Meow.
How about it? Pretty convincing, right?
He grinned, showing off his transformed paws and tail as if proud of them. Thanks to all the time he'd spent around cats, it had been easy to mimic their form. The newborn stage looked much the same for every animal anyway, so there hadn't been much to adjust.
The one impersonating a cat was, in truth, a snow leopard Beastman.
His appearance was identical to that of an ordinary snow leopard, except that his snow-white fur lacked the black rosette markings that were a snow leopard's trademark.
His coat, made up entirely of pure white, was simply white and nothing more. That was because he was a special existence.
The snow leopard Beastman who would become the next leader of the Beastmen, Baek Su-ho.
He was one of the very protagonists of the novel Da-woon was waiting for.
The fifth son of the current leader and the chosen heir, he was still an immature being. Slower to grow than his siblings and often sickly, he had been the problem child of the Beastmen.
No one had ever expected him to be named the next leader. As a result, he'd spent his childhood freely, to the point of being nearly neglected.
While his older and younger siblings studied Beastman society and planned for the future, he spent every day running through the mountain valleys and hunting with the animals.
Because of that, his innately free-spirited nature swelled beyond anyone's control. Even before a father in whose presence his siblings didn't dare move a muscle, he'd calmly cause trouble.
But what could anyone do? It was all because he hadn't received enough care.
His siblings and parents regarded it as their own karma, and, late as it was, they took to looking after him devotedly and educating him.
But it was hardly easy to change a personality that had already set once his head was grown. They'd even assigned him the chief of the crow clan, the most capable and intellectually gifted among the Beastmen, yet it had little effect.
“Master Su-ho.”
Heuk Gu-hyeok dragged a long hand down his clean-cut face and let out a sigh as though coughing up blood.
“Aren't you past the age for a rebellious phase?”
In the Beastman world he was old enough to be preparing for marriage, yet he was still causing trouble, and it ate Gu-hyeok up inside. Unless they belonged to one of the avian races that could fly, Beastmen lived their whole lives within the mountains, and of all of them, Baek Su-ho was one who must never leave the mountains at all.
“Didn't you promise you'd stay quiet if I just let you have a look around? And then, out of nowhere, you go throwing yourself in front of a car. I told you again and again that cars are dangerous!”
Hisss!
It tried to hit me first!
“It nearly hit you because you charged at it! I explained that the road is for cars only!”
Screee!
I was just going my own way! How dare it block my path!
Heuk Gu-hyeok pressed a hand to his forehead at Su-ho's hissing. It was all the more frustrating because they couldn't understand each other. At a glance it looked like a conversation was taking place, but in reality neither of them could make out a word the other was saying.
“Just calm down, please.”
Knowing that forcibly dragging him off would only provoke an even bigger incident, Gu-hyeok had no choice but to attempt a proper conversation. He flapped one of the black wings folded against his back and plucked out one of his feathers.
“Here. Eat this.”
The jet-black feather, imbued with power, had a sheen close to actual light. Its color was as extraordinary as its remarkable size. Compared to the other crows', Heuk Gu-hyeok's feathers were exceptionally beautiful. As the chief of his clan, Gu-hyeok too possessed remarkable power.
Su-ho opened his mouth with a sullen look. Still, he didn't refuse, so he must have had some willingness to talk after all.
Gu-hyeok's feather slipped neatly into the small mouth and was chewed mercilessly, crunch crunch.
The flock of crows clustered against the window, watching their chief and Su-ho. Every one of them found it fascinating that Su-ho had changed from a snow leopard into a cat. To human eyes the difference was minute, but to fellow Beastmen it was on the level of changing his hair color and facial features.
So this is yet another way he rebels. The crow flock all harbored the same thought and sighed along with their chief.
Chewing the feather deliberately slowly, Su-ho gulped it down right as Gu-hyeok looked about to expire.
The moment his short throat bobbed, his white back seemed to heave, and in an instant his form switched over. From cat to human.
“Achoo.”
The moment he turned human he sneezed, then put on his usual sulky expression without fail. His gaze held an intimidation incomparable to that of his kitten form, yet his body was nothing more than a child's.
In reality, though, his body was far larger than Heuk Gu-hyeok's, who stood over 190 cm. Aside from his eldest brother, his physique was bigger and more muscular than any of his other siblings, a splendid body.
But he spent more of his time in a child's form, as he did now. In human terms, a body of about seven years old. It was all because of his unstable condition.
“Master Su-ho! Why have you gone and skipped your clothes again!”
Looking at Su-ho's naked body, white like flour, Gu-hyeok quickly conjured up some clothes. He'd talked himself hoarse telling Su-ho that outside the mountains he had to wear clothes just like other humans. But Su-ho never listened to any warning whatsoever.
“If you walk around naked here, you'll be treated as a pervert. Come on, lift your arms.”
Heuk Gu-hyeok forced the clothes onto Su-ho. Sulky expression and all, Su-ho quietly raised his arms. For Su-ho, who found clothes uncomfortable, Gu-hyeok made a loose short-sleeved tee and shorts that came down to just above the knee.
“There, lift your legs too. And your bottom.”
“Don't treat me like a kid.”
Su-ho gave Gu-hyeok, who was pulling the shorts on him, a sharp kick and threw a fit.
When his body shrank, his behavior turned childish too. Just as his tastes changed when he returned to his true form, when his body grew younger, his mind grew younger right along with it. Though he himself would never admit it.
“Just bring me some water.”
“I'll go out and buy you some. Everything outside the mountains has an owner. You mustn't touch things carelessly.”
Having lived a life where he drank his fill from valley streams when thirsty and hunted to his heart's content when hungry, there was no way he'd know anything about the outside world. Gu-hyeok explained calmly and pointed politely toward the window.
“First, let's move somewhere else. Please don't do this in someone else's house.”
“No.”
“Why not?!”
Gu-hyeok's voice rose again. Su-ho dug at his ear and let fly another kick.
“Won't you keep it down? You think I'm a joke? Huh? Am I funny to you?”
As punishment for disrespecting him, he pounded thwack thwack on Gu-hyeok's knee.
The flock of crows stuck to the window snickered secretly at Su-ho, who was acting like a tantrum-throwing child. Setting aside the gravity of the situation, it was honestly funny. He was utterly different from his real, near-adult self.
“You have to eat, too. Let's hurry out, have one last meal, and head back. Hm?”
Having calmed him, Gu-hyeok knelt and begged. But once again a stubborn response came back.
“No. Someone said they'd buy me food.”
“Who?”
“There is someone. The pretty one.”
Heuk Gu-hyeok and the crow flock all tilted their heads at the same angle. The pretty one...? It was a word that had never once come out of Su-ho's mouth before, which left them utterly bewildered.
“I'm going to stay here, so get lost. Don't show up until I call for you.”
At the declaration that followed, Gu-hyeok's heart sank yet again. Before Gu-hyeok could let out a near-shriek of a rebuke, Su-ho beat him to it.
“Just you try dragging me off by force. Go on.”
Su-ho's eyes, set in the face of a promising young boy, flashed fiercely. His white irises, glittering with a mysterious light, held a chill colder than ice.
It was a gaze that, no matter how long he'd watched it, Gu-hyeok could never quite get used to. The crows averted their eyes and fixed them only on their chief. Heuk Gu-hyeok, too, quietly lowered his gaze.
“...How long are you planning to stay?”
“Dunno. As long as I feel like it.”
The crow flock squeezed their eyes shut. Someone, as though already having attained enlightenment, just cawed out a laugh.
“Cough.”
Just then, Su-ho, who'd been leisurely scratching his belly, broke into a fit of coughing.
Heuk Gu-hyeok immediately fetched water from the kitchen. It weighed on him that it was someone else's house, but looking after Su-ho came first. As for any traces of use, he could simply erase them with his power.
“Drink slowly. You're still not well.”
Su-ho gave a hmph and a snort, but he didn't drain the glass in one go as he usually did. Gu-hyeok and the crow flock watched with worried eyes as Su-ho drank the water slowly.
Softened by the sight, Gu-hyeok ended up taking a step back today as well.
“Don't stay too long. The leader worries.”
“Why is this water so bland. It tastes awful.”
“And avoid contact with people as much as you can. You mustn't attack them, either. If anything, let yourself get hit and come home. We'll scold them for it.”
“That's a TV, right?”
The two of them each said their own piece, no different from when they were in their true forms. Of course, it was Gu-hyeok who yielded first and answered Su-ho's words.
“Yes, that's right. They're usually smaller, but this house uses quite a large one.”
“And that?”
Su-ho pointed at the furniture in the living room. Gu-hyeok, who came and went outside the mountains fairly often, answered everything to the best of his knowledge.
“That's an air conditioner, the one below is a display cabinet for keeping jewelry, and you know the sofa, don't you?”
“I know. I have a sofa too.”
He'd happened to learn the word "sofa" and once piled up a heap of grass to make something similar. His older and younger siblings liked sofas too, so he often made them. It was a cozy nest, not much different from a bird's roost.
Gu-hyeok explained even the names and uses of the furniture in detail to the curious Su-ho. Born in the mountains and having lived his whole life only among the Beastmen, it was no wonder he found it all fascinating.
“And that?”
Su-ho's interest moved from the living room to the kitchen.
“That's a refrigerator. A box that keeps food for a long time so it doesn't spoil. The thing next to it is a water purifier; you can think of it as a container that water comes out of.”
“Inside that refrigerator was cold.”
“Yes, that's what it's for. Food has to stay cold so it doesn't spoil. A refrigerator can also freeze food, so you mustn't go inside it carelessly.”
He earnestly insisted that Su-ho especially must never go in while in his snow leopard cub form. Beyond that, Gu-hyeok explained every piece of furniture in the house, step by step.
And Baek Su-ho memorized the name and use of every one of them after hearing it explained just once.
Having inherited the leader's bloodline, he possessed both extraordinary power and the keenest mind of any race among all the Beastmen. The trouble was just that it didn't show.
“Nothing much to it, is there? Now that you've heard it all, hasn't your interest dropped a bit?”
“No, it's fucking interesting.”
“M-Master Su-ho, when did you learn that vulgar word...!”
Gu-hyeok was aghast watching Su-ho casually spit out a word he'd never taught him. He immediately thought of the absent chief brat of the sparrow clan. He'd surely picked up the swearing from that little punk.
“Ordinary humans are afraid of large animals, right?”
Gu-hyeok, who'd been imagining plucking out every last one of the sparrow chief's feathers, faltered. He studied Su-ho closely as Su-ho propped his chin on his hand and looked up at him.
“...I suppose so, yes. Humans are weak, after all.”
“And they like cute, small animals. Right?”
“Everyone likes those. Even non-humans.”
“Fine, now get lost.”
His business done, Su-ho waved his hand and stretched. Gu-hyeok, whose worries were far from settled, tried to talk with him a little longer, but Su-ho coldly turned back into a cat.
Meow.
Off you go.
Without a trace of reluctance, Su-ho turned his back and trotted briskly toward the stairs.
Heuk Gu-hyeok sighed deep enough to make the ground cave in, yet watching Su-ho's strangely listless gait, his worry only grew.
I just hope he eats properly, at least...
He looked around the relatively spacious house and thought of the human who had been protecting Su-ho. That human, who had misunderstood the situation and snatched Su-ho up, had seemed very kind.
Heuk Gu-hyeok had an excellent eye for people. That human gave off a cold impression, but the soul within seemed clear.
...At the very least, he'll feed him well. He doesn't have the face of someone who'd starve a kitten.
Believing that, he took his leave for now. It was hard to stay long in this cramped little space. Compared to the vast mountains, even Sawoo Guild's lodgings were no different from a narrow cage to them.
