The Wolf Girl (1)
Grey hair. Grey eyes.
Beast ears perched atop her head.
Pointed fangs.
Skin mapped with red scars.
In every respect, the girl called a wolf to mind — and she sat blinking, her entire body bound in silver chains.
She had nothing else to wear, so I had wrapped her in the fur cloak she had worn in her werewolf form.
"Haa… She's so cute…"
Clara sat facing the wolf girl, a blissful smile on her face.
She had been like that for a good thirty minutes already.
The wolf girl stared back at her with a blank expression.
Right after arriving, Clara had looked thoroughly displeased — complaining that if this was how things were going to go, I should have brought her along from the start.
She had seized the rain pouring from the sky with her ocean magic and used it to put out the forest fire. Fully evolving to the level of a true 2-Star World Mage was still beyond her, but she had succeeded in keeping the flames from spreading any further. The baron's men were handling the rest.
"Clara. She may look cute, but she's killed several people…"
"I know. She's a dangerous child, right? Bad for the heart, too."
Clara showed no intention of taking my warning seriously.
The wolf girl.
Dorothy, the Star Chaser.
In Luke's Biography, she was a high-ranking officer of the Demon King's army — and a boss whose vicious difficulty remained infamous even in the late game.
The epithet "Star Chaser" might sound almost romantic at first glance. But here, "star" meant the ranks of World Mages. She had earned the title because, even among the Demon King's forces, no one hunted mages better than she did.
The Clara of Luke's Biography had lost her life to Dorothy. Knowing that, watching Clara behave like this made me uneasy — but Clara was completely smitten with the wolf girl, beyond any hope of reason.
"What's your name?"
"Dorothy."
"Even your name is pretty…"
"I'm hungry."
"Oh my. Just a moment. Someone bring more meat, please!"
At Clara's request, one of the baron's men came in from outside. He carried a long spear, a large chunk of meat skewered on its tip. Keeping a cautious distance, he held the meat out toward Dorothy's mouth.
Dorothy bared her pointed fangs and tore through the meat at a terrifying speed. The man turned the chunk this way and that to make it easier for her to eat.
"She eats so prettily…"
"Don't you mean terrifyingly…?"
Until now, Dorothy had answered nothing except when asked her name — but at least she spoke up on her own whenever she got hungry. That was a relief. Her stomach always needed to be full. Otherwise, she would turn into a wolf.
The idea that silver is strong against dark magic is nothing but superstition. The chains had been consecrated by Priest Thomas, true enough, but his skill was nothing to rely on. The moment she transformed, those chains would shatter like glass.
The Curse of the Lycanthrope — a curse that turns its host into a wolf the moment they go hungry. It consumes far more life force than other curses. In exchange, that life force can be replenished through meat.
The Curse of Illusion. The Curse of Obsession. The Curse of Emotionlessness. I was already having my life force drained by three separate curses. That was precisely why I had wanted the Curse of the Lycanthrope.
"Clara! Where are you! Help me one more time!"
"Haa… Why is he calling me again…"
Cain's voice rang out from outside, searching for Clara. She sighed and rose from her seat.
"I'll be right back. See you later, Miss Dorothy."
Clara slipped out, and the man who had finished feeding her the meat left as well. Only Dorothy and I remained inside the building.
The wolf girl stared straight at me, then opened her mouth.
"Master."
"Hm? You mean me?"
"You smell. Like my catalyst."
"Ah."
Dorothy sniffed the air. The dark mage had placed the Curse of the Puppet on her, and I was the one holding its catalyst — a fang with strands of Dorothy's hair threaded through it.
"Your master is dead. I just took this off him."
"Master said. Whoever has the catalyst. Is the master. Right now you. Have it."
What the dark mage had meant, of course, was that he had cast the Curse of the Puppet on Dorothy and could control her through the catalyst. But Dorothy seemed to have understood it more simply: whoever holds the catalyst is her master.
"Until just now, you wouldn't say anything except your name and that you were hungry. Feeling talkative all of a sudden?"
"Master said. Don't talk. To other people. Saying I'm hungry. Was okay."
So she considered me her master — and because people who weren't her master had been around, she had kept her mouth shut.
"And saying your name was okay too?"
"That was. Mom and Dad. They said if anyone asks. Say it clearly. Because Dorothy is pretty."
She seemed like such an innocent child. The Dorothy of Luke's Biography had been nothing of the sort. She had been a woman every bit as mad as Karl the Demon Worshipper — so much so that she actually seemed more rational in her wolf form.
"Do you know where your parents are?"
"Don't know. They disappeared."
"Disappeared? Did your previous master hurt them?"
"No. Just don't know. They disappeared. So. I left the village. To find Mom and Dad. Then I met Master."
"Your parents vanished and the village adults didn't help you?"
"The other adults. All disappeared too. My friends too. When I woke up in the morning. I was alone."
"The entire village vanished at once? Everyone except you?"
Dorothy nodded.
"The evening before the villagers disappeared — did you happen to eat meat?"
"Yes. We had a village feast. Said the hunt went well. For the first time in a long while."
"There usually wasn't much to eat, was there?"
"No. Lots of days. With no meals."
"After you ate the meat, do you remember what you did?"
"…"
Dorothy seemed to strain for a long time, trying to recall something. In the end, she shook her head — she remembered nothing.
I could guess what had happened.
The Curse of the Lycanthrope was often innate, but it was not uncommon for someone to live their entire life never knowing they were a werewolf. The curse only activated upon consuming human flesh. The beast ears and pointed fangs appeared only afterward. Without eating human meat, a person would never transform into a wolf for as long as they lived.
In the midst of war and famine, people who had starved for far too long must have done something unforgivable. The villagers would not have known Dorothy had been born with the curse. Dorothy would not have known what they had fed her. But curses do not make allowances for such things.
The conditions met, the Curse of the Lycanthrope had awakened — and Dorothy, transformed into a wolf, had slaughtered the entire village.
A werewolf's intellect drops sharply during transformation, but not so far that the host retains no memory of what they have done. Dorothy, though, had undergone her first transformation far too young. Overwhelmed by instinct, she had simply run wild — and so she remembered nothing.
"Master said. Let's find Mom and Dad. Together. So I followed."
"…Your parents are dead. The other adults too. Your friends too. All of them are dead."
"…Really?"
"Yes."
"…"
It was cruel, but Dorothy needed to accept the situation. Without that, she would never be able to move forward. Even so, I could not bring myself to tell her they had died by her own hand.
And yet Dorothy's expression barely changed.
"Aren't you sad?"
"I'm not sad. People who leave. All become stars. They watch over the world."
"…"
Exactly like the Dorothy of Luke's Biography. Living in reality without ever looking at it — drowning in a fairy tale.
Dorothy the Star Chaser had felt not a shred of guilt over killing. She had believed she was making her victims happy. They would become beautiful stars, watching over the world forever.
Innocence and madness — separated by the thinnest of lines.
"…People don't become stars when they die."
"They do."
"No, they don't."
"…They do."
"They don't. When a person dies, that's just the end. The soul fades. The body rots. Nothing remains after that."
"Uuuuh…"
For the first time, Dorothy's face crumpled.
The scene of Clara's death in Luke's Biography had flashed through my mind, and I had pressed her harder than I meant to. Some emotion I could not name stirred in me. Guilt? Triumph? The Curse of Emotionlessness kept it too dull to tell.
"They really do become stars…"
Arguing with a child was about as pointless as it got. She was only a year or two younger than Karl — but I was an adult.
"…Fine. Let's say you're right."
"…"
"But get this straight. Even if people could become stars, no one prioritizes death over life. So even if your parents became stars, it's still something to be sad about."
"…Yes, Master."
Tears welled at the corners of Dorothy's eyes. Whether she had decided to be sad because I told her to, or whether she was simply upset from being pressed earlier, I could not tell.
"Miss Dorothy! I'm back! …What. Did Big Brother make her cry?"
"Clara. You wanted to build a land where people cursed like me could live together, didn't you?"
…Not "like you" — "like Big Brother Karl," she whispered against my ear. Drawing a firm line, I see.
"…Anyway. How about we start by taking her in?"
I had always liked assigning meaning to things. Just as meeting Maria before she became the Demon King had meant something — meeting Dorothy before she became the Star Chaser must mean something too.
Dorothy was a werewolf, and that made her deeply unstable. Unlike Maria, I could not simply lift her curse. But I had a means of controlling her now. Keeping her close and watching over her seemed reasonable enough.
"Sounds good. Miss Dorothy is cute, after all."
"Can you answer that easily? Even if everything she did was under a dark mage's control, the victims' families…"
"Those are worries for Father, the lord of this land, to handle now."
"I asked you because Father won't worry about it much either… Never mind."
"I'm hungry."
"Bring some meat, please!"
The man came back in with another chunk of meat skewered on his spear. A slab larger than my own head vanished beneath Dorothy's sharp fangs, ground away to nothing.
Whatever else, her appetite was something I would seriously need to plan around.
The Child of Claws and Fangs
Quest completed.
Distributing rewards.