Chapter 25
I Hope to Be the Tyrant’s Secret Sponsor
That night.
Lennox lay in bed, fiddling with the necklace Rose had just given him.
He had been doing so for two hours already.
The faint scent of roses that had clung to her still lingered on the necklace.
It was a strangely comforting scent.
Truth be told, he had smelled a similar rose scent often in the underworld—from the hallucinogen Rosdella.
It had earned its nickname precisely because of that rose fragrance.
“So this is what a real rose smells like…”
Because of the Rosdella he’d smelled in back alleys, he’d always associated the scent with something unpleasant.
But what he was smelling now was so much fresher and more fragrant, it was incomparable.
For the first time, he thought the scent of roses was actually nice.
“Rose.”
Yet, when he thought about her, everything about her was suspicious and full of mysteries.
She’d hidden her face, called herself his “support agent,” sent him a contract, secretly helped him from the shadows, and gave him a magic item that changed his appearance—right after he was attacked.
“As if she knew I was going to be attacked…”
The common thread through all of this was that she kept her help a secret.
“Like some kind of guardian deity.”
He had a lot he wanted to ask her, but somehow, he felt she wouldn’t give him any answers.
More than anything, he didn’t want to say something that might make her run away from him.
“I can take my time getting to know her.”
Telling himself that was enough, he lay in bed, justifying his curiosity about her.
Clutching the necklace tightly, he closed his eyes and slowly drifted into sleep.
Maybe it was thanks to the sun-like guardian deity.
That night, for the first time, he didn’t have a nightmare.
And for a while after that, the nightmares didn’t return.
When I got home, my plans for a relaxing break were utterly shattered by what I just heard.
“What? Melin went missing?!”
Thankfully, Melin had already been found and returned.
But I couldn’t calm my racing heart after hearing those words.
“…Sob… I’m so sorry, miss…”
Lisa, her face gloomy, lowered her head and began crying big, fat tears.
Agathe didn’t look any better.
“I have no excuse. I deserve to die.”
“Where do you think you’re going to die without permission?”
They both looked so worn out, it was clear they’d been through a lot. My anger, which had been boiling up to my scalp, fizzled out in an instant.
“Yeah… this isn’t really their fault.”
Melin was the Empire’s only spirit summoner. If she made up her mind to evade ordinary people, no one could stop her.
“And if she even shook off Agathe, she must’ve used spirit magic to escape.”
My anger naturally redirected toward Melin.
“I told her so many times not to use spirit magic!”
For some reason, the original story had many suspicious characters looking for spirit summoners.
That’s why I’d told her to be extra cautious!
I walked over to Melin, who was hiding behind Agathe, nervously fidgeting with her fingers.
“Melin, did you do something wrong or not?”
“Sniff… I did something wrong…”
“What did you do wrong?”
“Everything…”
At my scolding, Mion, who stood beside us, let out a series of angry hisses at me.
“Hssssss!”
Scrunching up his nose in a snarl, he looked exactly like a loyal watchdog protecting its master.
“Oh-ho, look at this little punk.”
If it were just a normal cat, I could’ve let it slide, thinking it didn’t understand.
But this guy clearly understood everything, which made it even more absurd.
“Looks like it’s time for a little education.”
I grabbed Mion by the scruff of his neck mid-hiss.
He flailed his tiny legs, trying to escape, but it was pointless.
“I’ve been a cat owner for twenty years in my past life.”
This kind of wriggling was nothing—my wrist could handle it with ease.
“Alright, you and I are going to have a little one-on-one time.”
After whispering that to Mion, I walked straight to my room, holding him up in my right hand like a dangling ornament.
—Bang.
As soon as I entered and shut the door, I set Mion down on the floor. His fur bristled as he glared at me in anger.
“HISSS!”
“Wow, you’ve got quite the temper. You’d fit right in with the Penelope family.”
“…!”
At that, Mion froze like he’d been struck by lightning.
The Penelope family.
They were the emperor’s powerful in-laws, a long-established duke family.
To the public, they were revered as the only holy beings able to command divine beasts.
But only I, who knew the original story, knew the truth.
In reality, they were grim reapers to divine beasts.
Binding magic was routine, and they abused divine beasts into obedience without hesitation.
Mion said he escaped from there.
From the novel, I knew just how much he had suffered at their hands.
He had chosen to live as a product sold on the streets rather than stay there.
“With that pride of his, too.”
In the original, Mion’s pride was immense.
So for it to be broken by the Penelope family—they had to be truly monstrous.
“Want to go back?”
At my question, Mion trembled and opened his mouth.
Oh? Is he about to speak?
“Wungaaawuueaa?”
…What the heck is he saying?
“Sorry, but I don’t understand divine beast language.”
To me, it just sounded like a cat grumbling.
Only members of the Penelope family could understand divine beasts—
“And it’s clear you absolutely don’t want to go back to them.”
But I tilted my head and pretended not to know.
“So what you’re saying is… you want to go to the Penelope family? Got it!”
“HISSSSS!”
Mion puffed up more than ever, baring his fangs in fury.
It might’ve been threatening if he didn’t look like a tiny kitten.
Honestly, it was just cute.
“…Is it because he’s a divine beast? Maybe he doesn’t understand human speech well.”
“I was trying to indirectly say I’d send him back if he kept acting up.”
“Meow.”
Suddenly, Mion turned into a sweet, docile cat. I gently patted his head.
“Yeah, just stay like this.”
“Waaenguae?”
“I told you—I don’t understand you.”
Mion glared at me with disbelief in his blue eyes.
He clearly assumed I’d understand his words, since I figured out right away he was a divine beast.
“If you’re really that frustrated, why not transform into a human?”
I had read multiple scenes in the original story where Mion took on a human form.
To see that in person now—it piqued my interest.
“Don’t want to? Maybe you do want to go back to Penelope, huh?”
At that moment, a brilliant light shone from Mion—and where the cat once stood, a young boy appeared.
He looked about five years old, very small.
As soon as I saw him, I clenched a piece of paper in my hand.
“He’s so cute…!”
He was seriously adorable!
Pure white hair with black streaks as accents, piercing blue eyes with tiny, slitted pupils that revealed his non-human nature.
He had a mischievous, impish face overall.
“You evil witch!”
Startled by my clenched hand, he pointed at me and shouted.
He was staring right at my hand.
Following his gaze, I saw the paper in my hand had been thoroughly crumpled.
So that’s what he’s mad about?
Realizing the misunderstanding, I explained:
“I only crumpled this because you were so cute.”
“Liar! You’re threatening me, saying if I don’t listen, you’ll crumple me just like that!”
…Okay, that kind of made sense.
Having lost the will to argue, I frowned as I repeated his earlier words in my mind.
“But wait. Did you just call me a witch? Then that means you…”
I leaned in close to him and said:
“You sticking to my sister—is that with pure intentions?”
“Gasp…!”
Thinking about how he tried to court Melin years later in the original story… Yeah, real pure, sure.
“Why are all the supporting characters in this story such beasts?”
Even if the heroine had some kind of devilish allure, this was getting ridiculous.
Mion, flustered by my intense gaze, started backing away.
“You… are you a mind-reader?”
“Yeah. I can see everything just by looking in your eyes. So don’t even try anything funny with me.”
“Hmph…”
I finally got to my real point.
“Since you’re already here in my house, you’re going to help me out.”
