After leaving the bakery, Elysia walked slowly down the street, holding the bag of bread in one hand.
Nestled in her arms, I looked around at the street.
When I had first come to this world, everything had been unfamiliar.
The buildings, the way people dressed, the sounds of carriages, the traces of mana flowing through every corner of the streets.
Back then, I had been nothing more than a small fox drenched by the rain, with no idea where to go.
But now, things were different.
It was the same street, yet for some strange reason, it looked a little different.
The laughter of children passing by the bakery.
The voice of a merchant opening his shop door to greet a customer.
The small signs hanging beneath the magic lamps.
The sound of carriage wheels echoing from afar, and the warm scent of bread drifting amidst the people.
A scenery that had once felt like a vast, unfamiliar world now felt like a somewhat familiar place.
The fact that I was living in this world suddenly felt very real.
“Haku.”
Elysia quietly called my name.
When I raised my head, she was smiling gently.
“You wanted to come back, didn’t you?”
I looked at Elysia for a moment, then nodded slightly.
To be exact, rather than wanting to come back, I had wanted to confirm something.
That the kindness of that day hadn’t been a dream.
That the warmth I had first received in this world had truly existed.
And that now, I was able to respond to that warmth.
Perhaps that was what I had wanted to confirm.
Elysia slowly stroked my back.
“I’m glad I brought you.”
I buried the tip of my nose into her arm for no particular reason.
A corner of my heart tingled.
This feeling was still a little unfamiliar.
The sensation of conveying gratitude to someone, and having a place to return to together.
My past self might have taken it for granted.
But to the me of now, it felt more precious than I had imagined.
We returned home slowly, just like that.
On the way back, Elysia slowed her pace several times.
Whenever I looked at something on the street for a long time, she wouldn’t rush me, but quietly waited.
The sweet fragrance wafting from the fruit shop.
Children playing by the fountain.
My reflection in the glass window of a small accessory store.
Inside it was a silver-pink baby fox nestled in Elysia’s arms.
The me of that day, trembling while drenched in rain, was gone now.
Instead, the current me was looking at the streets from within someone’s embrace.
A strange change, an embarrassing change, but not a bad one.
Upon arriving home, Elysia first placed the bread bag on the dining table.
As the smell of freshly baked bread spread through the room, the passing maid, Mina, opened her eyes wide.
“My lady, you bought bread.”
“Yes. There was a bakery Haku really wanted to visit.”
“Master Haku?”
Mina looked at me in surprise.
I turned my head, pretending to be a clueless fox.
But Elysia looked at me and smiled softly.
“It’s a place where Haku received help in the past. So we went to give our thanks.”
Hearing those words, Mina’s expression softened considerably.
“I see. To think that Master Haku had such a connection as well.”
A short while later, Isolde also appeared in the dining room after hearing the news.
She alternated her gaze between the bread bag and me, then smiled quietly.
“A child who doesn’t forget a small kindness.”
At those words, I slightly folded my ears back.
Having seemingly been praised, I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed.
Hugging me close, Elysia spoke carefully.
“If that person hadn’t shared their bread with us that day, Haku might have had a much harder time.”
Isolde slowly nodded.
“Then we should be grateful as well. After all, the kindness that person showed may have been part of the path that led you and Haku to meet.”
Those words seemed somewhat exaggerated.
But they weren’t entirely wrong, either.
A piece of bread on a rainy day.
A worn-out box.
Elysia’s hand.
And this warm room now.
A chain of small, seemingly unrelated events had led all the way here.
I gazed at the bread bag on the table and quietly wagged my tail.
The bread we bought today was far more than the small piece I had received that day.
But strangely, the warmth remaining in my heart wasn’t so different from back then.
If anything, it had only deepened.
And so the weekend passed, and time flowed on once more.
Classes and training, familiar registration examinations, and Elysia’s swordsmanship practice.
As such days passed one after another, a full month had gone by since I came to this world.
When I had first opened my eyes, everything had been unfamiliar.
The rain-soaked streets, the sweet scent in front of the bakery, the worn-out box.
And Elysia, who had stopped in front of that box and looked down at me.
Yet now, I had become Elysia’s registered familiar and had grown quite accustomed to life at Excelia Academy.
In the mornings, I went to school with Elysia, and during class, I spent my time quietly either by her side or in a corner of the classroom.
When the Magic Knight Department students headed to the training grounds, I followed along,
and when lunchtime came, I ate bits of food that Elysia gave me in a corner of the cafeteria.
Of course, there was one major problem in my otherwise peaceful academy life.
“Haku, can I pet you just a little today?”
“Me too... just once.”
“I was so tired from studying for yesterday’s exam. I think I’ll come back to life if I can just hold Haku once.”
It was the students coming to touch me.
At first, it had been utter chaos.
Whether because the sight of a silver-pink baby fox was so novel,
or because the fact that I was the familiar of Elysia von Valerion was so intriguing,
the students would swarm around me during every break and encircle me.
It had truly been overwhelming back then.
On the inside, I was still very much a person; having dozens of people suddenly approach me with sparkling eyes saying they wanted to pet me, I couldn’t help but be flustered.
But after a month, things had changed a little.
The number of students coming to see me had decreased compared to before.
The students who had come out of curiosity seemed to have had their fill,
and now only those who genuinely liked me remained.
However, their purpose had shifted somewhat.
If they had first come because it was strange and curious, now they came to me to catch their breath when they were tired or exhausted.
A student who had rolled around in training and was covered in dirt.
A student with dark circles under their eyes from a magic theory exam.
A student whose soul had half escaped after receiving piles of homework from a professor.
Such students would come before me one by one and carefully extend their hands.
“Haku... I had a really hard day today.”
“Yip.”
“Thank you....”
No, I hadn’t done anything yet.
I had simply been sitting there, yet the student petted my head once and walked away with an expression as if they had gained the entire world.
Around this point, I gradually began to give up.
Eventually, from some point on, I began to accept it in moderation.
A few per day.
Only within the time Elysia permitted.
Do not grab the tail recklessly.
Do not touch the ears roughly.
Do not try to flip me onto my back.
Even rules like these had been established.
...Why the rules for petting me were posted on the academy bulletin board was still something I couldn’t understand.
At any rate, after a month had passed like that,
I had somehow become something of a mascot for Excelia Academy.
In the student cafeteria, small cookies modeled after my appearance had even appeared,
and the Special Familiar Department students would make strangely reverent expressions whenever they observed me.
The Magic Knight Department students had even spread a rumor that if they petted my head once before training, they would take fewer hits during sparring that day.
No, that’s just a placebo effect, isn’t it?
But the problem didn’t end there.
One day, Elysia looked down at me with a slightly troubled expression.
“Haku.”
“Yip?”
“The Student Council has made a proposal... about creating an emblem modeled after your appearance.”
I froze for a moment.
What had I just heard?
An emblem?
What kind of emblem?
Modeled after my appearance?
‘Eeeh?’
I reflexively perked my ears straight up.
Why?
How did it get to that point?
I’m just Elysia’s familiar.
Just a slightly unusual silver-pink baby fox,
merely an existence that occasionally permits students the right to pet me.
And yet, suddenly an emblem?
No matter how much I thought about it, this was strange.
“At first, it seems it was discussed as a temporary design for the festival...”
Elysia lowered her eyes briefly, as if choosing her words.
“But the reaction was better than expected, so apparently people are suggesting it be reviewed as a promotional sub-emblem for the academy.”
‘...Is this for real.’
I stared blankly into the air from within Elysia’s arms.
The situation was flowing in an increasingly strange direction.
At first, I had been a baby fox eating a piece of bread on the street.
Then I became Elysia’s familiar.
Then I became the students’ source of comfort.
And now I had become a candidate for the academy’s official mascot.
Should this be called growth?
Or should it be called an accident?
What was scarier was that this proposal hadn’t ended as a mere joke tossed around among students.
“The professors are positive about it too,” Elysia said.
I slowly raised my head.
“The Special Familiar Department professor said it would be a good symbol for policies promoting affinity with rare familiars,
and the Magic Knight Department professor agreed, saying it would help boost student morale.”
‘No, even the professors?’
“And the Headmaster too...”
At that, Elysia averted her eyes for a moment.
Sensing an ominous premonition, I flattened my ears.
“I heard he said, ‘This should be interesting.’”
It was over.
Didn’t that basically mean he had already half-approved it?
I covered my face with my front paws.
This academy might be a much stranger place than I thought.
Elysia couldn’t help but laugh when she saw me like that.
“Sorry, Haku. But it’s because everyone likes you.”
I knew that.
I also knew there was no ill intent.
The smiling faces of students when they saw me,
and their voices cautiously asking if they could pet me with exhausted expressions,
were not things I disliked.
Rather, it was sometimes fascinating.
When I had first come to this world,
I had never imagined I would blend in so naturally among so many people.
But that was a separate matter from my face becoming an academy emblem.
It was embarrassing.
Tremendously embarrassing.
‘I’m a guy.’
I muttered that inwardly, but
my current appearance was, no matter how you looked at it, a small and fluffy silver-pink baby fox.
It wasn’t convincing at all.