The Snow Leopard Baby of the Black Leopard Family - Chapter 264

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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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Special Side Story 14
How had it come to this?
If Raven was happy, then Runa was happy too.
So she’d only meant to show him the pretty Pond and make him delighted.
“Yelp…….”
Splash!
It seemed the problem was that Runa had gotten far too excited.
This was the first time she’d played with a child her own age outside the Imperial Palace, so she’d been too thrilled to be careful…….
Runa thrashed her legs in the water. Pond water poured into her mouth.
But her feet didn’t touch the bottom, and Runa didn’t know how to swim well.
Glub-glub.
Just as Runa, having swallowed a mouthful of water, was sinking to the pond’s bottom.
Something flashed before her eyes.
It looked like a flame, or perhaps like some jewel shining within the water.
And at the same time.
Whoosh.
Splash-splash!
A hand entered the pond and seized the sinking Runa’s body, yanking her up sharply.
“Your Highness! Are you all right?”
“Lady Runa!”
In the distance, the Asterian servants and the Imperial Palace guards came rushing over with blanched faces. Runa, clutched by someone’s hand, coughed up water.
“Hack, cough!”
The panicked child hadn’t even thought to release her Beast Transformation.
As Runa spat out water, she slowly cracked open her eyes and looked at her rescuer.
Raven, his face drained of color, was helping the water out of her lungs by patting her back with trembling hands.
And beside him was the Salamander……
‘Wait?’
The Salamander?
The Salamander had certainly been very small.
It was only about the size of a lizard at most.
But the Salamander now beside Raven was far too large to be called a lizard.
‘More like…… a cat?’
It was about the size of a cat. The Salamander, too, seemed startled, staring quietly at Raven and Runa.
“…….”
“…….”
“Lady Runa…… are you all right?”
Raven asked, wiping Runa’s wet fur with his sleeve. Runa stopped struggling with her front paws and pointed at the Salamander.
“Whimper…….”
“Yes?”
“Huh……?”
Meanwhile, a maid standing beside them and fidgeting took Runa into her arms.
“Oh dear, my young Highness…… are you all right?”
She shot Raven a sharp look.
“You……! You weren’t watching carefully!”
Of course it was Raven’s fault for not being more careful.
But Raven was still young, and Runa had bounded away and fallen in of her own volition, so it was hard to scold him.
“No, it’s my fault.”
Even though Runa had insisted on going that way, she shouldn’t have gone so far.
Runa’s independence was perhaps excessively strong—that was the real problem.
She already disliked having the maids and knights around her, and worry gnawed at him about how much she’d hate such things when she grew older.
“Grumble…….”
Runa scraped at the maid’s arms with her front paws. It meant: don’t scold Raven.
The maid, somehow understanding, nodded. In truth, they too thought Raven bore no real fault.
Since they were allowing young children to play freely, the adults should have watched more carefully.
“You must be chilled? Come, let’s go to a warm place and dry you off. You come too, Raven.”
It was just as the maid turned to carry Runa away.
Crackle-crackle-crackle!
Responding to the maid’s words, the Salamander suddenly blazed red. As the sizeable Salamander conjured flames, the air around them grew warm in an instant.
“Huh……?”
Not only the maid but also the guards who’d rushed over in alarm looked that way.
The Salamander was staring intently at Runa. Raven looked from Runa to the Salamander once each before asking.
“Are you trying to dry the Highness’s body?”
The Salamander couldn’t speak, but it seemed capable of expressing intent, as it spun in place.
Crackle-crackle-crackle!
As flames erupted more powerfully from the Salamander’s body, Runa, thrilled beyond measure, struggled in the maid’s arms.
“Oh, Lady Runa!”
“Chirp!”
In the end, Runa slipped right out of the maid’s grasp and stood squarely before the Salamander.
The flames were not hot but warm.
‘It won’t hurt me.’
Even if the Salamander conjured far stronger flames, not a single hair on her would burn.
Runa carefully raised her fluffy front paw and gently tapped the Salamander.
In turn, the Salamander lifted one of its four legs from the ground and touched Runa’s front paw.
“……!”
The Salamander could communicate telepathically with a Beast-kin?
With someone not its master?
Then, the Salamander’s voice flowed into Runa’s mind.

That was certainly the Salamander’s voice.

Runa didn’t even possess a Flame Ability.
So how could she understand the Salamander’s words?
The moment that question flickered through her mind, the Salamander’s voice flowed in once more.

Then Runa understood.
That hand in the water had been Raven’s, and the light had been the Salamander’s!
Both had entered the water to protect Runa.
Runa gently stroked the Salamander’s head with her front paw.
‘Protect me?’

The Salamander’s voice flowed ceaselessly into her mind.
In that moment, Runa felt that she and this Salamander were connected by something very special—a power or magic.
Of course, this didn’t mean Runa had gained any Ability of her own.
But.
‘I made a friend…….’
Whoosh.
Runa’s face brightened in an instant. It was hard to believe this was the child who’d just been soaking wet from falling into the pond moments before.
‘A friend!’
Runa lifted her head and looked at Raven, her mouth curved in a beaming smile.
“!”
Raven flinched at the sight of Runa, but then nodded to her.
Runa was delighted by all of this.
The Salamander’s voice, Raven’s worry.
If she could gain such things, she felt she’d be willing to fall into the pond any number of times.
***
“Runa!”
Before Runa, forcibly dragged away by the maids, could be lowered into the bath, Tiel entered.
She looked at Runa once, then at the somewhat larger Salamander beside her.
“……?”
Was this the Salamander that had been following Runa around?
‘But isn’t it a bit large?’
Tiel knew Cassius’s special Salamander well.
Cassius’s Salamander was small like any other Salamander. Small enough to fit in a pocket.
But the current Salamander was nearly the size of a dog or cat. It didn’t seem like it would fit in a pocket at all.
What could have happened in the meantime?
Watching the Salamander with curiosity, Tiel lifted Runa into her arms. There were soap bubbles clinging to her fluffy front paws.
“You fell into the Pond, I hear—are you all right?”
“Whimper…….”
“Mother told you not to go to dangerous places.”
Runa nodded earnestly. It meant she was sorry.
“My goodness…….”
Tiel sighed in relief and carefully lowered Runa into the bath water.
The tiny, soaked lion cub closed her eyes in contentment the moment she sank into the warm water.
“Lady Tiel, we’ll take over from here!”
“Oh, please do. Thank you.”
Tiel handed Runa over to the practiced hands of the maids and stepped back.
Patter-patter.
Then the Salamander, which had been standing beside Runa, pressed itself against Tiel’s side.
“Does Father know about this?”
Tiel murmured seriously, looking at the enormous Salamander.
The Salamander usually borrowed power from the one who’d cast the Ability, so Cassius should certainly know.
But if he didn’t?
‘It said it had become an Independent Entity.’
Then did it mean the Salamander had grown to this size by burning on its own, rather than borrowing power?
Tiel, with an uncertain expression, gently stroked the Salamander’s head.
The Salamander, pleased, warmed her body from beneath her palm.

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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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