Episode 25
The speaker was not visible. However, on the floor beneath the table, where the smoke was not thick, the feet of several men were visible.
Their feet were twice as big as Jacob’s. And they seemed to belong to giants.
Jacob answered, shuddering as if overwhelmed by the mere sight of those huge feet.
“Yes, yes…I caught them.”
“What species?”
The man questioned.
Jacob hesitated for a moment, then closed his eyes tightly and opened his mouth.
“…A wolf and a rabbit.”
Several men burst into laughter after hearing the answer. The man who had asked the question also chuckled and muttered.
“You must have been in quite a hurry. How dare you, a timid reindeer, bring a wolf with you.”
Jacob just stood there with his mouth shut, his face growing more and more pale as time passed.
Soon one of the men sitting at the table stood up. His head, stretched out, seemed to touch the high ceiling.
The huge man walked away and then returned again and placed a small bottle on the table closest to where Jacob was standing.
“I gave you a particularly strong sleeping pill because of the wolf, so use it well.”
Jacob picked up the bottle with both of his hands that shook like an aspen tree. The man who had been talking to him said,
“I’ll be there around 8 o’clock, so feed it to them both and put them to bed before then.”
Jacob nodded. Then, as he was about to leave in a hurry, he turned around for a moment and spoke to them.
“If I handed them over as promised… please leave my mother and younger sibling alone.”
The man answered.
“I’ll give you the answer after the transaction is concluded.”
With that, Jacob stormed out of the bar, holding the bottle of sleeping medicine in his hand, gasping for breath.
He ran as fast as he could then suddenly stopped.
Tears fell down his frozen cheeks.
***
Jacob was a decent young man who lived peacefully with his family in Reindeer Town, located on the outskirts of Apen Harbour.
But that peace was shattered when his father, a fisherman on a herring fishing boat, became greedy and wanted to make more money.
One day, his father rented a herring boat from the fishing cooperative in Apen Harbor and went out to catch herring, but he never returned.
And a year after the family lost their father, thugs stormed Jacob’s house.
Those thugs were the ones who had a firm grip on the fishing cooperative.
They threatened them to pay immediately, saying that it was the day when their father had to pay for the boat that was completely lost.
But Jacob had no money to give them, so the moose offered him a deal.
If he could not pay the money, he could hand his mother and younger sibling over to them instead.
There was only one reason why the moose wanted to take away his mother and sister.
They planned to take the two to the Angevin Sea and throw them into it.
Since ancient times, moose have been practicing the evil custom of going to the Angevin Sea once a month to offer sacrifices.
It was said that when a person was thrown into the rough seas of the Angevin Sea, a sea monster, the master of the sea, would come out and eat them before quietly disappearing.
Only the moose knew whether that was true or not.
And even if that wasn’t true, it was obvious that if his mother and sister were taken by them, something bad would happen.
The moose suggested for him to bring others instead if he did not want to hand over his mother and sister.
Jacob couldn’t bring himself to do something like that, so he ran around trying to earn money somehow.
But in the end, he failed to get the money, and was wandering the forest in a panic, when he met Brody and Kyle while he was dying after being crushed by a falling tree.
From the beginning, he didn’t mean to do something so terrible to those who saved his life.
But on the way back after their help, Jacob thought of his mother and younger sibling shivering at home.
It was at that moment that he heard the devil’s whispers. Then he turned around and looked at Kyle and Brody.
With the deadline looming, there was only one way to save his mother and sister.
Taking these two to the moose to replace them.
The sense of crisis that he would lose his family if he did not do so eventually led him to listen to the devil’s voice.
He decided to sell his lifesavers instead of his mother and younger sibling.
Then he took them to the moose’s lodge, under the pretense of treating them to a meal.
Now Jacob had to feed them the medicine he had in his hand and hand them over to the moose while they slept.
He was so scared and terrified of the sin he was about to commit. Not only that, but he felt so guilty that he wanted to die thinking about Brody and Kyle following him without even knowing that he was a demon.
But in the end, he decided to commit a sin to save his mother and younger sibling, so he put the sleeping pills deep in his pocket.
Meanwhile, in the cabin, unaware of all these facts, The situation was extremely peaceful.
Brody entered the changing room, transformed into a human body, and put on some large clothes that were the closest to her size.
What she was wearing were Jacob’s clothes. They were the smallest clothes in the closet, but she was so small that she looked like she was wearing her father’s clothes.
As she stepped outside, she looked around and saw Kyle wandering through the snowy forest.
Brody stared at him blankly without realizing it.
Even in his wolf form, he was handsome enough to make people exclaim, but that still couldn’t match up to his human form.
From his handsome appearance under his dark blue hair to his large, sturdy body that revealed the fact that he was a ‘warrior’ the moment you saw him, he was absolutely flawless and beautiful.
Brody stood behind the door, hiding her body with the heart of a fan girl, and watched him like that.
Just looking at him from afar made her heart race.
Kyle turned his head, perhaps sensing the passionate gaze. At the same time, their eyes met.
Brody, who had been unable to keep still while peeking at him, stopped dead in her tracks.
The moment she met his piercing blue eyes, her heart sank.
It was similar to the feeling she had when she first met him and looked into his eyes.
Her feelings were a mess, so she just stared at him for a moment, her body frozen in place.
Perhaps because it was their first time seeing each other in human form, an awkward atmosphere passed between them.
Kyle also just stood there without saying anything.
It was Brody who smiled first. She giggled like she did when she was a rabbit, and the familiarity drove away the awkward air.
Kyle, who had been standing there awkwardly, finally burst out laughing when he saw Brody smiling at him.
Because that smiling face looked just like the rabbit’s.
“Kyle!”
The voice was also the same. It was just endlessly cheerful and mischievous.
Her white hair fluttered behind her as she ran. She looked like a small white angel running through the snow.
Of course, Kyle never expressed that sentiment out loud.
“Have you been waiting for long?”
Brody, whose forehead was barely touching his shoulder, looked up at him and asked, “I came out as fast as I could.”
He thought about it before, but Brody was really short. She was also small and thin, so if the wind blew hard enough, she would probably be blown away.
Even though she’s such a small person, she keeps talking back to me with her eyes wide open as if she were a beast, and she also gets on my nerves by threatening to bite me with her rabbit teeth.
He realized anew that this rabbit was truly fearless.
The moment he shook his head and ignored her, who was pestering him by asking if he had been waiting long and why she wasn’t getting an answer.
Kyle looked around, smelling the scent of the reindeer from somewhere.
Jacob hasn’t come yet.
As he looked to the side following the growing scent, Brody came into view.
Now that he looked at it, the clothes she was wearing were Jacob’s.
“……”
He felt uncomfortable when he smelled another male scent on her, who always smelt like a wolf because she was always sticking around to him.
As he was looking at Brody with such an irritated look, he soon heard someone approaching.
A man was running towards the cabin, panting, carrying a heavy load.
Kyle and Brody narrowed their eyes at the same time.
They suspiciously looked at the man.
“Who…?”
He was a short young man with dark brown hair.
He pushed up his slightly crooked glasses with his finger in response to Brody’s question and smiled sheepishly.
“I’m Jacob.”
“Ah…!”
The two people who were confused because he went out as a reindeer and came back as a human finally turned their heads and nodded.
“I’m sorry. Did I keep you waiting for too long?”
“No, we didn’t wait that long. The baggage looks heavy. Please give it to me.”
Brody smiled and approached him, extending her hand.
Jacob’s reddened eyes flinched at her kindness. Then he shook his head, declining her help.
“It’s okay. It’s too heavy for Miss Brody to lift. There’s meat inside….”
Before he could finish his words, someone snatched the baggage from his hands.
The man walking into the house carrying the heavy load lightly was Kyle.
He had been standing there, indifferent to the two people arguing over baggage, but he moved instantly at the word ‘meat’.
Jacob and Brody stared blankly at Kyle’s back and then turned their heads away.
Immediately after, their eyes met and laughter flowed from their mouths.
***
Jacob lit the fireplace and added more firewood. He then brought blankets to the two guests and headed into the kitchen to prepare dinner.
But his plan to put the sleeping pills while cooking the meal was interrupted when Brody entered the kitchen.
“Let me help you.”
“No, Miss Brody.”
Despite Jacob’s attempts to dissuade her, the kind-hearted woman rolled up her long sleeves and approached him.
As if things weren’t bad enough, Kyle followed her in.
He may have come to spy on his lover who was in the kitchen alone with another man, but he instead joined in the cooking, roasting meat in the oven as Brody instructed.
Jacob felt grateful to the two people, but at the same time, he felt suffocated by the guilt of doing such a terrible thing to such good people.
And the guilt tightened around his neck as time went by.
The moment when he was desperately wiping away the cold sweat that was dripping down his face.
Brody came over and called him.
“Mr. Jacob.”
“Yes?”
When Jacob turned around in surprise, she asked, pointing to what he was holding in his hand with a hardened face.
