I Became the Emergency Food Supply of the Bear Family - Chapter 32

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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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Episode 32

Lib threw herself forward without a sound.
Arrowheads grazed and pierced her arms, shoulders, and back, yet she felt no pain. In that moment when she reached out her arms toward her daughter.
An arrow slipped between her fingers and lodged in Coco’s leg.
In that instant when time seemed to stop, Lib’s pale arms wrapped around Coco’s body a fraction too late.
Coco. No. What should have been her voice came out as urgent, ragged breath against Coco’s blanched face.
“Keep shooting!”
“Dead or alive, it doesn’t matter! Bring her to the master!”
Excited voices cut through the clash of swords. Lib trembled uncontrollably as she shielded Coco deeper into her arms.
———!
Lib’s enraged roar shattered through the forest. The terrified attackers froze where they stood, one by one.
In that brief moment, the polar bear that had launched from the ground tore into one of them. The death cry was cut short before it had even begun. Another one. And another. The furious bear’s claws raked through them with savage brutality.
After dispatching the last attacker, Lib collapsed.
She heard the knights calling out to her in urgency, but her attention remained only on her daughter. The sensation was draining from her limbs where she touched Coco. This was, undoubtedly.
Poison. Quickly, quickly—Coco……!
Lib gritted her teeth and forced herself to her feet. The arrowheads were poisoned—there was no doubt.
Rolling through the snow with a body succumbing to numbness, Lib barely reached the castle.
The court physician’s treatment proved insufficient.
Coco was gone from the world.
The moment Coco’s breathing ceased, the backlash of the Oath began.
From that day forward, Lib would never be able to speak to or touch the people she loved.
“Mom, I’m sorry.”
Before Lib, who lay exhausted on the floor of Coco’s room, Louis knelt and wept.
“If I hadn’t thrown a tantrum that morning, we would have left sooner and made it to the Arctic safely, and I—I’m the reason this happened.”
Without meeting Lib’s eyes, Louis blamed himself through his tears, his voice breaking. Lib reached out toward him without thinking.
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
Tears streaming down his face, Louis lifted his head and reached out his own arms. It was the natural gesture of a beloved family member—to hold each other close, to share their sorrow through tears and embrace.
But the moment their fingertips touched, Lib hastily knocked away his arms.
Tears traced down Louis’s cheeks. In the boy’s eyes fixed on Lib, she saw confusion and hurt.
The instant her skin made contact with Louis’s, a terrible pain like someone wrenching her heart seized her. In that same moment, she understood instinctively: the Curse could affect not only herself, but the people she loved as well.
If she could not touch them, then at least she wanted to convey it through her voice—that it was absolutely, absolutely not his fault.
But as if someone had stolen her very vocal cords, no matter how hard she tried to force the words out, no sound came.
After that, Lib’s mother came to the estate upon hearing the news.
As her mother stood over the body of her dead granddaughter laid in bed, tenderly stroking the leg that had been pierced by an arrow, her tears falling freely, Lib found herself collapsing once more.
For the first time in years, meeting her mother—yet unable to offer words of comfort, unable to fall into her embrace—Lib could only weep alongside her.
…….
Watching his wife and mother-in-law in such anguish, Theodore bit down on his lower lip.
His clenched fist trembled precariously.

Four days after Coco’s death, on a certain night, Theodore vanished.
He was not to be found anywhere in Grizzly Castle. He had left the estate without a single knight as escort, without a carriage, without even a sleigh.
Lib searched his chambers and study, tracking Theodore’s movements.
It was there, among scattered papers on the study desk, that she found a clue.
「The conspirators who killed Coco were not musk deer beastkin, but hyena beastkin. They had deliberately concealed their scent by wearing reversed musk deer hides.」
「They were lying in wait. They knew Lib and Coco would pass through that location at that precise time. Had they received a tip? Is there a traitor in the Arctic? We must suspect the North as well.」
「Who was the master these hyenas served?」
「Dead or alive, no matter—they needed to take her. What they wanted was the body of a bear cub. Why?」
Such hurried notes lay beside a map.
Circular marks were drawn throughout the map, and one region marked in red caught the eye.
Beneath the red circle in the Western Empire, Theodore’s handwriting was visible.
「Leopard beastkin. Known to employ hyena beastkin as mercenaries. Region where the superstition exists that consuming the young of beastkin allows one to absorb their animal strength.」
Leopard beastkin in the Western Empire.
“……Pantera Marquis House.”
The moment those words escaped Lib’s lips, a quiet voice struck from behind her.
“That’s right.”
She turned at the sound of the voice she had been searching for, and there stood Theodore.
“Such an absurd reason. It was exactly that.”
Leaning against the wall with his head bowed, his hair hung matted and disheveled. Theodore lifted his head. His hair, his face, his clothes—all were drenched in blood.
Theodore’s golden eyes, fixed on Lib, were vacant and hollow. Lib understood at once. He had committed murder.
With eyes so exhausted they defied explanation, Theodore looked at her and spoke but one sentence.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
…….
Lib stood motionless where she was, watching only as Theodore’s back receded into the distance.
Those were the words she had wanted to tell Louis, to tell Ferdi, to tell Theodore, to tell her mother.
To anyone else, they would not have mattered. But to her, they were words she was never meant to receive.
Belatedly, she went after Theodore. She found him in Coco’s room.
Theodore was gently touching the rails of Coco’s bed, speaking quietly to the child who was not there.
“I’m sorry.”
Without lifting his head, he spoke again.
“I’m sorry I was late.”
That night, Theodore returned, having killed those responsible for Coco’s death.
He could not remember how they had held her funeral.
The Oath had been made with his life on the line to protect his beloved daughter, and so the backlash contained a Curse connected to ‘life’ itself.
A person can only live their life while they are conscious.
From the day her daughter died, Lib fell into an inescapable sleep that came without warning or schedule. She would cry until she hyperventilated at the funeral, only to collapse suddenly onto the ground and slip into unconsciousness.
Only the servants whom Lib had always cherished could move her. But there were scarcely any such people in Grizzly Castle. In the end, they had to hire new servants simply to care for Lib.
Beyond the burden this placed on her staff, the sight of her family’s expressions—crumbling each time they saw her—was more painful than anything.
At last, Lib resolved not to leave the annex. Unless something extraordinary occurred, she would see neither her husband nor her children.
And so she chose to live out her days, slowly dying.
Mercifully, the sleep continued to pour down upon her.
Though impossible in waking life, in her dreams she could meet her daughter. Watching the small, white bear running through the snow, when she opened her eyes, it felt like a moment of happiness—however brief.
Even knowing it was all falsehood and illusion.
So dying like this would not be so difficult.
Soon she would be able to go meet Coco.

***

Lib slowly opened her eyes.
Warmth radiated from her right arm, and when she turned her head, a small, white creature was clinging to it.
This was.
At this strange situation, Lib’s brow furrowed. Could it be that she had died? And finally, finally met Coco?
“……Coco?”
The moment that longed-for name left her lips, she felt a wrongness and reached up to touch her lips with her fingertips.
The Curse is gone because I died. I could call her name.
Lib tried to sit up. After so long without moving, even pushing herself up on the bed was difficult, but she grunted and struggled. She wanted to embrace Coco so badly.
Only after observing the white creature more closely did she realize it was not a baby polar bear.
“This child is…….”
The moment Lib whispered this, the rabbit’s ears twitched. Just as she wondered if it was waking, the creature’s body suddenly began to glow with white light.
That familiar light.
The light of 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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