Home/I Became the Emergency Food Supply of the Bear Family/ch32

Chapter 32

Rib threw herself forward without even crying out.

Arrows grazed and pierced her arms, shoulders, and back—yet she felt no pain. As she reached toward her daughter—

An arrow slipped between her fingers and struck Koko's leg.

In a moment that felt like time had stopped, Rib's white arms wrapped around Koko's body a heartbeat too late.

Koko. No. A desperate breath, failing to become words, fell over Koko's pale face.

"Keep firing!"

"Even a corpse will do! Offer it to the master!"

Amid the clash of swords, excited voices rang out. Rib trembled violently as she shielded Koko in her arms.

——!

Rib's enraged roar echoed through the forest. One by one, the terrified attackers froze in place.

In that brief moment, the polar bear lunged and tore into one of them. The death scream barely ended before she took another, then another. The enraged polar bear's claws tore them apart mercilessly.

Having dispatched the last attacker, Rib collapsed.

Hearing the knights' urgent calls, Rib only looked at her daughter.

Her paws, touching Koko, grew increasingly numb. This was, surely—

Poison. Quickly, quickly—Koko...!

Rib gritted her teeth and forced herself up.

The arrowhead had been poisoned, without a doubt.

With her body slowly paralyzed by the poison, she rolled through the snow and barely made it back to the castle.

She received treatment from the court physician, but it was not enough.

Koko passed away.

The moment Koko's breath stopped, the vow's backlash began.

Rib could no longer speak to or touch those she loved—for the rest of her life.

"Mother, I'm sorry."

Louis, prostrate before Rib, who had collapsed from exhaustion in Koko's room, sobbed.

"If I hadn't—if I hadn't thrown a tantrum that morning, we could have left earlier and reached the Arctic safely—hic—it's my fault."

Without even meeting Rib's eyes, Louis blamed himself. Rib instinctively reached out toward him.

"I'm sorry, Mother."

Louis raised his tear-streaked face and also reached out. A natural action for loving family—to embrace and share grief together.

But as their fingertips touched, Rib hurriedly struck Louis's arm away.

Tears streamed down Louis's cheeks. In his eyes, gazing at Rib, she saw confusion and hurt.

The moment she touched Louis's skin, a terrible pain—as if someone was wrenching her heart—struck her. At the same time, she instinctively understood: the curse could affect not only herself, but also those she loved.

If she couldn't touch him, she at least wanted to tell him with her voice—that it was absolutely, absolutely not his fault.

But as if someone had stolen her voice, no matter how she strained, no sound came out.

Afterward, Rib's mother heard the news and came to the estate.

Watching her mother, weeping as she gently stroked the body of her dead granddaughter—the leg pierced by the arrow—Rib collapsed once more.

Unable to offer her mother words of comfort or embrace her after years apart, Rib could only weep alongside her.

"......"

Watching his wife and mother-in-law, Theodor bit his lower lip.

His clenched fist trembled precariously.

Four days after Koko's death, late one night—

Theodor disappeared.

Searched everywhere in Grizzly Castle, but he was nowhere. Without a single knight, without a carriage or even a sled, Theodor had left the estate.

Rib searched his room and office, tracking his whereabouts.

Among the papers scattered messily on his desk, she found a clue.

—The ones who killed Koko were not musk ox beast-people, but hyena beast-people wearing musk ox hides to deliberately conceal their scent.

—They were lying in ambush. They knew that Rib and Koko would pass that route at that time. Someone tipped them off? Betrayal from the Arctic? The North must also be considered.

—Who did the hyenas serve?

—Even a corpse would do—they were after the bear cub's body. Why?

A map lay beside the notebook scrawled with such phrases.

Circles marked various locations on the map, and one marked in red stood out.

Beneath the red circle in the Empire's West, Theodor's handwriting read:

—Leopard beast-people. Past cases of hiring hyena beast-people as mercenaries. A region where the superstition exists that eating a beast-person's young allows one to absorb that animal's power.

If it was a leopard beast-person in the West—

"...Viscount Pantera."

The moment Rib muttered that, a low voice came from behind.

"Yes. That's right."

Turning at the voice of the man she'd been searching for, Theodor stood there.

"That absurd reason—was correct."

Leaning against the wall, head bowed, his hair was disheveled and matted. Theodor raised his head. His hair, face, clothes—all soaked in blood.

Theodor's golden eyes, gazing at Rib, were unfocused. She knew at a glance—he had come from killing.

With eyes that held no explanation, only immense exhaustion, Theodor said one thing:

"It wasn't your fault."

"......"

Rib stood frozen in place, silently watching Theodor's receding back.

Those were the words she'd wanted to say to Louis, to Ferdinand, to Theodor, to her mother.

It didn't matter to anyone else. Those were words she shouldn't be allowed to receive.

Belatedly, she followed Theodor. He was in Koko's room.

Stroking the railing of Koko's bed, Theodor spoke quietly to the child who was no longer there.

"I'm sorry."

Without raising his head, he said again:

"I'm sorry I was too late."

That night, Theodor had killed those who caused Koko's death and returned.

She didn't even remember how the funeral had been held.

Because it was a vow to protect her beloved daughter with her life, the backlash also included a curse tied to "life."

A person can live while awake. But since the day she lost her daughter, Rib had been falling into sudden, overwhelming sleep as if fainting. She'd sob until hyperventilating at the funeral, then suddenly collapse and fall asleep.

Only the servants she didn't care for could move her. But there were almost none in Grizzly Castle that Rib didn't care for. Eventually, new servants had to be hired just to care for her.

It was painful not only to trouble the servants, but also to see her family fall apart each time they witnessed her condition.

Ultimately, Rib decided not to leave the annex. And unless there was a special reason, she decided not to see her husband or children.

She resolved to live this slow, dying life.

Fortunately, sleep kept coming.

Though impossible in reality, she sometimes met her daughter in dreams. Watching a small white bear frolicking in the snow, then waking—she felt a fleeting happiness.

Even knowing it was all false, an illusion.

So dying like this wouldn't be so hard.

She would soon go to meet Koko.

---

Rib slowly opened her eyes.

A warmth on her right arm made her turn her head—a small, white creature was clinging to her arm.

This was—

At the strange situation, Rib frowned. Had she died? And—had she finally met Koko?

"...Koko?"

The moment she uttered that longed-for name, a sense of incongruity made her touch her lips with her fingertips.

Had the curse vanished because she died? She could call her daughter's name.

Rib sat up. It was difficult even to lean against the bed after being immobile for so long, but she strained, grunting. She wanted to hold Koko quickly.

Only after observing the white creature up close did she realize it wasn't a baby polar bear.

"This child is..."

The moment Rib murmured, the rabbit's ears twitched. She thought it might be waking—then the rabbit's body suddenly began to glow white.

A familiar light.

The light of humanization.

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