Chapter 112: Pet 1
Chapter 112: Pet 1
Pets. The word had always felt a little distant to me.
A father who ran a business and found cats unsettling, convinced they were bewitching creatures.
A mother who was deathly afraid of dogs, no matter the size.
And me, saddled with allergic rhinitis for more than fifteen years.
By any measure, ours wasn't a household built for raising animals.
But say "pets" instead of "animals," and a deep, instinctive fondness stirs from somewhere inside. I'd bet most young Korean men who live and breathe games feel the same way. Not the living, breathing dog or cat—the data-entity kind that picks up items and drinks potions for you. That's what the word calls to mind.
"Uh, could you run that by me again?"
And having those very entities set down right in front of me was a little hard to swallow. Even after everything I'd been through—a matriarchal society where gender roles were flipped and Constellations were worshipped, a world crawling with werewolves and every fantasy race imaginable.
Because right now, a gray werewolf was striding into the tent, its head shoving the canvas aside.
And that werewolf had three animals in tow.
"So, like I said, the reward I mentioned last time—it's these three."
"I'm not asking you to repeat yourself. I'm telling you to give me the specifics on what they do, you blockhead."
"Wouldn't the blockhead be the one who can't remember what's obvious?"
The hulking werewolf looked down at me the way you'd stare at a caveman failing to grasp 1+1=2, clicking his tongue. Even without tapping into the Dream Demon's Authority, I could feel the pity radiating off him. I'd have preferred he just looked down on me or brushed me off—why the hell was he feeling sorry for me?
"How many times do I have to say it? The Korean Crow-Tit's basic instinct being 'healing' isn't exactly 'obvious' in our world."
A tiny Korean Crow-Tit darted overhead, looping in circles and leaving faint white afterimages. It shed shimmering dust wherever it flew, and sure, I could grasp intellectually that the dust healed people, but accepting it was a different matter. It's not even a butterfly. Why does a Korean Crow-Tit shed dust?
Then there was the Retriever, stretching its tongue out to lap up the falling dust like snowflakes, and the pitch-black long-haired cat, yawning wide as if none of this had anything to do with it. Just like the baffling concept of a healer Korean Crow-Tit, this dog and cat supposedly had special abilities too.
"The dog fetches, the cat banishes. Got it?"
"No, I mean, explain that in detail."
Loyal Fang and I were both male Constellations, sure, but the gulf in our common sense was colossal. What common ground could a college kid who survived a nuclear war in twenty-first-century scientific civilization possibly share with a beastkin warrior-shaman who'd fought against the Demon King's army as part of the Federation of Different Species? Still, this was starting to feel less like a gap in knowledge and more like he was just yanking my chain.
"Exactly what I said. This white one's got a knack for fetching things. If you picture something you lost or left somewhere, bringing it back is its specialty. That black one, on the other hand, has a talent for chasing things off. Its temperament's a little fierce—if something uninvited comes flying your way, it'll probably swat every last bit of it down."
Maybe he'd noticed my creeping irritation, or maybe he'd had his fill of messing with me, because an explanation I could actually follow finally came out. From the sound of it, these abilities were genuinely impressive. I was already getting a rough sense of who should get which pet.
The Korean Crow-Tit and its healing: an obvious match for Han Ye-ji. She was the only one of my three Incarnations actively out in the field. Sure, she was dealing with criminals inside the continent, not beyond it, but getting hurt on the job was always a risk.
The Retriever, fetching lost or forgotten items, suited Lee Ha-rin. She'd reached the point where time at her desk was starting to outlast time away from it. Having a pet that could fetch her materials might buy her a little breathing room. Though knowing her, she'd probably just pour that freed-up time into more research.
And the cat, swatting away curses and magic, was for Kim Ha-eun. Since she spent her time manipulating other people's Nightmares through her mana veil, it would likely block a malicious aura or an accident she didn't see coming at least once or twice.
I reached out absently, half-lost in thought. The Retriever immediately shoved its head up as if demanding to be petted, the Korean Crow-Tit settled onto my wrist, and the cat climbed onto my thigh with all the natural grace in the world. Anyone who loved cute animals would've been green with envy.
"So, can I just take them with me like this?"
"Yeah. As for food—they'll manage on their own."
He dusted himself off, stood, and lifted the tent flap again. From somewhere far across the sunless grasslands came a long, drawn-out howl, proof of how much he loved the full moon. The guy swelled his chest and howled back, a deeper, answering awooooo.
"Anyway, thanks."
He scratched his head roughly, then dropped to all fours and sprinted off across the prairie.
That left me standing in the tent with three animals clinging to me—and countless more furballs outside it, eyes glittering again. Just as I was about to focus my magic, wondering if he'd dumped another problem on me...
Mrowwrrr.
The pitch-black cat let out a growl so deep I half-wondered if I was hearing a puma or a leopard, not a cat. A little bigger and I'd have sworn it was a jaguar. It glared outside, eyes sharp, and I felt the creatures that had been scratching at the tent flee in a panicked dash. The cat sat planted on my thigh in all its majesty, glowering. I reached out, meaning to scratch its head, but it apparently wasn't in the mood—it batted my hand away with a swift swat of its front paw.
...Wait a second. I don't think I even saw that paw move.
※
Lee Ha-rin was the first one I went to find.
To be precise, she was the only one I ended up delivering a pet to in person.
From Loyal Fang's Sanctum to my own Sanctum, then from there to the Academy's Temporary Sanctum. The three animals had followed me through two spatial jumps without a single hitch. Watching them, a small concern began to nag at me. If I formed a clone beside Han Ye-ji from here, how was I supposed to bring the Korean Crow-Tit along?
As if mocking my worry, the thing let out a few clear, crystalline chirps and flew off on its own, straight out of sight beyond the sky. Bulk smaller than a fist, wings no longer than a finger—and yet a few quick flutters sent it vanishing into the distance. Damn, that's fast, I thought, just as the black cat also silently erased its presence and slipped away. Within five minutes, only the tail-wagging Retriever remained at my side.
Not just my Incarnations—even the animals were starting to seem stronger than me.
Then again, weren't humans always weaker than animals to begin with?
Unconcerned with my unsettled mood, the Retriever wagged its tail in a blur and kept firmly shoving its head into my thigh. The force was stronger than I'd expected, but not enough to knock me over. I pulled myself together and trudged off across the Academy.
'Where would Lee Ha-rin be doing her research around this hour?'
Come to think of it, the Korean Crow-Tit, the cat, and now this one striding ahead of me like we were out for a walk—all of them seemed to know exactly where my Incarnations were. Did it have something to do with Loyal Fang calling them "messengers"?
The Academy was bustling as always. Sure, a major incident had gone down recently, but well—this was a world at war. Some people were shaken, some were furious, but a single Incarnation's death wasn't going to shift humanity's entire mood.
Male cadets, drenched in sweat and gasping, ran the field alongside female cadets whose eyes had taken on a certain furtive gleam. Since these were women training their bodies in broad daylight, every last one of them was in fantastic shape—my gaze caught on swaying chests and the occasional flash of a navel. Not that the women weren't sneaking their own glances at jiggling male crotches, I'm sure.
Leaving the breathless cadets and their harsh instructors behind, I arrived at a building. Not the one Lee Ha-rin usually occupied, but the one housing the old professor in charge of basic Magic Studies. 'Guess she's got a collaboration today.'
Stepping inside from the sweat-stenched training grounds shifted the atmosphere instantly. Maybe it was because this building was home to instructors focused on magic research. People who looked a million miles removed from physical exertion were hauling around boxes crammed with documents, huffing under the load. Mages in tracksuits carrying armloads of parchment or papyrus rather than plain paper. Made sense—if you're sitting at a desk all day, a tracksuit beats robes or a cloak for comfort. A few people who recognized my face dipped their heads in brief greeting before vanishing.
I'd worried someone might give me trouble for bringing a dog into the building, but nothing happened. Then again, who's going to call out a Constellation for walking his dog?
The Retriever plopped down in front of a familiar door, its dust-brown fur ruffling softly. I looked down at it for a moment, then reached out and knocked—knock knock.
"Who is it?"
For a split second, my brain crashed as I tried to figure out whether I should answer with "It's your Constellation." But before I could say anything, the door flew open from the inside.
"You've come, Constellation?"
"Yeah. So this is where you were."
it was Lee Ha-rin who'd thrown the door open, sensing my magic.