“As I said, we’re going to the family council now.”
“Okaaay.”
“The old men with bounties on their heads are going to make a fuss, so just ignore them.”
“…….”
“Besides, my bounty is the highest anyway.”
Ah, yes……
Once again, I realized that Kiraxus was the worst of the worst among villains. Who on earth would boast about the bounty on their own head?
‘Wait. If I become the daughter-in-law of this family, am I supposed to be like that too?’
Could they possibly determine something like an allowance based on the amount of the bounty?!
“If you’re done eating, let’s go, sweetheart.”
“Y-yes……?”
Wait, where did it go? My cookie, where did it go!
As I stared at my two completely empty hands, my expression turned miserable.
‘I already ate it all!’
Since I was staring so blankly at my empty hands, Kiraxus gave me another cookie.
“Do you want another one?”
“Yes! Thank you.”
Ah, but…… I feel a little bad eating this all by myself.
I had happily accepted it and tucked it into my arms, but I’d already eaten the cookie he gave me earlier all by myself as if I’d been possessed. That wasn’t very considerate of me.
Repenting, I put some strength into my front paws and neatly broke the cookie in half.
Then I broke that half in half again and held it out to Nina first.
“This, Nina’s.”
“Oh my, are you giving it to me……? Thank you!”
“And this is…….”
Uh, what should I call him?
Not Mr. Villain, and “Lord Kiraxus”…… was too difficult to pronounce.
After pondering for a moment, I simply held out the piece of cookie.
You never know. Maybe he wanted some too.
“Is that for me?”
“Mhm.”
“You have greed for cookies written all over your cheeks.”
Squish.
After seeming to hesitate for a few seconds, Kiraxus poked my cheek like a fish cake.
I flapped my arms around, trying my best to teach this villain about human affection.
We were going to have to live together from now on, so it would be nice if we got along.
“Evew tho, I’m not eating it by mythelf (Still, I’m not eating it myself).”
“Well, I’ll gratefully accept it.”
Kiraxus took the piece of cookie from my hand and…… huh?
‘Wait, he’s not putting it in his mouth—he’s putting it into thin air??’
Why???
Surely he didn’t throw it away right in front of me because he didn’t want to eat it!
***
I was a little troubled by it, but in any case, that cookie had originally been given to me by Kiraxus, so I decided to be generous and forget about the whereabouts of that one-quarter piece of cookie.
Whatever the recipient did with it…… was up to the recipient, after all.
As we headed toward the meeting room, nestled inside his vest, I suddenly became a little curious.
‘Is it warmer when he carries me around like this?’
I couldn’t for the life of me understand why he was doing this despite having dressed so nicely only to wrinkle all his clothes, but there was no point trying to understand the thoughts of a crazy person in the first place, so whatever.
‘Come to think of it, why does he look so happy? Doesn’t he smile way too often?’
The Kiraxus described in the original story was cold and aloof, with a personality that hardly ever smiled.
Earlier, when he saw me staring blankly at my empty hands, he’d even covered his mouth with his hand and trembled. I saw you laughing, you know.
That was when it happened. Just as I was feeling troubled, wondering if I had acted too much like a little child, a magnificent door appeared. I had only blinked once, yet the place had changed in an instant. Magic really did feel like magic.
“Announce us.”
The servant who had been frozen in shock at Kiraxus’s appearance finally came to his senses upon hearing the command and opened his mouth.
“T-The master of the Magic Tower, Young Master Kiraxus Rüshan Driblyane, and……!”
As if trying to determine whether I was a doll, a real animal, or perhaps a beastkin, the servant glanced at me and stopped speaking.
Kiraxus then leisurely supplied the answer.
“Lady Florin.”
“Ah, yes! L-Lady Florin is here!”
And a short while later, the meeting turned into exactly the disaster I had expected.
***
“That is absurd! If you bring an albino daughter-in-law into the family, it’s obvious that another albino will be born in the next generation!”
“Tsk tsk, get a hold of yourself, Tower Master!”
“Have you been bewitched by a demon?”
“What are we supposed to do with all the candidates who have worked for years to become worthy of that position?!”
Harsh criticism, loud enough to make my ears hurt, poured toward Kiraxus.
What surprised me was that Kiraxus hadn’t taken me out of his arms even once since the meeting began. It was almost as though he was protecting me.
‘If I had been sitting on that table…….’
With all those pheromones and the shouting flying back and forth, I might have gotten dizzy enough to throw up.
I had never expected the Driblyane family council to be easy, but this was truly beyond my imagination. Without anyone even telling me to, I clung tightly to Kiraxus’s chest and barely moved.
Pat pat. Kiraxus glanced down at me for a moment and soothed me as if to say everything was fine.
“The old men are barking quite a lot today. Why are they collectively howling like dogs instead of acting like people?”
The only small problem was that his leisurely behavior and remarks perfectly provoked the elders.
“T-That, that, that!!!”
Oh, one kill.
“GRAAAH!”
Two kills.
‘Hang in there.’
Watching the white-bearded elders clutch the backs of their necks in disbelief before collapsing, I worried about their blood pressure as it rose in real time.
‘But if this is a family council, doesn’t the family head attend?’
Kiraxus naturally sat to the left of the seat of honor. Both the seat of honor and the seat directly opposite Kiraxus were empty.
‘Ah, one of those empty seats belongs to the family head. The other belongs to Ariadne, who was supposed to be the heir.’
That was when it happened.
“The 18th head of the great Driblyane family has arrived. Everyone, shut your mouths.”
The doors to the meeting hall were wide open, though I hadn’t noticed when they had been opened. At the same time, a voice so cold it seemed capable of freezing to the bone cut through the commotion.
The man who spoke looked as though the word ‘aide’ had been pasted right onto his face.
Olive-colored hair neatly tied back and silver-rimmed glasses. Wearing a badge bearing an owl, the symbol of an aide, on his chest, he was…… an incredible sharp-tongued man.
“Do not make the place where the family head is going smell of your bad breath. It is filthy. Do not spit your saliva around.”
“…….”
“Now, please enter, Family Head.”
Correction. The man clutching his nose and spraying something that looked like a cypress-wood spray was more like a fanatical follower of the family head.
‘He doesn’t seem sane…….’
Still, once the refreshing scent of the spray reached me, I felt much better than before. It was as if the air that had been pressing down on me had suddenly become lighter.
“That’s a pheromone-removing perfume. He developed the product himself.”
“Wow.”
Kiraxus briefly explained while stroking my head. Yet while everyone else stood up, he remained seated. He didn’t even turn his head toward the family head, which made him look remarkably sulky.
‘Kiraxus is…… sulky…….’
The gap between this and the image I knew was so enormous that I was shocked, but something else was even more shocking.
“Such bad manners. How long are you planning to refuse to look at your father?”
“Until I’m in a better mood.”
“Being sulky is fine for a day or two, you brat. Since your sister has gone that way, shouldn’t you fill the vacant position in her place?!”
“If I feel like it.”
“Tsk. You’re supposed to become the heir and hurry up to protect the family, yet all you do is act so slippery.”
Step. Step.
The sound of the dress shoes was heavy.
White hair slicked back with pomade. A firm-looking jaw and broad, sturdy shoulders that made it impossible to tell his age. A free and sophisticated-looking white suit, and underneath it…… a hot-pink shirt.
‘A hot-pink shirt???’
My mouth fell open at the sight of the family head. Since he was barely described in the original story, I had no idea what he looked like.
I had assumed he would look roughly like a corporate chairman, but this…… this…….
‘He looks more like a mafia boss!’
If Kiraxus was the big boss of a modernized, corporate-style crime syndicate, then the family head looked like the original boss…… no, like the chairman who controlled dozens of subsidiaries in that line of business.
I rolled my huge eyes around before burying my head between my tiny front paws.
‘Ah, this possession…… I think I really got the short end of the stick……!’
Where is my life headed?
“Laphiren. What does that thing my son is holding look like to you?”
“To my eyes, it is undoubtedly a white marten. Ordinary martens change the color of their fur according to the season, so I presume it changed to white in preparation for winter.”
“Is it not an albino?”
“I cannot be certain without seeing the color of its eyes, but considering Young Master’s notoriously extreme collecting hobby, I judge there is a high probability that it is an albino.”
The spray-spraying aide’s name was Laphiren.
Before I knew it, the entire room had fallen silent, and no one opened their mouth. It had been so noisy just moments ago, but now everyone seemed to have been subdued by the authority of the family head.
Naturally, even I, who was nothing more than a pitiful, cute, and lovable marten, was completely cowed.
“Pay it no mind. She is my daughter-in-law.”
But at that moment, Kiraxus pressed down on my head, trying to push me farther inside his vest. As though he didn’t want to let anyone else see me.
‘Eek! This is only going to make them more interested in me!’
And I can’t breathe! I said I can’t breathe!
After struggling for quite a while, I finally managed to poke my head out through the gap between the vest buttons.
“Huff, huff…….”
I thought I was going to die!
“……Heh.”
Laphiren, whose eyes met mine for a brief moment, burst out laughing. But within a second, he returned to his cold expression. As though he had never laughed at all.
I kept the awkward baby speech and comedic narration intentionally, rather than making those lines fully grammatically correct, so the character’s voice stays.
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