At the Northern Fort

-BASHA BASHA-

I swam about while spraying water everywhere, aiming for the opposite side.

However, there was also another knight there — a brutal looking knight with a buzz cut.

"Here! Climb up here!"

I think I saw a criminal like this on the tv news in my previous life…

In my arbitrary image, I imagined a knight to be 'a dazzling young man', but most knights here were muscular, and had scary faces. If they didn't have their uniforms on, I don't think anyone would have noticed that they are knights.

These people, they're good people — chasing away the wild dog — but their appearances had too much impact.

"C'mon, quickly!"

Please don't say that with those eyes. It's scary! I hate low and loud voices.

I tried to turn around again, but the five or six knights surrounded the pond, that I didn't climb up anywhere. Left with no escape route, I circled about the centre of the pond.

"Why isn't it coming out?"

"It's scared of your face."

"Scared of your face, too!"

Stop fighting! You're all scary! It's more or less the same!

"Hey, I got a usable stick!"

Then another knight came. He had a long wooden stick in his hand.

Then he prodded me with that.

"Okay, push!"

"Doing well!"

Pushing by the stick, I was being moved to the opposite side of the pond.

――Where a brutal criminal awaited…

KYAH!!

I frantically paddled about. In panic, I tried to escape the stick.

"Ah, no! Stay still! I'll push you to the shore!"

I think I was panicking. I was chased into a cold pond by a wild dog, and became agitated. Then, scary surrounded me and pushed me with a stick.

Rationally thinking, I know that these knights are trying to help me.

However, right now, I'm confused and I even have this animalistic cautiousness. Even if my life was in danger, my body refused to go into some unknown person's arms.

I was desperate trying to avoid the stick and the knights.

I couldn't even dog-paddle anymore. I merely floundered my legs about and focused on staying afloat.

However, I swallowed water many times and choked already. My throat hurt. I couldn't breathe properly.

My legs are tired, my body is heavy, I think I'll drown at any moment.

MOTHER! MOTHER!

I wanted to cry, that I just let out pathetic voices.

It's impossible now. The wet fur is too heavy. My legs were still moving, but it did not float back up.

I slowly sank, my mouth and my nose submerging.

I can't breathe. It's painful.

My eyes, my head, my ears too sunk into the pond, that my small body was fully submerged in water.

Ah, I'm drowni――!

*imouto*

The moment I felt death, someone grabbed my back and pulled me up with great force.

Owch! My consciousness started coming back. Then, someone's hand grabbed my belly and lifted me out from the water.

I breathed in oxygen and coughed out water. My legs had become amazingly thin. It's because the wet fur was sticking on the legs.

Because they don't have the usual fluffy fur, they don't feel like my legs.

The person who saves me walked out of the pond towards the shore.

The rather deep pond soaked up to his chest.

Ah, to go into a snow-filled pond at night in the dead middle of winter.

I'm a snow spirit, but a human might get a heart attack.

It's a really dangerous act, just who is it that dived in to save me?

To see the person who saved me, I raised my head.

Is it the bearded knight? Or is it the brutal criminal?

However, what the moonlight revealed was a horrible scar on the left eye.

――The one-eyed knight.

He dived into the cold pond and saved me.

Even as I felt relieved to see him, I thought something rude.

'This person is scary, too.'

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