Hunting and gathering are ancient human instincts, and the psychological reward of a successful haul has a pedigree stretching back to antiquity.

I was no exception. Having found something tremendously valuable on my search, I felt as though I could fly. Neither the fact that this was a bottomless pit nor that it was the abyss farthest from the sky could keep my spirits down.

Besides, it had barely taken any effort. A short morning stroll, a dog fetching something for me—that was genuinely all the work these finds had cost me.

Lucky that thing was still there. It was a Level 3 state secret, which put it at the very top of the list for disposal.

My spirits lifting all over again, I grabbed Azi, the star of this expedition, and ruffled her hair.

“Aw, you're adorable! How are you this cute?”

“Woof! Woof!”

An ordinary person would grow wary if someone suddenly hugged them and called them cute, wondering what they were up to.

But Azi was a dog incapable of suspicion. The King of Dogs took pure delight even in praise that came out of nowhere.

After barking happily, she whipped around to look at me and spoke.

“Like walks now?”

“For today, I love them.”

“Woof? Love?”

“It means you like something a whole lot.”

“Woof! Me too! I love walks!”

'... Love?'

What was that saying about full granaries breeding generosity? With my pockets full, I was feeling much more charitable. Today, even this freeloader looked positively adorable.

The two of us made our way out of the rubble, laughing and enjoying ourselves.

“Right. Keep being this good from now on.”

“I'm always good!”

“Good, my ass. Whenever something didn't go your way, you bared your teeth immediately. Grrr, like that.”

“Grrr?”

Azi played innocent, as though she had never done such a thing. No, perhaps she wasn't playing innocent at all, but had simply deleted any inconvenient memories. Dogs had no shame, after all.

Nice try. Your human remembers perfectly well.

I bared my teeth at Azi and growled. She tilted her head, raised her tail, and copied me.

“Grrr, rr?”

“Exactly. No more growling. Don't bare your teeth anymore, and don't try to bite, either. Even if you're unhappy, just use your tongue first. Got it?”

“Woof!”

“I'll take that as a yes.”

'Don't bare your teeth... Just your tongue... Surely not.'

It happened as I stepped outside, engaged in this serious conversation with a dog.

An icy wave of murderous intent struck me from somewhere.

'Light clothing. Don't tell me they've already...? No, I followed him down immediately. There wasn't enough time.'

The Regressor was glaring at me, her expression frigid.

Huh? Murderous intent? Why?

Before I could react through my confusion, she reached behind her head. An invisible sword settled into her fingers with a light tap.

'Either way, he's guilty of an attempt, right? Fine. Let's kill him.'

“Waitwaitwait!”

I grabbed Azi by the shoulders and thrust her in front of me. Oblivious to the fact that I was using her as a shield, she stared at the Regressor.

Hiding behind Azi, I shouted desperately.

“I don't know what you're thinking, but it's all a misunderstanding!”

“What is?”

“All of it! Every last one of those shameless thoughts of yours!”

“Shameless? Me? Don't you mean yourself?”

“Yes, you! You with your head full of filth!”

SHING.

Ah, she'd finally drawn Sky Cherry Blossom. I pressed myself against Azi's back and shouted.

“A dirty mind sees dirt everywhere! You're the one with the filthy thoughts to begin with! What exactly do you take me for?”

The Regressor answered with cold eyes.

“A beast.”

“That's exactly what's wrong here!”

The Regressor was seriously imagining something wildly inappropriate. It was so absurd that I was more bewildered than indignant.

Good grief. I'd been falsely accused of plenty of things, but bestiality was a first. And she was about to hand down a death sentence over an accusation anyone else would have greeted with contempt or laughed off! From suspicion to sentencing, she was worse than the Military State!

As she approached with a murderous expression, I shouted with heartfelt sincerity.

“With a dog? Don't be ridiculous. What kind of person would have sex with a dog?!”

The Regressor brought several people to mind. From a quick reading, they were probably people who had tried making love to a dog in one of her runs.

Damn it. Did people lose even their humanity in a future on the brink of apocalypse? Disgraces to the human race. I pressed a hand to my forehead and shouted.

“I know there are people in this world who defy all ordinary common sense. But I, at least, am not one of them! My tastes are perfectly normal!”

“... You keep treating Azi like a dog.”

The Regressor pointed Sky Cherry Blossom at Azi's shoulders, which I still had in my grip.

“Are you doing it on purpose, or is that really how you see her?”

“What now?”

“Azi isn't a dog. She's the King of Dogs, a Beast King in human form.”

Azi looked blankly back and forth between me and the Regressor. A girl with large, curious eyes, tousled blond hair, and breath coming fast as though she had just sprinted at full speed.

On the outside, she was a lively girl brimming with healthy vigor. On the outside, at least.

But.

“Trainee Shei.”

“Do you understand now? You keep treating Azi like a dog, but she's...”

“Are you out of your mind?”

The Regressor flinched at my stern rebuke. I pushed Azi as far forward as I could and shouted. She simply widened her eyes and moved wherever I steered her.

“Tell me, Trainee Shei! Is Azi human?”

“What? What are you—”

“Answer me! Is Azi human? Is she beautiful?”

“Uh, well.”

Faced with my relentless questions, the Regressor muttered a little defensively.

“Sh-she looks human, doesn't she?”

“Is that what I asked? How do you feel when you look at her? Does Azi make you horny?”

“Horny?! O-of course not!”

“Then why the hell are you saying that shit about me? Does my dignity mean nothing to you?”

“W-well...”

'You're excessively close to Azi, and you're the only man here...'

You suspected me just because I was a man? I was speechless at the absurdity. Before she was female, Azi was a dog. A dog!

Wait. Come to think of it, you were dressed as a man too!

I was so bewildered that it was making me angry. Timid and weak-willed as I was, I usually kept quiet even when people pushed me around, but I couldn't tolerate having my human morality and dignity questioned. I prided myself on remaining within the bounds of ordinary humanity, and she was comparing me to that scum?

“Listen carefully, Trainee Shei.”

Sometimes, when anger reaches its peak, your head suddenly cools and reason returns. For me, this was that moment.

I let out a deep breath that welled up from the bottom of my heart, then began speaking calmly to the Regressor.

“Someone throws a ball for a person and tells them to fetch. Someone else wishes that person good morning and asks whether they enjoyed breakfast. Which one is normal?”

“W-well... the one saying good morning.”

“Very good. Now, someone throws a ball for a dog and tells it to fetch. Someone else wishes the dog good morning and asks whether it enjoyed breakfast. Which one is normal?”

“W-well, that's...”

'She is a dog, but...'

So you admit your guilt. You knew it yourself, yet you were giving me grief?

Eyes blazing, I thundered at her.

“Exactly! Treating a dog like a dog is normal! The weird one is the person awkwardly saying hello and asking if it enjoyed breakfast!”

“B-but...”

“Azi looks human? Oh, really. Then I can take that to mean you see her as a person, can't I? That you're eyeing her with those shameless, lustful eyes, pretending to treat her as an individual while waiting for your chance!”

“N-no! I'm—”

“You're a man too! Just like me! If anything, you're more suspicious. Why do you keep treating Azi like a person, stalking us, and suspecting there's something between us? Are you jealous?!”

“Of course not!”

“Words are cheap! Take a good look at your own behavior!”

'Ugh, if only I weren't disguised as a man...!'

Disguised as a man, the Regressor couldn't bring herself to argue. Emboldened, I stepped forward and pressed the issue. With my hands still on her shoulders, Azi followed my lead with a bright smile, apparently thinking this was a fun game.

“Get it? You're the weird one here!”

Reason knew the answer. The Regressor knew it too. Whose argument was logically sound, whose attitude was more rational.

Under my assault of nothing but sound arguments, she faltered backward.

“Woof?”

Of course, sound arguments or not, Azi couldn't follow anything longer than a couple of phrases and was merely looking between us in confusion. That right there was proof she was a dog.

A dog was a dog. I delivered a stern rebuke to the Regressor, who had overlooked that obvious fact and gotten far too invested.

“They're empty words to a mere dog. You're the weird one for reading anything into them! Understand? I could say I love her a thousand times, ten thousand times! Because I don't actually feel anything!”

But for a moment, I had forgotten something important.

Azi was a dog, but also a Beast King, a being chosen by the world to communicate with humans.

She might not fully understand what my words meant, but she could still hear them.

“Woof?! You don't like me?”

“Huh?”

Azi looked up at me, her large eyes full of doubt. Her perpetually whirling tail hung limp, and her usually perky ears drooped.

Before I even had time to think, Wait, what? she spoke, close to tears.

“You hate me?”

“Ah, well. Azi, there's a lot I need to explain.”

“Woof?”

Wait.

Hmm. Hold on. Let's think this through.

The King of Dogs was a dog. Complicated explanations wouldn't work. Telling her we'd talk later or whatever wouldn't get through to her now.

In other words, anything I said to corner the Regressor here, Azi would take at face value.

So, I had a choice. Sacrifice Azi's affection to keep pressuring and teasing the Regressor, or preserve it and let the Regressor off the hook.

... Couldn't be helped. A moment's pleasure, or the future?

There was no real choice. I couldn't ruin my grand plans for a trivial bit of fun right now.

Having made my decision, I spread my arms and gave Azi a beaming smile.

“Of course that was a lie. I actually like you a whole lot, Azi.”

“A whole lot?”

“Yes. A whole lot. Who else here is as good and cute as you?”

It wasn't exactly untrue. Compared with the terrifying vampire and the seemingly deranged Regressor, she was far more helpful. I could rely on her, too.

If only she'd read the room a little, been just a little more patient... things would have been so much better.

But that, too, was probably part of being a dog. I just had to accept it.

“You like me?”

“I told you I do.”

Whether she was innocent or stupid, a single phrase could send her mood swinging wildly.

Ah, perhaps she was both.

But humans found comfort in those very shortcomings. I could only call it ironic.

As I gave a hollow chuckle...

“Woof! You love me?”

'... Love?'

Why ask that when someone was watching? Had someone provoked you?

And who had taught you the word love in the first place? Who'd gone and taught a dog such a useless word?

Whoops. Both of those were me!

Damn it. Crushed beneath a disaster of my own making. Nothing for it. I'd brought this on myself, so I'd have to clean it up.

Doing my best to ignore the cold stare of the Regressor, who had regained her composure, I nodded slowly.

“Yes... That's right.”

I could tell a dog I loved her a hundred times. Plenty of people loved their pets more than their fellow humans.

But saying it in front of the Regressor, with her icy glare fixed on me... was far too daunting.

Still, there was no way around it. I swallowed. In an atmosphere that had somehow turned serious, I forced my reluctant lips to move and barely managed to shape the words.

“I love you...”

Her tail began to wag. They said words carried no weight, but to Azi, who took even such small feelings to heart, they were almost everything.

Smiling as widely as she could, she reached both arms toward me. She leaned against me at an angle, entrusting her entire weight to me.

It was a gesture of trust dogs showed only to people they were close to, placing themselves entirely in another's care.

Pure affection filled her face. With a goofy smile, Azi let the corners of her eyes droop into soft curves.

“Woof! I like you too! Love you!”

“Yeah...”

I'd never imagined I'd be whispering sweet nothings to a dog in my lifetime. Sigh.

Azi leaped into my arms. With trembling hands, I stroked her fur.

And, as always...

'Seriously... I can't let my guard down.'

The Regressor was even more wary of me now.

Ah. Stop. Don't look at me like that. Don't fiddle with your sword hilt while debating whether to kill me, either. I'm not that kind of person.

I only liked her as a pet.

'If he's a Military State Instructor, as I suspect, and he volunteered to come to Tantalus, that would explain his power too. All the more reason to be careful.'

Ah, and honestly, I did understand how you felt. I'd look down on anyone who proudly claimed to have had sex with an animal, too.

I had neither the desire nor the ability to do that, but even if I had, you couldn't go around trying to kill people. A death sentence for loving an animal? The punishment alone was absurd.

No matter how I looked at it, I couldn't shake the feeling that she was overreacting...

'... An organization under the Military State's special operations unit. A secret society that tried to destroy enemy nations by manipulating the Beast Kings to serve the Military State's will.'

Uh, hold on.

What? A secret society?

'The Lords of Creation. Experts in handling beasts, and a gathering of bigots who hate beastkin more than anyone. There's a strong chance he's one of them.'

A series of images flashed through the Regressor's mind.

In an unrecorded past, she stood upon a plain. A sword lighter than the wind rested in her hand, but her heart was heavy.

Guilt at failing to stop the apocalypse. Helplessness at having changed nothing on her own. She had failed in this life, too. Everyone beside her would die. Yet she would eventually defy death and open her eyes again, setting out in search of another future.

Beside the Regressor, terrified people stood in a line. Cold sweat slicked their palms, and their eyes trembled with fear, but they dared not even consider fleeing.

Had their opponents been fellow humans, they might have begged for mercy. They might have pleaded that, even if they themselves died, their families be spared.

But those coming to kill them this time were not bound by human rules. They had human shapes, but they were not human.

The horizon heaved. The earth shook. In a frenzied charge, hundreds upon thousands of beasts rushed forward, a few distant specks at their head dragging the mass behind them like a curtain.

They took different forms. Some ran on four legs, others on two. Some had human shapes, but beast ears sprouted from their heads or long tails swayed at their waists. Beastkin, the sons and daughters of humanity's past sins. Born human yet denied human treatment, those of beast blood used what they had gained from humans to kill humans.

And before them stood human figures radiating an alien presence.

Beast Kings.

Those who spoke for an entire species.

Beast Kings were powerful, but did not impose their might. They were, above all, their species' spokespeople. Representatives who conveyed their species' wishes to humans.

But if that species wished to rise against humanity, if its resolve for war was firm...

The Beast King carried out the will of its people.

And among those people, the beastkin who had succumbed to oppression and embraced hatred took the lead.

Blood, flames, smoke.

Beasts clad in iron and flame attacked humanity... Unleashing their wild instincts as they wielded weapons, they were a calamity unto themselves.

And the most numerous among the beastkin who had betrayed humanity were...

The Beast King standing at the head of the overwhelming majority of the rebels was...

The jarring past receded, and reality drew close again. What I had just read was so vivid that the scene still seemed etched onto my retinas.

It was both past and future. One aspect of the apocalypse the Regressor had experienced, and which I, too, would face unless something changed.

With a trembling hand, I reached up to rest my palm on Azi's head as she nuzzled into my chest. Her broad ears rose slightly and settled again, like sheets of paper fluttering on a desk.

The King of Dogs, her mouth shut tight, her weight resting against me.

The darling of those lovable pets so loyal to humanity...

In a future that would come one day, she had been smiling, covered head to toe in blood.

'Beast Kings are chosen by the world. Even if I killed her here, the next king would simply be born somewhere else.'

Why had I overlooked it?

The Regressor's concerns couldn't possibly have been mere groundless fears.

'With Azi relying on him this much, I can't dispose of him rashly. Nor can I be certain he belongs to the Lords of Creation. But as things stand, he's the most likely trigger for her rampage. There's no reason not to watch him.'

Fair enough.

Azi's body was warm and soft. Her hands were curled slightly to keep her claws hidden, showing consideration for my safety. She couldn't have consciously thought it through, so she must have been instinctively avoiding anything that could hurt someone.

What on earth had happened to leave those gently curled hands drenched in blood?

It seemed the future was far crueler than I had imagined.