After playing at the water playground with the children, we returned to the tent to rest.

While exchanging greetings with Kkamang and Seol in the tent, Gaeul suddenly ran inside.

“Master! Master!”

Gaeul pointed outside while hopping up and down.

Her bright smile suggested she wanted to show us something.

“Gaeul, is there something outside?”

“Yeah.”

What could Gaeul want to show me?

I followed Gaeul outside the tent.

There stood a dirt castle that must have been built while I wasn’t looking.

“Wow, what’s this?”

“Gaeul’s house.”

Gaeul moved to the opposite side of the dirt castle.

Following behind, I discovered a cave dug into the dirt wall.

It was large enough for one person to fit comfortably.

“Is this the entrance? Wouldn’t it be better facing the tent?”

“No!”

Gaeul crawled into the cave.

Then she stuck out just her upper body and looked around.

She looked like a guard dog watching over its home.

‘Ah.’

To guard properly, she needed to watch the outside rather than the tent.

Was this her canine instincts at work?

There was no need to suppress a beast-kin’s proper expression of instinct.

“I want to go in too but the house looks too small.”

“No.”

Gaeul shook her head and patted her thighs.

It seemed she wanted me to put just my lower body inside.

“Hmm…”

Well, that might work if I only put my legs in.

I lay down and pushed my feet into the cave first.

Wiggling my feet around, I managed to get in up to my solar plexus.

“Master!”

Happy to share the cave, Gaeul’s tail wagged quickly.

Her soft tail fur tickled my skin.

My tail was moving just like hers, so I couldn’t really complain.

“It’s really cozy in here.”

The cool earth felt nice.

Now that my fear of dirt was gone, being underground felt exciting like a secret base.

Was liking being underground also a beast-kin instinct?

Thinking about various things, I gathered some dirt nearby.

I filtered out the lumpy rocks one by one to make a soft dirt pillow.

“Mmm…”

Laying my cheek on the soft dirt made me suddenly sleepy.

I’m tired.

I’ll just take a quick nap.

As I closed my eyes, I heard Levinas’s voice from far away.

“King…”

Levinas started to call me but stopped.

It seemed she was being considerate of my sleep.

“Gyeoul’s sleeping. Let’s go play quietly over there.”

“Mm…!”

The children’s footsteps gradually faded away.

Being cared for by family felt indescribably good.

And so I…

**

“Kids…!”

An urgent voice from somewhere woke me from sleep.

As I rubbed my eyes groggily, I saw Yeoreum running toward us.

I tried to get up to greet her happily, but for some reason I couldn’t move.

Even my usually wagging tail wouldn’t budge.

What’s going on?

I looked back from my prone position.

A huge mound of dirt was covering my body.

Gaeul’s dirt house must have collapsed while we were sleeping.

Gaeul and I had been sleeping peacefully, not even realizing the house had fallen.

Yawning, I reached out toward Yeoreum.

“Help me.”

“Gyeoul, what happened? Why are you buried in the ground?”

“We made a dirt house but it collapsed.”

“Ah… the house collapsed…?”

Phew.

Yeoreum sighed and crouched in front of me.

“Have you been buried here since the house collapsed?”

“No, I didn’t even know it had collapsed. Must have happened while I was sleeping.”

“Oh dear.”

Yeoreum reached out her hand.

As I took her offered hand, I saw Levinas and Saebyeok coming toward us.

“Ah! King and Gaeul puppy turned into vegetables!”

“Vegetables?”

“Yeah! She’s planted in the ground like vegetables!”

Levinas patted the collapsed dirt mound.

It was like when she used magic to grow crops, but nothing particular happened to Gaeul and me.

“Hehe, vegetables, huh? Let’s see if our Gyeoul is ripe.”

Yeoreum tapped my head.

Finding it funny, Levinas covered her mouth and giggled.

“Is King ripe?!”

“Yep. Gyeoul vegetable is nice and ripe. Ready for harvest I think?”

“Oh! Can Levinas help harvest?!”

“Of course.”

Levinas grabbed my wrist.

Saebyeok silently grabbed my wrist too.

When everyone pulled at once, my buried body came out of the dirt.

Shake shake shake-

My tail shook off dirt in all directions as it came free.

Despite being buried, my tail remained perfectly white.

“Okay, Gyeoul vegetable is out, next is…”

Yeoreum crouched next to Gaeul.

Gaeul was still lying down sleeping.

Tap tap-

Yeoreum tapped Gaeul’s head.

Gaeul woke up groggily, then opened her eyes wide with an “Oh?”

No wonder she was surprised – she woke up but couldn’t move because she was buried in dirt.

“This vegetable looks just like Gaeul. Wonder if it’s ripe?”

Tap tap tap-

Yeoreum kept tapping Gaeul’s head.

Levinas sat down beside her and joined in tapping.

“Is Gaeul vegetable ripe?”

“Yeah. Ready to eat now.”

“…!”

Startled by the mention of eating, Gaeul’s fur stood on end.

She reached desperately toward me.

“Master! Gaeul! Gaeul! Gaeul!”

Gaeul frantically called out her own name.

She seemed to be causing a commotion, but I quickly realized why.

-A vegetable that looks like Gaeul.

-Ready to eat now.

She took the joke seriously.

Gaeul was desperately trying to prove she wasn’t a vegetable.

“Master! No! No!”

“Gaeul, calm down.”

“Bleh! Gaeul bleh!”

Gaeul pretended to gag with a “Bleh.”

She seemed to be saying she wouldn’t taste good if eaten.

I figured I should calm down the startled Gaeul.

“Gaeul, calm down. This is just a joke.”

“Joke…?”

“Yeah. Gaeul is too pretty to mistake for anything else.”

“…!”

Gaeul froze with her eyes wide open.

Taking advantage of her frozen state, we pulled her out of the dirt.

Despite expecting her to be completely frightened, her tail was surprisingly wagging quickly.

“Gaeul pretty?”

“Yeah. Gaeul is pretty.”

“Ah…!”

Happy to be called pretty, Gaeul smiled with her eyes.

Seems she wasn’t too scared after all.

I felt relieved seeing Gaeul’s innocent expression.

“Were you really surprised?”

“Yeah…!”

“Oh dear.”

Yeoreum hugged the dirt-covered Gaeul tightly.

As if to reassure her, she patted her back too.

“You don’t need to be so scared even if something like this happens again. Your family would never hurt you. If something like this happens, it’s definitely a joke. Okay?”

Yeoreum spoke slowly, one word at a time so Gaeul could understand.

Thanks to this, Gaeul understood everything despite the long explanation.

‘Amazing.’

While I was thinking we should avoid scary jokes in the future.

Yeoreum convinced Gaeul that she didn’t need to be afraid even when jokes were played.

She preserved the joy of playful teasing.

‘There was a better option than mine.’

Well.

There’s always a better way to do things.

I learned something new today.

Giggling, I snuggled up to Yeoreum’s side.

She pressed down firmly on my head.

“Before going home, Gyeoul and Gaeul should take a dip in the pond?”

“Ah, yes.”

Since we were covered in dirt.

Since things turned out this way, we decided to play more at the pond and water playground.

**

The next morning.

After harvesting crops from the garden, I went to the pond to check on the fish.

Fifteen mackerel.

Thirteen flounder.

And…

“Ugh, this doesn’t make sense.”

As I was slowly counting the fish one by one, I heard Kwon Arin grumbling nearby.

Looking toward her voice, I saw Kwon Arin biting her lip hard while staring at her smartphone.

“Is something wrong?”

“Ah… were you there…?”

“Yes… was I not supposed to hear…?”

“No, it’s not that, just these event probabilities seem weird.”

Kwon Arin showed me her smartphone screen.

An unfamiliar game was running on the screen.

“It’s a game?”

“Yeah. There’s an event right now but the probabilities are ridiculous. How can I not get a single one after a hundred pulls?”

“A hundred?”

“Yeah. Want to see?”

When Kwon Arin touched the game screen, twenty cards appeared.

One gold card, three blue cards, and the rest were all grey.

“You’re supposed to get the gold card? But the probability is so low it never happens.”

When Kwon Arin touched the screen, all the cards flipped over.

Twenty cards with the same pattern started shuffling chaotically.

I tracked the flipped gold card with my eyes.

Though they shuffled at an impossible speed, my eyes could follow easily.

“You just pick after watching them shuffle, right?”

“Following the shuffling is pointless? It’s supposed to be random anyway. Plus it’s impossible to follow at this speed.”

“Oh…”

Really?

Does the shuffling mean nothing?

The gold card seemed to move here though.

After some thought, I pressed the third card.

Then.

Bang-!

With loud fireworks, the card flipped over.

It was the gold card.

“Looks like watching the shuffle does work?”

“Huh…?”

“Should we try again just to make sure?”

“Um… okay. Let’s try again.”

I sat next to Kwon Arin and tried another pull.

Two times, three times, every card we picked was gold.

“Watching the shuffle definitely works.”

“But this isn’t a speed humans can see… did they make it like this because they thought no one could follow it…?”

Though very surprised, Kwon Arin seemed happy about the continuous gold cards and asked me to keep going.

That’s how I helped Kwon Arin pull over fifty gold cards.

“Heh, hehehe… At this rate I’ll take first place soon…”

Just as Kwon Arin was smiling with joy,

[Abnormal play detected.]

Probably finding it suspicious that we only pulled gold cards, the account was suspended.

With the account no longer accessible, Kwon Arin and I could only stare blankly.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep