Chapter 48

Though he had sworn to himself not to care, even so, there was no way to turn a blind eye to the truth.

The creature was a werewolf.

Neither a dog, nor a wolf, nor a wolf-dog, nor a magic beast—a werewolf Wildman.

How could a werewolf stay in its wolf form for so long, you ask? Is there clear evidence that it’s a werewolf?

Well, evidence was in no short supply. The creature’s gaze was the evidence. What served as absolute proof to Arcan that it was not a werewolf bore precisely the opposite meaning to Ben.

“You saw the creature’s eyes just now, didn’t you? Is that the look of a Wildman?”

When Arcan had said those words, Ben hadn’t been able to offer much of a rebuttal, but now he could say with absolute conviction:

‘Precisely because it wore such a sniveling, servile look… it had to be a werewolf.’

There was a world that Arcan—who had spent his entire life perched up high, looking down upon others—simply did not know. Which was not to say that Arcan hadn’t suffered.

Arcan was, in name and reality, a man who had fought alongside his soldiers at the absolute forefront, far more than any other mage unit. He had seen plenty of brutal sights and things best left unseen.

However, gazing upon a mire from a distance and truly ‘understanding’ it were entirely different problems. And Arcan, the noble Duke Arcan Wintercrown, did not understand his lowest-ranking subordinates living at the bottom of the pile. To be precise, he hadn’t even wanted to understand them.

It had been the same back when he served as the commanding officer overseeing the early Wildman Special Detachment. He had always maintained a certain distance from his Wildman subordinates.

Occasionally, he would display something akin to human affection, but anyone who had watched him for long knew the truth. It was all just for show. Just like a veteran soldier greasing his firearm every single day, Arcan merely performed those actions for his own convenience.

Therefore, illusions were strictly forbidden. How many human soldiers and Wildmen had driven themselves to ruin due to the delusion that Arcan was taking a personal interest in them?

‘Of course, that wasn’t the Duke’s fault.’

Ben let out a dry chuckle. It was a smile laced with a complex mix of affection and resentment toward his longtime superior.

Arcan did not know.
Mages did not know.

They would never comprehend how ruthless the weak could become when they resolved to survive, nor to what lengths they would cast away their own dignity—the sheer desperation and agony of it all.

‘As long as you can survive, what does pride even matter?’

The werewolf Ben was hunting right now must have been having similar thoughts. The gamekeeper drew the pistol holstered at his waist. It was a pistol he could easily grip and fire with one hand.

Aimed squarely into the heart of the darkness with his muzzle, he muttered as if reciting a spell:

“Show yourself.”

A werewolf.

“I said come out!!!”

Still, there was no answer. Ben stared unblinkingly into the darkness.

And right across his mind, a memory from fifty years ago that he thought he had forgotten flashed past like a revolving lantern.

“You must never speak of them lightly. You always have to watch what you say.”

Especially those vampire bastards. You mustn’t mention them even as a joke. A careless word tossed out while playing around with friends can lead to terrifying consequences. Remember that, and keep it in mind.

A dilapidated, rotting wooden shack. That was the home where Ben’s family had lived. His childhood could not be called particularly unfortunate. Unlike the capital Estaria, where even the trash rolling in the streets sparkled brilliantly, poverty was still a common fixture on the fringes of Esta.

There, Ben slept on a wooden plank draped roughly in rags that could hardly even be called a bed. As the young boy lay down on it to prepare for sleep, his dim-sighted grandmother would whisper terrifying old tales to him.

Most of them were stories about Wildmen. You know how it is—the sort of stories adults traditionally tell to teach children a lesson. If you make a fuss, cry, talk back, or lie, a terrifying werewolf will come and snatch you away.

His grandmother would whisper to Ben as he drifted off to sleep, telling him just how terrifying Wildmen were and why he needed to fear them. The ending of the story was always the same.

“So you must never get close to things… like that.”

Even at a young age, Ben already knew his grandmother’s stories were lies. The boy would grumble inwardly:

‘They aren’t scary at all.’

The reason you shouldn’t get close to Wildmen wasn’t because they were scary, but because they were filthy.

Indeed, those wretches drifted from place to place, getting pelted with stones in every village they passed through. Occasionally they would appear as hired laborers, medicine peddlers, or circus performers, but they never stayed anywhere for long.

It was the same in the remote village where Ben lived. Any Wildman trying to put down roots invariably met a barrage of stones. Hadn’t an amphibious mermaid with gill-like organs been driven out of the village just three months ago?

He recalled the mermaid, terrified and surrounded by an angry mob of villagers. Ben let out an inward sneer.

’Wildmen, or whatever—let ‘em come out all they want. I’ll teach ‘em a lesson right quick.’

It was truly the brash ignorance of a childhood mind. As he grew older and gained experience, Ben came to understand.

Why his grandmother had been so terrified of Wildmen.

The moment you stepped outside the rules of civilized society, humans became nothing more than prey for the Wildmen. Working as an inspector for the Wildman Special Detachment, Ben came to know their terrifying nature deep down to his bones. He would likely find it hard to forget until the day he died how a werewolf could slaughter enemies in the blink of an eye.

‘Damn it. Of all times, the memories of back then have to surface now. I’m practically out of my mind with terror.’

If there was any silver lining, it was that everything would be over before he even had time to fire his gun. He wouldn’t even feel the pain. Yet Ben intended to look right into the face of that shameless wolf bastard with his own two eyes before he died.

“Show yourself already, you cowardly dog bastard.”

Before he could call out to the creature a third time, two pale yellow lights suddenly emerged from within the darkness. Ben was swept up in the illusion that he was a deer caught in a pair of headlights.

“……”

For an instant, his knees grew weak, and the hand gripping the gun handle trembled violently.

While those eyes rapidly closed the distance toward him, Ben stood frozen like ice. As if a dam had burst, memories of his military days came flooding back without hesitation.

The voices of the Wildman detachment members seemed to echo from right beside him. In clumsy Estaian, they said.

“You’ll come back to rescue us, right?”

“I’m going to build… a school.”

“Traitor!”

The auditory hallucinations stopped alongside a boy’s voice.

“Did you… find me?”

Coming to his senses, Ben finally came face-to-face with the werewolf he had been searching for.

“…What is… this.”

His face was stained with confusion. That was only natural, because the one standing before his gun barrel right now didn’t look terrifying in the least.

It was a boy. Moreover, an exceptionally emaciated, small boy. A young boy with dazzling golden eyes contrasting sharply against his matted black hair spoke in a voice devoid of all strength.

“…If you’re going to shoot, do it fast. I’m… tired.”

Seeing the pitiful kid covered in grime and mumbling like that, Ben let out a dry laugh.

“What are you, kid?”

“You’re the one who called me.”

“Don’t tell me you’re that…”

The black dog? Could it really be you? A puny, pathetic thing like you… is a werewolf?

Before Ben could even finish his question, the boy, blinking his golden eyes, let out a faint chuckle. And right then and there, he collapsed with a thud.

“Gasp!”

The place where Aethlyn opened her eyes was indoors.

Her very first, reflexive thought was whether she might have died. But this place was neither hell, nor heaven, nor even purgatory.

Her entire body ached. From her bone joints down to her muscles and nerves, there wasn’t a single spot that didn’t hurt. And that very pain was what proved Aethlyn was still alive.

“I… survived.”

Tears streamed down endlessly. Amidst the thrill and relief of being alive, Aethlyn tried desperately to make sense of her surroundings.

The ceiling, the furniture placed beside her. It didn’t have the atmosphere of a typical military hospital. Nor did it look like a Barbaros Empire prisoner-of-war camp. It was far too comfortable for that. It seemed to be daytime outside, but perhaps because heavy curtains were drawn, the surroundings were dim, making the detailed scenery hard to take in.

‘……’

When Aethlyn carefully turned her creaking neck to the left, a bookshelf packed full of books came into view.

The Pharosian and Estaian languages written on the book spines deeply reassured her.

‘I’m saved.’

This was the home of someone from Pharos. Since Pharos was a friendly nation to Esta (or more accurately, a protectorate), Aethlyn would surely be protected here.