, I didn’t think things would get this complicated. Thinking about it now, I seemed to have gotten too excited about meeting a main character and thought too optimistically.
Anyway, as long as Belly had this firm determination not to leave me, it was too late to send him back now. Rather, if I forcibly separated a child who didn’t want to be separated this much, the affection he had for me would reverse and turn into ill feelings. He might think he was being abandoned.
Somehow, I felt inwardly gloomy that my initial choice to pick him up thoughtlessly for fun seemed to be complicating the situation. This was why people shouldn’t act without thinking.
“Belly won’t leave Master’s side.”
“Good heavens…”
Rose’s eyes shone even brighter at Belly’s words, as if she found it interesting. They sparkled even more than the lamp lighting the room. Receiving that gaze directly was truly burdensome.
“Jack. Did you perhaps use some kind of drug?”
“What? A drug? What kind of drug?”
When I widened my eyes and questioned back at Rose’s words, Rose nodded her head as if she already knew my answer.
“Well, where would this kid get the money to obtain drugs anyway.”
What she was saying was absurd.
I’ve already been living in this world for several years. My morals as a modern person had disappeared to some extent too. Nevertheless, the shameless act of using drugs was beyond me. My withered modern person’s morality writhed as if struggling desperately. Besides, even if I wanted to use them, I didn’t know the channels through which such drugs were distributed, and as Rose said, I didn’t have the money.
Rose muttered, lost in her own thoughts.
“No, how can a beastman voluntarily submit without even using drugs?”
“Rose. Is this really such a strange thing?”
“Of course! Do you even know how rare wild beastmen are when you say that? If you say you don’t know, I’ll have no choice but to schedule education time for you.”
I’ve only been in this world for a few years. In short, I was somewhat lacking in common sense. Unlike the studies taught by the guild, common sense was something that accumulated while living in this world.
But I usually didn’t go anywhere to hang out, and I had no friends. In the stories people chatted about at the tavern, there was nothing related to beastmen. Though they were occasionally mentioned in the pulp novels I often read, unless it was a book like a history text, you couldn’t trust 100% of the information in such novels.
But if it appeared even in pulp novels, that meant everyone knew about it… I felt momentarily flustered by my own stupidity.
“Wild beastman?”
“Ha… You really didn’t study.”
Rose pressed one hand to her forehead as if she had a headache. I stared blankly at Rose like that. Feeling my gaze, Rose then gestured for me to sit down. Following the gesture, as I sat on the sofa, Belly also sat down right next to me, pressing his bottom against mine as if he’d been waiting for it.
“You read a lot of books normally. So why don’t you know?”
“The stuff I read doesn’t have that kind of thing…”
“Ha… Jack, try reading some helpful books.”
No, that’s too harsh. Though I do have somewhat biased taste in books, so what? Isn’t it better than not reading books at all? Of course, I didn’t know the common sense that everyone else apparently knew…
The space between my eyebrows narrowed at the rising frustration and annoyance. Belly seemed to notice my sulky mood and gently caressed my hand.
The Belly before the kidnapping was quite cold. Even if there was affection flowing subtly, the fact that his behavior was sharp-tongued was an undeniable fact. His appearance at the auction house didn’t even need to be mentioned. He had rejected me outright. He wouldn’t even show me his face.
However, after the dramatic escape, that appearance had completely melted away, and now he was even acting cute like this. It was such a cute appearance that it wouldn’t be strange to say he was a dog beastman rather than a lizard beastman.
Of course, separate from being cute, it was bewildering. What did I even do…
“Beastmen are rare to see, but high-ranking nobles have one or two in their houses. Things like merfolk are surprisingly common. Since they’re distributed from the Ripinum Kingdom. For commoners like us, we might see them once or twice in our lifetime.”
One or two. At the tone that blatantly treated them like animals, I glanced at Belly. But Belly was staring intently at me as if he didn’t care what Rose said. Because of that, our eyes met.
Looking at his two pupils, I felt as if there were only him and me in this world. His face, smiling with beautifully curved eyes, was truly something that, if this were modern times, would have debuted somehow, whether as a child actor or whatever.
It wouldn’t be strange to call him not a beastman but a star fallen to earth. I know my own thoughts are a bit excessive, but anyone would find a child as cute as Belly lovely when they sparkled with affection directed at them.
“Ahem…”
Because I was staring at Belly too blankly, Rose redirected my attention with a fake cough. This behavior was clearly wrong when in the middle of a conversation with someone. When I awkwardly turned my head, Rose was looking at both of us as if bewildered.
“I’m sorry.”
“…Well, okay.”
Though she sent a slightly dumbfounded look, Rose fortunately continued speaking without getting angry.
“And wild beastmen are literally beastmen living in the wild. Beastmen without owners.”
There were more than one or two parts I wanted to tackle. Wild beastmen? Owners? These were words premised on the idea that beastmen were beings that people should own. Well, in this world where even people could be owned, things like beastmen’s human rights were essentially nonexistent.
Well, that’s how all worlds inside novels are. It was ridiculous to think this way when they weren’t even real people in the first place.
“Wild beastmen really hate people and absolutely won’t follow them, so normally when they’re captured, they’re brainwashed with drugs or magic. If they don’t do that, they might kill their owner, so it’s dangerous.”
“Belly won’t kill Master.”
Belly, speaking with a bright smile, was so adorable that the words about possibly killing me didn’t suit him at all. He was like a cat rolling over completely and purring. The affection he sent me was as soft as silk.
However, Rose said with a suspicious expression, propping her chin, as if she couldn’t believe what Belly was saying.
“I wonder?”
Separate from being displeased, she seemed to have handed all decision-making power to me. Since his owner was me, she probably judged that I also had the right to choose. Though I wasn’t his owner in the first place, it was fortunate that I had the right to choose.
Belly said once more with docile eyebrows.
“I won’t kill him.”
“But there are quite a lot of nobles who actually died at the hands of wild beastmen. That’s why they brainwash them even more thoroughly.”
Rose sent me a worried look. Seeing that look, one corner of my heart filled up fully.
“Rose, I’m fine.”
“…”
“And honestly speaking… what’s dangerous to me right now is Carl.”
At my words, Rose’s face hardened stiffly. Actually, if there had been any other way, I wouldn’t have asked Rose for help. But while the suspicion was clear, there was no evidence. Without evidence, my claim was just slander.
There was even another problem. Just as Rose had brought me, Carl was also a child Rose had brought. Rose was my guardian, but at the same time, she was Carl’s guardian too.
Moreover, Carl and I were just 10-year-old children. I was concerned that no matter how much I denounced Carl as dangerous, it might be treated as just a light fight between children.
“Haa… Right. You’re correct.”
But contrary to my concerns, Rose coolly acknowledged my suspicion. Complex emotions were seeping into her eyes. It was a different appearance from what I’d expected—that she wouldn’t believe me.
“You… knew about it?”
“Who do you think I am?”
That’s right. Rose was the guild leader of an information guild. If someone like that, especially regarding the affairs of children she herself brought, didn’t know about it, she should put down her guild leader title. There was a high possibility she even had evidence I didn’t know about.
“So from now on, please take measures so this kind of thing never happens to Belly again.”
“…What about you? The one Carl targeted this time was you.”
Rose’s gaze struck straight.
That was right. Carl’s malice was directed at me. No matter how much he tried to hide the base emotion of trying to hurt me somehow, it crawled out. Like how even if you throw trash in a trash can, the smell flows out through the cracks.
