Chapter 219

Chapter 219: Gains and Losses

At the news that Naria and Adol had disappeared, Alec practically threw himself out of the pit.

“Why did you come out so late?!”

The woman who had signaled from outside rebuked us, but Alec crawled across the floor toward the entrance as if he could not hear her voice.

When he opened the door, the commotion outside could be heard even more clearly.

“What does that mean? Are you saying a human ran away?”

“I don’t know either. The ones who came back were saying something about a wagon. They said Mona suddenly told everyone to scatter, then took the human away.”

“Then why did Naria disappear?”

“Ah, I don’t know yet either! They say she followed after Mona and disappeared, but Mona came back just fine......”

Intermittent, inaccurate pieces of information rolled in along with the conversation.

Among them, Naria’s whereabouts, the thing Alec wanted to hear, were not included.

Thanks to that, the blood completely drained from Alec’s already pale face.

I grabbed Alec, who looked ready to rush outside immediately and cut into their conversation.

Alec, who had stopped still and was looking down at me, seemed to come to his senses only then and collapsed as if falling with a sigh.

“......Werewolves are strong. Especially Mona. I have never seen him cornered by humans.”

He muttered as if reassuring himself.

But I was originally unable to offer unrealistic comfort.

“It seems they weren’t ordinary humans.”

“How can you say that right now......”

Perhaps my answer had stirred his anxiety, because Alec raised the head he had lowered and glared at me in a surge of anger.

It seemed he wanted to blame me, but his words could not continue to the end.

Because Mona, with a stiff face, entered Archie’s tent.

The door closed in an instant, so I could not see the inside.

Would what happened in there truly be a conversation, or one-sided deception from one side?

Were Archie and Mona sharing the same will, or was one trying to break the other’s will?

In that process, who would be sacrificed?

It was the moment I took one step toward Archie’s tent to resolve my curiosity.

Someone caught the hem of my clothes as I tried to advance.

“......Do you think Naria is hurt?”

Alec was holding onto me with an air that said if I answered yes, he would run out of the village immediately.

I shook off the hand of the man who could not even bring himself to imagine the assumption that she might be dead.

What Alec had expected from me had surely been nothing more than meaningless comfort.

After watching him for a moment as he released my clothes when I put strength into my movement, I opened my mouth.

“If you’re curious, shall we find out?”

“Yes?”

Perhaps he had not expected me to hold him back, because he asked blankly and turned his body.

“Mona went to report to Archie, didn’t he? Let’s go in and ask. Where Naria disappeared, whether she is hurt, where the human who disappeared with her was lost. Or whether they deliberately drove him out. There’s a lot you’re curious about. You and I both.”

“Ho-how......”

“How, what how? If there’s something we don’t know, we just ask the bastards who know.”

When I gestured with my chin toward Archie’s tent, Alec looked at me with a familiar gaze.

Meaning he looked at me as if I were insane.

If the other side refused, I had no intention of holding onto him any longer either.

The more time I wasted persuading him here, the more of Archie and Mona’s conversation I would miss.

“If you’re scared, then forget it. Even if you run outside now, it won’t mean anything if you don’t know where Naria disappeared.”

“......”

Alec, who had maintained silence while fixing his eyes on the ground, finally opened his mouth.

“......Do you have some kind of method?”

I looked at his face, solemn enough to show how firmly he had made up his mind, then reached out and grabbed the back of his neck.

Suddenly lifted by the body, he made an “Urgh” sound and struggled.

“Wh-what? What is this? No, why are you so strong?”

“Stay still. I don’t have much time to explain either.”

After advising Alec to shut his mouth, I approached the woman who had been covering the floor with the hide again.

Then I lifted the arranged hide back up and opened the lid of the pit.

“What are you doing right now?!”

The woman screamed at me as I dug up the trace she had gone through the trouble of erasing, but I did not care and shoved Alec into the pit.

“W-wait! What are you doing right now?!”

Even more flustered, he urgently grabbed my forearm.

“You can roughly move around without light, right? Seeing you earlier, it seemed you could find your way even with your eyes closed.”

“Well...... it would not be difficult. It is a path I have already gone back and forth through several times...... No, answer my question first. I asked what you are doing.”

As he reflexively answered my question, he suddenly came to his senses and demanded an answer.

“I told you. It’s something that can be solved by asking.”

“What does that have to do with pushing me in here?! You said you were going to ask directly!”

“Then am I supposed to charge in with a lump attached to me? This is the simplest way, so just go in. Once you’re inside, go straight ahead to the place where the statue is, like you did earlier. No, go past the statue and keep going. To the end.”

“No, what kind of......”

He opened his mouth as if demanding the next answer, but I was not kind enough to spend more time on him.

I peeled Alec’s hand off my arm and simply let go of the hand holding him.

“You lunatic......!”

Along with a familiar curse, Alec disappeared into the darkness.

I brushed off my hands and covered the pit again.

“Excuse me, the owner of the tent will return soon. What will you do if he notices there is someone below......?”

The woman, who had been watching what I did from one step away, spoke with a worried face, but there was no reason to listen to this either.

“It’s fine. He won’t be that oblivious.”

After roughly reassuring her, I left the tent behind with her distrustful gaze at my back.

Between the rows of tents, the path to Archie’s tent opened in a straight line.

There was no reason to wait any longer, so I headed toward my destination without hesitation. When I casually turned back, I saw one large male Werewolf approaching the tent.

The bastard, who met my eyes for a moment, soon turned his gaze away as if uninterested in me and entered his nest.

Thinking he had quite a filthy expression, I looked back down at the ground and walked.

On the path, shadows cast by the other tents under the moonlight lay like stepping stones.

Stepping on the shadows created by the two tents whose owners were absent, I reduced the size of my body as much as possible.

Once I turned into a mouse smaller than a footprint, hiding myself by using the shadows became easier.

Instead, moving my shortened legs busily, I did not stop and moved toward Archie’s tent.

***

Inside the wide space where only Archie and Mona were present, an uncomfortable chill filled the air around me as a small mouse.

“The human child ran away, and Naria chased after him.”

“You should not be so incompetent that you would allow that. Was the order to watch the humans so they could not escape that difficult?”

At Archie’s rebuke, colder than the air, Mona seemed to swallow his breath one beat late.

“......There was a wagon. A white cargo wagon.”

At the same time, I felt the air inside the tent grow even heavier.

“You confirmed who came out of the wagon, I assume.”

“It seemed there were more humans inside, but I could not know for certain. I confirmed that one old man and one woman got out, and the kid ran toward them. Naria chased after him.”

At Archie’s question, which felt impatient, Mona concisely explained what had happened outside.

From the entrance of the tent, hiding my body in the gap of the entrance, I tried to examine Archie’s expression, but Mona’s body blocked him, so I could not see well.

“Do you think the two can survive?”

Archie asked in a voice with no emotion to be felt.

“It did not seem they would kill them. They also seemed to be staying in the village for the time being. If they came out to hunt, they will probably use them as bait.”

“I do not see how that is different from saying they are certain to die.”

“We can make the first move before other monsters snatch them away.”

Perhaps because he wanted to make up for his mistake, a little impatience was buried in Mona’s voice.

“I will take the fast-footed ones. Then we can bring Naria and the kid back before being discovered. If Archie gives the order.”

I took in Mona’s back as he waited for an answer, and Archie’s hand protruding beside him.

While that hand tapped the surface of the hide covering the floor, silence continued for a moment.

Inwardly, I hoped he would give a decent answer, no, at least an ordinary one.

Something lukewarm like do as you please, or you may handle something like that on your own would not be bad either.

But Archie did not seem like a bastard who lived at some ambiguous temperature like lukewarmness.

“You may take as many as you need. But your objective is not rescue.”

“......Pardon?”

At the cold and firm answer, Mona asked back one beat late.

“Rescue is followed by pursuit. There is no value in that. Kill both of them on the spot and handle it quietly.”

At the order to kill Naria and Adol, Mona stood without speaking for a long while.

How much time had passed? Mona, who had been looking down at Archie, eventually finished with a short farewell and stepped outside.

I hid myself between the cloth hanging over the entrance, watched Mona’s back moving away, then followed after him.

There was no wavering in Mona’s steps.

The two humans Mona had reported as taking Adol and Naria away had to be Jing and Ria.

I did not know how Mona and Adol had drifted all the way into that village.

What was certain was that Archie knew who the wagon’s owner was.

Something beyond his ability must mean that even if Mona led the pack there, they could not defeat the Imperial Family.

Renin Abalan liked hunting, so it was not so strange that Archie and Mona recognized Renin’s wagon.

But what I was curious about was the inner thoughts of that blunt bastard walking ahead.

Seeing as he had made Adol leader even in the original work, the bastard clearly had no great ambition for the position of leading the pack.

If he was trying to change only the leader while maintaining the same position, that meant the bastard was dissatisfied with the current way Archie led the pack.

What I could not understand was his intent in specifically trying to put Adol in that seat.

Because a young child would be easy to manipulate as he pleased?

Or because he could use the fact that Adol’s mother was human as a weakness?

Was that really all?

As I quietly followed the reticent and insidious bastard, questions followed one after another.

What is that bastard thinking?

Is stepping forward to save Adol a choice made out of necessity?

Is the one who followed Adol while despising the child’s foolishness the present Mona, or the future one?

How much does Archie know about Mona?

The questions circling in my head stopped when Mona halted in front of his tent.

Stopping in place after him, I watched as the bastard quietly looked at his own tent.

Between the quiet air, a small noise was leaking from his tent.

***

Inside Mona’s nest, while the owner was absent, the Werewolves had gathered and were having something like a heated discussion about how to deal with the sudden accident.

However, for these beings, for whom listening to the stronger one was the easiest solution, imitating something like a discussion could only amount to vomiting out their anxiety.

“One human ran away, so it’s only a matter of time before this place is discovered. We won’t be able to keep hiding like this anymore.”

Among them, the Werewolf who had returned before Mona and spread the news throughout the village raised his voice.

“Mona said to wait until our numbers increase a little more, but now there’s no reason to drag our feet anymore. We have no choice but to strike first.”

“Strike first? What are we supposed to strike, and how? There’s no way Archie will allow something like that.”

When someone among the group asked as if deeply unconvinced, the corners of the Werewolf’s mouth rose.

“I’m tired of hiding while fearing things like humans. I’m sick of being locked up in a place like this because we’re afraid of being hunted by them! Anyway, the ones who have killed humans cannot pass through the darkness. It is a fight favorable to us. If we fight those human bastards, we will eventually win.”

“The longer the fight goes on, the more disadvantageous it becomes for us. This time too, the ones who win in the end will be humans. As has always been the case.”

A cold voice cut into his plan, which made one feel as if one’s intelligence would drop just by listening.

Everyone’s gaze turned to Mona, who quietly entered the tent.

At Mona’s sudden appearance, the Werewolf who had been talking passionately flinched.

But that was only for a moment. He soon seemed to steel himself, pushed through his companions, and approached Mona.

“Th-then what are we supposed to do? We’ll die all the same even if we stay like this! I’m tired of waiting any longer. If we’re going to be struck down while waiting stupidly for those bastards to invade, then even if I die, I’ll die fighting.”

Mona slowly swept his eyes over the determined Werewolf, the few who agreed with him, and the rest who had gathered there.

This time too, I watched his back and waited for the answer the bastard would give.

The bastard slowly opened his mouth.

“There is nothing more foolish than dying while fighting.”

At the cold words, the eyes of the few who had been about to enter the fight prepared to die grew fierce.

Though their dissatisfaction soon changed into fighting spirit at Mona’s words that followed.

“Let’s go out. However dirty the method may be, the option of fighting and surviving is better than fighting and dying.”