Chapter 56: What I Met at the Everlasting Snow Mountains (3)
by rosalie‘W-what is this woman saying?!’
Lucas froze in shock.
She saw mine?
This is insane!
The mating season is over, how dare she make such an inappropriate comment!
Until now, he’d never felt shame regarding women.
Beastmen had specific mating seasons and typically practiced either polygamy or polyandry. But Lucas’s situation was somewhat special.
‘I’m single, and moreover, I’m a virgin!’
“Male?”
The Saintess was looking his way.
Lucas used his tail to cover his important parts as much as possible.
“Yes, I saw it clearly.”
“Keek-king-king!”
‘What did you see! You scary-looking woman!’
They say first impressions never lie — she was quite a lecherous woman.
‘Ugh, if it weren’t for that damn water sound!’
The cave he’d secretly followed the Saintess’s group into was quite cozy. It would be troublesome to transform into human form here, and transforming in the late evening would bring tremendous pain as a side effect.
Though beastmen could fight through such side effects since they’d experienced them since birth, pain was still pain.
His unbearable curiosity and raccoon’s searching instinct made him rummage through their bags. He easily found a bundle of biscuits and opened it without hesitation. The savory smell of the square biscuits kept tempting Lucas.
‘Ah, no!’
Just as he was about to put it in his mouth, he heard the sound of trickling water somewhere.
‘No, I don’t want to.’
Though he protested internally, Lucas’s beast body instinctively rushed toward the sound of water.
Though he tried to deny it, when he came to his senses, he was already sitting by the spring, spinning the biscuit round and round with his small black hands to wash it.
‘This isn’t the time!’
He would surely be caught.
But that was just words. His adorably cute — no, terrible — front paws were thoroughly washing the biscuit.
‘Damn this washing instinct! Ah, no.’
Just as Lucas was desperately fighting against his instincts, a goddess in damp clothes appeared at the far end.
Entranced by her beauty, he stared slack-jawed, when that unlucky black-haired woman appeared.
Being held in the Saintess’s arms was nice. But then he fell for the temptation of the red apple that rolled to his feet.
‘Stop spinning it!’
After spinning, spinning, and spinning diligently, he finally bit into the apple.
‘Delicious.’
After mindlessly chewing and swallowing the apple, intense self-loathing hit him.
‘What am I doing while my goddess watches.’
Though he threw the apple away with all his might, the black-haired woman showed no mercy. Not only did she accuse him of theft for eating one apple that grew abundantly in the forest, but she even threatened him with a stick to keep him from running to the Saintess.
Her reflexes were so excellent that she blocked his path more nimbly than him, an animal. Finally, she even mocked his masculinity!
Even the Saintess looked at him suspiciously.
‘I’m a virgin, and of all places, in front of the Saintess!’
He felt miserable. His fur, covered in biscuit and apple crumbs, trembled.
Thinking he couldn’t endure any more humiliation, Lucas twisted his body with all his might and scratched the black-haired woman’s arm with his claw-like nails.
“Ack, you filthy beast!”
The newly freed Lucas the raccoon cast one longing look back at Yuria and wiped his tears with his front paw. Then he fled deep into the cave.
Lucas felt like he would die of shame.
*
The raccoon ran away. Like a wounded animal, it looked back at me intently before lowering its head and rubbing its eyes.
Those black eyes seemed to be crying… or was that my imagination?
‘No way. That’s impossible.’
“That’s good, my lady. It ran away on its own.”
Rosetta said with evident relief while helping me with my clothes. I finally managed to remove my wet clothes that were clinging to my skin and changed into dry ones.
“What does it matter if it’s male? You just got hurt unnecessarily.”
Blood was beading up on the long scratch on Rosetta’s hand where the raccoon had clawed her.
“I really hate beasts.”
As if proving her sincerity, Rosetta shuddered.
“Why do you hate animals, Rosetta?”
“Why? There doesn’t need to be a reason to hate something.”
“Still, do you have allergies or maybe had a bad experience with animals when you were young?”
“It’s just, how should I say it… I hate anything that’s not human.”
I see.
So the original female lead truly hated animals.
The reason Rosetta was so passionate about destroying the Beast Kingdom in the original work wasn’t just because of Crown Prince Arthur.
“Besides, they say beastmen can transform into beasts too, you never know.”
Rosetta’s expression was serious as she said this.
She might be overreacting, but her intuition tends to be good.
“True, being careful never hurts. Thank you.”
“Well, it’s partly because I hate animals too, hehe.”
“Rosetta.”
“Yes?”
I reached out my hand and gestured toward her hand with my eyes.
“Give me your hand.”
“It’s fine, my lady.”
“How can my lady-in-waiting have wounds? Quickly.”
When I took Rosetta’s hand and slightly bowed my head to kiss the wound, she pulled her hand back slightly.
“Um, my lady. I’m not into that sort of thing at all. I like men.”
“You’re not my type either. Give me your hand quickly. I’m trying to heal it.”
“Y-yes.”
I pulled on Rosetta’s hand as she looked at me awkwardly.
Pfft, how cute.
After gently pressing my lips to it and pulling away, light shone from behind me, briefly illuminating the cave before disappearing.
“Wow! It’s healed!”
Though there was some saliva on it, Rosetta didn’t seem to mind. She opened her round black eyes wide and kept exclaiming in amazement.
“It doesn’t hurt at all. You’re amazing, my lady!”
“That’s good.”
Just as the healer said, ordinary people can be healed. But Xavier, because of the curse…
“It’s amazing, you really are a Saintess, my lady.”
“Why do you sound just like Maya?”
“Hehe.”
When we returned to where the campfire was after changing clothes, Ethan, who had gone to find food, was back. He was rotating three whole chickens skewered on branches over the campfire.
“My lady, let’s eat. I found some wild chickens and caught them.”
“Thank you for your hard work, Ethan.”
“Thank you, my lady.”
Though the dripping whole chickens looked appetizing, something felt off. Rather, my throat felt scratchy and uncomfortable.
“Looks delicious, thank you for your effort!”
“Ah, Miss Rosetta. P-please eat plenty.”
Ethan’s face slightly reddened as he poked at the campfire with kindling, then turned to me and said.
“While hunting, I also checked the location of the cliff you mentioned.”
“Did you? Well done.”
“It’s not far from here, but it’s rough and will be difficult to climb.”
“That’s alright, we can do it.”
“Me too!”
Rosetta answered energetically as she brought me a spare blanket and distributed utensils.
Dismembering the fully cooked chickens was Ethan’s job. He was very good at deboning too.
Though I was hungry when I saw the chicken plated nicely for eating, for some reason I had no appetite. The saliva pooling in my mouth was uncomfortable.
‘It’s meat… but I don’t want to eat.’
Looking ahead, even Ethan was just mechanically putting meat in his mouth with an expressionless face, not looking like he was enjoying it.
Only Rosetta looked happy. While wiping her mouth, shiny with meat grease, with a towel, Rosetta asked.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t have much appetite.”
“My lady, you love meat though. You’ll get weak like this.”
“Yeah…”
It was surprising to have no appetite even looking at the well-cooked, steaming chicken leg.
Swallowing the meat he was chewing, Ethan spoke up.
“Miss Rosetta is right. I understand your concern for His Grace, but you need to eat well to return in time.”
“Ah…”
Was I worried?
Worried about Xavier?
When had I started seeing him as a person rather than the ultimate villain?
I put small pieces of torn meat in my mouth and forced myself to chew. Though I felt choked up for some reason, I kept chewing and swallowing thoroughly.
After the meal, we went to sleep early to depart at dawn.
The next day, we were able to reach the bottom of the cliff through the jungle around dawn.
“It’s high.”
As Rosetta said, the cliff looked to be several dozen meters high. Plants and flowers growing thickly between the rock crevices swayed gently in the mountain wind.
“With the waterfall flowing and the height, it seems difficult to climb straight up.”
“Indeed. It would be better to go around the mountain to the peak and come down by rope.”
‘If the flower was on the cliff, they would have told us before we departed.’
Since I only received the oracle about the flower being on the cliff after arriving at the snow mountain, we only brought rope for equipment.
We pushed through the thick jungle again to reach the top of the cliff. Fortunately, we didn’t encounter any dangerous beasts on the way. The exercise clothes I had changed into that morning were soaked with sweat from climbing the steep mountain.
We reached the top of the cliff only after the sun had risen high. Below where we looked down, a refreshing stream of water was flowing down with a thunderous sound.
“The Valian flower stem is thin and elongated, with pink petals arranged radially like cotton. Once you spot it, you can recognize it right away.”
“General Ethan, there’s nothing you don’t know about this area.”
“I grew up in this region when I was young. I’ve seen the Valian flower several times too. Of course, ones that my grandfather gathered.”
“Now I understand why Viscount Rexton assigned you.”
“You’re too kind.”
Looking down the cliff, just as Ethan said, I could spot a plant with long stems and pink flowers just a few meters below.
That’s when a passage flashed through my mind.
「Yuria tied the rope around her waist and precariously hung to gather the Valian growing on the waterfall cliff. No one else could have succeeded. If someone else had tried, wouldn’t they have broken something at least? With bad luck, they might have died.」
This damn novel… what are you muttering about in my head? Now?