Chapter 10
“Miss, here is your herbal tea. I also brought the snail meat you requested. It seems like you’ve started to enjoy it more than I expected!”
Letty smiled brightly as she served the tea and light meal, looking very pleased.
Since I had asked for snail meat again after last time, she must have thought I really liked it.
“Uh… yeah, I guess so.”
Snail meat was still not great, but I couldn’t exactly say that, so I had to agree.
“Our young lady has finally stopped being picky… sniff.”
Letty teared up, calling me admirable, and I barely managed to send her away. I felt completely drained.
I had a bad feeling that snail meat would now keep appearing on my table.
I pushed the thought away and turned toward the blanket where Mangdeok was hiding.
“Mangdeok.”
Boop.
As soon as I called his name, a small white snake’s head popped out from the blanket.
Its round yellow eyes blinked slowly, as if asking if I had called it.
Aaaah, it’s so ridiculously cute…!
Ah. No. I can’t think it’s cute.
“Hey… I wanted to ask you something. You’re not, like… a victim of illegal animal experiments or anything, right?”
I had recently read a newspaper article about illegal experiments on wild animals.
The experiments were extremely unethical, but they sometimes increased intelligence in aggressive wild creatures. Because of that, society was deeply divided on whether they should continue.
If Mangdeok was a victim of such experiments, it would explain why he understood me.
And also why he had been injured so badly when I first found him.
Maybe he had escaped alone from some dangerous lab somewhere…
It sounded like a reasonable theory.
But Mangdeok slowly shook his small head left and right.
“…Not?”
He nodded again.
Ah… so he isn’t. That’s good. Really good.
Still… then what is Mangdeok?
My theory collapsed again.
While I was thinking deeply, I placed a plate of meat in front of him. Mangdeok quietly started eating.
After a while, he climbed onto my lap and curled up, falling asleep. He seemed more tired than hungry.
“Sleeping?”
After some time, I confirmed his steady breathing.
Then I slowly looked at the necklace on the table.
It was close enough that I could reach it easily.
‘The necklace… I might be able to take it without Mangdeok noticing.’
While I watched Mangdeok sleeping peacefully in my lap, I closed my eyes tightly and grabbed the necklace.
I had fed him and cared for him. That should be enough responsibility as a suddenly-bound temporary pet.
Now it was time to do what I needed to do.
Whoosh.
Just as I tried to put the necklace on, I heard a familiar sound.
I looked down.
Mangdeok, who had been curled up quietly, had woken up and was moving.
Then he looked up at me.
…No, not me. He was looking at the necklace.
I thought maybe he was too weak to react now that it was close.
But then—
Mangdeok’s yellow eyes suddenly flashed with a sharp glow.
“Huh? Did I see that wrong…?”
Before I could understand, Mangdeok suddenly straightened his body with incredible speed and bit the necklace.
“Ah!”
It happened too fast to stop him.
CRACK!
In an instant, the necklace was torn apart.
“What…? What?!”
I could only stare blankly.
What just happened in a few seconds?!
The necklace chain was ripped apart and thrown to the floor.
The pendant containing blood of a red wolf shattered in Mangdeok’s bite.
The blood spilled uselessly onto the floor.
It looked like a crime scene.
“…Mangdeok, what are you doing?”
His sharp golden eyes had been terrifying just a moment ago, but now he was back to being a small, innocent snake, blinking at me with soft eyes.
“Hah.”
I let out a hollow laugh.
I remembered what Din once said.
“Unless it’s someone extremely strong, the smell of the pure-blood wolf in the necklace will suppress them. Then you can kill them.”
The key phrase was “extremely strong.”
And Din’s definition of strength was clearly far beyond normal standards.
If Mangdeok easily broke something infused with pure-blood wolf power…
‘Is this tiny snake stronger than that standard?’
That seemed impossible.
But the necklace had broken too easily.
There was no mistake. Something was wrong.
‘Strange.’
It had always been strange, but now it felt even more suspicious.
But I still had no answers.
Mangdeok could not speak, so I couldn’t ask him anything.
“The room is a mess.”
If I didn’t clean this, Letty would scream the entire mansion down.
I started picking up the broken pieces of the necklace.
Should I tell Din about this?
He would definitely not take it lightly if he heard that something broke the necklace he made.
“…What should I do? Without the necklace, things will be difficult.”
Could I still kill Mangdeok without it?
As if he didn’t know I was thinking about killing him, Mangdeok looked at me with bright, innocent eyes.
Just seeing that made me sigh.
This wasn’t only my problem. If I didn’t kill him, my family would be in danger.
‘…I already decided. Don’t let emotions get in the way.’
I still had Din’s dagger hidden under my pillow.
Honestly, I wasn’t someone who grew up soft. Killing a beast should be easy.
I even took lessons from tigers when I was young to become strong.
But that was when I had fully accepted the target.
Right now, my emotions and logic were clashing.
“What are you exactly? I thought you were just a helpless snake at first.”
Mangdeok didn’t answer.
I slowly reached under my pillow for the dagger—
Crunch crunch.
Mangdeok started eating the leftover snail meat again.
“…Huh?”
He wasn’t done eating.
Watching him chew slowly with sleepy eyes… he was really cute.
No. Not cute. Not cute. Cute. No. Not cute… cute.
“…Cute.”
There was an old saying: “Don’t touch a snake while it’s eating.”
So I shouldn’t do anything now.
It wasn’t because he was cute! It was just bad timing!
“Haaa… I’m going crazy.”
As I watched him eat, Letty’s voice came from outside the door.
“Miss, I will assist you with your morning routine.”
As she opened the door, Mangdeok quickly swallowed the meat and slipped under the blanket.
Fine. I still had time…
I’ll decide what to do a little later.
