I Thought It Was a Fairy Tale but the Genre Is Strange

The Three Little Pigs

A talking pig suddenly ran to us and asked for help. It was an adult pig, much bigger than me. It had dark circles under its eyes, as if it hadn’t slept properly, and its eyes were full of eye boogers. Judging by its dirty appearance, it seemed like it hadn’t washed in a long time.

“What is this pig? How dare it block my way? Should I turn it into minced meat?”

Alice glared and raised her mace. The pig, terrified by the sight of Alice lifting the massive mace with one hand, bowed its head.

“N-no, oink! I wasn’t trying to block your way, I was just asking for help, oink!”

Switching to formal speech mode right away.

For some reason, I felt sorry for this pig. Especially since its expression and eyes were filled with resentment and a desire to live.

“What’s the matter?”

“Oink! Are you going to help me, oink!”

“Haha, let’s hear your story first, and if I can help, I will.”

At the mention of my help, a bright sunlight entered the pig’s gloomy face. Ariel tugged at my sleeve and whispered.

[Wait, Prince. If you help too much, you’ll become a pushover!]

“Hehe, right. It’s basic to take at least one arm as payment.”

“Oink, oink!? My, my arm!?”

At Alice’s eerie remark, the pig turned its plump arm behind its back. After a moment of thought, I said.

“Don’t worry, I won’t take your arm. So, have you seen a black rabbit or a white rabbit around here?”

At the mention of a rabbit, the pig’s eyes sparkled, and it nodded urgently.

“I’ve seen it, oink! I’ve seen the black rabbit, oink!”

“Where did it go?”

“Th-that, I can’t say, oink!”

Alice placed her hand on my shoulder with a menacing smile.

“There’s a good method for times like this. It’s the method I used to find out the whereabouts of the white rabbit. If you cut off one hand and roast it nicely, they tend to speak honestly.”

“Ugh, that’s too cruel.”

“Oink, oink!? My, my hand!? I-I’ll talk, oink! I wasn’t trying not to talk, oink! I was going to make an offer, oink. If you help me, I’ll tell you about the black rabbit, oink!”

I looked at Ariel with a gaze asking if this was acceptable, and Ariel nodded with a look that said it wasn’t bad.

[But pig. If you’re lying, be prepared to die.]

Sweat trickled down the pig’s face at Ariel’s warning.

“I’m not lying, oink! I really saw the black rabbit, so please stop saying scary things, oink!”

“So what do you want me to help with? Earlier, it sounded like you were being chased by a wolf or something.”

“That’s right, oink! A wolf! The wolf is coming to catch me, oink! Sob, all my brothers were eaten by the wolf, and I’m the only one left, oink.”

The pig began to complain with tears in its eyes.

“The three of us brothers became independent from our mother, oink. While we were wandering around looking for a house to live in together, we got caught by a cruel wolf, oink. The wolf drooled as it waited for us to let our guard down, and while we were running away… the first and second brothers ended up in its stomach, oink.”

“Oh my, did you survive alone?”

“Ugh, I didn’t want it to be like this either… oink.”

The pig, who had snapped at Alice, quickly lowered its tail when it saw her mace. It seemed worried that Alice might swing her mace if it upset her.

“So I need a safe house, oink. A safe house to protect myself from the wolf, oink…”

A pig in need of a house. The first and second brothers already eaten. This is the story of the Three Little Pigs.

In the original story, the first and second brothers were also eaten, but unlike the pig in front of me, the third brother wisely built a house of bricks and was safe from the wolf. The wolf, trying to enter the house through the chimney, even fell into a pot of boiling water and got a good scalding.

But here, it’s not even a little pig, and it doesn’t have a house at all, and it’s being chased by a wolf. It seems to be in the middle of surviving from the wolf.

Ariel spoke as if she didn’t understand the pig’s words.

[A safe house? Can’t you just buy a house in the village?]

“That, that’s difficult, oink. I’m penniless, oink.”

[How old are you?]

“I’m 35 years old, oink. Despite how I look, I often hear that I look young, oink!”

The pig confidently fiddled with its face as it spoke. It made a cute, playful expression like a baby pig, but the sight of its crusty eyes, foul-smelling yellow teeth, and sagging cheeks made me inexplicably angry.

Alice stared intently at the pig’s face, then smiled and struck the pig’s head with her fist.

“Eeeeeek! My, my head is breaking, oink!!!”

“Hmph, try it one more time. Next time, I’ll mince your head and give it to the wolf.”

“Sniff! I, I understand, oink. That’s too much, oink.”

The pig held its head and cried. It was a pity, but still, it felt satisfying.

[At 35 years old, being penniless is definitely a bum. No hope. What have you been doing all this time?]

“Sniff! It’s not that I want to be without money, oink! My family is so poor, and it’s not easy to find a job, oink!”

[Excuses. Disgusting. It’s clear you’ve been lazing around until 35.]

Ariel glared at the 35-year-old, penniless pig with disgust. I felt sorry for the pig, who was suffering both mentally and physically after asking for help.

“Since there are circumstances, let’s all calm down. But pig, we don’t have the money to lend you to buy a house right now.”

“If, if there’s no money…”

The pig’s eyes darted around. It looked at Alice, Ariel, and finally me in turn, then suddenly brightened as if it had a brilliant idea.

“There are ruins nearby, oink! If you help me build a house with the materials there, it’ll be fine, oink!”

We decided to accept the pig’s proposal. Ariel didn’t like it, calling the pig a lazy bum who hadn’t even tried to earn money at 35, but she said she’d follow my decision no matter what. Alice whispered devilishly that we should cut off the pig’s trotters and make it tell us the rabbit’s whereabouts, but she was quite disappointed when I kept refusing.

The pig, watching this scene from the side, was terrified but relieved by my decision.

Following the pig’s guidance, we strolled through the forest. The sunlight pouring through the dense leaves felt warm and comforting, as if it were gently stroking my head.

“Here it is, oink!”

While enjoying the warm sunlight, we arrived at the ruins the pig had found. It was true. The remnants of old, crumbling buildings were scattered everywhere. There were many materials, but the majority were bricks.

“Hmph~.”

Alice looked around with a peculiar smile. Ariel picked up a brick, examined it, and said,

[There are many bricks. We could build a house with these?]

The pig agreed with her.

“Yes, oink! There are many bricks here, so if we build a house with these, we can be safe from the wolf, oink! Since I’ll be living alone, just help me build a small and safe house, oink!”

“Alright, shall we get started?”

We rolled up our sleeves and began carrying bricks. But the more we carried bricks and laid the foundation of the house, the more it felt wrong. In the fairy tale, the third pig built a house like an architect. But building a house in reality is a different story.

You need professional knowledge and a blueprint for the house. However, none of us here had any expertise in construction. I wondered if the pig might have some innate talent like in the original story, but surprisingly, it struggled to even move a single brick and haphazardly stacked them.

Even if we built a house like this, it was clear that a strong and large person could easily knock it down with a single blow.

Unexpectedly, Alice was smashing entire trees to extract sticky sap and applying it between the bricks to make a sturdy house, but I doubted its effectiveness.

And even if it didn’t collapse, living in a house without furniture or food in this deep, eerie forest, which had a gloomy atmosphere like ruins, was strange.

Also, as seen in the original story, the wolf didn’t give up just because the house was sturdy. With its determination to enter through the chimney, it was clear that the wolf chasing the pig now would find a way into the house if it had the same personality. Or it could simply wait for the pig to run out when it couldn’t bear the hunger.

Just as I was about to tell the pig that this wasn’t the right way, I noticed something.

[What? Where did that pig go?]

Ariel, who had been diligently carrying bricks beside me, looked fierce. She was frantically turning her head, searching for the pig with a fiery look in her eyes.

I followed her gaze and looked around for the pig, but the pig, who had been repeatedly carrying a brick and resting, was nowhere to be seen.

“Really gone? Did it go to the bathroom?”

“Kya ha ha ha, do you really think it went to the bathroom? My dear, you’re too soft.”

Alice appeared from behind, put her arm around my shoulder, and pointed in a direction while holding my hand.

In that direction, there was a dark, low-lying grassy area where sunlight couldn’t penetrate due to the densely grown trees. I met its eyes in there.

Glowing yellow eyes. And there were many of them.

“Awooo~”

With a sudden howl, they emerged from the darkness. A pack of wolves in suits, walking on two legs.

What is this? I couldn’t understand what was happening. The pig that was supposed to be chased by wolves had disappeared, and instead, a pack of wolves appeared. Not just one wolf.

Seeing my confused expression, Alice slung her mace over her shoulder and said,

“That’s why I told you. Let’s just cut off one clean pig’s foot.”