Sakai Butareba -The Story of a Man Turned into a Pig- Seventh Bite

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-7183-0956-2
Verlag: J-Novel Club
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, Band 7, 250 Seiten

Reihe: Butareba -The Story of a Man Turned into a Pig-

Mesteria is a mess! Taking their first step toward a bright future, Mister Pig and Jess must find a way to end the supernatural phenomena across the lands. But what they discover is bone-chilling: the solution is Ceres's death! Naturally, Mister Pig refuses to accept such an outcome. He goes on the run as the ham sandwiched between two beautiful maidens and searches for another way. The royal court is hot on Ceres's heels, and her two trusty friends need to use all their wits and powers to escape.
To Mister Pig's surprise, a most unexpected companion joins their cause. Is this newcomer a friend...or a foe? And is there truly a path, against all odds, to a happy ending for everyone our porcine hero cares about?

Autoren/Hrsg.

Sakai, Takuma

Weitere Mitwirkende

Tohsaka, Asagi

Gao, Zihan

Leseproben

The Person I Admired, the Person I Wasn’t Worthy Of

Even after all these years, I could remember the first time I saw those eyes as if it were yesterday. They were the bluest eyes I’d ever seen—though they reminded me of crystal clear water, they also had a depth to them that almost threatened to trap my heart forever.

“You’re Ceres, aren’t you?” the man had asked.

It was spring when I met him. Back then, I’d only just come to Baptsaze at the young age of eight. The man’s curt voice was scary, so I remained crouched on the lawn, my eyes fixed on the ground. I wanted to run away the moment I found a chance, but my body had tensed up on its own, and my legs refused to move.

“I’m Naut. I’m a huntsman who’s active around this area.”

His name rang a bell. He was the person Madame Martha had mentioned. She’d called him a brilliant huntsman and the village’s hero. Recalling that she’d said, “He’s seriously a good boy to the bone,” I raised my face out of curiosity.

Mister Naut’s eyes pulled my wavering gaze over to them like a spell. He was a person with a most mysterious aura. Now that I had a good look at him, he was much younger than the man I’d imagined from Madame Martha’s stories. But something about his expression was mature, dry, and cold. Only his eyes were misty with tenderness, and for some reason, it looked as if he was about to cry any moment now.

I was silent for a while, and Mister Naut asked me, “I heard you arrived here recently. How’s things? Anything troubling you?”

I shook my head right away. I didn’t want to say anything to anyone. Not anymore.

I was so miserable because I was doing something wrong. It was my fault. That was why I didn’t want anyone to do anything for me.

Mister Naut’s gaze shifted to my surroundings. Then, it moved onto my arms, littered with wounds all over, which hugged my knees. Hearing his thoughts, I learned that he’d realized what had happened.

“Someone threw twigs at you, didn’t they? Why did they do that?”

I didn’t want to tell him. Since I couldn’t run away, I turned away from him as much as possible.

Mister Naut’s voice had sounded disinterested from the very beginning. If I ignored him, he would surely go elsewhere. That was what I had thought.

But instead, Mister Naut walked up to me and squatted down. “Tell me. I’ll give you a hand if you do.”

Those blue eyes captured me again. Those eyes that were misty like a fountain in contrast to his dry expression.

I’d never seen such eyes before.

I squeezed my voice past my trembling throat. “It’s because...I’m a twig.”

“’Scuse me? What’re you even saying?” he replied instantly in a fierce tone.

My shoulders shrank reflexively. I couldn’t suppress my instinctive fear at the voice of a man who’d reached the age where his voice broke and sounded somewhat gruff.

There was a pause. Mister Naut was kind enough to rephrase his words gently. “You mean that there are people around who call you a twig?”

His guess was on the mark. The children in the village called me “Twig.”

Even though I was a Yethma, I couldn’t do my work properly. I’d only been in this village for a short time, but I’d already caused trouble for all kinds of people. I didn’t like eating, was scrawny, and had no strength. I couldn’t carry heavy things. I’d drop and shatter plates of food. I’d trip over thin air.

I really disliked looking into a mirror. My thin limbs looked as if they were only skin and bones. Even my neck was thin—it looked like it might snap at a moment’s notice if someone grabbed my heavy Yethma collar. My legs often got injured, so I wasn’t very good at standing up straight either. When I took off my clothes, I could see protruding bones pushing up my skin all over my body. Sometimes, people called me “Skeleton,” and I had to agree. I was a twig and a skeleton.

I nodded honestly in response to Mister Naut’s question. He looked somewhat appalled. I could hear his thoughts:

But he had it all wrong. After all, trees didn’t have to work. Trees didn’t cause other people trouble.

I shook my head. “It’s all right. I’m the one to blame. It’s because I’m clumsy and look like a twig and bones...”

“Oh, shuddap. That’s what you say, but have you ever actually experienced becoming bones, huh?”

His tone was much firmer than earlier. Startled, I became even more scared of him. However, looking back now, comparing myself to bones was the one thing I shouldn’t have said to Mister Naut.

There was a pause, and his voice became gentle again. “Don’t ever put yourself down like that, all right?”

I could tell he was trying to show as much kindness as possible to someone hopeless like me and felt even more miserable. I made people around me angry all the time. I was the problem. It was only natural that they got mad at me. Making a kind person strain himself was more unpleasant than being yelled at.

It was then that I found my resolve. I decided I should actually run away from him this time.

But suddenly, he grabbed my chin, and my body froze.

Mister Naut guided my face until I was looking at him. “Your eyes remind me a lot of the eyes of the person I liked. They’re clear, pure eyes without a hint of filth. Don’t dirty them with tears. No matter what anyone says to you, don’t mind their nonsense.”

It was unbelievable. I’d never thought anyone would say such a thing to me.

I also hated my own eyes, on top of everything else. They were unnecessarily large and would become watery with just a tiny breeze. They were eyes that made a coward like me look even more cowardly. I’d never imagined that one day, someone would praise them.

Silence. All words left my mind.

Mister Naut shrugged. “But, well, it’s better for you to eat a little more. You’re too thin.” Grabbing my arm, he guided me to rise onto my feet. “If you keep that up, even your boobs won’t get bigger, you know.”

Though I was taken aback at his unusual statement that came out of nowhere, I followed him obediently as he pulled me along.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

Mister Naut pointed at a cabin on the rear side of the inn. It was a rustic building assembled with logs. Though it had seemed like a storage room, it was equipped with a chimney, but I’d never seen smoke rising out of it before. Since I’d come to Baptsaze, I’d been wondering what precisely this cabin was used for.

“I just so happen to have some rabbit meat on hand,” he explained. “I’ll give you a treat. Follow me.”

Though the cabin was cramped, it was cozy. Lots of well-maintained tools for hunting were hung on the wall. Beast pelts dangled down from a beam. But it had good ventilation and no feral, beastly odor. Instead, the refreshing scent of fir filled the room.

Lighting up a fire in the hearth, Mister Naut began grilling some rabbit meat, which he said was in season. “There’s still snow in the forest around this time of year, so rabbits are easy to find ’cause they leave behind footprints.”

He brought up a casual topic, and I was stumped. I was utterly convinced that the meat was just an excuse and that he would take me to the people who’d tossed twigs at me instead. I hadn’t wanted that to happen, so I’d kept quiet initially.

But it seemed that Mister Naut had honestly just wanted to feed me some rabbit meat. He didn’t mention the twigs again after the end of the earlier exchange.

Possibly because the firewood had been damp, it took a while for the meat to cook through. Within the cabin where the still-chilly drafts of early spring snuck into, the two of us stared steadily at the fire.

As if the idea came to his mind on a whim, Mister Naut kindly said, “I’ve got plans of continuing my hunting with this general area as my base. When you’re in trouble, feel free to call me whenever. I’ll give you a hand.”

Someone who had earned the name of hero in this village at a young age went out of his way to say this for me.

After hesitating for a little while, I replied, “Thank you.” The offer to call him whenever was daunting, and that was the only response I could find in my mind.

“I’ll brush up on my skills and become strong enough to even hunt down bigger game one day, just you watch. When that day comes around, I’ll give you a treat again, so look forward to it.”

I knew for sure that he didn’t think anything of someone like me. However, my heart still grew all warm at his kindness to a point that even I found unbelievable.

I thought, stunned.

Fat sizzled and popped noisily. Slowly, the heavenly smell of cooking meat started filling the cabin.

Mister Naut cut the meat into smaller pieces with a petite sword, getting grease all over his hands. He offered it to me. There were no plates, so it looked like we had to eat with our hands.

“Eat up,” he said. “Careful, don’t burn...