Manson hated when he called for him. He wanted to run away when told to ‘come closer’.

But you can’t escape from the monster’s grasp, Lillin thought. If I try to run away carelessly, something terrible might happen. I know the monster well enough. When you live in the same house, even mice and humans can communicate.

“Stand there.”

Lillin stopped precisely where Manson told her to.

To avoid being struck by his terrifying, thick hands like poorly sliced bread, she had to understand and follow the rules he set. Among them was the rule not to move even a step from where Manson said ‘stand’.

Manson said nothing for a while, keeping Lillin standing. He just stared at her up and down with his eyes wide open.

Her hair, her forehead that always had a red, round mark from leaning against the window, her small nose and eyes and cheeks and nape, her arms and legs as thin as a baby deer’s.

“Dad!”

As Manson roughly grabbed Lillin, her unkempt hair swayed.

Lillin pretended to struggle in fear, kicking Manson’s legs wildly. But like her mother, he didn’t budge at all. Rather, it only hurt Lillin’s feet as if she were kicking a tree stump.

“Don’t do this, Dad!”

“Shut up, if you don’t stay still, your ears might get cut off.”

Ears? Just the ears cut off? Maybe my neck will be cut off, Lillin thought.

It was just for a moment that she saw the glint of scissors in his eyes clouded with fear. On his unpleasant face—like a drunkard, though Manson always looked like that—anger, contempt, disgust, and greed were rising.

“Don’t do it!”

Lillin’s body fell to the floor with a thud as she screamed sharply. Her vision flashed, perhaps from hitting her shoulder wrong, and she couldn’t move her arm well.

As she groaned, Lillin realized something thin was slowly falling onto her body, onto her face. She opened her eyes with a groan and screamed. It was her own hair.

“A girl like you shouldn’t exist.”

Manson said with heavy breathing, but Lillin couldn’t hear his voice.

She couldn’t even breathe properly from the shock of having half of her hair cut off in chunks. More than anything, Lillin was going crazy with worry about what would happen if her mother saw her like this.

It was clear that no matter what Lillin said, her mother wouldn’t forgive this. If she said Manson suddenly went crazy and cut off her hair, her mother’s reaction was predictable.

But if she said Manson told Lillin to ‘come closer’, and Lillin had no choice but to obey him, and he stared at her until her knees went numb, her mother would surely kill Lillin.

“Stop it, Dad!”

Lillin almost burst into tears, remembering when she was younger, before Manson came, when she was always dragged upstairs by her mother’s hand like this. Even though she had sworn not to cry. The words “I’m sorry” were about to burst out from just behind her lips.

As Manson swung his arm, Lillin hit the wardrobe with the back of her head. Her vision spun, and she tasted something salty on her lips.

I must have a nosebleed, Lillin thought, trying to grasp her fading consciousness. She also remembered the image of her mother lying unconscious with a nosebleed after being thrown by Manson.

Mom won’t wipe my blood. She won’t even put a towel on me. Just like she never thanked me when I put a towel on her.

I didn’t do anything wrong.

I didn’t do anything wrong…

There was a thudding sound. Though she couldn’t see, strangely, she could still hear. The sound of something cracking, the wardrobe hinge creaking, Manson cursing…

After that sound, Lillin felt her body floating in the air. Was she dead, or alive? Or had Manson suddenly come to his senses and was trying to take her to the hospital?

Yeah, maybe that’s it. Manson had thrown her too hard. Maybe the monster hidden under his skin whispered like this at that moment.

‘You big oaf. I told you to scare her, not kill her. What do you think the sheriff will do to you if they find out this girl is dead? They’ll probably impale you with a huge harpoon used for whaling. While you’re still alive.’

Maybe that’s why Manson got scared. Lillin thought. Maybe now…

“Girls like you are bound to do dirty things someday.”

Lillin’s limp body slipped into the wardrobe, no, into the pit where the bottom had been torn out. Though she was smaller than her peers, it was still not enough to stuff her entirely in there.

Lillin collapsed unconscious in a strange posture. The sound of a bolt being locked could be heard from outside the wardrobe, but she was no longer able to hear anything. Her heart was beating slowly… She would be unconscious all day.

Until Echeneis appeared the next day, sweeping through the houses on the hillside. Until she had to scratch the wardrobe until her nails fell off in the overflowing fear.

“If you promise to play with me, I’ll let you out of here.”

Until a girl with braided hair appeared, grinning.

“What’s wrong? Why are you moving so slowly? This isn’t right, I heard everything!”

Smelkin, floating in the air, shouted in a terrifyingly high voice. It was a voice powerful enough to wither trees and make birds fly out of their nests to their deaths.

Eustar swung his sword, avoiding Smelkin’s horribly elongated nails and hair. The nail tips were like saw blades, and the hair was sharp enough to sever a neck in an instant with just a single strand.

“You should run away faster! So the seeker can catch you! So I can catch you!”

Smelkin swung her elongated nails like a sickle. Eustar quickly tilted his neck to avoid it, then took out something like a small jelly filled with clear water and threw it.

When Smelkin struck it with her nails, the soft surface tore. The water that gushed out like an explosion melted, burned, and peeled off Smelkin’s skin. Smelkin screamed.

“You damned bastard! You had something blessed!”

Eustar shrugged and retorted.

“Did you think I wouldn’t? You haven’t studied us enough.”

“You…!”

As Smelkin became extremely agitated, her hair stood on end like a hedgehog’s quills. Not stopping there, black tar steaming at the tips dripped from her shoulders, arms, wrists, and fingernails.

Eustar made Robsker and the other members retreat further back, then faced Smelkin alone as she slowly descended.

Smelkin no longer looked like a child. As the shell that had started to melt from what Eustar had thrown continued to widen its range, the mottled body hidden inside kept trying to burst out.

Eustar glanced at Smelkin’s grotesquely elongated arm and mocked with contempt.

“Why don’t you just reveal your true form, Smelkin? What’s the reason for stubbornly wearing a child’s shell? Want to hear that you’re cute? Unfortunately, I can’t pretend to find you pretty since I know your true form.”

“Don’t be so insolent!”

Smelkin’s mouth opened, and the child-like shell ripped apart.

Even Robsker, who was quite experienced in battle, changed color when the huge fangs and dozens of sharp teeth, and the hideous scaled triangular head were revealed.

Arms stretched, legs stretched… Joints bent like a praying mantis. Three bulging eyes looked at Eustar.

‘Laila, please… Hurry.’

Thick beads of sweat rolled down his forehead. But the sync was still quiet. Although the ripples seemed to have grown slightly stronger, that was all. Laila was nowhere to be seen.

—Now that you’ve found me, I’m ‘it’! Now, where will you run? Where will you hide with your tail between your legs like a dog? You can’t do that. Because you smell everywhere!

“The cursed human smell, you mean? Of course. But you’re giving off a more foul odor right now, so I think it’s fine.”

Smelkin, with her mouth wide open, ran towards Eustar, moving her four legs alternately. Eustar looked at the sync and briefly recalled Laila’s face. He knew that if he couldn’t cut it down in one go, his life would be in danger.

At that moment.

“What was hiding under the bed was the thief’s right arm. What was hiding next to the closet was the robber’s left arm.”

Smelkin’s mouth, which looked like it was about to pluck off Eustar’s head like a grape, stopped wide open.

With a strange sound like thousands of branches breaking at once, one long leg bent backwards and broke with a snap.

—Aaargh—!

As Smelkin’s huge body twisted, black tar spurted out from between her teeth. Eustar, who quickly retreated to avoid it as it sprayed like rain, shouted.

“Robsker, close the trap!”

At his command, Robsker, who had retreated to the rear, swung his sword and stabbed it into the ground at his feet.

As the other members did the same, Smelkin’s body, which had become elongated like an insect, crumpled and bent backwards as if pressed by an invisible rock.

—Aaaagh…! No! Don’t destroy me, send me back instead! I’ll never come here again…!

Eustar didn’t listen to all of Smelkin’s vicious pleas. He thrust his sword into the center of her twitching head, and Smelkin flailed her long limbs before melting away with a squelch.

Eustar, catching his breath, raised his head while leaning on his long sword.

“Well done, Laila.”

Laila, covered from head to toe in black dirt and cobwebs, looked at Eustar with an expression that was almost a smile.

“Lillin taught me.”

Saying that, Laila opened her tightly clenched left hand to reveal what was inside. It was a translucent cube, Lillin’s core that Laila had found through overlapping.

Eustar said.

“Will you give it to me, Laila?”

Laila, who had closed her hand again, raised her gaze.

“No, Eustar. We can’t use Lillin as food for ‘something’ you’re keeping.”

As soon as her words fell, dark smoke slowly rose from behind Eustar’s shoulder. Eustar was a bit taken aback by Laila’s answer, but trying not to show it, he said.

“If that doesn’t disappear, the sync won’t disappear either, Laila.”

“I know. But I mean there’s no need to feed it deliberately.”

“What…”

Eustar trailed off and turned around. He saw a large man being dragged by the members. The man’s face was bluish as if poisoned by lead, spewing vulgar curses as naturally as breathing.