“What in the world is happening.”

People who had been pushed out of the exhibition hall with Olivia grumbled, each making their own comments. The interior was still chaotic, perhaps because the thief hadn’t been caught yet. Eventually, it became increasingly disorganized as people leaving and those trying to re-enter mixed together. Finally, management staff stepped in and began organizing the people.

“It’ll be hard to find Alois if I stay here.”

I need to find Alois quickly…… Worried, Olivia, who had been swept along with the crowd, first made her way to the exit and left the building. Rather than wandering among people and possibly missing each other, it seemed faster to wait at the exit until Alois came out. She sat down on a flower bed with a good view of the exit and finally caught her breath.

“I hope Alois thinks the same as me.”

While she clasped her hands together and mentally signaled Alois to come to the exit, she heard a small moan from somewhere. To others, it might sound like just a strange “peeeeek” noise, but to Olivia, it clearly felt like a painful groan.

‘Is someone hurt? With that commotion earlier, an accident could have happened.’

Hesitating for a moment as she looked at the exit, Olivia eventually couldn’t ignore the painful cry and rose from her seat. Her innate nature made it impossible for her to pretend not to know, even though she was aware it might be meddling.

She followed the sound along the flower bed toward the back of the building. Behind the building, facing the wall, was a narrow space that felt overall desolate due to its isolation and shade. And there in the corner, a person and a small rabbit were facing off.

“Excuse me? Just a moment.”

When the man hurriedly tried to pick up the rabbit at Olivia’s appearance, the rabbit screamed “peeek” again.

— Go away!

It was a firm expression of rejection. Olivia rushed over in one breath and blocked the man from taking the rabbit.

“Are you okay? What happened?”

When she whispered to the rabbit hidden behind her back, the startled rabbit blinked its large eyes.

— How can a human speak our language?

“I don’t know what principle makes it possible. Anyway, are you okay?”

At her kind voice, the rabbit looked at Olivia with tearful eyes before suddenly jumping into her arms. Looking closely, she noticed it had a clumsily wrapped bandage.

‘That cry earlier must have been from this wound.’

After holding it in her arms and carefully fixing the clumsy bandage, the emboldened rabbit began kicking its hind legs toward the man opposite them.

— He insulted my sister! He’s a bad person!

“Insulted your sister?”

— Yes! And he tried to kidnap me. Punish him!

Olivia slightly turned her body to hide the angry kicks, worried about provoking the man, and belatedly examined him.

He was tall but had a slender build and a youthful impression. Despite the rabbit’s angry explanation, his face looked younger than expected and didn’t seem like a bad person. Thanks to Lime, she tended to be a bit softer toward younger people. So she cautiously opened her mouth.

“Did you try to kidnap the rabbit……”

“Talk about repaying kindness with enmity, wow, this is unfair.”

The man, who had been looking at Olivia with an unreadable face, pounded his chest as if frustrated. His disgruntled gaze briefly touched the rabbit she was partially hiding.

“I only tried to help because it was injured and abandoned.”

— I wasn’t abandoned!

Peeeeek! The rabbit cried out woefully again. While soothing the rabbit to calm down, she carefully spoke to the man.

“It seems it wasn’t abandoned but lost its family. They might still be looking nearby, so I’ll search for them instead.”

“Even if you look, they’ve already abandoned it and won’t be around. It’s clear they got tired of it after it was injured and abandoned it.”

“That’s too pessimistic. From what I see, it doesn’t seem abandoned. Looking at the pretty ribbon tied on it, it seems like it was raised with great care, and its owner must be very worried. Someone also treated its wound.”

At Olivia’s words, the rabbit proudly showed off the red ribbon attached to its back. But the man gave a light snort.

“I’m the one who treated that wound. There are plenty of humans who abandon even the animals they cherished when they become weak.”

Painfully, she couldn’t completely deny his words and closed her mouth. While there were certainly many good people who cherished animals, there were also not a few humans who abused them like the administrator, or abandoned them for selfish reasons even after taking good care of them. As she hesitated, unable to respond, the rabbit in her arms began to bristle even more.

— You go away! Don’t insult my sister!

Harsh words spewed from the small rabbit. Thinking it fortunate that she was the only one who could understand these words, Olivia quietly signaled the rabbit to shush.

“Stupid, even animals need to be careful about which humans they meet. You shouldn’t blindly trust just anyone.”

Olivia glared at the man, astounded at being called stupid out of nowhere. Judging by how he had treated the rabbit’s wound, he didn’t seem like a bad person at heart, but to call her stupid at their first meeting!

— You’re the stupid one!

“I slightly agree with that statement.”

Unable to say it outright, she whispered in agreement with the rabbit’s squeaking insults. At that moment, a flash of surprise crossed the man’s face. An indescribably intense aura emanated from his body.

“Are you one of us too?”

It was an ordinary statement, but the sound that reached her ears was strange.

‘Didn’t he just pronounce that with an odd sound?’

It was a common sentence that wasn’t difficult to understand. But the sound the man made differed from normal speech. It mixed with the rabbit’s voice, making it frustratingly difficult to distinguish precisely.

The man approached with large strides and reached out his hand. The intense aura he emitted constrained Olivia’s body like a spell. The man slightly lifted her stiffened chin and met her eyes. His bluish-purple eyes sparkled with a strange light.

Seen up close, the man’s skin was not just pale but had a grayish tint, making him somehow seem inhuman. His gaze, which examined every corner of her face as if searching for something, sharpened, making her feel afraid. She wanted to step back, but her feet wouldn’t move.

“So this is where the energy I felt earlier was coming from?”

Though his voice was playful, the uncomfortable strangeness remained. As the man’s hand, which had been holding her chin, slowly moved down her neck, Olivia squeezed her eyes shut.

‘I hate this!’

“Ugh.”

When she inwardly cried out in discomfort, Olivia’s necklace sparkled and pushed the man away with a strong force. Pushed back by the invisible force, the man rubbed his wrist, feeling the numbing impact. As the man’s concentration broke, the heavy tension binding her momentarily loosened. Olivia hastily stepped back and recalled what the merchant who introduced the necklace had said.

<It’s one-time use, but a protective magic activates when the wearer shows a strong rejection response.>

It was a moment when she felt grateful for the necklace she had thought was a regrettable purchase after it seemed to trigger Alois’s painful memory. Creating distance between them, Olivia glared at the man with heightened wariness. The man raised both hands in surrender.

“You’ve been misunderstanding something both earlier and now, I’m not trying to do anything to you, I’m just gla……”

The man couldn’t finish his sentence and quickly threw himself to the side. A fierce black energy that flew from behind him savagely clawed the ground as it passed.

“Livi!”

“Alois!”

The man, who had lowered his body and taken a defensive stance, looked bewildered as the human ignored him and passed by. Meanwhile, deep relief blossomed on Olivia’s face. Alois, who had urgently approached, pulled her into his arms.

“I told you not to leave my side.”

His voice was stiff, but it sounded like a plea, so Olivia buried her face against his chest. She could feel his heart beating anxiously. Alois’s hands trembled slightly as he held her tightly.

“Is this someone you know?”

The man interrupted their touching reunion with a sarcastic tone. Alois’s fierce anger, which had calmed somewhat after confirming Olivia’s safety, flared up again. His ice-blue gaze, filled with killing intent, turned toward the man.

“Is this the one who touched you? I felt the magic activate.”

He had tracked Olivia’s traces immediately after they were separated. The curse that tormented Alois proved surprisingly useful in finding the missing Olivia. He could detect her scent, which ordinary humans couldn’t perceive.

Following her trail, Alois’s blood ran cold when he sensed the sudden activation of magic, fearing something had happened to her. In that brief moment, his thoughts had raced to the most extreme, worst-case scenarios, and even now that he’d found Olivia again, his fingertips remained cold.

“No, excuse me? I didn’t do anything.”

The man instantly sensed serious trouble from the murderous aura flowing from Alois. If he were an ordinary human, he might have tried fighting, but both Alois’s sword and the aura he emitted made it clear he wasn’t just a human.

An exceptionally strong human with an additional gloomy energy mixed in—this was a bomb that would be troublesome to touch.