#111

“Like I said, I don’t know!”

Ella firmly dismissed him and turned her head completely away from Keinhrih. She kept rubbing her forearm, as if something felt off.

‘That’s strange.’

As the situation took a peculiar turn, I focused on thinking it through.

Ella said her memory was fragmented. If that’s the case, then meeting a beastman who recognized her should actually be something welcoming.

Why, then, was Ella replying so definitively and trying to distance herself from Keinhrih?

Wasn’t this more like someone trying to hide the fact that they’d been subjected to pheromone manipulation?

But saying she’d been manipulated doesn’t quite fit—Ella currently has no pheromones.

According to Naaman, she lost them due to an acquired condition. Could this incident be related?

Meanwhile, as Ella kept denying it, Keinhrih’s voice grew sharp with frustration.

“You’re the one pretending not to know!”

Then, grumbling angrily, he stepped closer to Ella, and before anyone could stop him, he tore the sleeve of her right arm.

“Kyah!”

Ella screamed and staggered back. Keinhrih grabbed her forearm tightly and shouted,

“See this?! You have the same butterfly tattoo as me! Anyone who’s had their pheromones manipulated has this tattoo, and yet you keep denying it?”

On the spot he pointed to, there was indeed a butterfly tattoo. Riding the momentum, Keinhrih even showed his own matching mark, getting more worked up.

“Huh? How are you going to explain this? If this was really our first time meeting, there’s no way we’d have the same tattoo.”

“Th-that’s…”

Ella choked on her words, her voice trembling. She seemed stunned by the sudden confrontation.

Before things got any worse, I stepped in to mediate.

“That’s enough. You’re scaring Ella.”

“But—”

“You said your memory was tampered with too, didn’t you? Maybe that’s why Ella doesn’t remember.”

At my sharp reply, Keinhrih suddenly looked dumbfounded, as if he’d overlooked that fact.

“I-I’m sorry.”

Ella apologized, tears falling down her cheeks. Her face was full of confusion.

I, too, was shocked to learn that Ella had been subjected to pheromone manipulation.

A victim of manipulation, yet without any pheromones left.

I still didn’t fully understand what that meant.

But I was growing more certain that there was a reason Ella was straying from the original story’s path.

Still, unless Ella came to me for help first, I had no right to interrogate her.

A heavy silence hung in the air for a while.

Then Zerakiel suddenly cut in with a meaningful comment.

“But Chichi doesn’t have a tattoo like that.”

“Huh? You’re saying she was manipulated too?”

The first to react was Keinhrih. Seeing how genuinely flustered he was, it seemed like we had never crossed paths in the lab.

Zerakiel responded calmly.

“It’s only speculation for now.”

He had long suspected I’d been subjected to pheromone manipulation. I, too, had started to consider the possibility.

Still, I hadn’t expected the topic of tattoos to come up.

‘If I’d been manipulated before the possession, then I should have a tattoo too.’

If not, then I was a naturally born anomaly.

Maybe that’s why I ended up possessing this body.

Just then, Ayla, who had been quietly observing the whole situation, stepped in.

“We should go back to the estate and discuss this there.”

Everyone agreed that this wasn’t a conversation meant for the roadside.

“Let’s go.”

Zerakiel reached out his hand to me. I grasped it firmly and nodded.

For some reason, my head felt heavier than ever.

* * *

After many twists and turns, the Jabis territory they finally arrived at was steeped in a bleak and desolate atmosphere.

From the entrance at the border, security was tight, and some gates were even sealed shut.

Everyone was hush-hush about the reason being Orban’s betrayal.

This was because the identity of the mastermind behind Victor still hadn’t been confirmed.

And yet, the sole suspect and witness, Victor, had been brutally murdered.

‘Judging by the clean strike that killed him, it clearly wasn’t an ordinary beastman. They were also skilled at concealing their presence.’

Since it was Ivan, Zerakiel’s direct aide, who said this, it was obvious that whoever had killed Victor was extremely capable.

On the way back to Jabis Castle, Keinhrih shared what he knew about a certain organization.

The group, known as the “Butterflies,” operated while concealing their faces.

They experimented primarily on abandoned beastmen who had not yet reached adulthood, aiming to enhance power through pheromone manipulation.

‘Considering they were mixing various pheromones for experiments, there must be an organized force distributing those pheromones behind the scenes.’

Keinhrih seemed certain that nobles were backing them.

Indeed, for higher-grade military pheromones to manifest through manipulation, a compatible pheromone infusion would be necessary.

‘And the access tag found among that traitor’s belongings strongly suggests he was aligned with the Butterflies. It’s the marker they use to identify each other.’

Moreover, the discovery of that access pass in Victor’s possession made it clear that he was working with the Butterfly group.

‘Perhaps they were trying to harvest pheromones while the Jabis family head was in a frenzy.’

They had approached Jabis more systematically than expected.

Given Keinhrih’s explanation, the idea that they had been targeting Jabis pheromones couldn’t be ruled out.

Jabis pheromones were said to be the strongest among all beastmen on the continent.

If they succeeded in combining the strongest pheromones with weaker ones, the resulting disaster would be too horrific to imagine.

Upon arriving at Jabis Castle, Zerakiel immediately held a meeting with Zakari.

“Victor Orban is dead.”

Zakari looked down coldly at Victor’s corpse. His gaze was so frosty it was hard to believe he’d looked upon that face just days ago.

Next to him, Duke Orban stood with his head bowed, swallowing his sorrow. Even in front of his son’s lifeless body, he could not grieve. Victor had been a traitor.

“On the way back, we picked up a beastman who had been experimented on by the group suspected to be behind this.”

“You found a test subject?”

“The one who brazenly kidnapped Chichi turned out to be a beastman who had undergone pheromone manipulation. And the rabbit beastman seems to be the same.”

Zerakiel paused, thinking of Ella. Judging by how desperately she denied it, she might not have completely forgotten her memories of the experiments.

Having completed his report, Zerakiel wore a hardened expression. Zakari, on the other hand, remained calm.

“Once again, Cersia has done a fine job. Even when kidnapped, she ends up with someone useful to us. Impressive.”

He looked as if he had expected something like this to happen all along.

Rather than worry, he found it admirable how Cersia always returned with something significant. Zerakiel spoke.

“It’s possible that someone harvested your pheromones during the time you were in a frenzy.”

“If they were after pheromones, that would’ve been the ideal time. There’s never been a more vulnerable moment to access mine.”

“The situation might be worse than we thought.”

“Indeed. It seems we’ve been taken too lightly for too long.”

Zakari’s eyes glinted coldly.

Many had targeted the Jabis family before, but never their pheromones. Given the gravity of the situation, extraordinary measures were necessary.

“We can’t allow these Butterfly—or Moth—vermin to roam free any longer.”

“My thoughts exactly. If we assemble a search party and scour the continent, we’ll eventually flush them out. As for opposition from other beastmen, we’ll crush them with force.”

“Very well. This time, you may act as you please.”

At Zakari’s firm approval, a chilling smile crept across Zerakiel’s face. The father who always told him to endure and be patient had now given him free rein.

The message was clear: they would stop at nothing, even if it meant invading nearby beastman clans’ territories.

Looking out the window, Zakari murmured quietly,

“The continent is going to be noisy for a while.”