Chapter 55 :

Chapter 55 - Misunderstanding

Nothing in life went as one wished.

The creature that had revealed its identity as it pleased looked somewhat uneasy.

At the same time, it also seemed to be trying to calmly accept the future that was to come.

It had already been busy enough in squirrel form, but after becoming human, its face changed color from moment to moment, making it look busy even while staying still.

“So, what exactly do you want to do?”

“Destroy the imperial family, of course.”

I stared at the creature’s long platinum-blonde hair.

“You mean you want to get rid of the same imperial family?”

“Yes. I have waited a very long time for that.”

A very long time.

The other party had emphasized that since the last wolf incident.

In the original work, it was said that the imperial family lived for roughly 200 years.

But if it was enough to be called a long time…

“How old are you?”

The creature frowned slightly, thought deeply, then bluntly spat out.

“I have forgotten how to count it. I should be over 1,000 years old.”

You are quite old.

“You are quite old.”

“Would you look at this insolent brat?”

At the honest impression that slipped out without me realizing it, the creature’s eyebrows shot up into the sky at once.

Its temper seemed similar to when it was in squirrel form.

Ignoring the huffing creature, I sank into thought.

1,000 years.

If it was 1,000 years, was that not around the time the legendary Sierra Abiran lived?

“Are you around the same age as Sierra Abiran?”

The expression of the creature, who had been sitting quietly, changed subtly.

“…I am a little younger than Sierra, child. Still, you understand how old I am, do you not? Thanks to that, I know a great many things as well.”

“Sure, let us say that is true.”

The other party’s brow wrinkled a little, but I did not have the kindness to care about that too.

I did not yet trust the creature enough to simply accept what it said.

And I also did not understand why someone of the same imperial family wanted the imperial family’s death.

“I understand that what you want is the downfall of the imperial family. But what does that have to do with me? Why were you waiting for me, of all people?”

The creature looked at me and took a rough deep breath.

“Child, do not be too shocked.”

It would probably be better for it to worry about itself rather than worry about me being shocked.

“You may need time to accept your fate. But in the end, you must submit to it. There are things in the world that simply have to be that way. Do you understand?”

The other party’s expression, as if preparing to speak some great secret, was endlessly grave.

So much so that I also hardened my expression along with it.

“There is another god in the world. Also called Amica.”

Something felt ominous.

Fate and Amica.

It was a suspiciously familiar combination.

“This may be a little bewildering.”

It seemed to be saying that to reassure me, but my anxiety only soared instead.

“A very long time ago, there was a prophecy.”

Good heavens.

In the end, the word prophecy came out of the creature’s mouth.

I had to sigh and cover my head.

Whether the creature misunderstood that reaction or not, it began to continue speaking as if soothing me.

“The contents are that a black-haired…”

“When the black-haired outsider returns to the world, the black night sky will devour the moon.”

The other party’s eyes filled with shock.

“How do you know that?!”

How do I know?

I know because that is the prophecy in [Dark Header] referring to Ratel.

“How did you come to know that? Did someone teach you? Or is the child who will save the world different after all?”

Watching the creature get up from its seat and hop around, I had to grit my teeth.

You mistook the person, you fool.

* * *

[The blind woman laughed and shook all over as if she had gone mad. “Laugh, people. The age of Abiran is passing. The black-haired outsider will return to the world.” The gaze of the one watching her end was cold. His heartless mouth opened. “Strike.” There was no way she had not heard those words, yet the woman’s laughter did not stop. “The black night sky will devour the moon…” Her final voice disappeared in vain down her already severed neck.]

This was the scene where the prophecy first appeared.

It was such an absurd situation that even that desperate scene lost its seriousness.

The creature shut its mouth like a mute who had eaten honey and blankly stared at the desk.

“To sum it up.”

When I opened my mouth first, its hollow golden eyes followed me.

“You followed me from the forest because you thought I was the outsider in the prophecy, the one who would save the world. Is that it?”

Nod.

The creature, which seemed to have no strength to speak and only moved its head, soon buried its face deeply, and before long, returned to being a squirrel instead of a person.

“There is the part that says ‘returns’. I do not apply to that.”

And there were many other reasons why I was not the protagonist.

“In the first place, if you only guessed that I came from another world, then you really…”

“No! That is not it… I recognized it when I saw you use your ability.”

Perhaps not wanting to be misunderstood as being that stupid, the creature hurriedly opened its mouth.

“My ability?”

“I mean the ability to transform into animals. That is an ability that disappeared a very long time ago. Now, I am the only person left who can use it.”

The depressed 1,000-year-old squirrel answered while striking the desk with its tail.

I knew that Ratel’s ability was a power that had disappeared from the world long ago, but was this ambiguous ability also one of them?

El’s protest sounded plausible at first glance, but it was nowhere near enough to cover up the creature’s stupidity.

No matter how you think about it, there is no way someone could save the world with an ability like this.

I was so dumbfounded that words would not come out.

Did this creature fail to appear in the original work because it stupidly followed the wrong person and never met the protagonist?

Seeing its powerless, drooping form, I felt my wariness and suspicion fade.

Well, if it had been going to interfere with me, it had already had several chances.

Even while staying close to me, the creature had never once deliberately ruined anything.

Perhaps this might be a good thing instead.

I tossed the acorn it usually liked to the creature.

Perhaps because it had spent a long time living as an animal, the creature instinctively caught it and hurriedly stuffed it into its cheek pouch.

No matter how I looked at it, there was no sense of intelligence or wisdom in that sight.

“How do you know that prophecy?”

Perhaps curiosity arose even in its dejection, because the small creature asked crookedly.

Somehow, the moment it found out I was not the protagonist, its attitude seemed strangely crooked too.

“I know a great many things too.”

“Look at this arrogant fellow. Acting as if you know things in front of this body.”

Seeing it nitpick again, it seemed it still had enough strength left to recover.

The squirrel I had intended to settle before leaving seemed to have more complicated circumstances than expected, but fortunately, the solution was very simple.

Because I could simply hand it over to the protagonist.

If it was stupid enough to harm the protagonist and the flow of the original work, then that would be another problem to think about.

* * *

Pale sharply examined the line standing in front of the unfinished building.

People in shabby clothing were standing there, looking only forward with exhausted expressions.

“Hey, brat! Once you leave the line, you have to go to the back! Don’t shamelessly cut back in!”

However, as long as the weak and the strong existed, conflict was bound to exist anywhere.

At the voice looking for a brat that happened to be heard, Pale motioned a few of the knights who had followed him back and moved his steps.

A skinny man was arguing with a boy even skinnier than himself.

“M-Mister, you pushed me. I was standing here the whole time too…”

When the child hesitated and did not leave obediently, people began to murmur.

Not that anyone stepped forward to help.

The people standing in front of the line did not want to get caught up in a commotion because of one dirty child, and the people behind had nothing to lose if one person was pushed out.

Perhaps gaining courage from that once again, the man raised his hand high.

“When did I push you?! Stop making excuses and hurry to the back!”

The hand that was about to push the small back once again was stopped by Pale.

“What are you?!”

The man, who roughly shook off his hand, glared at Pale.

Though he soon lowered his eyes, intimidated by Pale’s noble-looking face that did not match his worn clothes.

“Thank you for standing in line in my place. You worked hard.”

“What?”

At Pale’s smooth nonsense, the man furrowed his eyebrows.

“What nonsense are you saying right now…”

“You agreed to stand in line for me until I arrived. This is the payment.”

When Pale dropped one silver coin at the man’s feet, the man hurriedly knelt and picked up the money before someone else could take it.

“R-Right. I did.”

“Yes, you worked hard, so you may go now. I will stand in the rest of the line.”

At Pale’s somehow intimidating attitude, the man slowly left his place, but he could not take his eyes off the remaining line, which had little distance left.

Only Pale and the knights knew that the man, who had taken his steps with that regret behind him, had not gone far before the two knights waiting around the building took the silver coin back from him.

* * *

Pale slowly moved his steps, following the people entering the unfinished building.

It was fortunate that he had luckily met a child who seemed around the same age as the young duke.

Just as Lord Tollin had said, there were no children of that age.

Usually, the children for the Tinas ritual were missing.

What connection does that have?

Someone blocked Pale’s path as he followed behind the child while organizing his thoughts.

It was the man arranging the people’s line.

“…What is it?”

“You go that way.”

Pale glanced behind him.

The child who had been standing before him was being guided behind a pillar by someone else.

“Why is that child going that way?”

At Pale’s question, the man’s face twisted as if asking why he was asking something like that.

“If you are told to go that way, then go. Why are you talking so much? If you do not want to receive food, then get lost!”

So this is how they disorient people.

Pale recalled the people who had been standing in the long line with exhausted faces.

No one would want to leave empty-handed after waiting so long, so if they were intimidated to this extent, no one would want to pay attention unless it was their own business.

But Pale was someone with far too much to fall for a threat using food as bait.

“Huh? Hey! Where are you going?! Agh!!!”

The man who tried to grab Pale’s arm as he passed by while ignoring him was subdued by the men behind Pale.

When Pale turned around the pillar, a room with a closed door appeared.

He opened the door without hesitation.

“What the hell?!”

A man with clear signs of panic was holding a thick sack.

It was a size that looked suitable for one child to fit inside.

Pale looked over the seemingly heavy thing with his eyes and opened his mouth.

“What were you doing here?”

“Can’t you tell by looking? I was organizing food. Who are you to suddenly barge in and cause trouble?”

The man who tried to push past Pale was forced face-down onto the floor by a robed knight who had entered behind Pale.

“Whether this is food or not is something I can confirm myself.”

The man alternated his gaze between Pale, who had suddenly barged in, and his group, then seemed to understand the seriousness of the situation and opened his mouth with a frightened expression.

“D-Don’t spill it. There is precious food inside.”

At Pale’s glance, one person beside him untied the knot of the sack and opened it.

Until this moment, Pale had no doubt about his expectation that an unconscious child would come out from inside.

“…Lord Pale, it really is just a sack of grain. There is nothing inside.”

“What? That cannot be.”

The flustered Pale snatched the sack and turned it upside down, and the man being subdued beneath another knight screamed.

“What are you doing?! I have to sweep all of that back in!”

But there was nothing.

No child, not even a trace of a child.

He immediately ran to the window.

His escort, who had been watching the situation below, looked up at Pale, who urgently leaned out the window, as if asking what had happened.

He had been fooled right before his eyes.

And in such a short amount of time, at that.

“Break his fingers and toes, one by one, slowly. Do not stop until he opens his mouth.”

Pale coldly gave the order, thinking that at this rate, he could not scold Jack.