CHAPTER 329: CHAPTER-329

So she made her way back to the small inn.

She had already eaten earlier, so she went straight to bed. To her quiet surprise, the room looked untouched. She had strictly ordered that no one was to enter without her permission—not even for cleaning—and cleaning could only be done when she or her companions were present. She hadn’t really expected them to follow that rule, but they had. Her belongings were untouched; even the hair strands she had left near her pillow were in the same place.

That small detail gave her a faint sense of relief. She laid down, exhaustion settling in quickly, and within moments, sleep pulled her under.

None of them knew that while they slept peacefully, another storm was already racing toward them—fast, unseen, and merciless.

.

.

.

When they woke up the next day, everything went on as usual — the same work, the same routine, like a ritual they had already memorized. They dressed and went to the market again to look around.

But at noon — yes, exactly at noon — when Kaya returned to put away the things she’d bought, she froze at the door.

As she opened it, she noticed something immediately. The hair — it hadn’t fallen. Her eyes drifted to the ground, and there it was. The black strand, exactly where it shouldn’t have been.

Kaya’s eyes turned cold.

She stood still for a second, fingers tight on the door frame, and then quietly pushed it open.

Inside, everything was in its place. Nothing was broken. Nothing looked disturbed.

But to someone who looked closely — really closely — something was wrong.

Ever since Kaya had started staying in the photo room, she hadn’t allowed anyone to clean the floor. Even when Vir and the others offered, she waved it off with her usual line — "I only sleep here, not live here all day."

Every time she returned from outside, a trace of sand clung to her shoes. Instead of removing them by the door, she brought that sand inside — just a little every day — until a thin, barely visible layer had gathered beneath her feet.

Now, looking down, Kaya noticed the pattern of the sand. It was slightly disturbed — faint but clear enough for her eyes to follow. Her bag had been moved. Someone had shifted it and placed it back.

Her gaze sharpened.

She crossed the room to the window and pushed it open. The street outside was oddly quiet. No chatter, no footsteps — strange for midday in the heart of the market.

Kaya frowned. The silence pressed around her. Her eyes moved again, scanning. The bed — it looked exactly as she’d left it, except for one detail: the crumpled corner of the sheet was now perfectly straightened.

She turned, meeting the eyes of Cutie and Veer. They stood frozen, ears twitching, eyes narrowing, scanning the room with quiet suspicion.

And then, slowly, a smirk tugged at Kaya’s lips.

Really, these beastmen were something.

From their expressions alone, she already knew — they’d noticed it too.

They just looked at each other and didn’t say a word. Kaya walked to the bed, sat down, and then simply let herself fall back, closing her eyes. Seeing that, Veer followed her lead — he sat beside her and leaned back the same way, without a word.

Cutie quietly closed the hotel room door and, after a moment, joined them too — sitting, then lying down just like the other two. Now, all three of them lay there, in a shared silence that felt oddly comforting.

The little sparrow rested in a small basket nearby. He wasn’t completely healed yet. Physically, yes — the wounds had closed — but Kaya could tell something was still off. Maybe he’d used too much of his energy that day. He didn’t transform into his human form often anymore, and lately, he’d been sleeping more than usual.

Kaya glanced toward him, a faint, affectionate smile tugging at her lips, before turning her head to face Veer.

"So," she said softly, her tone carrying a trace of mischief, "what do you think about roasted boar?"

When Kaya asked, Veer turned his head and a slow smile softened his face. He still couldn’t believe where this cute, infuriating woman got her instincts from. To most people her tone might’ve sounded ordinary — a casual, half-joking question about food. But Veer knew her. He knew that Kaya never ate animal meat, and that she absolutely hated boar. He’d seen her face scrunch with disgust just at the thought of it once, and when he’d asked why, she’d shrugged and said, "They look disgusting." So when she asked about roasted boar now, Veer didn’t think she meant the meat.

He’d already noticed oddities the moment they came into the room. At first he couldn’t say what was wrong, but the silence had hit him like a blade — unnatural for a noon in the market. He’d picked the window room on purpose; it was never this quiet. Then came a faint damp smell he couldn’t place — someone had been careful to scrub most traces away so the scent wouldn’t stand out, but Veer’s nose still caught the ghost of it.

His eyes, sharper than his nose, found five, seven tiny wrong things: the bed corner smoothed where it had been ruffled, Kaya’s bag shifted a hair’s breadth, a bowl he’d left was nudged about a centimeter, a single stray grain of sand sitting in the wrong place. All those small details added up.

Kaya’s calm face, the hair by the door, the stillness outside — everything told him the same thing: someone had been in the room.

So no — when Kaya asked about roasted boar, she wasn’t craving meat. She was testing him: Do you know how to hunt a person down?

Veer’s smile faded into a hard line. He understood her exactly, and he knew he had to answer properly.

"As you wish, sweetheart. If you want it roasted, it will be roasted. If you want it skinned alive, it will be skinned alive. If you want it chopped into pieces, it will be done. You just give the order, and I will make it happen."