CH 10

Around the time when I was getting tired of the repeated quarrels with Suradel, one of many knights caught my eye by chance.

It’s the first time I had seen him, but it felt like I had seen him everywhere. He had a facial feature that strongly expressed ‘his family’.

The moment I found the demibeast, I shouted ‘Eureka!’ to myself and pointed at him without hesitation.

“Suradel, that guy!”

“My opponent will come later. We’re not done talking about your escort, Lia.”

Heuk.

At the words that suggested he was chosen for the spar, the knight who was pointed at took a sharp breath. I quickly shook my head.

“No, I want him to be my escort.”

“What?”

Then, Suradel shifted his gaze to the knight I was pointing at.

Even the singled-out knight had a puzzled face like he did not know why he was chosen, and quickly looked at Suradel.

I approached the bewildered knight and confidently whispered in his ear.

“Sir Knight, you’re a black bull, right?”

“…Yes? Oh, yes! I don’t know how you knew, but you’re right.”

“Great!”

It was when I was smiling broadly at the feeling of seeing an oasis in a drought.

The knight hesitated and asked me with a depressed face.

“…Lady, is it okay if I am a pushover?”

“What? Are you a pushover, Sir Knight?”

“Yes? Didn’t you just ask me if I was a pushover…”

“What?”

My eyes widened in shock and I denied it.

“No, it’s not ‘pushover’, it’s ‘black cow’! I was asking if you were a black bull demibeast!”

(TL/N: ‘pushover’ and ‘black bull’ are pronounced similarly (호구 vs 흑우). There was really no way for me to edit the misunderstanding into an english equivalent ;-;)

“Ah…?”

“It’s true that I’m not very good-natured, but not to the extent where I’ll say that at the first meeting… probably.”

I didn’t expect this knight to be a pushover, but it was a good thing for me.

Good for deceiving and running away… 

Woohoo!

It even rhymes perfectly!

(TL/N: 호구/hogu with 흑우/heug-u and woohoo ^^)

My eyes twinkled as I grabbed his hand and swung it up and down.

“Please take good care of me in the future, Sir Black Bull Knight!”

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆

Before going out with Suradel, I called the knight who became my escort as of today.

Light orange curly hair, and the slightly droopy corners of the eyes as if expressing his gentle personality.

How could he be so similar to her?

As I stared into his green eyes, I finally opened my mouth, saying,

“It’s a little late, but I should introduce myself, right? My name is Lia. I’ll be with the Weils for a while.”

When I was a penguin, I had a dedicated maid named Iprus.

She was a cow demibeast who often told stories of her twin brother, and most of the stories were about their bloody fights because they didn’t get along well.

And I was convinced that this black bull knight was her younger brother.

It was said that you couldn’t tell what kind of species a demibeast was just by its appearance, but you couldn’t fool the blood.

Since Iprus sometimes referred to her younger brother as a black-headed beast or black calf, it was not difficult to guess that he was a black bull demibeast.

Did I build an inner friendship thanks to Iprus?

Even though I was obviously meeting him for the first time, somehow he felt familiar.

When I reached out my hand to say hello, he gently held my hand and kissed the back of it.

“My name is Hanu, and I will be escorting you from today. I will give my life to protect you as much as you believe in me and choose me.”

Wow. Are all the knights like this? It’s more serious than I thought.

“You don’t have to sacrifice your life… Wait a minute, what’s your name?”

“I’m Hanu.”

With an innocent expression on his face as if there was nothing wrong, an earthquake occurred in my eyes.

Iprus always called her brother some kind of bastard, so today was the first time I heard his real name.

When I saw Sir Hanu who didn’t know anything, sadness flooded in me.

‘Your sister’s name is fine, but why only your name…?’

Then a lightning bolt of realization flashed through my head.

Iprus and Hanu.

‘…Oh, my God. Grade A+ Korean beef?’

(TL/N: poor dude, author legit basing the twins’ name after beef x_x 이프러스/Iprus kinda sounds like ‘A plus’, while 하누/Ha-nu is written/pronounced similarly as 한우/Hanwoo/Han-u/beef.)

At the blatant name that must have been given by a Korean, I was convinced once again that this place was in a novel.

At the same time, it was also reassuring. This kind of name wouldn’t be used on trash.

I felt better and squeezed compliments to keep the atmosphere from becoming awkward.

“The name is luxurious and delicious… No, I mean to say it’s cool. It goes really well with you.”

“Thank you.”

At the soulless compliment, Hanu shyly smiled and scratched his cheek.He seemed to be a kind and naive person by nature.

Although he looked exactly like Iprus, his personality seemed to be the complete opposite.

“Hanu. No, Sir Hanu?”

“It’s okay to call me whatever you like. Please speak comfortably.”

“Yes. Then I will.”

Well, knowing he was Iprus’ younger brother, it was awkward to speak to him formally.

Perhaps it was the first time he had ever experienced such shamelessness, for he smiled awkwardly with somewhat dazed eyes.

“That… As Sir Suradel said, you’re used to making fun of people.”

“It’s okay to speak directly.”

“N-No, it’s not rude. I didn’t think so.”

“Then I’m glad.”

I shrugged and brought out the real reason for calling him apart.

“Sir Hanu. Actually, there is something I would like to ask you personally…”

“Personally?”

“Yes. It has nothing to do with escorting, is it okay?”

“If there is anything I can do, I will do my best to help.”

Without even hearing what it’s about?

‘… He is really a pushover. This will hurt my conscience no matter what.’

I struggled to suppress the thoughts that popped into my head.

Now, I had to sell my little, cute conscience to meet Iprus.

“Can Sir Hanu help me meet your older sister? It’s urgent.”

“My sister… Did you just say that?”

“Yes. Sister.”

But contrary to my expectations, he shook his head with a troubled expression.

“I don’t know who you heard it from, but I don’t have any older sister, Lady Lia.”

“…What? Why, why?”

‘They look so alike, but they aren’t siblings? Besides, he’s a black bull?’

It was an unbelievable story. The ‘Grade A+ Korean beef’ combination was not siblings.

Shouldn’t this be enough to make him an honorary younger brother?

I shook my head quickly to stop my random thoughts and tried to confirm.

“Sir Hanu’s older sister’s name isn’t Iprus?”

“…Iprus? Oh, you were talking about my sister.”

“Sister?”

“There seems to be some misunderstanding. Iprus is not my older sister, but my younger sister.”

With a painted-like smile, he emphasized it again.

“I’m the older brother, and Iprus is the younger sister.”

It seemed that the hierarchy between the siblings had not been established yet.

Hanu claimed to be Iprus’ older brother, but I couldn’t help thinking that he was the younger one.

And it appeared that the effect of knowing that I had thought Iprus was his older sister was big.

But, without hesitation, I sided with him.

“Sir Hanu is the older brother. I must have misunderstood. No wonder you looked more mature at a glance.”

“Is that so? Indeed, after all, Iprus isn’t calm and doesn’t have good manners.”

Sir Hanu cut down Iprus without changing his expression, and then nodded at me as if nothing had happened.

…I thought he was really nice, but he showed no mercy to Iprus.

‘That’s right. That’s how siblings are like.’

“By the way, how do you know Iprus?”

“Before I humanized, I had met Iprus.”

When he sorted out the pecking order with Iprus, he quickly returned to his usual innocent appearance.

“W-When you are a killer whale? When and how did Iprus…”

When and how did we meet? We met as master and slave when I was a penguin.

I narrowed the distance with Hanu, hardening my expression to naturally ignore the question of when Iprus and I met.

“Sir Hanu. I’m actually very nervous right now.”

“L-Lady Lia?”

“I know Madam Bella is a kind person. But I’m burdened with this excessive favor.”

I lowered my head so he couldn’t see my face. Then I thought of all kinds of sad things and squeezed some tears out.

“There are only strangers around… If there was at least one person I’ve met before the humanization, I think I would be able to breathe better.”

I reached out and wrapped my hands around Hanu’s, which had been wandering aimlessly in the air.

Then, with eyes half full of tears, I lifted my head and looked up at him.

I could see my own shimmering, liquid-filled eyes reflected against Hanu’s eyes.

“Besides, I have something I must tell Iprus about in the near future.”

I could feel his hand trembling in shock.

“Please. Help her meet her. Only Sir Hanu, a blood relative to Iprus, can do it.”

Well, the teary act was to catch a pushover bull, but it wasn’t completely fake.

Shortly after the original story began, all pure-blooded humans except for the female protagonist went extinct.

As there was a plague that only pure-blooded humans suffer from.

At this time, of course, my father, a pure-blooded man, contracted the plague and died.

The only surviving pure-blood human was the female protagonist, Anemone.

After the extinction of pure-blooded humans, Anemone, who had lost her one and only teacher, became frustrated that she was left alone in the world…

That was the content of the novel, until the middle part where the male protagonist comforted the female protagonist and love developed.