Chapter 10

The desk was still piled high with unfinished documents, but seeing the drooping white lump made Calid feel uneasy.

‘Even if it’s troublesome, it can’t be helped. I’m the only one who can see that lump, so I’m the one responsible for taking care of it.’

Feeling a strange sense of excitement and responsibility, Calid headed toward the library.

As expected, Irene floated in front of him as if asking where he was going before following after him.

‘Calid. Where are you going in the middle of work? Lump-me doesn’t feel like following you around right now.’

“I’m going to the library.”

‘The fifth-floor library? You’re reading books early today?’

Since Irene knew about Calid’s habit of reading before sleeping every night, she could not help feeling puzzled when he suddenly headed to the library during work hours.

After arriving, Calid walked toward the section containing books related to animals.

The library on the fifth floor was practically a private library built for Calid by the previous Duke, his grandfather.

After reading a few titles, Calid selected several books and sat down.

‘Hmm… “The First Step to Bonding with Your Pet: Give Your Pet a Name.”’

Calid slowly reread the sentence while looking at the white lump floating around the library.

‘Ha, I said I was raising it, but I never even gave it a name. I’ve failed as an owner. Hmm. What kind of name should I choose…?’

Calid fell deep into thought.

He had never named anything before, so he had no idea how to do it.

‘Anastasia? No, that’s too grand…. Vivi? Scarlet? Ah… no. I don’t know its gender, so a one-sided name won’t work. Then… Roundy? Cottonball? No, that’s too….’

Calid struggled because he could not think of a name he truly liked.

‘It’s just a pale little lump anyway…. Paley? Whitey? Hmm… Whitey sounds decent.’

Muttering “Whitey” to himself, Calid looked at the white lump following behind him.

Transparent, fluffy, pale white, and obediently following him around.
Whitey.

The simple and direct naming somehow suited it perfectly, and Calid felt satisfied.

“Whitey.”

Calid called the white lump by the name he had chosen.

‘Huh? Whitey?’

Reacting to the sudden name, Irene quickly floated toward him.

‘Whitey? What’s that supposed to mean?’

“From now on, that’s your name. When I call you Whitey, come to me like this.”

‘What? Whitey is my name? What kind of name is that? That sounds like a dog’s name!’

Startled, Irene hurried toward Calid and stomped around as best she could to complain about the unsatisfying name.

Unfortunately, she was the only one who thought the name sounded ridiculous.

“Haha. You must be happy to finally have a name. Looks like you really like it too.”

‘Wha—!’

The Calid who usually understood Irene’s emotions well had disappeared somewhere, leaving behind only a Calid completely intoxicated with the first satisfying name he had ever created.

‘Sigh…. F-Fine. If you like calling me that, then go ahead and call me Whitey all you want.’

What power did a ghost like her even have?

After being speechless for a while, Irene eventually gave up and accepted the name Calid gave her.

‘But Calid, what kind of book made you suddenly decide to name me? Hm? “101 Ways to Understand Your Pet Completely,” “Animal Training Made Easy.” What are these…?’

After reading the titles of the books in Calid’s hands, Irene froze in shock.

At that moment, she realized the true origin of the name “Whitey.”

Seeing her reaction, Calid suddenly had a strange suspicion.

“Whitey… don’t tell me you can read too?”

‘Yes! I can read! Actually, there’s a book I’ve wanted to read for a while now, so this is perfect. Calid, show me the book!’

Because Calid acknowledged her abilities, all of Irene’s frustration over the name “Whitey” instantly disappeared.

The moment she finished speaking, she bounced excitedly toward one side of the library.

Calid followed behind her with curious eyes.

‘Calid! This one! This one! I want to read this book!’

Whitey bounced excitedly in front of a certain book.

“…You want to read this?”

‘That’s right! This one! I can’t believe this world has romance novels too!’

Whitey bounced up and down loudly in excitement.

Calid picked up the book the lump was desperately pointing at.

“Why Did the Noble Lady Give the Knight a Raspberry?” What kind of book is this…?”

Without much thought, Calid opened the book and started reading.

But the contents were filled with lines so embarrassing that he could barely keep his eyes open.

“You… shameless perverted monster! How could you read something like this?!”

Calid scolded Whitey with a face completely red.

‘W-What? We’re both adults, so what’s wrong with this kind of book? Just look at the title—it already sounds fun! If you read it too, you’ll definitely get interested. At first it’s embarrassing, but once you keep reading….’

While desperately trying to explain herself after Calid’s scolding, Irene gradually became embarrassed too after seeing Calid blushing all the way to the tips of his ears.

“I should call Sebastian immediately and have him remove all these useless and harmful books at once.”

Calid’s pale and handsome face was dyed bright red as he immediately left the library without even looking back at Irene.

‘What? Wait, Calid! You’re throwing them all away? Nooo—!’

In the end, every library in the castle, including the fifth-floor library, was left with only extremely wholesome romance novels.

To Irene, it was heartbreaking news.

After collapsing in despair for a while, she weakly floated over beside Calid.

‘Calid, you really got rid of all of them…. Maybe those books were exactly what you needed too….’

Irene looked at Calid with a sorrowful and regretful expression.

No matter how she thought about it, Calid seriously needed education from those kinds of books.

“The way you’re looking at me right now feels extremely unpleasant…. Perverted Whitey. You’d better erase those thoughts from your mind immediately.”

Calid warned Whitey before heading toward the bedroom.

‘You don’t even know what I’m thinking…. Hmph, bleeh.’

“Whitey. Stop it while I’m still asking nicely.”

How did he somehow perfectly understand things like this every single time?

Still bickering, Irene and Calid entered the room together.

“Whitey. Stop complaining already and go to sleep.”

At that moment, Calid suddenly found the situation amusing.

The fact that he had become this comfortable around a monster that could not even properly communicate with him.

He had never imagined he would feel comfort from a being he used to only kill.

Especially during the time when the full moon approached, the Grand Duke’s castle always became terrifyingly silent.

For Calid, who had spent his life on battlefields without ever relaxing his guard, this kind of peace felt unfamiliar yet strangely comforting.

Unlike at the beginning, the human and the ghost treated as a monster gradually became used to living together.

Whenever nothing special happened, Calid always read before sleeping, and more and more of Whitey’s preferences started influencing the books he chose.

The books they picked together were often read side by side while sitting on the bed.

Calid found Whitey both fascinating and admirable.

‘There can’t possibly be another monster as smart as our Whitey.’

Some knights in the Black Knights Order often bragged about how smart their pets were.

Back then, Calid never understood those feelings.

Now he finally did.

‘It’s such a shame that nobody else can see something this smart….’

Calid wanted to show Whitey off to the people around him.

But because nobody else could recognize Whitey’s existence, those thoughts always remained thoughts alone.

Sometimes he even felt sorry for Whitey.

At the same time, imagining Whitey following and paying attention to someone other than himself strangely annoyed him.

‘Calid. What are you doing? Hurry up and open the book!’

Irene urged Calid, who was only sitting there quietly staring at her.

After they spent a long time simply looking at each other, a small round lump suddenly poked out from Whitey and tapped the book repeatedly.

Yes.
That was how it looked.

As though she had stretched out an arm.

Unlike before, Calid felt that Whitey’s shape had started changing little by little.

At first, Whitey looked like nothing more than a pale blurry mass floating in the air.

But now, he could vaguely make out something like a head and body, and occasionally little lumps would stick out from the sides or below.

They looked almost like arms and legs.

At a glance, it even resembled a human shape.

‘……Calid?’

Perhaps confused by him silently staring at her, Whitey tilted what seemed to be her head.

It looked exactly like a cat acting cute toward its owner.

The sight was so adorable that Calid almost reached out to pat her head without realizing it.

Instead, he naturally smiled softly.

He looked slightly happy.

‘Yes… if we continue living together like this, I’ll eventually learn what you truly are.’

For the first time, Calid found himself looking forward to discovering Whitey’s true identity.

And the day he had been waiting for arrived much sooner than expected.

Though not in a very good way.