I Became the Narrow-Eyed Character in the Little Prince Game

A world filled with starlight.
Between the passing spring breeze, Irene looked up at the sky.
A field of constellations, where nothing remained except for the sacred radiance.

The girl stood, simply holding her sword.
“……”
Silence settled like still water.

At the ends of her fluttering white hair, faint embers danced.
The pitch-dark night had faded into a dazzling white.
Moments ago, the world had been filled with noise—but now, it rested in a gentle stillness.

Irene savored the breath flowing through the remnants of night.
‘It’s peaceful.’
Nothing remained at the fox’s side.

Not the snarling teeth of the hounds.
Not the merchant she had devoted her life to hating.
Not even the darkness that had once completely clouded her vision.

A single flash had burned all those scenes to ash.
All that lingered for Irene now was the acrid scent of a scorched dawn.
Her pupils and lids, dyed white, blinked weakly.

It was quiet.
‘Why.’
The fox couldn’t bring herself to break that silence.
The night sky she’d finally reached, standing atop the world, was blindingly beautiful.

As though all the constellations linking the seasons were singing in harmony.
Its sanctity was too much—she couldn’t close her eyes.
Irene sank into the moment.

‘This feeling…’
Maybe—
Was it because of the merchant’s end, which felt so hollow?

The fox couldn’t quite grasp the reality of what had happened.
Even though she’d cleaved the night with her own hands, her steps still lingered in the dawn.
The starlight in her pupils flickered.

“……”
What was this feeling?
A mix of unreal resolution and a touch of emptiness.

Irene simply played with the flame at her fingertip.
—I’ll give you my night, too.
What those red lips had once whispered.

But now, in the girl’s dawn, there was no one left who had given her their night.
Only white ash and drifting dust remained.
The traces of the past had become that faint.

While she was lost in those thoughts—
“Miss Irene.”
Suddenly, a voice called out.

A voice that found her even as she wandered a vast, barren field.
When she turned, standing at the edge of her gaze was the narrow-eyed boy.
A faint smile looked back at her.

‘My star.’
The light that reached her beyond the bars.
The boy who had brought another night to her once-dreary world.

The one who had never tormented her like a scar, but instead enveloped her in warmth.
The constellation she had chosen as the goal of her entire life.
Irene shaped the name with trembling lips.

“Yuda…”
That name became a small murmur.
She simply felt like saying it.

Maybe, she wanted to feel that he truly existed in her night.
Leaving behind the drifting embers in the wind, the fox rushed toward that name.
The starlight dashing through dawn lit the earth in brilliance.

The snake embraced the approaching girl, as if it were only natural.
Woomph—!
“Oh my.”

A warm embrace.
Though her body was surely the hotter one—
The fox still felt the boy’s arms were cozier.

That familiar cool scent, that faint warmth, the hand supporting her waist…
Only that presence, filled with kindness, brought her contentment.
Irene had to bury her face against his chest for a while just to breathe.

The sharpened nerves within her slowly began to relax.
“Yuda, Yuda…”
“Yes. I’m here.”

“I… I killed him. That man. I burned him without a trace.”
“I see. That’s truly magnificent. You’ve been through a lot.”
“With my sword… I…”

Irene mumbled.
Yuda simply responded to those murmurs.
Gently brushing a hand through her pale, colored hair.

“It’s over… Everything’s over.”
Sixteen, trampled under injustice.
Three years, completely broken.

And if she counted the years she wandered through shattered thoughts, then a scar nearly nine years long.
For the girl once caged behind iron bars, it had been a long and agonizing night.
And now, she had finally achieved the future she had longed for.

Irene leaned on the unreality of it all.
“Now, really…”
“Miss Irene.”

But—
If there was one moment of mistaken belief even she fell into,
It was the illusion that everything was over.

The narrow-eyed boy smiled faintly.
“It’s only the beginning, isn’t it?”
And he was right.

Just as she had declared to the star herself.
The fox nodded quietly.
“…Yeah, you’re right.”

A brilliant starting line had drawn near.
But before she could stand at that place, there were still things she needed to do.
***

The apple tree, reduced to utter scorched earth.
It had once been the Empire’s largest illegal slave auction house, but its former glory could no longer be seen.
Now, it was nothing more than a barren field—void of everything but blood, ash, and fire.

That devastating landscape felt like divine punishment sent down from the stars.
The night had been illuminated.
“……”

The fox took unfamiliar steps forward.
She crossed through fallen pillars and hallways strewn with wreckage.
Before long, a staircase descending underground came into view.

She paused for a moment, hesitating in place.
But then—
Step—

She walked on, as if she’d never stopped.
With each step down the stairs, the darkness thickened—but the girl’s starlight brightened her path.
As though vowing never to be swallowed by that pitch-blackness again, she carried out her radiant calling.

Eventually, the deepening path ended, and Irene set foot on the building’s lowest level.
A familiar stench of blood and dampness tickled her nose.
The fox was met with a sight—

“…It’s the same.”
A loathsome memory.
Just one year ago, this was the cell she had been imprisoned in.

And even now, it was still packed with countless slaves.
Her white eyes scanned beyond the iron bars.
‘All of them…’

The slaves were both beastkin and human alike.
To the merchant, they had simply been ways to make money.
Irene’s fist clenched tightly.

‘I wanted to save them.’
Back then, when she escaped this place—
She hadn’t had the strength to help them.

All she could do was run, clutching her younger siblings in her arms.
The fox had recalled that day over and over again.
‘I won’t run anymore.’

The weak version of herself.
The one too powerless to help anyone.
The one too soft-hearted to forget the cries behind her.

Not once ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) had she forgotten the cowardice of that day.
And now, she had finally returned.
To the ones she had abandoned and fled from.

“It’s all right now.”
Slash—
A sword stroke that split the moment.

And then, thousands of bars spread across the underground snapped apart.
The cage that had confined the slaves was cleanly sliced away.
It was the sound of liberation.

“You’re… free now.”
Her words faltered, just for a moment.
For some reason, her throat caught.

Rustle—
“……”
Even while staying on guard, people began to step out of their cages.

Terror still lingered clearly in their eyes.
What had happened?
Was this some kind of trap?

Would they be safe?
Even as anxiety painted over their thoughts, a definite light existed beyond it.
And if one word could describe that light—it would be hope.

That confusion overlapped with another moment.
—Would you not be tamed by me?
—I’ll take you in.

—I’ll help you escape this hellish place.
Back then…
Were my eyes just like theirs?

When I first met you, did I wear that same look?
Did you see such a desperate hope in me?
“…Hnn.”

Her mind, needlessly tangled with thoughts.
Irene turned her feet and left the underground chamber.
Outside, the deep night sky awaited her.

A sky filled with stars blooming like ripples across the surface.
Only then did the girl’s steps come to a halt.
—Irene.

Srrrk—
Her tension unwound, and her hair slowly returned to its original color.
With it, the heat of fire and body temperature cooled as well.

But in contrast, her eyes began to burn hotter.
Her vision stung oddly.
—My fox.

Only now did the girl realize it.
That her night had finally come to an end.
That painful, agonizing, lonely… dawn she had endured.

Suddenly, a piercing sense of release stabbed deep into Irene’s chest.
The fox’s story stood at the starting line.
—Miss Irene.

The world blurred into watery softness.
And then, lukewarm tears streamed down her cheeks.
Her throat, as if stuffed with raw dough, only let out fragments of sound.

Until at last, they bloomed into a single, trembling sob.
“Hhh… ugh…”
Only now was the girl able to cry.

It was no longer night.
“I did it.”
Irene stood with her sword.

Unlike before—she had neither fallen nor yielded.
She was greeting the slowly approaching morning.
It was deeply symbolic.

“I really… did it…”
And in her ears, another voice.
A prayer from an old man, one she no longer needed to carry.

—You must find your own star.
I found it, Master.
I’ve finally found the star you spoke of.

From now on, I want to walk with that person.
I don’t know what kind of dawn this path will lead to, but I won’t break.
Just like you taught me, even if I fall and cry, I’ll push through the storm in the end.

And like that… I’ll carve my name into the highest night sky.
So that my story might reach the sky where you’ve become a star.
“Snff…!”

Tears spilled like a broken dam.
Beyond the horizon, dawn was beginning to brighten.
The spring wind made her orange hair flutter.

The sky once filled with stars faded, and dazzling sunlight lit the way toward tomorrow.
The day slowly awakening in pure white was beautiful beyond words.
The girl simply stood there.

“Because now… it’s the beginning.”
The fox was no longer trapped behind bars.