Chapter 55
In front of the temporary desk set up for registration for the 55th Competition, a farmer wearing a straw hat approached, pushing a wheelchair.
Sitting in the wheelchair was a child who looked about ten years old and closely resembled the farmer. A puppy rested on the child’s lap.
A Pomeranian?
No—maybe a Shih Tzu?
It was small, with short legs, and its fur stuck out unevenly, as if it had been groomed at home.
A quintessential country mutt.
Its overall coloring was a warm golden brown, but both ears and parts of its back were a darker, black-tea shade. Every time the wheelchair moved, the puppy’s perked-up ears flapped—flutter, flutter, flutter.
Both the puppy and the child were bundled up in thick hats stuffed with cotton, with only their faces poking out.
The sight was, frankly—
Cute.
“Who cut that kid’s bangs?” I whispered to Arden.
“Wouldn’t the owner have done it?” he whispered back.
“No. I mean the kid.”
“Oh.”
“……”
“Did the dog cut them?”
“Are you joking?”
While we bickered, the farmer reached the desk and spoke to the civil servant in charge.
“Um, I’d like to register for the competition.”
“May I have your name, please?”
“Raccoon.”
“…Not the dog’s name. Your name.”
“Oh.”
Scratching his head, the farmer said,
“My name’s Nutty. This is my younger sibling, Nuffy. And the dog’s name is Raccoon.”
Oh.
A shared naming theme.
“And your family name?”
“I don’t have one. I’m a commoner.”
Nutty and Nuffy probably didn’t notice, but I did.
The surrounding participants shaking their heads as if to say just as expected.
In what was unintentionally—but effectively—a nobles-only competition, the undeniably commoner Nutty-Nuffy siblings were drawing attention.
With looks reserved for uninvited guests.
I looked at the dog on Nuffy’s lap.
It had been well fed—plump, with glossy fur—but it didn’t look like a breed suited for an agility competition.
And most importantly—
It has no tail.
It looked as though it had been partially severed in an accident, leaving only a blunt stub.
A dog’s tail acts as a counterbalance. Without it, maintaining balance is difficult.
It might not pose a problem in everyday life, but in an agility competition that required sprinting and sudden turns, it was a clear disadvantage.
“Please present the dog’s pedigree. If you don’t have one, you may verbally provide the breed, lineage, breeding history, and kennel of origin.”
“Uh… I don’t really know.”
“You don’t know?”
“Yes…”
“The breed?”
“Yes.”
“Then the age?”
“I don’t know that either…”
“We’ve lived with Raccoon for five years!”
Nuffy chimed in beside the head-scratching Nutty.
The nobles snickered at Nuffy’s bright voice.
It rubbed me the wrong way.
What’s so funny?
“Our farm is near the Loire River! Raccoon was floating downstream, and my sister and I rescued him! We treated his tail too!”
“I see.”
The civil servant nodded and filled out the form on his own.
A registration sheet with nothing but the owner’s name, the dog’s name, and its color slid to the side.
Nearby nobles whispered behind their fans.
“Entering a competition with a mixed breed whose parents they don’t even know. Should we call it innocence, or misguided courage?”
“Don’t be so harsh. At least they’ll get inside the fence. For commoners, it must’ve been hard enough to find a dog that doesn’t just bark and run wild.”
“They probably came all this way because they’d be embarrassed if they couldn’t do anything.”
Even if the words couldn’t be heard clearly, the atmosphere carried their mockery. Nutty and Nuffy shrank slightly under it.
Avoiding the imposing pack of border collies nearby, Nutty looked around—and his gaze stopped on us, standing with Dubu.
“Hello!”
Nutty bowed politely and pushed Nuffy’s wheelchair over.
Arden. Cassian. Faced without warning by two handsome men, little Nuffy stared with her mouth hanging open.
Cute.
“Are you all participating too? What’s this white dog’s name?”
“Dubu.”
“Johann Mendelssohn Handel Beethoven Bach Schubert Mozart Debussy Park-yeon Strauss the Third.”
Cassian’s incantation-like response was ignored.
“Our dog’s name is Raccoon! I’m Nutty, and this is my sibling Nuffy!”
Unaware that people had been staring at them the entire time, Nutty introduced them with a cheerful grin.
“When we heard an amusement park was being built, Nuffy really wanted to go. So we took a day off from the farm.”
“We’ve been practicing for five months to enter today’s competition!”
Nuffy added quickly, bowing her head after briefly making eye contact with Arden.
“Every single day!”
“Every day?”
Dubu didn’t even train for five minutes.
When I asked in surprise, Nutty scratched his head.
“Nuffy’s legs aren’t in good shape, so once the amusement park opens, it’ll be hard for her to enjoy it like everyone else. Tickets are expensive too… So we decided to practice hard and try to win a golden ticket.”
But now that we’re here, everyone else looks so impressive… Nutty hunched his shoulders as he glanced around.
This wasn’t just a clash of titans—we were shrimp caught between fighting whales.
Instead of saying that outright, I changed the subject.
“Nuffy, may I ask what’s wrong with your leg?”
“Ah!”
Nutty gently patted Nuffy’s head as she glanced between Arden and Cassian.
“One leg was thinner than the other from birth. She was okay when she was little, but as she grew, walking became harder.”
“…I see.”
“It’s okay! The doctor said it’s not a life-threatening illness!”
“Right! And Grandma said my leg only hurts now, and when I go to heaven later, I’ll be able to run on both legs!”
I don’t mean I’m going to heaven now! Nuffy added quickly.
“They say heaven has sparkly lights, cotton candy, and carousels. When I saw the amusement park in the newspaper, I thought, ‘Is that heaven?’ So I wanted to know.”
“…I see.”
“But I guess it’s not heaven. My legs still don’t have strength.”
“……”
“Unni, I think Raccoon needs to go to the bathroom.”
“Oh!”
Nutty hurriedly grabbed the wheelchair handles.
“Then we’ll get going! See you at the arena later!”
“Bye!”
The Nutty-Nuffy siblings waved and left.
I didn’t know what to say. There was a brief silence.
“What a fuss, for something that isn’t even fatal.”
What the hell?
I turned around.
A man in his mid-forties, wearing a fedora and a tailored suit with a gold chain hanging from his pocket, sneered as he tugged on his gloves.
“Trying to win sympathy with such a cheap sob story. Did they really think we’d say, ‘Oh, you poor commoners—here, have a golden ticket’?”
The woman beside him chimed in.
“Exactly. Who doesn’t have a story like that?”
“Why even tell us that? It’s uncomfortable to hear.”
“They need to stop thinking pity can solve everything.”
“That mindset is probably why they’re still commoners without a family name.”
“……”
What are you even saying?
You were born with a surname.
Did you earn your noble birth through moral behavior and rational thinking while you were still a soul?
Don’t mistake luck for ability.
While I fumed internally, the conversation continued.
The man spoke again.
“If it’s not a fatal illness, that’s unfortunate. With legs like that, it’d be better to go early. Why waste the family’s resources?”
“Oh my! As if commoners even have family assets!”
“Exactly. They’ll drain what little they have.”
That farmer sister may act devoted now, but once the parents die and she has to support her sibling, her attitude will change.
“And earlier she was talking about heaven—wouldn’t it be better for the child to go there and run freely?”
“If that’s the case, shouldn’t we grant our child’s wish instead of a dying one’s? That kid’s going to die anyway, but ours has a long life ahead.”
The man’s wife added.
The longer I listened, the worse it got.
They had no sense of limits.
After patting the head of what appeared to be their own child, the man said,
“Children and dogs are the same. When something’s missing, it shows. What can a defective dog possibly do—”
“……”
That was when it happened.
“Grrrr….”
“Dubu?”
“Ar! Ar!”
Dubu suddenly leapt out of Arden’s arms and bit the man’s calf.
