Chapter 2: Cleaning

“Kiiing… Kking.”

My consciousness faintly returned.
Sensation returned to my hands and feet.
Then my arms and legs, and finally, my body.
My tail stood ramrod straight, and my eyes snapped open.

“Kaaaang!”

Waking with a wolf-like cry, I turned my head from side to side, looking around.
Beyond the thick blanket covering me, I saw the now-familiar walls of the log cabin.

A fireplace with a crackling fire.

I, who had just been hunting a rabbit, was for some reason back home.

What?

…The moment I recognized the situation, fear crept in.
My tail fluffed up.

Could it be that I failed the hunt?
After going out hunting with such a high and mighty attitude, did I really lose to a mere rabbit?

An image of the rabbit flashed through my mind, still foggy with sleep.
A leg suddenly extending from a ball of fur, a long-legged rabbit kicking at me…

“N-No….”

I shook my head from side to side.
The rabbits I knew were small and cute.
They didn’t look that terrifying.

That’s right, that rabbit wasn’t actually a rabbit!
It was a monster pretending to be a rabbit!
A so-called wolf-predator… that lures in pure, innocent baby wolves like me to catch them!

Of course, wolves are incredibly strong and cool, and never lose to anyone, but it was a different story for a wolf that hadn’t fully grown yet.

Of course! That doesn’t mean I’m weak.
It only won by using a very, extremely, incredibly cowardly trick of disguising itself as a rabbit to catch me off guard.
If we had fought head-on, I definitely would have won.

…Assuming my sister helped just a little.

Still, the fact that I ultimately failed the hunt remained, and my spirits sank.
My ears drooped limply, and my tail went limp and lifeless.

It was my first hunt.

My plan to catch such big prey and be praised by everyone had fallen apart.

And because of this, I might not be able to participate in the next hunt.
The promise I got from my dad by biting his clothes was actually, ‘I’ll let you go on the hunt the year you turn eight, so prove there that you can handle hunting.’

To have messed up something so important so miserably… I was ashamed as the youngest daughter of the wolf tribe’s chief.

What kind of wolf is this?
It’s a fox!

An ugly, stupid fox.

I hugged my tail tightly in front of me, covering my face.
It was then that I heard my sister’s voice.

“Seola.”

“Yeah….”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah…….”

I’m not okay.
The back of my head, where the rabbit hit me, was throbbing.
I hadn’t touched it, but I was sure there was a lump.

I hugged my tail tighter.
I couldn’t feel the touch of the picture book inside my tail.
My sister must have taken it out while I was unconscious.

“Seola, congratulations on your first hunt.”

“But I didn’t hunt anything….”

I said in a gloomy voice.
I was embarrassed.
If I were really an eight-year-old baby wolf, it might be different, but to fail after boasting so much with an adult’s mind.
This is why people should live humbly.

“No, you did. Look.”

“What… huh?”

The tail covering my face flowed down with my sister’s gentle touch, and a fluffy ball of fur filled my vision.

It was a rabbit.

“You caught it, Seola.”

“R-Really…?”

“Yes.”

My eyes widened.
My jaw dropped.
My ears perked up.
But despite my pounding heart, my mouth was voicing a question that had popped into my head.

“But I fainted while fighting the rabbit….”

“R-Right before you fainted, you fought back coolly and won. Don’t you remember?”

“Really?”

“Of course. It was so cool. As soon as you got hit, you went like this, whack, and… as expected of our Seola, a cool wolf, the best!”

My eyes sparkled.
I tried not to show it, but the corners of my mouth twitched.
My wagging tail now started to flap.

“I caught it?!”

“Of course, of course.”

It felt as if my suppressed confidence had burst open in my chest.
I immediately shot up from the bed, stuck out my chest, and put my hands on my hips.
And in that position, I lifted my head high to the sky.

I take back everything I said before!
I’m not a fox, I’m a wolf!
And a very cool wolf at that!
There was no need to be humble!

After showing off by wagging my pure white tail wildly, I asked my sister with sparkling eyes.

“Tell me how I caught it!”

“H-How you caught it?”

That’s right.
Unfortunately, I don’t remember, but my sister must have seen me hunt.
I had to commit my amazing and proud first hunt to memory.

At my request, my sister’s eyes darted around before she opened her mouth, sweating profusely.

“How you caught it was….”

“Heeheehee…!”

I feel good.
Insanely good.

My tail wagged wildly, scattering fur everywhere, which earned me a scolding from my sister to clean up, but despite that, my mood soared high enough to pierce the snow clouds in the sky.

What I’m holding in my hand right now is a lint roller for grooming and cleaning.

It’s the same thing used to clean up animal fur in my past life, and the beastkin of this world also favored it.
Of course, having been born a wolf, I had experienced its usefulness to the point where my tail tingled, so I had several of them in my room.

I giggled to myself as I cleaned up the pure white fur scattered all over the room with the lint roller.

“Hehe….”

As I was doing that, my sister opened the door and came in, saying.

“Seola, are you cleaning up well?”

“Yes!”

Who am I?
I may look like this, but I’m a grown-up wolf.
With the plus factor of being a reincarnator, there was no need to worry about me cleaning.

Of course, my progress was a bit slow because I kept getting sidetracked by reminiscing, but the cleaning was steadily getting done.

Usually, cleaning up fur was such a hassle that I’d run away from it, but right now, I didn’t care.

“…Are you sure you’re cleaning properly? The fur is still here.”

“No way. I’ve cleaned half of it….”

I turned around and my mouth dropped open in shock.
My wagging tail also froze stiff.

The half of the room that was supposed to be clean was still a complete mess!

“I know you’re happy, but it’s still your room, so you have to clean it properly. Got it?”

“No! I really did clean it!!”

My sister spoke, trying to calmly reason with me as if it was understandable.
But it was unfair.
I’m not a kid who can’t even clean properly!

“Or should we do it together?”

“But I really did it….”

Despite my frustrated plea, my sister ignored it and took out a lint roller.
With my cheeks puffed out, I started rolling the lint roller with my sister.

Vroom–

Vroom—

Thinking about it again, rolling a lint roller is fun.
Of course, cleaning is not fun.

What was it called?
Something like this happened in my past life too.

That kind of joy of finding something completely unexpected when cleaning a messy room.
Like finding a long-lost item, or finding a fun toy.

I hated cleaning, but the small discoveries that came with it were fun.
Of course, the moment I got distracted by them, cleaning went out the window, but still—

“Seola. Clean.”

“Ah….”

As I naturally drifted off into my own thoughts, my sister’s scolding pierced my ears.
I hastily started moving my stopped hand again.

Vroom, vroom.
The lint roller goes forward and then back again.
With the sound of it spinning, the fur clumps together into a white mass.

Vroom, vroom.

Vrooooooooooom.

My tail starts to wag again.
I feel good.

I rolled the lint roller to the rhythm.
Swinging my tail left and right, wiggling my butt….

“Seola.”

“I-I’m cleaning!”

“No, that’s not it….”

My sister, who had become covered in white fur while focusing on cleaning, pointed at my tail and said.

“You need to wear a tail cover.”

“Huh?”

“The fur is shedding, so it’s not getting clean.”

My body froze solid.
Could it be, the reason the part I had just cleaned went back to its original state was….

While I stood frozen in shock, my sister went out and brought back a tail cover.

“Here, Seola.”

“W-Wait a minute!!”

A tail cover is a kind of clothing made to fit the shape of a tail perfectly, covering it to prevent the tail fur of beastkin from shedding.
The problem is, it’s incredibly uncomfortable to wear.

In the first place, a tail is supposed to be fluffy and full.
There was no way it would be comfortable to wear tight-fitting clothes forced over it.

And I, who had a tail that was unusually large, full, fluffy, and bushy among other beastkin, naturally had no choice but to hate tail covers.

But this time, my sister seemed to have no intention of considering my feelings.

“Se. O. La.”

“Kaaaang!!!”

I felt like a rabbit being hunted.

“Hmph.”

I’m mad at my sister.

…Anyway.
What I don’t like, I don’t like, but I had to tell my proud hunting story to other people quickly.

I carefully put on my coat and left the house.

Everyone, wait for me.

A cool wolf is on his way