When the Guide Stopped Playing a Villainess, the Obsession Began - Chapter 3
Lea unconsciously reached out toward him, but as he quickly grew distant, all she could do was watch Calix fade away, left alone in the drawing room.
The place she returned to was the palace she had once used in the past. A palace physician rushed in and began examining her wounds, drenched in sweat.
How could he not be terrified, when the biological daughter of the empress—the highest authority in the current palace—had suffered burns?
Even if said empress saw her not as a daughter, but merely as a tool.
“What on earth were you people doing?”
At the physician’s angry words, the nearby attendants all bowed their heads in shame.
Though still dazed, Lea opened her mouth.
“It was my mistake. So don’t be too hard on them.”
“…A scar may remain.”
She knew.
In the past, Calix had received the same injury and bore his burn scars for a long time.
“I just want to rest for a while…”
Frightened even by how vivid the dream was, Lea dismissed everyone after the first-aid treatment and lay weakly on the bed.
She knew that if she closed her eyes, darkness would return again.
Even so…
“Thank goodness…”
Because she was able to stop the thing she regretted most.
Even just that was enough to ease her lingering attachment. So she let herself drift away.
***
Splash—!
Her mind, floating far away, snapped back at the shock of cold water. Lea jolted upright, but couldn’t move properly.
A familiar scent tickled her nose. It had been so long since she returned to a purely animal form—not a human, not the half-transformed form with just ears and a tail, but her true beast form.
Above her head, restrained by a collar and flailing helplessly, a familiar voice rang out.
“Can’t even do the one thing you were told, and here you are sleeping so soundly?”
The sharp voice struck her ears. Lea slowly lifted her trembling gaze.
Her mother, who should have been executed alongside her, was standing over her in a luxurious dress.
Her twisted expression, as if she had come face to face with something utterly disgusting, was so familiar it made Lea shudder.
“This mother of yours told you, didn’t I? That if you wanted to live like a human, you’d have to put in the effort. Are you saying you want to live like a beast?”
Lea’s golden eyes flew open. Unable to speak, she let out an animalistic growl and braced herself to attack.
It was horrifying.
She had thought it was a sweet dream, but she didn’t expect that woman to appear.
To think the method of punishment would be exactly the same as in the past.
Her mother had always forcibly turned her into her beast form to discipline—no, to tame—her.
From a very young age, she had been tied up with a tight collar, thrown rotting meat, and locked in the basement.
As a child, it had terrified her so much…
But she no longer feared her mother.
There was no reason to listen to her any longer.
She was already dead, after all…
“You really have lost your mind, haven’t you?”
Lea’s resigned attitude seemed to displease her mother, and her voice turned cruel. Lea thought, This really is such a vivid dream.
“So you really want to return to being a beast?”
Lea, seeing those golden eyes gleam in the darkness, stepped back while glancing around.
Only then did her mother curl her eyes seductively, as if finally satisfied.
“Good. Now it seems you’ve come to your senses. But I cannot forgive you for defying me. A week of reflection should be enough.”
Her final words were chilling.
To the point that Lea doubted whether this was truly her birth mother.
Her mother ordered a knight to throw her a chunk of rotting meat fit for a hyena.
A sliver of light entered through the slightly opened door of the pitch-dark basement.
Watching the graceful figure of her mother slip through that crack, Lea collapsed to the ground at the sound of the door slamming shut.
“Kkyung…”
The sound from her mouth was that of a beast. She curled her chocolate-brown tail like soft, sweet chocolate. Her pointed ears twitched, and her moist nose quivered.
Rather than a common beast seen in the mountains, her fox form radiated a mysterious air—that was one of Lea’s true forms.
She had originally lived in the Leonis Empire, a nation inhabited only by werebeasts.
Then, following her mother, she crossed into the Cantabrian Empire.
Relations between the two countries had been strained due to a long-standing war, so she and her mother, both fox werebeasts, had no choice but to hide their identities.
The stench of rot stung her sensitive nose.
It was a natural reaction, given the heightened senses that came with her beast body.
But today, the stench felt especially unbearable.
Unable to flee to a corner due to the short leash, she lay down and covered her nose with her front paws.
