Chapter 39…………………………………………………………………………….
Smoke leaking out from the small sphere was sucked straight into his nostrils, where the nosebleed hadn’t even dried yet, giving him no chance to dodge.
“W-What… what did you do to me?!”
Pain glared fiercely at Rin, trying to hide his fear by acting more aggressive.
However, the expression with his eyes pulled sharply upward didn’t last long.
“H-Huh?”
Sensing something was wrong, Pain let out a confused sound before screaming in sheer terror.
“M-My eyes! I can’t see! I can’t see anything!”
“When death draws near,” Rin said calmly as Pain frantically groped at his own face,
“the first thing to go is your sight.”
“Then taste and smell.”
“Y-You… put this back right now!”
The more frightened he became, the more violent Pain grew. He flailed his arms wildly, trying to grab Rin by the collar, clutching at empty air again and again.
“And then, touch.”
“!”
“Can you still feel your hands?”
At Rin’s words, Pain’s body visibly began to tremble.
He opened and closed his fists, trying desperately to check whether his fingers still had sensation.
“The last thing that remains is hearing.”
“……”
“And then, you won’t be able to feel anything at all.”
“……Ugh.”
“Scary, isn’t it?”
“H-Hwaaaahhh!”
Rin’s flat, emotionless words sounded like a prophecy of the future.
It felt as if all his remaining senses might really disappear at any moment, and Pain finally burst into loud, pitiful sobs.
“I-I don’t want to! I don’t want to die!”
Waaah! Waaah!
As Pain bawled his eyes out, Rin stood in front of him, crossing her short arms sternly and delivering a sharp warning.
“If death is that scary, then you shouldn’t go around telling people to die so casually, right?”
“H-Hic… I’m sorry. I was wrong.”
“And to Julie, too. Never raise your hand at her again.”
Rin firmly took her nanny’s hand—who had flinched at the thought of being slapped—and warned Pain again.
“Julie is my official nanny. She’s a retainer of our family.”
“I-I didn’t know…! I thought she was just a maid…!”
“It doesn’t matter even if she were a maid. If you mistreat anyone from my castle, I won’t let it slide.”
At Pain’s rotten attitude, Rin widened her round eyes as much as she could and growled—just like Uncle Theo when he was angry.
“Grrr!”
“Eek! I-I won’t do it again!”
Only after receiving Pain’s tearful, snot-filled promise did Rin take out another antidote orb and pop it.
Pop.
Shivering like a mouse caught by a cat, Pain’s vision returned. The moment he met Rin’s golden eyes staring straight at him, he jumped back in fright.
“U-Uwaaah!”
Whoosh!
Watching Pain flee as if the wind itself were pushing him, Rin snorted smugly.
Living up to the name of the Guardian Pegasus, Rin proudly thought of her success.
I protect my family’s people!
Then, making what she thought was her most reliable expression—furrowing her thick brows and putting strength into her gaze, just like Uncle Theo—she turned to Julie and declared confidently:
“Don’t be scared, Julie. I’ll protect you no matter what!”
At the tiny young lady’s bold proclamation, Julie’s deer-like eyes, usually curved into crescents, widened in surprise. Then, for once, she smiled softly.
“Thank you, my lady. Thanks to you, I’m not scared at all.”
“Yep! You don’t have to be afraid ever again.”
“Oh my. You’re really dependable, aren’t you?”
Filled with affection, Julie adjusted Rin’s slightly mussed hair, clearly wanting to ruffle her head in praise.
“But what were those orbs?”
“Oh, these? My mom made them! Aren’t they amazing?”
Rin proudly showed off the orbs she took out.
“She created them?”
To the puzzled Julie, Rin explained in more detail—
that she’d followed a combination formula her mother had invented and recreated them herself.
So at six years old, she understood an alchemist’s formula and successfully reproduced it? Our young lady really is a genius.
Realizing that all the hype hadn’t been exaggerated, Julie nodded inwardly and asked as Rin put the orbs back into her pouch:
“Do you always carry those with you?”
“Mm. Mostly? Today especially—Uncle told me to.”
As expected of the master. Thorough when it comes to the young lady’s safety.
Agreeing wholeheartedly with Theodore’s foresight, Julie praised him before taking Rin’s hand and leading her to a quieter spot away from the other children.
She seated Rin in a space hidden behind the curved sofa wall, brought her a drink the child liked, and finally asked something that had been bothering her.
“By the way… what did that boy—no, that young master—say earlier? Your expression turned bad after you whispered.”
“Oh, that?”
Despite Julie’s careful tone, Rin cheerfully relayed Pain’s nasty words.
She had already promised Uncle Theodore.
If she ever heard something unpleasant or strange, she was to tell him—or an adult he assigned.
Following their agreement, Rin happily sipped the chocolate drink Julie handed her.
That rotten brat… If I see him again, I’ll— I’ll shatter his eardrums with my deer scream.
Chewing over violent thoughts internally, Julie gave Rin a thumbs-up.
“You did very well earlier. You shouldn’t just take that kind of treatment—especially from kids like that.”
She explained that cowardly types who bully the weak must be confronted early.
Julie then passed on several practical, real-world techniques.
“I used methods like these to keep from being intimidated by people who looked down on me for being a herbivore beastkin.”
“Oooh!”
No child could possibly find this topic boring.
Rin listened with sparkling interest, engraving Julie’s survival tips firmly into her mind.
“Hehe, that was fun!”
“I’m proud you’re learning so well, my lady.”
After that rather intense crash course between nanny and charge…
The sofa area they left behind was empty.
Near where they had been sitting, in the shadow cleverly concealed among the decorations on a wall shelf, a pair of catlike eyes suddenly glinted as if a light had been switched on.
The sleek white body remained completely still, like a sculpture.
Then, suddenly, the tip of its round tail twitched.
“……”
Blink.
Eyes that opened and closed like a living statue gazed down at the empty spot where Rin had happily chatted with her nanny before leaving.
***
“Make sure those bottles we’re giving out get delivered properly.”
“Yes, my lady. I’ll check with the kitchen again later.”
“Mhm.”
Walking down the corridor back to the banquet hall with Julie, Rin recalled what had happened in the lounge earlier.
The custom-recommended kids’ mocktail was a hit.
When her friends complained that they wanted to keep playing but kept getting sleepy, Rin recommended the kids’ mocktail she’d tried herself—the one that somehow made her feel wide awake during nap time.
When one child’s half-lidded eyes flew open after drinking it, all the nearby kids wanted some too, and the lounge’s supply briefly ran out.
The already energetic beastkin children became even more hyper afterward, bouncing around wildly.
As the lounge descended into chaos under the onslaught of terrifyingly energetic kids—
“Um… can I take this home with me?”
“Huh? Was it that good?”
“Mm… Not for me. I want to give it to my sister.”
At the small child tugging on her dress hem, Rin found him unbearably adorable and promised to pack a few bottles separately.
“Thank you… My sister will really like it. She always complains about having to wake up.”
The child bowed deeply as he said that, but Rin didn’t think much of it at the time.
