I Became A Squirrel Seeking For The Villain [EN]: Chapter 11

“Mother, are you alright?”

In the carriage leaving the Hylard estate, Meriel held her mother Sienna’s hand, asking worriedly.

“You must be tired from talking about Yurika after so long.”

Duchess Sienna Medest sighed instead of answering.

Then, she coughed a few times, suppressing it. These days, her health was steadily declining.

“Mother…….”

“On days like these, I really miss your father…….”

Duke Medest had gone missing in action a few years ago.

The southern war showed no signs of ending, and news of the fallen nobles kept arriving one after another. Missing in action was common, and it was practically considered a death sentence.

Even at the Hylard estate they had just visited, it seemed they expected news of Duke Hylard’s death to arrive someday.

“Your father is a strong man…….”

At Sienna’s words, Meriel’s eyes welled up with tears, and she lowered her head.

Both Sienna and Meriel were kind and beautiful, but they were too faint-hearted to survive in these turbulent times.

“Yurika might have resembled your father… If I had known this would happen, I wouldn’t have had her baptized.”

Duke Medest had the opposite personality of his wife and daughter; he was brave, intelligent, and even a bit prickly.

He was a skilled warrior, especially accurate when throwing his main weapon, the spear.

The second daughter, Yurika, resembled her father; she didn’t cry much as a child, was brave, and played well on her own.

But they lost her after raising her for only a year.

“We don’t know, Mother.”

Meriel patted Sienna’s thin hand, saying,

“Yurika might be alive somewhere.”

It was an empty consolation. They had heard no news of Yurika since the band of thieves took her.

“I wish she would come back to us before the war ends…….”

Meriel’s sigh mixed with her words in the carriage.

With wavy golden hair, lovely pink eyes, beautiful features, and a graceful demeanor, Meriel had been praised as the most beautiful woman in the empire since she was young.

And now, at sixteen, she was growing more beautiful day by day, living up to those expectations.

Moreover, regardless of the praise around her, she was always gentle, kind, and considerate to everyone.

However, in the midst of the ongoing chaotic war, the combination of excessive beauty and a faint-hearted nature was more of a liability.

“Because I don’t know what will happen to me after that…….”

After receiving news of Duke Medest’s disappearance, Meriel, as the only daughter, was originally supposed to enlist in the army.

But the empire found a much better use for Meriel Medest.

“I will give the Medest family a choice. Either one person enlists immediately, or…….”

The Emperor gave her a choice at Duke Medest’s funeral.

“The Medest heiress marries the hero who ends the war.”

Meriel and Sienna had no choice.

At that time, Meriel was thirteen years old and had no talent for martial arts. She didn’t resemble her father at all.

After losing Yurika, Sienna was always ill, and Meriel didn’t want to leave her mother alone and go to the battlefield.

So, instead of enlisting immediately, Meriel decided to accept a future marriage she couldn’t even imagine.

Whoever the war hero was, she had to marry him.

Whether he was old, a slave, or already married, even as a concubine.

If the war hero was a woman, she would marry a man from that woman’s family.

In any case, the Medest family was a prestigious and great noble family that everyone wanted to marry into.

Thus, Meriel, the most beautiful woman in the empire, was ultimately marked as a commodity of war.

It was one of the Emperor’s many attempts to end the war quickly.

‘Well, it’s my choice, so I can’t help it…….’

Meriel thought, looking out the distant window. Her pink eyes calmly sank.

‘…I hope I can find Yurika before that. In case I have to leave far away…….’

Something fell onto Meriel’s hand as she was lost in thought.

It was a hair pin with tangled golden threads.

‘Ah, I pulled out a golden thread and gave it to Blackie.’

A slight smile appeared on Meriel’s lips as she recalled the cute squirrel.

The plump figure walking on the table, the ankle she held out when she tied the golden thread, the head tilting with a big ribbon tied around it, the intelligent-looking black eyes.

‘He was really cute… I want to see him again…….’

Ella, who pretended to be elegant but kept asking about the inside story, Tezen, who only boasted about being a great wizard, and Johan, who only ate without any presence, exuding a gloomy atmosphere.

Today’s dinner at the Hylard estate was truly the worst, but seeing Blackie was really good.

Meriel sighed softly, stroking the golden thread.

That night, as usual, there was a knock-knock sound.

“You don’t have to knock.”

Johan couldn’t help but smile as he saw the squirrel sticking its head out through the open window.

“Just come anytime, without hesitation.”

The squirrel, who was called ‘Blackie’ throughout dinner, no longer had that uncomfortable-looking big ribbon around its neck.

However, the thin golden thread that Meriel had tied was still there, shimmering even in the darkness.

“I’ll always be waiting for you.”

The squirrel didn’t hesitate and scurried into his room, sitting familiarly on his bedside.

It seemed to want him to lie down comfortably and receive treatment.

Johan took a moment to catch his breath, looking at the squirrel staring at him with bright eyes.

“Ah.”

The squirrel patted the pillow as if urging him to come quickly, and Johan slowly headed to the bed.

“Kyugyung.”

“You’re going to leave when it’s all over anyway. Let’s start slowly.”

Johan gently stroked the squirrel’s head with his index finger, as if appeasing it.

“I don’t have any other beast… no, anyone else to have this kind of conversation with besides you.”

The squirrel’s eyes narrowed instantly when he momentarily called it a beast.

It seemed to really think of itself as a human.

‘Well, it is human.’

Johan smiled slightly, watching the squirrel puffing out its cheeks with an angry expression.

“Are you upset? Sorry.”

“Kyung.”

“I’m really sorry… I’ve never communicated with anyone else, so I’m a bit clumsy with conversations, huh?”

“…Kyukung.”

The squirrel nodded as if forgiving him, drooping its tail.

It was as planned.

Apparently, this squirrel was weak to pity, as if it were a divine beast.

In that case, how pitiful was Johan today?

Everyone else was dressed in their best clothes and made up, while he was stuck in between them in completely shabby attire.

It was the perfect environment to stimulate the squirrel’s sympathy.

‘But… why was I so miserable?’

Johan thought, carefully stroking the squirrel’s back along its stripes.

He wasn’t miserable at all in front of Meriel, the most beautiful woman on the continent, but he became miserable after the squirrel came into Tezen’s arms.

The fact that the squirrel wasn’t his… the fact that he couldn’t even tie a golden thread for the squirrel…….

He felt a little better only when Tezen said, ‘This divine beast won’t be able to humanize, because divine beasts instinctively dislike humanization.’

It was because of the thought that he and the squirrel shared a secret that no one else in the world could guess.

‘But the divine beast doesn’t want to humanize? If it’s the official position of the temple, they wouldn’t lie… Why did the squirrel have a pretty happy expression when it humanized?’

Of course, it was difficult to solve that question.

But since it was about the squirrel, he wanted to remember even the slightest strange thing. So that he could find out more later.

‘The fact that Tezen sold the divine beast itself means that the temple is a bit suspicious. A normal temple wouldn’t judge that a guy like Tezen needs a divine beast.’

And as he thought of the humanized squirrel, a thought naturally came to mind.

‘Meriel Medest… she wasn’t that beautiful.’ It was a thought that would shock the people of the continent.

‘I’m sorry to name the squirrel after that woman.’

In fact, he had been thinking about the squirrel’s name all day, but nothing pleased him.

So he decided to take two letters from the name of Meriel, the most beautiful woman on the continent.

The names Mary and Riel, which he proposed, were all rejected by the squirrel.

But now he was grateful that he was rejected.

‘Pretty and cute is still……’

He blushed for a moment as he recalled the round pink eyes in the light brown hair scattered on the bed sheets.

“Kyuhwoong.”

The squirrel had its hands on its waist with a stern expression, as if it still needed to start the treatment quickly.