Frrrrrrrrip—!
The white grimoire scattered the wind as it began rapidly flipping through its own innards.
“...What the hell is going on!”
“Jin! Don’t look!”
As I turned my head in bewilderment toward the grimoire that had suddenly begun to open, Isil’s shout rang out, and my eyes were covered by slender fingers.
“Isil?”
“Grimoires don’t move like that on their own! Which means some demonic trick I failed to notice must be—!”
Frrrrrip—thak!
The very moment Isil shouted and moved to block me.
The grimoire stopped moving.
“...”
“...”
Contrary to Isil’s urgent cry, embarrassingly enough, nothing happened.
In the room that had fallen silent, I lowered the fingers covering my eyes and asked with a slightly awkward expression.
“...Ahem! For now, shall we take a look at what’s going on?”
“...Okay.”
We slowly moved toward the grimoire that had opened on its own and cautiously looked at the spread pages.
But then.
When I saw the letters written on the open page, I couldn’t suppress a hollow laugh.
“...Hah!”
“...Jin? What’s wrong?”
“Isil, can you read the writing here?”
“...No. Grimoires are written in letters only the person who received them from a demon can read. In most cases, the characters written in a grimoire are closer to cipher than actual letters.”
“...Really? Then I suppose this situation isn’t exactly normal.”
“Huh?”
Leaving behind her puzzled gaze at my strangely amused expression, I began reading the familiar letters written in the grimoire.
And then.
Frrrrrrrrip!
With the sound of the book fluttering again in my ears, I lost consciousness.
***
“...You seem to be in a good mood.”
“Hm? Oh, I suppose so.”
In the early dawn, with the cold air brushing past my face.
When the promised time from before we had parted arrived, Hwaryeong had personally come all the way to the front of Twilight Hall where Isil and I were staying, and now stood there with a sullen expression.
“...Even after hearing what Isil revealed about her own existence, you look like that? I do not know whether you have great courage or no thoughts at all.”
What Isil revealed about her own existence?
Ah, did Isil tell Hwaryeong first that she was connected to witches?
“I guess beastfolk know about witches too.”
“We could hardly neglect researching dangerous things before migrating to the Empire.”
Hwaryeong explained that precisely because they were beastfolk, they had no choice but to focus even more on the alien aspects that occurred only within the Empire.
After all, from the Empire’s perspective, they too were alien beings.
“In particular, from what our clan has learned, those beings called witches are said to be ones who hate the world and command the dead. Is that true?”
“Who knows? The Prah territory where I lived was rather far from the north, so I only heard rumors myself. But I doubt smoke rises from a chimney for no reason.”
“Hoo, you have an amusing way with words. Smoke does not rise from a chimney for no reason, is it... Then why do you not distance yourself from Isil?”
“Hm?”
Hwaryeong shone her eyes on me, bright as Venus even in the dark dawn.
As if to rummage through every corner of my innermost thoughts.
“As a human, your fear and revulsion toward witches should be far greater than mine as a beastfolk. And yet, Jin Prah, why do you not reject Isil?”
“Do I particularly need to give a reason?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because, Jin Prah, I want to know the reason you show such an abnormal reaction.”
She straightened from where she had been leaning against a pillar of the dormitory and approached me as I looked at her.
“You were not surprised from the moment you first saw me.”
“Was there any reason to be surprised?”
“Yes. That attitude.”
Hwaryeong lightly stroked the ears hidden within her red hair and looked at me.
“Whenever humans see us, they stare at our ears and tails as if fascinated. Because humans do not have large ears and tails like beastfolk do.”
“True.”
“That is why every human who meets us, without a single exception, looks at our ears and tails and laughs.”
“They laugh?”
“Yes. As if we, who look different from them, are strange. Or... as if we look ugly.”
I thought back to when I first met her, wondering whether I had looked at her ears or tail and laughed.
I didn’t think I had laughed in particular.
“...What are you thinking about?”
“No, I just don’t find your ears or tail funny.”
“...That part is precisely the alien attitude that sets you apart from other humans. Jin Prah, your very way of thinking is different from the humans I have observed.”
As if you came from some other world, she said, stepping even closer to me.
“Are you truly human?”
“I’m human. One raised in precious comfort, at that.”
“Those raised in precious comfort do not describe themselves as having been raised in precious comfort. That is even more true of you humans, whose customs differ from ours. Especially among nobles like you, there were overwhelmingly many shameless people who behaved as if the service their families rendered them was only natural. They react as though saying, ‘I was raised in precious comfort, so this attitude is only natural,’ with their own mouths is itself vulgar.”
Humans seem to value their own face more than their families, she said, voicing a question she had held as a beastfolk while staring intently at my face.
“What is it that made you so ‘special,’ unlike other humans? Is it related to your having inherited the bloodline of fairies?”
“...Why did we suddenly move from talking about Isil to talking about me? Did you forget why we gathered here? We came together at this early hour because Isil said she needed our help preparing to resolve the mystical disaster.”
“No, I have not forgotten. But I have such an intuition. The intuition that right now, you might tell me the secret you have been hiding.”
Hwaryeong acted as if, since Isil had already told me her secret, it was now my turn, like someone who had left an item in my care.
“Now. Speak your secret.”
“...Did you leave it with me or something?”
“If you do not wish to speak, it cannot be helped. However, I will no longer trust you.”
“Hm?”
I looked at Hwaryeong while pretending to pick my ear, as if asking whether I had heard correctly.
Is she suddenly crossing the line?
“What did you just say?”
“I said I would no longer trust you, Jin Prah.”
“Just because I won’t play along with your nonsense?”
“To me, as a beastfolk, it is important.”
“...”
I felt anger rising at her shameless attitude.
But the moment my heated head cooled and began turning quickly, the parts that had been bothering me since earlier came into view.
Was Hwaryeong always like this?
She had certainly been rather direct, the type to speak bluntly and without brakes.
But she had never been this rude.
At the very least, from what I had grasped of her personality so far, if I showed that I was displeased, she wouldn’t have pushed me like this.
Hadn’t she herself said with her own mouth, when Isil held back from speaking about her surname during our first meeting, that prying into secrets was vulgar behavior?
And above all.
“You.”
“Do you mean me?”
“Tell me about a beastfolk dish you know.”
“Hah, are you suddenly changing the subject like that?”
“If you answer my question, then I’ll tell you everything about the ‘secret’ I’m hiding, without concealing a thing.”
“...”
I spoke to the woman looking down at me with serious eyes.
“Go on.”
“...”
“Why? You don’t know that much? Of course you don’t. Because when Hwaryeong talked about food, I only half-listened, so I don’t remember it very well.”
Finding it quite funny that the mouth which had been running so well until just now had fallen silent, I let out a snicker.
“Still, seeing as you don’t make up a lie, you can’t tell outright fabrications, can you?”
Yes, let’s think about what she had said until now.
At a glance, it was made up of questions and answers Hwaryeong really might have asked me, but if you examined the details, it wasn’t so.
Because Hwaryeong would not hide her intentions in such a cunning way.
If anything, she would stand tall even while asking questions.
Because she thought and acted as if she were a strong person.
“Your acting is god-awful. How did you get caught this fast?”
“...Jin Prah.”
“And the timing was weird from the start. The time Isil came to my room was when the sun was about to rise, but right now it’s even earlier, still dark dawn, isn’t it? Hey, if you’re going to fool someone, at least put some effort into the background time—”
Frrrrrrrrip!
Just as I was about to ridicule and mock the being standing before me, the sound of pages turning suddenly rang in my ears, and time “rewound.”
Yes, the clouds in the sky, the figure of the being that had been Hwaryeong, even my own body—all of it returned to its initial state like a video being rewound.
In that state, Hwaryeong opened her mouth again.
“Mm, you seem to be in a good—”
“I’m not. Do you think I’d feel good when time is being turned back without my consent?”
“...How?”
“What?”
“...How are you not affected by Aviyan’s authority?”
The being wearing Hwaryeong’s form showed a true expression for the first time as sweat began trickling down its face.