Chapter 159
For a moment, Cheshire thought she had returned after skipping not just a year, but at least five years or more.
But that wasn’t the case.
What on earth could have happened in that time to cause this?
While she stood frozen in shock at the sight of the grown Karha, he took a deep breath.
He roughly wiped the rainwater with the back of his hand and stepped even closer toward Cheshire.
With her eyes wide open, Cheshire suddenly recalled her first encounter with Karha.
To be precise, it wasn’t their absolute first meeting, but the day they properly faced each other and exchanged names was similar to now.
Karha had sensed the concealed Cheshire with his beast-like instincts.
Chasing her for a long time because he smelled flowers, they had ended up in a pursuit around the underground prison.
Even now, Karha seemed to have caught the floral scent from Cheshire.
If it weren’t raining, Cheshire would have been caught by him in an instant.
“Flower scent.”
Murmuring softly just like that day, Karha reached out his hand.
The slowly approaching touch sliced through the empty air.
It was while she stared with round eyes at his hand, drenched in rain.
“Lord Karha.”
A low voice pierced through the pouring rain.
A man with his eyes covered by a cloth embroidered with intricate patterns landed lightly on the ground.
It was Jahan, the Master’s direct subordinate.
“Lord Belzeon summons you.”
“I’ll go later.”
“It’s regarding Lady Cheshire.”
Karha, who had seemed ready to ignore any words, immediately turned at that single sentence.
Before Cheshire could even grab him, he vanished into the rain in an instant.
It felt like a dream.
Wondering what this was all about, she snapped back to reality belatedly.
‘This isn’t the time!’
Cheshire hurriedly tried to peel off the flower on her forehead but hesitated.
“….”
She bit her lower lip hard with her small teeth.
‘He’s changed so suddenly…. He won’t be too shocked, right?’
It had only been a year.
Growing from a baby to a child in that time was impossible.
She worried about what reaction he would have upon seeing her changed self.
She thought he would surely accept it nonchalantly, but on the other hand, she was scared.
Inwardly, Cheshire mumbled excuses.
‘Of course, it’s not just because I’m afraid of the reaction. I also need to assess the situation in various ways!’
Even Hata, who knew well that the Basilians were abnormal, had mentioned that the three brothers were strange lately.
As family, Cheshire was curious about their circumstances.
But the Basilians would never tell Cheshire honestly.
Neither Kierne nor the three brothers ever showed their bad sides, always hiding them.
The fact that Karha was now wandering around in adult form.
The things that happened while Cheshire was missing….
They were likely to bury it all without any explanation.
She intended to use this opportunity to find out exactly what everyone had been up to in the meantime.
Attaching back the flower she had been about to remove, Cheshire swiftly left a mark on the retreating Jahan.
“…?”
Jahan, who had been brushing back his wet hair, felt a slight oddness and looked around.
But the rain-soaked alley was empty.
Jahan soon averted his gaze and moved to where Belzeon was.
Jahan had originally lived an unremarkable life.
If anything stood out, it was that his ancestors hailed from the distant eastern continent.
Except for his uniquely named after the eastern language, he was boringly ordinary.
However, Jahan’s peaceful life was shattered overnight.
Because he had seen something he shouldn’t have.
As a price, he gained cursed eyes.
One day, while wandering without belonging anywhere, a man came to him.
A man with raven-black hair and eyes like red rubies, striking in impression.
He didn’t recoil in disgust at Jahan, whose face was wrapped in tattered cloth.
He approached without hesitation and simply asked.
“What did you see?”
Jahan confessed the story he couldn’t tell anyone else honestly.
“The death of a fairy.”
He hadn’t directly witnessed the fairy dying.
He had found the rotting forest and fields strange, then grew curious upon hearing it was due to a mad fairy, and went to investigate.
And by chance, he discovered the spot where the fairy had died.
It was a scene beyond words in its mystery.
A pitch-black forest where everything rotted and decayed.
Only the place where the fairy died sparkled with radiant light.
The shattering light and scattering petals were fairytale-like in beauty, but surrounded by the gloomy landscape, it appeared cruel at a glance.
Enraptured by the mystical sight, Jahan felt excruciating pain belatedly.
Screaming as if his eyeballs were being plucked out.
Rolling on the ground, shedding bloody tears, when he finally came to.
Jahan’s eyes were ruined.
The whites and blacks had completely vanished, replaced entirely by green pupils.
The round pupils had become vertically pointed like a reptile’s.
Moreover, snake scales had sprouted here and there on his body.
Affected by the power emitted as the fairy died, he had partially undergone beastkin transformation.
Jahan, now neither beastkin nor human, despaired.
The grotesquely changed eyes couldn’t be hidden.
Inevitably returning to the village as is, he was stoned as a monster.
Barely escaping, Jahan tore cloth and wrapped his face like a mummy to cover his eyes.
While wandering here and there like that, the man came.
Upon hearing Jahan’s story, the man gleamed with interest.
“Must have been quite a powerful fairy. To beastkin-ize a human….”
He propped Jahan’s chin up with the end of his staff.
Jahan, who had been staring only at the ground to hide his hideous eyes, was forced to meet the man’s gaze directly.
Even seeing the small snake scales around his eyes and the green-filled eyes without whites, the man showed not a trace of revulsion.
His bright red pupils were filled solely with interest and amusement.
“I like that you’re a snake beastkin.”
The man whispered with a wry chuckle.
“Want to work under me?”
Thus, Jahan became a subordinate of the Backworld’s master, Kierne Basilian.
Being turned into a half-beastkin was despairing, but it had advantages.
He had gained inhuman strength.
The Backworld was a gathering place for all sorts of bizarre beings.
An ordinary human couldn’t handle the entities of the Backworld.
Jahan fully utilized his advantages, faithfully serving as the Master’s proxy.
However, Jahan alone couldn’t handle everything, so Kierne brought his sons and employed them as subordinates too.
The eldest, Belzeon, handled various paperwork.
The twin brothers maintained order in the Backworld as ‘Executioners’ alongside Jahan.
However, they couldn’t reveal their Basilian identity, so the three brothers altered their appearances.
By drinking potions made with beastkin power to transform into adult bodies.
Beastkin capable of brewing potions were extremely rare.
Currently, there were only two across the entire continent.
The beastkin Kierne kept, and the witch’s dog.
But the witch’s dog was known to only make simple-level potions.
‘When he first brought Lady Cheshire, he fed her the potion.’
Wondering if perhaps she had been transformed by a beastkin potion, he had secretly mixed an antidote into her food after the magic restraint.
Yet the child didn’t revert to an adult.
After confirming she was truly a baby, Kierne gradually opened his heart to Cheshire.
The little baby had become a massive pillar for House Basilian before long.
‘Where could Lady Cheshire be?’
Jahan thought of those sparkling pink eyes.
If Lady Cheshire were here, surely none of this would have happened.
Lately, House Basilian had become completely strange.
They were committing acts they shouldn’t, yet no one could stop them.
Even though they were doing things Lady Cheshire would hate if she knew….
Jahan couldn’t even muster the courage to dissuade them.
They were already going mad.
If he tried to stop them recklessly, it might veer in an even worse direction.
As in the past, and now.
The only one who could control the men of House Basilian was Lady Cheshire.
‘I hope nothing happens.’
Jahan anxiously swallowed dryly and looked at the brothers conversing before him.
“…In the Skaya royal family?”
Hearing Belzeon’s words, Karha frowned and asked back.
“Why?”
His voice rose slightly, as if agitated.
“She should come to us, the Basilians, first of course. There’s no reason for her to be there. She can even teleport with fairy power….”
The man rubbing the smooth mahogany desk with his fingers let out a scoff.
Belzeon, in his adult form, resembled his father Kierne a lot, but he exuded a colder, more frigid aura.
With icy eyes, Belzeon wore a faintly twisted smile on his lips.
“Exactly.”
He whispered in a frozen voice.
“Maybe she’s sick and tired of scum like us by now.”
