Chapter 5
I shook off my paws and hopped onto the man’s thigh.
Truth is, I’d had my eye on something since earlier—
the pocket watch peeking from his inner jacket.
Of course, a clock is useless in the mountains.
Street-born beastkin can feel time by instinct, but I couldn’t.
I used to be a noble lady, remember?
Guessing by the sun’s position was the best I could do.
On cloudy days, I was hopeless.
Once, I even showed up late while everyone else was on time…
I nearly ruined a job that only comes once every couple of months.
[Boss, are you okay? The sun’s already high!]
B-But it was cloudy—I couldn’t see the sun…
[That’s your excuse?!]
People are late sometimes. Stop nagging, you little—
[What?! You’re the littlest one here, Boss!]
Remembering that humiliation, I clenched my tiny fists.
Which is exactly why I need this watch. You understand, right?
I looked at the man with pleading eyes.
“…”
He didn’t answer, of course.
So I decided to take his silence as permission.
“Chuu…”
Cautiously, I slipped my paws into his inner pocket.
I stroked the gold casing a few times, then chomped down on the top—and sprinted.
“Ch–chuuut!”
Heh, heh, heh…
I couldn’t stop giggling—
not knowing the trouble coming my way later.
“Chuut—”
Huff, huff—
Afraid he might chase me, I didn’t relax until I reached my hideout:
My cabin is hidden in the deepest part of Bear Mountain.
It used to be a ruin ready to collapse, but I spent two years fixing it.
Now it actually felt like a home—rough, but with a desk and a bed.
Grunting, I hauled the pocket watch onto the desk.
It was as big as my whole body and so heavy I was drenched in sweat.
Still…
A watch! A real watch!
Now I could keep a proper schedule like a civilized person!
Tomorrow I’d gather the Flying Squirrels for tea time—
exactly at 1 p.m.!
I wiggled to the tick-tick-tick of the second hand—then paused.
Something was wrong.
Cold sweat beaded on my fur. My vision swam.
My heartbeat thundered, like it was right by my ear.
Did I overdo it today…?
The world spun, and I blacked out.
“Ah!”
When I came, it was after midnight.
I fainted around ten…
So I’d been out for more than two hours.
I could tell the time exactly.
Having a watch is amazing.
Wait—something else was strange.
I hadn’t squeaked “chuu” or “chu”—
I spoke human words.
“I… turned human…?!”
Well, I was human originally—but after three years, I was human again.
I stared blankly at my palms.
Watching each finger joint bend felt strangely fascinating.
My hair, once waist-length, now spilled all the way to the floor.
That’s how long it had been.
But—
“Why… why now?”
No matter how hard I’d tried before, nothing worked—
and now, suddenly?
I was happy, but anxious.
What if I turned back into a squirrel and had to wait years again?
“First… I should put something on.”
I wrapped a bedsheet around myself and sat at the desk.
I reviewed the day.
Nothing special, really.
Chirpy the bird told me a caravan had reached the mountain’s edge,
so I called my crew and helped the rich-looking caravan master.
“Was that the person Mother said I’d meet?”
Hmm… it didn’t click.
Oh—there was someone else I met.
I glanced at the desk.
The pocket watch made me think of him.
That man…
Yes, that felt like a click.
After growing up around meek, herbivore beastkin, he was a shock to my system.
But we had no real connection.
He probably wasn’t the person Mother meant.
Back to square one. I sighed.
“There must be a trigger for changing back. What is it?”
Pacing anxiously, I noticed the books scattered on my desk—
borrowed from the capital’s library whenever I had a reason to go.
As a squirrel, it was easy to sneak into a wagon and then into the library after closing.
Just grab what I wanted and slip out.
(It did cost me a sack of carrots to hire a stray horse to bring me back to the mountain, but still.)
Ahem, anyway.
Most books were practical mountain guides:
edible plants and mushrooms, herbal uses, that kind of thing.
The rest were about beastkin:
Principles of Beastkin Studies, History of Beastkin, and so on.
I hoped someone else had experienced the same strange condition as me.
One book led to another until they filled the desk.
“…I’ll return them someday, I promise.”
I opened Principles of Beastkin Studies.
Still dense, no matter how many times I read it.
Not because I dropped out of the academy—because it was truly difficult.
The writer mixed in ancient languages without any notes.
So I had to… borrow an ancient-language dictionary too.
“Ahem. I’ll return this as well.”
In short, here’s what it said:
Beastkin who inherit the power of divine beasts contain latent mana.
They awaken abilities using that mana.
And—
“Each family has a unique ability…”
I read the last line of chapter one in a small, gloomy voice.
House Aymond’s specialty was mental-type powers.
Using that, the first Aymond lord supposedly brokered peace between carnivore and herbivore beastkin.
My father had expected me to awaken that power—
especially since I had the blood of House Raflen, the prophets, and…
The first lord was a mutant like me.
Mutants often had unusual powers as unique as their looks.
The ancestors called it “the mark of an heir.”
Some deer were born with larger, stronger antlers.
Some tigers had special coat colors.
Mine was the latter.
So the Marquis used to sit me down and drill it into me:
I would revive the family.
But by fifteen, I had no power at all.
Now at eighteen, I couldn’t even transform at will.
Why was I the only one so far behind?
I was crumpling a page corner without noticing when—
Rustle.
A sound outside.
…Who?
I perked my ears. Footsteps—bipedal.
My cabin sits in the deepest part of the mountain.
Bears guard every path; almost no one can get close.
So who was it? How?
Heart trembling, I pulled away the old newspaper covering the window.
“…!”
Eyes glowed in the dark—
the eyes of a top predator.
Are they here to catch me again?
I didn’t know if this predator was from the Imperial side.
But old fear dragged me back to me from three years ago.
Could I run again?
Leave Bear Mountain—leave my friends—and vanish to another unknown place?
How long do I have to keep running?
Terror and despair flooded me.
I shook, panting, no matter how hard I tried to stay calm.
It felt like I was back on that cliff, the day I lost my mother.
Maybe that’s why—
Thump, thump.
My heart pounded, vision blurred.
The book in front of me seemed to grow larger and larger.
“N-no…”
This can’t happen—
I turned back into a squirrel.
No time to despair.
The intruder was nearing my cabin.
The footsteps stopped right outside the window.
Then—
Crash!
Something smashed through the cracked glass and flew inside.
That was the last thing I remembered.
Wow, poor girl~