Chapter 95

At the same time. In the corridor of the main castle.

“No.”

“Do it.”

“No.”

“I said do it! You have to follow the scent and find Bibi!”

Crackle.

Sparks seemed to fly between Lucas and Kyle’s sharpened gazes.

“But it smells way too awful! I hate this even more than the poison that woman forced me to swallow before!”

Kyle had realized something was terribly wrong the moment Guide pulled out the sock.

That horrible smell.

Before he could even begin tracking the scent of the long white bundle of fur, something dark and sinister had already overwhelmed him.

That sock was a weapon.

Even the strongest monster in existence would run away from anyone carrying that thing.

“I’m not doing it! It stinks!”

With an indignant huff, Kyle turned his face away from the sock altogether.

His sense of smell was already exceptionally sharp. If he had to breathe in that stench right under his nose, he might actually die.

That was when—

“Um... Y-Young Lord Lucas?”

The person who had been standing silently between them spoke in a timid voice.

It was Guide.

“What?”

When Lucas answered, Guide glanced at Kyle, who had turned away in a sulk, then whispered quietly.

“Is K-Kyle perhaps... some kind of cat person?”

“Something like that. You can think of him as half monster and half human.”

“Oh. S-so that’s why his sense of smell is so sensitive.”

“Why?”

Lucas asked again, but Guide did not answer. His expression turned thoughtful as he began working something out in his head.

Then, as though he had finally made up his mind, he clenched his trembling fists, jerked his head up, and called out.

“K-Kyle!”

“What?”

“The s-sock is all the way over here, but you can still smell it from that far away! That’s a-amazing!”

Then he gave Kyle an emphatic thumbs-up.

Lucas stared at him with wide eyes.

He’s supposed to be a monster trainer. Is he trying to train Kyle?

It was surprisingly brave for such a crybaby.

It would have been more convincing if the thumb he was holding up had not been shaking like a leaf.

Kyle stared at the trembling thumb for a moment, then raised an eyebrow.

“Can’t you see older brother Lucas is plugging his nostrils too? It’s not because I’m amazing. It’s because your sock is amazing.”

This was bad.

Kyle was unexpectedly smart.

What do I do?

Lucas was still reeling from that razor-sharp rebuttal when—

“Y-Young Lord Lucas.”

Another whisper reached him.

“S-sorry, but could you u-unplug your nose? I d-don’t think Kyle believes my compliment.”

“...Huh?”

The unexpected request made Lucas flinch. His fingers were still firmly pinching his nose shut.

When he turned his head, the courageous boy was staring at him with his brows drawn into a determined slant, sock in hand.

I really don’t want to...

But Guide was right.

If Lucas kept his own nose plugged, Kyle would never agree to smell it either.

There was no helping it.

If that crybaby was refusing to give up, then Lucas, as a young lord of the Kreutz family, had to do his part as well.

“...Okay.”

At last, Lucas released his nose.

“It d-doesn’t smell at all, right?”

“Ugh.”

Guide held the sock out as he spoke.

At the exact same moment, Lucas’s face twisted and he collapsed limply onto the floor.

But he was the sole heir of the Kreutz family.

Even if he fell, he still had a mission to complete.

“Yeah. Doesn’t. Smell. At all.”

Guide’s face lit up.

“S-see! K-Kyle is the only one who can smell it!”

Perhaps their desperate efforts finally bore fruit.

Kyle, who had been glaring at the two of them with narrowed eyes, finally turned his head.

“...Really?”

“O-of course! And if K-Kyle tracks B-Bibi’s scent and finds her, L-Lady Aisha will be really happy!”

“Huh? Really?”

At the sound of Aisha’s name, Kyle’s ears practically perked up like a rabbit’s.

Lucas, lying on the floor and clinging faintly to consciousness, suddenly thought,

We should’ve mentioned Aisha from the beginning...

Kyle would do anything if it involved Aisha.

If they had simply told him that from the start, Lucas would never have needed to smell the sock and collapse in the first place....

Oblivious to his suffering, Guide continued persuading Kyle.

“O-of course! L-Lady Aisha is the young lady of the Kreutz family, after all. If you solve a problem happening at the ducal estate, she might even praise you and call you a h-hero!”

“Gasp. A hero?”

The word hero made Kyle rush over at once.

During lessons with his tutor, Kyle had learned that hero was an extremely good title.

“Aisha will praise me and call me a hero?”

“Yes!”

“Then I’ll do it! Give me the sock!”

Kyle immediately snatched the sock from Guide’s hand and sniffed it.

The claim that it had no smell at all had been a lie.

Even so, Kyle did not complain. Through the atrocious reek of feet, he managed to pick out Bibi’s scent.

Then Kyle began sniffing the air—

“That way!”

He pointed in one direction.

Startled, Guide immediately scampered off that way on his short legs.

“B-Bibi! I’m coming!”

“I’m coming too!”

Kyle started after him, only to stop and look down.

His gaze landed on Lucas, who had now completely lost consciousness.

Older brother Lucas is heavy. Should I just leave him?

If Lucas remained lying in the corridor, a passing knight would eventually notice him and carry him back to his room anyway.

But—

“O-of course! L-Lady Aisha is the young lady of the Kreutz family, after all. If you solve a problem happening at the ducal estate, she might even praise you and call you a h-hero!”

“...I’m a hero.”

Remembering Guide’s words, Kyle muttered solemnly.

He had learned during lessons that heroes never abandoned people.

That was right.

No matter how heavy Lucas was, a hero saved people to the very end.

“Up we go!”

In the end, Kyle hoisted the unconscious Lucas over his shoulder and followed after Guide, dragging Lucas’s much longer legs along the floor behind him.

None of them knew.

The scent they were chasing was leading them straight toward the ice cave where Aisha was.

***

“...Who are you?”

The ice cave was supposed to be completely empty except for me.

The creature I had mistaken for a ghost and nearly panicked over was now shoving its face right in front of mine.

“I’m Bibi, you little fool. Haven’t you been calling my name this whole time?”

The instant I got a proper look at her, my fear turned into sheer bewilderment.

“Yes. I have, but...”

At a loss for words, I finally shut my mouth.

This monster was calling herself Bibi with her own mouth...

A tiny ferret monster yelling at me in human speech.

Was this normal?

And how old was she supposed to be for her voice to sound so much like an old woman’s?

As I stared blankly, unable to say anything, the old-lady monster’s eyebrows rose at a sharp angle.

With arms far too short to actually touch, she mimed folding them across her chest.

“Good grief, good grief... You vacant little thing. Looking like that, do you really think you can last even one day in this ice cave?”

Wow.

Now she was even nagging me.

I stared at Bibi in fascination.

“Um... Grandma...”

“Bibi!”

“Y-yes. Bibi. When did you learn human language?”

At my question, Bibi’s black-bean eyes went perfectly round.

“Human language? What nonsense is that? No matter how much you kept ignoring me, this old lady kept yelling and yelling until you finally came to your senses!”

What?

So there’s nothing wrong with my head?

Blink. Blink.

I slowly blinked, then pinched and stretched one round cheek with my fingertips.

“Ow.”

It hurt, so this probably was not a dream.

...Then am I understanding the language of monsters?

How?

Needless to say, this had never appeared in the original novel either.

But—

Protect Aisha! Don’t hurt any humans. Follow Aisha!

I suddenly remembered Kyle’s voice echoing inside my head.

Back when the dark magic had forced me to obey Duke Pose’s commands.

Father and I had nearly ended up in danger.

Then Kyle’s voice suddenly rang inside my head, and the dark magic broke.

Come to think of it, hearing Kyle’s voice in my head had already been strange.

And even more strangely, his command had not been directed at me.

It had been directed at the monsters.

It had all been incredibly strange, but at the time, too much had been happening for me to stop and think about it.

Could this somehow be connected to that?

“Hmm...”

Who was I supposed to ask about this?

Should I tell Father when he came back later?

While I stroked my chin in thought—

Plop.

Something landed on my knee.

I snapped back to reality and looked down.

It was drool.

“Little one, it’s about time you gave me some b-bread. This old lady is hungry and cold.”

Drool dripping from her mouth, Bibi held out one slender pink paw toward me.

Good grief.

“Here you go, Grandma Bibi.”

She looked ready to leap onto my face again if I refused, so I pulled the bread from inside my jacket and handed it over.

Bibi snatched it up in a flash and began devouring it ravenously.

Watching her carefully, I slipped in another question.

“By the way, Grandma Bibi.”

“Yes?”

“Why did you come here?”

Bibi froze.

Until that moment, Grandma Bibi had been aggressively working her front teeth through the bread.

After hesitating for a moment, she glanced at me with an expression that suggested she was not sure whether she ought to say it.

Then—

“...I ran away.”

“What?”

“Guide got locked in his room because of me. I figured that boy would be better off if this old lady wasn’t around, so I ran away.”

She muttered it as though it were nothing and went back to eating her bread.