Chapter 1: Hunting

I was quite flustered when what was once attached disappeared.
I also felt lost about how I should live from now on.

To think I’d become a woman.
I used to be a man, so how was I supposed to date?
Get married?
Have kids?

And those deep, deep worries of mine melted away like snow under the sun, thanks to the devoted care of my mother and father.

Come to think of it, becoming a girl was a blessing.

At the very least, I could guarantee that living as a girl who was born with a cute appearance and loved not only by her parents but also by other family members, their acquaintances, and even the acquaintances of their acquaintances, was 2,500 times better than the miserable life of a man who died from overwork during a crunch period at a sweatshop company that exploited him without proper pay, without ever even getting to have a fling.

After realizing that fact, my proud former self, who was over twenty, helplessly regressed to match my physical age.

Waaah.

Anyway.

Today was the monumental day I turned eight years old after being reborn as a wolf beastkin.
Perhaps the gently falling, fluffy snow was the clouds in the sky matching my soaring mood, which seemed to pierce right through them.

What happened just now was me excitedly dashing out of the house as soon as morning came and burying my head in the snow.

As for why I did such a foolish thing, I don’t really know either.

Should I call it instinct?
Whenever I hear a rustling sound under the snow, I find myself unconsciously wagging my tail and perking up my ears before plunging my head into the snow like this.

I suspected it was probably a hunting instinct.
After all, I am a wolf, at the very top of the food chain.

“Mmph, mmph….”

Anyway, the snowfall in the North, where it comes down in flurries, easily averages over several tens of centimeters.
It was more than enough to swallow my still young and tiny body, leaving only my butt sticking out.

If I were an adult, even if I got stuck in the snow, I could have escaped anytime, but I was still a young wolf.
The snowfield was stronger than me, albeit just slightly.
Even when I twisted my body and swung my tail around, my body was stuck fast and showed no sign of coming out.

At that moment, something grabbed my ankle.

And with a ‘pop!’ sound, my vision changed dramatically.

“Are you hurt?”

“Sister!”

It was my new family in this life, my sister, who had plucked me out like a radish.
I looked at my sister while dangling upside down, held by the ankle.

Her hair, though less white than mine, was still pure white.
Her majestic, triangular wolf ears stood tall.
And her spiky, rough wolf tail.
A gentle face.

Her bright blue eyes turned to me.

“Father is calling for you.”

“Really?!”

My ears perked up.
My tail fluffed up.

On the day I turn eight, if Dad was calling for me, there could only be one reason.

And that is….

“The weather has cleared up enough, so we’ll begin the hunt.”

“”Yes!””

“And… hoo, Seolyeon, you’re in charge of Seola.”

“Yes, Father.”

Under a sky where fluffy snow drifted down, the wolf beastkin stood in neat rows on the soft snowfield.

As I stood in the very back row, my eyes sparkling, I was suddenly lifted from behind.
Suspended in mid-air, I looked up in surprise and saw the face of a wolf beastkin looking down at me.

It was Seolyeon, my older sister.

“Seola, you’re coming with me.”

“Okay!”

My sister spoke in her usual gentle voice.
I responded by enthusiastically wagging my bushy tail.

The weather in the North was fickle.
One moment the sun would be shining, and the next, clouds would gather and it would snow.
Furthermore, blizzards so heavy you couldn’t see an inch in front of you were a common occurrence here.

Naturally, they couldn’t go hunting just any time.
Therefore, when the time to hunt came, almost all the tribe members went out to gather food.

But I couldn’t.
The reason was that I was too young.

…But I wouldn’t be a wolf if I gave up that easily.
So, I got a promise from him after stubbornly biting onto his clothes for several days a few years ago: that I could participate in the hunt starting from when I turned eight.

And now, I could finally make that happen.

“Hehe….”

“Are you excited?”

“Yes!”

I stuck my hand into my large, bushy tail.
Parting the pure white fur, white as the falling snow, my hand hit something solid.

It was my precious treasure, a children’s picture book.

“Look! It says here that participating in the hunt is how you get recognized as a proper wolf!”

“Is that so? Hehe.”

It might be obvious, but wolf beastkin are strong.
My sister, who pulled me out of the snowfield with one hand, was a prime example.
The other wolf beastkin were no different.

How cool it was when I first saw the tribe members training.

The sight of them swinging swords, shooting bows, and moving as one perfectly coordinated body to hunt large prey, was enough to ignite a burning fire in the romantic heart of the man that still remained within me.

There was no way I wouldn’t look forward to being recognized as one of those wolf beastkin.
Going on the hunt was a wish I had cherished in my heart ever since I first read this book.
Now that it was about to be fulfilled, my tail couldn’t help but wag.

Swish, swish.

“There, there.”

Even after getting an unintentional barrage of tail-swats to her face, my sister just laughed it off lightly and stroked my ears.

While I was playing around with my sister, the tribe members began to walk across the snowfield, following my father.
My sister, holding me in her arms, followed them from a short distance.

“I’m gonna catch something thiiis big!”

“Hehe, I’ll look forward to it, Seola.”

As I described the huge prey by spreading my hands wide towards the sky and fluffing up my tail immensely, my sister smiled gently and patted my head.
I let out a ‘yelp’ and shook my head to shrug off her hand.

“Don’t pat me! I’m a grown-up wolf now!”

“Is that so?”

“Yes!”

The days of being treated like a kid are over.
I am Seola, the youngest daughter of the wolf tribe’s chief and a proper wolf.
It was time for me to be admired, looked up to, and envied, not just seen as cute.

At that moment, a sound came from up ahead.

A high-pitched, chilling cry echoed all around—

It was a wyvern.

“Grrrrr….”

In an instant, the wolf beastkin surrounded the wyvern.
Ignoring the threat of the wyvern, which was several times larger than them, they all aimed their weapons at it.

“Grrrrrrr….”

The growls of the wolves and the wyvern clashed.
As if sizing each other up, the wolf beastkin circled the surrounded wyvern, while the wyvern turned its body this way and that, wary of its surroundings.

A desperate moment.

The wolves’ howling rang out.

Awoooo!!

“Awooo~”

With my father’s attack as the signal, the wolf beastkin charged the wyvern all at once.
I tried to howl and charge forward as well, but my sister held me tight and wouldn’t let go.
I urgently turned to my sister and shouted.

“Sister? I have to hunt!”

“… We can hunt the wyvern just fine without you, Seola, so why don’t you and I go hunt something else?”

“Like what?”

My sister quickly looked around.

Her head whipping around, my sister looked at a pure white snowfield in the distance and said.

“How about… that rabbit?”

“What??”

Are you telling me to hunt a mere rabbit?
While everyone else is hunting a huge wyvern?

As my face contorted moment by moment, my sister hurriedly continued.

“W-Wyverns don’t have as much meat on them as you’d think. If we want food, it’s better to hunt other things like rabbits. Seola, you’ve just been assigned the important mission of gathering food with me.”

“An important mission…?”

“That’s right! Seola is a cool wolf who feeds the tribe!”

“A cool wolf…!”

My eyes sparkling, I urged my sister on.

“Let’s go, quickly!”

“Okay.”

Filled with anticipation, I went with my sister to a place where several round, large snowballs were sticking out of the ground.

If you looked closely, they were gently rising and falling.
They weren’t snowballs, but pure white fluffballs.

“Rabbits!!”

Be good and become my food!

But this won’t be hard.
I’m a wolf, and that’s a rabbit.
It’s only natural for a wolf to hunt a rabbit, isn’t it?

“Huh.”

The rabbit was bigger than I thought.

I tilted my head up to look at the rabbit, then stealthily backed away.

Originally, wolves don’t fight alone.
They use their extraordinary intelligence to form strategies and hunt prey with their pack.
Therefore, this retreat was a strategic decision.

‘Right, I need to bring my sister….’

“Yelp?!”

The rabbit kicked at me.

“…The rabbit was stronger than I thought.”

“….”

The wolf beastkin, Seolyeon, said to her father while holding her peacefully sleeping younger sister in her arms.
Her father, staring intently at the lump on the back of Seola’s head, said nothing as he drew his hunting knife and began to butcher the wyvern’s corpse.

“Are you going to keep hiding it?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know what.”

Seolyeon’s eyes turned to her younger sister.

Her blunt, cute triangular ears.
Her well-groomed, bushy tail that wasn’t spiky.
Her incredibly white fur color.
Even her small frame.

“That she’s not a wolf.”

Seolyeon continued.

“I think it would be better to tell her soon.”

“Someday. But not yet.”

“…I understand.”

Seolyeon stroked Seola in her arms and headed home first, leaving the rest of the tribe members to continue the hunt.

Seola was sleeping, oblivious to the world.