"I never said I wouldn't kill you."
Xiao Xiao's words made Xi Qu, who had been seething with resentment, freeze.
It seemed... this human was right.
He had never said he wouldn't kill it.
But—
"Waaah~ waaah..."
I didn't eat that human child!
I even brought you here.
Why are you trying to kill me?!
Xi Qu had known from the moment it heard the human's question that he had come looking for the human child.
He must have believed the story it had just told.
It remembered those bells.
When it had hauled the human child out of the water again, the bells had fallen out.
Then they had dropped toward the water.
It hadn't intended to pay them any mind, but the child, who had been listless until then, suddenly looked as if the world were ending as she watched the bells fall. She struggled desperately, reaching out to grab them...
That made Xi Qu curious.
Its nostrils flared, and a powerful suction pulled at the air.
The bells, just about to fall into the water, flew toward Xi Qu.
Xi Qu reached out a hoof and caught them.
It looked them over, left and right, but couldn't see anything special about them, so it casually tossed them aside.
Now, it was truly glad it had tossed the bells here.
At least it hadn't thrown them far away.
Those bells were the perfect evidence to back up the story it had just told.
It had been secretly rejoicing, thinking it had found a way out.
It hadn't expected this human to play by completely different rules.
"You ate that child's older sister."
Xiao Xiao's expression remained calm, and his voice unhurried. He looked straight into Xi Qu's fierce left eye. "That child saw it with