'Crunch!' – The Beast's Cunning Evolution
"Crunch!" A horrific tearing sound choked off my breath, and my vision flashed white. The chilly memory from ten years ago evaporated in an instant before the merciless pain of reality strangling my throat.
"Gasp—hey, ack! Loosen... loosen up, you brute! You trying to snap your homeroom teacher's neck?!"
I turned pale and shoved at Reina's shoulders with both hands. Her freakish strength—enough to reshape the continent barehanded—had wrapped around a mere baron's heir's neck. The fact that my cervical vertebrae hadn't shattered yet was reason enough to bow in thanks to my ancestors.
"Ah."
Only then did she flinch at my desperate shout and ease the force in her arms. But she didn't fully pull away, clutching the hem of my shirt like a lifeline as she looked up at me.
"...Just because you're by my side."
"Doesn't mean you try to assassinate me!"
"...I did it 'cause I wanted to. Tch."
No sting in her words at all—just those hazy purple eyes, dreamy as if she owned the world. Even as I panted and smacked my own forehead, she just pouted and giggled.
The feral little beast who'd smashed the forest to bits while bawling ten years ago was gone. In her place hung a giant dog wagging its tail furiously.
Grrrrowl~
Then, from Reina's stomach came a cute little rumble, utterly at odds with her monstrous power.
"You haven't eaten yet?"
"...Yeah."
Her short, deflated reply nearly made me burst out laughing. A memory from my past life overlapped: high school girls in their growth spurts sprinting to the vending machine at every break, scarfing bread, then whining about hunger the second you turned around.
No matter that she was the empire's strongest killing machine, capable of ripping mountains apart with her bare hands. At the end of the day, she was just an eighteen-year-old girl whose stomach growled if you didn't feed her on time. No matter how ironclad my rational walls, seeing that dopey hungry face made her irresistibly cute in the end.
"Get off. Let's eat. Don't go starving yourself at your age—you're still growing."
I sighed indifferently, as if it were no big deal, and flicked her crown.
She grumbled "Tch..." regretfully but obediently let go of my sleeve.
---
A short while later, in the middle of the ruined garden, servants trembling like aspen leaves set the meal on the one intact outdoor stone table. The menu: thickly grilled wild boar steak. The rich juices and red special sauce overpowered the acrid dirt smell.
Reina sat and immediately gripped the silver knife and fork. But her hands trembled faintly—enough to notice.
Screeeeech—
A gruesome noise rang out, not slicing meat but mangling it and scraping the plate. She bit her lip, struggling to cut, but the tough meat just tore raggedly.
"......"
"......"
"Hey. You're gonna drill through the plate."
Propping my chin, I pointed it out dryly, and her hands froze.
"I can do it."
"Can't you see your fork's bent? I told you you'd hurt yourself if you can't control your strength. Give it here."
"...Tch."
She drooped her brows regretfully and grumbled but obediently slid the plate and knife to me.
I chuckled inwardly at her meek obedience. Even with power far beyond human limits, she was suppressing that insane strength—trembling—to be the "good kid who gets praised" by me. It was frustrating, yet that pathetic, clumsy effort scratched an odd itch in my chest. Not hateful—no, her blindly obsessive nature was almost endearing.
With familiar motions, I sliced the thick meat into neat, bite-sized pieces. I speared one juicy chunk and held it out to her mouth across the table.
"Open up."
"...Ah."
Her purple eyes widened for a split second, then parted obediently without a hint of doubt. Her cheeks puffed as the meat went in.
Chomp chomp.
She'd have swallowed it even if it were poisoned, with that blissed-out look. Facing that perfect, defenseless trust toward me made a strange sensation crawl up my spine every time. The arrogance of fully taming a cold killing machine, mixed with the heavy responsibility that her entire world was just me.
"Good?"
"Chew thoroughly before swallowing. You'll get indigestion."
I kept slicing and feeding her. Just as a lazy satisfaction spread across her face from gobbling it down...
Plop.
A drop of red sauce flicked from my hand, falling from the fork tine—right onto the chest of her pristine white silk uniform shirt, stark beside a button.
"See? Knew you'd spill like a slob."
It was clearly my fault, but I played it cool and scolded her anyway.
Her chewing jaw stopped dead. She stared at the red stain on her chest, furrowed her brows, and grumbled unfairly.
"You spilled it."
"You were slow opening your mouth. Go change quick."
"...Hmph."
She stood from her chair, pouting, and shuffled slowly into the mansion. The girl who wouldn't blink facing an emperor's rebuke tucked tail and moped at my absurd scolding. That gap gave me a strange sense of superiority and pleasure. I wiped my hands with a napkin from the table, thinking.
A baron's heir serving the empire's top sword her meal—absurd. But after ten years, it was as natural as breathing... and honestly, a bit enjoyable.
---
How much time passed? The mansion door opened, and Reina emerged into the garden in a fresh shirt. Plain white without ornament, but under the pouring sunlight, her walking figure was breathtakingly radiant for a moment. Silver hair lightly tousled by the breeze, purple eyes languidly downcast. When had this monster grown into such a captivating woman?
A fleeting sentiment made my heart flutter softly. But that fluffy feeling didn't last three seconds.
Swish.
She stopped blankly before me, and my gaze naturally dropped to her front. Or rather, a veteran teacher's hawk eye perfectly caught the student's "uniform violation."
...Again?
I swallowed a short sigh inwardly. My adolescent-boyish sensitivity from moments ago got yanked down by ten years of teacherly cold reason.
The buttons on her new shirt were off by exactly one hole from the top—mismatched. The left collar stuck up awkwardly past her neck; the right sagged sloppily below her shoulder, ruining that elegant poise.
"Hey, Reina. Come here."
"...Why."
"Grown woman still can't button a shirt right?"
I stood and approached; she didn't dodge or retreat. Instead, she tilted her head up slightly and clutched the end of my left sleeve familiarly with both hands.
"...You can do it for me."
Sassy. Silently, I reached under her chin. A twenty-year habit from past and present lives—incurable occupational disease.
Pop. Pop.
I undid the misaligned buttons from the top. I felt her steady pulse through the cool silk. But as I realigned the edges to rebutton...
A weird incongruity brushed my fingertips.
...No stretched marks.
My fingers froze unwittingly. Ten years wrangling high school girls had taught me plenty about sloppy uniform fixes. Forcing buttons into wrong holes with hasty or clumsy hands always left stretched fabric or frayed threads around the holes on thin silk.
But Reina's buttonholes felt eerily smooth under my touch. No wrinkles, no resistance—just meticulously, precisely, deliberately inserted wrong. A smooth texture from intentional sabotage.
My gaze slowly rose. Nose-to-nose close. It locked with her upturned purple eyes.
The dopey, clumsy beast who couldn't do anything without me—that's how I'd defined her for ten years. But those deep eyes held a feral chill.
She wasn't a kid who couldn't button straight anymore. She'd set a perfect trap, waiting for me to approach and fix her clothes myself. To make me reach out first.
"...All done. Control your strength so you don't rip them off."
"Yeah."
Accepting my hands in her clumsy trap, the corner of her mouth curved up in satisfaction where she gripped my sleeve.
A chill prickled down my spine.
The eight-year-old beast hadn't just grown bigger over ten years. She'd evolved into an eighteen-year-old cunning monster who knew exactly how to bind her sole world—her leash—ever tighter to her side.