🔊 TTS Settings
chapter 35
[Ian’s Side 2]
After that incident, Ian’s pheromone overload worsened.
During the time the overload progressed, Allen did nothing but remain by his side.
Afterward, Allen and Ian finally began having real conversations
Despite being somewhat twisted, they grew close to each other rather quickly.
“Ian, about your pheromone overproduction…”
“Hmm.”
“They say it can be cured if you find a compatible pheromone. More precisely, it will calm it down.”
“Ridiculous. Finding that in a desert would be easier.”
And then, one day…
“Ian, the head of the household and his wife wish to see you.”
Only then did they realize Ian’s abnormality—but by that point, it was already far too late.
Once a thread is cut, it cannot be reconnected.
Just as taping torn paper back together doesn’t make it new.
At first, when they discovered the boy’s abnormality, they treated him well.
At first.
“Isn’t there anywhere you want to go, Ian?”
“Yeah! Let’s go out and play, Ian!”
“Ian, how about eating out tonight?”
Now, their behavior seemed absurd.
If they had wanted to be kind, they should have started from the beginning.
After neglecting him in the annex for twelve years, suddenly pretending to be a family was laughable.
Still, he played along with their little family games.
“Yes. That’s fine.”
No matter what they suggested, he nodded and accepted it.
“This steak tastes good, doesn’t it?”
“I think so, Mother.”
“Eat plenty.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m glad you like it, Ian.”
The boy greeted them with a smile as sweet as candy in his mouth.
Even though his eyes remained expressionless.
Hidden beneath a beautiful smile, those eyes could not be seen.
His face was parched, and he did not comprehend what this simple family game meant.
Like plants in the desert that adapt to survive with little water,
he no longer needed the love and attention of his family.
There was already an unbridgeable gap between him and his family.
When the boy’s skin was tearing and splitting, his family didn’t even know.
‘Or perhaps they didn’t bother to find out.’
Without even realizing it, his heart was completely closed off from his family.
Even witnessing death left him indifferent.
Death meant nothing to him, because he had experienced pain far greater than death.
When he occasionally lost control over his twisted state, they eventually realized the gap.
That all of this was caused by restorative pheromones and the pheromone overload.
That there was no possibility of restoring his personality, shattered by both the overload and his caretakers’ abuse.
The way the household heads looked at him changed.
In eyes filled with warmth, sympathy, and pity, fear had crept in.
Perhaps they wanted to use him as a great knight since there was no hope of fixing his personality.
Once they realized this, they decided to send him to the battlefield.
A place where killing was permissible—a place where he could legally unleash himself.
A place where his hated pheromones could be put to best use.
“We have to send Ian to the battlefield.”
“No! That’s impossible! Ian is only fourteen years old!”
Louise vehemently opposed them.
“If my brother goes, I’ll go too.”
“No, you have work here, Louise.”
“Yes, that child sees killing as nothing. He’s different from you.”
“And he’s not like a typical fourteen-year-old. Neither Allen nor Ian is.”
And the boy had heard the entire conversation.
The household heads wanted to send him to war, Louise opposed it, and they all noted that Ian was different from others.
He heard it all that night.
They, who had feared they couldn’t handle the boy, sent him to the battlefield despite Louise’s opposition, and he spent his adolescence there.
With his aide by his side.
Louise also participated in that war and assisted him.
At fourteen, he faced others with a sword, and in a life-or-death battlefield, he killed to survive.
It didn’t matter who the opponent was.
Returning victorious from the battlefield, he quickly proceeded with preparations to become the head of the Cadellion household after Louise declared she would forgo the position.
From the beginning, he completely overhauled the Cadellion family.
Unnecessary subordinates were swiftly removed, and all traces of the past were erased.
New subordinates were installed in the empty positions.
The Cadellion family was quickly swallowed into his hands.
The scorching headaches and heat that tormented him in childhood…
He had tried to find a compatible pheromone but soon gave up.
It had been a waste of time.
Finding a compatible pheromone—if one even existed—was harder than finding a needle in a desert.
He didn’t want to live shackled to someone who could calm his pain.
The suffocating heat had now become familiar to him.
Anything irritating was crushed; anything annoying was removed.
It was a tedious, repetitive process,
and the Simonde family was just one part of it.
That day, he was in a bad mood.
Merely having to clean up those trashy people again annoyed him.
For reasons unknown, the Simonde head and his family had already packed their luggage and left somewhere, anticipating his visit.
The cold winter wind brushed against his cheek, and strands of hair, like falling snow, swayed with the wind.
But, as always, he did not feel the cold wind.
Due to his pheromones, the hot air felt overwhelmingly heated.
Regardless of the season, he was always unbearably hot, feeling as if he were walking through a parched, arid desert.
He had always lived alone in that stifling, hot air.
The once-beautiful garden, blooming with winter flowers, now only sent dust swirling in the wind.
Fallen flowers rolled in every direction.
‘When will I clear the weeds that ran away?’
A cold smirk curled at his lips.
Anyone caught by that smile would die.
His subordinates worked even harder to eliminate enemies, as if seeing a demon.
Once the area seemed somewhat cleared, the cries of the subordinates quieted.
Ian prepared to leave.
Then—
A black, furball-like creature rolled vigorously toward him, smashing its small body against his sword-bearing feet.
‘What is this?’
A kitten.
Small enough to fit in one hand.
Knowing shoes were there yet fearlessly crashing into them was amusing.
At first, it was curiosity.
He started observing the kitten out of curiosity.
The furball met his gaze, pupils shaking violently, looking almost soulless.
As if denying reality.
It seemed to know who he was.
Very likely, a beastman.
‘Should I kill it?’
The thought briefly crossed his mind when he felt the kitten recognized him.
No.
Let’s watch a bit longer.
The kitten’s antics were too funny, and for the first time in a long while, he contemplated killing someone.
Deciding to spare it was even rarer.
Forgetting it existed, the furball suddenly pawed at his cheeks.
Then it stared at him with a determined gaze.
Like a general going to war.
Its aura outshone even his knights.
In those green eyes, the will to live blazed stronger than anything.
The solemn-eyed cat crouched.
Then it suddenly leapt up, holding a flower in its mouth, shaking it with its paws.
Fascinating.
It all felt like watching a ridiculous play.
He, like an audience, crossed his arms and stared at the cat.
Seeing him stare, the kitten looked exasperated.
‘What do you want now?’
The kitten’s expression revealed everything it was thinking.
He stayed still, showing no reaction.
The cat sighed, placing the flower on his shoe.
As if saying, “Eat this and leave.”
Watching the flower spin, he made a decision.
Should I not kill it?
Don’t kill it.
“I’ll spare you.”
Whether this was the answer the kitten wanted, it twitched its nostrils and tried to escape through a small hole.
For some reason, he didn’t want to let it escape, a feeling stirring in his chest.
He caught the furball.
An impulsive move.
At that moment, a faint, fresh pheromone was felt on his palm.
For an instant, the burning heat that seemed to devour him was washed away like water.
The stifling, hot air became crisp and refreshing, opening his lungs again.
Like a single drop of water falling on parched soil.
His foggy mind cleared, and the wild pheromones that had been overwhelming his emotions calmed.
Quiet.
In that moment, his world was reorganized.
A refreshing rain fell on the arid desert he had been endlessly walking.
The scorching desert cooled, the dry sand absorbed moisture.
An oasis appeared; he felt like he had found fresh water in the desert.
The empty, dry desert filled with a pleasant breeze.
At that moment, the relentless pain stopped.
For the first time, the one who had only felt heat realized the faint sensation of “coolness.”
The world he knew was destroyed, and a new world emerged before him.
In that instant, he realized.
Compatible pheromones.
Pheromones that could only be met if destined by fate.
A turning point that could change his life.
A hand reaching out to save him from his suffering.
He wanted to get closer.
He wanted to stay.
He had a premonition he could never escape this addictive sensation.
He would never forget this feeling.
Ian slowly opened and closed his eyes, holding the cat.
The faint pheromone heat from the kitten stabilized his rampant pheromones.
Even though it was weak, it was incredibly satisfying.
He lifted the kitten, gently wiping its dangling tears.
If this continued, being bound to the cat didn’t seem bad.
He deliberately turned his gaze from the cat and brought it to his mansion.
Even inside, the cat’s strange behavior kept drawing his eyes.
“The cat you brought, Ian, is walking through the garden with a flower on its head, striding proudly and energetically.”
“How about watching it for a change of mood?”
Its behavior was extraordinary.
“Ian, I didn’t expect the baby cat you were watching to break all the office windows.”
Of course, watching her and the cat breaking the windows was a mistake.
“Is this amount incorrect?”
It was clever, thinking things ordinary beastmen wouldn’t.
She also felt the pain he thought only he could feel, yet didn’t collapse despite her small body.
She was peculiar in that, while being troublesome, she always took care of things.
“Ian, there was an assassination attempt in the office.”
“The cat entered the infirmary, bit the chief butler’s hand, and ran away panting with blood streaming.”
Like a hero in a story, it constantly risked its life, making people anxious.
Before he knew it, he was completely absorbed in the kitten.
Yet she sometimes stared vacantly into the distance, as if lost.
Looking outside, she seemed on the verge of disappearing at any moment.
“Ariel?”
Sometimes she stared blankly into the void.
Despite having the strongest will to survive, sometimes she seemed out of place.
It felt as if she rejected this world. As if she could leave at any moment.
Yet he had no intention of letting the cat go.
He wanted it always in his sight.
Having been saved from suffering by her, he feared losing her would drive him insane.
As he felt the familiar pain of pheromone overload, he lifted his eyelids.
Opening them, he saw the black furball frantically running around, panicked and unsure of what to do.
