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Chapter: 10
Bayden naturally assumed that Sirka and Sabrina would assign him a role.
It was a misunderstanding.
“What about you? Do whatever you want. It’s not like a hunting game, it’s just being in charge of meals. Hunting is totally my thing.”
Sabrina was too furious about not getting to play the hunting game to even notice Bayden.
“I’m sorry. I need to go find toys to play with the little one. Father, you take care of things on your own.”
Even his own trusted son abandoned Bayden to win the baby’s favor. Luckily, being pushed to the very last in order gave him a little time to think…
“Well, what should I do…?”
Unfortunately, he couldn’t come up with any plan before Bariya arrived. That’s how they ended up in a tense standoff when she came into the study.
“…Little one, is there something you want to do?”
In the end, Bayden left the choice to Bariya.
“No.”
However, Bariya, who had already burned with vengeance toward the hyenas and filled her stomach, didn’t have anything she particularly wanted to do. Most of her life had been spent locked in the Hyena family’s estate, and the rest running away, so she didn’t even know what to want.
“What does a ten-year-old girl usually like?”
Bayden asked his assistant Silva for help.
Bariya also looked at Silva.
“…Huh?”
Suddenly receiving the attention of both of them, Silva broke out in a cold sweat.
Bariya’s expression was as blank as Bayden’s. How could they look so alike when they weren’t even blood relatives? Anyone would think she was Bayden’s own daughter.
“I don’t have children either…”
“Tch.”
Bayden clicked his tongue at Silva’s response. Silva felt deeply wronged under the look of someone observing an unhelpful nuisance. After all, their Lord had no daughter either.
“…Ah, right.”
Bayden lowered himself and cautiously reached out his hand.
“Little one, there’s a place I want to take you.”
Worried she might refuse, he added,
“It might be boring… but go see it first and then decide.”
Bariya found that odd. When she lived with the Mariner family, the only person who ever asked her opinion was her mother. All the adults looked down on her; none of them ever bent down to meet her eye.
Bariya looked at Bayden’s hand. For the first time, she wasn’t scared of the hands of a man who had always been sharp and painful.
“He’s huge, but… interesting.”
Despite being the largest humanoid beast she had ever seen, she felt neither fear nor dread. He was far more dependable than Darius Mariner, whom she didn’t even want to call “father.”
“I’ll go.”
Bariya grabbed Bayden’s hand without hesitation. Seeing her tiny hand in his thick one made him feel strangely emotional.
“Alright, let’s go.”
He carefully pulled her, making sure not to startle her, and lifted her to sit on his shoulders.
“Huh?”
“Lord?”
Bariya and Silva were both surprised by this sudden piggyback ride. Bayden, however, slowly stood up to ensure she wouldn’t fall.
Within seconds, Bariya’s view had risen two meters, and her mouth fell open.
“Lord! That’s dangerous for a little girl…!”
Silva shouted in panic, but Bariya exclaimed, thrilled:
“It’s high! So high! Wow! If I stretch my arms, I think I can touch the ceiling!”
As she laughed and reached up, Silva couldn’t help but chuckle. Bariya was a feline humanoid, after all. She liked heights, and this level wasn’t dangerous enough to cause harm if she fell.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes!”
“Hold onto my hair so you don’t fall.”
Bariya firmly grabbed his blonde hair with both hands. Silva rubbed her eyes several times at the sight of it becoming messy from a child’s hands. The piggyback ride itself was less surprising than that.
“Then let’s go.”
Bayden opened the study door. Being tiger humanoids, the doorway was tall enough that Bariya wouldn’t bump her head. Even so, he bent his knees slightly, cautious as they stepped outside.
“Gah!”
“Huh!”
“Whoa!”
Knights and employees nearby gawked at the sight. The largest of the Caliph’s tiger humanoids carrying a little girl on his shoulders, her hands clutching his hair. Was this real or a dream?
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see when we get there.”
Bayden and Bariya paid no mind to the stares of others. Until they disappeared from view, everyone else remained with mouths agape.
Someone else was shocked as well.
“Father?”
Sirka, passing by with Jeik, couldn’t believe their eyes.
“My eyes are acting weird. I must be hallucinating.”
Jeik rubbed his eyes, denying reality.
“So you didn’t know what to do, but decided to give her a piggyback ride?”
“No, I just thought, since she’s a cat, she might like heights.”
“This is really, really fun!”
Bariya giggled, holding and shaking Bayden’s blonde hair with both hands. The strands that only ever became disheveled in front of Sabrina were now forming a nest under the hands of a ten-year-old.
“Let’s go.”
“Let’s!”
Bayden and Bariya brushed past the two.
“Did Lord also give you piggyback rides when you were young?”
Jeik asked, finally accepting reality after rubbing his eyes until they were red.
“Impossible. When I was young, Father never had the leisure to give piggyback rides.”
True. Sirka wasn’t the type to act spoiled, and back then neither Bayden nor Sabrina could have indulged her.
“Besides, Father would never give a piggyback ride to his own son anyway.”
“That’s right. I thought only the Master would ever ride Lord’s shoulders.”
“….”
Sirka shivered at the thought of Sabrina on Bayden’s shoulders.
“If that happened, Mother would’ve twisted Father’s neck immediately.”
Even Bayden couldn’t overpower Sabrina.
“Anyway, it’s nice to see Father getting along well with the little one.”
Bayden cared only for his wife Sabrina and the tiger humanoids. He was supposed to remain distant with Bariya, so this unexpected side of him was a pleasant surprise. Taking her along rather than leaving her behind had truly been the right choice.
Amid all the gasps and shouts, Bayden took Bariya to none other than the Caliph’s proud library.
“Wow, waah…”
The library was neat and clean, without extravagant decorations, giving an elegant and sophisticated impression. Bariya couldn’t stop staring.
“I figured that if you’d been running away all the time, you wouldn’t have time to read books. Not sure if you’ll like it.”
Bariya didn’t even hear Bayden’s voice. The smell of books she hadn’t smelled in ages, books stacked floor to ceiling, spanning countless fields—she was in awe.
“Little one?”
Bariya only came back to herself after Bayden put her down. He bent in front of her, sitting.
“You don’t like it? Then we can find something else…”
“No!”
Bariya immediately grabbed Bayden’s sleeve.
“I really, really like it! It’s totally perfect!”
She spoke so quickly her pronunciation became rougher than usual. She was desperate.
“I like reading, but I couldn’t do it much with the Hyena family. I’m so sad. But now you brought me here, I’m really thankful!”
Bariya’s eyes shone as she clung to Bayden. She had a hunger for knowledge. Influenced by her mother, Claire, she was far smarter than her peers.
However, Darius forbade her from gaining knowledge, wanting her to remain ignorant. If her mother hadn’t secretly taught her every night, Bariya, despite her sharp mind, would have lived with tragic ignorance.
This moment filled her with gratitude.
“Good. I don’t really know what children like.”
“You have Sirka.”
He’s eighteen now, but he had a childhood once too.
“…Yeah. If I’d paid more attention then, maybe I’d know more now.”
Bayden smiled bitterly. He felt sorry for not properly caring for Sirka as a child. “I can’t use the excuse of ‘circumstances beyond my control.’”
“Anything in this library is yours to read. The books you can’t read yet are kept separately, so don’t worry, you can read everything.”
“All of it?!”
“There’s plenty of interesting stuff. I was annoyed at hearing people say predators are stupid because they don’t read, so I bought every kind of book I could.”
“What?!”
The confident wildcat humanoid Bariya’s eyes widened.
“Who said such nonsense?!”
“The birds, mostly.”
Just wait until she meets them. She would teach them why being big doesn’t mean you don’t need brains.
“Oh, right.”
Bayden pulled a thin booklet from the central drawer of the library and handed it to Bariya.
“If you ever want a specific book, I can find it for you. You probably have some you want to read in secret, too.”
Bariya blushed, surprised he had guessed.
“Then keep this. It’s a list of the books organized by section.”
The front of the booklet even had a library map.
“Thank you…”
“If you can’t find a book, ask me, Sabrina, or Sirka. We won’t question why you want it, so don’t worry.”
Bayden smiled, promising not to pry into anything about her.
Feeling this genuine care in the tiger household, where she had no family, made her heart flutter.
