The Baby Bear of the Black Fox Mansion - Chapter 11

The words written in red were deeply unsettling.
He couldn’t fathom why the household had changed so suddenly.
Whether they’d finally unleashed what they’d been suppressing all this time, or whether another fox family had orchestrated this……
His turbulent thoughts—so loud just moments before—went silent all at once, as if the child had read them aloud.
Without thinking, he spoke.
“Just what are you, little bear?”
Zerpeon murmured softly.
Tilt.
Miel tilted her head and spread one soil-covered hand wide.
“Miel! Five years old, a panda looking for mommy and daddy!”
…….
Zerpeon’s eyes widened in startled surprise, then he let out a small laugh.
“I see.”
“Yes.”
“Then this five-year-old panda child should wash up and come back. After that, we’ll have a meal.”
“Okaaay….”
“Siril, would you help, please?”
“Of course. This way, miss?”
“Yep.”
Miel had been scurrying after Siril when she suddenly stopped in her tracks.
Then she whirled around, ran back to Zerpeon, and pressed a Bear Bead and a flower into his hands.
“You gotta hold this real tight and keep it right here.”
…….
He smiled faintly.
Under normal circumstances, he would have dismissed it lightly.
Especially now, when he had so much to do and no shortage of troubles weighing on his mind.
Endless problems stacked before him.
So why was it?
For some reason, in this moment, he wanted only to listen to what this child had to say.
And so Zerpeon simply nodded, readily and without hesitation.
“All right.”
“Yep!”
The smoke that had been curling upward drifted far away from Zerpeon.
Miel, who had witnessed this much, disappeared into the bathroom in a flash.
Even as Siril scrubbed Miel clean and she emerged puffing steam before affixing a bandage to her cheek, Zerpeon did not move from his seat.
* * *
“This bastard summons people like he’s bored out of his mind.”
Tsk.
The man buried in snow glanced at the letter delivered by the gray fox, clicking his tongue in irritation.
He pulled himself free from the snow.
Zeros Nordic.
In the harshest reaches of the Northern Empire’s end, he was the black sheep of the Snowmark Family, who ruled the north.
His snow-white hair and honey-colored eyes that gleamed even against the snowfield caught the gaze like little else could.
“A debt, is it.”
It seemed the chance had finally come to sever this damned, stubborn bond between them.
All because he’d saved the man’s life once—and how that favor had been thrown in his face ever since.
The few times he’d agreed to help were met with dismissals: “Is this worth a life?” followed by payment and the door slamming in his back.
“This will be the last time he can use me for free, I’d wager.”
The man rose and stretched languidly, his back cracking.
He was a tremendous specimen.
Nearly two meters tall, with muscles so substantial that the trees beside him seemed to shrink into insignificance.
In the moment he lowered his body into a crouch, it began.
His form exploded into fur and sinew, and where a man had knelt, a colossal predator rose.
A low growl rumbled from deep within.
A snow leopard—exaggerating only slightly—nearly the size of a small house.
Whoosh.
The snow leopard exhaled a sharp breath through its nostrils and launched itself forward on four legs, vanishing from sight in an instant.
* * *
[Fine weather today.]
[Hey, I’m bored out of my skull.]
[You ought to mind your manners instead of running your mouth like that.]
[Oh, look at the butler’s language going to pieces now that the bear cub is gone. Is this how a proper butler conducts himself?]
[Mind your own tongue. And what butler serves in a hovel barely the size of a closet?]
Tsk.
At the Head Maid’s remark, a man in a shabby tailcoat turned his head and clicked his tongue.
[I miss our young mistress.]
A Maid crouched in the corner, dressed in threadbare servant’s attire, spoke up.
The Maid’s face remained expressionless throughout, and though her voice was monotone, the longing in it ran deep and genuine.
Their bodies were translucent, and unless the old cabin’s owner returned, they could not reconnect with the world beyond—not again.
It would be their time alone once more.
[Only two years has it been? Children grow so quickly. Already leaving home like this…….]
[Well, anyone can see it’s not a proper departure—it’s an outright runaway.]
[Do you think they’re all right? I thought surely they’d get lost on the way back within days.]
The Maid’s muttering drew disapproving clicks from the Head Maid and the Butler.
[Isn’t it because of those damned bear cubs?]
Someone parted the undergrowth and emerged.
The “self-proclaimed Caretaker” who supposedly maintained the surrounding trees—always wearing a straw hat and carrying long-handled Pruning Shears—made his appearance.
A sturdy, rough-looking man in a worn apron.
[Ah, our master has arrived.]
[You’re still his descendant, whether you speak that way or not.]
[That’s so, that’s so~]
The Head Maid and Butler spoke, and the Maid offered her agreement in her flat voice.
[I never raised my children this way! Worthless little beasts. If I’d had flesh and bone, I’d have torn out their brains and given them a proper education from scratch.]
[You’d have torn their heads off. How crude…….]
[What?]
[Oh, slip of the tongue. My apologies.]
The toneless voice offered an apology devoid of any genuine remorse.
The Caretaker furrowed his brow and sighed heavily.
[Still, I do worry. I hope they haven’t gotten stuck in a mudslide…… or fallen for some honeycake trap…… they have such a pure side to them, after all….]
At the Head Maid’s words, the Caretaker, arms folded, let out a scoffing laugh.
[Foolish? Our child may be innocent, but they’re no fool. As if they’d fall for something that simple. Even if a fox came prowling, they wouldn’t be taken in. Drop the notion that every bear is dimwitted.]
[…….]
[And don’t worry. I’ve taught her everything there is to teach. She’s even mastered the language.]
The Caretaker, having built up the moment with great flourish, spoke while gazing at the sky.
The Butler, who had been quietly studying the gravestones not far from the Old Cabin, opened his mouth regardless.
[But now that you mention it, I just remembered—weren’t you teaching her rather archaic speech? The inscriptions on the more recent gravestones use a language that’s somewhat different from ours…….]
[…….]
[…….]
Suddenly, silence fell over everything.
The two of them, recalling how earnestly they had taught what they called “picture study,” began to gaze wordlessly toward the distant mountains.
Come to think of it, the child had mentioned that the letters written in the Fairy Tale Book she held so dearly seemed oddly crooked.

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