YOAW 36

Chapter – 36  

A Tail Trouble and the Lady’s… Misfortune ….

Guided by Akio and the others, the new village deep in the forest was steadily taking shape, with humans and beastkin working side by side. Among them, the beastkin girl Kina stood out. With her boundless energy and quick actions, she handled everything from lumbering to hauling materials—keeping pace with the men and becoming the cheerful mood-maker of the group. Both Akio and Sylvia found her bright, sun-like personality refreshing.

Then one day, Akio and Kina were working together, loading logs cut from a spot a little ways away onto a handcart. Kina lifted one end of a log, Akio held the other, and the two tried to move in sync toward the cart. In that moment, Akio’s foot slipped in the mud, throwing him off balance.

“Whoa!”

Instinctively reaching out to grab something—anything—Akio’s hand latched firmly onto… Kina’s fluffy reddish-brown tail.

“Hyann!?”

Kina let out a strange yelp and jumped into the air, nearly dropping the log. Her face turned scarlet as she whipped around to stare at Akio, her large beast ears twitching uncontrollably.

The other beastkin around them stopped their work and began grinning broadly as they took in the scene.

“W–wait, m-mister…!” Kina stammered loudly, eyes wide. “Y-you… are you seriously proposin’ to a beastkin like me!? I mean, I don’t mind or nothin’, but if a human takes one of us as a wife, folks might start callin’ you ‘tainted,’ y’know!? You still okay with that!?”

Her declaration rang out loud enough for every beastkin nearby to hear. Instantly, a chorus rose up:

“Ohh? Kina finally snagged herself a human husband, did she!?”
“Atta girl, Kina! And the human’s got guts, too!”

Akio, deeply confused, could only stare blankly.

“E-excuse me…? P-proposing? Tainted? Kina, what in the world are you talking about…? I just—uh—grabbed your tail by accident. I’m sorry about that.”

He scratched his head awkwardly as he apologized. Kina puffed her cheeks in indignation.

“Don’t you play dumb on me, mister! You grabbed my tail—my tail! Among wolf-beastkin, grabbin’ an unmarried girl’s tail is a proper sign of a marriage proposal! Don’t tell me you didn’t know that!”

Hands on her hips, Kina looked furious—yet her tail was wagging happily behind her. Before Akio could respond, Kina bounded over to Sylvia, who was sorting medicinal herbs nearby, grabbed her arm, and dragged her in front of Akio.

“Hey, Lady Wife! You okay with this!? Your man here just proposed to me! I don’t mind bein’ the second or third wife or whatever… If you give the word, I’ll take him up on it right now!”

Her mischievous grin froze Sylvia in place as though struck by lightning.

“L-L-Lady Wife!?”

That title hit Sylvia with overwhelming force—and, somewhere deep inside, with a sweet, irresistible thrill. Her pale cheeks flushed bright red, and she dropped her bundle of herbs with a soft thud. Akio’s wife, the lady of the house—since pledging eternity with him, those words had been her secret, wistful desire.

“N-nonsense…! D-don’t say such ridiculous things, you wild girl! Akio would never—he would never make such a careless… such an improper… p-proposal…!”

Sylvia tried desperately to deny it, but Kina pressed on:

“But he grabbed my tail real good! And in front of everyone, too! That’s as good as ‘engagement complete’ where I come from!”

The surrounding beastkin chimed in gleefully:

“Lady Wife, this is a test of your magnanimity!”
“Akio’s not as innocent as he looks, huh!?”

Buried under their teasing expectations, Sylvia’s thoughts completely short-circuited.

“Th-that is… if… if Akio truly… wishes for that then… I—I would not… be entirely… no, that is… not that I… but to become… L-Lady Wife… like this…!?”

Face blazing red, she glanced down, mumbling incoherent fragments. The cool, composed elven apothecary was nowhere to be seen—replaced by a flustered woman who somehow didn’t seem entirely displeased. It looked, to anyone watching, as though she might actually accept Kina as a co-wife purely by being swept along by the misunderstanding.

Akio, meanwhile, could only stand frozen, stunned by Sylvia’s collapse, Kina’s brazen confidence, and the feverish excitement of the beastkin around them.

(What… what on earth is happening…? I only grabbed her tail…)

Thus began the unexpected proposal fiasco stirred up by Kina, the beastkin girl. Another wave of chaos rolled into Akio’s supposedly peaceful isekai slow life. And with Sylvia’s unexpectedly easy-to-fluster side revealed, a new breeze might just be blowing through her relationship with Akio.