The Butterfly Effect
There’s a saying called the butterfly effect.
I never imagined the wingbeats from last night in the forest would trigger a storm like this.
It was a peaceful morning. What knocked against my window wasn’t the refreshing sound of birdsong. It was the thick, fishy stench of an apex predator—the very pinnacle of the local food chain.
“Ian! Don’t die, Ian!”
The door burst open with a crash as Kara stormed in.
“Ian! Are you out? Please, just take this!”
The moment the door flew open, I saw Kara with dark circles drooping all the way to her chin. In her hands was a bizarre box stuffed full of bottles containing a pitch-black liquid.
“...What is this? Are you trying to terrorize me first thing in the morning?”
“It’s eel extract! Not just any eel—these are premium bull eels caught in the rapids behind the mountain, packed with vital energy! I stayed up all night melting the bones in the forge’s furnace, so drink this and get your strength back!”
The second she lifted the lid, the air in my room began to curdle. The color was abyssal black. The smell was like boiling swamp mud left to rot.
Drinking this wouldn’t restore my energy—it would probably sever my connection to the living world entirely.
“Kara, I’m really fine—”
“Ian… You don’t have to say anything. I saw everything in the forest yesterday.”
“Wait, what exactly did you see—”
“Shh! Be quiet. That witch might be listening somewhere.”
Kara’s eyes swam with thick, genuine pity.
I couldn’t even begin to guess what kind of monstrous narrative my little performance yesterday had morphed into inside her head.
“Even after being treated like that by that noble lady… no, that witch! I saw it with my own eyes. The way you were rolling on the ground, begging for your life! How brutally that silver-haired witch works you…!”
She wiped away tears and forcibly pressed a bowl into my hands.
“No, that’s not what I—”
“You don’t have to say anything! And stop forcing yourself to smile! It’s tearing my heart apart!”
I took a step back. It was all well and good that she now saw me as a pitiful boy, but I never dreamed the side effect would be forced eel extract consumption.
“Ah…”
They say life is a comedy when viewed from afar, but a tragedy up close. That described my situation perfectly.
“Kara! What in the world is that fishy smell you’re spreading in front of our Ian’s house?”
Right then, Mili—the flower shop owner’s daughter—appeared, arms full of flowers and something else.
In her hands were a vibrant bouquet and imported sweets that gave off a sweet fragrance, the complete opposite of Kara’s concoction.
“Ugh… what is that? It’s worse than a rotting sewer! Kara! What are you trying to feed our fragile Ian? His body is already so weak, and you bring him something so barbaric!”
“Barbaric?! This strengthens muscles and bones—”
“What Ian needs isn’t muscle, it’s rest! Look at his complexion! He’s pale as a sheet of paper!”
Mili cupped my cheeks, her eyes brimming with tears.
I was just tired from sparring with Yuki until late last night. That was all.
“Mili, if you don’t know anything, stay out of it! This isn’t the time to be talking about rest. Ian… our Ian is dying!”
At Kara’s shout, Mili’s face drained of color in an instant.
“Ian! Dying? Where does it hurt?”
Kara dragged Mili into the corner and began recounting the “tragic scene” she had witnessed in the forest yesterday, interpreted entirely in her own dramatic way.
“I saw it! Yesterday at dawn, Lady Yuki had Ian pinned against a tree and was threatening him with a sword! Ian’s buttons were all undone and he was sobbing, ‘Please stop!’”
Kara gripped Mili’s shoulders, pointing toward the forest as she wailed.
Even I, who had actually been there, thought, Did I really do that? at her wildly exaggerated description. But Mili’s face instantly flooded with horror.
“...Buttons undone? Sobbing?”
“Yes! That noble lady looked down at him with the eyes of a delighted predator and threatened him, saying ‘Tomorrow I’ll bring a real sword!’”
The flower basket slipped from Mili’s hands and hit the ground.
“Lady Yuki… She came here for recuperation with that pretty face, but she actually has a sadistic hobby of torturing beautiful boys?!”
“Exactly! Ian was crying and begging for his life, but that witch said, ‘I won’t let you go until I’m satisfied…’!”
“Oh my god… Oh my god!! No wonder Ian’s been looking so pale lately!”
Flames sparked in Mili’s eyes.
She usually scolded Kara for being ignorant, but the moment she learned Ian had become a noble’s punching bag, an alliance formed instantly.
“Don’t worry, Ian. Kara and I have decided to join forces. We’ve officially formed the Ian Protection Squad—a group dedicated to protecting you from the witch!”
I unconsciously dragged a hand down my face. The world was spinning in a very strange direction.
Meanwhile, in the office of Yuki’s mansion.
Yuki frowned at the sound of a loudspeaker blaring from outside the window.
“My lady. The village girls are staging a protest at the main gate. They claim you summon Ian every night and torture him.”
At the maid’s report, Yuki’s eyebrow twitched.
“Torture…? Me?”
“Yes. Apparently Kara saw you beating Ian with a sword in the forest yesterday and has been spreading the story.”
Yuki stared blankly for a moment, then a strange smile curved her lips.
“Hehe… Torture, is it? So rumors are spreading that I’m tormenting that boy?”
She gazed out the window at her own slender, pale fingers.
The more the villagers misunderstood, the more it felt like the “secret” between her and Ian was growing stronger, more intimate.
“Fine. There’s no need to clear up the misunderstanding.”
Yuki threw on an outer robe and left the mansion. At the main gate, she ran into Kara clutching her bowl of eel extract and Mili leading the protest.
“What’s all this commotion so early in the morning?”
An icy voice sliced through the alley. Yuki approached in elegant riding attire, lightly tapping a whip against her palm.
At Yuki’s cold tone, Kara tightened her grip on the eel extract and shouted.
“My lady! Stop tormenting Ian! No matter how noble you are, treating a man like that is the worst thing you can do!”
Yuki’s eyes narrowed. She glanced at me, then seemed to grasp the situation. A smile—beautiful to the point of cruelty—spread across her face.
“Tormenting him? I only met this child for the first time after the boar incident. Isn’t that right, Ian?”
At Yuki’s shameless attitude, even Mili joined the attack.
“Liar! My lady! Release Ian right now! And tell us what exactly you’ve been doing to him every night in the forest. Right here!”
“Ah, it seems I’ve been found out.”
Wait, my lady? Why are you admitting it?!
“Ian. Was I too rough with you yesterday? But your reactions were just so… good that I got carried away without realizing it.”
“Wh-what… what did you say?!”
At Mili’s shriek, Yuki haughtily lifted her chin.
Then, as if on purpose, she pulled out Ian’s handkerchief (the one I’d dropped during yesterday’s spar) from her pocket and dabbed at her lips.
“What was I doing? We were simply spending much hotter time together than you girls could ever imagine.”
“......!!”
The square fell into dead silence. “Hot time” meant training with her master, but in the two girls’ heads, ten thousand different fantasies were already running wild.
“This… this witch really…!”
“Ian is my disciple… no, my personal sandbag. It’s not something commoners like you should interfere with.”
Yuki threw oil on the fire with her words, then looked at me for a moment.
Whatever she was thinking, she stared intently at the eel extract in Kara’s hands before grabbing my wrist and pulling me forward.
“Let’s go, Ian. I’ll invite you into my mansion.”
“It’s still daytime, my lady. People are watching…”
“It doesn’t matter. The rumors have already spread as far as they can.”
This girl was enjoying herself. She seemed happier about gaining an excuse to monopolize me than she was worried about her reputation falling to that of a villainess.
Yuki leaned in close to my ear and whispered.
“The village kids are making a fuss about saving you. So? Do you really want to be rescued? Or would you rather keep being tortured by me?”
Her eyes were filled with pure delight. I looked at the eel extract Kara was holding and at the sobbing Mili, and thought:
I’d rather be with Yuki than stay here.
I obediently took Yuki’s hand and entered the mansion. From behind came Kara’s desperate scream.
“Ian—!! You have to come back alive! Tomorrow I’ll make black goat extract—!!”
Starting with Kara’s anguished cry, Mili collapsed on the spot and declared with grim resolve.
“This is war. Starting tomorrow, we will begin an indefinite hunger strike in front of the lady’s mansion! We won’t eat a single meal until Ian is returned to us!”
Beside her, Kara was already butchering a black goat she’d somehow brought along, muttering to herself.
“Just hold on a little longer, Ian. If eel extract doesn’t work, this black goat will protect you…”
And especially, the single casual remark I made to Yuki at the mansion threshold was passed on to the Protection Squad through the maids, driving the misunderstanding to its peak.
“My lady. What is it today?”
I had simply asked what we would eat for lunch after training, but to Kara and Mili’s ears it sounded completely different.
“That poor child… he’s become so used to the pain that he asks about the torture first!”
“How horrifying! Ian, just hold on a little longer… We will definitely save you!!”
In the Protection Squad’s imagination, I had already become a tragic martyr suffering under whips and torture.