Chapter 169.2

Chapter 169.2

The sky, bright earlier that morning, had turned gray. Dark clouds gathered quickly as if a snowstorm was closing in. Yuri muttered a curse and picked up his pace.

These days, keeping up appearances had grown increasingly difficult. Conversations among his peers were becoming more explicit by the day.

Immature boys bragged about measuring themselves or flaunting body hair, striking a nerve each time.

“I don’t get it. Why am I the only one without pub*c hair?”

The more he dwelled on it, the more absurd it seemed. None of his memories of his father hinted at alopecia. Was it from his mother’s side?

Or his grandfather’s? Either way, asking Maxim Solzhenitsyn about pubic hair was unthinkable.

His penis already curved sharply upward. If body hair became another issue, he’d be branded the least masculine of them all.

“Damn it… sigh…”

The sight of hairless baby rabbits had soured his mood. That pale pink… it wasn’t so different, was it? Yuri rubbed his face anxiously.

Swish. Swish.

His eyes narrowed at the rustling sound from afar. The leaves shifted. Sswish, swish.

He glanced up at the sky, then back down, spotting scattered footprints in the snow. But these weren’t made by bears, deer, or even rabbits…

“They look like baby feet.”

Even speaking the words gave him a chill. His brow furrowed. There couldn’t possibly be a child in Winter Castle.

On closer inspection, it wasn’t just footprints. There were handprints, too. Strange. Inexplicable.

What kind of creature was this?

Too large to be a bird. Too heavy to be a rabbit. It seemed to climb trees. Did it… have horns?

That ominous rustling continued a few meters ahead. He hadn’t realized he was running fast enough to break into a sweat.

“Whew… whew…”

Wait. This was a cliff. He had to stop and turn around. Now.

“―!”

Something was on a branch. He couldn’t tell if it was a baby animal or some red fruit, swaying there in the falling snow. It looked like it might fall and die at any moment. His body moved before he had time to think.

He stepped boldly onto the thick snow where no one had yet tread. His breath fogged the air, each gasp rough and uneven. Strangely, his heart was racing.

No fur hat. No winter gear. Just a chilling mask. His toes had turned red with cold. And the closer he came, the more indistinct the shape became.

Dirty. Odd. He couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing.

“…!”

Its frail posture resembled a young animal’s but what swayed was a thin, small child. The sight jolted him.

Through the narrow slits of the mask, the child glimpsed round, alert eyes and a jaw agape like a caged muzzle, dragging breath through.

In that moment, the child’s lips parted wide. As the bizarre little thing quietly caught falling snow on its tongue like grains of rice-

Yuri reflexively raised the hunting rifle slung over his shoulder. His mind blanked.

“Choose the most difficult to catch and hardest to kill.” His grandfather’s cold voice echoed in his ears.

Bang!

The child, who looked like a beast, suddenly sprang at him.

“―!”

Its heavy head landed upside-down in Yuri’s arms. The bullet had missed as if by fate. Yuri dropped the rifle and reached out instinctively.

He was relieved they hadn’t rolled over the cliff. He wrapped his arms around the creature as they tumbled down the slope together.

“Ugh…!”

The child’s heavy mask slammed into his forehead. Rough little hands latched around Yuri’s neck, as if they’d been waiting for this moment.

“Wait. Don’t move, darn it!”

Gag… gag… He fought to pry the child away, gasping to reclaim his crushed throat. But this wasn’t ordinary strength. It was pure malice.

He had never encountered such naked hostility before. His limbs grew numb. His vision blurred.

The boy’s smooth mask began to crack.

He was going to die not at the hands of Maxim Solzhenitsyn, but torn apart by the feral wrath of this child-beast…

“―!”

Yuri blinked through pain. The child’s savage black eyes faltered. Their tumbling descent had stopped. Only their ragged breaths remained.

In the stillness, that gaze bore into his. Hungry. Too lucid.

Drool slid from the corner of the child’s mouth.