[Marian!]

Someone called my name mournfully. It was a voice that made me sad just hearing it.

But even though I wanted to answer, my lips wouldn’t move, and I couldn’t open my eyes. My whole body felt like it was sunk in a deep swamp.

[This isn’t it! I didn’t mean to kill you!]

Embracing me, he kept squeezing out a painful voice as if coughing up blood.

[What meaning is there in a world where you’re dead and I survive alone…]

With his voice trembling precariously, my heart felt like it was being squeezed along with it. As if swept up in his emotions, I was also in anguish.

Suddenly, his voice changed its tone.

[No. Her heart is still beating.]

A cold, sharp voice that could hurt someone.

While tightly embracing my body, he commanded in a chilling voice.

[Save her, Yulnisia.]

* * *

“Kyu!”

Waking up with a scream, it was a dark night. It was dark in the dream, and when I opened my eyes, only deep darkness spread out, so I thrashed about as if submerged in water.

‘Ugh, it’s cold. It feels like my heart is freezing.’

I closed my eyes and knocked on the door of my heart. It was to raise the fire mana I had always possessed since birth.

But no matter how much I concentrated, no spark arose from my heart. Only then did I finally realize that I had become a ferret.

‘Ah, right. My heart is broken. Because I went berserk to calm Espen…’

My heart could no longer spew flames.

‘No matter how cold it gets, I’ll just have to endure…’

Realizing the reality like that, when I tried to curl up my body and endure, tears came.

“Kyuukyu.”

It wasn’t just tears from being cold and miserable, but it felt like a hole had been punched right in the center of my heart.

It was the emptiness that came from the loss of the flame that had naturally flowed out like breathing since birth.

‘What should I do now? Do I have to live with this emptiness for the rest of my life?’

I felt like I had become a completely incompetent and useless person.

Everything felt hopeless, so I cried. Except for when I was a baby, this was the first time I had cried so loudly.

“Kyuukyu!”

The more I cried, the colder my body became. It was then that I twisted my body in irritation.

“Are you crying?”

Along with a soft, low voice, a large palm covered my head down to my back.

At that moment, as if breathing life into a dying body, a scorching heat seeped into my entire body.

“Kyu…”

It was a gentle and warm warmth, like applying medicine to a painful wound. I closed my eyes, exhaling slowly. Tears rolled down from my wet eyes.

“…”

As I kept crying, Hadel slowly moved his hand that had been covering me, stroking me. Without a kind word, it was a comforting gesture that touched my heart.

‘It’s warm.’

As I rubbed my face against Hadel’s palm, I suddenly felt frustrated.

‘I used to be able to create flames as much as I wanted!’

It was an instinctive resistance towards a being who possessed the power I had lost.

“Kyu!”

“Ah!”

With the sharp ferret teeth, the soft flesh was instantly torn, and blood splattered.

Hadel, who had been lying down, sat up. His face shone white in the moonlight through the window. He looked down at his bleeding finger and asked incredulously.

“…Did you bite me?”

“Kyu!”

Yeah! What are you going to do about it!

As I growled fiercely instead of shrinking back, Hadel’s face hardened. His index finger pressed down on my head.

“You.”

“Kyu!”

“…You’re fierce.”

As I continued to growl fiercely, Hadel, thinking that communication wasn’t working, sighed. And he got up from his seat.

‘What? Why? What do you want me to do?’

I glared at him with my hands on my waist.

He got up from the bed and turned on the small reading lamp by the bedside. Then he picked up a small package placed on the nightstand with the reading lamp.

He shook it gently like a bell and said.

“These are your snacks, but I guess I’ll have to throw them away.”

Snacks?

Snacks?!

“Kyuuuu!”

I was extremely excited. The depression that had been plaguing me until just now disappeared without a trace, and my eyes were fixed only on that package.

‘What do you mean throw away snacks! You’ll be cursed if you waste food!’

I shouted, flapping my small front paws.

“Kyukyu! Kyukyu!”

Hurry and give them to me. If you’re going to throw them away, throw them in my mouth.

As I vigorously flapped my two front legs with that meaning, Hadel nodded and answered in a blunt voice.

“Right, Kyukyu is your name.”

“Kyu!”

You think I’m saying my name!?

‘Sob sob, my name is Marian. Ah, I feel like I’m losing strength after moving so vigorously.’

Suddenly feeling depressed, I curled up and sat down. And I cried in a sorrowful voice.

“Kyu…”

“Are you crying?”

As I cried weakly, Hadel’s brows furrowed. Hadel, who had been teasing me by shaking the snacks, came closer and sat down. And while pressing my head with his palm, he muttered.

“Do ferrets usually cry this often?”

It’s not even petting, why does he keep pressing down with his palm like this?

‘But it’s true that it’s somehow reassuring.’

Like feeling at ease when covered with a heavy blanket, there was a strange sense of security. I rubbed my cheek against Hadel’s palm, which now felt somewhat familiar.

A small sigh poured over my head. I couldn’t help but glance furtively.

‘Are you not going to give them to me? Are you really going to throw them away because I bit you?’

Hadel placed the white package he was holding in front of me.

“Since I brought them anyway, eat them.”

Kyaa!

I quickly rummaged through the package. Because my fingers weren’t properly developed, I couldn’t open it skillfully, but perhaps my desperation was understood, and I was soon able to encounter round snacks.

Tears of joy trickled down.

‘Snacks! The first snacks I’m eating in 5 years.’

It’s not that luxury items like snacks didn’t come into the battlefield at all. After all, it’s closely related to the morale of the soldiers.

‘But the amount was very small.’

If I said I wanted to eat them, they would give them to me, but if I ate them, the soldiers couldn’t eat, right?

So I couldn’t eat them. I endured, thinking I could eat as much as I wanted when I returned to the palace after the war ended.

‘But life is so unpredictable.’

The war ended, but I couldn’t return home, and I was holding snacks in an unexpected place.

‘Wow, because my body has become smaller, the snacks look huge.’

It felt like I had become a child eating a giant candy house from a fairy tale. After staring at the snacks with excitement for a moment, I slowly brought my small muzzle to the snack.

Crunch.

Along with a crisp sound different from bread, a taste both savory and sweet enveloped my tongue. I opened my eyes wide and marveled.

‘So this is the taste of sugar!’

The taste that tickles the tongue as it passes, makes the mouth feel dry, and somehow gets tiresome and boring, but you know the taste once you’ve tried it, yet your hand keeps reaching for it!

‘Truly, a heavenly taste!’

That was the end of savoring. I buried my head and started eating the snacks frantically.

Delicious! So delicious!

‘Why had I forgotten this taste?’

Ridiculously, with my mouth full of snacks, I finally felt certain that the war was over.

As I was eating the snacks frantically, large fingers brushed past my eyes. Hadel clicked his tongue.

“You’re crying again while eating.”

You try eating for the first time in 5 years. See if your eyes don’t water.

“Kyukyu kyukyu.”

I answered that the snacks were too delicious to help it. Of course, since my mouth was full of snacks while answering, the crying sound was strange.

Hadel sat down beside me.

“This is the first time I’ve seen you talk so much too.”

His finger pressed against my bulging belly. It was very annoying, but I decided to coolly ignore it.

‘It’s so delicious!’

Even though I occasionally choked and coughed, I didn’t stop eating the snacks. When the snack bag was about half empty?

Hadel pressed his finger against my side, which was not just bulging out, but round like a sausage.

“Your belly is sticking out like this again.”

“Kyu!”

Don’t pinch. If you pinch again, I’ll bite this time.

When I stopped eating the snacks and growled, baring my teeth, Hadel folded his arms and furrowed his brow.

“Are you familiar with me now?”

Well, did you think you’d be safe after touching a lady’s side so carelessly?

When I snorted as if it was absurd, Hadel’s brow furrowed even deeper. Hadel’s index finger tapped my tail.

“Seeing how you crawled into the bed, I guess you’ve become familiar…”

“Kyu?”

Crawled into the bed?

When did I crawl in? I puffed up my cheeks in indignation, and Hadel pointed to the floor beneath the bed. There was a cushion that I wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t pointed it out, as the reading lamp didn’t illuminate that area widely.

“That’s your bed.”

“Kyu?”

“This is my bed.”

“Kyu!?”

So you’re saying I crawled from there to here?

‘Sleepwalking?’

As I just chewed on the snacks in my mouth, unable to remember at all, Hadel lowered his eyes and muttered with a mournful expression.

“Everyone who’s been close to me so far has been badly hurt. Don’t come close to me.”

“Kyu?”

Hey, I understand it’s a serious concern in its own way, but.

‘Is this puberty?’

It was the first time someone told me not to approach them with their own mouth.

‘I’m not scared at all in the first place.’

I looked back and forth between the snacks and Hadel for a moment. Honestly, I’m a bit more hungry for the snacks, but.

‘Why does he look pitiful?’

Hadel seemed calm, but for some reason, he looked sad to my eyes. So I put down the snacks and clung to Hadel’s hand.

‘Just think of it as an apology for biting you.’