Getting Caught

What’s with the talk about Valta and his mate?
The murmurs were clearly audible.

They all had pleased, smiling faces.

…Ugh.
I abruptly pushed the man away due to the sudden wave of shame.

“Why are you doing this? You don’t have to go this far…”

“The imprint vein is swollen.”

I was getting used to his nonsensical answers.
His expressionless gaze was fixed on my neck.

“It must have interfered with your use of primordial energy.”

“…Ah?”

Come to think of it, my skills kept missing strangely today.
My head was foggy, and I couldn’t concentrate, so the CC skill that I usually hit well didn’t even hit a single Observer today.

“Was that because of you? No wonder, my body felt a bit…”

‘Sleepy.’
I’m insanely sleepy, like someone who has just eaten and basked in the warm sun.
As I shook my head to shake off the overwhelming drowsiness, the hand pulling me into an embrace felt natural.

“You shouldn’t have imprinted in the first place.”

He seemed to be saying something, but I couldn’t hear a thing.

‘More importantly, let me go.’
I tried to push away the man’s chest that was pressed against my cheek, but I had no strength.

“Your effort is commendable, so I’ll play along once.”

“What do you mean…”

Instead of answering, the man pulled my back and hugged me tightly.
A rough, possessive touch, like a child who has found a doll they like.

I should push him away, but my strength drained away as if I had entered warm water.
The man’s scent was insanely comforting and sweet.
I wanted to be held in this embrace forever.

“It seems you’re being chased by grim reapers. Let’s talk about the details when we get back.”

“…Where are we going back to? Surely, not the prison, right?”

“There is a prison in Bahalgras, though.”

“What? No! Let me go!”

My drowsy ears perked up.
A prison, no way!
I squeezed out my last bit of strength and grabbed the back of the man’s hair.

“Let go!”

I heard a gasp from the surroundings, but I didn’t care and grabbed his long ponytail like a hostage.

“I-if you don’t let go of this hand, I won’t let go either!”

“…Good.”

I shouted quite bravely, but he just looked down at me with his ponytail still in my grasp and spat out.

“There’s no chance of dropping you.”

“Aaargh! L-let me go! Sob, sob, someone save me!”

I thought my reflection in his expressionless eyes was quite a sight, and then I think I fainted.

As if pulled from deep water, I gasped for breath and shot up.

I was lying on a bed with dark curtains drawn.

‘…Was it, a dream?’
I blinked my eyes in bewilderment, then slowly looked around.

If it weren’t for the large deer monster head hanging on the wall, I would have been convinced I was back in my room in Midvalen.

It was that modern of a room.
Trophies hanging on the ornately decorated walls.
A red canopy over the bed, a fireplace, and a desk piled high with parchment.

The blanket in my hand was soft.
It was as comfortable and pleasant to the touch as a high-quality rug.
I peeked to the side and saw that there was even a scented candle lit on the bedside table.

I was waving my hand to smell the scent when the sound of voices from outside the door got closer.
I quickly lay back down and closed my eyes.

“…The examination results show no major abnormalities, but her body temperature is on the low side for a beast-kin, so I’m worried if she can endure in the snowy mountains.”

“The imprint sickness.”

“It would be best to perform the ceremony as soon as possible. In her current state, she doesn’t seem to be able to hold on for long.”

I peeked open my eyes and saw Karvan and someone who looked like a doctor standing by the door, talking.

“…But, will you really be alright? You can hide it for now, but if the elders find out in the future.”

“I plan to kill her when her usefulness is over. You may leave.”

‘Is he talking about me?’
A chill ran down my spine.

Rattle, the sound of the door opening and closing.

The surroundings were quiet, so I thought he had left and peeked open my eyes, but I almost fainted when I met the eyes of the man standing with his arms crossed in front of the door.

“…Hi.”

As I greeted him awkwardly, the man just looked at me.
Since I was caught, I just sat up.

“By the way, you. How did you deal with the Ob, no, the grim reapers? Can you see them?”

Since he was just silent, I asked what I had been curious about.
He still didn’t take his eyes off me and replied bluntly.

“Because I’m a Varg.”

“You guys can see grim reapers?”

“Those who can’t see and can’t fight them have been eliminated and gone extinct. Only those who can have remained.”

I flinched unconsciously at his bone-chilling words.

Varg.
A race deleted from ‘Legacyth Chronicle’ a long time ago due to a continuous skill abuse issue.

But since then, they had definitely disappeared from the monster codex, and I had never seen them once.
Was there residual data left?
Or maybe, like me, an error had occurred, and the Observer couldn’t recognize them properly.

They were lucky to have survived, and I was unlucky to be trapped.

‘…It feels like I’m constantly receiving my karma back.’

“And you.”

But I wasn’t the only one who used it!
As I was biting my lip out of an inexplicable sense of injustice, the man asked this time.

“What clan are you? Seeing you use Berserk, you seem to be a beast-kin. You seem to have a few tricks up your sleeve too.”

I felt like he was somehow testing me.

This man seemed to be a high-ranking official of the Varg.
If I told him I was an Awakener, I would surely become a corpse right away.
The image of the Observer being neatly cut down by his sharp claws came to mind.

“…I-I’m, from the cherry blossom, clan!”

The naming sense I had barely squeezed out was truly terrible.

To make up for it, I quickly used ‘Berserk’ to show the twitching ears on my head.
As I also took out my tail and wagged it, the eyes of the man leaning crookedly against the door narrowed.

“Cherry blossom clan.”

“Yeah! Why, you know the flower with the same color as my fur. Pink!”

“……”

“Our clan reveres cherry blossoms. So…”

“……”

“Uh, what was it, we have a big event every April, and you have to do well on that test to have a future, and, like, that.”

“…Interesting.”

Karvan, who was listening to my nonsense, chuckled and suddenly said.

“Then shall I tell you the story of my clan?”

“Huh? Ah, yeah! Yeah, tell me. I want to hear it.”

“Hundreds of years ago, the Varg were sentenced to extinction. It was the result of the Awakeners coveting the power of our clan. It was the day of destruction.”

Thinking he believed me, I nodded eagerly and chimed in, then froze.

“All the Varg with fur colors that couldn’t be camouflaged were eliminated. Only the Varg with fur of white, like the snowy mountains, and black, gray, and brown, which are easy to hide in the dark, survived.”

“……”

“But, to think you’ve survived until now with such a conspicuous fur color. That’s amazing. And with an artificial color created as a plaything for the Destroyers, which is the only one that doesn’t occur naturally on this continent.”

‘…That’s right.’
Come to think of it, there were no pink monsters in ‘Legacyth Chronicle.’

Unless it was a pet whose color was forcibly changed by users feeding it dye, there were no individuals with pink fur.

So, I had either lied just now, or I had admitted with my own mouth that I was a lackey race of the Awakeners.

“I-I…”

A slanted gaze, as if telling me to explain.
Did I underestimate my opponent too much?

The place where I had hidden from the Observer was not a cozy cave, but the mouth of a wolf.

“Tell me. Destroyer. Why did you imprint on me?”

Like black ink poured into clear water, murky hostility spread in his indifferent eyes.
It was a hate-filled gaze that couldn’t even be compared to the fleeting glance I saw in the prison.

“Did you come to use me and destroy my clan once again?”

I flinched for a moment, but then, as if cold water had been thrown on me, I came to my senses.

“N-no! Of course not! I didn’t even know who you were!”

If I showed any sign of being intimidated here, he would surely believe that was the case, so I waved my hands and hurriedly refuted.

“I really just needed your strength to escape the prison. If I had known you were a Varg…”

‘Would I not have used the stigma skill?’

Actually, probably not.
Because I had gone crazy seeing the broken skill that had been deleted.

“If I had known you were a Destroyer.”

The man finished my hesitating words for me.

“I would have killed you on the spot.”

His short words were so full of hostility that for a moment, I couldn’t say a word and just stared at the man.

“I-I’m, still not! Even if I had known you were a Varg, nothing would have changed.”

“……”

“Besides, if I had intended to harm you, I would have escaped alone! Don’t you remember? I even brought you the bunch of keys to free your subordinates.”

The man just stared at me without a word.
It was a look that said he wanted to bite my neck as soon as my words ended, but even if my head was going to fly off, I had to clear up the misunderstanding.

“And! Let me make it clear, I didn’t do that imprint thing or whatever! I just used my skill…”

“For someone who says that, you pressed your lips quite accurately on the imprint vein.”

“……”

“Thanks to you, I experienced my first heat in prison. It was a hell of an experience.”

I was at a loss for words again at his venomous monologue.

‘…So it really was because I sucked on the man’s neck that it happened?’
A chill ran down my spine.

They say that even if you fall backward, you break your nose.
That’s exactly it.
How could I be so unlucky.