Hotte chuckled lightly.
“Its nest isn’t in here, so don’t worry. It won’t be sleeping here.”
‘That’s good…’ Cheng Xi sighed in relief.
“Mary told me you and Mao Mao had a lot of fun today?”
“Fun my ass!” Cheng Xi waved her hands dismissively, her face a mask of anger.
She wasn’t happy at all!
The amusement in Hotte’s eyes deepened as he chided her.
“Cheng Xi, it’s not right for you to be so hostile toward Mao Mao. You two are companions. You need to learn to get along in the future…”
Hearing this, Cheng Xi couldn’t help but glare at him.
“I’m starting to think you’re just messing with me!”
“Hm? What was that? I don’t understand. If you want to express something, you can try gesturing.” The man’s tone was full of teasing.
But Cheng Xi didn’t catch the teasing tone.
She just knew that living under someone else’s roof was never easy.
‘Damn it, I don’t even have basic human rights anymore.
I just have to passively accept all of this!’
Cheng Xi’s face darkened.
She shot her “master” a cold glance, bottling up her anger before turning to go back to her nest.
She had nothing to say to an Alien.
She shut the door, closing herself off from the world outside.
Seeing this, the amusement in Hotte’s eyes faded.
For some reason, watching this human female who had been forcing a calm facade ever since she arrived at the castle, he felt an inexplicable displeasure.
He had trusted a human once.
In the beginning, that person had been just as harmless and interesting as the one before him now.
And yet, he had been utterly betrayed.
In the end, he killed that human with his own hands and swore he would never interact with another one.
He never expected that, so many years later, a twist of fate would place another human by his side.
A human female, no less.
‘I wonder if this one will be a little more obedient,’ he thought.
Hotte’s gaze grew dark as he stared at her miniature castle, as if his eyes could pierce through the metal walls to see the person inside.
Mao Mao, who had been playing in the room, suddenly sensed danger.
Before its master could say a word, it quietly scurried away.
It scurried on its eight legs to the end of the corridor, where an elevator waited.
It climbed inside, pressed a button with a hairy leg, and the elevator began to descend.
After descending for an unknown number of floors, the elevator stopped.
It emerged into another corridor, this one bustling with a dozen or so creatures of different species playing and roughhousing.
After greeting a few of its companions, Mao Mao returned to its own nest.
Mao Mao clambered onto it, spinning more silk to reinforce and thicken the nest.
Only after its work was done did it finally settle down to sleep.
「Meanwhile.」
Only after she was sure the giant spider had left did Cheng Xi finally close her eyes and relax.
She had been running around all day and was dead tired.
The moment she let her guard down, she fell asleep in less than two minutes.
She slept soundly.
Her shallow breaths carried a faint, sweet scent, which made it impossible for Hotte, lying on the bed, to fall asleep.
The pure scent of a female held an absolute allure for a mature male.
‘I’m starting to regret putting the human’s nest in my bedroom,’ he thought.
‘In the end, I’m the one being tortured!’
Hotte’s face was a mask of irritation.
A heat began to build within him, causing the temperature in the room to slowly, uncontrollably climb.
Unable to bear it any longer, he left the room and disappeared into the night.
However, not long after he left, Cheng Xi was woken by the heat inside her small nest.
She had already kicked off her blanket, but even in just a thin nightdress, her skin was hot and damp.
She woke up with a dry mouth, wondering why the room had gotten so hot.
Fanning her neck, she climbed out of her nest.
As she moved, intelligent, voice-activated lights switched on, bathing her in a soft, warm glow that was bright without being harsh.
“Huh? Where’d he go?”
The large bed was empty.
‘Was I the only one in the bedroom all along?’
Cheng Xi let out an almost imperceptible sigh of relief.
It was for the best.
She always felt incredibly awkward around her Alien master.
“Weird. Why did it suddenly get so hot? Did someone turn on the heat?”
Puzzled, Cheng Xi went to open the window.
The instant she did, a cool breeze drifted in, and it felt as if her very pores were opening up to welcome it.
She left the window open to air out the room and went to the bathroom for a shower.
Her skin was hot and sticky.
‘Good thing he’s not here,’ she thought, ‘or I’d have to find another bathroom.’
Hotte, meanwhile, hadn’t left the castle.
He had just gone to take an ice bath.
He soaked until the entire pool of icy water had turned lukewarm before the heat in his body finally subsided.
He planned to rough it outdoors for the night, but as soon as he stepped out, he saw the lights in his bedroom were on.
‘The little pet is awake?’
‘What is she up to, sneaking around in the middle of the night instead of sleeping?’
A playful smile touched Hotte’s lips as he quietly scaled the castle wall.
He was surprised to see the window open.
The sweltering heat hadn’t fully dissipated from the room, and the sound of running water came from the bathroom. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
Hotte understood then.
‘Ah, so the heat woke her up.’
The male in question felt not a shred of remorse.
He vaulted through the window and calmly returned to his bed, leaning back against the headboard with his torso bare.
His skin was already dry, and he wore only a pair of pants.
He casually browsed the news on his Light Brain, his eyes on the screen but his attention focused entirely on the sound of the running water.
‘I wonder if my little pet will jump when she sees me?’
Hotte’s lips curved into a wicked grin.
Soon, the water stopped.
He deliberately, unhurriedly, turned off the Light Brain and looked toward the bathroom.
After her shower, Cheng Xi yawned as she dried herself off and wrapped a towel around her body.
She had already washed her hair earlier that day, so she had tied it up in a bun to keep it from getting wet.
She opened the bathroom door, one hand clutching the knot of her towel, the other reaching up to undo her bun.
When she casually glanced up, she was startled to see someone on the bed!
Cheng Xi jumped, nearly snapping the hair tie.
Her hair tumbled down.
“W-weren’t you out?” she stammered, her face betraying her panic.
Her thick, dark hair cascaded over her snow-white shoulders, accentuating her fair, slender neck.
The human female was wrapped in nothing but a bath towel.
A droplet of water slid down from her delicate collarbone, tracing a path toward the mysterious valley hidden by the towel, making one’s breath catch.
An alluring body and an innocent face, a breathtaking combination.
The powerful visual impact made the playful smile freeze on Hotte’s face.
Damn it!
‘Hunter really screwed me over!’
Hotte’s gaze darkened as he stared intently at the human before him.
That stare made Cheng Xi’s skin crawl.
Her breathing became difficult, and she instinctively clutched the towel to her chest.
“You—”
Before she could get another word out, he reacted as if he’d seen a ghost, scrambling away from her before rushing to the window and leaping out.
The panic on Cheng Xi’s face was replaced by sheer astonishment.
She stood frozen for a good ten seconds before rushing to the window to look down.
“H-he just jumped?”
‘Is he going to fall to his death?’ Cheng Xi’s heart hammered in her chest, her mind a whirl of questions.
‘What in the world has gotten into him?’
Cheng Xi was utterly baffled.
This floor had to be at least two stories, maybe ten meters high.
Even with an Alien’s tough constitution, he’d still get hurt, right?