Rash, the undying one, never particularly minded when someone hurt his body. That remained true even in his weakened state in the bottomless pit.

And so, he did not particularly care what condition Ebon was in, either. The fact that Ebon was already half-dead did not enter his calculations. Nor did the fact that three full punches would prove fatal.

In a way, it seemed both fair and unfair. But whether equal treatment under different circumstances was fair was none of the undying one's concern, either.

He simply delivered three blows with utter seriousness, solemnity, and sincerity, putting his full strength behind them.

As a result, Ebon's face was reduced to a bloody wreck.

The first blow scattered the energy he had gathered to protect himself. The second knocked him unconscious. The third extinguished the last of his life.

His nose broke and his teeth went flying. Blood streamed from the openings in his face. When the claw weapon finally snapped under Rash's strength, Ebon staggered and collapsed to the ground.

Wow. He hit that hard, and he'd asked me to take a punch just for borrowing his right arm last time?

What an absolute lunatic. That would've killed me instantly.

While I marveled at this, the undying one, who had just beaten a man to the brink of death, spoke regretfully.

To me.

"I'm sorry, sir. He seems to be in no condition to answer any more questions."

Look at him apologizing to me, of all people. He'd delivered his three punches, so Ebon's condition was no longer his problem.

"Oh, that's fine. I'm not asking because I expect an answer."

I could just ask his thoughts, after all.

As I approached Ebon, Rash asked,

"Do you need any help?"

"I'm terribly sorry, but could you plug your ears? I'm going to discuss some sensitive matters concerning Lieutenant General Ebon's private life."

"My ears? Very well!"

Despite the unexpected request, Rash complied immediately. He plugged his ears firmly with his fingers and shouted,

"They're plugged! Talk as much as you like! I'll keep watching, though, just in case!"

"Huh. He actually did it."

"What was that? I can't hear you!"

I gave him a thumbs-up and approached Ebon.

Sensing the end, Ebon vainly clenched his trembling hand. His fingers scraped the ground, but he could not even get a proper grip on the concrete floor.

His sharp nails, almost symbolic of his origins, merely scratched loose a little concrete dust.

Coughing up blood, Ebon repeated to himself,

'This was my chance... to fulfill Humanity's great cherished wish. I had to... find that person. Find them, and...'

"You wanted recognition, didn't you? As a human, not cat beastkin."

Ebon Crimsonwild, cat beastkin.

Back in the kingdom's days, when hatred of beastkin was rampant, self-loathing had driven him to cut off his own ears and tail and devote himself to the military. Only a very few people ever realized he was cat beastkin.

Whether fortunately or unfortunately, a certain "someone" discovered Ebon's identity and thought highly of his resolve. With that "someone's" support, Ebon rose steadily through the ranks.

But a steady rise did not mean a smooth road. His life was a succession of hardships. Under the kingdom, the military was the knights' doormat, treated much like weapons to be taken out of an arsenal. One knight even discovered he was beastkin and blackmailed him. Stripped of both money and credit for his achievements, Ebon lived like their slave.

His hatred for the kingdom grew by the day. He took a leading role in the coup and used his keen cat-beastkin senses to help mop up the remnants. The knight who had blackmailed him repaid that debt with his life.

And so, after enduring those hardships, Ebon became a general of the Military State.

Of course, time and experience alone had not elevated him to that rank. Endless effort and deliberation, training until he coughed blood, operations planned while racking his brains—all of it accumulated, carrying him to the rank of general.

When Ebon, having thus earned his qualifications, confronted the truth of the Lords of Creation—when he discovered the true purpose concealed behind their childish outward goal of gathering Beast Kings and turning them into weapons—he decided to see it through to the end.

Ebon, cat beastkin, became an executive of the extremist human-supremacist organization, the Lords of Creation.

The true purpose that had captivated him was...

'That person... In the end, I never found...'

"Why are you trying to find that person? Because you think they're the only one who could accept and understand you?"

Ebon turned his dim gaze toward me. Even as his eyes lost focus, a question surfaced in them.

'... What? What do you... know... about us...?'

"Ebon. Why do you need someone so grand to define what you are?"

'You don't even... know who... we're looking for...'

Was he determined to keep silent even on the verge of death?

No choice, then. To see deeper into his true feelings, I would have to tell him.

"A being who vanished from history after humanity became the undisputed rulers of the earth. A being who heralded the beginning and end of Year One. Unlike false kings, a king in the truest sense, with both the ability and the right to rule humans."

Once humans, out of all the countless beasts walking the earth, became its undisputed rulers, Beast Kings took on human bodies.

But there was something people occasionally forgot.

Humans, too, were merely one kind of beast.

"Was the King of Humans really so necessary to you?"

Some humans might vehemently deny it. Others might resent it, as though an ugly secret had been exposed.

But humans had been beasts, were beasts, and would remain beasts.

And so, humans, too, had a Beast King.

Not some false king with paltry power, followed by mere hundreds of thousands, millions, or tens of millions.

Ebon was seeking a king in the truest sense, one who represented every human.

"Though the King of Humans hasn't appeared even once since the beginning of Year One."

Humans would choose kings to serve of their own accord.

Therefore, they had no need for the King of Humans.

Following that declaration, the King of Humans vanished.

After Year One came the age of kings. Without their king, humans served kings of their own and continued to advance.

Humans were superior, powerful, and special. Even elephants could advance no farther than jungles and wilderness, and the mountain lord, though master of the mountains, could not drive humans out.

Humans were the undisputed dominant species on earth.

Thus, no one questioned why Beast Kings assumed human form, or cared that the King of Humans did not exist. They had too many kings to miss the one they had lost.

However.

Some people in the kingdom, sick of every king on earth, sought a true king who could encompass them all.

Their reasons for seeking that true king would each be different. But Ebon had only one reason for seeking the King of Humans.

"I'm not the one you're hoping for, but..."

He wanted confirmation that he was human.

That he was not cat beastkin, but a true human. That he was one of their own.

He wanted to hear it directly from the King of Humans, who had both the right and the power to say it.

"I'll affirm who you are."

'How... dare you...! A mere convict laborer!'

As his life ebbed away and he mustered the last of his strength to glare at me, I calmly declared for his sake,

"Ebon Crimsonwild. You are human. I guarantee it."

'What would... the likes of you... know...!'

"Whether your intentions were good or evil, that intellect of yours built plans piece by piece from the ground up, put them into action, sought another chance even after failure, and used everything you'd accumulated to achieve your goal. That will to sacrifice even your own life for a higher purpose was possible, and worked, only because you were wholly human."

I was an ordinary person who could merely read minds.

"I've only seen a fraction of it, but that alone is enough. You are, in every sense, unequivocally human."

And so I spoke as a representative. Lieutenant General Ebon was human.

"Even beastkin are humans who inherited just a few animal traits. It's just that your distant ancestor committed a terrible sin... Well, calling it a sin is a bit much. Really, it's no different from being caught in an embarrassing scene you couldn't brag about. Those traits are incidental. Your ears and tail don't define you."

Having read him, I calmly consoled Ebon.

"Paradoxically, your resolve to achieve your goal even at the cost of cutting off your ears and tail demonstrates your humanity. You've worked hard, Ebon the human."

'... Could it be?'

I was merely saying those words without any right to do so, yet even that was enough to satisfy Ebon. In his final moment, the words he needed had found him.

Born beastkin, raised amid every kind of persecution, he had helped destroy the kingdom that fostered it. He had spent his entire life fighting battles no one would acknowledge.

Hatred of beastkin that barely changed after the kingdom fell. The Resistance, remnants of the kingdom he despised. Beast Kings so fickle they were difficult to deal with. His own progress, slow despite all his efforts.

No one had recognized his hardships, his sincerity, his efforts. Not until he met me today.

At the moment of death, having found a little solace in me, he was about to close his eyes in peace.

Not so fast.

I couldn't let him go yet.

"Besides, cats are such insignificant creatures, it's a waste even to graft them onto humans. You didn't think something like that suited you, did you?"

With those words, the gold plating peeled from his gilded humanity.

"Would a little pair of ears and a tail erase humanity's magnificent reason? No. Those ears and tail are dim moonlight obscured by the sun—no, starlight so faint you can't even see a trace. You once had ears and a tail, but you still became a lieutenant general through brilliant reason, endless patience, effort, and study."

I affirmed humanity and denied beasts. More than that, I insulted beasts.

But was this truly what he wanted?

"Think about cats. They chase sewer rats, then pretend they're clean and refined. Worthless beasts that couldn't survive if they weren't cute, yet they're ill-tempered and don't know their place. So pointlessly hard to kill. Throw them outside and they'll cling desperately to life, skulking through back alleys to survive. Do you have even the slightest thing in common with those filthy furballs?"

He didn't. Of course not. Even beastkin lived as humans, a world apart from actual cats. Even Lieutenant General Ebon, cat beastkin that he was, could not identify with that.

And yet.

He could not be happy.

"Perfect timing. Listen."

I raised a finger to my lips, then cupped a hand by my ear.

And from far below came a beast's roar.

'The King... of Dogs.'

Azi's roar. Immediately afterward, the sound of her kicking off the ground and leaping. Then Nabi's scream.

The crack of something breaking reached us all the way up here. Something heavy slammed into the ground twice with resounding crashes. The force shook the bottomless pit, sending tremors all the way to the roof.

'... The King of Cats falls short of the King of Dogs... in strength. Without a human involved in their fight... defeat is certain.'

Just as Ebon predicted, it wasn't long before a cry rang out.

MRRROOOW...

A moan that gradually faded as life guttered out.

Having cast off her chains, Azi was passing judgment on Nabi, who had tormented her all this time.

By the merciless laws of beasts.

"Wait! Azi! Stop! You'll kill her if you shake her like that...!"

Huh. It seemed someone had intervened. Apparently, the King of Cats wasn't going to die just yet.

Well, that didn't matter.

Ebon's eyes were already trembling enough.

"See? She can barely stay alive without a human showing her mercy. For all the fuss about being the King of Cats, she doesn't even compare to a dog. As a beast or as a king, she's in a far lower league. That's why you tried to secure Azi, and why you always made sure to put a human with Azi and Nabi whenever the two were left together."

For a fleeting moment, Ebon was furious. Then he could not work out why.

He was cat beastkin, but he had refused to become a beast, abandoned his instincts, and cut off his ears and tail. Even that had not been enough. He had joined the Lords of Creation to be recognized as wholly human.

Ebon wanted someone to affirm that he was human.

But.

In truth...

"Calling herself the King of Cats, only to soak herself in drugs and go insane. My goodness, what other Beast King has become so pathetic and miserable? Isn't it astonishing? She should've just died. It's a wonder cat beastkin even exist."

"Stop... it!"

Even as he lay dying, Ebon burned through his remaining life to shout. Though speaking further would only shorten his life, he resisted fiercely, blood streaming from his mouth.

"... Don't... insult... me! I'd rather...!"

"But I was insulting cats."

"Fucking...! Don't lie...!"

"Haha. You're finally being honest."

Why was he angry? The reason was simple.

"You never wanted to become human."

He had never been able to completely separate himself from the cat within him.

"You only wanted to be accepted for what you were. Cat beastkin."

He himself, of all people, could not do it.

"That's why you couldn't give up your claw weapons, and why your fighting style grew strangely catlike. You despised the King of Cats but pitied her, too, so you at least tried to keep her by your side and watch over her."

He could not bear to abandon the feline part that had been with him all his life. He wanted to be accepted as he was.

Yet between the persecution beastkin suffered and the inferiority of beasts he had discovered in the Lords of Creation, he could not endure it. He sought recognition as a pure human instead.

"Liar. You never even wanted to be purely human."

At the very end, confronted with what he truly wanted, Ebon opened his eyes wide.

"Farewell, Ebon Crimsonwild. An incomplete human who cut off his ears and tail but could not abandon his claws. An avenger who hated cats, but hated the kingdom that made him hate cats even more. A pitiful subject who scorned his king, yet could never abandon her to the end."

'Was that... it? I...'

"You became a monster trying to cut away part of yourself. Because you were already human, just as you were."

'... Did I not... hate myself that much, after all?'

A faint smile remained at the very end. Then, just like that, Ebon closed his eyes.

His life had been turbulent, his struggle fierce to the end. He had not come down here in despair, nor had he fallen into the pit blinded by a thirst for glory. From beginning to end, he had raced toward his goal.

Though he had become badly twisted along the way.

Still, I was glad he had found his own direction at the last.

After briefly savoring the lingering feeling, I rose and called out,

"Rash! It's over! Let's head down!"

No answer. With his claylike body, Rash had blocked out most sound simply by plugging his ears. Even when I read his mind, he wasn't registering my voice at all.

I exaggerated my mouth movements as I spoke to him, while he stared blankly back.

"Rash! I said it's over!"

"What? I can't hear you!"

Apparently, he couldn't hear a thing.

Wait. In that case...

"Hey, you thickheaded immortal bastard! You were going to punch me that hard and told me to just take one? You think everyone else can't fucking die just because you can't? You shameless thug! Quit plugging your damn ears and get down—!"

By the time I got that far, Rash had already pulled his fingers halfway out.

Our eyes met. Awkwardly, I said,

"You said you'd keep your ears plugged."

"It looked like you were finished!"

"... You didn't hear that, did you?"

"Not all of it."

Ahaha.

We stared at each other, laughing awkwardly. After laughing for a while, I scratched my head and said,

"Oops. I talked so long the 'door' closed. Still, I've found a clue to escaping, so let's head down."

"Very well. But..."

Rash raised a fist.

"May I punch you just once? I'll be gentle. Really."