Elysia and I returned to the room like that.
More precisely, Elysia carried me in her arms and took me to her room.
The room was larger than I had expected.
As befitted the room of a duke’s daughter, every piece of furniture was luxurious, but it wasn’t excessively ornate.
A large bed and desk, a stand for maintaining swords, a few swordsmanship manuals and notebooks.
And in one corner of the room, there was even a wooden training sword.
‘She really is the type who only knows swords.’
Rather than the room of a noble young lady, it was closer to the room of a student who loved swords.
Elysia set me down on a small cushion.
It seemed to be a spot she had prepared in a hurry.
A soft cloth had been laid out, and beside it was even a small bowl of water.
“I think you can sleep here tonight.”
“Kiing.”
I obediently nodded.
Good.
Very good.
Even if it was on the floor, the cushion was fluffy, and the room was warm.
Compared to shivering in an alley while being drenched by the rain, it was practically heaven.
I curled up and lay down on the cushion.
All I had to do was sleep like this.
That was what I thought.
“……No.”
Elysia looked down at me and murmured quietly.
My ears perked up.
No what?
“Your body might still be cold.”
After hesitating for a moment, she carefully lifted me up.
“Kiik?”
My field of vision suddenly rose.
‘Wait, where are we going?’
Elysia headed toward the bed without hesitation.
Then she gently set me down by her pillow.
“Let’s sleep together tonight.”
“…….”
I froze.
Together?
Who?
With me?
Elysia?
‘No, hold on.’
In my previous life, I was not a man who had many connections with women.
As far as memories of holding a woman’s hand went, there was only the time I crossed the street holding my older female cousin’s hand when I was a child,
and holding my mother’s hand.
Dating experience?
None.
Flirting?
None.
Living together?
Of course not.
And now someone like me had suddenly ended up on the bed of a duke’s daughter.
No matter how much I looked like a baby fox right now, the mind inside me was undeniably that of an adult man.
‘Is this really okay?’
Of course, from Elysia’s perspective, she was merely trying to let a rain-soaked baby fox sleep warmly.
There was absolutely no strange intention in her heart.
The problem was me.
The problem was that I knew myself far too well.
‘No, calm down. Right now, I’m a fox. Just a fox. A silver-pink ball of fur.’
I repeated it to myself as if brainwashing myself.
But Elysia was right in front of me.
She was sitting on the bed, tidying her hair.
Her damp golden hair had dried somewhat and now flowed softly over her shoulders,
and her appearance in sleepwear was different from the neat uniform she had worn during the day.
Rather than glamorous, she looked clean and proper.
The sight of the hands that had held a sword now arranging the blanket felt strangely unfamiliar.
‘No. Don’t look. I’m a gentleman. No, I’m a fox. No, I’m a gentleman fox.’
I hurriedly turned around.
Then I carefully walked toward the end of the bed.
Let’s get down to the floor.
That was the right thing to do.
On all fours, I cautiously moved to the edge of the bed.
At that moment, Elysia’s voice came from behind me.
“Haku?”
I flinched.
“You’ll fall from there.”
A gentle hand wrapped around my body.
“Kiing?!”
I was lifted up again.
Then I was placed farther in than before, close to Elysia’s pillow.
“Stay here.”
No.
I don’t think I should stay here.
But my protest didn’t work.
Elysia nonchalantly pulled the blanket over herself and lay down.
Then she turned slightly toward me.
“You had a hard day today, didn’t you?”
I couldn’t answer.
I had had a hard day.
I got hit by a truck,
woke up in a forest,
became a nine-tailed fox,
transformed into a peerless beauty,
and somehow drifted all the way to a city.
On top of that, I got drenched in the rain, shivered in an alley, and was picked up by a duke’s daughter.
It was far too much to call a single day’s worth of events.
“It’s all right now.”
Elysia spoke quietly.
“At least for tonight, you’re safe.”
At those words, I stilled for a moment.
Safe.
That word sank strangely deep into me.
After waking up in an unfamiliar world, I had been tense the entire time.
I didn’t know what this body was, what kind of world this was, or who was an enemy and who was an ally.
Yet this girl had asked nothing, washed me, fed me, and laid me down in a warm place.
Simply because she couldn’t leave a little fox soaked by the rain alone.
I slowly lowered my body.
Elysia reached out and carefully stroked the top of my head.
Her touch was clumsy, but gentle.
Her hand had calluses from holding a sword for so long, and strangely, that made it feel even warmer.
“Good night, Haku.”
After saying that, she closed her eyes.
I stared at her blankly.
‘Isn’t she falling asleep too quickly?’
Despite being the person who, just a little while ago, had gotten permission from the duke and duchess,
washed me, fed me,
and brought me all the way to her room, Elysia quickly drifted off to sleep.
She must have been tired.
I could hear her steady breathing.
The room was quiet.
Outside the window, rain was still falling.
The faint light of the magic lamp seeped through the curtains, dyeing the room in a pale blue glow.
I carefully looked toward Elysia.
Her sleeping face looked a little younger than it had during the day.
But it was neither a deadened face nor a broken one.
If anything, it was the face of someone who had finally let go of her tension.
The face of someone who had been keeping herself together all day, only becoming a little more at ease once she had fallen asleep.
I suddenly recalled the flow of aura moving inside her body.
A talent so vast it seemed to overflow.
But a power that had failed to find its proper place and was colliding with itself.
‘What a waste.’
The thought came to me without my realizing it.
I didn’t know if it was because of the nine-tailed fox’s senses.
But I could clearly feel the potential sleeping inside Elysia.
All she needed was for someone to guide her path a little.
Not to force open a blocked river, but to let it flow in the direction it was meant to flow.
If that was done, this girl would undoubtedly become strong.
Very strong.
I didn’t even know how many times I had thought this.
But I couldn’t help it when the thought kept coming to me every time I looked at her.
“…….”
I curled up slightly.
One silver-pink tail moved unconsciously and touched near the back of Elysia’s hand.
At that moment, the faint tension between Elysia’s brows loosened.
Her breathing also became a little more comfortable.
‘As I thought.’
It seemed my fox-spirit power calmed her tangled flow a little.
After hesitating for a moment, I didn’t pull my tail back.
Just for tonight should be fine.
It wasn’t as if there was much else I could do anyway.
I curled up beside the pillow and lay down.
The warm scent of the blanket, the faint floral fragrance coming from Elysia, and the sound of rain outside the window mixed together.
My eyelids grew heavy.
My first day in this world had been a mess.
But at the very least.
On a rainy night, there had been someone who didn’t leave me alone.
That fact, at least, wasn’t bad.
- The next day.
I carefully opened my eyes.
The first thing I saw was not a familiar ceiling.
It wasn’t the fluorescent light in my room, nor the wallpaper of my cramped studio apartment.
A high ceiling. Curtains of a soft color. Gentle morning sunlight seeping in through the window.
And the scenery of a room that was luxurious but not overly extravagant.
It was not the world I had known.
Only then did it sink in once again.
‘Ah.’
This isn’t a dream.
I really died, really came to another world, and really became a baby fox.
I lay there blankly for a while, then slowly moved my body.
When I uncurled myself, my stiff back and legs stretched out.
I extended my front paws forward, lowered my waist, and stretched my hind legs as if pushing them out long.
“Nngh……”
A small, strange sound escaped my mouth.
‘……Even my stretching sounds like a fox.’
It felt odd, but my body was light.
A considerable amount of the fatigue from getting soaked in the rain, wandering through the forest, and walking all the way to the city yesterday had disappeared.
I sat up on the bed.
Then I slowly looked around the room, which I hadn’t been able to properly see yesterday because I had been so out of it.
Elysia’s room was spacious and orderly, just as one would expect from the room of a duke’s daughter.
But it didn’t feel lavish or excessively decorated.
A large wardrobe.
A neatly organized desk.
Writing tools and several thick books placed on the desk.
On one side of the wall, books that appeared to be swordsmanship manuals were neatly lined up, and beside them stood a wooden training sword.
In one corner of the room, there was also a stand, cloths, and a bottle of oil for sword maintenance.
‘She really is diligent.’
Rather than the room of a noble young lady, it felt like the room of a student who loved swords.
Of course, judging by the quality of the bed, curtains, and furniture, it was definitely not the room of an ordinary student.
Finally, I looked toward one side of the bed.
Elysia was still asleep.
The morning sunlight settled softly over her golden hair.
Unlike the way she had looked soaked by the rain yesterday, she now appeared much more peaceful.
Her sleeping face looked younger than I had expected.
But she didn’t seem fragile or broken.
If anything, she looked quiet and proper, like someone who had finally lowered her guard over the course of the night.
‘……This child is pretty too.’
I thought that to myself, then immediately flattened my ears.
‘No, what am I thinking?’
Of course, it was just a simple impression.
Pretty was pretty.
In my previous life, I had almost never said such words to anyone directly.
To begin with, I had neither the opportunity nor the courage to say them.
Perhaps because of that, even thinking it to myself like this felt somehow unfamiliar.
I let out a small breath.
‘Well, anyway.’
Today, Elysia would probably take me to the academy.
If things went as the duchess had said yesterday,
there was a high chance I would be examined by a professor from the Department of Special Familiar Studies? to determine whether I was a dangerous being or not.
In other words, today was examination day.
‘I’d rather not get found out while just sitting still.’
At the very least, I needed to know what I was and how much control I had over my powers.
I curled up on one side of the bed.
Then I quietly closed my eyes.
I tried to feel the energy flowing deep inside my body.
When I first used my power yesterday, I had been too frantic to understand it properly.
But now it was a little different.
Fox-spirit power.
A power different from mana and aura.
The mana flowing through the air of this world was like waves brushing against my body from the outside.
Aura was like heat forged within the body through the interlocking of breath, muscles, and will.
In contrast, fox-spirit power was like moonlight blooming from deep within me.
It wasn’t something drawn in from the outside like mana, nor something pushed upward by training the body like aura.
It was closer to the sensation of something that had been sleeping inside me from the start quietly awakening the moment I became aware of it.
It was like flame and yet like mist, flowing like water and yet connected like thread.
‘Just a very little bit for now.’
I tried gathering that energy at the tip of my front paw.
Then a very faint silver energy formed at my pawtip.
It looked like a tiny ember, and also like a fragment of moonlight.
If this had been yesterday, it might have shot out and split a boulder.
But this time, I moved it as small, thin, and gentle as possible.
The silver energy gathered into a round shape over my front paw, then unraveled as thin as thread.
‘It works.’
I focused a little more.
Gather the energy.
Scatter it.
Gather it again.
This time, I let it flow toward my tail.
Then the sensation of the tails that had been faintly hidden behind me became clear.
The tails that normally felt like one presence each revealed themselves separately when I focused my consciousness.
One.
Two.
Three.
But when I tried to properly handle all nine of them, my head spun.
‘Ah, this is still too much.’
I gave up being greedy and moved only the outermost tail.
Rustle.
The tip of my tail swayed carefully.
In time with that movement, my fox-spirit power also began to flow smoothly.
At first, it felt a little jerky, but as time passed, it became increasingly natural.
It was fascinating.
Rather than feeling like I was learning something, it felt as if my body had already known it and I was belatedly remembering.
‘This body remembers.’
The original owner of this body.
Most of the memories he had left behind were hazy, but traces still remained in the body itself.
How to breathe, how to circulate energy, how to handle the flow with my tails.
It wasn’t perfect, but I became accustomed to the basic manipulation faster than expected.
After some time passed, I was able to drape a very thin membrane of fox-spirit power over my body.
On the outside, I looked like an ordinary baby fox, but in reality, energy was quietly circling beneath my fur.
‘Can I hide things like my emotions a little this way too?’
I flicked my ears.
I wasn’t certain yet, but I was far more stable than yesterday.
However, transformation technique was a separate problem.
The moment I thought of a human form, that appearance from yesterday came to mind.
Silver-pink hair reaching down to the waist.
Fox ears on top of the head.
The appearance of a peerless beauty with a pointlessly high degree of perfection.
I immediately cut off the thought.
‘No, that’s for later.’
Transformation technique was far more complicated than simply moving energy.
It felt as if the body’s structure, appearance, perception, and even instinct were all intertwined.
If I tried it recklessly now, there was a high chance I would turn into that form again.
I would rather avoid an incident where a peerless beauty suddenly appeared in the room of a duke’s daughter first thing in the morning.
‘Fox-spirit power control is possible to some extent. Transformation is on hold.’
I organized my thoughts like that.
Just then, I sensed a small movement from the bed.
Elysia slowly opened her eyes.
She stared at the ceiling for a moment, then soon noticed me.
“……Haku?”
I raised my head.
Elysia’s voice was still a little low and soft, as if she hadn’t fully woken up yet.
When she saw me, she smiled faintly.