A pastel evening had settled beyond the window, and the fact that the child was not in this room gave a light tap to some deep place in his heart.
He had expected her to be rolling about on the wide bed, or running around with her little friends.
At the fact that the child had disappeared, an inexplicable unease spread out like ripples.
Calisto was seized by a sudden feeling of tightness in his chest.
It was exactly like the time he first learned that there was a blank in his memory.
“My, so you were all gathered here?”
“Ah, Kora!”
“Kora!”
“Have you seen the little one, by any chance?”
At Peril’s worried voice, Kora tilted her head.
“Well now, I would think every servant in the castle passed by the little one at least once today?”
On Kora’s face, fine wrinkles bloomed along with a gentle smile.
At her steady expression, Calisto felt the tension in one corner of his heart settle without his realizing it.
“As a matter of fact, I saw the little one running down the corridor like an arrow. I believe she went to the ‘Old Archive Storeroom,’ if I’m not mistaken.”
“The Old Archive Storeroom?”
The ‘Old Archive Storeroom’ was one of the oldest places in the Ruventain Grand Ducal House. It was an old, quiet space hidden in a deep corner of the castle, one the servants rarely entered.
It had once been a place for storing books, records, and collections, but now only dust-laden curiosities and old toys remained, and it was a place only the young servants occasionally visited out of curiosity.
Peril was perplexed as to how the little one had ended up all the way there, but Calisto, as if he had no time to ponder, headed toward the storeroom with quick steps.
“It’s been quite a while.”
Calisto pushed open the old storeroom door with effort.
The door creaked, making a grating sound. The smell of dust aged by long years stung the tip of his nose, but Calisto did not hesitate.
Moonlight slipping through the gaps in the window flowed between the shattered silence, softly illuminating Ailien’s small silhouette.
He was about to let out a breath of relief when he stopped in his tracks.
Ailien was not alone.
“Who are you?”
Calisto’s voice rang cold.
“You are someone I have never seen before.”
Calisto knew the circumstances of every single person who worked in the Grand Ducal Castle. The combination of black hair and yellow eyes was rare enough that he had no choice but to be all the more wary.
‘It is certainly a rare combination, so why does it feel familiar?’
Even as he thought that, his hand moved unconsciously toward his sword. A taut tension filled the storeroom.
“Oh, the sword is here!”
Ailien, utterly unconcerned with that tension, cried out in a bright voice.
“Ailien, come here…….”
“There, there, don’t be scared.”
“What?”
“This is Kiki!”
“……What?”
Calisto doubted his ears.
“Kiki is your friend, that is to say, a cat, is she not?”
“The sword has eyes, so he can see it is not, right now!”
At Ailien’s spirited answer, Calisto lowered his hand again and gazed steadily at the black-haired girl.
The moment he saw the yellow eyes that, far from being frightened, looked as if this whole situation were annoying her to death, along with that blunt expression, Calisto was left speechless.
Am I dreaming right now?
“Ahem, Lili turned Kiki into a person!”
“Good heavens, Zeronias.”
And the one most startled in this space was Peril, who stood behind Calisto.
Since the Human-Demon War, the people of the empire—and of the continent—always called out to Zeronias whenever something astonishing happened.
She was now a savior closer to humanity than the gods themselves.
“Hm?”
The response came from somewhere closer.
“What?”
“You called, didn’t you!”
Ailien looked up at Peril with shining eyes. Just as Peril, unable to grasp what this small, cute little one was trying to say, was putting on an awkward smile.
“Whoa!”
Calisto, who had been watching the scene from behind with a hand pressed to his forehead, seized Ailien by the collar and lifted her up.
The child, limbs dangling comfortably like a kitten caught by the scruff of its neck, let out a squeal as she was carried in front of Calisto.
“So that woman is Kiki.”
When Calisto, meeting Ailien at eye level, asked in a serious voice, the child scrunched her brow deeply.
“Eit.”
Oh, she even stomped her feet and fussed.
“How many times does the sword have to ask before he believes? Will you believe it if Lili says it fifty-two thousand times?”
“No, that’s not what I mean.”
“That’s Kiki, that’s Kiki, that’s Kiki, that’s Kiki…… mmph!”
Calisto covered with his hand the mouth that was wriggling as if she truly meant to chant it fifty-two thousand times until he believed.
Though he was also a little curious just how many times fifty-two thousand times was.
“What kind of little creature is this, really.”
He said it like a sigh, but the corners of Calisto’s mouth were turned up. Ailien, with only her large eyes visible, also curved her eyes into a smile.
Calisto slowly rose and stood before the stranger.
From her, who seemed to exist on the boundary between girl and woman, a familiar presence could be faintly felt. That abyssal magic—cold yet warm, impossible to explain by anything—was unmistakably Zeronias’s.
Calisto looked in turn at Kiki, at Ailien, and at the heart wand and old hobby horse in the girl’s hands.
‘That hobby horse.’
It was something Marilyn had given him as a gift when he was young.
Calisto, lips pressed firmly together, could not take his eyes off the hobby horse.
Even the memory of playing on it was dim and distant. A faint smile, exactly as faint as that memory, formed at the corners of his mouth.
“Can you maintain that form?”
“No. I can maintain it for about half a day.”
“So it is thanks to Marilyn’s power.”
“…Yes.”
At Kiki’s answer, Calisto finally turned his head.
“From today, you are Ailien’s personal maid.”
The command was concise. But within it was certainty. Calisto had instinctively realized that no one in this castle would cherish and look after Ailien as much as this cat girl.
“For the other half of the day, you may simply stay by her side as a cat.”
“What?”
It was Peril who was flustered.
“Let it be known only to the two of us that Kiki is a cat.”
“Even so, so suddenly!”
“Yes!”
A servant of the Grand Ducal House had to go through all the proper procedures in order to be employed. It was a place only those of certain identity could enter.
So just as he was about to dare suggest that they could not carelessly employ a stranger who claimed to have originally been a cat, a peeping voice came from below.
“Naturally, proper procedure is required!”
“Procedure?”
“I believe she means ‘procedure.'”
As everyone looked at Ailien in bewilderment, Kiki added in an indifferent voice.
“Hm, procedure.”
“Yes, that cannot be ignored!”
“There is a way to do it all.”
Ailien’s mouth fell open.
“What is that way!”
“Simply doing it as I please.”
At Calisto’s crisp answer, Ailien finally shut her mouth.
* * *
Perhaps because she had been busy exploring the castle since morning, Ailien whined for quite a while sitting at the table. Even when Kaius, seated across from her, looked at her with displeasure, she paid no mind.
In the end, when Kiki brought bread and held it to her lips, she went waang and took a bite, then immediately slumped over.
She frowned all the way to her brow and opened her mouth wide, only to nibble barely a bit of the bread crust, and everyone burst out laughing.
Calisto himself laid the sleeping Ailien in bed. The child sprawled across the bed like warmly melted cheese.
As if the moonlight passing through the window were gently stroking the child’s cheek, Calisto looked down at her tenderly.
‘Truly strange.’
To Calisto, today had been, quite literally, a ‘truly strange’ day. Zeronias’s little cabin, animals that seemed to understand human speech, and even one of those animals turning into a person. And the strangest of all.
Was the small child now sleeping softly before him.
Like someone bewitched by the moon, Calisto carefully raised his hand and stroked her plump cheek.
“Hnng.”
Perhaps annoyed, her short arm swung up and down quite vigorously. She turned her body irritably, and her chubby, round cheeks were so maddeningly cute that a laugh came out on its own.
“Sorry, sorry.”
When Calisto hurriedly apologized, her body went slack again as if she had understood. Every sleeping gesture was so cute and endearing that he wanted to keep watching her forever.
How long had he been like that? When he finally rose with difficulty, the cat and the flying squirrel climbed onto the bed as if they had been waiting.
The flying squirrel settled near Ailien’s cheek, and the cat at her back.
It was a scene that let him guess how the three of them had lived in that fairy-tale cabin.
“Thank you.”
Calisto muttered without realizing it. Along with the thought that he did not know why he himself was thanking them.
But as if answering his words, a small meow and squeak rang out. Perhaps because they, too, had been through a great deal, the two dropped off to sleep at once.
“Please look after her from now on as well.”
With that tender request, Ailien’s door closed. The lights that had faintly spilled from the ends of the castle corridors went out one by one. Outside the window, even the moon was hidden by clouds, and a dark, heavy darkness covered the castle walls.
And then.
“……Mari.”
The child’s murmuring tore through the silence.
