Chapter 13
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!’
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‘…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 .
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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 .
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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 .