Chapter 38
<40화>
Oh. It’s moving.
The ball of fluff is moving!
Startled, I stomped my feet in excitement.
“Woong— gyang.”
I didn’t know what it meant, but it sounded like it was roughly saying it was cute.
From within the purring ball of fluff, a tiny face popped out.
Triangular ears that poked up. Eyes still squinted half-shut from sleep.
From the light pink nose to the tiny, doll-like mouth shaped like an upside-down ‘v’.
‘Oh my god.’
My face practically melted as I beheld the waking fluff-ball.
It was then. The kitten, looking around its surroundings, blearily opened its eyes.
And then.
Between the eyelids fringed with white fur, vivid violet pupils were revealed.
“…Baby?”
Wait a minute.
Unable to believe it, I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again.
“Kkyoot?”
Despite my disbelief, the white fluff-ball was greeting me with brilliant violet eyes.
“Violet eyes. It has to be a monster, right?”
“Yes. They were definitely violet eyes, and it was a monster. I think it said something like, ‘I’m alive,’ or something along those lines.”
At the sound of the meeting’s conversation—which seemed to emphasize the color violet particularly—I wordlessly lifted the kitten.
Its eyes are violet.
No matter how I look at it, from the front or the back, they’re definitely violet, right?
Turning pale, I held up the fluff-ball.
“…You’re a cat, right?”
“No-ong—”
“No-ong? Does that mean ‘no’? Do you know how to speak English?”
“Ya-ah—”
“…….”
Does that mean ‘yes’ this time?
Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to interpret cat language, so I just tilted my head.
I didn’t know what it was, but I was certain I had picked up something strange.
Sparkle, sparkle—
It felt as if a gaze, strangely accompanied by a sparkling effect, was following his back.
Knox, who was walking down the hallway, turned his head.
“…….”
The owner of the sparkling eyes was Aisha.
A distance away, the little chick was peeking her face out from behind a pillar, staring at Knox.
She even had her mouth pursed into a small triangle. It was as if she were pleading for him to look at her.
However—
“There’s no one here.”
Knox feigned ignorance of Aisha and continued on his way.
“!”
Then, something emerged hurriedly from behind the pillar in a panic and began to chase after Knox.
‘…….’
When Knox stopped and turned around quickly again—
This time, Aisha, hiding behind a pedestal displaying an expensive porcelain vase, peeked only her face out and stared at Knox.
Sparkle, sparkle—
Her blue eyes, pouring out a ‘sparkle beam,’ were craving attention.
However.
“Strange. I feel certain someone is following me.”
Knox muttered with a wide yawn and turned his head back.
“Aw, jeez~ Sir Knox!”
Eventually, Aisha, having lost the strange battle of wits, revealed herself with a trudging gait.
“I’ve been staring at you openly for a while now, why won’t you talk to me?”
“Let’s just say it’s the side effect of ‘Ding-Dong Ditch.’”
“Ah, whyyy—!”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can attend to Lady Aisha’s childcare for the time being. The aftermath of the Ding-Dong Ditch and the playing dead was so severe that I’ve been struggling for a while.”
To be precise, it wasn’t that he was struggling, but rather that he was so embarrassed he couldn’t show his face.
It was a trauma.
The moment the white pajama hood was pulled back, the sight of the knights and May’s face looking down from the ceiling.
No matter how much Knox claimed not to care about the gaze of others…
A twenty-four-year-old young man caught lying there in pajamas patterned with monsters?
‘It’s even more embarrassing than when I wiggled my backside trying to climb the wall to uncover the Lady’s true identity.’
At least his backside was decent to look at.
But lying in the hallway was a monumental dark history.
“Then, excuse me.”
It was just as Knox bowed politely and began to walk away again.
“Ah, S-Sir Knox.”
The flustered Lady persistently refused to give up and followed him, finally revealing her true intention.
“Are there… are there also cat-type monsters?”
“?”
At the sudden question, Knox stopped and turned his head for the third time.
This time, it wasn’t to pretend he didn’t know or to refuse her.
It was because it was the strangest monster-related question he had ever heard.
“What is the point of your question?”
He finally asked with interest, but unexpectedly, Aisha didn’t look pleased.
Instead, she checked to see if anyone was around and asked back with suspicious seriousness.
“Will you keep a secret?”
No.
“Yes.”
Knox answered coolly with a lie.
“You promise?”
No.
“Yes.”
“Ugh.”
Aisha felt a bit uneasy at the mechanical response, but in the end, the innocent Lady decided to trust him and approached.
As Knox willingly bent his upper body for her, Aisha stood on her tiptoes and whispered to him.
“When I saved Brother Lucas last time, I saved a kitten too, remember?”
Had she?
Knox, who had no interest in animals, gave a vague nod. However.
“The kitten’s eye color is violet.”
Knox’s eyes narrowed at the Lady’s remark, which made him doubt his own ears.
“…Pardon?”
“The cat I saved has violet eyes, and, well, Sir Knox, you’re a monster expert and the president of Masamo and all that. Do you know what it is?”
Naturally, even Knox didn’t know.
Cats were animals, and animals and monsters were strictly different species.
Monsters were things born beyond the End of the World, where humans did not live.
How they were born and what their ancestors were was still a subject of research, but monsters and animals were fundamentally different.
A bewildered Knox furrowed his brow.
“…First.”
“Yes?”
“First, show me the actual thing.”
“Follow me.”
As expected of the former spy Lady.
She never failed to bring big news whenever she appeared.
A short while later.
After leading him to her bedroom, the Lady picked up something wriggling on the bed.
“Is that the violet cat?”
“Yes. Agoo, agoo, so pretty.”
It was rare to see Aisha acting so fond of something in a voice that actually sounded like a five-year-old.
Knox watched the rare scene and witnessed the ball of fluff in Aisha’s arms open its eyes.
“…….”
And he gulped.
It was true.
The eyes of the cat, which was small enough to fit in Aisha’s two palms, were precisely violet.
“…This is quite something.”
Thump, thump.
The heart of the monster fanatic began to beat like a drum.
Flustered, he even took off his monocle and asked cautiously.
“May I hold it?”
“Yes. Of course.”
He held out his hand to receive the fluff-ball, but…
“Hiss.”
The cat, which had been lying there with a drowsy face, suddenly bristled its fur and went on guard.
Then it rolled over, snubbing Knox, and burrowed into Aisha’s arms.
Aisha spoke as if she felt sorry for him.
“Ah. You got permission from me, but it looks like you couldn’t get permission from the baby.”
“It can’t be helped. It’s fine.”
Knox smacked his lips in disappointment.
“Regardless, violet eyes are the symbol of a monster. It’s truly fascinating.”
“Right? So, actually, I want to raise this little one, but…”
The hesitant Lady’s small shoulders slumped.
“Keeping it a secret and raising it in the Duke’s Castle… that wouldn’t be allowed, right?”
Hmm.
Actually, I want to raise it.
‘It’s a magnificent research subject.’
Knox fell into thought for a moment.
“…It wouldn’t work, right?”
“We just have to keep it a secret. Let’s raise it here for the time being.”
An exclamation mark practically popped up over Aisha’s face at the unexpected answer.
“But there is a condition.”
“A condition?”
“Yes. Bring this cat to the Masamo meeting—the club for those who love monsters so much they could beat them to death.”
