Chapter 59
<61화>
Fwhiiiii—
A messenger bird with massive wings spread wide soared across the sky.
Arriving much faster than one could by navigating the dirt paths hidden among the conifers, the bird landed on the windowsill of Calips’s office at the Crost Duke’s Castle.
“A message has arrived.”
“Check it.”
Calips had been waiting for word.
He had heard that Kyle had suddenly appeared in the square of Torn City. And that he was covered in blood.
‘That means there was a spy.’
The eyes of the knight who unfurled the message grew wide with tension.
“Your Grace. It seems…”
“What is it?”
“The boy has vanished, and Lady Aisha has appeared in his place.”
“What?”
Why was his daughter there, when she had threatened to sleep all day?
“Furthermore, she requested the knights take her to the Ice Wall. They say they are currently heading toward the End of the World…”
“We’re going too.”
“Yes, sir!”
Setting aside his bewilderment, Calips quickly threw on his cloak and mounted his horse.
A thought had been crossing his mind lately.
Raising a daughter was much harder than raising a son.
At that same time.
In front of the iron gates of the Ice Wall that led to the End of the World.
“Please open the gate!”
“My Lady. We, the knights, will search for that white-haired boy. So please…”
“It’s not something you can do! I’m telling you, he’ll definitely refuse any help!”
Stomp, stomp!
Aisha stomped her short legs on the ground, but the knights only looked troubled and shook their heads.
“But My Lady, since we began guarding this gate, it has never been opened once. Perhaps the boy you are looking for hasn’t even reached the Ice Wall yet.”
“He’s definitely here. If it’s him, he could just hop right over it.”
“Pardon?”
“He’s not just a person, he’s a cat! Cats can jump over anything!”
Explaining with her fists clenched, Aisha hopped up and down vigorously, imitating a cat jumping over the wall.
“Like this!”
“My Lady…”
Hop. Hop.
She jumped with all her might, but the knights only looked more distressed.
She knew. She knew that to them, her words sounded like nothing more than a stubborn tantrum.
‘But I have to catch Kyle.’
She had to clear up the misunderstanding.
If she didn’t heal the wound she’d inflicted on him now, she felt as though she might never be able to.
It was then.
“Aisha.”
Her hopping body froze at the sound of a chilling low voice behind her.
“Why are you causing such trouble!”
A massive hand, belonging to a voice thick with suppressed anger, grabbed her shoulder and turned her around.
Spun around, she came face-to-face with her father’s terrifying expression.
“You know very well how dangerous it is beyond the Ice Wall. A child who said she’d sleep all day suddenly disappears, do you have any idea how much I—”
But his rapidly moving mouth suddenly stiffened.
“Aisha.”
He looked at her face for a moment.
“Why are you crying?” he asked, his expression shifting to one of slight shock.
“…Dad.”
She had tried her best to hold it back. But at her father’s question, the emotions she had been ignoring crashed over her like a tidal wave.
Still, hating the idea of letting the tears fall, she bit her lip hard.
“You’re bleeding. Don’t do that.”
Regardless of her efforts.
When his warm thumb, completely oblivious to her inner turmoil, gently stroked her lip, her chin—already puckered like a walnut—began to tremble violently.
She didn’t want to cry over something like this. It made her feel like an actual five-year-old.
But because of that single touch, because of a warmth she had no immunity to, her tears finally burst forth.
Most unsightly.
She hurriedly wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and continued speaking.
“I… I think I accidentally hurt Kyle’s feelings, and now he’s run away beyond the Ice Wall.”
But it was a first for her, too.
“Kyle has nowhere to go but with me. If he goes beyond the Ice Wall, he’ll never talk to humans again…”
To worry about someone like this. To want to hold onto someone so badly.
“Then who will help Kyle? He’s wary of everyone except me.”
Until the moment she had grabbed Calips’s hand while escaping through the vent, it was an emotion she had never felt, even in her past life.
Kyle must have felt the same toward her, and yet she had hurt him.
“…Hic!”
Taking a sharp breath, she finally blurted out the truth.
“Kyle is actually a kitten.”
She glanced at her father, worried he might be shocked, but surprisingly, Calips didn’t respond.
His lack of reaction made her anxious, and she continued, fidgeting with her fingers.
“He’s still young, so he won’t be able to survive on his own. He might die. But he won’t trust anyone but me, so please, open the iron gate…”
It was then.
“Even adults find it hard to live alone.”
Suddenly, her body soared into the air.
Calips stood up, lightly cradling her in one arm. As she was tucked into her father’s embrace, he used his other hand to roughly wipe away the tears from her swollen eyes.
“And you say this Kyle fellow is younger than you. Then it’ll be even harder for him.”
Muttering as he looked at her, Calips turned his gaze toward the knights. Then.
“Open the gate.”
Once he had made up his mind, Calips did not hesitate.
Creeeeeak—
The iron gate that seemed as if it would never open began to move slowly at the Lord’s command, letting out a heavy metallic groan.
Through the gap in the solid iron, a world of black and white was revealed.
Amidst the lashing snow, dark shapes lingered in the distance.
They were likely the monsters that usually loitered near the Ice Wall.
Holding Aisha in one arm and drawing his sword with the other, Calips stepped beyond the wall.
“We will reopen the gate as soon as you give the signal. Please be careful.”
With the knights’ final words of concern, the iron gate shut with a heavy thud.
Everything was white.
In this place, even vaster than the Frozen Kingdom, how were they supposed to find Kyle?
“Dad, let’s start walking for now.”
She tried to wriggle out of his arms, but—
“Wait.”
A quiet warning brushed against her ear.
Calips silently looked up at the barren sky.
Then, walking with slow, heavy steps, he let out a short laugh while holding her.
“It’s a day without snow. We’re lucky.”
“…Why?”
“Sweetheart. Look over there.”
Having found something, he quietly bent his knees and set her down.
“It looks like someone left a trail of breadcrumbs.”
Following her father’s finger as he spoke in a low, amused voice, Aisha peered out across the distant snowy plain—
“!”
Deeply etched into the white snow were small footprints, presumably Kyle’s.
“Shall we follow these?”
“!”
At Calips’s suggestion, her blue eyes, which had been blurred with tears, widened in realization.
At that same time.
“This is my home now.”
Kyle stopped in front of a black rock larger than his own body.
It was massive, and the top was as smooth as a bed; it seemed perfect for him.
Kyle leaped lightly and sat atop the rock. He gazed out at the endless white world. There was nothing but the shapes of a few monsters moving in the distance.
He would live here for the rest of his life.
“I won’t starve. It might be better than living at Ahili’s Circus.”
Looking out into the distance, he thought that perhaps this wasn’t so bad.
He could endure the cold, and if he got hungry, he could just hunt wild beasts.
Because he was a monster.
‘Your name is Kyle.’
It was then.
The moment he accepted himself as a monster, for some reason, Aisha’s voice calling his name drifted into his mind.
It was as if she were shouting inside his head that he wasn’t a monster. Come to think of it, monsters didn’t have names. A monster was just a monster.
‘But I have a name.’
Then what was he?
Kyle, confused once more, was blinking up at the sky when—
“…O, Lord…”
Hearing an unfamiliar language, Kyle wiped the confusion from his face and immediately fixed a sharp gaze on the source of the sound.
Something was speaking to Kyle.
“…Our King… Our, Leader… You are…”
You are our little god.