I Became the Emergency Food Supply of the Bear Family - Chapter 27

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 27

“Haah…….”
Pallas pressed his temples and exhaled a long, heavy sigh.
“This is exactly why I can’t stand kids.”
As Na Bom tilted his head at the cryptic murmur, the clothes Pallas wore dissolved away, and his form began to shift and crumble.
Soon a peculiar animal appeared before Na Bom—a stocky, rounded creature covered entirely in grey fur.
Na Bom’s black eyes went wide as saucers, his long ears perking straight up. Eyes brimming with curiosity, he crept forward on padded paws, each step deliberate and light.
The grey animal closed the distance. Its enormously puffed tail swayed gently at the tip, moving with such fluid grace it resembled a serpent more than anything else.
Unable to resist the sight of that luxuriant, undulating tail, Na Bom bolted forward. He grabbed the plush appendage with his foreleg and dangled from it. As he slipped backward in a tumble, the animal shook itself clean with a faint shudder.
—You little troublemaker…….
Pallas sighed in exasperation and tapped Na Bom’s head twice with a broad paw. The sensation of the padded sole pressing firmly against his forehead made Na Bom giggle with delight.
—You had no idea what that meant just now, did you.
A cat—especially a lynx—that sways its tail like a serpent as it approaches is signaling a hunt. When there’s no intention to fight, evasion is the proper response. It’s a gesture that says: “I’m about to strike.”
Of course, what had just happened was only play. But even so, one ought to show at least a modicum of caution.
That’s what it truly means to be a demi-human with an animal’s instincts. And yet this one remains so utterly guileless.
Though truly, how could one expect proper training from a creature offered up as the White Wolf’s sacrificial lamb?
—Now get off me.
Pallas managed to peel away the white rabbit that kept clinging to him. Then he simply sat down, resting his weight on his luxuriously fluffy tail—his preferred method of weathering the cold.
After another heavy sigh, Pallas fixed his gaze upon Na Bom.
—You said you wished to observe me, didn’t you. Go ahead and begin.
‘Yes, thank you!’
Na Bom answered brightly and sprang to his feet, then began circling Pallas in an eager spiral.
Soon he stretched out his paws to touch Pallas’s grey fur, then wrapped his limbs around the swaying tail, and even dared to poke and prod at the gruff creature’s face.
Pallas bore all of this with a stoic silence, watching the small one’s busy movements until at last the observation came to an end, and Na Bom finally drew back.
Settling onto his haunches before Pallas, Na Bom tilted his head thoughtfully.
‘But, Master Pallas?’
—Hmm? What is it.
And so he asked.
‘What sort of demi-human are you?’
—…….
Pallas’s eyes narrowed at the unexpected question.
This one truly does need proper education, it seems.

***

As Na Bom bounded through the Backyard with Pallas, he soon found himself in an unfamiliar place.
It wasn’t entirely new to him—before the grizzly bears of the Grizzly Household had entered hibernation for winter, he’d been here once with all of them.
The Annex, built behind the Grizzly Main Castle.
Na Bom’s eyes grew distant as he gazed up at the entrance. The guard standing watch at the door seemed to fade from his perception entirely.
Na Bom placed a paw upon the steps leading up to the Annex entrance.
His body moved of its own accord—a sensation much like the moment he’d discovered that black dog collapsed Outside the Castle. He didn’t understand it. There was no reason he could grasp, and yet something compelled him forward.
Inside the Annex, there was someone. Someone looking for him.
That inexplicable certainty alone filled his mind.
As he stood before the main entrance to the Annex, the guard bowed, and a voice cut through from behind him.
—Do you wish to enter the Annex?
Na Bom stopped abruptly and spun around. He instinctively lowered his head as he spoke.
‘I—I’m sorry, Master Pallas. I didn’t mean to simply walk in.’
—No, never mind. You’re free to go anywhere you wish.
The moment he said this, Pallas’s form blazed with white light. The instant he snapped his fingers, he returned to human shape, and clothes instantly clung to his body.
As Pallas took human form, the guard recognized him and saluted. Watching the guard step aside, Pallas posed a question.
“But why?”
‘I beg your pardon?’
“You were here before, weren’t you? In the Annex.”
‘…….’
Lost in thought for only a moment, Na Bom stared into empty air and spoke as if murmuring to himself.
‘I don’t know. For some reason, I don’t know, but someone……’
“Someone you want to meet,” Pallas finished, his words flowing naturally after Na Bom’s.
He let the sentence hang in the air.
At the faint smile that had settled on his lips, Na Bom felt a strange unease.
Pallas seemed to know—to understand that primal impulse roiling inside him, that instinct so fierce it was almost an obsession.
“In that case, I’ll help you.”
And so the two of them entered the Annex.
The moment Na Bom’s paws touched the Lobby floor, he was already ascending the stairs. His pace quickened without conscious thought, and by the time he’d regained awareness, he was racing down the Corridor.
Na Bom stopped before a door at the end of the Corridor and glanced back—Pallas was already there, opening the door for him as if he’d been waiting.
Creak. The hinges groaned as the door swung open.
Click. As it shut, silence and darkness fell across the room.
The only light came from a pale shaft filtering through a barely open curtain.
The beam fell across the bed, illuminating the long white hair of a woman lying upon it.
‘…….’
Pallas extended an arm inward, a gesture offering permission to approach. Na Bom hesitated before moving forward.
The woman on the bed did not open her eyes. Neither the sound of the hinges nor the closing door elicited even a twitch. Even when Na Bom drew close to the bedside and rose up on his hind legs, there was no change.
Theodor had introduced the sleeping woman with closed eyes as his wife.
That day she’d woken, as if by promise, but not today. She slept so deeply, so deathly, that watching her made him afraid.
“Lib. You’ve already met her once before. She is Theodor’s wife.”
Theodor’s wife. The mother of Perdi and Louis.
Perdi, who’d spoken of her mother while surveying the Greenhouse. Louis, who’d searched for her mother through sleep-murmured cries.
From the expressions of those two and the state she was in now, it was clear.
Na Bom looked up at Pallas and asked carefully.
‘The Countess doesn’t seem to be in hibernation. Is she ill?’
“Yes. Lib is a polar bear, so she does not hibernate.”
Pallas answered, gazing down at Lib.
“It’s not an ordinary illness, but if we must call it sickness, then sick she is.”
‘……May I ask what that means?’
Na Bom posed the question with even greater care than before.
Neither the grizzly bears nor anyone else in the castle had ever told him about her.
The Countess, lying endlessly in a small, lightless room in the Annex.
There was clearly something difficult to speak of—something burdened with sorrow.
It wasn’t appropriate for an outsider like him to pry into such matters.
Yet despite such hesitation, Pallas began to answer with perfect composure.
“A Curse. It’s the Curse that returns upon those who break an Oath.”
Na Bom’s eyes widened.
In the original work, the Oath had been introduced as a double-edged sword.
One gains tremendous power simply by swearing an Oath, but failing to uphold it brings the Curse back upon oneself.
He recalled reading that the Curse is not a disease—and therefore nearly impossible to cure.

“I, Theodor Grizzly, do swear that I will inflict no harm whatsoever upon the life within my arms.”

‘It’s the same as the Oath the Master made to me.’
Na Bom’s grip tightened on the bed sheet beneath his paws.
Now that he saw with his own eyes someone lying in sickbed as punishment for breaking an Oath, the true danger of such vows became visceral and real.
“So you already knew about Oaths. Did Theodor explain them to you?”
‘N—No, I asked Heinz.’
Since he’d only known about it from the original work, Na Bom quickly deflected. At his words, Pallas simply nodded with an easy “Hmm, I see,” and accepted the explanation. Na Bom quickly pressed forward with a new question.
‘What Oath did the Countess break?’
—…….
This time, Pallas did not answer immediately. He gazed down at Na Bom for a moment, then turned his gaze back to Lib and slowly opened his mouth.
“An Oath. To protect a child—the youngest daughter.”
Pallas’s voice dropped to a low whisper.
Na Bom slowly turned to look at him.
The youngest daughter? Didn’t Theodor have only two children—Perdi and Louis?
The moment that thought crossed his mind, Na Bom remembered something.

“From now on, this room shall be your chamber, young Snowflake.”

The bed that had been set down as he was told this. A small room, made for a demi-human, bearing the marks of long use.
“Coco Grizzly, the youngest daughter of the Grizzly Household, died when she was still so young she hadn’t yet undergone Humanization.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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