Chapter 54 :

Chapter 54 - Troublemaker

I picked up the chestnut that had rolled away and handed it back to the creature, but the squirrel only glared at me, as if it had no intention of taking it.

“Are you going to keep doing that?”

When I tilted my head and asked, the squirrel quickly turned around and tried to run off.

The time the creature and I had spent together was not so short that I could not even predict that much.

I quickly grabbed its body.

For a moment, a standoff formed between me and the squirrel struggling to get away.

“Do as you like. I don’t mind staying like this all day today.”

It seemed clear that the creature understood what I meant: either hurry up and return to human form, or keep facing off in this state.

Its swaying black eyes scanned the room here and there.

Soon, after fully accepting that there was nowhere to run, the creature squeezed its eyes shut.

Its small mouth opened.

What came out from between them was not the squeaking sound I had heard every day.

“There is no need for me to transform. We can converse even like this.”

A neutral voice flowed out from the squirrel’s body.

“As expected, you are the child we have been waiting for. To think you would corner me this far.”

I had not really done much, though.

For some reason, I felt repulsed by the creature’s eyes as it looked at me proudly.

I frowned and asked.

“You called me that last time too. What are you, that you say you have been waiting for me?”

The squirrel raised one corner of its mouth and smiled.

It was as bizarre a sight as a person squeaking like a squirrel.

“A noble existence beyond humans. If you knew who I was, you would feel guilty for even calling me ‘you’.”

The creature spoke boastfully, wearing the most arrogant expression that could be made with a squirrel’s facial muscles.

As I watched the creature speak with its black eyes sparkling, a question suddenly came to mind.

“You can talk even while you are in squirrel form?”

Perhaps because I did not seem very interested in its words, the noble existence in the form of a squirrel raised one eyebrow, looking rather offended.

“…Yes, but that is not important. What matters is—”

“Then the squeaking and chirping noises you made until now were on purpose?”

“You could say that. But…”

“Even though you were not originally an animal?”

I felt a little of my human dignity being shaved away whenever I neighed as a horse.

“….”

“You deliberately imitated an animal?”

There was no way the creature failed to understand that I was asking whether a noble existence humans could not help but look up to had done that.

The squirrel completely shut its mouth.

“Well, whether one is a person, an animal, or something even higher, they are all noble beings, so there is no need to have your pride wounded too much.”

The creature glared at me as I spoke teasingly.

In an instant, blood beaded on my bitten finger in the shape of tiny front teeth.

The noble existence had a narrower and more violent side than expected.

My memories of that day, the day I blocked the wolf’s attack, were hazy.

It was true that I had blacked out once because of my limp body.

However, perhaps because of my unconscious mind telling me I might die if I completely let go of consciousness, or perhaps because of the irritating voice coming from outside, there were moments when my mind returned enough for the sounds around me to enter my ears.

My head was hot and my eyes stung, as if I had fallen into a shallow sleep, but I barely managed to turn my head and cast my gaze toward the entrance where the sound was coming from.

Through my dim vision, I saw a figure standing on two legs in front of the entrance to the hollow of the tree.

At the voice that followed, thoughts rose and sank: was that a madman practicing a play alone in the middle of the forest, and if so, which should I fear more, that madman or a medium-sized animal?

But the wolf’s howl that rang out as if responding made me realize that the other party was having a conversation.

—Calm down. I said I was sorry about earlier, didn’t I? You stepped on my tail once too, didn’t you? Let’s just call it even with that.

From the content of the conversation I heard, I could also tell that the thing standing on two legs was the squirrel in question.

Only then did the creature’s behavior, which had been too strange to simply understand and move on from as just an animal, come to mind.

No matter how unusual animals’ reactions were in this world, to think I had not noticed that.

I was completely toyed with.

Even while I was dumbfounded, on the other hand, I also felt relieved at finally thinking that my ability to turn into animals was not a completely new kind of power.

What struck my ears clearly after that was a voice mixed with playfulness and anticipation.

—That one is the human we have been waiting for.

They had been waiting for me?

My eyes, which I could barely open properly, narrowed on their own.

A complete stranger suddenly having expectations of me was a dangerous sign.

Usually, when people were about to ask for something beyond my ability, or when they were about to shove some strange responsibility onto me, they had expectations.

Or perhaps both.

Before I could even think about how to deal with that guy, my consciousness, which had barely been holding on, was reaching its limit.

Between my heavy eyelids, laughter that was clearly being made by the owner of the fading two legs bit into my eardrums.

* * *

Time passed like that, and the creature still remained by my side.

“Still, is there really a need to wrap me up like this?”

Though its condition was not exactly good.

The small squirrel glared at me, who had wrapped it up in clothes and tied it to a chair, as it spoke.

“If you return to human form like back then, I think you can untie that much.”

At my answer, the creature sighed and said,

“Why are you so obsessed with appearances? If you cling to appearances, you will never become a great figure.”

“I was originally a person whose vessel was only the size of a soy sauce dish, so there is no need to worry. Since your vessel is as vast as the Pacific—no, as vast as the sea, it should not matter what your appearance is, so wouldn’t being in human form be fine?”

Perhaps it did not like my answer, because the creature sighed again and muttered.

“I did think it was strange that, despite raising such a cute animal, you did not seem to have any intention of giving me a name. Just when on earth did you realize…”

Come to think of it, the creature was right.

Although we had lived under the same roof for quite a long time, we had not even properly exchanged names.

“Right, as you already know, my name is Ran Abiran. What should I call you?”

Perhaps my question did not satisfy it this time either, because the creature seemed to hold back its words for a moment, mumbling with its mouth before spitting them out.

“…El. You may call me El.”

If El was El, then it was El. What did it mean, “You may call me El”?

The creature, which had expressed rather elegantly that it did not want to reveal its name, sharply turned its head away.

Well, that much was exactly the kind of exchange of names suitable for the current relationship between the creature and me.

After all, my real name was not Ran Abiran either.

“Good, El. Let’s get straight to the point. I will leave this country soon. So you can either return to the forest you originally lived in, or if you have something else to do…”

“What?!”

The creature snapped its head around so sharply that I wondered if its small neck had not broken.

At its more violent reaction than expected, I had to stop speaking for a moment.

“You are leaving the country? Why? For what reason?”

Why else?

Because the protagonist will arrive soon, and then the original story will begin.

In other words, the dogfight will begin.

Put another way, it also means an incident suitable for one prince with no presence to erase his existence will occur.

“Soon, a series of major incidents will happen in the empire. I do not want to stay here and quietly watch all of that, nor do I want to get involved. So I will go outside like this…”

“You cannot!”

The creature shouted again, but because of its size, it was not threatening at all.

“It seems you are misunderstanding something. I am not asking for your understanding or permission right now. I am simply telling you in advance out of consideration for you.”

For a time that could be called short if short, and long if long, the creature had watched me with suspicious silence.

The problem was that it really only watched.

While the creature watched me, I also observed it.

That squirrel, which introduced itself as El, did nothing.

To the point that I wondered whether the reason it had waited for me for so long was actually something trivial, like wanting to be supplied with plumper acorns to its heart’s content.

So the reason I had gone out of my way to try talking to the creature before leaving was both a kind of consideration and personal curiosity.

Just what do you want?

Of course, there was also a slight wariness toward the creature’s persistence in sticking to me anytime, anywhere.

“…Did you come from another world?”

The creature’s cautious question was not very surprising.

It had said it had been waiting for me for a long time.

Just the years Ran Abiran had spent in the imperial palace amounted to nineteen.

It meant that the person the creature had been waiting for was at least not the original owner of this body.

“That’s right.”

When I obediently nodded, even more dissatisfaction appeared on El’s face.

“Then you must have a purpose for coming all the way here. Something like becoming a hero and seizing wealth and honor, or annihilating all those imperial bastards, things like that!”

Those were usually goals held by protagonists or the protagonist’s companions.

I wanted nothing besides getting out alive.

If I had to say something, it would be living out the rest of my life moderately somewhere unrelated to the imperial family or battles.

“No, not at all.”

“What?! Then what was the reason you worked so hard until now, and tried so hard to use your power? And the reason you are talking to me now? Was it not because you wanted my help?”

“I told you. I was preparing to leave the country. The reason I talked to you was to decide what to do with you before I leave.”

At my honest answer, El’s mouth fell open.

“A very strange one has come! A truly bizarre fellow has come!”

The strange fellow listening to that could not possibly feel good.

“I thought something was odd, and it turns out you truly have no interest at all. I thought you were simply a cautious one, but you just have no thoughts!”

The creature, who had suddenly made me into a strange and thoughtless human, agonized in front of me before suddenly raising its head.

It had an expression as if it had made some decision.

It worries alone, reaches a conclusion alone, and lives busily with that tiny body.

“You may have no thoughts at all, but I have many things I must tell you and many things I must do. You stubborn child. I did not want to show this form if possible, but…”

No, if it was that important, there was no need to show me.

What I wanted from the creature right now was only for it to tell me what it wanted from me, and to understand that I was not the kind of human who could listen to it.

However, the creature’s personality was more impatient than I had thought.

Before I could even open my mouth, the form of the squirrel before my eyes shimmered.

It was only enough time to blink once.

The moment I thought that the fur covering the creature’s entire body had disappeared for a moment, before my eyes could even follow that afterimage, someone in human form was sitting in front of me.

“How is it? Do you now feel like having a slow conversation?”

The neutral voice rang through the room.

A pretty face, whose eye level was far lower than mine, looked at me as if looking down on me.

I felt like I understood a little of what the creature meant when it said it did not want to reveal its form until the end.

I withdrew my gaze from the creature’s long, flowing platinum-blonde hair and looked at its confident, youthful face.

“Horrifying.”

Watching anger surge onto the creature’s face, I rubbed my temple.