End. It’s common sense to touch tails, isn’t it?

End. It’s common sense to touch tails, isn’t it?

“Wake up, Nord.”

“Mmm…”

“Honestly, you’re an adult now, how can you not wake up on your own?”

In a household in the imperial capital, a young girl groggily sat up in bed, listening to her mother’s nagging.

Bright sunlight streamed through the window, blinding her eyes. Birds chirped, flowers bloomed – it was truly a day worthy of being called the best weather in the empire’s history. Outside, numerous beastkin bustled about, chattering away.

However, for the sleepy girl, all of it was merely an obstruction to her quality sleep.

“You know what day it is today, right? Hurry and wash up and get ready.”

“Yes…”

Nord replied weakly, yawning widely. Then, without even wiping away the tears that had welled up, she picked up the hand mirror beside her and looked at her face.

Her hair, as white and soft as freshly fallen snow. Two cute wolf ears poking out from between them. And finally, the blue sky reflected in her eyes.

“Mhm, mhm.”

After thoroughly examining her own beautiful face, Nord nodded with a silly grin. Then, with a powerful swish of her tail, Nord kicked off the ground and ran towards the bathroom.

“Mom!! Dry my tail for me!!!”

After washing herself clean, Nord shouted towards the living room, or rather, somewhere her mother might be. Due to the structure of a beastkin’s tail, it was inconvenient to dry it alone, so it was common to receive help from someone like this.

After a short while, someone came to the bathroom. It wasn’t the mother Nord was waiting for, but her younger sister.

“No, Sister, even if you can’t dry it, you should at least come out after wiping it with a towel. The water is dripping all over the floor.”

“It’ll dry on its own anyway, so what’s the big deal?”

“Sigh.”

Nord’s sister had short, reddish-brown hair and similarly colored red eyes. Her appearance was quite different from her older sister Nord, but this was quite common among beastkin.

As her sister turned on the hairdryer in her hand, the whirring sound of the wind filled the room. Her sister sat behind Nord, began drying her tail, and opened her mouth.

“It’s today, isn’t it, Sister?”

“Yeah.”

The path that almost all imperial citizens take, and the reason the sleepy Nord had to wake up early.

Today was the entrance ceremony day for the Imperial Central Academy.

“You’re going to the academy… I can’t believe it. A fool like you doesn’t match the academy at all.”

“Hey! What do you take me for?”

As her thoroughly wet tail gradually dried, an indescribably addictive savory scent began to fill the room along with the warm wind.

Even though she had done it many times, the addictiveness hadn’t disappeared, so Nord’s sister buried her face in her sister’s fluffy tail and took a deep breath.

Then, her face seemed to melt a little.

“There, it’s all dry.”

“Yeah.”

Nord turned her head and looked at her sister’s face. Perhaps it was because she smelled the pleasant scent of her tail, her sister’s face looked slightly flushed and dreamy. As their eyes met…

Nord didn’t hesitate and kissed her sister.

“Mmm…”

“Mmph…”

The wet, slurping sound of their tongues mingling echoed. As her sister’s red ears drooped limply, Nord gently moved her tail and intertwined it with her sister’s. Her sister offered no resistance and surrendered her body to her sister’s movements.

She’s usually so spirited, why is she so weak when it comes to this?

Nord thought for a moment, shrugged, and focused on expressing her ‘gratitude’ again. By the time she had thanked her sister for drying her tail, her sister had already fainted, dazed.

However, Nord wasn’t worried about her sister. It was quite common for sisters these days to faint during a kiss.

Dressed in her school uniform, Nord left the house and shouted to her mother, who was seeing her off.

“I’m leaving!”

“You shouldn’t come back, it’s a dormitory system. Come back on the weekend.”

“Ah!”

With a gasp, Nord began to run energetically through the streets. The lively cityscape flashed by her side.

The streets, which would normally be quiet, were unusually crowded today. Some people were simply going about their business, but most were students heading to the academy and their families seeing them off.

What was peculiar was that all of them were female beastkin with twitching wolf ears and tails. Actually, it wasn’t that peculiar. The empire had been filled with female beastkin for decades.

Nord, who had just turned twenty, had never seen a human who wasn’t a beastkin, and she hadn’t even seen a man in a textbook photo. She only knew the concept.

In that regard, the scene before her was very ordinary for Nord, except for the sheer number of people.

Nord continued to push her way through the crowds filling the streets. At the end of it was the figure of her close friend, who was just stepping out of the entrance.

“Prissy!”

“Nord.”

Nord hugged her friend tightly and kissed her. Then, like a dog greeting its owner, she kissed her friend’s cheeks repeatedly.

Nord’s friend, Prissy, held Nord’s unceasing head steady with her hands and then thrust her tongue into her lips.

Nord’s tail trembled.

A moment later, Nord, released, looked at her friend and said.

“You know, Prissy, the school uniform suits you so well! Exactly as I expected!”

“You too.”

Unlike the energetic Nord, Prissy’s appearance was calm. Her well-groomed, lustrous black long hair and slightly sharp eyes particularly made her look that way.

The two began to walk together naturally, as if they had planned it. Their hands were clasped tightly.

“I’m so excited… I’ll be able to see Her Highness at the entrance ceremony, right? I’ve been waiting so long for this year!”

“I feel like I see her every day, so I don’t think I’ll be that thrilled.”

“Hey, I only resemble her, I’m not her! Prissy, you’ll be just as thrilled as I am when you see her.”

Nord liked her own appearance. It was partly because the combination of her white hair and blue eyes was a rare color combination in the empire, but more importantly, it was because she resembled the person she admired so much.

“The person who unified the divided continent, the wise ruler who brought prosperity to the empire for hundreds of years! And the ancestor of countless wolf beastkin…! Hehe… I’ve only seen her in history books, but to actually see her…”

Prissy wore a sulky expression at her friend’s dazed state, thinking of another woman. But Nord couldn’t see her friend’s expression.

“Huh?”

Instead, Nord spotted a suspicious shadow in an alley. Prissy tilted her head and asked her friend, who had suddenly stopped.

“What’s wrong?”

“That looks like a pickpocket…”

Someone in a deeply pulled hood. They were barely 130cm tall, and a white tail could be seen swaying beneath their thick robe.

They looked like a very young child, and as they nervously looked around before disappearing into the alley, Nord’s suspicion grew.

“There’s still some time left, right? Let’s just check it out once.”

“Yeah.”

Fortunately, Nord’s athletic abilities were excellent. She was more than capable of climbing over outdoor units and pipes to run across rooftops and track the suspicious child.

“Heeek, heek… I, I’m at my limit.”

“Shh, Prissy.”

The child arrived at a spacious area somewhere in the maze-like alleys. Even Nord, who had lived in the capital her whole life, hadn’t expected such a hidden place to exist.

The child slowly took something out from under the robe. It was a white bag containing something.

“Hey!”

“Nord?!”

Was it stolen goods? Drugs? Nord, filled with a sense of justice, couldn’t guess what it was and leaped from the rooftop without thinking, tackling the child.

“Hieek!”

“What is this?!”

As the child fell to the ground, they let out a weak, cute sound. Nord snatched the item and tore open the bag in one go.

“Huh…?”

Inside was… a dagger.

The blade was so short that Nord worried if it could even be used effectively. Nord took the dagger in her hand. It felt good to hold.

“P-Please give it back! My baby, my virgin…”

“Huh?”

The child pinned beneath her frantically reached out towards the dagger and shouted. In the process, the hood naturally fell off, revealing mystical white eyes that took Nord’s breath away.

“White hair and white eyes…? Where have I seen that before?”

“Waaah!”

Nord closed her eyes and thought hard. She was sure she had seen a white-haired, white-eyed child in her textbook…

“Ur. You said you were just going to check outside, why are you so late…”

“Ah, right! It was Ur!”

Finally, Nord reached the answer. At the same time, someone approached Nord. Ur, pinned beneath her, cried out for help to the approaching figure.

“Master!! This monster is doing it to me and my baby!!”

“Master? Wh-what…?”

The person who appeared, taking off the hood of their robe… was a wolf beastkin with white hair and blue eyes, identical to Nord. Nord froze in surprise.

“Gasp…”

“Hello?”

“L-Lady Skadi…?!”

“If you don’t mind, could you let that child go?”

Ur wriggled and managed to escape from beneath Nord. Ur ran and hid behind Skadi, then pouted as she looked at the dagger in Nord’s hand.

“My baby virgin…! It’s only been two days since it was born…!”

“This is the 67th. Don’t be too sad, Ur. I’ll impregnate you again when we get home.”

“Yes! Master!”

At Skadi’s unintentional command, Ur smiled brightly and nodded. Skadi ruffled Ur’s hair, who was crying and smiling, and then walked towards Nord.

Skadi showed interest in Nord’s appearance, which closely resembled her own.

“You’re very… much like me.”

“Yes, yes! It’s an honor!! Lady Skadi!!”

“You don’t have to be so formal. Lately, whenever I go out, everyone is surprised when they see me, which is inconvenient… What’s your name?”

“N-Nord!!”

Skadi gazed at Nord calmly. Her expression was as cold and blank as ever, but in Nord’s eyes, a very slight difference, a subtle smile, was clearly visible.

Nord struggled to open her lips.

“C-Could you give me an autograph…!”

“Autograph?”

Nord brought out a piece of paper and a pen from somewhere and handed them to Skadi. Skadi, having never given an autograph before, rested her chin on her hand and pondered, then simply wrote her name.

“Ah, and if it’s not too much trouble, could I have a strand of your tail fur…?”

“T-Tail fur? Why?”

“Isn’t it natural to collect the tail fur of famous people! This is common sense!”

Collecting the tail fur of famous people was a common practice for people these days, but for Skadi, who had lived for over two hundred years, it was quite a bewildering experience.

Still, Skadi didn’t refuse and plucked a hair from her tail.

“I’ll treasure it!”

“Children these days are truly fascinating.”

As a token of gratitude, Nord kissed Skadi. The feeling was akin to kissing an identical twin, and Skadi felt a strange sensation.

Nord then asked the question that had been bothering her.

“Um, but Lady Skadi, why are you here…?”

“Ah… well… actually, I was on my way to the academy for the entrance ceremony, but I got lost. I was trying to go unnoticed as much as possible, but the deeper I went…”

“If you don’t mind, could I guide you?”

“I would be grateful if you could.”

Forgetting about her friend, Nord began heading towards the academy with Skadi. Skadi kept her hood up and walked along the edges of the path.

“It feels like a dream… I never thought I’d actually meet Lady Skadi in person, let alone walk with her… This isn’t a dream, is it?”

“It’s not, so don’t worry.”

Nord touched Skadi’s tail. The incredibly soft texture, which seemed impossible to replicate with anything else, whispered to her ear that this was indeed reality.

“Lady Skadi, you’re truly amazing, unifying the continent, making the beastkin prosper, and ruling…! They even say you made it possible for women to get pregnant…!”

“It wasn’t me, it was all my sister. The fact that I, my friends, and I are still alive is all thanks to my sister. The daughters helped a little too.”

“You mean ‘Goddess of Life’ Freya?! Oh my goodness!”

Skadi coughed, startled by the sudden title.

“Th-that’s right.”

“Wow…”

After walking for a long time, Skadi and Nord finally reached the academy. It was time to part ways.

“We’re here. I’ll be going now, Nord. It was nice meeting you, even if it was for a short time.”

“Yes!”

Although she was sad to see the person she admired so much leave, Nord knew she couldn’t force her to stay.

Perhaps meeting Skadi this closely was already an immense stroke of luck for her.

So, instead of clinging to Skadi, Nord decided to say goodbye here.

“Goodbye!”

“If we meet again, I’ll treat you to something then. For now, I only have Ur’s 67th daughter to give you…”

“Yes!”

Nord touched the dagger in her pocket. It was a gift from Skadi. Despite being satisfied with the autograph and tail fur, Nord had insisted on refusing, but Skadi had forced it into her hand.

Skadi’s figure gradually faded into the distance. Nord watched her back for a long time, then shouted loudly.

“Next time, please pet my tail too!”

Because.

It’s common sense to touch tails.

Nord gazed at the spot where Skadi had disappeared for a very long time.

Because of that, she was late for the entrance ceremony.