A Regressor's Bucket List Chapter 152
“There, that fellow is the previous guest.”
“Oh my.”
Eliya, turning her gaze to where Tan was pointing, let out an unconscious exclamation.
“That’s a very distinctive cat. Its eyes, and… I don’t think I’ve ever seen stripes so clearly defined.”
Black and white stripes, divided in a perfect half-and-half ratio.
An odd-eye with one blue eye and one gold eye.
Just as Eliya said, it was a cat with remarkably distinct features.
“Haha. That one’s been living in this building since I was a kid. It may not look it, but it’s an old cat, at least 20 years old.”
“It’s that old? It’s so small, I thought it was still a kitten… What’s its name?”
“Well… it doesn’t really have a set name. Everyone in the village knows it, but it’s not like anyone takes direct care of it. I call it Spotty, but… White Tiger, Blackie, its names are varied. When I was young, I accidentally bumped into that fellow…”
As if it were his own cat, Tan began to explain proudly, contrary to what he had just said.
The cat was looking at us, one by one.
Its expression seemed to be one of observation, surprise, and suspicion all at once.
…In truth, I wasn’t confident in discerning animal expressions, but that’s how it looked to me.
Then, it sniffed the air with a twitch of its nose.
“Nya-.”
Poof—
With a single, soft cry, it quickly vanished from sight.
“So this scar here on the right side of my forehead is what that fellow… huh.”
Watching it go, Tan stopped mid-sentence and tilted his head.
“What is it.”
“What’s wrong? Did it leave because we came?”
“No… that fellow is one to be territorial, not one to move aside just because someone shows up. It never budged even when hunters openly tried to scare it away…”
It seemed he found it very strange that it had left on its own accord.
Tilting his head a few more times as if he couldn't understand no matter how he thought about it, Tan kept muttering, “Strange…,” before finally shaking his head and returning to the main topic.
“…Anyway. This is your lodging.”
“……”
“Most things are inside, so you shouldn’t need anything… but if you do, come find me at the house with the blue roof in front of here. Since fate brought us together, I’ll help you out while you’re here.”
“Understood.”
“Well then, good luck! I’ll be on my way.”
Leaving his farewells, Tan turned and walked back the way he came.
“Let’s go inside.”
Creeak—
We too pulled open the door of the lodging we were guided to and cautiously stepped inside.
And as soon as the door closed.
“Hey.”
“…Partner.”
Tom and Jerry.
Both of their gazes turned to me at almost the same time.
They hadn't added anything more, having only called my name.
But what they wanted to say was self-evident.
“Yeah.”
“……”
“…It seems that fellow is the one, right?”
* * *
“Pardon?”
Tom and Jerry.
And myself.
While all of us were thinking the same thing, the only one who couldn't accept it and questioned the words was Eliya.
“That odd-eyed cat is the king of the Beastkin?”
Shrug—
“Not the king. To be precise, the royal bloodline that can become king. I told you, didn’t I? Valencia la… what was it. Anyway, the princess.”
At my shrugged reply, she retorted in a tone of utter disbelief.
“…That’s impossible. From any angle, it was unmistakably a cat… How is that a Beastkin in any way?”
Of course, it was somewhat natural for Eliya to think that way.
As the name ‘Beastkin’ itself implied.
A Beastkin was meant to possess both the characteristics of a beast and a human.
Cases like Jerry or Tom, who concealed their forms to appear human, could be found quite often, but she would have never seen a Beastkin in the complete form of a beast.
Unlike the reverse, that case was far, far rarer.
Well.
Even if she had encountered such a Beastkin, it would have been impossible to recognize it anyway.
“Even if a Beastkin is born with strong beastly characteristics, I’ve never seen one that so perfectly synchronizes with a beast…”
“Hmm… how should I explain this.”
But even if it was rare and something she had never experienced, it was certainly possible.
First of all.
“Seeing is believing, I suppose.”
“……”
“Thomas.”
Right here, we had a ‘living witness’.
When I turned my head to look at Tom, he hesitated for a moment before biting his thumbnail.
Then.
Crack—
Crrrack—
Immediately, his muscles swelled, his shirt tore, and his already burly frame twisted into an even more ferocious form.
“……!”
With a hair-raising sound, his contorting body became closer to that of a beast.
Not just his body, but his face also sharpened, and his already prominent canines grew even sharper.
About thirty seconds passed.
“…This is my limit.”
Except for the fact that he was standing on two feet, Tom, now transformed into the form of a werewolf with almost no human features to be found, announced the end of his transformation.
“See?”
Eliya’s face was colored with shock.
“What in the world is this…”
“Still don’t get it? Want to see another one? We have a bat-man here, not just a dog.”
At my joking words, Jerry replied softly.
“…I can’t do it.”
“You can. There’s nothing a person can’t do. You can at least bring out a pair of half-sized wings, right?”
“…But I am a bat.”
“Still, you’re half-human.”
“…Let’s just say not right now.”
Despite my playful joke meant to ease the tension, the shock had yet to fade from Eliya’s face.
“……”
Well, I could understand to some extent.
It wasn't as if she had never seen a Beastkin before, and since becoming a Priest was no easy feat, she must have studied them to some degree.
Given that the Beastkin's significance in the flow of history was not small, she probably thought she knew a fair amount about them herself.
She likely had a certain pride in her knowledge.
But.
She had probably never seen a ‘Transformation’ of this level.
Excluding Valencia, Tom was likely the Beastkin with the highest Synchronization Rate among all living Beastkin, and even if not limited to the present, Tom's Synchronization Rate would be considered quite high.
Well, to put it simply, even to my eyes, he looked just like a dog.
‘…But, I don’t think he was even this transformed during his Moonlight Syndrome episodes. Is it about 90%?’
A Synchronization Rate that even I, who had gone through a Regression, was seeing for the first time.
It seemed that even when his Moonlight Syndrome acted up, he was controlling himself to some extent.
Honestly, I hadn't expected this level even when I called his name. At this rate, if he went outside and put four paws on the ground, he would undoubtedly be called a dog.
“…The ‘Transformation’ ability that Beastkin possess isn't really a secret ability. Back when the Beastkin were strong, it was a publicly known ability of our race.”
“……”
“…Judging by your reaction, it seems to have been all but lost now.”
Just as I was about to explain.
Unable to stand the pause, Tom began to lay out the explanation himself.
It seemed he wanted to get past the tedious explanation and get straight to the point.
…As he said, until the time the Beastkin Nation was strong, it was one of the defining abilities of the Beastkin.
Ironically, among the currently existing Beastkin, those who could use the ‘Transformation’ ability were so rare you could count them on one hand.
In the first place, there were almost no Beastkin born with a concentrated bloodline, and even if they met the bloodline condition, most Beastkin had lost the unique traditions passed down through their clans.
They would never have received the teachings to handle the ‘Transformation’ ability.
With most Beastkin being passed around as slaves, such a thing was impossible.
Eliya's nearly fainting reaction was proof of it, but it was, as Tom said, at a level where you could say it was ‘lost’.
“Well, of course, even back then it wasn't an ability just anyone could use.”
“……”
“First, it was an ability that only talented individuals born with a strong Beastkin bloodline could use, and among them, most couldn't even control it at will.”
Talent and bloodline.
That was the only way to obtain ‘Transformation’.
Therefore, the only Beastkin who could freely wield Transformation were the representatives of each clan and those just below them.
Well, if any old Beastkin could use an ability that pushed their beastly nature to the extreme and maximized their animalistic Intuition, often called a sixth sense, they wouldn't be getting passed around as slaves now.
“And it goes without saying, but the bloodline among the Beastkin that has best preserved the blood of the ancestors is, without a doubt, the royal bloodline.”
There was an old saying meant as a lesson not to be defined by limits, asking, ‘Are kings and nobles born of a special seed?’
But that saying did not apply to the Beastkin.
For the Beastkin, at least, there was definitely a separate ‘seed for kings and nobles’.
“Even I cannot achieve a 100% level of Transformation. What I can do is what you see now, and this is my limit. Anything beyond this is a realm I can never reach, no matter how hard I try.”
“……”
“It’s because my birth and bloodline have set that limit. I know it intuitively, and I can be certain as my Synchronization Rate plateaued a long time ago.”
Complete Transformation.
If it was a realm that even the greatest genius of the proud Lycan Clan, the Beastkin's greatest warrior family, could not reach.
Then the wondrous ability to completely cast off one's human form and turn into a pure beast was permitted to only one bloodline among the Beastkin.
“The royal bloodline. No one but them can achieve Complete Transformation.”
Valencia la Bael Tigris.
The only surviving royal bloodline of the Beastkin.
Only she could transform into the form of a perfect beast.