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chapter 38
Ian, ready for work, sat on the edge of the bed and gazed at the woman sleeping beside him.
Ariel had boldly wrapped herself in the large blanket, claiming the center of the bed as her own.
It looked somewhat similar to how she usually slept sprawled across his stomach.
Though the problem was that this was her human form.
In her dream, she seemed entirely absorbed in chewing on her own black hair.
He carefully removed the strands of her hair from her mouth.
“My lord… you touched someone with your bare hands?”
“Without gloves?”
The lord who detested contact with others?
“….”
Allen, who would normally have been horrified by such affectionate behavior from Ian, was too shocked to react.
Was this a dream?
Had God, seeing him as pitiable, taken him away?
He pinched his own thigh hard—and yet, the pain was real.
His usually sharp mind was on the verge of striking a work stoppage.
After a moment, Allen glanced at the black-haired woman occupying the bed and blanket, then at his lord sitting beside her.
His lord was still busy gently removing the hair stuck to her face.
Was the world about to end?
He decided to check once more if monsters were about to emerge from the northern snow mountains.
“Ian-sama is sleeping with a stranger…”
“And then, the next day, he goes out alone as if nothing happened.”
Could his lord be considered irreparably corrupted?
Allen, unable to voice such thoughts, stared at him with a look full of unspoken questions.
“That’s not it.”
“Yes… it isn’t.”
Having already witnessed the scene, Allen replied in a perfunctory, disbelieving tone.
Truly, it was just a formal voice.
“If this incident spreads across the continent… how would I even cover it up…”
The thought alone was exhausting.
It was obvious the whole continent would be thrown into chaos.
After all, his lord disliked women and even beastmen.
His mind was already full of strategies for how to handle the fallout if word of this reached the continent.
“Surely, if this incident were to make the news, headlines like:
‘Shocking! Head of the Kadellion Family with an Unknown Woman…’
‘Breaking News: The Shocking Truth of Handsome Ian Kadellion!’
‘Exclusive! Who Captured the Heart of the Head of the Kadellion Family?’
…would surely appear.”
Nonexistent article titles piled up in his imagination.
“Ugh…”
His head throbbed with pain already.
A figurative sound of exponentially increasing work echoed in real time in his mind.
In the automatically painted future, Allen felt despair.
“For my lord to cause such chaos… he must be truly insane…”
“I’m not insane.”
Ian, not keeping a valet, adjusted his cravat with gloved hands.
The familiar white shirt and black pants.
A neatly tied main cravat, white hair gleaming like salt in sunlight, eyes more beautiful than sapphires.
And as always, his clothing was arranged to reveal as little skin as possible, giving him an almost ascetic appearance.
“A face for everyone’s taste.”
Someone once described Ian like that.
His lord was beautiful, capable of captivating anyone, regardless of age or gender.
When he first appeared in society, people of all ages and genders rushed to him. Ian skillfully maintained his boundaries, using them to his advantage.
It was clear why people wondered if he was divine, just by looking at him.
He appeared noble and pure by nature, evoking a strange desire to trespass, though one would never expect him to actually do anything.
“But how could he do such a thing…”
Allen glanced at the woman sprawled on the bed, then back at him.
“Yes… he’s completely sane.”
Ian gestured toward the woman sprawled across the bed.
“That’s Ariel.”
“I see… it’s Ariel-sama.”
“Now he’s even making excuses that don’t hold.”
Her expression seemed to say: don’t utter something absurd.
Then Ian spoke plainly:
“She really is Ariel.”
“Really… Ariel-sama?”
Allen’s voice wavered with disbelief.
His eyes scanned the room, noticing the black cat corpse was no longer visible in Ian’s room.
“So, you’re suggesting I should sleep in my room with a woman I’ve never met?”
“I thought you’d lost your mind.”
Allen did not deny Ian’s question.
He wiped his face with a dry towel.
“Being Ariel-sama… is that a relief or…”
As he brushed his hand across his face, it looked like he had aged a year in an instant.
The normal appearance Ian had before turning the doorknob was gone.
Already, dark circles were forming under his eyes.
Allen observed Ariel, comfortably sprawled across the bed with the blanket wrapped tightly around her feet.
Could any beastman behave like Ariel-sama?
No. Absolutely not.
“Indeed, the only creature who could sprawled across Ian-sama’s bed like that is Ariel-sama.”
Beastmen with heads like humans wouldn’t behave that way.
“…It’s definitely Ariel-sama.”
He accepted the fact.
The girl on the bed was Ariel. He thought for a moment, his brown eyes deep in contemplation.
With his glasses on, he looked intellectual—aside from the real-time aging process.
“…But how could such a large girl not have humanized earlier?”
“She’s an extraordinary cat.”
Ian replied casually.
Allen, who never questioned Ian, now pondered.
“What could delay her humanization?”
His instincts told him it was significant.
Humanization was difficult to artificially manipulate, even experimentally.
Was it because of pheromones?
Whatever the reason, he prayed no harm would come to his lord—or to Ariel-sama.
Allen placed the thought deep in his mind.
“So she humanized at an unusual time too.”
“She’s a peculiar cat, after all.”
“I see.”
“But what about clothes? Louise-sama’s clothes are too large to fit her.”
Louise, dealing with monsters in the north, was taller than most men and overwhelmingly larger than women.
“I already bought some.”
“You knew Ariel-sama was originally a cat-beastman?”
Ian’s eyes narrowed.
A silent affirmation.
“So my lord… sharing a room with her for months… knowing everything…”
The world’s most ascetic man was gone.
Allen’s expression screamed: You scoundrel.
“Scoundrel…”
Murmured Ariel, half-asleep, curling slightly on the bed.
She sat quietly, staring at Ian, then calmly said:
“…Ah. That’s right.”
“A small bow to you, Your Majesty,” she said, stretching as if she’d forgotten proper etiquette. Her greeting was sleepy, unlike the previous day’s.
A significant improvement.
Her hair twisted and tangled as she dutifully offered her greeting.
Ian’s expression shifted subtly.
Allen, who never trusted Ian’s excuses, understood immediately from Ariel’s one line that nothing inappropriate had occurred.
Ian retrieved a dress from one of the dress rooms.
A flowing, sky-blue dress suitable for activity was in his hands.
“…And she’s a female beastman?”
Ariel glared at him like he was a shameless man, almost with disgust.
Her hair tangled, wrapped in the blanket, glaring at him as if ready to fight.
Ian reached out to untangle her hair.
Click—
“Cat-sama.”
At that moment, Lea entered.
A frail woman staring at the head of the Kadellion family as if he were shameless, tangled-haired Ariel in blankets, and their exasperated attendant watching them.
She paused, frowned, and closed the door.
“I must have come to the wrong room.”
Thunk.
The situation was enough to cause a misunderstanding.
They didn’t seem like the type to exchange greetings politely.
Thus, the north’s leader, the once-admired head of the Kadellion family, became, in an instant, a scoundrel.
“…Ha.”
Allen wiped his face again, the gesture carrying the sorrow of a weary office worker.
“Let’s just say she’s a distant cousin of Ian-sama, or a pupil of Louise-sama, for now.”
Truly a competent aide.
Amid the chaos, he quickly devised a solution.
“I’ll inform Ariel-sama’s attendants, Lea-sama and Mari-sama, of this fact.”
Allen glanced at Ian, still untangling Ariel’s hair.
“So Lea-sama won’t misunderstand.”
“She seems to have misunderstood thoroughly already.”
Allen remarked.
“But how did you know Ariel-sama was a girl…”
“The physician told me. That she was female.”
“Oh.”
Ariel’s gaze softened, no longer looking at him as a scoundrel.
She reflected briefly, ashamed at having stared.
“…My brain must be rotting.”
“Indeed, it must be.”
Allen glanced alternately at Ian and Ariel.
“But Ariel-sama’s peculiar speech… what regional etiquette is that from?”
Ian responded:
“Upda.”
Huh? Where was that from?
“It doesn’t appear in the original work, nor have I heard of it.”
“That region doesn’t exist.”
He smiled.
“Exactly. That’s why I said, it doesn’t exist.”
I glared at him.
“You startled me.”
“Small one, I was troubled by your inability to read His Majesty’s intentions. Please refrain next time.”
“And when are you leaving…”
“And you, Your Majesty and the aide?”
Ah. Another slip.
This time, thought and speech merged.
Allen, feeling both insulted and not insulted, made a peculiar expression.
“…Just speak freely. Ariel-sama won’t kill Ian-sama even if he pours a bucket of cold water on him.”
When I looked at him suspiciously, he added:
“She might take a bucket of cold water shower herself, though. Just my instinct as her personal aide.”
…Sorry, but I nearly died the first time I met him.
That so-called aide’s instinct seemed quite unreliable.
I glared at Allen with cold eyes.
