The woman who had locked Saebyeok up in the lab and tornted her.
I wondered what Saebyeok wanted to do to her.
I wanted to give her ti to think, but the lab employee was already moving away.
"Saebyeok, what do you want to do?"
"...I want to scold her."
"How much?"
"I don't know."
She wanted to get angry, but maybe she wasn't sure how or how much to express it.
I wanted to talk more with Saebyeok, but catching the departing lab employee was the priority.
"Then should we start by finding out where she lives?"
"Are we going to follow her ho?"
"No, we don't need to do that."
I had an ability.
An ability to track soone no matter where they were, as long as I left my pheromones on them.
Most of the pheromones would disappear with showers or laundry, but people usually showered and did laundry at ho.
We might be able to find her house by tracking where the pheromones stopped.
"I'll go. Wait here."
"Will you be okay?"
"Yeah. She probably doesn't even know who we are."
The current Saebyeok was a beast-kin, not human.
The people from the lab days wouldn't recognize her.
'Co to think of it, Saebyeok's appearance changed...'
I'd heard about it from Saebyeok before.
The adults had changed her appearance.
At the ti, I wondered why, but maybe it was to hide Saebyeok from the lab people.
No, that must be it.
"I'll be back. Don't worry too much."
I patted Saebyeok's shoulder and used another alley to get ahead of the woman.
I planned to wait at the corner the woman was about to pass and pounce on her as she ca out.
'Is this the spot?'
Click clack-
I could hear the woman's heels from beyond the alley corner.
I focused all my senses on my ears and rushed out as soon as the woman erged from the alley.
"Ah!"
I was running fast but stopped abruptly when I saw the woman coming out.
My body slid and landed in the researcher's arms.
"...Are you okay?"
"Y-yes..."
Being in the arms of soone who had tornted Saebyeok sent chills down my spine.
Still, I was glad I could leave my pheromones on her.
"Running out of alleys is dangerous."
"I'm sorry..."
The lab employee looked down at with dark circles under her eyes as I apologized.
Her uniquely dead-looking eyes made lower my gaze unconsciously.
"...It's also dangerous to run into strangers. What if you got kidnapped?"
"Huh...?"
A kidnapper warning about kidnapping.
My body froze in surprise.
"I'm just saying be careful."
"I-I'm sorry. I won't do it again..."
"......"
She silently looked down at .
Then she turned around and started walking away.
There wasn't even a general caution like "be careful next ti."
"Whew..."
The aura I felt from the woman was that of an ordinary person, not an adventurer.
I could probably win in a fight, so why was I so scared?
As if suffering from aftereffects of the brief encounter, I couldn't move from my spot.
"King, King."
Levinas, who thought it was strange that I was standing still, called out to from the end of the alley.
It was a voice so quiet only beast-kin could hear.
"Levinas."
"King, are you okay?"
"Yeah. I'm fine."
Having confird I was alright, Levinas let out a sigh of relief.
Now that the first operation of leaving pheromones was successful, it was ti to plan the next move.
**
We hurried back ho.
On the way ho, we didn't talk at all.
Partly because the mood was somber, and partly to give Saebyeok ti to think.
Of course, we couldn't stay silent forever.
I decided to call the children to the table for a eting.
"Saebyeok, have you decided how much you want to scold her?"
"No, I'm still not sure..."
Saebyeok hung her head low.
Seeing Saebyeok so dispirited made my tail droop.
"It's a difficult decision. It'd be strange if you could decide easily."
"Yeah... I'm sorry for suddenly being like this. I'm the older sister, but I'm not setting a good example."
Did she think she was showing a bad side to the children?
Saebyeok kept staring down at the table.
"There's no need to be sorry. It's not your fault."
"That's right! The bad person is the bad one!"
"Yeah."
The children comforted Saebyeok, saying it was okay.
This made Saebyeok's tail start to wag a little.
Levinas, seemingly wanting to brighten the mood further, stood up and spoke in a louder voice than before.
"Dark King! Should Levinas scold the bad person instead?!"
"How?"
"By scaring her with a bad snake!"
Ahem.
Levinas puffed out her chest.
She seed to think it was a good idea.
"...That's good, but how do we get a snake?"
"Hmm..."
Levinas, rolling her eyes around, slowly sat back down.
It seed she couldn't think of a way to get a snake.
Then Gaeul, who had been quietly listening to our conversation, grabbed my tail.
"Snake."
"Gaeul, this isn't a snake, it's a tail."
"Tail."
"Yeah. It's a tail."
Huh.
Gaeul grabbed my tail and shook it left and right, then suddenly put it in her mouth.
I was used to this by now, so I just patted her head.
At that mont, Levinas jumped up from her seat again.
"How about drawing on her face?!"
"Drawing?"
"Yeah! We could write 'bad snake' on the bad person's face?!"
"Oh..."
Having the label "bad person" would make life tough.
Levinas seed to think this was a good plan too, as she puffed out her chest saying "Ahem."
Saebyeok watched Levinas and wagged her tail.
"Thanks for helping. But you don't need to think of scary things just because of ."
"What are you talking about?! Levinas can think of even scarier things than this!"
"Scarier things?"
"Yeah! Levinas thought about Dark King suffering alone! That's really scary!"
"......"
Saebyeok looked up at Levinas with blank eyes.
Then she raised the corners of her mouth very slightly.
"Dark King and Levinas are family! We think about tough things together!"
"Okay. I got it. If Levinas has any troubles, tell too."
"Okay!"
Hehe.
Saebyeok and Levinas looked at each other and laughed.
I was glad Levinas had lightened the mood.
As I was thinking this,
"Huh...?"
I sensed the pheromones I'd left on the lab employee near the guild building.
Could she have co to catch us?
I froze on the spot.
"What's wrong?"
"Oh, it's nothing..."
There was no need to break the mood yet.
I decided to keep watching for now.
**
The next day.
And the day after that.
The lab employee lingered in front of the guild and then left.
Thanks to leaving pheromones on her long coat that wasn't washed often, I could keep tracking her movents.
'She's here again.'
After observing the woman for a few days, I realized sothing.
That she wasn't contacting anyone.
Even with my beast-kin senses on high alert, I never caught her communicating with anyone.
'I think we could just catch her...'
We didn't even need help from the guild adults.
She wasn't an adventurer, after all.
With strong Saebyeok alone, we could probably subdue her easily.
"Saebyeok, should we try to catch her ourselves?"
"Ourselves?"
"Yeah. When she cos again later, let's rush out and grab her together."
Catching the person who tornted her directly might help Saebyeok relieve so of her burden.
That's partly why I suggested we catch her together.
"Hmm... okay."
Saebyeok seed to have gathered her resolve over the past few days and agreed without much hesitation.
So Saebyeok and I hid in a spot where the woman often ca.
Levinas and Gaeul followed us and hid too.
'I should still let the guild people know.'
I borrowed Levinas's smartphone and texted Yeoreum.
[It's Gyeoul. What are you doing?]
[Your sister's in a eting right now.]
I see.
I was going to ask her to keep an eye out just in case, but since she was in a eting, I decided not to ask for help.
It was happening right in front of the guild building anyway, and the woman was alone and not an adventurer.
There was no need to call in the full force of the guild.
I decided to just let them know what was about to happen.
[We're hiding in front of the guild.]
[Hiding?]
[Yes. There's a bad person we're trying to catch.]
[?]
Buzz-
Yeoreum might have sent more ssages as the smartphone vibrated, but I didn't have ti to check.
The woman had started lingering in front of the guild at the expected ti.
As always, she watched the guild building with an awkward deanor.
Thanks to her lingering around the guild like this several tis a day, the guild people were wary of her too.
If anything happened, everyone would help, so there was no need to be afraid.
"Saebyeok, you know we're going to sneak up and grab her, right?"
"Yeah."
We carefully approached the woman from behind.
I was planning to go with just Saebyeok, but Levinas and Gaeul followed us too.
I thought about sending the children back, but seeing that the woman didn't notice us even as we got right behind her, I let it be.
"Get her!"
With Levinas's shout, we pounced on the woman.
Levinas and Gaeul grabbed her legs on each side, and Saebyeok pulled her body back.
"Oh."
Saebyeok could take down even boss monsters with one hit.
The woman fell backward from Saebyeok's strong pull.
"Saebyeok, the arms."
"Okay."
I used the handcuffs I had prepared from the guild supplies to bind the woman's arms.
Seeing her arms bound, the children cheered.
"We caught the bad villain!"
"Caught!"
Clap clap clap-
When Gaeul started clapping, people around us turned to look.
They stared at the handcuffed woman with surprised eyes.
"They say she's a bad person? Are they playing?"
"That person did look suspicious. She was always lurking around the guild creepily."
"So she really is a bad person?"
"If the kids say she's bad, she must be bad."
"Hmm... that's true."
Fortunately, people took our side.
I was worried they might say we were catching an innocent person.
Phew.
I let out a sigh of relief that everything had gone well.
Just then, guild mbers started running towards us from a distance.
"Gyeoul!"
Yeoreum, Jung Yu-na, and Choi Jinhyuk.
The Master, Encia, and Argo were there too.
Levinas puffed out her chest as she saw the family mbers running over.
Gaeul did the sa.
---
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