“Isa, you’re fired.”

Seeing my pale look, the elder proceeded to raise his hoof up for a quiet cough.

“My apology. What I meant to say was, “You’ve fired, again”, even though your cease and desist order clearly commands otherwise.”

Despite the solemn atmosphere, a slight shake of the old dέέr’s shoulders already revealed that he messed his words up on purpose. The old crow was definitely having a laugh at my expense right now! How could he? Especially to a hard-working and innocent bὕnny like the one standing right in front of him!

A sense of indignation rose within me, though it died down as soon as elder Ruink dangled some piece of paper from his desk… A certain cease-or-de-exist paper, in fact…

“Ah, well, you see… I didn’t fire it, my boomstick did!”

“Hm… Right, right… You mean the same one you lent to some kits, who had little to no training with such a tool? Also, should I mention how ma Mma reacted upon learning that another one of her baby birds decided to corrupt a new batch of kits?”

The old dέέr paused a bit, causing me to fidget from the suspense.

“She didn’t say anything. Not a single word. However, a glance at the new menu revealed that both lunches and dinners for the rest of summer will only, have, bunnies.”

By this point, elder Ruink had begun to shake his head in undisguised mirth. A rare sight, to be sure. Too bad that I was so busy shaking like autumn leaves to properly appreciate such a wonder…

Back when big sis Nexa taught me all sorts of, ahem, “forbidden knowledge”, she got grounded for an entire day! I managed to get off the hook thanks to my purely pure innocence, though I still remembered the image of a lǐon being planted into the soil with only her head popping out of the ground.

And the fire ants…

Oh gosh the fire ants…

Big sis’s face took months to recover from that… It was something I still had nightmares about, even to this day…

“You’re lucky that she didn’t withdraw her recommendation for your new title. So, next time you see ma Mma, remember to show some regret for your actions, alright?-” The elder chuckled, though there seemed to be a hint of nostalgia in his words. “-Isa, little troublemaker of the Hills…”

I nodded dumbly at the old dέέr. From that point onward, my mind was pretty much on auto-flight as it wandered towards punishing thoughts. Fortunately, the rest of our conversation only involved unimportant topics, such as the new cease and desist order with some threat of exile, or my request for an expedition up north.

Such a change of pace was definitely welcomed, since it gave me a lot of time for self-reflection.

After all, “to bee or not to bee”, that was the question.

And, in order to earn the old capᴥbara’s forgiveness, I could only choose my answer wisely…

•ㅅ•

“Hey Isa, glad to see you back! When you couldn’t be here for dinner, I was afraid that… Uhm, by the way, what’s with that bag- OH GOD WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR FACE!!?”

“Eye smush mine fade-” I spat some stray larvae out of my mouth before trying again. “-Don’t worry, I just smashed my face into a beehive.”

“...”

Hiro looked like he had something to say in response to my words. Sadly, much like a stranded fish that got washed ashore, his communication skill had regressed to simply popping bubbles with his mouth. It was as if my ward was trying to act like a merfren, just like so long ago.

Such a precious sight almost managed to make me forget the pain… Almost.

“Tsk tsk, to be so stingy with your vocabulary like that.” Having put the paper bag over my head again, I proceeded to wag my finger in a disapproving manner. “And here I thought that I had taught you better. What a shame… what a shame…”

“You are not my father-” Hiro retorted immediately before stopping himself with a cough. “Uhm… I mean… Wow, is this a wylder’s tradition that I didn’t know? Oh, right! I heard that women sometimes use honey for makeup! This is similar, right?”

“Yeah, sure. Let’s go with that.” I plopped down on a chair and rested my face against the table. “For the record, though, only female bєars put honey on their face to attract potential mates. Now be a good boy and bring me some leftovers, will ya?”

Was this a breach of etiquette, especially when my ward was still a super-duper-important guest of the Horde? Probably.

Did I care? Probably not.

Look, it had been a long day. Plus, since the boy was now a part of my flock, there should be no problems with me ordering him around anyway.

“Hurrry up my minion. Big boss is hungy. Sooo very hungy…”

“Right away, ma’am!”

As my underling hastily prepared a presentable tribute, I turned my head towards the window, ignoring the stinging sensation on my face.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

The pale moon tonight seemed quite rosy. Without any doubt, this was a sign of good things to come…

•ㅅ•

“You know, your chase at noon left quite the mark.” Once I was no longer as peckish, my ward decided to pick up on the conversation. “In fact, after you dragged your flock away, I was surprised to see how nonchalant people treated the entire thing. Aside from some growlers setting up a fence while waiting for the fledglings to clean up that mess, no one even looked concerned whatsoever.”

“Of course they wouldn’t.” As we got back to our old groove, I gingerly answered my ward’s query. “After all, now that mating season is right around the corner, whatever happened today would look tame compared to the absolute hell that will soon descend upon this place. At worst, people might think that I was a little bit, “frustrated”, so to speak.”

“... I will probably regret asking this. No, scratch that, I will definitely regret not asking this.” Hiro took a deep breath before muttering his request. “You see, there is some… stuff… that I am curious about, regarding that particular season…”

Already, I could tell that a colorful mixture of emotions were starting to run wild within the boy. Curiosity, fear and excitement were at the forefront. However, my nose also detected some… expectations, so to speak…

With a grin, I asked him instead.

“Tell me, ol good guest of mine. What else would you want me to expose about this deer topic of ours? Such naked truth is already plain to see, for its name alone leaves little to the imagination, no?”

“You’re having fun with this, aren’t you?”

“Yup!”

“Seriously though, aside from some guesses, I know practically next to nothing. The books only mention the bare minimum… When I asked other people, my fellow fledglings just booed and jeered at me or did some wolf whistle… Even that wise geezer simply laughed and called me a “lucky bastard”, all while shooing me off… It’s like there is a hidden joke somewhere, and people are just waiting for me to get tripped by the punchline…”

The poor fella then gave me his most earnest look.

“I don’t want that to happen. So please, could you just tell me?”

Curses! Those puppy eyes! My only weakness!!!

Since any further teasing was no longer worth the damage being done to my conscience, I decided to surrender and provide Hiro with some much needed context.

“Everyone is waiting for you to make a happy mistake.”

“... Huh?”

“In Bright Land, I believe the term would be “baby trap”. You already know what that means, right?”

As he nodded dumbly, I continued.

“A chosen one can mate with as many partners as he wants, siring heirs with a bloodline nearly as thick as their own father. However, when descendants of the chosen ones produce offspring, only their two firstborns can inherit the same amount of divine blood. From the third onward, the blood would begin to thin, and the fourth one basically gets little to none of the gifts both parents possess. You already learned that from the geezer, correct?”

“Yeah…”

“If one parent has thinner blood during the mating, the resulting brood would, at best, get half of the combined gifts. Furthermore, since fertilizing different partners causes even more dilution of divinity, the gifted would most likely mate with another who is just as gifted, for life.”

By this point, Hiro had begun to see what I was getting at.

“However, if someone is actually dumb enough to rut around and find out… Well, you can certainly choose to leave the old partner and stay with the new one, if you’re fine with siring children that get little to none of the divine blood you have, that is.”

“I… I see…”

The boy started to twirl some strands of his hair with an absent look, no doubt pondering the beauty of its blackness. After a while, I decided to address the dead mammoth.

“The geezer skimped over this part, right?”

“Yeah… He mostly talked about how important it was that the chosen ones passed down their bloodline, and how their… “preferences” set the rules for beauty standards across the world…”

“There is a reason for that. See, since you won’t be returning to Bright Land anytime soon, I suppose someone should fill you in on one of the unspoken rules everyone must understand.”

My ward gulped nervously and nodded for me to continue.

“Back when we brought you tomes from the archives, you have read about the third chosen, right?”

“I did. It’s hilarious how the king and his court could be so crazy!” The boy shook his head in exasperation, as if remembering a spectacularly bad story. “I mean, all of his lackey nobles had little to no divine blood by that point, yet he still thought that imprisoning a chosen one for some wicked ritual would be a good idea? Seriously, what would he even get out of…”

A pregnant silence pervaded the room as Hiro finally realized the obvious answer to his own question.

“… Oh… oh god.”

The scion plopped down on the chair with a horrified look on his face. A hand was covering his mouth, which had been hanging open from shock.

“Hm~ Now that all the pieces are in place, it wouldn’t be hard to guess what kind of “wickedness” actually took place behind closed dungeons, isn’t it?”

“That… That’s messed up… Why would anyone in their right mind-”

“Power.”

The voice inside my head nodded in agreement at one simple word that said everything one needed to know.

Deep down, Hiro must have also noticed this. The simple fact that all powerful champions of this world carried strong ties to the four chosens, one way or another.

“King Kain must have thought that he was being clever. Too clever to fail.” This time, it was me who shook my head in mirth. “Understandable, really. The summoning of a new chosen was so secretive. Their siring swine was young and weak, incapable of escaping, let alone fighting back. That greedy king and his minions must have thought that they possessed the tool to create a bunch of super soldiers. They might even dream of taking over the world back then!”

“...”

My ward remained silent and pensive. His eyes kept darting back and forth at nothing in particular. Then, all of a sudden, he snapped his head at me, a burning question clearly on his mind.

“Then… Then when the books stated that Ollen Abe got his revenge on all his enemies, from roots to branches… It meant he… His own unborn… He…”

There was no answer I could give but a simple nod.

“I think that I am going to be sick…”

“Nasty stuff, for sure, especially when everything happened just within a single year. Really shows how fast a chosen one could grow compared to everyone else, huh?” Seeing the grim look of my guest, I decided to lighten the mood. “However, after executing the wicked king and princess, the third chosen did spare the young prince, so he couldn’t be all that bad, right?”

“...”

“Of course, it did lead to more trouble down the line… But hey, who could have thought that said prince would end up becoming the Demon King due to his fear of chosens, anyway?”

“All of these feel like a joke… A cruel joke, written by someone with a wicked sense of humor…”

A summer breeze invited itself into the room, as if waiting for this exact moment to let the chilling sensation sink into our skin. Hiro shuddered, then looked me straight in the eye.

“Why aren’t there books that write about this? The ones I read barely went into detail, instead focusing only on the changes and consequences caused by the third chosen.” He paused a bit, then added. “You once said that people in Wyld Land prefer to pass down knowledge by word of mouth. Does that mean one can only find a full historical record in Bright Land?”

“Well, yes, but actually no. The tomes you read were “Chronicles of the Chosens”, correct? Remember the emblem on their cover?”

“That golden sun? What about it?”

“It’s the symbol of the Church.”

Silence. So sudden that I could only tilt my head at the quietness that followed. After all, for whatever reason, Hiro had completely stiffened up after hearing those words.