#12
“Hey!”
This deer, isn’t it a genius? It was just licking its food, so why did it suddenly snatch the new cookie that was neatly placed beside me?
Noah, who had been staring blankly while holding the cookie the deer had licked, couldn’t bring himself to put it in his mouth and surrendered it to the deer. Then he quickly grabbed a new cookie before the deer could target it.
From that moment, a battle of wits began between Noah and the deer, and after fairly sharing half and half, both their faces were filled with satisfied smiles.
“Weather nice.”
With a full stomach and pleasant weather, the deer that had finished its cookies was now lying down obediently beside him.
“Is it warm there?”
When would he be able to speak with precise pronunciation like an adult? Although he was five years old, he had given up on the parts where his pronunciation wasn’t smooth. What could he do? Now when Noah wanted something, he boldly poured out imperfect pronunciations.
Each time he did so, everything was granted because people thought he was cute.
When the deer nodded at his casually thrown question, Noah blinked his large eyes. It couldn’t possibly understand his words—it must be a coincidence.
“Can I come in too?”
Judging by the position of the sun in the sky, it seemed quite a while had passed since he left the castle. After walking for a long time on rough mountain paths, his legs were sore. As Noah patted his legs, his head tilted to the side.
This was because the deer shook its head.
“Should I go in?”
It shook its head again.
“Should I go home?”
This time it nodded.
“Do you want to come to my house with me?”
Noah looked at the deer while fiddling with the necklace around his neck. It was an injured deer. Soon it would get cold, and hungry beasts would become rough. That meant this deer’s future wasn’t very promising.
If Noah placed his hand on the deer now and recited the spell that made it speak several times a day, he and the deer would arrive at the main castle entrance.
Meeting the eyes of the deer, which neither nodded nor shook its head, Noah moved his body toward the edge of the rock. This was to get closer to the deer that was in the water.
“Let’s go to my house.”
Noah slowly reached out toward the deer, which remained still. Though it had come close earlier when eating cookies, perhaps because there was no more food, the deer wouldn’t easily approach now.
“I’ll give you lots of cookies.”
Ah… this deer really likes cookies. Seeing its ears perk up as soon as he mentioned cookies, a mischievous smile appeared on Noah’s face.
“Cake tastes even better.”
The deer’s ears twitched again, though it had been pretending to look elsewhere as Noah approached. See that?
Thinking he might be able to tempt it, Noah tried to recall things the deer might like. Since cookies and cake were human foods, he needed to think about what deer would eat in the wild.
“Wild strawberries.”
“Blackberries.”
As the deer, which had been looking elsewhere, gradually turned its head toward him, Noah grinned and boldly extended his hand, which he had been cautiously holding out toward the deer.
Splash—
The head of the deer, which had been playing hard to get with Noah until just now, suddenly turned. The child who had been rustling on the small rock and constantly talking was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the deer’s expression frowned peculiarly at the small figure floating in the water.
What could be done in deer form was limited. Not wanting to reveal its true form by changing into a human, it decided to transform into another animal. Where the deer had been just moments ago, there was now a large snow leopard.
The snow leopard, which had suddenly appeared, bit the collar of the child who had been playing alone and then fallen into the water, and casually walked out of the water.
Despite having been in the water just moments ago, not a single drop of water could be seen on either the snow leopard or the child. With each leisurely step the snow leopard took, the small body tucked inside the clothes it was holding swayed slightly.
The snow leopard, which had become entangled in an extremely bothersome situation, was walking toward the castle that wasn’t too far away.
* * *
“Summon a magician immediately.”
Lucas roughly ran his hand through his hair and looked outside. This was not a matter to be handled carelessly.
Noah was quite good at moving around the castle. Lucas had positively accepted Noah’s curious and adventurous personality.
“Who was the last person to see him?”
“Three hours ago, he took a club from me.”
Schwein Castle was now in a state of emergency. Elisa was the first to notice Noah’s absence. The young master had headed to the training ground without fail today, carrying snacks. Since it was a path he took every day, she hadn’t paid much attention.
Although he had gone out with snacks, Elisa had visited the training ground to deliver freshly baked apple pie and juice that Noah loved.
And what Elisa discovered upon reaching the training ground was that none of the knights there had seen Noah. Just in case, she checked the stable on the way to the training ground, and also the chicken coop not far from the back door of the kitchen.
Upon realizing that Noah was neither at the chicken coop nor where the training dogs gathered, Elisa frantically ran to the second-floor study where the Grand Duke was, wildly swinging her skirt.
After two knocks and stamping her feet impatiently, Elisa confirmed that the young master was not on the Grand Duke’s lap in the study, her last hope, and reported Noah’s disappearance to the Grand Duke while trembling.
“He might be hiding in some corner again.”
With a fierce expression, Lucas immediately ordered the castle gates to be locked and scattered knights to be called in, commanding them to search every inch of the castle. Then he was in a frenzy, saying they should use tracking magic, or that he should have given a tracking necklace as a gift instead of a teleportation necklace.
“He might have fallen asleep while playing hide-and-seek, like last time. Let’s think calmly. Our Noah is smart, so he wouldn’t carelessly go outside the castle. The gatekeepers didn’t see anyone going out, and Noah knows well that he shouldn’t go out alone.”
Loren spoke in a calm voice, stroking Lucas’s arm, who had lost his rationality. She handed him cold water that someone had brought. There had been times when Noah was found asleep in a wardrobe, and times when he was found playing with chickens in the chicken coop.
Even as Lucas and Loren were talking, voices of people calling for Noah filled the inside and outside of the castle. Such a commotion would have been enough to wake Noah if he was asleep.
“Of all days, it had to be when goods were being delivered. Is there anyone who left among those who came in today?”
Loren kept trying to soothe Lucas, but his muscles remained extremely tense. The merchant guild people, who until just now had been freely moving around the first floor of the castle and warehouses carrying and organizing goods, were all confined in the largest banquet hall.
“No. No one has left the castle yet.”
“And you’re sure no one used the warp?”
Everyone’s faces had turned pale. After Lucas married Loren and Noah was born, he had become so gentle and warm that everyone had momentarily forgotten his past self.
But today’s incident revealed his true nature—someone who rarely smiled and was always stiff and rigid.
He had lived a rough life. As the lord of the harsh northern region, he had personally led expeditions that were like small wars several times a year to protect his territory and its people, so his temperament was, in a way, understandable.
“Yes.”
“Check all the castle walls… and the one above the training ground.”
Having said that much, Lucas closed his mouth. A place not far from the training ground. A place no one except special caretakers went to, but Noah could easily have gone there. And the thought crossed Lucas’s mind that he hadn’t taught Noah how to swim.
Before anyone could stop him, Lucas rushed out of the study and was heading to the hot spring above the training ground with movements so swift that even the knight captain standing right beside him couldn’t keep up.
* * *
While strolling through the forest, he wasn’t particularly tense at the presence of a person.
The Schwein family knew their limits. They conducted hunts while maintaining an appropriate balance so the ecosystem wouldn’t collapse. Many beasts died at their hands, but many also survived, so one of his jobs was to take care of the forest while avoiding encounters with them as much as possible.
However, the presence he sensed wasn’t the usual well-trained knights, but rather something that seemed easy to catch yet wasn’t—enough to draw him out.
But what if the person he encountered was a little one who fearlessly wandered the mountains, humming happily in the forest?
Unable to easily comprehend the sight even after seeing it directly, he first approached the child as a squirrel, then as a rabbit. The child, blinking large eyes full of innocence, looked happy.
Wandering around the forest alone without a guardian. At first, he thought a guardian might be nearby, but after observing for quite some time, the child was indeed alone.
Since it wasn’t good for a child to wander alone in the forest for long, he transformed into a slightly larger animal—a deer. Not just any small deer, but a large stag with majestically protruding antlers.
When their eyes met, the child hesitated, and he was about to leave. Thinking the child would now return to where he came from since he was startled, he deliberately limped slightly to appear weak.
But this time, the child followed.
Wondering what to do, he headed toward the hot spring near Schwein Castle. What else could he do? He needed to take the child somewhere closer to the castle so that people searching for him could easily spot him.
The numerous hot springs in the forest each had different beneficial properties. And the hot spring close to the castle had natural healing effects. It was a place where injured or sick animals frequently visited, a neutral territory where they didn’t harm each other.
It was the only place in the forest where animals wouldn’t easily try to harm a child who was alone.
Just as he was thinking about enjoying the warm hot spring while watching over the child until people came, the child, as if reading his thoughts, climbed onto a flat rock and sat down.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
