I Became a Cat That Sleeps with an Obsessive Tyrant Every Night - Chapter 31
“What was that…?”
As if hearing an unusual sound, Baron turned his head in the direction of the noise.
“I’ll go check.”
Setting down a teacup with petal-shaped decorations, he got up from his chair and said.
It was a bit disappointing not to be able to enjoy the eagerly anticipated first sip, but as I realized that I could now wander freely, my enthusiasm surged.
At that moment, Killian’s hand grabbed me.
“Stay here.”
“Why…?”
I asked in response, and Killian, with a face that seemed to have a lot to say, briefly closed his mouth.
He appeared somewhat unsatisfied with having to choose just one thing to say.
After sighing, he slowly slid his gaze, as if he were a god carefully crafting a ruby, down to my bare feet and then opened his mouth.
“Are you planning to go like that?”
Following Killian’s gaze down to my feet, I realized that I was barefoot.
“Ah.”
Once I realized it, a chilly discomfort washed over me, and my toes instinctively curled.
Where in the world could I find a cat wearing shoes?
I had become so accustomed to walking without shoes that I hadn’t even realized I was barefoot.
“Well… I think it’ll be okay.”
After thinking it over, I smiled and replied, but Killian raised an eyebrow, clearly not pleased with my response.
“Really. I had no idea until you mentioned it. I don’t think it’ll be a problem to walk a bit longer.”
“…Huh.”
As I was about to add one more thing, Killian looked at me with a mischievous glint in his eyes.
“Barefoot?”
“I need to go quickly and check what’s going on with Harrid and Sanua. Court Baron is waiting here, isn’t he?”
“I’m fine with it.”
I replied while giving Baron a sidelong glance, and Baron responded as if it didn’t matter much.
His perfunctory smile seemed to subtly convey that he didn’t want to get involved in such a conversation.
But isn’t this related to the young Court?
As I puzzled over Baron’s response and turned to Killian, he subtly narrowed his eyes.
“Just Baron and I are enough.”
“But I might be able to help.”
“In what way…”
Killian, who was about to retort with sarcasm, clenched his lips.
Huh? I looked at him in surprise, wondering if he was reminding me of who had drawn out Sanoa’s power.
“So, can I go too? If another power has manifested, just as Sanoa turned me into a human, what if…”
As I explained the reason for my urgency and was about to get up from my seat, my body floated away.
My heart pounded as Killian lightly lifted me.
Startled, I looked up at him, and it seemed like Killian had lowered his eyes slightly to look at me.
“I can’t have a woman with her hair loose and barefoot walking around.”
“Oh…”
“I suppose it would be better to carry a suffering human.”
Was he trying to say that I should pretend to be a crazy woman like this? I crane my neck awkwardly, not knowing what to do with myself as I’m lifted like a piece of luggage, and stare up at the ceiling, where I can see the hole in the ceiling is as venerable as any crudely constructed old inn.
Rather than being conscious of being in Killian’s arms, counting the holes in the ceiling seemed less awkward. But just then, Killian suddenly bent down as if he were about to drop me.
“Eek!”
Instinctively, I pressed myself to him, wrapping my arms tightly around his neck. Only then did Killian firmly embrace me.
“You’re being quite a nuisance.”
With a nonchalant comment from Killian, he turned to Baron, who had donned his jacket and had already opened the door.
As our eyes met, I couldn’t hide my embarrassment and awkwardly raised the corner of my mouth.
“It’s okay.”
Seemingly understanding, Baron showed me a gracious smile and followed behind Killian by a step.
The rhythmic sound of shoes on the corridor floor and the regular thumping of Killian’s heart through his thin shirt against my face echoed in my ears.
For no reason, Killian’s warmth made my mouth dry and my eyes blink curiously made me twist my head to look down the corridor.
I’m just a burden. Just a wounded woman.
In the awkward moment when my neck felt strangely hot, I heard Harrid’s scream from the lower staircase. Just then, the innkeeper, who had come up the stairs in a hurry, appeared.
“Where is that noise coming from?”
The mustachioed innkeeper whirled around and locked eyes with me in Killian’s arms.
“Uh… It’s a bit embarrassing, Your Highness.”
As I hastily held onto Killian’s shirt and hesitated to speak, the crown prince let out a refined, mocking laugh that faintly reached his ears.
That meant it didn’t work.
“Well… Can you please let me down?”
“I don’t want to.”
Slowly and deliberately denying my request, Killian leaned forward and whispered in my ear, his tone almost too calm to be heard.
“You chose this, didn’t you?”
* * *
“Then I will go. Please let me know if anything happens.”
The innkeeper, who had opened the locked door, waved goodbye and shuffled away.
Of course, until then, I couldn’t dare to show my face, so I had buried my face in Killian’s chest almost to the point of suffocating.
“May I go down now, Your Highness?”
“Of course.”
With his permission, I quickly released my arms from around his neck and stood on the ground.
“Ewah!”
At that moment, a loud gagging sound echoed from inside the room.
Wondering what was going on, I turned the corner to enter the room.
and saw Harrid in the bathroom, holding on to one wall and gagging.
Baron, looking very serious, interrupted him in a stern tone.
“What’s the fuss about?”
“I can’t, father, I’d rather be in a pigsty than be in the same room with that filthy bastard, and look what he’s doing right now!”
Harrid exclaimed, his face almost purple, his stomach churning.
What was that?
I think I just heard something squeaking.
There, by the fireplace, I saw Sanua sitting, and in front of him, something seemed to be wriggling and squirming like a dark poodle.
“!”
I stared in shock.
Upon closer examination, it turned out to be a swarm of common rats, wriggling together.
“Ugh.”
The horrific sight made my stomach churn, and I felt like my internal scream was about to burst from my throat.
In the midst of the eerie squeaking and wriggling rats, Killian suddenly pulled me back.
“Go back to the room first.”
As he tried to take me back, I quickly stepped back, determined to find out what had happened.
“I’m okay.”
I forced my gaze towards Sanua, but Killian’s hand pulled me behind him once more.
“Don’t look.”
I jerked my head at Killian’s cautionary words while keeping my gaze locked on Sanua, then gingerly grabbed his arm and pushed my head out to look in his direction.
I could feel Killian’s eyes on me.
“…Sanua Nelas. How could you do such a thing…”
Baron, who had lost his words and had an astonished look on his face, pulled out a handkerchief to cover his nose for a moment. Well, the stench of the rats was beyond words.
I also tried to bury my nose in Killian’s shirt, but a handkerchief covered my face first.
“Using someone else’s shirt to wipe your nose? What a strange habit.”
“No, it’s not like that!”
Killian, who furrowed his eyebrows, looked confused and shook his head, and I let out a forced laugh.
“I understand.”
He took my hand and held the handkerchief, then led me towards the fireplace.
“Keep this.”
Killian, who had taken off his jacket and draped it over my shoulders, walked to the wall and opened all the windows wide.
The chilly night air, damp from the rain, rushed in, making Killian’s black hair tousled, and the flames in the fireplace rose like a swirling tempest.
I was afraid a stray ember might leap and burn holes in Killian’s jacket, so I quickly grabbed the fabric.
As I watched the fire slowly stabilize and flicker like it was about to go out, Killian approached me.
“Here…”
“It’s fine.”
I started to take off my jacket and hand it to him, but he stopped me and put it back on.
“No…… I’m…….”
“I’m, um.”
I said, bending over and buttoning it in silence, as Killian made eye contact with me.
I couldn’t remember what I’d been trying to say as the face in front of me left me speechless.
His red eyes, reflecting the flames, flickered in and out of various shades of light and dark red.
“Thank you…”
When I managed to stammer out my gratitude, Killian, who had bent down, stood up.
The dank, damp stench began to ventilate, and Harrid, who had stopped vomiting, came to our side.
“What’s going on?”
Killian asked Sanua, who had been ignoring both Baron and him, looking in his pockets, and bringing out something.
It was cookies.
“Can’t you tell?”
He replied stiffly, as if it were a question, then turned his attention back to the rats.
“You’re giving them something to eat.”
The cookies he’d shoved into his pocket earlier were for those mice.
“See”
Harrid exclaimed, his face flushed with heat.
Indeed, it was a sight that would terrify even a dignified noble like Harrid. Sanua scattered cookies like breadcrumbs to attract the rats.
“Feeding them is why all these inn rats have gathered, thanks to the scent!”
I couldn’t bear to watch the wriggling rats, even though I was a cat myself. Nevertheless, Sanua seemed to want to provide food for the rats, as he took cookies from his pocket and scattered them.
If you look at the description of Hunter Jack in the original story, he was a man who was hunted by people and eventually went into the mountains to live.
It was clear from the way Sanua had been teased at the tavern earlier that his life alone hadn’t been easy.
I managed to remove the handkerchief and spoke to Sanua.
“I…… Sanua?”
“Jack!”
“Oh, right. I’m sorry, Jack.”
Hearing Sanua’s distressed exclamation, I casually shrugged and took a deep breath, trying to handle the situation as calmly as possible.
But, oh, God. Those thin, black lines I see now are the tails of rats.
I felt like running away, but I forced myself to try to understand Sanua.
However, I really wondered why he chose to do this here.
“Are you asking because you don’t know?”
“It’s cold outside, right? It’s raining too.”
“…I see.”
Sanua replied dryly, and he turned his pockets inside out, even shaking out the remaining crumbs.
He seems to be showing even more love to these rats than to humans.
As I looked at the mass of rats, gathering like a black puddle, I thought, ‘Isn’t this too much?’
Where on earth did all these rats come from?
They were still coming, even now.
“Haha. There are so many, it seems like you didn’t just attract the inn’s rats with the scent but gathered all the rats in the neighborhood.”
As I tried to come up with various things to say to ease the situation and be friendly, a sudden thought crossed my mind.
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