“So you’re saying I need to go outside the thorny bushes.”

“You can go out, can’t you? You’re not trapped here.”

“No, I cannot leave here.”

“You said you came in by yourself. Because you hate humans! I was able to come in through the thorny bushes, so why can’t you go out? The thorny bushes move according to your will!”

“Who do you think I am?”

Alois raised himself from his lying position and stared at Olivia. Standing in a way that blocked the flickering light, the giant beast’s shadow wavered and completely covered her body. The shadow, deepened by the firelight, perfectly concealed Alois’s expression.

“The heat cycle will begin in a few days.”

“Ah……”

She remembered how particularly tired he had looked for the past few days. She had only thought he was fatigued because of the many intruders, not at all anticipating the heat cycle. If it wasn’t simple accumulated fatigue but a precursor to the beginning of the heat cycle, she understood why Alois’s range of actions was dramatically narrowing.

She had heard that as the heat cycle approached, Alois became more sensitive, more closed off, and either fought endless depression or became lethargic.

Why now of all times….. Resenting the suddenly approaching heat cycle, she realized what he meant by a curse. Even if there was something he wanted to protect, when the heat cycle suddenly arrived, he had to let it go without being able to do anything. Feeling the meaning of living bound to a heat cycle like a time bomb, Olivia looked up at Alois with a sympathetic gaze.

‘Surely this moment isn’t the first time.’

Before he confined himself here, perhaps countless opportunities and precious things had been crushed by the curse that held his ankles. Maybe what confined Alois wasn’t the thorny bushes but the frustration that accumulated that way. Thinking that her desperate request might have been scratching at Alois’s wounds, Olivia embraced the neck of Alois, who was staring blankly at her.

‘He could just get angry and say what do I know, and that would be fine.’

Seeing him calmly announcing the start of his curse to her, who had ignorantly asked why he couldn’t help, Olivia felt a sharp pain in her chest, telling her that this situation wasn’t new to him. A sharp needle lodged deep in her heart.

Resting his head on Olivia’s shoulder, who was embracing him, Alois sighed briefly and slowly opened his mouth with a more subdued look than before.

“The best we can do is strengthen the boundaries protecting this forest and hope the hunters and mercenaries finish the event quickly and leave. Then, even if the heat cycle comes to me, at least I can protect the beings living in this forest.”

“You’re telling me to give up, right?”

“Yes.”

She understood. She understood that Alois’s words were the best option, and that she couldn’t force anything more on Alois, who had to endure another hellish time when the heat cycle came. She understood, but!

“I’m sorry. I, I don’t think I can do that.”

“Olivia.”

The firm voice calling her name grew a little louder. He tried to contain his sharp emotions as much as possible to avoid stabbing Olivia, but Alois, sensitized by the precursor symptoms of the heat cycle, found it difficult to completely control his feelings.

“I think I’ve explained clearly enough.”

“I understand. I get it. I know you can’t come out.”

“Then what do you mean by saying you can’t give up?”

“I’ll try to do something on my own. It’s okay if you don’t help. When your heat cycle starts, you didn’t even want me around, right?”

“The way you’re talking now, I’m understanding it in a somewhat impertinent way. Am I understanding correctly?”

Alois, who had roughly detached himself from Olivia’s hands that were embracing his neck, glared at her with eyes mixed with indescribable, chaotic emotions. If his understanding was correct, what Olivia was saying was daringly…….

“Are you telling me that you’re going to leave this forest alone?”

“I’ll come back. Once I help the little ones escape, or even if I fail to escape, I’ll definitely come back……”

“You’re packaging your intention to escape from me quite plausibly.”

Alois’s voice, which had been shaking with shock, turned cold as frost. Like all floating emotions had sunk and disappeared without a trace, his strangely wavering eyes returned to a cold light that reflected nothing.

“I’m not saying I’m escaping. I promised to repay my debt until you give permission, ugh!”

Before Olivia could finish speaking, the heavy beast’s hand pushed her shoulder. The beast mounted her body as she fell backward, stepping heavily on her nape and shoulder simultaneously to prevent her from escaping.

“I’ve felt this filthy feeling once before, a long time ago.”

“Alois.”

“Didn’t I warn you before? I hate humans who pretend to be nice and smile to my face while plotting to betray me behind my back.”

Alois’s gaze, which had been pressing down on her shoulder as if to crush it, gradually moved downward to her ankle. The impulse from that day suddenly returned, though the heat cycle hadn’t even started yet. Perhaps because he had yielded to the cursed heat even slightly that day, he had weakened that much, causing these feelings. The chilling thought crossed Alois’s mind that if he broke both her legs, at least she wouldn’t be able to run around saying she would go rescue those dogs.

“Do you know why I’m feeling even worse now?”

“……”

“It’s because, after hearing you say you want to leave, I wasn’t just trembling with feelings of betrayal. My first thought was that if you went alone to rescue those things and got hurt, it would be terrible.”

This is why he preferred animals. Animals are simple. They neither appeal for trust nor dream of betrayal.

“Ah, no. This feeling shouldn’t be described as filthy or bad.”

“……”

“Don’t normal people use the word miserable in situations like this?”

Alois had unknowingly been thinking of Olivia as being within the fence he had to protect. She was a being included in this forest, and he naturally considered her his possession until the debt was cleared.

Even after seeing him go berserk during the heat cycle, she didn’t run away and said she would still stay by his side as if nothing had happened. Had his guard unknowingly crumbled a bit at that sight? Not a single human had remained by his side after seeing that. The only beings that had stayed with him were ordinary animals who didn’t care whether he was in beast form or human form.

But while he was having such ridiculous misunderstandings, Olivia was actually thinking of leaving this forest. A hollow laugh escaped at how pathetic his delusion was.

Perhaps his constant mantra-like repetition that he didn’t trust humans, that he hated humans, had been no different from self-brainwashing. Facing the feeling of betrayal, Alois discovered an aspect of his true feelings that he had been pretending not to know. A weak lingering attachment afraid that he might want to trust humans again.

“I told you it’s not like that. I’m not saying I’m going to escape. Why do you keep hurting yourself in advance?”

Olivia pulled back into their conversation the thoughts that Alois was slowly trying to let settle. As she had felt before, that bad habit of judging alone, misunderstanding alone, and arbitrarily coming to conclusions needed to be corrected.

I had no intention of hurting you. I have no intention of running away. I have no intention of attacking at all, so why do you hurt yourself first and make such a painful face?

Watching him tear himself apart at the slightest sign that the other might attack, for fear they might, made her heart ache.

“How can I trust you when you say you’ll leave the forest while knowing I can’t leave my room because of the heat cycle?”

“If you couldn’t trust me that much, why did you give me the key?”

“That wasn’t because I trusted you! It was because I was afraid you might get hurt because of me again!”

Alois, who had shouted in a burst of emotion, closed his mouth. It was laughable how he hurt himself with his own words. There was no need to hear more. Olivia’s debt had not yet disappeared, and if so, whatever he did with her was solely Alois’s right, so he could do as he pleased. As he tried to settle his mind that way, Olivia reached out painfully again and cupped Alois’s cheek.

“Okay. Let’s do it this way.”

“No, I don’t need it. I have no intention of listening to you anymore……”

“I need to go outside to rescue the little ones, and you can’t let me go alone because you can’t trust me, right?”

“……”

“And because the heat cycle is approaching, you can’t leave the forest with me?”

Even if they tried to reorganize the situation, there was no way to narrow the difference in their positions. But Olivia, with a confident voice, kept Alois’s gaze fixed directly on her as she slowly enunciated each syllable clearly so that he wouldn’t misunderstand or hurt himself again.

“Then I’ll help end your heat cycle early.”

“What nonsense are you……”