I'm Not a Dog, I'm a Fox (2)
The Valkyrie was the first to move.
She yanked free a length of rope from the life raft and flung it into the sea. The beastgirl clamped down on it with her teeth — a sharp snap of jaws — and nodded urgently.
The Saintess and I hauled together, and so the beastgirl was pulled to safety.
Prrrrr.
Once ashore, she shook herself dry. Water sprayed in every direction.
"No manners."
"Beasts are all like that."
A woman with a purple bob and eyes of deep violet, nearly black. Two tails swayed in opposite directions, and atop her head, beast ears tufted with snow-white underfur twitched restlessly.
Her face was pretty. Her face was.
Those ears and tails, though, stirred an instinctive revulsion.
"Whoa, hello!"
An Ascalian greeting. Looking closer, the beastgirl was wearing clothes with Holy Kingdom insignia on the shoulders.
Seemed like a military uniform, though I'd never seen one like it — more work clothes than combat gear.
"I almost died! Uuugh, um, so — natives? Thanks for saving me? Not sure if you can understand Liyo's words, but…"
"We're not natives."
"Huh?"
The Saintess and the Valkyrie launched into a stream of chatter. The beastgirl's eyes grew rounder by the second.
"Saintess and Black Cat, you're alive! That's such a relief! Now we just have to get back and everything's lucky! But… who's that guy?"
"A magic stone officer from the Magic Kingdom. It's a long story…"
The moment the Saintess glanced my way, the beastgirl's gaze followed.
"Whoa."
"Scary."
At the very least, she didn't look friendly.
Yeah. This wasn't going to be easy.
"Grrrr."
Two humans and one beast sat around the campfire drying off. Why only two humans? Because the Valkyrie had seated herself a little apart.
"Haa, it's a bit cold…"
Chilly. This island seemed colder than the others.
At this rate, the Valkyrie might catch another cold. If anyone got sick here, the whole group would suffer for it. I synthesized a heat stone from the magic stone I'd obtained catching the fish-person, then approached her.
"Here. Wear this at least."
"…Huh? Mm."
The Valkyrie carefully accepted the heat stone.
Three months.
That much time had already passed since I'd become survival partners with this woman. The revulsion was still there — we'd killed each other's comrades — but she no longer seemed to suspect me over something as simple as exchanging an item. Constantly starting from suspicion took too much energy, didn't it?
Then, fiddling with the heat stone, the Valkyrie lifted the corners of her mouth.
"…"
That face.
The smile she put on that face was the problem. She rarely smiled, but whenever you showed her a kindness, she'd occasionally grin without even realizing it — and every time, my hostility tried to punch a hole straight through the floor.
Cute. Wanting to look after her. Wanting to put that expression on her face every day.
"Hey, junior."
"Senior?"
"Ah."
Calon's and David's voices snapped me back to my senses.
Stay calm. Settle down.
I can't treat this woman better than necessary. Thoroughly — only until we escape. Use her and get out. After that, even if we meet again on the battlefield, we treat each other as strangers…
I was composing myself when—
"…Thanks."
The Valkyrie offered her gratitude in clumsy Magic Kingdom speech.
"Mage. Good. This."
"Ha."
"Ah, don't go getting the wrong idea just because of this. I just don't want to carry a debt. When we get back — if we get back… we'll have to fight each other again."
I hurried back to the campfire. Any longer with that woman and the atmosphere would swallow me whole; I'd forget even my original position.
The campfire was at least more manageable.
The Saintess, and the dog beastgirl.
The distance between the Saintess and me was just right — neither too far nor too close. A neutral relationship we'd never have reason to revisit once we left this archipelago.
The dog beastgirl, on the other hand, was only just beginning.
"Grrrr."
One step from barking. Hostility on par with what the Valkyrie had shown when we first met. I didn't know the detailed reason, but she was growling at me just from hearing I was a mage, so I could infer she carried some unpleasant past of her own.
"Well, beastfolk have been used as experimental materials a lot since way back."
"This is the first I've heard of it. There was something like that?"
"It's a dark history. Even the Magic Kingdom wants to bury it, so unless you dig deep, you wouldn't know. Barely a hundred years ago, beastfolk weren't even treated as human — they were bought and sold for animal testing."
Exactly as the two stones said. Beastfolk had been treated as persons for less than a century.
"And that was only because human rights came into existence. Before that, it was chaos. Looking through the related materials, even looking like that, you end up feeling sorry for no reason."
"Then shouldn't they get animal rights? Fine, the Holy Kingdom has the Goddess's blessing or whatever — but why did our country give human rights to those beast bastards? They're not even people."
"Think about it. You think they've got money?"
What I knew about beastfolk didn't go beyond these two facts either.
That the race itself carried an unfortunate past, and that they currently held capital vast enough to run the underworld.
And one more: that despite official discrimination being banned, many people's gazes were still far from kind.
I was no exception.
"What are you staring at? Grrrr…"
Grrrr?
Was that really an onomatopoeia coming from a human mouth?
Well, fine. I'd let that much slide as charm. The problem was her appearance.
A human face with beast ears and a tail attached was physiologically hard to accept. If food were the metaphor, it was like mint leaves sitting on top of chocolate.
I barely held down the rising nausea. At least she wasn't a full beastfolk — if she'd been covered head to toe in fur, I'd have thrown up already and then some.
"Sergeant Liyo, until we escape this place, you must not treat the mage as an enemy."
"But Saintess, it's three against one. I think we could win?"
"It's not a matter of winning or losing. To raise our survival odds even a little, more people is better."
"But mages are all dog-like — ah, no, fox-like bastards…"
"Tsk. That's an order."
"What if that mage completely blindsides us? Plus this island seems like something the Magic Kingdom manages — wouldn't it be better for us if we tied the mage up like this and like that?"
"You're talking about a prisoner negotiation. There's some sense to it. But I don't know how the situation will develop, and I don't want to needlessly destroy what little trust we have."
"Saintess?"
The beastgirl's eyes, mid-conversation with the Saintess, suddenly went round.
"Funny, right? A Saintess defending a mage."
"Oing-oing."
The dog beastgirl crossed her arms and nodded. I could see her sharp, protruding nails gradually retracting.
"A dog that can hide its claws like a cat."
"Isn't she actually a cat?"
"Didn't you hear her about to bark earlier? That's pure dog, no question."
Whether because of the two stones' conversation or not, my gaze kept drifting to the beastgirl's hands. Nails lengthening and shortening wasn't very human — but looking at the hands as a whole, they were surprisingly ordinary, weren't they?
"Hoo."
My body was reasonably dry now. I stood first.
"Mage? Where are you going?"
"I'd like to scout a little deeper into the forest. Pick up some firewood while I'm at it. Would you come with me?"
A live broadcast of the Saintess's eyes. Orange, then pink.
"My clothes aren't fully dry yet…"
The Saintess covered herself with her nun's habit and squirmed.
"Ah, Player Erihi! Zero reading of the room! Asking a naked enemy Saintess out on a forest date!"
"Senior, how can you wear a human face and make a proposal that beastly?"
Right — the Saintess couldn't go around dressed like that. Something about the rules high-ranking clergy had to follow.
I'd have to take the Valkyrie instead. I'd made up my mind and was getting ready when—
"The Major says she's not feeling well."
"What?"
The Valkyrie hung her head, rubbing her cheek.
"I don't know what it is, but my body feels stiff and my face is hot…"
"She says her face is hot. We'll have to watch her today — see how long the sickness lasts."
I sighed. See? If she'd just dried off by the fire properly, how much better would that have been? Drying your body with a heat stone alone wasn't going to cut it.
Better rest more now and move later?
Absolutely not.
The firewood was all soaked — we needed fresh fuel. And with another mouth to feed, the food stores we'd stockpiled were about to run short again.
We needed to move right away. But the Saintess couldn't because of her beliefs, and the Valkyrie couldn't because she was sick.
Part of me wanted to drag her along by force, asking what those beliefs were worth — but that would be a bad move. I'd built up an image of being considerate toward the Holy Spirit faith until now, so saying something like that at this point would only sour the relationship.
"…Sorry. I'll handle things here instead. Herbs, building a shelter."
"I should be able to handle sea fishing well enough. Just because I'm not going with you doesn't mean I plan to sit around doing nothing."
Since the two of them weren't saying they'd do nothing, I couldn't exactly get angry either.
"The sun's still high. Wouldn't it be better to just go alone?"
"You and the enemy female soldiers established guidelines before, Senior. When exploring unknown territory, at least two people must go together in case of emergency."
"Counting us, isn't that three?"
"In this state, is there anything we can actually help with?"
"We're still magic stones, aren't we? If you use us…"
Alright. Cut.
No time for long deliberation.
"You there, puppy. Come with me."
"…Woof?"
The beastgirl tilted her head. The Saintess chuckled and whispered something. Then the beastgirl's expression crumpled like a sheet of paper, and she nodded.
"I'm not a dog. I'm a fox."
Suddenly speaking Magic Kingdom language, the beastgirl pulled something from behind her back and approached.
A hand axe.