Fat and Ugly Villainess Wins Back Her Five Beast Husband

Sora stared at the charred remains of her home for a long moment before crouching down once more.

Ash crumbled beneath her fingertips as she carefully sifted through the debris, refusing to believe everything had truly been destroyed. There had to be something left. Even one usable item would be enough to ease the ache in her chest.

She searched for a long time.

The blackened ruins stained her hands until her palms were completely covered in soot. Burned fragments of wood snapped apart the moment she touched them. Charcoal drifted into the air with every movement, coating her clothes and hair with fine gray dust.

Finally, tucked beneath a collapsed beam, she found a relatively intact piece of timber.

Judging from its shape, it had once been part of one of the main support pillars of the house.

Sora brushed away the ash and examined it carefully.

Across the surface ran jagged, branching cracks that resembled tiny veins of lightning frozen into the wood. They stretched outward from a single point, exactly like the marks left behind by a natural lightning strike.

She frowned.

"It really does look natural..."

No hidden runes.

No strange symbols.

No traces of human tampering.

Everything pointed toward a perfectly ordinary lightning strike.

Was she simply that unlucky?

Had fate randomly chosen her little house out of every building in the tribe?

Her brows knitted together.

Something still felt wrong.

Back on Earth, lightning could certainly strike a single building while leaving others untouched. It wasn’t impossible.

But...

The timing.

It had happened only after she’d left.

It had happened while she was gone gathering salt.

It had happened precisely when no one was inside.

Too many coincidences piled together until they no longer felt like coincidences at all.

Sora tightened her grip on the piece of wood.

Was it really fate...

Or was someone—or something—guiding events from behind the scenes?

Her thoughts inevitably drifted toward the mysterious system residing inside her mind.

If anyone possessed the ability to manipulate circumstances so precisely...

It would be that thing.

But why?

What benefit would the system gain from burning down her house?

The more she thought about it, the less sense it made.

She fell silent.

Nearby, Xavier had been watching her quietly the entire time.

He leaned lazily against the remains of a scorched fence, golden eyes following her every movement.

She had been digging through ashes for quite a while now, occasionally picking up pieces of charcoal or burned wood only to examine them with surprising seriousness.

To him, it looked as though the lightning had frightened her more than she’d admitted.

After hesitating for a moment, he finally walked over.

"Kaelira."

His deep voice pulled her from her thoughts.

She blinked and looked up.

"Hm?"

"What are you looking for?"

Sora froze for half a second.

She certainly couldn’t tell him she suspected an invisible system might have deliberately destroyed her house.

Who would believe something so absurd?

Even if he did...

Explaining the system would create countless new problems.

Without missing a beat, she casually lied.

"I’m looking for my new beast-hide skirt."

It wasn’t entirely false.

She genuinely felt heartbroken about losing it.

She had only finished sewing it a few days ago.

The soft hide had finally been broken in until it fit comfortably, and she’d even spent extra time trimming and stitching the edges to make it look nicer than ordinary tribal clothing.

Now...

Gone.

Reduced to ashes.

She let out a helpless sigh.

"What a waste..."

But the skirt wasn’t what hurt the most.

What truly pained her were the personal items she’d secretly made.

The fitted undergarments.

The specially stitched chest wrap.

The comfortable underwear she’d painstakingly designed from soft animal hide.

Even her handmade menstrual cloths...

Every single one had burned with the house.

Thinking about it made her want to cry.

Those weren’t things she could simply ask someone else to make.

Especially not Lukan.

The gentle wolf had already helped her tan hides and prepare materials before. Asking him to make something so intimate would only embarrass both of them to death.

"No..."

"I’ll have to make them myself again."

Just imagining threading bone needles through thick hide for hours made her eyes hurt.

The first set had taken forever to finish.

Now she had to start from scratch.

Worse still...

Every single change of clothes she’d owned had disappeared in the fire.

The only outfit she possessed now was the beast-hide dress she was currently wearing.

If she washed it tonight...

She’d have nothing else to wear while it dried.

That realization hit her harder than expected.

She rubbed her forehead.

"This is a disaster..."

Xavier watched the subtle changes in her expression.

She looked genuinely distressed.

Without another word, he crouched beside her and began moving larger pieces of burned timber aside.

"I’ll help."

Sora blinked.

"You don’t have to."

"I already started."

His tone was calm, as though helping her was the most natural thing in the world.

Soon, more footsteps approached.

Lucas, Ace, and Ryan had followed after them.

The three men stopped upon seeing Xavier kneeling in the ashes beside Sora.

Lucas folded his arms.

"What are you two doing?"

"Looking for clothes," Xavier answered without lifting his head.

"Clothes?"

Lucas looked around at the completely burned ruins.

"You’ll find clothes in this?"

Ace adjusted his glasses, his sharp eyes sweeping across the wreckage.

"Most likely not."

"The temperature was high enough to reduce almost everything to ash."

His words were logical.

Unfortunately...

Also brutally honest.

Sora sighed.

"I know."

"I just wanted to see if anything survived."

Ryan silently glanced around before picking up a long branch and using it to push aside several collapsed beams.

"If we’re searching..."

"We might as well search properly."

Without another word, all four beastmen began clearing the ruins together.

The sight immediately attracted attention.

Nearby tribesmen whispered among themselves.

"They’re helping Kaelira?"

"All four of them?"

"I’ve never seen this before..."

"Has the sun started rising from the west?"

Some females bit their lips in envy.

Others stared openly in disbelief.

Not long ago, these same beastmen wouldn’t even spare Sora a second glance.

Now...

They were willingly dirtying themselves in soot just to help her search through ashes.

It felt unreal.

Sora, however, was too busy searching to notice the stares.

After nearly half an hour...

Lucas suddenly pulled something free from beneath a pile of charcoal.

"I found something."

Everyone looked over.

A bone needle that had somehow escaped the flames.

A smile finally appeared on her face.

"At least something survived."

Seeing her smile, Lucas unconsciously smiled as well.

"Worth digging after all."

Encouraged, everyone searched with renewed energy.

Although they weren’t particularly valuable...

To Sora, they were priceless.

Replacing them would have taken days.

She carefully set each rescued item aside.

Finally, after searching every corner of the ruins, there was nothing left to recover.

Only ash remained.

Sora slowly stood.

Her clothes were streaked with soot.

Black smudges covered her cheeks.

Even the tip of her nose had become dirty.

She looked utterly miserable.

Lucas couldn’t help laughing.

"You look like you’ve rolled around in a fire pit."

Sora glared at him.

"You aren’t much better."

He looked down.

His green feathers were coated with black dust.

"..."

His expression immediately darkened.

"My feathers!"

He hurriedly tried brushing them clean, only succeeding in spreading the soot further.

Ace covered his mouth, clearly suppressing a laugh.

Even Ryan’s usually expressionless face twitched slightly.

Xavier looked from Lucas’s panicked expression to Sora’s soot-covered face.

Then...

A low chuckle escaped him.

It was soft.

Deep.

Unexpectedly warm.

Everyone froze.

Even Sora stared.

Xavier...

Had actually laughed.

Realizing everyone was looking at him, Xavier immediately returned to his usual indifferent expression, pretending nothing had happened.

"...Let’s go."

He turned away first.

Sora looked after him, then suddenly smiled despite herself.

The house was gone.

Her belongings were mostly destroyed.

She would have to build everything again from the beginning.

Yet...

For some reason...

Standing among these people, surrounded by soot and ashes, the loss didn’t feel quite as unbearable anymore.

Still, one very practical problem remained.

She looked down at the only beast-hide outfit she had left and sighed dramatically.

"So..."

"I really only have one set of clothes now."

Damien immediately straightened his back, convinced Sora’s devastated expression had nothing to do with the charred remains of her house.

In his mind, she was heartbroken because everything she owned had burned to ashes.

Completely unaware that she was actually mourning a few very personal pieces of clothing, the lizard beastman flashed a confident grin.

"Kae Kae , don’t worry."

His amber eyes curved into crescents as he smiled.

"None of your beast-hide skirts burned."

"Huh?"

Sora blinked, the sadness on her face instantly replaced with surprise.

"They... didn’t?"

Damien nodded proudly.

"I collected them before the lightning reached your house."

For a moment, Sora simply stared at him.

"You... collected my clothes?"

"Mm."

His smile grew even wider.

"You once said you wanted to watch me perform."

His usually confident expression unexpectedly turned bashful.

"So I asked everyone in the tribe what females liked."

"They all told me that washing a female’s beast-hide skirts would make her happy."

He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.

"They also said Lukan earned your favor because he helped you before."

"So..."

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