“W-what’s happening!”

“Gasp, what is that!”

“I-is that a wolf?”

“A wolf? It’s bigger than a bear for a wolf!”

The village men who had stormed into the cottage were shocked by the gruesome scene drenched in bl＊＊d.

“C-could it be…… Is that the werewolf Pol was talking about?”

“A w-werewolf? This can’t be…… I thought he was seeing things. To think werewolves really exist!”

“Daphne, you……! You really were a witch!”

“You wicked monster……”

“Die, you monster b＊stard!”

The villagers simultaneously launched attacks at Daphne and Carl.

Carl spat out the village chief’s son’s arm he had been biting and immediately protected Daphne.

He dodged and blocked the shower of axe strikes and stone throws while shielding Daphne completely, not letting even a strand of her hair be exposed. Sometimes taking hits directly, he gradually moved with Daphne toward the cottage door. Just before they escaped from the cottage, someone emerged from the chaos and aimed an arrow at Carl.

“Carl! No!”

Daphne, seeing the arrow flying toward Carl, threw herself forward.

‘Daphne!’

The moment her head blocked his view, Carl gasped and opened his eyes wide. A familiar patterned ceiling came into view.

As his senses gradually returned and he realized he was lying peacefully on a bed, he hastily turned his head to the side. There he saw Rozenne asleep on a chair, her legs up and arms wrapped around her knees.

Rozenne’s deep slumber appeared as peaceful as a dead person’s.

With his heart sinking, Carl hurriedly threw off the blanket, got out of bed, and approached Rozenne. When he placed his hand in front of her nose, he felt her delicate breath against his fingers.

Sighing with relief, he carefully moved back. Only then could he see the position in which Rozenne was sleeping.

While Rozenne slept with one arm wrapped around her knees, her other arm rested on her knee with her pinky finger extended toward the bed. Though it had fallen due to her muscles relaxing in sleep, had he been lying down, their hands would have been almost touching.

Should he call this kindness? Or perhaps strong sense of responsibility?

Feeling as if he could sense Rozenne’s heart, a heaviness settled in one side of his chest, and a smile involuntarily escaped his lips.

Carl moved his gaze along Rozenne’s soft facial contours. Her cheeks, tinged with the reddish hue of candlelight, looked warm and luscious. Her eyes, which usually glared coldly, were now closed gently and peacefully, casting shadows with her abundant eyelashes, and between her slightly parted lips, soft breaths tickled the air.

The cozy atmosphere surrounding her appeared so tempting that Carl, as if enchanted, unconsciously leaned his head toward Rozenne.

At that moment, his chin touched Rozenne’s smooth skin.

Carl gasped and hastily raised his head. Springing upright, he ran a hand over his face, then suddenly looked down at Rozenne with a perplexed expression. His heart pounded and he felt restless, as if a beast were rampaging inside him. The power Rozenne had to captivate him in an instant felt somewhat frightening.

After staring at her for a while, Carl clenched his fist and hurriedly left the room. He knew that if he stayed in the same space with her any longer, he would lose his self-control.

⁕⁕⁕

Rozenne opened her eyes after some time had passed since Carl left the room.

She jerked her head up from her knees and quickly looked around. But the man who should have been in front of her was nowhere to be seen. Rozenne rose from the chair in surprise.

At that moment, a faint singing voice came from somewhere. It was a song she seemed to have heard while half-asleep before fully waking.

Rozenne realized the sound was coming from outside the window. She walked around the bed to the window and carefully opened it. There, in the middle of the dark garden, she saw the back of a man humming as if reciting something in a gloomy voice.

Rozenne left the room as if drawn by something.

The complex interior of Wolfhard’s palace made it difficult to find one’s way, but following his voice, she soon reached the garden.

As she walked behind him, the man sensed her presence and turned to look at her.

“Oh. Are you awake?”

“Yes. Some bird was singing a night song too enthusiastically.”

Realizing she was referring to him, he chuckled.

“My. The bird had bad manners. You should have slept more.”

“I wasn’t sure if that was allowed. I came out to ask if I could return to my room now.”

“Don’t say that. Since you’re already out, sit down. The garden here is quite nice, almost as good as the one at the border. Do you hate night walks? Your lady-in-waiting didn’t.”

He smiled enigmatically as he mentioned the incident at the border. Rozenne gave him a slight side-eye and sat down a little distance away from him.

“There are many flowers I haven’t seen before.”

As Rozenne said, Wolfhard’s royal garden had many exotic and unfamiliar flowers.

As if all the flowers in the world had been gathered, rare flowers that couldn’t be commonly seen anywhere filled their view.

“Hmm. That one is called citratella, which blooms in the western desert, and that one is modena, which blooms in the snow fields……”

Carl pointed to each flower in the garden one by one as he explained.

“Magic dwells in this garden. So that flowers from different climates can bloom year-round, despite having different native habitats.”

“You seem to like flowers.”

“Well, rather than that……”

Carl trailed off and gazed intently at Rozenne.

Rozenne looked at Carl with a questioning face, as if asking why he was looking at her that way.

“You would like them more than I do. Wouldn’t you?”

“Pardon? Well, I do like flowers, but……”

“I thought so.”

The man chuckled and turned his head back to look at the garden.

“May I ask why you’ve gathered all the flowers in the world like this?”

“If I said it was because I thought you would like them…… would you believe me?”

“What?”

Seeing Rozenne’s surprised expression with eyes wide like a rabbit’s, he let out a deflating laugh and said.

“Women always seem to like flowers. And I like a certain woman who likes flowers. So I created this garden hoping that someone would like it. Hoping there would be at least one thing here that pleases the eye.”

The flowers in the garden were brought from the homelands where Daphne had been reincarnated each time.

Hoping that whenever she suffered from homesickness after reincarnation, she could at least see flowers from her homeland and stay by his side longer.

Because he loved Daphne no matter what form she was born in, his garden contained as many types of flowers as the number of times Daphne had reincarnated.

After being lost in thought for a brief moment, he turned to Rozenne and said.

“If you can’t sleep, how about listening to an old tale?”

“An old tale?”

“Yes. A story that has been passed down since ancient times.”

As Rozenne quietly waited, looking at his face as if telling him to go ahead, he exhaled deeply.

Though he had merely wiped the smile from his face, his eyes changed completely from before. Carl’s deepened eyes stared into empty space, as if recalling a distant old memory. After a moment, Carl’s tightly closed lips opened, and his story began.

“Long, long ago, in a mountain village, there lived a beautiful girl.”

His calm voice, like reciting poetry, reminded her of her father telling folk tales at bedtime in her childhood. However, Rozenne paid more attention to his expression than to what he was saying. His sorrowful and wistful expression made it seem not like he was simply relaying a floating tale, but rather reminiscing about his own experience.

“The girl was friends with a strange being from the forest. That being was neither beast nor human, a very hideous and bizarre creature.”

“……”

“One day, a greedy village elder coveted the girl. So that bizarre creature slaughtered the village man and fled with the girl.”

Daphne, who took the arrow meant for Carl, fortunately did not die.

That night, Carl carried the injured Daphne on his back and ran without rest, thinking they had escaped to a place where no one would recognize them.

“But that wasn’t the end. The village they left spread rumors. Rumors that a half-human, half-beast monster was hunting humans together with a witch.”

The rumors spread quickly and flowed into every place where people lived.

Wherever he and Daphne went, suspicious and distrustful gazes toward strange foreigners followed them, and as fugitives, they had to tremble with anxiety that their identities might be discovered.

There was nowhere free from rumors and public scrutiny. There was no place in the world friendly to werewolves where Carl’s identity could be revealed.

Due to the rumor of “a half-human, half-beast monster and a witch combination,” Carl had to hide deeper than before.