What a Terminally Ill Villain Needs Is an Arctic Fox Ch 05

 

Chapter 05

Kyle was out of breath but happy that he wasn’t in pain, so he stopped running and just lay down in the snow, laughing.

“Poohahaha!”

The fox that had been running ahead returned to Kyle and circled around him as he lay down. Kyle, who was laughing as he watched the small footprints on the white snow, reached out his hand to the fox. The fox naturally put his head into Kyle’s hand and curled up on Kyle’s bedside.

“Ha, good.”

The blue sky was beautiful, the fox next to him was lovely, and everything was giving Kyle endless emotions.

Kyle and the fox went up to the forest north of the mansion. Rather than a destination, they ended up there after watching the fox running around the snow-covered fields.

The trees that had lived for a long time were all tall, and the snow that had piled heavily on their branches would scatter little by little whenever the wind blew, or fall to the ground with a thud.

“I’m really excited.”

It was cute to see her jumping around, but it was even cuter to see her suddenly stop and look back after running ahead excitedly. Kyle had to wave his hand naturally every time to let the fox know that he was there. Then, she would wait for Kyle again, squinting her eyes and wagging her tail as if she was happy.

Despite having lived in the wild for many years, the fox did not stray far from Kyle, as if it were a domesticated animal.

‘Surely not, it wasn’t tamed by humans and then abandoned on the mountain of death?’

Kyle followed the fox as if possessed, and then a sudden thought occurred to him and he made a serious expression.

‘It’s strange that it follows people so much, and it’s strange that it suddenly appeared when they said there were no wild beasts on the Mountain of Death. It seems like someone raised it and then abandoned it.’

It was a walk, but if it was a wild fox, it would have gone back to the wild without looking back. Kyle added credibility to his guess as he recalled the fox that had ignored the snow rabbit he had encountered on the way back.

‘I see. You were abandoned.’

It wasn’t something to just run around excitedly about.

‘So, you didn’t even eat when you said you were going back to your family.’

Now it all makes sense.

After being cursed, Kyle came to the North of his own free will. However, the world thought that the Emperor had abandoned Kyle, who had become useless due to being cursed.

Whatever the truth, Kyle had nowhere to go. The thought of the same thing for the fox made his nose tingle. For some reason, his eyes felt moist, so he looked up at the sky and rubbed the bottom of his nose.

I briefly suppressed the emotions that had surged up within me and looked forward again.

“Fox?”

However, only the footprints on the snow were clear, and the fox was not visible.

Kyle’s mind was filled with confusion.

I was confident that it was an Arctic fox that I had been raising at home, but when I saw the fox disappear without a sound, I started to get confused again.

There are footprints left, so you could probably chase them if you followed them, but what if they returned to the wild?

Kyle briefly wondered if chasing the fox was the right thing to do. He thought that even the foxes he raised at home might be happier if they were returned to the wild and lived freely.

But Kyle… stared intently at the footprints the fox had left behind, and eventually ran after them.

“……!”

And what appeared was a wide open space, or more precisely, a colony of flowers.

There was no trace of the snow that had fallen the night before, and the purple flowers that had bloomed vividly, as if only this place had welcomed spring, stood out before my eyes in contrast to the surrounding scenery.

This is ridiculous. How can a place like this exist?

“Kkiung!”

A fox came up to Kyle’s feet and rubbed its head against them as he stood there dumbfounded.

“Is this what you came here to show me?”

As Kyle crouched down and stroked the fox’s head with his hand, the fox’s eyes narrowed. It was the same expression he had been showing the whole time he came here. It was like a human’s eye smile, and Kyle felt like he was really possessed by the fox.

“How can so many flowers bloom in the middle of winter?”

As he stood there, unable to enter the flower field, he just watched, and then the fox’s eyes sparkled, and he turned around and jumped into the flower field as if to show off. Kyle laughed in vain as he watched her characteristically light and brisk jumping, and the fox stood in the middle of the flower field and looked back at Kyle.

“Come there?”

Kyle also walked through the flower field without hesitation, looking at the fox waiting for him. With every step he took, he felt the scent of flowers soaking into his feet.

“Got it.”

Kyle hugged the fox, who was quietly waiting for him, and the fox happily licked Kyle’s cheek.

“Haha, I told you it’s not for eating.”

As he held the fox, the scent of flowers grew stronger as his vision lowered. The scent of winter and the scent of flowers from the fox tickled Kyle’s heart. The sound of “Kiyung” and “Hiyung” shook his heart.

“Pretty.”

Kyle picked up a few flowers that had fallen to the ground and placed them gently on the fox’s head. The white arctic fox, who was perking up her ears in embarrassment, and the purple flowers were a combination that could not fail. A pleased smile appeared on Kyle’s face. But that was only for a moment. The fox shook his head and blew the flowers away.

Kyle picked up the falling flowers and played with them. Even though the weather was such that water froze over in an instant, the petals felt as soft as a baby’s bare skin.

Suddenly, Kyle felt something strange.

The ground was not snow, but dirt.

“It’s not like it’s the only place where it doesn’t snow.”

Kyle took off the gloves he was wearing and felt the dirt, half curious and half skeptical.

“……It’s moist? Is it the melted snow?”

“Kkiung.”

It was not a dry land, but a land that had a moderate amount of moisture. The fox that had been quietly sitting on Kyle’s lap clung to him, perhaps not liking the fact that Kyle was distracted. In the blink of an eye, Kyle’s vision flipped over as the fox’s heavy weight pressed down on him.

He saw a cloudless blue sky, and the face of a fox climbing up his chest. With the scent of flowers hitting his nose, Kyle realized why this flower garden could exist. From the moment he entered the flower garden, he did not feel the cold air. Only here, it was warm like spring.

“Are you upset because I didn’t play with you?”

There was no sense of impact, but the fox’s face looked very serious, so Kyle held the fox’s face while lying down and rubbed it roughly. The fluff, softer than flower petals, squished in his palm, and the fox’s face also became a steamed bun. When Kyle burst out laughing, the fox pushed Kyle’s hand away with its front paw.

“Oh, I did that because you were cute. Sorry, sorry.”

The fox opened its mouth and bit Kyle on the back of his neck without hurting him. It was biting over his clothes, and it was only pretending to bite as a playful gesture, so I didn’t expect it to hurt.

“Ah……!”

I was sick.

Did you bite me in a hurt way?!

The fox looked down at Kyle, who was wide-eyed in surprise, and grinned with satisfaction on his face. Kyle looked bewildered, holding his own neck, and the fox, as if trying to appease Kyle, obediently went down from his body again and licked Kyle’s cheek.

Kyle, who was already bewitched by the fox, found even the clever way it gave him medicine and bottles cute, so he quickly hugged the fox again and rolled around in the flower garden.

Kyle was hungry so he shared some snacks from the bag Gray had packed for him with the fox, and Kyle just lay there doing nothing.

He was happier at this moment than he had been during the three years he had struggled to survive. For some reason, the warm flower garden, where he could not feel the cold at all, felt cozy and missed like his mother’s embrace, so Kyle stayed like that for quite some time.

As a result, Kyle’s walk with the fox took longer than expected, and they were only able to arrive at the mansion when the sun was setting.

*******

“Please take a bath first.”

As soon as Gray opened the door, he saw Kyle and the fox looking very sullen and spat out his first words.

“Please leave your shoes here, and let His Majesty the Archduke carry the fox.”

The problem was that his feet were particularly dirty because of the dirt from the flower garden and the snow he had stepped on as he walked. Kyle rolled his feet before going in to shake off some of the snow, but there was nothing he could do about the dirt stuck to his soles.

The fox’s feet were even worse. It was a self-evident fact that the dirt and melting snow stuck to its fur would leave clear fox footprints on the ground.

Kyle quietly carried the fox in his arms and headed straight for the bathroom. Kyle stopped at the doorway when he saw Gray, who was naturally following them into the bathroom.