He looked away, the silence stretching until it felt too heavy to bear. His voice, when it ca, was quiet... almost hollow.
"People used to say my mother was bright. Like sunlight. Always smiling, always laughing. But after that night... that light vanished. Her eyes—" he paused, swallowing hard, "they lost all their warmth. She was never the sa again. Her family... they never found her."
His fingers fidgeted unconsciously at his side, betraying the storm inside.
"She beca the most admired woman in the tribe... but inside, she was breaking. She never forgave my father. And she could never forgive herself either—for surviving... for staying."
He took a shaky breath, like the words had been trapped in his chest for too long.
"But I heard her crying sotis, late at night. And a few days before she died... she finally spoke to , not because soone told her to, not because she had to—but because she wanted to."
His eyes glistened as he forced the next words out.
"She told the truth. She didn’t want to leave my father... she just wanted to return to her tribe, ask her parents for their blessing, and then co back to him. She wanted to marry him by her choice."
A bitter laugh slipped from his lips. "But that night... he didn’t wait. He forced her. And in that mont, the man she loved turned into soone she didn’t recognize. A stranger. A monster."
His jaw clenched, but his eyes shimred with sorrow, not anger.
"Even though he returned to the gentle man she rembered the next day... it was too late. That one night rewrote everything. It destroyed the love she had, shattered the trust, and left her trapped."
He looked at Kaya, pain carved into every line of his face.
"That night was also when it all began. That cursed ritual. They made it law—that any woman who stayed a full day and night in the tribe could be claid, as long as so male could make her fall in love. She’d be his. Like a prize."
His hands trembled, voice cracking under the weight of his mories.
"So many girls... lost, scared, injured—they were pulled into it. I did what I could. Helped them escape, one by one. I made sure they got away. But the others—they noticed. Even without proof, they knew it was ."
He looked down at the ground.
"They didn’t confront . They didn’t need to. They just... started pulling away. Whispering. Watching. Until, one day, I wasn’t one of them anymore. I was just the traitor. The outsider."
Kaya looked at him for a few seconds, frozen. She couldn’t understand what the hell he was talking about—squirrel tribe? Rabbit tribe? But just from his words alone, she knew... this wasn’t her world. No, it couldn’t be. The way they talked, the way they looked, even the way they wore their clothes—it was all wrong. Earlier, she thought maybe she’d just been thrown onto so strange, remote island. But now? Now she was sure. No one she knew could possibly create or belong to sothing like this.
And this man—no matter how normal he looked—his ears... they moved when he spoke. Actually moved.
Even the weather was insane.
The sky kept changing like it was playing gas with reality—shifting colors like it had moods of its own. Just a second ago, it had turned a deep, bloody red. When the hell could the sky even do that? But the man didn’t flinch. He didn’t react like anything was wrong. To him, it was normal.
Even the surroundings didn’t feel real. They were too still. Too quiet.
[Spoiler: Of course, she heard what he said, but her life was more important than anything to her—and right now, the surroundings were far more dangerous than his words.]
"...iss...mi...miss"
Kaya shook herself free from the haze clouding her mind and fixed her eyes on the man before her, whose worried expression only deepened under her steady gaze.
"What... what is this place called?" Her voice was sharp, unyielding.
Cutie blinked, as if caught off guard by her intensity, then answered with a calmness that felt almost surreal.
"If you an this area, it’s called the Red Water Region. And the island? That’s Sakahari Island."
Kaya’s patience snapped. "No. I asked—what world is this?"
The mont her words hung in the air, Cutie froze, his eyes widening as if realizing the weight of her question for the first ti. After a brief pause, his voice dropped to a whisper, almost afraid to say it aloud.
"This... this is Beast World."
Hearing that, Kaya froze. "Bea... Beast World?" she echoed, her voice barely above a whisper. Her lips trembled, her whole body stiffening as if the na itself carried weight—one heavy enough to crush her chest.
She didn’t know this world. She had never heard of it before. And yet... sothing about it stirred a strange shiver down her spine. A sense of familiarity. Of nostalgia twisted with fear.
How could that be?
The na alone brought flashes to her mind—beings with beast-like ears, tails, sharp eyes that glead like predators. The thought that such things were normal here... that they were people—no, beast n—it all made too much terrifying sense.
Her heart raced, not because she rembered, but because so part of her seed to already know.
Suddenly, feeling sothing wrong, the snake that was resting in Kaya’s inner pocket stirred. It could feel her heart beating faster—louder, heavier. Sothing wasn’t right.
The snake felt uncomfortable. It had been quietly listening to their conversation, but now, it couldn’t understand this female at all.
Such a big reaction?
Did she really not know the na of her own world... or even the island she was on?
Why was a woman, who stayed calm even when she beat down that Hyena King and shattered his fang, reacting so strongly now?
Even the tiny sparrow felt the slight tremble of Kaya and was confused.
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