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Episode 10
Letty’s bold statement cast a suffocating silence over an already quiet household.
"…Fine."
It was not Letty, who declared passionately to give her the son, nor Brunhardt, who struggled to hold back laughter, that broke the oppressive silence.
"Take him, if you want."
At Grisys's dry response, Lorik gasped and held his forehead in shock.
"What do you mean, 'take him'? Your Grace, have you lost your mind?!"
To hand over the heir to a random girl asking for him out of the blue—what kind of absurdity was this?
"She asked for him. It’s a bother…"
Grisys found his son bothersome.
Specifically, he found it tedious to fend off the endless marriage proposals pouring in for Mireil—though most were managed by Lorik, some required Grisys's input as the head of the household.
"But that doesn't mean you can just hand the heir over to a stranger!"
Lorik raised his voice in frustration at Grisys's muttered reply.
"Why not?"
"Of course not! The heir isn’t some object!"
Sigh...
Grisys leaned back, avoiding Lorik’s furious tirade, and slowly closed his eyes.
‘Why can't I let Mireil marry this girl?’
He started to compare his capable but problematic successor, often praised as a future swordmaster, to a pen rolling casually on a desk, only for his thoughts to freeze midway.
Grisys felt utterly fed up with everything. Even dying felt like too much effort.
"Your Grace, if you wish to marry off young master Mireil, you must first review the proposals piling up here. After that, you’ll need to shortlist the candidates, conduct personality and aptitude tests, and finally determine if the chosen candidate suits the heir."
Before Lorik could finish listing the lengthy procedure, Grisys turned away with an expression of complete exhaustion, and Lorik's frustration boiled over as he turned to Letty and Brunhardt.
"Elder, knowing how His Grace would react, why would you bring an unknown girl as the heir’s potential bride?"
Lorik’s sharp critique, as the grand duke’s adjudant and the practical backbone of the family, was directed at Brunhardt, who had brought Letty here.
"You said the bride just needed to be a panda beastkin."
Brunhardt shrugged off Lorik’s piercing gaze and pointed a wrinkled finger at Letty, who was wide-eyed and clueless.
"This child claims to be a panda. Isn't that right, dear?"
At the elder’s question, Letty nodded eagerly as if she’d been waiting for this moment.
"Yes. I’m a panda."
A red panda.
Letty smiled brightly, not elaborating further about her species.
"…Are you saying that you, I mean this little lady, is a panda beastkin?"
"Yes."
Lorik didn’t immediately believe her words but didn’t deny them either. He tilted his head in thought.
‘What does a panda look like anyway?’
Though both were bears, the grizzly and panda clans had no interactions. Panda beastkin were known to live exclusively in remote bamboo forests on the Eastern Continent.
"Excuse me, but how old are you?"
At Lorik’s question, Letty held up one palm and folded down one finger. Observing her tiny hand, Lorik gasped and clutched his head.
"Four? Not three? Unbelievable. Are pandas normally this small?"
Bear beastkin children are naturally robust and grow quickly, often chopping and carrying firewood by the time they are four or five.
Yet, the Letty before them was so small that one would doubt if she could even properly hold chopsticks, let alone chop wood.
"Yes. Pandas are originally small."
Letty answered calmly, having only ever seen her mother and herself. Since her mother, an adult, was small, and she was small too, she considered her claim truthful.
"Even though they’re unique bears that eat only plants… still, they are bears, so why are they so small?"
Ignoring Lorik’s muttered words, Letty turned her gaze elsewhere.
‘A panda is still a panda. Letty isn’t lying.’
She struggled to calm her pounding heart.
✦ ✦ ✦
Murmur, murmur.
"That tiny baby is the legendary panda beastkin destined to break the Grizzly family’s curse? Is it even a bear?"
"They say it is. Apparently, pandas are originally small."
Whisper, whisper.
"Unbelievable. Pandas eat only bamboo leaves, so they must lack nutrients. That’s probably why they’re so small despite being bears."
Surrounded by murmuring grizzly beastkin, Letty glanced around nervously.
‘I thought there’d be many other candidates and I’d have to compete with them…’
Yet, on the podium, Letty stood alone.
She had thought she’d have to win first place in some grand panda competition to earn 'the son' as a prize. However, it turned out she was the sole participant.
The grizzly beastkin couldn’t hide their confusion as they looked at Letty, who resembled a raccoon or perhaps a tiny baby bear.
‘…Is she really a bear?’
While they muttered, someone pointed out Letty’s ears.
"Wait, aren’t panda bear ears supposed to be black?"
Claiming to have seen a portrait of a panda beastkin sent from their lineage in the Eastern Continent, he started sharing what he knew.
Letty, proud of her pointed white ears, quickly covered them with her hands, alarmed by the comments from the crowd.
"And the fur… isn’t it strange? Pandas are supposed to be black and white, at least according to the drawings I’ve seen."
Startled, Letty instinctively hid her fluffy red fur-covered arms behind her back.
"And the tail… wait, did pandas even have tails? I only saw the front in the picture, so I don’t remember."
‘Phew, thank goodness. The tail’s too big to hide anyway.’
Relieved, Letty hugged her tail tightly.
"That’s probably because the panda was drawn in ink. The Eastern Continent is fond of monochrome ink paintings."
"True, that makes sense. After all, it’s an unfamiliar animal."
At someone’s reasonable suggestion, the man who had stepped forward quickly lost his confidence.
"I’ve brought the species detector, Your Grace."
Breaking through the crowd scrutinizing Letty, Lorik placed a box in front of the child.
Beep, beep, beep.
Letty suspiciously nudged the dark red box with her foot.
"What is this?"
"It’s a divine relic. It can determine precisely what species you are."
Lorik explained that this relic had helped filter out numerous candidates falsely claiming to be panda beastkin and suitable brides for Mireil.
Lorik explained how a fox dyed black, a hyena covered in soot, and even a polar bear who didn’t bother dyeing themselves had tried to pass off as panda beastkin. Clicking his tongue, Lorik placed Letty on top of the box.
"This relic will determine if the young lady is lying or not."
Beep, beep, beep.
[RED PANDA]
Gasp.
Letty slowly moved her left foot toward the letters appearing on the top of the box.
[… PANDA]
Fortunately, the box was just small enough to fit Letty’s two feet, making it easy for her to cover the letters.
Proudly covering the letters with her tiny feet, Letty looked up at Lorik triumphantly.
"See? Letty is a panda, after all!"
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