Thinking about it, I was always a spoiled brat.
But no one ever let me stay that way.
I was a child who held the potential of the sun.
A child born with the magical power of the moon.
The future leader of the Blue Wolf Clan.
A flower expected to bloom most brilliantly.
-Child, what you’ve bloomed with now is only the power of the moon.
The wisest elder of the tribe, Grandma Andes, said so.
And the chief of the tribe, my father, whom I respected the most, said the same.
-You also hold the potential of the sun. The sun and the moon, that’s one of the rarest and most powerful magical attributes. Child, you will one day become the sun that leads the tribe.
I wasn’t strong enough to lead the entire clan.
But just thinking about it made me suffocate.
-So, for you, this old man will give you a name in advance.
I couldn’t bring myself to reject the expectant gazes of the adults.
-Sol de Roka. I hope that one day you will become the sun of the tribe, shining upon the tribe even after this old man is gone. How is it? Not a bad name, right?
Father always had high expectations for me.
My brothers were always jealous of me.
Mother was strict with me too. Naturally, I grew up to be a stiff child.
A pitifully fragile child wearing a deep blue mask that matched my fur color.
That was me. When father died, when mother died, when my sisters were killed,
I lowered my tail instead of baring my teeth because my mask had shattered.
When a crab’s shell breaks, it can never regenerate.
My mask was shattered along with my self-esteem, kicked and beaten. What remained after the mask broke was a pitiful child who could only show her bare face—me.
The master I saw was a strange person.
‘Hmm.’
He always looked at me with warm eyes, as if he knew everything.
When the time came, he prepared delicious meals and left clean clothes at my door.
But he never approached, never forced anything, just prayed and smiled.
A person who served a god I had never heard of.
At first, I was scared.
No matter how I thought about it, there was no reason for him to show me such kindness.
But my wariness dulled over time. He never asked anything of me.
That made me even more uneasy.
I am a beast.
And a slave.
I don’t deserve such treatment.
But he treated me like a person.
Every time I received his gentle gaze, my body stiffened.
I, with my shattered mask, didn’t have the courage to face that gaze. I ran away, hid. If I didn’t, something inside me would burst.
I thought I could just ignore the master.
But I couldn’t. It wasn’t because I was afraid he would scold me.
If he beat me, it would be entirely my fault, and I would deserve it.
One night. A night when the moon shone brightly.
The day I, unaware of my place, climbed onto something the master had made.
I thought I would be scolded, but instead, he pushed me forward.
I was certain of it.
-Lord, please grant this child happiness.
A prayer so quiet it was almost drowned out by the wind.
But I heard the master praying for me.
-No, please grant it.
The master, who had always devoutly served his god,
for the first time, I heard him ask something of his god.
For me. For someone like me. He prayed to the god he so faithfully served.
I wanted to pretend I didn’t hear it, but I couldn’t. All I could do was run away after swinging on the swing.
I couldn’t even say thank you.
I could only run away without showing the tears in my eyes.
As time passed, I grew more and more tormented.
I desperately built walls. I wanted to block the flow of unknown emotions.
Unaware that the walls were cracked from the start, I kept building.
Then I suddenly realized.
That my desperate attempts to ignore him.
To not care.
Were because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t ignore him.
After ignoring him, and ignoring him again,
after hardening and building the walls,
the thought of him letting me go, even pushing me away, made it hard to breathe.
I felt like tears would flow. I couldn’t hold back anymore.
Slowly.
Quickly.
With my courage and pride at rock bottom,
with my mask shattered and my bare face revealed,
I didn’t even have the courage to say thank you. All I could do was sneak up and bump my head against his. Even then, my mind was filled with fear.
What if the master frowned at me?
What if he thought, “What is this beast?”
What if he got angry at my actions?
I felt like I would suffocate and d*e.
“It’s okay. You can cry. Don’t hold back.”
He didn’t do that.
Instead, he hugged me tightly and said it was okay to cry.
Still with those gentle eyes. Still with that warm voice.
I couldn’t hold back anymore. The walls I had built crumbled.
The contents I had locked inside burst out with my tears.
“Roka. You’re a person. You can cry when you want to cry, be spoiled when you want to be spoiled, and lean on someone when you want to lean.”
I cried, and cried. I clung to him, crying.
As he undid my collar, the master said I was a person. And that I was free.
“In the name of my Lord. You, Roka, are now free.”
The flame lit by Divine Power. When the candle on the table burned the slave certificate,
I cried bitterly. I wanted to be comforted for all the sorrow I had endured.
When the candle burned the certificate, I was freed from slavery.
But no. Instead, I became a slave.
The moment the master freed me, I was captured by him.
The once free wolf had now become a dog that couldn’t live without the master.
I had become someone who couldn’t live without him.
But since I had already fallen, there was no helping it. The master had hunted me.
The hunted me now had no choice but to live for him.
Even if the master were to abandon me in the end, I wouldn’t regret it.
Because a wolf never runs away from its decisions.
Master. My master who made me a person.
My master who prayed for me.
I, Roka, will follow you.
Forever.
After that day, my relationship with Roka changed.
Roka became a bit more proactive towards me. She didn’t build walls like before, and wherever I went, she followed closely.
When I sat down, she rested her head on my lap, and when I stood up, she licked my hand and acted cute.
Even when I warned her that my hands were dirty, she ignored me. When I petted her, it felt like her eyes lit up.
“Master, welcome back.”
“I told you not to call me that…”
But the most troublesome thing was that she now called me master.
Even though I had burned the slave certificate to make her a free person.
There may be people better than me,
but there’s no one worse than me.
In front of the Lord, everyone is equally flawed.
What’s the point of arguing over who’s more flawed?
If I look down on someone as a slave, think about how the Lord would see me.
It would be as pitiful as a dwarf mocking another dwarf for being smaller.
In the Lord’s eyes, we are all flawed.
We are all blind and deaf fools.
Fools stumbling in the dark, not knowing even an inch ahead.
Some are crippled, some are blind.
If these two mock each other and fight, it would be a ridiculous sight, and they would only make each other’s already difficult lives even harder. It’s like two wild boars stuck in a mud pit, instead of trying to get out, biting each other and sinking deeper.
But if these two help each other,
if one becomes the eyes and the other the legs,
then they can finally break free and do more.
People should help each other, not look down on each other.
Of course, I tried to stop Roka.
But every time, she resisted.
“Roka, you…”
“This is my will.”
Chomp.
She bit my hand. Not hard enough to draw bl**d, just a light nip.
It didn’t hurt, just tickled a bit, but her eyes shone with strong determination.
Ah, Lord. I guess I’m not as great as You.
This must be the limit of a human like me. I didn’t do that, but Roka did. It’s all my fault for not handling it well. I have nothing to say.
“What? You freed her collar?”
Later, when Mr. Rubelt heard that I had freed Roka and came to check on her, he warned me.
“Saint, haa, well… beastmen are a different race from humans, so they grow quickly.”
“So?”
“When they’re wolves or dogs or puppies, they’re cute, but when they grow up, they’ll eat their master.”
I don’t know why he gave such a warning.
“Please be careful.”
