“We did it! We did it!”

Bom, who had been hopping up and down, suddenly collapsed sideways.

We all caught her falling body together.

“Bom, what’s wrong?”

“My body won’t move.”

Limp and exhausted, Bom could only move her eyes back and forth.

It seemed she had overexerted herself by using more mana than she could handle.

“Hehe, Bom overdid it a bit.”

“I just… wanted to help…”

“Yeah. You helped plenty. Want to rest now?”

“Y-yes…”

Seeming awkward talking with adults, Bom turned her eyes away.

Jung Yu-na watched Bom with a gentle smile before reaching out to those around her.

“Since they were forcibly transformed, it’ll wear off soon! We need to take down as many as we can before then! Don’t go into the center – attack from range! If the transformation suddenly wears off, you’ll be trapped among the monsters!”

“Yes.”

“Understood.”

Under Jung Yu-na’s command, people launched ranged attacks.

After dealing with about half the frogs using arrows and magic, the monsters started returning to their original forms.

“B-Bom, what about us…”

“Don’t worry. Your transformations aren’t forced, so they won’t wear off.”

“I see.”

I’d worried what would happen if the transformations suddenly wore off, but apparently that wouldn’t be an issue.

My fears relieved, I fired arrows at the monsters as their transformations wore off.

I shot as many magic arrows as I could, not holding back the ones Jung Yu-na had made for me.

“Hyah!”

“Yah!”

Levinas used plant magic with her eyes tightly shut.

Gaeul threw a lemon at the face of an orc whose feet were bound.

Thwack-!

Sizzle-

The lemon burst on impact with the orc’s face, spraying juice everywhere.

Enhanced by Levinas’s magic, the lemon started dissolving the orc’s skin.

“ARGHH!”

“W-wow…”

It melted like acid had been poured on it.

Even Gaeul seemed startled by the lemon’s destructive power, pointing at the orc with its melted head while looking at me.

“Shuin…!”

“Y-yeah. Gaeul is amazing.”

Behind Gaeul’s wide eyes, a huge fireball flew past.

Between Jung Yu-na’s magical bombardment and the village people’s coordinated attacks, we quickly dealt with the monsters.

The village people sighed in relief at the unexpectedly short battle.

“That ended easier than expected.”

“Thanks to those friends of ours.”

“Yes, they helped us greatly.”

Flora smiled at me.

Perhaps because we’d protected the village together, it was quite a gentle smile, like looking at a comrade.

I was glad to have earned Flora’s favor.

**

In truth, Flora had felt resistance.

An outsider human who had arbitrarily consumed the blessing.

Her aversion to someone who wasn’t a pureblood beast-kin having consumed the blessing was as strong as any other beast-kin’s.

‘I’m getting old too.’

This wasn’t the world she had lived in before.

Beast-kin were a minority, and blessings had become something only obtainable through dungeons.

Since humans cleared most dungeons, it was natural for blessings to end up in human hands.

In this world, blessings were just items, and items belonged to whoever obtained them first.

Those were Earth’s rules, yet Flora had denied them.

Insisting that divine blessings belonged only to beast-kin.

Perhaps the beast-kin had sought comfort in the last hope of a king.

The foolish belief that a king would solve everything.

‘How pathetic.’

It was time to accept reality.

This was Earth, and beast-kin living here had to follow Earth’s rules.

‘Blessings no longer belong to beast-kin alone.’

If they had the qualities, even a human-born king must be accepted.

Flora steeled herself and examined Gyeoul’s qualities.

From small actions to abilities.

After confirming everything, Flora had to acknowledge it.

‘Perfect.’

Kind yet strong.

She knew to fight on the front lines in crisis, and talented people gathered around her.

Plus her genuine desire to develop the beast-kin village.

She had better qualities than any king candidate Flora had seen.

‘A human-born king, huh.’

Having reached her conclusion, Flora approached Gyeoul.

Gyeoul was discussing the recent battle with their family.

“Earlier Gaeul took down an orc with a lemon?”

“Yeah. I saw it too.”

“Wow! Really?!”

They seemed to be reviewing the battle.

Flora smoothed her skirt and sat beside Gyeoul.

“Thanks to you all, we made it through safely.”

“No, someone of Flora’s skill could have handled it alone?”

“Not at all. Even the strongest can’t accomplish everything alone.”

“Hmm…”

That was true.

That’s why guilds existed.

Gyeoul quietly nodded.

“To be honest, I’ve been testing you until now.”

“My qualities?”

“Yes. What kind of king do you want to be?”

Gyeoul pondered Flora’s question briefly.

She decided to speak truthfully rather than give flattering answers.

“Honestly, I don’t want to be king.”

“…Why not?”

“Because a king rules over others. Even with good intentions and working for everyone’s sake, their essence is still standing above all others.”

“That’s…”

Flora was at a loss for words.

For her who took kings for granted, it was puzzling to hear Gyeoul present this obvious fact as an issue.

“I don’t want to rule. I want beast-kin to live freely.”

“Freedom, you say.”

“Yes, the beast-kin I’ve seen aren’t free at all. They’re too dependent.”

“Hmm…?”

“They seem trapped in the belief that a king will solve all problems, that only with a king can they reclaim past glory.”

Without a king, they became even more dependent, expecting a king’s birth.

This was the biggest problem Gyeoul saw with the beast-kin.

“What made you think this about the beast-kin village?”

“Isn’t it obvious just by looking…?”

Gyeoul slowly looked around.

Beast-kin who had stopped developing, cut off from human civilization.

Yet they valued a king’s birth above all else.

Believing a king would solve everything.

Flora seemed to understand this too, looking around slowly as she spoke.

“That’s what a king is. Solving beast-kin’s problems…”

“No.”

“…What do you mean no?”

“People should solve problems themselves. Not leave them to others.”

“……”

Though Flora was being lectured by someone who hadn’t lived even a tenth of her life, she felt not even a speck of anger.

Perhaps she was facing truths she’d ignored in the name of tradition.

“I want beast-kin to move forward by their own hands. Not by a king’s hands.”

“That will be difficult for beast-kin who’ve only waited for a king’s birth.”

“I’ll help them. The beginning is always hard.”

“Help, you say…”

Flora could understand why Gyeoul had come to the beast-kin village.

She wanted to be a leader who guided from the front, not a king.

Perhaps that was exactly what the desperate, stagnant minority beast-kin needed.

“Let’s create a beast-kin world more advanced than our previous one.”

“You mean surpass your original world?”

“Yes. Let’s make a world so good we won’t miss our homeland. We can do it if we work together.”

A world beyond monarchy, more advanced.

Though reckless, Flora thought it might be possible.

This child’s qualities had already surpassed those of a king.

To think an eight-year-old girl could understand and soothe such pain.

Flora found herself smiling without realizing it.

“Then what do you think we should do?”

“Well… first…”

**

While the beast-kin leaders went into meetings, having nothing else to do, I decided to play with the children.

We were just exploring the beast-kin village.

“Shuin!”

The plants in the beast-kin village were unlike anything I’d seen on Earth or in dungeons.

Trees as tall as high-rise apartments, flowers bigger than my body.

Everything was breathtakingly beautiful.

“Shuin!”

Gaeul pointed at a red flower larger than herself.

A red flower with closed petals drooping downward.

It looked similar to Earth’s grandmother flowers.

“What an amazing flower.”

“Heuk…”

Was she fascinated by the huge flower?

Gaeul grabbed the petals and started forcing open the closed bud.

Curious, I watched closely.

Inside the fully opened flower was a large, long tube.

The stem was completely hollow all the way down.

“Wow.”

We could probably fit inside.

Just as I was about to examine the inside, Gaeul stuck her head into the flower bud.

“Yah! Yah!”

Gaeul shouted into the empty tube.

Did she think something lived inside?

I was giggling at her behavior when…

CHOMP-

The flower bud suddenly closed, biting down on Gaeul.

“Shuin! Shuiiiin!”

Flutter flutter-

Gaeul frantically kicked her legs sticking out of the flower bud.

Startled, I grabbed Gaeul’s legs and pulled, but the flower’s suction was incredibly strong.

“Nyaaah!”

“Shuiiiik!”

The flower I’d thought was just beautiful swallowed Gaeul and then me with only our legs sticking out.

And so we were sucked into the flower’s interior.

“Ugh…!”

“Gyeoul!”

“…!”

I could feel the children running toward us, but the flower swallowed us first.

It felt like we’d been pulled all the way to the roots as it rapidly sucked in me and Gaeul.

‘H-how far is this thing going to swallow us?’

It felt like we’d moved past the stem to the roots.

Even after traveling so far, the suction didn’t stop.

My heart was pounding.

Just as I thought we were in big trouble…

POP-

Bright light appeared as the flower spat us out.

“U-ung?”

“…?”

Coming out of the flower bud, we couldn’t help but be confused.

In the distance, we could see Saebyeok strangling the flower’s neck.

Levinas and Bom were also attacking the flower with their fists.

“Spit them out! You bad flower!”

It seemed we’d traveled through the flower to come out of a different one.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep