The golden wolf stopped in his tracks with some hesitation.
Though he was far from absolutely loyal to Touko Aozaki, given his childlike personality, Touko was undoubtedly the person he trusted most at present.
Beo still cared about her safety. If she suffered an attack she could not withstand, he would abandon his current prey without hesitation and rush back to her aid.
But that was precisely the problem. As far as Beo could sense, Touko was in excellent condition. She seemed to have already encountered the attacker, but that very situation puzzled him.
"Touko... there are two of her?"
As a higher-dimensional life-form, Beo did not have particularly strong impressions of humans. He would often meet someone once and then forget them completely. Conversely, once he remembered someone, it was extremely difficult for him to mistake them for anyone else.
Because what Beo remembered then was not something as superficial as appearance, but their very existence. Neither imitations of their magical energy signature nor their appearance could fool him.
That was precisely why what was happening now seemed so strange. Beo could clearly smell two separate presences bearing Touko's characteristics. This was beyond what methods such as cloning or imitation could explain.
I should go take a look...
The blond boy's eyes gave way to oval, bestial golden pupils. He clenched his teeth slightly, his breath turning into a tremendous current of air that abruptly whipped up a gale across the flat ground.
In the blink of an eye, Beo transformed from a blond boy into an enormous golden wolf. His tremendous vitality carried a wild menace, like a blade freed from its seal, radiating dangerous pressure.
The strangely shaped phantasmal beast appeared in the human world once again. Unbound by distinctions between good and evil, he was a