Isaac had been on duty for a full 24 hours since the previous night. Having finally returned and fallen into a dead sleep, he vaguely registered the sound of whispering voices drifting into his ears.

His roommate, Hoden, had said he’d be spending the night at his lover’s place, meaning Isaac should be the only one in the room. Where were the voices coming from? Was it a dream? Drifting in and out of consciousness, Isaac half-listened to the tiny voices that seemed to be murmuring from somewhere incredibly close, and tried to fall back asleep.

‘Is this the one?’

‘Yeah. Look at the royal guard uniform hanging over there. He definitely works at the palace.’

‘Whoa. Even if he’s only a half-blood, he’s still a…… How could he, of all places, choose to walk right into the den where those bastards prowl?’

‘Maybe the kid’s an idiot.’

‘Poor thing.’

‘Pitiful, isn’t it.’

‘That’s exactly why we, in all our greatness, should take him under our wing.’

‘Count me out. Why should someone as noble as myself stoop to babysitting a kid like him?’

‘You must look down upon the lowly with boundless grace! Noblesse oblige! Can’t you imagine how much the poor, dim-witted boy has suffered surviving this cruel world? Don’t you feel sorry for him?’

‘True. And though he may be lacking in brains, he did dutifully offer us tribute. We ought to show him some pity. Besides, with him…… maybe……’

‘Exactly. He works at the palace. So just maybe, he could retrieve the——for us.’

‘Yes, yes, we need it. It belonged to us in the first place.’

‘We must get it back. Only by getting it back can we return.’

Annoyed by the relentless chatter, Isaac, who had been trying to sleep with a pillow pressed over his head, suddenly shot up. Just as he was about to yell out in frustration, he locked eyes with Hoden, who flinched mid-way through taking off his shirt right in front of him.

“Wh-what is it? Why so sudden? Weren’t you sleeping?”

“……. Are you alone?”

“Huh?”

Sitting blankly on his bed in his room, which was as quiet and peaceful as ever, Isaac stared at Hoden before scratching his unruly, bird’s-nest hair. Outside the window, the sun had already risen, bathing the world in bright light, accompanied only by the chirping of sparrows. Occasionally, a cat meowed from below the window, likely eyeing the sparrows as a tasty snack. Other than that, it was a quiet, tranquil morning, exactly like any other.

“Someone kept chattering right next to me…… Guess it was just a dream. Did you just get in? Have a good time with Aire?” 

“You bet. Aside from the rain ruining my plan to share a drink on the terrace while gazing at the full moon, it was perfect. But what about you? Weren’t you complaining about catching a cold? Why were you sleeping with the window wide open?”

Judging by how deeply in love he was and how often he stayed out all night, it seemed likely Hoden would be getting married soon. He clicked his tongue as he threw the rickety, broken-latched window wide open.

The old wooden building, used as a boarding house by a few poor young men from the countryside, had been a church up until a decade ago. Opening the window offered a direct view of overgrown graves. It was fine during the day, but at night, it was quite eerie; even burly young men would pack up and move to a different lodging the moment they saved up enough money. Now, only four or five people, including Isaac, lived in this run-down, ruined building.

“I closed it before I went to sleep. The wind must have blown it open. Ugh, my aching bones……”

Isaac pounded his lower back and massaged his shoulders, shaking his heavy head. He needed to get up if he didn’t want to be late for morning training. He would have loved nothing more than to take the whole day off to rest, but a lowly private of the royal guard didn’t have the luxury of resting whenever he pleased.

“You know, you get ridiculously exhausted sometimes for no apparent reason. Usually about once a month…… Are you secretly a witch? They say witches lose all their energy and become powerless every full moon. What do you think? Are you scared? Scared yet?”

Hoden giggled, playfully waving a cross in front of Isaac’s face. Isaac dryly swatted it away.

“As if there are any witches left in this country. It’s been decades since they started hunting them down with bloodshot eyes, killing every single one they find.”

“Well, the royal family’s curse hasn’t been lifted yet, which means there must still be some left, right? Besides, you still hear rumors of a witch being caught every now and then.”

“Yeah, like beans growing in a drought*.”

(*가뭄에 콩 나듯: Like beans growing in a drought. Which is equivalent to the English phrase ‘Once in a blue moon.’)

“Tsk. Still, if you managed to catch just one, the bounty would be astronomical.”

Getting out of bed, Isaac walked past a regretful-sounding Hoden and headed toward the window. The meowing from beneath the window grew louder, and suddenly, a black cat leaped lightly onto the windowsill.

“Gah! Is that thing back? I swear, that cat has eyes the size of lanterns…”

Without giving so much as a glance to Hoden, who was clutching his chest in surprise, the cat stared unblinkingly at Isaac with its enormous, piercing eyes, meowing insistently.

“See, what did I tell you? I told you not to feed it in the first place. Now it’s going to show up every single day. You’re in trouble now.”

“It’s fine. Honestly…… the more I look at it, the cuter it is.”

“It’s pitch-black with eyes the size of lanterns. What’s cute about it?”

“Its paw prints.”

Letting Hoden’s grumbling about his weird taste in cuteness go in one ear and out the other, Isaac pulled a piece of dried jerky from his rations basket and tossed it. The cat swiftly caught the jerky in its jaws and vanished out the window without a backward glance.

It hadn’t been long since he first gave food to that unusually large-eyed black cat. That is, if he could even call it ‘giving’ food.

Returning late from duty one evening, Isaac had placed a roll of bread and a sausage on a plate for dinner. He stepped away just for a moment to wash his hands, but when he returned, the sausage had vanished into thin air.

Staring at the glaringly empty plate, Isaac looked around in bewilderment. That was when he locked eyes with a cat slipping out through the crack of the open window. A sausage was clamped between its teeth. With its lantern-like eyes wide open, the cat froze mid-stride, one front paw hovering in the air, looking like a statue. They stared at each other for a long moment.

‘……’

With a sigh, Isaac figured he would just have to make do with the bread to tide over his hunger. “Yeah, you must be starving too. Go on, get out of here,” he said, waving the cat away. The cat stared at him intensely for a second before swiftly vanishing out the window. Isaac thought that would be the end of it.

But boy, was he wrong.

From that day on, the cat showed up with brazen frequency to extort food from him. It would snatch up a meal he had set out the second he turned his back, or it would sit there, glaring at him with those intense, massive eyes, yowling persistently until Isaac handed something over. There was truly no better word for it than extortion.

They say an excess of goodwill breeds entitlement, this seemed to be living proof.

Chewing on a piece of jerky for breakfast, Isaac began to get ready to leave. Hoden, who had stepped into their attached washroom, immediately popped back out. “The drain is clogged again. I swear, I need to save up and get out of this dump,” he grumbled, storming out toward the communal washroom in the hall.

Left alone, Isaac decided he would just wash his face quickly once he reported for duty at the palace. As he was changing his clothes, his eyes landed on the cross Hoden had left behind. Picking up the small cross attached to the end of the necklace, Isaac dangled it right in front of his nose. He quickly lost interest, tossing it onto the windowsill with a click of his tongue.

“What’s so scary about something like this…… It would have to be bathed in full moonlight just to leave a slight burn. Anyway, there are way too many false rumors going around. Though I guess I should be thankful for that.”

* * *

At the sound of the bell signaling lunchtime, the royal guards wrapped up their morning training, wiping away their sweat as they sat beneath the trees to wait. The guards on the morning shift had to finish their meals in the dining hall before the afternoon shift was allowed to eat.

“Ugh, I’m starving. I wish the morning squad would hurry up and get out,” one muttered.

“Hasn’t training been unusually grueling lately?”

“The hunting tournament is just around the corner. Isn’t that why?”

“What does that have to do with lowly grunts like us?”

While chatting and fanning themselves with their hands, the famished guards kept throwing glances toward the dining hall. A few had simply given up and sprawled out on the grass. Isaac, who was lying flat on his back under the blazing sun with a handkerchief draped over his face, was one of them.

“Still, it’s a chance to earn some merit,” another guard chimed in. “Catch a big one, catch the eyes of the higher-ups, and it’s a great stepping stone for a promotion.”

“A promotion…… Honestly, rather than a promotion, I’d just like a fat bounty right now. What was the story again? If you achieve something truly great, doesn’t the King personally take you to his treasure vault to reward you? A long time ago, when Captain Abe subjugated that rogue provincial lord, he got to go inside…… Isn’t that right, Squad Leader?”

“Yeah, that’s right. Captain Abe and Vice-Captain Brown both went in. They said it was…… absolutely mesmerizing,” 

Squad Leader Simon whispered like a sigh, his eyes half-closed in reverie.

Recalling the rumors of the vault, a place said to hold mountains of the world’s greatest treasures, the other guards also stared into the distance with similarly dreamy expressions.

The King’s treasure vault was legendary. It was said to house every rare and wondrous thing in the world: not just gold and jewels, but flying carpets, a goose that laid golden eggs, boots that could cross a thousand leagues in a single step, and countless other marvels.

The rumor that a highly meritorious subject would be personally escorted by the King into the vault to choose whatever they desired held considerable weight, as a select few had actually lived to tell the tale.

“Of course, it’s not exactly easy to achieve the kind of merit required to step foot in there. Most people couldn’t even dream of catching a glimpse of it,” 

Simon added, shaking off his daze with a wistful tone. The other guards, as if waking from a dream, smacked their lips in disappointment.

“Tch. Our King is far too greedy. What’s the harm in letting us just take a look?”

“Exactly. What’s the point of being so greedy anyway? He only gets to live half a life compared to the rest of us.”

“Shh!”

There are things in this world that, even if known to everyone, should never be spoken aloud. Another guard sharply jabbed the ribs of the one who had thoughtlessly grumbled the words. Just as the offending guard snapped his mouth shut, a short, delicate-looking young man walked down the path toward them.

It was a blond youth, pretty enough to catch the eye from a distance. He was wearing the uniform of a royal escort, but it looked strangely different from the standard issue. Upon closer inspection, it was dripping with jewels. From his oversized brooch and cuffs to his belt and the decorative sash on his sword, every single detail was lavish. Combined with his striking features, the young escort looked as glamorous as royalty. Spotting the lowly guards cooling off in the shade, he tilted his chin up arrogantly and breezed right past them.

While the youth passed, it was dead silent beneath the trees. Only after he disappeared down the far end of the path did the ripples of whispering resume.

“Thank the gods. He didn’t hear us. Imagine if that little brat had run off to tattle. You’d have your head chopped off for insulting the royal family before the day was out……”

“Did I say anything untrue? It’s a fact that the King only lives half as long as everyone else. Not just the King, but all the royals.”

“You dumb-ass! That mouth of yours is going to summon a disaster!”

The guard who had been running his mouth finally earned a swift smack to the back from the Squad Leader. As he yelped in pain, the other guards eagerly joined in, delivering a flurry of thumps to his back.

There was no one in the kingdom who did not know that any direct descendant of the royal bloodline was born under a witch’s curse.

Long, long ago, the First King – the progenitor of the current royal family – had slain a witch and plundered her treasures. With her dying breath, the witch laid a curse upon the King. From that day on, the King and all his descendants suffered unimaginable, flesh-tearing, blood-boiling agony every new moon, the night when a witch’s power is at its peak. The curse was passed down through the generations, and unable to endure the mind-shattering torment, countless royals over the centuries either went mad or took their own lives.

An oracle once prophesied that the curse could only be broken if every last witch in the kingdom was eradicated. This sparked a kingdom-wide frenzy of witch hunts and brutal massacres. Yet, even after witches were supposedly driven to extinction, the curse remained. Occasionally, a witch who had been living in hiding would be discovered and executed, but still, the curse persisted.

Eventually, several royals began making pacts with wizards. In exchange for falling into a deep sleep to avoid the agony of the new moon, the royals surrendered half of their time to the wizards. Thus, they lived only half their days awake, spending the other half in slumber.

Even though it meant living a life only half as long as an ordinary person’s, the royals gladly made the pact to escape that horrific torment.

And so the witch’s curse continued to plague the royal family, an open secret that everyone knew but no one dared speak of.

“You’re going to die before the witches do because of that three-inch tongue of yours! If you want to keep breathing, don’t you ever bring that up again! You never know where a loose-lipped brat like that might be listening!” the Squad Leader scolded harshly, delivering one final slap to the guard’s back.

The Squad Leader jerked his chin in the direction the glamorous youth had vanished, prompting the bruised guard to mutter sullenly:

“Even so, that bastard will probably die before I do. What does it matter if he caught a royal’s eye and is getting showered with gold and jewels right now? The one giving him all that wealth and glory is Prince Kyan, and Prince Kyan is the Reaper himse——”

“Okay, that’s it. Gag him.”

The Squad Leader, pale with fright, slapped a hand over the guard’s mouth. Almost instantly, the other guards swarmed him, wrapping a towel around his face and binding him tightly with rope as if they had been waiting for the command. The guard made muffled sounds of protest, but everyone ignored him. Instead, they took turns kicking his backside while whispering fierce threats.

“You idiot, do you really have a death wish? Whose name do you think you’re dragging through the mud?”

“Do you not know the name that must not be spoken? Honestly, if you were drawn and quartered tomorrow, you’d have no right to complain.”

Surrounded by his terrified peers, the bound guard finally seemed to realize the gravity of his mistake. He clamped his mouth shut, his eyes darting around wildly.

Even Isaac, who had been lying in the sun, pulled the handkerchief off his face and subtly scanned their surroundings. Despite the hot sun beating down on his skin, a cold chill ran through him, and he rubbed his arms.

Kyan.

The one who could be spoken of entirely by his first name, without a title. The royal of all royals, the direct and legitimate heir to the current King. Prince Kyan.

“Of course, it’s true that no one who catches His Highness’s eye tends to see the spring last very long……”

“Sure, that brat is living in luxury right now playing the favored paramour, but he won’t last a month…”

“Honestly, he’ll be lucky if he only gets kicked out with his life intact……”

“Right, the boy playing his paramour right before this one died a miserable death, too……”

The guards huddled close, their voices dropping to the barest of whispers.

“Hey, I was the one who had to clean up that corpse. I still have nightmares about it,” one guard muttered with a full-body shudder.

Hearing this, Isaac, who had rolled over to face away from them, pulled the handkerchief back over his face and murmured into the fabric:

“You cleaned up the body, but I was the one who had to dig the grave……”

Because he lived on the grounds of the old church, Isaac was often tasked with digging graves in the front yard for bodies that had nowhere else to go.

Of course, the capital wasn’t so lawless that he was constantly burying murder victims. In fact, the castle town visible from the palace had excellent security; most of the dead were simply elderly folks who had passed of natural causes.

But Isaac had found himself digging a new grave every couple of months starting last year. Ever since Prince Kyan returned to the castle.

The Prince had been away from the capital for over a decade. He had spent all that time in the treacherous mountain ranges of the far western frontier, subjugating wild beasts, monsters, and barbarians that frequently raided the cities. He had tamed and commanded the kingdom’s most ferocious and unruly border troops at an incredibly young age. During those years, the only news that reached the capital from the distant west were glowing rumors praising ‘our terrifyingly brave and youthful Prince.’

Then, astonishingly, last year, their magnificent and glorious Prince ended the long war by severing the head of the thousand-year-old Imugi, the monstrous serpent that ruled the beasts of the western mountains. His legendary name echoing across the land, the Prince finally made his triumphant return to the capital.

And then.

Isaac and the rest of the palace staff quickly realized just how heavily those rumors from the western frontier had been filtered, sanitized, and beautified on their long journey to the capital.

To the commoners outside the castle walls, who never had to interact with royalty, he was still ‘our magnificent and glorious Prince,’ but…

“Is…… he even human……?” someone suddenly muttered.

A chilling silence fell over the group. Even if no one else said it out loud, they were all undoubtedly thinking the exact same thing.

“That royal escort he kept by his side right before this one—the one he practically spent every night with,”

“Let’s call it what it is. Escort, my foot. Does wearing a guard’s uniform make you a guard? As if anyone could actually ‘escort’ His Highness. Does he look like someone who needs protecting?”

“Well, yeah, he was actually a paramour, but the official title was escort. Anyway, who was it again? The one right before this blond kid. You know, the boy who was running errands in the palace, caught His Highness’s eye, and got called up.”

“Martin?”

“Yeah, Martin! For almost two months, His Highness kept him so thoroughly occupied every night that the poor young man could barely walk straight during the day. And then, in the blink of an eye, he just sliced his head clean off.”

“That was his own fault for running his mouth. He babbled some nonsense about how nice it must be to be a witch since they live forever and keep their youth, and how jealous he was of them.”

“That guy was out of his mind. Saying something like that where His Highness could hear? He might as well have begged for death.”

“Hey, but still…… slicing off the head of the boy he was sharing a bed with, just like that, over a single comment……”

“Drop it. You weren’t even there. I, unfortunately, was there. Isaac, you remember, right?”

One of the whispering guards called out to him. Lying a few steps away with the handkerchief still covering his face, Isaac mumbled, “Ah, uhm…”

How could he forget?

Isaac had been on rear garden patrol duty with that very guard. The Prince had been out on the terrace of the detached palace with his ‘escort’ – his paramour. While the boy chattered away cheerfully over tea, the Prince simply flipped the pages of his book, entirely indifferent as to whether he was listening or not.

Isaac had been standing nearby, secretly marveling at how difficult it must be to so dryly ignore the lovely little one chatting so affectionately beside him, when it happened.

‘I can’t even describe how happy I am to spend this time with you, Prince Kyan. If only I could stay like this forever…… If only I could live out my days looking this pretty while receiving your love. Honestly, it makes me jealous of those wicked witches. They say witches can live forever without ever losing their youth……’

At the paramour’s sighing, whispered words, Isaac had flinched inwardly, his eyes darting toward the Prince. Is it really okay to say something like that?

The Prince remained utterly unreadable. He casually turned a page and lifted his teacup for a sip.

There had been rumors that this young man was exceptionally favored, given that the Prince’s paramours usually lasted anywhere from a fortnight to a month, whereas this one had held the position for nearly two. It seemed the young man had believed those rumors too, letting his confidence in the Prince’s affection loosen his tongue enough to playfully bring up witches.

Just as Isaac was quietly breathing a sigh of relief, it happened.

The Prince set down his teacup. Without missing a beat, his hand reached out, drew the sword from the waist of the guard standing right next to him, and cleanly severed the paramour’s neck.

*SHHHK—*

It happened in an instant, with casual fluidity. Through it all, the Prince’s eyes never left the pages of his book, and his expression didn’t shift by even a fraction of an inch. After impassively beheading his paramour, he calmly slid the bloodied blade back into the frozen guard’s scabbard.

Then, exactly as if nothing had happened, he uttered a single command.

‘Clean it up.’

That was it.

That very afternoon, the Prince took a new, pretty royal guard as his escort, and nothing changed. Nothing, except for one more dirt mound with a wooden cross appearing outside Isaac’s window that night.

Isaac pulled the handkerchief down to cover his neck and smacked his lips bitterly. He had been trying so hard to forget the image of a human head flying off right in front of his eyes, but because that idiot brought it up, the memory had resurfaced. Then again, the other guard said he was still having nightmares about it, too.

“That’s why you never bring up witches. Especially in front of him, of all people. There isn’t a single royal who despises witches more than His Highness. Hell, he won’t even associate with wizards because he considers them the same breed. I heard he has terrible blood with the head of the Wizard’s Guild. It’s a good thing the Guild is powerful enough to shoot down a bird in flight, otherwise they’d have been wiped out by his hand long ago.”

“Isn’t he the only royal who hasn’t made a pact with a wizard?”

“Yeah. Said he has no intention of surrendering his time to anyone else. Even now, there’s a line of wizards dying to make a pact with him, and he ignores them all. They say the pain he endures every new moon is so agonizing that he sweats blood. A guy who stood guard at the Prince’s palace on a new moon told me just watching him writhe was so terrifying his legs gave out, and he spent the whole night shivering in place.”

“And he still refuses a pact, swallowing that pain raw…… He’s ruthless. Absolutely ruthless…… Honestly, I’m more terrified of him than any witch……”

“Me too……”

“Me too.” “Me too.” Unable to listen to their hushed, secretive whispers any longer, Isaac threw off his handkerchief and half-sat up.

“You masochists, if you’re so scared of him, why do you keep chewing on the subject? Talk about something else. Anything else. Why are you babbling about horror stories in the middle of a sunny day, keeping people from sleeping…….”

“You’re scared too, so why are you yelling at us?!”

“I’m yelling at you to stop because I’m scared!”

As Isaac grumbled, waving his handkerchief in the air, a stray cat that had been hiding in the nearby bushes, intently stalking a fluttering butterfly, jumped back in surprise. With so much open space and plenty of places to hide, it was common to see a stray cat or two roaming the palace grounds, free from anyone bothering them.

Annoyed that Isaac had startled it, the cat widened its eyes and began yowling as if demanding compensation in the form of food. Isaac stared at it blankly. ‘Why are that cat’s eyes so big? Actually, wait, it looks awfully familiar……’

“Anyway, if you don’t want your heads to go flying, watch your mouths,” the Squad Leader said firmly. “The palace is no place for a loose tongue. Our job is to keep our heads down, avoid getting struck by stray lightning, and just do exactly as the higher-ups order.”

The other guards nodded in agreement. Digging into his pocket, Isaac pulled out a piece of dried chicken. Locking eyes with the cat – whose gaze had instantly sharpened at the sight of the meat – Isaac muttered, “You’re entirely right, sir.”

“My dream is to save up some money, retire early, return home in glory, and live quietly in a pretty house with a pretty wife, raising pretty chickens.”

“Do the chickens really need to be pretty, too? For a guy who doesn’t look the type, you sure are obsessed with pretty things. Do you really think you’ll achieve that dream before you die? Is your hometown pretty? Wait, where was your hometown again, Isaac?”

A guard sitting nearby lightly kicked the one who had blurted the question, giving him a pointed glare. Everyone close to Isaac knew he had been abandoned by his widowed mother when he was young, living like an orphan since he was ten. He had survived by doing every menial, grueling job imaginable until a few years ago, when his decent swordsmanship finally landed him a spot as a lowly royal guard.

While he didn’t go around advertising his past, he never actively tried to hide it either. “Wherever you get attached to, that’s your hometown,” Isaac replied nonchalantly.

Having grown up in the capital since he was very young, Isaac didn’t really have a place to call his hometown. He was supposedly born in a rural village a few days’ travel from the capital, but since he couldn’t even remember it, he couldn’t exactly call it home. Still, he had long harbored the desire to move to a quiet countryside village once he had saved enough money.

“…….——YA! You little thief!”

While Isaac was staring off into space, lost in thought, the cat lunged and masterfully snatched the chicken right out of his hand. Popping his scratched, bleeding finger into his mouth, Isaac glared at the cat, which had retreated a few steps and was now chewing the chicken while staring unblinkingly back at him. He let out a defeated sigh.

“Fine. Eat it, eat it. I didn’t have much of an appetite anyway.”

As Isaac flopped back down onto the grass, his fellow guards, realizing it was about time for the morning squad to finish, began standing up to head to the dining hall.

“Get up. Let’s go eat.”

“I’m good. I’m feeling pretty lethargic today, so I’m just going to catch some shut-eye.”

“Really? You did look pretty exhausted during training. Alright, see you later.”

The famished guards hurried off toward the dining hall in a group, leaving Isaac completely alone.

In the suddenly quiet field, Isaac rolled over a few times until he was deep in the shade of a tree, then draped the handkerchief back over his face. The shade felt perfectly cool against his sun-warmed body.

He had afternoon duty right after this, so he needed to get whatever sleep he could during the lunch break. He was hungry, but on days like today when his body felt like dead weight, resting took priority.

“This is why I hate being anywhere near the full moon……” he muttered into his mouth before letting out a long sigh, drifting off into a light sleep.

It was a hazy, pleasant slumber, just light enough that he could still faintly register the sunlight dappling through the leaves, the gentle breeze, and the distant, sporadic chirping of birds.

‘Is he sleeping? Is he sleeping right now? Hey, how can you sleep at a time like this, huh?’

‘He has no sense of responsibility. Snoozing so peacefully in a place like this.’

‘Leave him be. It’s pitiful. He works day and night just to earn the tribute he offers us.’

‘Then he needs to wake up right now and offer that tribute! Wake up, you brat! I’m hungry. Give me food!’

At some point, the peaceful atmosphere was invaded by the sound of chattering voices. It was an incredibly bizarre sound, like voices calling out from beyond a distant mountain, yet simultaneously whispering right into his ear.

The relentless *chatter-chatter-chatter* tickling his ears eventually pulled Isaac from his drowsy state. He opened his eyes. And in that exact second—

“HIYAK!!”

Isaac leaped up, violently throwing his upper body back.

Simultaneously, the thing that had its face shoved right up against his nose leaped back in sheer terror as well.

Clutching his hammering chest, Isaac stared blankly at it. He had no idea when it had arrived, but a cat with eyes the size of millwheels was glaring at him. Frozen in place as if turned to stone, the cat stared at Isaac for a moment before it began yowling ‘MEOW MEOW!’ furiously, as if deeply offended that Isaac had startled it.

“What kind of cat has eyes that massive…..? Ugh, you scared the life out of me.”

Stroking his racing heart, Isaac glanced past it and noticed another cat sitting a few feet away, meticulously licking its front paw. Realizing Isaac was looking, it paused its grooming to stare at him with perfectly round eyes. It was the same one that had stolen his chicken earlier.

Just looking at the size of their eyes, it was obvious they shared the same bloodline. Having two pairs of enormous, lantern-like eyes staring intensely at him all at once was deeply unsettling.

After a moment, the smaller one resumed licking its paw to groom itself, while the other continued to yowl at Isaac, as if demanding to know how he planned to take responsibility for startling it. It showed no signs of backing down.

Isaac stared at it skeptically before digging into his pocket. His fingers brushed against a piece of jerky he had stashed away to eat if he got hungry during his afternoon shift.

“I skipped lunch, so now I have to starve until dinner. And for the record, I don’t even like cats……”

He grumbled miserably, but the second he offered the jerky, the yowling cat snatched it up in a flash. Now, Isaac truly had nothing to eat until the evening.

It finally clicked. He had thought it looked familiar; it was a dead ringer for the black cat that kept sneaking into his room and stealing his food. It had the same pitch-black fur without a single white hair, but more than anything, it was those impossibly massive eyes.

Resting his chin on his hand, Isaac stared blankly at the two cats and rubbed his already rumbling stomach.

He had to stand guard until evening, go home for a brief nap, and then return for the night watch from midnight until dawn. Tomorrow was his day off. His body felt heavy and lethargic, but if he could just push through until dawn, he could finally rest. Sighing, Isaac stood up.

As he walked toward the East Gate for his afternoon shift, he passed through the central courtyard. Standing in the very center was a statue that caught his eye. It was a monument to the young hero who had made an absolute, peerless contribution to the subjugation of the monsters in the West, the Prince.

“…… Looking at it, he really does look like a statue……”

The magnificent sculpture looked more like a beautiful, imposing god than a mortal man. Anyone who didn’t know better would look at it and say, ‘I know portraits and statues are meant to beautify the subject, but isn’t this taking it a bit too far?’ Yet, unfortunately, this was the kingdom’s greatest sculptor pouring his absolute soul into creating a perfect, exact, life-sized replica of the Prince.

“With a pretty face like that…… …… …… Haizzz.”

Stopping in his tracks without realizing it, Isaac stared blankly at the statue for a long moment. Then, his shoulders slumping, he let out a heavy sigh and trudged onward.