CATB Chapter 3

"Huuu"

After screaming at the reality I didn't want to believe, I came out of the bathroom.

Lily, who had been quietly keeping her head down, followed me around.

"My Lady... you must... eat breakfast..."

"Forget that and come sit here."

Right now, damn it, breakfast isn't what's important.

When I sat on the bed and patted the spot next to me, Lily approached me hesitantly.

"I! I'll just sit on the floor!!"

I've been noticing since earlier that Lily doesn't come within a meter of me.

It feels subtly unpleasant, but let's move on. This isn't what's important right now.

"Do whatever. Now... sigh... damn, what is this..."

"Wh-what? Should I sit on the bed?"

"Never mind. Just sit there and talk to me. I don't remember much right now."

"...As I thought! You must have been shocked when Princess Ariel came to visit!"

"Ariel? Who's that now?"

"She's the princess of this country, Lady Alexa's older sister. She came to see Lady Alexa a few days ago, and after meeting Princess Ariel, Lady Alexa became terribly sad. Your crying echoed throughout the entire castle... You refused all meals and stayed only in your room. Oh, but you always stay in your room anyway..."

"Older sister? Princess?... Wait, but if my sister's a princess, why am I Alexa?"

"That... that's..."

"Because I'm Alexa the Beast?"

"......"

"What, so that just became my name?"

Damn, how annoying.

They say even an unlucky person will break their nose if they fall backwards.

To be possessed by such a beast and be a princess who can't even receive proper treatment...

"Sigh, anyway, explain about me."

"...Yes! My Lady is Alexandra de Peliazen Dwight, the third princess of the Pellipe Kingdom. You are the only daughter of Lady Camilla, Second Concubine, but Lady Camilla passed away when you were six years old, and when you were seven, while spending vacation here at Conetti Villa... you became... cursed by magic... and have lived here ever since."

"Forever? How old am I now?"

"You don't remember that either? You must be too shocked! What should I do! I need to tell the head maid quickly!!!"

"Lily."

Lily, who had been making a fuss, sat back down trembling under my sharp gaze.

"Continue. Don't leave out anything, from beginning to end."

"Yes! I'm sorry!!! My Lady, you're eighteen years old now. Originally you should have made your social debut at sixteen, but given... the circumstances... you've continued to stay only at Conetti... but you are engaged!!!"

After spending 11 years in this place because of this appearance, there's a fiancé despite this appearance?

"Who is that?"

"That... that would be... Lord Berford Harman! He's the eldest son of the late Marquess Jerome Harman and the captain of the Royal Knights. He's really handsome!! He's called the Flower of Pellipe's Sword, and he's the number one most desired marriage partner in all of Pellipe!"

?

Why would such an accomplished person be crazy enough to get engaged to this furry thing?

Seeing my puzzled expression, Lily added:

"We don't know how the engagement came about either... they say there was some kind of contract... anyway, but this engagement is... well... that..."

Lily suddenly started hedging, and I urged her on with my eyes.

"It seems like it will be broken soon. Well... it's become a given fact that Princess Ariel and Lord Berford are lovers. The engagement only happened because My Lady insisted, but marriage will probably... be difficult..."

"What, is this some sister rivalry?"

"More precisely, it's known to people as... Alexa the Beast's delusion..."

"What, so I'm known as the bad woman who steals her sister's man?"

"Well... Lord Berford quite openly dislikes My Lady, and the engagement only happened because My Lady stubbornly insisted to His Majesty..."

"Did I like that... marquess person?"

"Like him, you say! You were completely obsessed... ah!... I'm sorry... I misspoke... Anyway, you even carried out the duties His Majesty assigned to My Lady on the condition of the engagement with the marquess."

What's this about now?

"Duties?"

"Um... if you don't know this either... how should I explain this... well..."

"......"

"My Lady, you're very strong."

"What?"

What kind of nonsense is that?

"Ah! No, I mean... it's true... My Lady is very strong, so you handle all the enemies that enter our kingdom. They call you the Beast of Death... well... during the last war with the Aepylle Empire, My Lady guarded the border and we were finally able to reach a ceasefire. If it weren't for My Lady, it would have been really dangerous."

"Didn't you say I was eighteen?"

An eighteen-year-old kid goes to war and kills people?

And she's a girl?

Looking at these muscles covered in fur, it's not entirely impossible, but it definitely wouldn't help with the healthy mental development of a teenager...

"That's why I'm very grateful to My Lady. Even though people curse you for being a beast and cruel, if it weren't for My Lady, we would have become a vassal state of the empire by now. If our kingdom had become a vassal state of the empire, those people wouldn't even be able to curse My Lady like that, so I think they really don't know gratitude."

Lily, who had gotten caught up in her own indignation while speaking, was no longer trembling.

Well anyway, it seems I'm someone who gets cursed even while helping people here.

Damn, what a perfect possession this is.

Aren't I supposed to be the female protagonist?

But my appearance is a beast, I'm universally bullied, and I'm the nation's b*tch?

F*ck, I can't be happy.

Lily also informed me about the situation here at the villa and the kingdom's current state, and using Lily's words as reference, I roughly finished grasping the situation.

"Got it. Lily."

"Was this helpful?"

"Very much. Now..."

"???"

"I'm hungry, so bring breakfast."

Everything we do is to make a living, so let's eat first.

After eating breakfast, I had Lily bring a large mirror.

Lily struggled to bring a mirror larger than herself.

I thoroughly examined the furry creature reflected in the mirror.

I was naked, but because of the fur, it didn't feel like I was undressed at all.

The situation of this girl called Alexa, as seen in the mirror, was serious.

First, her entire body was covered in fur.

Second, she had bulky muscles that made the stories of her charging around battlefields seem believable.

Third, she had a huge build that was hard to believe belonged to a woman.

Just because I was possessed as the kingdom's outcast didn't mean I had any reason to stay still.

Misfortune had always been like a bonus that followed me around.

It was like that when my parents both died in a car accident when I was six.

It was like that when my only younger sibling left this world from pneumonia when I was ten.

I was swindled out of insurance money, and experienced bullying, assault, and fraud.

After experiencing all this, was I cowering in a corner of my house crying?

That wasn't the case either.

After all, the medicine for familiar misfortune is to face it head-on.

I'm not certain whether I died when I drunkenly jumped in front of that car, but up until then, I lived hard enough to have no regrets about my life.

I took on multiple tutoring jobs to pay for tuition and studied desperately.

And I was able to overcome at least the small misfortunes that faced me in those moments.

I was able to attend university, meet good people, and at least live while functioning as a human being.

"I'm going to live as a human being here too. What beast, my ass."

I grumbled and began examining Alexa's body thoroughly.

I looked at her face too, but since it was surrounded by fur, it was too difficult to see her features, so I figured I'd need to remove the fur first before I could do anything.

"Lily?"

When I pulled the string tied to the bed to ring the bell, Lily soon came running.

She didn't startle as much as before when she saw me, so she seemed to have adapted a little.

"Did you call me?"

"Bring sugar and water."

It would have been nice if there was hair removal cream, but there's no way something like that would exist here.

Fortunately, I know perfectly well how to make natural hair removal cream.

Why? Because I was too poor to afford hair removal cream.

Kya, my eyes are about to get misty, but that's how all those experiences come in handy.

Lily did as I instructed and boiled sugar and water to make a thick sugar solution.

"You prepared the cloth I asked for too, right?"

"Yes. But why do you suddenly need cloth..."

"Now... watch carefully. I'm going to apply this... like this..."

I applied the sticky sugar solution to my bushy arm. I could feel the warm heat between the hairs.

"Now put that cloth on top!"

"What?"

"Put it on!!"

I need to do it quickly before it cools down.

Lily looked bewildered as she placed the cloth over the sugar solution. I pressed it down firmly until the sugar solution stuck to the cloth.

"Sigh, now... when I count one, two, three, you're going to tear off this cloth. Got it?"

"What? This?"

"Yeah. This is very important. You have to tear it off in one go."

If you don't tear it off in one go, it's going to be very... painful... very...

I felt a strong need to explain this importance to Lily.

"You absolutely must tear it off in one go. Even if I scream, tear it off in one go. Got it?"

Lily nodded with a serious expression.

"One... two... three! Aack!"

Tears welled up because Lily really ruthlessly ripped off the cloth.

There must have been quite a lot of hair.

"Kyaa! My Lady! The hair!!!"

The cloth Lily had torn off had abundant hair stuck to the sugar solution.

On the forearm where the hair had been, I could finally start to see skin color instead of brown.

"Great!!! This is how you do it!!!!"

"My Lady. Is this a magic potion? I've never even heard of a magic potion that removes hair."

"It's magic, of course."

Even through all this, worried that removing all the hair at once might strain the skin, I took the long period of a week to remove the body hair.

I didn't forget to soothe the areas where hair was removed by applying aloe.

When removing the hair from my philtrum and forehead, it truly felt like bloody tears would flow, but since it was all pain for the sake of becoming prettier, I gritted my teeth and endured it.

I guess I really am tough.

"Kyaaa!"

When I removed the last of the hair from my back, Lily exclaimed in admiration.

I got up from my seat and looked at my body in the mirror again.

Now I finally look human.

Once the hair was removed, I could see my complete face.

I still had a large build for a woman and bulky muscles, but since I could properly see my face now, that was good enough.

Alexa had a surprisingly useful face.

You know the type— ordinary, but transforms with makeup.

A face where makeup works like divine intervention.

Since plastic surgery in this world was something I neither intended to do nor seemed likely to happen, I was reasonably satisfied with this face.

"My Lady?"

After the hair disappeared, my appearance wasn't particularly threatening, so Lily's fear visibly decreased.

"Lily. Gather all the servants of this castle."