Calypse had told himself not to expect it.
Surely a kitten wouldn’t actually transform into a person.
But if it could—if that was real—
Then how was he supposed to regard that wretched cat that had been sleeping beside Aisha in her bed just a few nights ago?
A beast? A man? A cat?
Remarkably, in Calypse’s internal dictionary, all three words meant precisely the same thing.
…If the cat killed a person, there is a possibility it can transform into a human.
The moment he’d heard Knox say that down in the dungeon, Calypse had taken off down the corridor at a dead run.
Please, no, he told himself as he threw open Aisha’s bedroom door—
“…Father?”
A startled Aisha looked up with the eyes of a rabbit.
And beside her stood a boy of similar height.
White hair falling across his forehead. Violet eyes—the mark of the Creatures. A face that bore an uncanny resemblance to that cat.
……
The tendons on the back of the hand gripping the doorframe stood out like rope.
If Aisha hadn’t been there, every curse word he’d been suppressing would have come pouring out of his mouth.
But—
“Boy. Come out.”
Aisha was watching.
“Why?”
But the boy simply blinked his innocent eyes and asked back.
Even that was in informal speech.
So it can speak human language—and still acts like a wild animal.
A faint, humorless laugh escaped him as he crossed the room and seized the boy by the wrist.
“……?”
The boy’s eyes went wide as he was dragged along.
“Kail! Don’t kill him, don’t kill him! Father—don’t kill him either!”
Aisha’s urgent voice faded behind the bedroom door as Calypse pulled it shut with a bang.
________________________________________
In the study.
“They say that killing a person causes transformation—are you truly that kitten?”
The absurd question left Calypse’s jaw rigid as he asked it.
The boy still wore an expression entirely free of anything resembling fear, staring up at Calypse.
Then he let out a slow breath—like a quiet sigh—and nodded.
“To be precise—drinking human blood is what allows the transformation. Killing is just what happens along the way.”
“Then the moment you transformed, you went to Aisha. Why?”
“To go home.”
Home?
Calypse, who had been grinding his back teeth in an attempt to contain his fury, felt one eyebrow rise slowly.
“Yeah. Home. If you lose something, you have to get it back.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Being a creature, apparently its manner of speaking was peculiar too.
Knox, standing nearby, gently attempted to translate.
“My interpretation is that during the young lady’s time as a Creature—the cat was always in her bedroom—and slept with her. So it refers to her bedroom as home…”
Crack—
The sound of one armrest of the chair breaking was enough to make Knox snap his mouth shut in a hurry.
It was not something to be angry about with a child who hadn’t even reached puberty—but irritating was irritating.
Best to move on to something else.
If this kept up, the left armrest was also in danger.
He closed his eyes briefly, steadied himself, and redirected.
“So why did you kill the maid? Was it to trigger a transformation?”
“Transformation doesn’t require killing someone. I just need to drink their blood.”
“Then why did you kill her.”
At Calypse’s question, the boy was quiet for a moment.
That impassive, fearless expression made him furious—but—
“I never intended to drink her blood.”
What came next was unexpected enough that it extinguished his anger before it could rise.
“…What?”
“I was just going to kill her. Though Aisha scolded me about it afterward.”
Calypse and Knox’s expressions shifted, just slightly.
He had intended to kill her from the start—not to feed?
“It’s because Aisha keeps scolding me every time I become human. She makes becoming human feel awful. I wanted to stay a cat forever, for the rest of my life.”
Apparently just thinking about it was enough to make the boy aggrieved. He gave the floor a light kick with one foot.
“Then why kill her at all?”
“That person had no smell.”
“Smell?”
“People usually have a smell. You smell. And you smell.”
He pointed at Calypse and Knox in turn.
“The smell of humans entangled with other humans. A smell that says—this person will be missed if they’re gone. But that woman had no smell.”
“…What does that mean?”
“People without that smell are usually those waiting to die alone.”
The boy answered without hesitation, but Calypse’s gaze had slid to Knox. He was requesting an interpretation.
“I’m afraid I don’t know either, my lord.”
But even Knox—the chairman of MSLA—could only shake his head slowly.
This was getting complicated.
Thoroughly frustrated, Calypse smoothed his hair back and pressed on.
“You say she had no smell. That still doesn’t explain why you killed her.”
“Because there was a high chance she was planning to abduct Aisha.”
And then—out of nowhere—came an answer that needed no interpretation at all.
“……?”
“?”
A hush descended over the study.
Both Calypse and Knox stared at the boy, then looked at each other.
“Abduct? Was something happening at the palace?”
“When I found the young lady, she and the boy had already vanished through a portal. I don’t know what occurred before that either…”
Knox pushed his slipping monocle back up and murmured under his breath.
“It does seem there is something that needs to be looked into.”
Of course there was.
And besides—this boy didn’t seem clever enough to tell convincing lies. Whatever he said was almost certainly the truth.
“Abduct. What do you mean?”
Calypse stood from his chair and crouched down to meet the boy’s eye level for a proper conversation.
The boy held his gaze without flinching and answered.
“When Aisha took me somewhere far away—there was a human with no smell who was tailing Aisha, watching her the entire time.”
Thud—
Calypse felt his heart drop. Someone had been watching Aisha—when had this started? How had none of them noticed?
Not a single one of them had caught on.
“At the time, I wanted to ask Aisha something, so I was considering becoming human. And the person had no smell—so I thought killing them wouldn’t make Aisha sad.”
“…What?”
He couldn’t follow everything, but one thing came through with absolute clarity.
This creature—had it been concerned about Aisha being sad?
The thought crossed his mind in a flash, but Calypse kept his lips pressed shut and let the boy continue.
“But then that person suddenly abducted Aisha. At first they called her name—I thought they knew each other, so I watched. But then—”
“You watched, and then?”
“They hit Aisha across the face while she was sleeping. So I thought—ah, this one is fine to kill—and I killed them.”
“……”
A silence settled over the study again.
Heavier this time. And considerably colder.
“And the maid was the same reason?”
“Yes.”
Good thing.
That the expression currently sitting on his own face was apparently frightening enough—and yet the boy had nodded back without a second thought.
Then the boy looked up at the ceiling for a moment. Something seemed to be occurring to him.
“There was something else strange.”
“Tell me.”
“After that person had come and gone, the man in the next cell was making a tremendous amount of noise. Going on about how he was going to escape now, how Duke Foss had decent service, things like that.”
“A spy.”
“A spy, my lord.”
With the boy’s final piece of information, the full picture fell into place. Duke Foss had placed a spy on Aisha.
The reason was obvious—to monitor whether she was carrying out her mission properly.
“…Right.”
The matter of the berserk potion had to be used to bring House Foss to its knees. As quickly as possible.
Calypse stood, his thoughts already multiplying. Then he paused and looked back down at the boy.
So what do I do with this Creature?
“……?”
The boy tilted his head curiously at the pointed look.
When he’d discovered him in the bedroom, he had been one wrong word away from doing something extremely unpleasant.
But—he can identify spies by smell?
Having spoken with him, the boy was proving to be surprisingly useful. A personal guard for Aisha—the fit was almost perfect.
Arms crossed, Calypse furrowed his brow.
And then—
“Well done.”
“…What?”
“Killing the person without a smell. Very well done.”
He reached up and ruffled the boy’s white head roughly.
“But Aisha says people shouldn’t be killed—”
“The ones without a smell aren’t people. So the next time you find someone without a smell near Aisha—kill them.”
“…What?”
The sudden praise left the violet eyes blinking up at him in bewilderment, and then the boy gave a small nod.
And so, a few days later—
“Hey.”
“…Are you moving into our estate?”
A transformed Kail began appearing at Krost Estate. And with considerable frequency.
________________________________________
