IBTBD 06

Chapter 06

“Truly… are you saying the Duke brought this squirrel back with him?”

“They say he carried it in his arms for an entire week.”

“A w-week? If the squirrel hasn’t woken up yet, it looks more like accumulated exhaustion.”

Muffled voices drifted above my hazy head.

One voice was dripping with suspicion, the other sounded rather old.

‘A week already passed?’

The first place I regained consciousness after being kidnapped from the hut was a dark, cramped pouch.

The ride was so rough that I blacked out and woke up over and over again.

“Is there really no chance it’s a beastkin?”

“As things stand, no. I sense no mana from it. Besides, for security, the Ducal estate is protected with beastkin-tracking magic. If it were a beastkin, the mark would have appeared long ago.”

“The Duke said it seemed to understand human speech.”

Someone poked my cheek as they said that.

Even the elderly man—who I guessed was a physician—left the possibility of me being a beastkin open.

“The fur is neat, the body in excellent condition. That suggests it’s been raised by humans for quite some time. It must have picked up human speech then. Among the capital’s high nobles, there are even cases where animals are trained and sent in as spies.”

“Hmm. So even if it’s not a beastkin, it could still be dangerous.”

“All the better for this poor squirrel, at least.”

Poor squirrel?

I was pretty sure they meant me.

I’d actually woken up a while ago, but I was desperately pretending to still be asleep.

“Right. If it were a beastkin, its head would’ve been chopped off already.”

“Hah. Just losing its head would be merciful. It would end up begging for death instead.”

Those words, one after another, chilled me to the core.

Fortunately, their conversation didn’t last long.

Their stares were so sharp I could feel them even with my eyes closed.

I barely dared to breathe, afraid I might slip into eternal sleep.

“Well then, I’ll take my leave. I still have patients to attend to.”

“Ah, already this late? I should be going as well.”

Footsteps faded, and then the sound of a door shutting.

‘Gone? They’re gone, right?’

I pricked up my ears and cautiously lifted my eyelids.

And then—

“Squeeeak!”

I couldn’t help but shriek.

“You’re finally awake.”

It was because a man had leaned his face right up to mine.

His eyes slanted so sharply he could’ve passed for a fennec fox beastkin.

But the faint reptilian scent told me his true nature was something cold-blooded.

What was the term again for characters with faces like his?

I remembered the maids’ novels—they called them “slit-eye characters.”

They usually hid sinister intentions behind that smile.

‘Figures…’

He smiled with eyes curved like crescent moons, but what he was thinking was anyone’s guess.

All I could see was the flash of yellow pupils keenly observing me, as if trying to expose my true nature.

“Hmm. On the surface, you look like a perfectly ordinary squirrel.”

Tilting his head, the man leaned closer and closer.

A chill ran down my spine, my fur standing on end.

When a strand of his dark-green hair brushed my ear, I squealed in terror.

“Squeak—! Squeeeak!”

Wh-what the heck? Who are you?!

I tried desperately to scramble away, but no matter how I struggled, I didn’t gain an inch.

More precisely, I was just bouncing in place—head sticking out of the pouch, body tightly bound.

‘Wh-what is this?!’

I stared at him in shock.

“Ah, nothing much. Just imprisonment.”

Imprisonment?

Was that really a word you said with a smile?!

Untie me! Now!

I thrashed and shook furiously, but the man only laughed harder, narrowing his eyes.

“Pfft… struggling won’t help. I tied you up tight in a ribbon shape. See? Cute, isn’t it?”

“Squeeeak!”

Cute, my tail!

“Glad you like it.”

“Squeak! Squeak squeak!”

No, I don’t!

I shook my head violently, but he didn’t care.

He just kept talking, as if only his words mattered.

“Ah, I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Gerard Viper, aide to Duke Kreutz.”

Judging from his earlier chat with the physician, he already believed I could communicate.

If I played dumb, I’d only raise more suspicion.

So I just gave a tiny flick of my paw.

“Haha, thought so. No ordinary squirrel would behave like this. That’s why you touched the Duke’s pocket watch, isn’t it?”

So it really was because of that pocket watch.

When that stranger appeared, it was snatched away at once.

I’d even seen it resting right beside me when I briefly woke inside his coat.

I hadn’t even used it yet—why did I have to steal it at all?

Regret washed over me, but then—

‘Wait a sec.’

Did I just hear something insane?

I blinked up at Gerard.

“Squeak…?”

Kr-Kreutz…?

Could it be that Kreutz?

I froze as if I’d overheard a forbidden truth.

‘Why did it have to be Kreutz…?!’

Ask anyone what kind of family Kreutz was, and nine out of ten would say the same:

The Mad Duke’s House.

Or—the Mad Black Dragon Clan.

Since ancient times, certain beasts were said to possess divine power.

They were called sacred beasts.

And their descendants were us—the beastkin.

Dragon beastkin might sound strange, but they too carried the blood of the divine dragons.

The only difference was the overwhelming might of their ancestor.

Thus the dragon clans boasted unmatched bodies and explosive mana.

‘And the strongest of them all—’

—was the Kreutz Dukedom.

They were said to be the family that produced the black dragon, leader of the dragonkin, generation after generation.

Some even claimed it was thanks to them that all the kingdoms bowed to the Yggdnia Empire.

And me… I’d been caught inside that den.

“Hiccup.”

A hiccup burst out, toppling my little body to the floor.

“Oh dear. No wonder you’re scared. You couldn’t have known the trinket you stole was the late Duchess’s keepsake.”

So the pocket watch I swiped… was a Kreutz heirloom?!

Then the man collapsed in the forest must have been…

My head spun against my will.

“Of course, you also didn’t realize that man was the Duke himself, right?”

“Hic, hic…”

Oh no… I’m doomed.

For a while, silence hung between Gerard and me.

Except for my constant—

“Hic.”

—hiccups.

“Don’t worry too much. Even Lord Kenig wouldn’t torment such a tiny, ordinary squirrel.”

“Hic, hic!”

At the name Kenig, my hiccups grew louder.

Yes, Kenig.

That lunatic who smashed a window I had fixed six times—using nothing but acorn-sized squirrel paws!

As his blazing eyes flashed in my memory, one thought consumed me:

‘I have to escape.’

That was the only way to survive.

But where?

I frantically scanned the room.

I thought the Aymond estate was large, but compared to the Black Dragon Duke’s residence, it was nothing.

Even the furniture was massive.

‘Okay… If I climb the sofa, then the cabinet…’

From there, I could scramble onto the display case—out of Gerard’s reach.

And finally, leap for the window.

It was half-open, and a tree branch stretched conveniently close.

High, yes, but I’d leapt off cliffs before.

I could do this.

‘The escape route’s set. Now…’

All that was left was to get free from this cursed pouch.

Fortunately, I knew one sure-fire method to break free in situations like this.