LATEST UPDATES

Published at 22nd of May 2020 10:22:12 AM


Chapter 13

If audio player doesn't work, press Stop then Play button again




Kim Sang-hu kept quiet. Deep within his eyes, the look of regret was suppressed for a brief moment. He shook his head from side to side as if he was trying to erase the lingering thought.
“The eagle, which Gentleman had released to hunt, came across the baby fox. While the mother was away from her nest the predator’s natural instinct had been to prey on the newborn, the helpless little nine tailed fox. And, of course, when the mother returned she was furious.”

 

“…….”

 

“It was a mistake. Even though Gentleman was a master at cypher school, he made mistakes, too. But–”

 

Kim Sang-hu took a short breath and muttered.
“We shouldn’t make such mistakes.”

 

Silence ensued.

 

“Well… never mind how it happened, or how it came to be. There was nothing I could do. The nine tailed fox case is over, and yet I still can’t let it go. There was a lot of talk about it on the radio and in the newspapers, two years ago.”


“I think it was a good choice,” Cheol-ho answered briefly.

 

“Haha, is that so?”

After that, Kim Sang-hu said nothing.

 

He drank quietly, seeming to think to himself as he ate the sashimi. Eventually he laughed, like something funny had come to his mind.
Kim Sang-hu picked up a soju bottle and poured it into a glass of water. Like this, he gulped it all down at once. Somehow his expression appeared even more determined.

 

He ate all the sashimi, too.

 

“I’ve talked too long for nothing. It was strangely comfortable– maybe because I haven’t had a drink in a long time. Please excuse me now.”

 

Then he rose from his seat. Although he walked with a slight wobble, both his eyes were still full of life. He could certainly drink a lot.
Cheol-ho nodded with a strange smile.

 

“I’m going. I’d like to pay for it.”

 

“Alright”

 

“–Oh, wait.”
Kim Sang-hu thought for a moment, then opened his mouth.

 

“Can I order one more plate of the sashimi you just gave me, but wrapped up?”

 

“Sure,” Cheol-ho answered lightly, and stepped back into the kitchen.

 

* * *


The man left the store.

 

It was a very shabby restaurant in a very shabby alleyway.

 

He was starting to think he had seen it somewhere before.

 

Come to think of it, it was the place he had come across when the pack of Belto appeared. He walked drowsily, rethinking the strange connections of the world.

 

The path he took didn’t come out on the main road, but rather the alley on the other side.

 

He quietly walked through the terrain that had been half-broken by Belto not too long ago.
It was drizzling, that night. It was not raining as excessively as it had before, and it was a pretty good night for someone to go for a stroll.

 

The dark clouds slowly cleared up when he looked up at the night sky, a bright full moon poking out. The moonlight felt rather good. Kim Sang-hu wandered softly along the moonlit path.

‘Hey, you crazy bastard! You messed with the little creature? Are you out of your mind!’

 

‘…I’m sorry. It was a mistake.’

 

‘Can you solve it by saying it was a mistake? You almost killed a lot of people! What would you do if it had happened in a city or a residential area?’

 

Things were still awkward with Gentleman, after the big fight he had had with him two years ago.

 

“Damn it,” Kim Sang-hu muttered.

 

He held a plastic bag in one hand. Inside it was a plate of wrapped raw fish. Kim Sang-hu strolled leisurely along the back alleys of the city.

 

How long had he walked for? He couldn’t remember.

 

It was the unnamed mountain in the neighborhood that made him finally cease his walking. The trees there grew moderately, and he sat wearily, taking the thick grass and weeds for a place to rest.

 

Suddenly, he could feel a strong gaze coming from his side. Kim Sang-hu was aware of it, but he didn’t bother looking back.

 

Instead he took out the plate of raw fish from a plastic bag and opened the package, tearing open wooden chopsticks to place them on the plate.
Then opened the soju, and poured it into the paper cup before taking a sip.

crying~

 

A strange cry came from somewhere.

 

By the time the cry had come closer, three flames the size of a fist were visible in the darkness of the night.

 

Kim Sang-hu only stared at the flame.

 

Soon, under the flames, a silhouette of a small fox was revealed. The fox walked to Kim Sang-hu’s side with frequent steps.

 

The fox had three tails.
He looked up at Kim Sang-hu. Then, he stared at the sashimi on the plate, almost like he was obsessed with the food.

 

Sneakily, the fox approached the plate. Kim Sang-hu just let him.

 

‘I couldn’t kill him.’

 

At that time, he couldn’t kill him.

 

Why?
Because the nine tailed fox’s dying eyes had been so desperate?
Maybe he was disqualified as a guardian, he muttered to himself.

 

The fox sprinted towards the plate, grabbing the raw fish in his mouth! He then ran away to hide behind a tree. After some time, he came back to the plate, before running away with another piece of raw fish.

 

He was fast.

 

Perhaps it would have been hard to see with the naked eye if a low-grade awakening person or a normal person were to see it.

 

For a while, he crouched down in front of the plate, eating the sashimi.

 

Kim Sang-hu looked at him. The tail stretched to show the full length of its three tails.
It took a lot of food to grow. The more food the fox ate, the more his tail stretched .

 

Kim Sang-hu patiently waited for him to finish the sashimi.

 

Just then, he struck like a snake to quickly snatch the body of the fox. 

 

waah waah~

 

The fox cried out miserably.There was a spark from one of his tails, but Kim Sang-hu didn’t let go of him, even when it hit his body.

 

“Listen carefully.”

 

wahh wahh ~
The fox cried.

 

“I can’t look after you anymore. Soon the awakening association will take action.”

 

wahh wahh~

 

Kim Sang-hu emptied the soju into his mouth and gulped it down,  looking up at the sky.

 

“Leave the city. Go somewhere quiet. And live in peace.”
The fox stopped crying and looked at Kim Sang-hu. Kim Sang-hu tried hard to avoid his eyes, and threw him far away.
The fox spun three times in the air before landing, and made a moaning sound.
“Go.”

 

“Go away.”

 

The fox did not leave.

 

Kim Sang-hu grabbed his spear.

 

whoo~

 

As soon as he projected his mana the spear grew massively in size and lit up eerily. It was only then that the fox turned towards the path ahead, running between the collapsed buildings, flames and bushes, until it had nearly disappeared. Suddenly, the silhouette of the fox stopped. The fox looked back at Kim Sang-hu one last time, before vanishing.

 

“Good.”
Kim Sang-hu recovered the mana he had poured into the spear, and threw his weapon on the ground.

 

“Go away quickly.”

 

He sat down and emptied another bottle of soju down his throat.

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

The little fox ran.

 

It ran swiftly between the collapsed buildings. Thanks to the shiny stones that it had secretly eaten, it had three tails. So now, it could run rather swiftly.

 

Suddenly.

 

The fox who had landed on the wall raised his head.

 

Below the wall, in front of the shabby shop door, there was a strange creature.

 

“Dad!”
The creature smiled broadly at the fox.

 

The fox tilted his head. It was a creature it had never set its eyes on before.
What was that?

 

However, somehow it didn’t feel repulsed.

 

“Daddy–”

 

The fox jumped down from the wall and faced the creature, lightly tapping him on the cheek. The fox grinned.

 

The creature in front of him was a strange one indeed.

 

The fox reached out to touch the creature.
It thought the creature was very soft.

 

Being soft, he thought they could become friends.

 

His mother’s arms that had carried him were also soft, and the man who sometimes fed him and looked at him had strange eyes that held softness. Being soft was harmless.

 

The fox jumped all over the place without even realizing it.

 

And then.

 

The store door opened, and a man appeared. The fox leaped off the ground at lightning speed and climbed atop the wall.

 

However, he didn’t feel repulsed by this man either.

 

His aura felt similar to the man who he had met earlier.

 

Suddenly the fox looked at the other side of the alley.

 

He thought he’d never see the man again.

 

So, somehow, he felt his heart ache.
waah waah~
The fox cried for a long time.

 

* * *

 

Wound marks were visible on its body. The three-pronged sharp scar was buried under its fur, but still at first glance it was clearly visible.

 

“You were the one.”

 

The nine tailed fox was a very beneficial fellow.

 

The energy of the nine tailed fox spread all over the place by eating magic stones. Plants and trees grew in abundance, and all sorts of life sprouted in the places the nine tailed foxes lived.

 

They were also favorable to people.

 

On the Eastern Continent, there was a saying that the mountain guarded by the Nine-Tailed Fox should be bowed to three times before passing.
In the past, Cheol-ho had hunted two nine tail foxes. He regretted it.

Cheol-ho asked, looking at the fox.

 

“Are you going to eat?”

 

The fox looked down from the fence and shook his head from side to side. It appeared he had already eaten. 

 

“Okay.”

 

 

Cheol-ho nodded, before opening his subspace. Kasim popped out of it.
“Good morning, now ordinary Kang Cheol-ho! What kind of business… …uh?”

 

Kasim smiled as Cheol-ho commented on what caused him to pause.

 

“It’s a nine tailed fox, isn’t it? It’s a baby. Among the stones there, take out just about anything.”

 

“Yes! Please wait a moment!”

 

Kasim nodded and disappeared, before popping back out.
In Kasim’s hand there was a horse-shaped stone.

 

It was of the size that could be regarded as first-class in today’s era.

 

Cheol-ho threw the horse-shaped stone at the fox.

 

The fox opened his eyes wide and bit it. The big horse-shaped stone penetrated into the fox’s body as if it were melting away.

 

“Go, then.”

 

The fox soon turned away, jumping onto the roof of the restaurant and disappearing.

“Yay!”

 

As if Tangerine was excited, he jumped up and down.
Cheol-ho sat down on the floor and looked up at the sky, in the direction the fox had disappeared.

 

Cheol-ho laughed.

 

* * *

 

In the distance, a fox’s cry was heard.

 

Kim Sang-hu enjoyed the night’s breeze with his eyes slightly closed.

 

The night in the city was not as lively as it used to be.

 

It was quiet and dark.

“Good-bye.”

 

Kim Sang-hu lay down on the grass, quietly muttering.

 

He hadn’t seen the fox on his way home from work that day. Yeah. Maybe it was better he didn’t see him again, so this was a final goodbye.

 

The quiet night rolled over the city.





Please report us if you find any errors so we can fix it asap!