Puppy Princess
"Hmm..."
"What is this?"
"It looks like a drawing of a dog."
The three of us bent our heads together over the bloodstained map we had spread out before us.
Given that it had come out of the humans’ own possession, there was certainly some important meaning hidden in it.
I pointed to the dog drawing marked on the place nearest us and said, "Should we head that way?"
"What if this is another human trap?"
"No way..."
I shook my head at Aurell’s words.
They knew they were going to be taken down and had hidden a map like this in their clothes?
Unless they were a prophet or a regressor who knew the future, there was no way they could have done that.
"It’s marked with a dog, so it might be related to werewolves."
I said that and looked at Hwanggu.
She tilted her head with a purely innocent expression, and the wolf ears sprouting from the top of her head twitched and danced.
This area had been where Hwanggu had been active. Maybe there were companions of hers over by that dog mark.
I tucked the map back into my clothes and stood up.
Just before we set off, Hwanggu suddenly sprinted off somewhere in a hurry.
Wondering why she was running, I followed after her, only to find her propping up a bicycle that had fallen over on the ground.
Apparently she hadn’t forgotten the bicycle I had asked her to find.
"Were you running to get that?"
"Yes!"
Hwanggu answered my question with all the energy in the world.
The huge tail attached to her behind wagged back and forth.
In the end, Hwanggu had to pull the bicycle along again, just like before.
Maybe because it hadn’t been judged as an item? The shadow hadn’t been able to swallow it.
The place marked with the dog drawing was not very far from here on the map.
How long had we walked like that?
All at once, Hwanggu began sniffing the air.
Just in case, I tried to catch the scent as well, but nothing in particular reached me.
"Hwanggu?"
"It smells oddly familiar."
Familiar in some strange way?
I looked at Hwanggu with a what-if-that’s-true kind of gaze.
Maybe my guess really was right.
I asked Hwanggu, "Really? Does it feel like something’s coming back to you?"
"Umm..."
At my words, Hwanggu shook her head with a grave expression.
That was when it happened. In the faint breeze that drifted by, a subtle animal scent began to mix in.
As if announcing that the source of the smell was drawing closer, the beastly scent grew stronger with each passing moment.
Hwanggu must have been the first to catch it.
Aurell must have sensed it too, because she came up close beside me with a tightly drawn, tense expression.
With the map unfolded in my hands, I waited for those approaching from this direction.
As expected, that dog drawing had been a marker indicating werewolf territory.
Had another minute passed like that?
Backed by the soft moonlight, four werewolves finally revealed themselves.
Their eyes were strangely subdued, and their breathing was calm.
The thick, unmistakable scent of beast clung to them, proving that they were werewolves.
Then, at that moment—
The man standing at the front stepped forward.
He had a cool, sharp-looking face.
Just as I was thinking that, he opened his mouth.
"Princess...!"
The man stared at her with a desperate look, as if he had just found a lost treasure again.
That gaze was fixed on Hwanggu.
At that instant, Aurell let out a rough burst of breath.
"Pff—!"
I almost burst out laughing myself.
With effort, I bit my lip and watched Hwanggu’s reaction.
She tilted her head with a bizarrely twisted expression, apparently having no idea who was standing in front of her.
"You’re safe!"
"Do I know you?"
"Pardon...?"
When Hwanggu pretended not to know him, the male werewolf looked to me in clear panic.
But there wasn’t anything I could do just because he looked at me like that.
I let out an awkward laugh and took a step back.
"Puppy Princess..."
The male werewolf muttered Hwanggu’s original name with a deeply serious expression.
His voice wasn’t quiet enough for only one person to hear, so everyone there caught it.
"Pffft!"
Another laugh-snort escaped Aurell.
She covered her mouth and crouched down on the spot.
"Puppy Princess...?"
By contrast, Hwanggu muttered her own name with a grave face.
Even so, whatever memory should have come with it clearly wasn’t there, because she still couldn’t bring herself to look at the werewolves with any sign of friendliness.
"E-Excuse me... what exactly is going on here..."
Perhaps deciding that normal conversation with Hwanggu was impossible, the male werewolf spoke to me instead.
I sighed and walked forward.
"Are you acquainted with Puppy Princess?"
"Yes... she’s our leader..."
At the werewolf’s answer, I turned to look at Hwanggu.
A level 20 werewolf user, and the leader of a pack, no less.
Judging by the way the others were looking at her with such concern, it seemed she had taken good care of her people too.
Before she lost her memory, Hwanggu must have been more capable than I’d expected.
"I’m not Puppy Princess!"
Then Hwanggu barked out a shout and sprang forward.
She even threw away the bicycle in her hands, so she must have been very worked up.
"Grrrraaaah...!"
"Puppy Princess-sama..."
"Grrrr!"
Hwanggu bared her teeth at the male werewolf.
It must have come as quite a shock.
The male werewolf ran a hand over his face with a stunned expression.
"What in the world..."
"Hwanggu."
I held out my hand and called her back.
She glanced over her shoulder, then hurried into my arms.
For all her worked-up state, she still listened to me very well.
Now how was I supposed to explain this?
If they found out that Hwanggu had lost her memory because of me, they might bare their teeth at me too.
I stroked Hwanggu’s head and said, "You saw it, didn’t you? It looks like she’s lost her memory."
"No way..."
The male werewolf covered his mouth, shocked by my words.
Even though a lot of the middle had been left out, it wasn’t exactly a lie.
In the end, we followed the werewolves to their clan hideout.
If we went there, maybe Hwanggu’s memories would come back.
Hwanggu had lost her memory because of me.
I wanted to give her back her original memories.
She hadn’t wanted to go, but when I told her we were going, she let out a long sigh and followed me.
We traveled for quite a while after that.
Hwanggu made it very obvious she was in a foul mood.
"Princess..."
"Grrrr..."
She rejected the werewolves who had been her original pack and bared her teeth at them.
The tail that had once spun like a propeller now hung limp.
She stuck only to my side and dragged the bicycle along.
The werewolves were polite to me and Aurell.
They seemed to think we were benefactors who had taken care of their leader after she lost her memory.
"It’s here..."
The place we reached looked like a military camp.
There was a long fence stretched around it on all sides, and a huge wall built up from wrecked cars and the remains of buildings.
Most of the buildings inside were military tents or containers.
It was as if the werewolves had taken over an entire military installation in one go.
It wasn’t exactly a wrong guess. To ordinary humans, werewolves were probably no different from ants.
As proof of that, tanks with their barrels torn apart or crushed lay scattered around like toys.
I looked over the area.
Despite how spacious the interior was, the number of people didn’t seem that high.
Maybe thirty at most?
The werewolves peeked out and watched us.
Hwanggu looked deeply uncomfortable under those gazes.
She tucked her tail between her legs and hid behind my back.
"Could you show us some of the things or buildings Puppy Princess used? Her memory might come back, you know."
"This way..."
The male werewolf nodded obediently at my words.
Come to think of it, we hadn’t even introduced ourselves yet.
If I activated the demon eye, I could learn his nickname, but I didn’t really feel like going that far.
"What’s your name?"
"My name is..."
The werewolf man trailed off and looked back.
He was staring at Hwanggu with a look that held a faint thread of hope.
Maybe he was imagining that his leader would recover her memory and call him by name.
But Hwanggu was ruthless.
"Grrrr!"
Their eyes met, and she bared her teeth again.
In the end, the werewolf man drooped his shoulders and answered.
"It’s Bongcheon-dongHamFist..."
I grimaced while listening to the male werewolf, Bongcheon-dongHamFist.
No, really, why were the nicknames of the humans we’d met and this guy’s so absurd?
"Just call me HamFist."
"Oh, right..."
HamFist said that and kept glancing at his leader.
But Hwanggu’s response remained cold.
"Grrrr..."
"You must live in Bongcheon-dong, then?"
"Nope..."
"Then why is your nickname...?"
"I just... made it up like that..."
HamFist let out a sigh and led us toward a large container.
I sniffed the air and nodded.
There was definitely Hwanggu’s scent coming from inside the container.
Hwanggu would be familiar with her own scent too.
Judging by the way her tail, which had been tucked in, began to loosen, she seemed to feel it as well.
That was when the interior of the container was opened up.
At that moment, I stood there with my mouth hanging open.
The interior decoration inside had been far beyond anything I’d expected.
Hanging on the container wall were bright white skulls.
Not one. There were ten skulls hanging there in all.
There were even skulls decorating the armrests of the chair.
"Skulls...?"
"Ah, those are trophies from the human users our Puppy Princess hunted."
So that was it after all.
Apparently they weren’t just plain old decorations.
I looked at Hwanggu with a dazed expression.
"Aren’t they cool?"
While HamFist proudly went on about Hwanggu’s accomplishments, Hwanggu went inside her container and started sniffing around.
Naturally, what drew her interest most was the skulls hanging on the wall.
"Oh... does anything come back to you?"
"Grrrr!"
HamFist’s eyes shone as he tried talking to her, but Hwanggu’s response stayed the same.
She bared her teeth and let out a fierce growl.
Then she grabbed the skull in her hand and hurled it at HamFist’s head.
Whirr—
Thwack—!
"Huh..."
I swallowed a dry breath at the sight.
The skull bounced off the floor and rolled away.
HamFist clutched his wounded heart and teared up.