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Episode 2
"Hey! Why isn't your mom coming? Did she abandon you?"
"No! Mom didn't abandon Letty!"
"She abandoned you because you're dirty, lazy, and pathetic. You're just a worthless parasite that wastes food."
Letty covered her ears at the mocking voice of Lingling. Despite her denial of her mother's abandonment, Lingling refused to believe her.
"It's true. Your mom will never come looking for you again."
Letty felt wronged. At the same time, she was scared.
'What if Mom really doesn't come for me?'
Although Letty firmly believed in her mother's love, the time they promised had long passed.
'What if something bad happened to Mom?'
"No! No, no, no!"
Startled by the growing doubts creeping into her small heart, Letty screamed. Lingling, apparently annoyed, shoved her hard.
Thud.
Letty fell backward and bit her lip.
"Mom didn't abandon me."
She truly didn't. Mom wouldn't abandon her.
"You don't know anything..."
You don't know.
How much Mom loves me—you're the one who doesn't know.
"Please let me find Mom... I want to see her."
Sitting on the ground, Letty burst into tears. She missed her mom. Waiting for her at Feyrin's house was too scary, sad, and lonely.
"If you help me find Mom, I'll do anything..."
At that moment, it happened.
"Really?"
Lingling's face began to spin as if caught in a whirlwind. Peach, black, green, yellow—discordant colors swirled into a gray circle.
"Will you really do anything?"
Lingling was no longer Lingling. Although it felt unfamiliar, Lessie wasn’t scared of the 'being' that now spoke gently.
"Yes. I can do it."
At Letty's prompt reply, the being burst into laughter.
"You need to practice your pronunciation more."
"I—I am practicing."
"Good. Because you are my..."
The latter words were muffled and incomprehensible.
✦ ✦ ✦
"Ah."
Waking from the dream where she had cried in frustration, Letty wiped her damp eyes as she got up.
'I should've been in human form.'
Crying in human form would have been manageable with just a wipe of her clothes, but crying in her animal form soaked her fur, which took forever to dry.
With her wet face buried in the pillow as she rubbed it, Letty suddenly froze with a thought.
'Why doesn't it hurt?'
She distinctly remembered hitting her head against the wall badly the day before and getting hurt.
"Ugh..."
Using her soft paw, Letty gingerly touched her head, frowning deeply as she pressed her forehead.
"The wound is gone."
It was strange.
Letty wasn’t a lizard beast-person boasting extraordinary healing powers, nor a crocodile beast-person with remarkable recovery abilities. Yet, all her wounds had healed overnight.
'And I think I had some sort of dream...'
Most likely, a dream involving Lingling. But it wasn’t just Lingling.
'What did that thing say to me?'
As she recalled the 'being' that had overlapped with Lingling’s angry face, a palm-sized bug fluttered onto her forehead.
"Ahh! A bug!"
Startled, Letty clenched her tiny fists. The bug, having crashed into her head with a thud, opened its small mouth as if in disbelief.
"Seriously? Have you ever seen a bug as pretty as me? Maybe there's something wrong with your eyes?"
"W-what is this?"
Letty blinked, her mouth agape in disbelief.
Looking closer, the bug resembled a tiny human. Its two pairs of light green wings sparkled as they flapped, scattering specks of light like the fairies from the bedtime stories her mother used to read.
"Ahem!"
The bug cleared its throat and circled around Letty's face before stopping to speak.
"Seeing me, doesn’t something come to mind? Like Disney☆, or maybe a boy in a ridiculous green outfit with no sense of shame?"
As the bug spoke, Letty narrowed her eyes, recalling the fairy tales her mother used to read before bedtime.
"A fairy?"
"Correct."
Letty gazed at the fairy's thin, dragonfly-like green dress in awe, her mouth falling open again.
‘Am I going to a place where I’ll stay a child forever?’
Her little heart pounded with excitement.
‘But if I do that, Mom won’t be able to find me.’
"Fairy, I can’t go with you... I have to wait for Mom."
"Who said anything about going somewhere? I’m here because my boss thinks you can fix my book. I even healed your wounds, and this is how you repay me?"
Letty's eyes widened at the bug claiming to be a fairy.
"Fix what?"
At Letty's question, the fairy puffed out its chest and spoke proudly.
"As you can see, I am a fairy. Not just any fairy, but a book fairy. You could say I’m an exceptionally cultured, high-ranking fairy."
Buzzing around Letty's face, the fairy continued, lifting its chin toward the ceiling with a smug expression.
"My job is to manage the books my boss owns! Since my boss treasures their books immensely, you could say my abilities are highly valued."
Ahem.
The slightly pretentious fairy added,
"Anyway, you’re a character from one of our boss’s books, [Only the Panda Daughter-in-law Receives Love]. Nicknamed [Panda Daughter-in-Law]. That book is my favorite—my mainstay."
"Mainstay?"
"In simple terms, think of it as my best friend. Want to take a look?"
Explaining the term for Letty, the fairy wrinkled its nose and placed a large hardcover book—three times its size—in front of her.
Although Letty was only four years old, she was intelligent enough to read most words.
She began reading the pages the fairy had spread before her.
"Letty never gets to meet her mom. Later, when Mom finally comes looking for Letty, she is so heartbroken that she never leaves the child's grave..."
Halfway through the page, Letty stopped, tightly closing her mouth. She gently traced the beautiful illustrations behind the text with her finger.
The sun was setting behind a small hill. A tiny grave, smaller than Letty's crying mother, stood there, covered in blooming lily of the valley flowers.
"What is this?"
Sniffling.
Reading the part where her mother mourned her death, Letty's eyes brimmed with tears.
“Wuuuuu.”
The fairy was flustered, not expecting Letty to be so upset, and stammered awkwardly.
"Why are you crying? It hasn’t even happened yet."
The fairy, shaped like a capital T, couldn’t comprehend why Letty was crying. However, the sight of the young red panda shedding large tears made her seem pitiful.
The flustered fairy tried its best to wipe away the child's tears with its tiny hands. As its pressed against the tear-soaked fur:
Drip.
The water rolled off her fur like wringing out wet laundry.
“Stop crying, okay? You’re not dead yet.”
“…I’m not crying because I’m dead.”
Letty held back her tears as she spoke.
“Mommy… came looking for me…”
I’m crying because I’m happy.
The fairy frowned, unable to understand Letty's response.
"Your mom comes way too late in this book. What’s there to be happy about?"
“She tried to come to me. Mommy hasn’t forgotten me.”
“Aren’t you mad she didn’t make it on time?”
“I’m not mad at all. I just feel sorry for making Mommy sad by dying.”
The fairy clicked its tongue at Letty's response. Due to the sudden deterioration of [Panda Daughter-in-Law], the book fairy itself had started losing power.
‘That’s why I followed the Demon King’s advice and tried fixing the book outside…’
The Demon King had said this child might help, but seeing her now, Letty didn’t seem capable of fixing the book, let alone looking after her own needs.
"Sigh. Maybe I should’ve checked what kind of kid she was before coming."
"Huh?"
"Never mind. What’s the point of regretting something that’s already too late…"
The slightly deflated fairy flew to rest on Letty's small black nose and shrugged her tiny shoulders.
"Anyway, you’re a character in this book. The world you live in is based on it."
‘The Beast Territories, Bear Beast Clan, Solaris Empire.’
Letty nodded slowly as she read the keywords on the book's back cover. She was somewhat familiar with the Solaris Empire, often mentioned in stories.
A land protected by the Sun God, where most beast people, including Letty, lived. It was called Solaris.
"But why is the book in this state?"
[Panda Daughter-in-Law] was a beautifully bound green hardcover, but white mold had sprouted in patches, making it look poorly maintained.
“Did the fairy ruin it?”
Letty asked while fiddling with the loose book cover, which looked ready to fall apart. The fairy let out a small, awkward cough.
"I looked away for a moment to care for another book! And it ended up like this. To be exact, it started going wrong in the parts where your mom appears. The book didn’t just lose focus; it collapsed completely."
The fairy squinted its eyes as its continued speaking.
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