TSROTRATBP Chapter 22

Resting my chin against the edge of the pocket, I let out a thin breath. Ahin's behavior was its own problem, but ever since a while ago a strange unease had been creeping up from the tips of my feet.

My stomach was churning the way it had before, but not, at least, to the point where breathing felt like it was being crushed. Still, given how I was feeling, I thought it might be better to head back to the bedroom.

Left paw for emergencies.

Right paw meant Ahin.

Through the muddle in my head, the memory of the signal system we'd worked out with Ahin surfaced. It really would be better to get out of here.

Just as I was wiggling my paws to call for him, an even, toneless voice spoke.

"Most of the tiger clan have blue eyes. The hyena clan, black. Try reading the power structure."

Looking up, I saw Ahin still wearing his usual ceremonial smile. He tilted his chin toward two beastmen conversing nearby.

Blue eyes and black eyes. Looking closer, the hyena beastman seemed to be holding himself in a rather deferential posture.

"Tiger territory is a place where weaponry flourishes. Hyena territory, right next door, falls well behind in mineral wealth and smelting technique, so naturally a hierarchy formed between the two territories."

This was all new to me, so I stuck my head out further and watched them closely. The further a territory sat from rabbit territory, the more sparse information about it tended to be.

"Hyena beastmen especially are easy to identify on sight. Most of them have dark skin—that's usually the tell."

Sure enough, the hyena beastmen had black eyes and darker skin, which made them the easiest clan in the ballroom to pick out at a glance.

Standing off to the side, he pointed out a few more clan features as well. I followed where he indicated and observed, but I found myself puzzled that he was bothering to give me all this at all.

Why?

A full, undisguised suspicion I'd been keeping pressed down lifted its head. With every passing moment, Ahin was treating me as something well beyond a baby rabbit.

Why me?

None of this information would do me any real good even if he taught it to me. I looked up at him, silent, and his red eyes, which had been drifting slowly across the ballroom, landed on me.

With the clear smile wiped away, Ahin sometimes settled into a face devoid of any feeling at all. A face harder to read than even his smile.

Facing that flat expression, I felt tension close in around me, as if a sharpened blade had been laid against my throat.

"Vivi."

The silence broke with his voice, and my body flinched. At the same moment, the suffocating tension dissolved. Somewhere along the way the blankness had vanished from his face, and Ahin gave my nose a light tap.

"What if the pocket tears from your weight?"

…I'm going to bite you.

This impudent black panther. I was absolutely going to sink my teeth into him. Just as I resolved this anew and opened my mouth, a presence stirred.

"Lord Grace. It's been some time."

Standing before us was a beautiful beastman with long hair the same scarlet shade as her eyes. A remarkably brave noblewoman, to speak up even in the strange atmosphere everyone else used to avoid Ahin. The nearby nobles' eyes trembled, apparently sharing the same thought.

"Bringing along a pet as your partner—you remain as charming as ever."

Her red lips parted, and her fangs caught the light.

I ducked back on instinct, keeping only my eyes above the pocket's edge, watching her. It struck me less as charming and more as a screw loose somewhere, but I supposed words could be dressed up however you liked.

"It would please me if you visited fox territory sometime. You keep declining, and it stings a little."

"I imagine I'd end up as some fox's dinner if I went."

"I'd be all the more pleased if you became mine."

She said it with a low, insinuating lilt, her gaze sliding over Ahin.

"I'll pass."

From where I stood as a herbivore, the whole exchange was fairly impossible to follow. Worse, the longer the conversation went, the thicker the pheromone drifting off her became.

A dense, sexually charged kind. The moment I breathed it in without meaning to, my head split with a sudden, splitting ache. Catching my breath, I clamped a paw over my nose.

"Until next time, then."

The conversation didn't stretch on much longer. Once she finished her farewell and drifted off, Ahin explained, unhurried.

"That was the fox clan. Polyandry's the standard in their territory, so she already has five husbands to her name."

F-five?

Five husbands, that was extraordinary. Stunned, I kept my eyes fixed on her retreating back for a long, long while.

I was still watching until she vanished entirely into the crowd when the same suffocating sensation returned.

This time it came with enough force to bend my whole body over. Writhing, I threw up my right paw in desperation.

"What's wrong?"

Meeting the signal, Ahin lifted me out of the pocket and asked. Squirming on his palm, I pointed frantically at the floor. Put me down, please.

"…Vivi?"

Faster than I expected, Ahin caught what I meant and bent down to set me on the ground. Four paws finally touched solid floor. The instant that hard surface met my feet, I broke into a dead run.

"Vivi!"

Ahin's shout rang out behind me.

"Goodness!"

"What's happening?"

Startled nobles scrambled out of the way, but I had no time to spare a glance back. I cut across the ballroom in an instant and bolted through the first open door I saw.

Fortunately the connecting corridor had its lamps lit, and I could see well enough. Forcing down the nausea rising in my throat, I ran without stopping.

No way…

No, no. An impossible thought kept seizing hold of my mind.

Thud. I finally reached some door left ajar and collapsed onto the floor inside. The pheromones were thrashing through my whole body again, just like before.

It hadn't been this bad at the start of the ball—this must have been from breathing in the pheromone that fox beastman had deliberately let loose.

Unable to bear the agony, I rolled and thrashed. The pain was worse this time than before.

Nngh.

Tears were welling, ready to spill. Curled up, gasping for breath, I blinked several times as my vision blurred. Blink. Blink. Through my fractured vision, pure white hair spilled down.

Every ounce of strength drained from my body, I simply lay there on my side and kept blinking. White hair spilled carelessly across the cold marble floor. Staring blankly at it, I felt the pain slowly begin to loosen its grip.

White…

Mother and Kyri both had hair that color. Whenever they wore it neatly combed or braided, I couldn't help envying it.

Even in the lamplight it shone with an unusual brightness, and gazing at it, I reached out a paw without thinking. A hand—whose, I didn't know—filled my vision once more.

Even the soft texture of the hair against my paw felt far too vivid, far too real. The moment I registered that, every process in my mind ground to a halt.

A hand…? This… sensation…?

Why did that hand—a hand belonging to no one—feel like it was mine. Why.

Frozen for several seconds, I jolted upright and grabbed hold of the white hair. Below it were limbs and a torso, unmistakably human, that should never, ever have been there.

Fumbling, hesitant, I ran my hands over my own body, and the curves and textures I felt sent a shiver crawling down my spine.

No—no. Get a grip.

A human body—that was completely impossible. On the verge of fainting, I shook my head over and over and looked around the room.

The lamp was lit, but it seemed like an unused room, sparsely furnished. My gaze wandered until it settled on a mirror standing in the corner.

Rising in a hurry, my legs suddenly gave out from under me and I dropped. A sharp ache ran through the bent bone. I reflexively rubbed at my leg, and my trembling eyes fell to my hand.

A h-hand!

Fingers—five of them, no less. A sight I'd never once pictured, even in my dreams.

In the end I ended up crawling across the room on hands and knees. Standing on two legs simply wasn't within reach yet. I'd spent my entire life running on four.

Summoning every last bit of strength I had, I finally reached the mirror, and there in the glass sat a woman I had never once seen before. She looked to be exactly eighteen, around Ahin's age.

Staring at her in a daze, I slowly reached a paw toward the mirror. The woman inside stretched her arm out to match. That identical motion sent a chill crawling suddenly over me.

Eek!

I slapped the mirror on reflex, and the woman flinched too, her eyes going wide with fear. My paw throbbed from striking the hard surface.

…A human—

Below her round little nose, her lips trembled. Sitting collapsed, I stared until I finally faced the reality I could hardly believe.

I'd become human.

The violet eyes in the mirror trembled, faint and fine.

The rabbit clan's pale violet eyes. White hair, the same as Mother's. There was no denying it was me.

Even the length of it, uncut for years by the look of it, spilled down until it nearly swept the floor. Looking down at the white hair wound thick enough to tangle around my legs, I bit my lip.

How had this happened?

Beastmen were born looking human, but within a few days they shifted into their true animal form.

Only after passing through a set period of the beastman fever would they properly complete humanization. The higher a noble's bloodline, the earlier humanization tended to arrive, and the shorter the fever period as well.

Since my humanization had come extraordinarily late, and I hadn't even gone through the fever, there was no way I could account for what was happening now.

Ah… I kept touching my own cheeks, over and over, before it hit me—I didn't have a single thread on me.

Worse, unlike being a rabbit, my body was now fully exposed to the cold air, and I shivered. Aware of how indecent I looked, I wrapped both arms around myself.

That.

My gaze, wandering the room, landed on a table set beside the mirror. Crawling over, I immediately pulled down the tablecloth-like fabric draped across it. Once I'd wrapped the large cloth around myself, a faint sense of security finally settled in.

Moving again, I crawled steadily under the table. Once I'd curled up there, my heart pounded, thud, thud, so loud I felt sure it must be audible outside.

Calm down. Stay calm.

Vivi, you're not this weak. I repeated it to myself, but I couldn't settle easily, and I ran a hand down my cheek, shaky.

Humanization was everything I'd wanted and wished for, but I never imagined it would arrive like this, all at once. Any joy I might have felt at finally becoming human was overtaken entirely by worry over what was going to happen next.

…What if Ahin sees this?

I knew he didn't think of me as an ordinary rabbit, but what exactly he did think I was remained an open question. Wouldn't he brand me a liar on the spot and go for my throat with a blade? Ahin and Iverin's grim, delighted faces flashed naturally through my mind.

My lord, how does rabbit-beastman stew sound?

Not bad. We could serve it tomorrow morning.

I'll instruct the kitchen at once.

No—!

Having dreamed up this ghastly notion all on my own, I drove my fist into the floor. The marble bit back with a sharp, stinging ache. It was a ridiculous thing to imagine, but knowing those two ruthless black panthers, it wasn't out of the question that they'd actually say it.

From the beginning… yes, let's think this through from the beginning.