<Chapter 63>

Silence immediately descended upon the area.

The monsters were still staring at me, and Kyle, standing among them, searched my face with a look of confusion.

“But I’m…”

His expression darkened as he hesitated for a long time, looking around at his surroundings.

“You don’t have to apologize.”

“What?”

“I said you don’t have to apologize. Because I really am a monster.”

As he spoke, Kyle quickly turned his head away, avoiding my gaze.

It seemed Kyle had already realized it.

The way people looked at him. And even the monsters that were waiting for him in the place he had fled to.

I had awakened a small god.

“…….”

But through this incident, I had realized something as well.

He was a monster, but at the same time, he was a person.

He sometimes frightened me with his irrational behavior, but even so, he had learned how to apologize to me.

Strengths and weaknesses—those were things all people had.

“Then…”

If it was him, I felt like I could accept it.

“Then, do monsters not need a warm embrace?”

As I carefully reached out my arms, Kyle’s eyelids flickered while he tried to avoid my gaze.

His eyes trembled violently at the word ‘embrace,’ but like a wounded child, he didn’t open his heart easily.

“…Monsters don’t need things like that.”

“Then I’ll give you my embrace as an apology.”

“An apology?”

At the mention of an apology, he looked at me.

He seemed to remember the lesson I had given him before.

“Yes. Because I was wrong. This is an apology. Will you accept it?”

Lifting my heels slightly, I gave him a bright smile.

“…Hmm.”

The expression Kyle was making now was the one he wore whenever he was learning something from me.

“…What happens if I accept the apology? Does that mean I can go to you even if I’m a monster?”

“Yes.”

“Just like before?”

“Yes. Of course!”

When I nodded vigorously, Kyle’s eyes widened.

Then, step by step.

He cautiously approached me.

One step. Then another.

Every so often, he would snap his head around to glare at the monsters as if warning them, before looking back at me again.

Before long, Kyle had closed the distance until our noses would touch if we bowed our heads. As he hesitantly reached out his arms, I hugged him with all my might.

“!”

His shoulders flinched in surprise.

“Aisha.”

True to his quick adaptability, Kyle soon lowered his head and rubbed his forehead against my shoulder.

“Kyle.”

I held Kyle tightly as well.

“I want to be a cat again and sleep in your arms.”

“Okay. Let’s go back to being a cat and get under the blankets together.”

Just then.

“Aisha.”

“Yeah?”

Kyle, breathing softly in my arms, mumbled.

“…If monsters could hug each other like you do, this would be a pretty good place to live, too.”

Kyle’s lips curled up in a satisfied smile, and with those words, he gradually began to shrink.

It seemed it was time to go back.

The kitten, now no larger than the palm of my hand, fell into a deep sleep while nestled in my arms.

* * *

Meanwhile.

Calips, who had been standing with his weight on one leg and hands on his hips for some time, finally spoke.

“Now, it’s about time…”

“Shh—”

“Aisha. That’s enough hugging Kyle. Stop…”

“Shh—”

It was about time they headed home.

But every time he tried to say something, Aisha would glare at him with narrowed eyes and let out a warning ‘shh,’ so he couldn’t even get a word in.

“Aisha.”

“…….”

“Aisha, Daddy is cold too…”

“Button up.”

At his daughter’s stern advice, Calips silently did up the buttons of his coat.

His five-year-old daughter, who was so merciful to cats and monsters, was unfortunately not so merciful to her father.

* * *

That evening.

As if by some unspoken agreement, the monsters moved away from Calips and the children once the cat fell asleep.

Thump, thump. Their steady retreat made them look like people heading home after a long day.

‘Do those things have homes too?’

Calips briefly wondered, but idle thoughts without answers were useless.

Calips returned to the Duke’s Castle carrying the sleeping Aisha and the transformed Kyle.

“Oh my, Lady Aisha’s condition is…!”

“She’s asleep. Give them both a quick wash and put them to bed.”

“Understood.”

The children, freshly bathed and smelling clean, fell into a peaceful slumber.

Calips looked down at Aisha and the white ball of fluff sleeping under the covers.

It was a truly beautiful sight.

Who wouldn’t smile fondly seeing their lovely daughter purring in her sleep while hugging a kitten?

It felt like only yesterday that this fellow had awkwardly introduced himself.

But he had seen it.

The way the monsters bowed their heads to Kyle.

“…….”

As the memory began to resurface, his smiling lips slowly straightened.

It was something he had expected from the moment he realized the boy was a Majin.

Children grow up faster than one thinks.

Aisha, who used to cry in the dirt piles of the garden, now knew how to reach out to others, and the boy who wanted to remain a kitten forever had caught a glimpse of his true identity.

‘Whether I like it or not, I’ll have to deal with this.’

Calips’s gaze darkened as he looked down at the children.

“You’ve returned?”

When he left the bedroom and quietly entered his office, Knox, who was working late, adjusted his monocle.

“What are those?”

There was something unfamiliar on the desk.

Several suspicious-looking vials of medicine were lined up on the office desk.

“The Lady left them here secretly. They appear to be Madness Amplifiers.”

“Hah.”

Don’t tell me that little kid…

He let out a hollow laugh after checking the potions on the desk.

He thought she had just gotten into a scrap with Kyle, but did she sneak out to get her hands on these?

Just how on earth did she get them?

“I wish she’d just grow up normally, but she really doesn’t listen.”

Knox replied to his remark.

“She wasn’t a normal child to begin with. Well, anyway, isn’t it true that things are being resolved quickly thanks to the Lady?”

“I’m going to ground her.”

“Pardon?”

Calips slumped into his chair and massaged his throbbing temples.

“I’m going to end up in an early grave worrying about her. She made me worry last time, and now she’s causing trouble again.”

“She’s five years old, isn’t she? It’s the prime age for getting into trouble.”

“Kyle went to the snowfields.”

Knox’s hand stopped mid-report at the sudden shift to the main topic. Realizing Knox was imagining the worst, Calips quickly continued.

“He got upset after a fight with Aisha and ran away. They’ve made up now and are sleeping soundly, so don’t worry. However…”

“However?”

“Kyle found out. That he’s a Majin.”

Clack.

This time, Knox dropped the pen he was holding.

‘…So that was Knox’s version of the worst-case scenario.’

Calips clicked his tongue as he watched his aide scramble to pick up the pen.

“He… he found out himself?”

“Yeah.”

“How does one realize that on their own? Did he suddenly have a moment of self-reflection in the snowfields?”

“The surrounding monsters were bowing their heads to that brat.”

“Good heavens. Is that situation real life or a novel?”

“Don’t overreact. I’m tired enough as it is.”

It wasn’t an overreaction. It was something to be shocked about.

But Calips, whose head already ached from thinking about the children, didn’t have the energy to respond to each of Knox’s reactions.

Fortunately, Knox quickly grasped the severity of the situation and returned to his usual rational self.

“If the monsters have recognized a Majin, they will likely start attempting to communicate with him in earnest. Those Alosias from last time were also trying to mimic human speech.”

“Exactly.”

Knox asked.

“What do you plan to do?”

A heavy silence hung in the air at Knox’s question.

What was he going to do?

It wasn’t a simple question.

It was asking everything from Kyle’s living arrangements to how to handle the power of a Majin, which was tied to the very survival of humanity.

‘I was hailed as a hero, and now I’ve been saddled with this.’

Calips let out a long sigh.

Well. What should he do with Kyle?

In truth, he had no intention of killing Kyle.

If he were to kill a child so innocent that he spoke informally to him just because his existence was ominous, he would have sent Aisha to prison in the first place.

But that didn’t mean he had any intention of letting Kyle go either.

Tap, tap—

His fingers, laden with worry, drummed against the mahogany desk.

“He’s still young. He doesn’t know anything.”

“That’s true,” Knox nodded.

He didn’t know anything. Because of that, there was a possibility Kyle could be accepted.

Perhaps Aisha bringing him here wasn’t such a bad situation after all.

“It’s much better for him to be influenced by good things than by bad things.”

“Indeed.”

“Then wouldn’t it be better for us to raise him ourselves and nip any notions of being a King of Monsters in the bud?”

“That is true—”

Knox, who had been answering reflexively, saw his monocle flash white.

“…Wait, what?”