Unknown
Instead of answering, Seok-ran twitched her white-furred ears a few times, then mimed a retch. A bluish bead popped right out of her mouth.
A fox bead?
That was the wellspring of a fox yokai's power—the fox equivalent of a dragon's orb. Fox yokai swallowed it and kept it inside their bellies, and it was a precious treasure they almost never took out.
The fox bead glimmered faintly, trembling. Seok-ran stared at it with a grave expression, then flattened her ears back.
"This is bad, nyang!"
"What? What's going on?"
"Kyeng, look at this, nyang!"
The white fox pressed her fluffy front paw firmly down on her fox bead. White smoke billowed up from the bead, and the smoke became a screen, shimmering with a scene from somewhere far away.
"Seokjuk's linked up with his fox bead, nyang."
Almost the moment Seok-ran finished speaking, a strange man's face appeared above the smoke. Handsome, but with an oddly seductive air about him.
So that's Seokjuk in his human disguise. He looks a bit like Seok-ran when she transforms into a human.
He was running for his life, clutching the brim of his gat with one hand, his robe's skirts flying wildly behind him.
His expression was desperate—utterly at odds with the face of a man who looked like he ought to be fanning himself lazily somewhere, playing the idle gentleman.
[Big sis! Save me! Your little brother is about to seriously die!]
Seokjuk on the screen pleaded, his face drained of color. Seok-ran gave a anguished kek, then answered helplessly.
"I'm in Unguk, and you're in Pyeong, nyang. How am I supposed to help you?"
[I know! That's why—ask the Princess to help! I'm really going to die!]
"Well, she's right here, nyang."
Seok-ran pointed her front paw straight at me.
Beside me, Ansi wore the face of someone who desperately wanted to slap that insolent paw down, but she pretended not to see and spoke toward the screen instead.
"First, tell me what's happening. Only then can I tell whether I can help you or not."
[Princess, I beg you, save me!]
Seokjuk threw himself at my mercy and shifted the bead's view. It seemed he was showing what was behind him through the fox bead.
"...What is that?"
At first glance, I thought it was a sky full of storm clouds. Look closer, though, and it wasn't the sky but the ground—and those weren't storm clouds, but yokai swarming in a black mass.
Seokjuk was being chased by a monstrous horde of yokai. There had to be at least several hundred of them.
Seok-ran, watching the screen alongside me, let out a strangled, incredulous sound.
"Kehik? Seokjuk, what on earth did you do to get chased by a whole swarm like that, nyang? Did you steal some treasure from a yokai den or something, nyang?"
[Steal? I didn't steal anything! Princess, those are all the yokai that were in the Pyeong Imperial Palace!]
"What?"
What was an army's worth of yokai doing inside the imperial palace? The moment I blinked, Seokjuk rushed to explain.
[There was some incredible yokai lurking in the palace! All of those are yokai serving it! So, this is—hah—how it happened...]
Out of breath from talking while running, Seokjuk panted hard. I waved a hand.
"Got it. Save the details for later. If you get caught now, you're dead, right? Is there no way for you to escape?"
[Yes! I just can't—hah—I can't think of anything!]
"Hold on—what about Seol Deunghwa? Where is she?"
[Madam is safe! No one's found her hiding place! Hoo-ahh, Princess, I am really, truly about to die!]
Seokjuk, wearing that handsome man's face, pulled an expression of childish despair.
Thankfully, Seol Deunghwa seemed safe for now, but if I didn't do something, that fox was about to become yokai chow.
Wait, he calls Seol Deunghwa "Madam"? Did guarding her for months turn into serving her as his mistress?
No—thinking about that could wait. Saving him came first.
"Hold on just a moment."
I racked my brain at speed. I was in the capital of Unguk. Seokjuk was being chased near the Pyeong imperial palace.
Too far.
Even if Ansi or Gwangcheol-i flew through the sky, it would take a full day and more.
How on earth was I supposed to help with... hm? Wait. There was a way to help.
"Ansi, go draw me a bowl of pure water, right now!"
"At once!"
Ansi bolted out the door immediately. I pulled out painting paper and a brush, then hesitated.
If I'm the one drawing it, no one will be able to tell what it is.
I turned to the white fox, who was sitting there holding the painting paper with a blank look on her face.
"Seok-ran, can you draw?"
"Kyeng? What picture, all of a sudden, nyang?"
"A tiger. It just has to be recognizable as roughly a tiger, so draw one here, quickly."
"I-I'm no good at drawing, nyaang, kkeeng."
"Your little brother's life is on the line."
"Kkaeaaeng, kyeng..."
Wailing pitifully, the fox turned an aerial somersault right where she sat.
Seok-ran, transformed now into the elegant beauty with her tear mole and charm mole, took up the brush with a face on the verge of tears.
"Human hands are better than fox paws, I suppose..."
[Please, whatever you do, do it fast, big sis! Hoo, I can't hold out much longer!]
"Yes, yes, we know."
Seok-ran kept the connection open, clutching the fox bead in one hand, while waging a desperate battle with the painting paper, brush in the other.
In the meantime, I made a quick trip to the small kitchen. It wasn't mealtime and it was late at night, so there wasn't a soul around—but I summoned the Jowang-gaksi instead and had her tell me where everything I needed was kept.
By the time I returned to my room carrying a bowl heaped with tteok rice cakes, Seok-ran was splattered head to toe in ink, and she held up the paper with a trembling paw.
"Th-this is the best I can do."
"It's good. Well drawn."
It was a crooked, simple little drawing, but it was recognizable as a tiger all the same, so it would do.
I cleared the desk and set the bowl of tteok and the tiger painting on it. Right on cue, Ansi returned.
"I have brought the pure water!"
"Nice work. Set it down here."
A tiger painting, tteok rice cakes, pure water.
The offering table had the general shape of one, at least.
If any ordinary human laid out a shabby offering table like this, it would end with a single line in the Heumhyanggwan's records. But I'm not ordinary.
"Light it."
As I held out the tiger painting, Ansi and Seok-ran reached out at the same time.
"..."
"..."
Seok-ran caught Ansi's eye, quietly withdrew her hand, reverted to her true fox form, and sat there meekly.
Ansi, looking oddly triumphant, lit the edge of the painting paper with a spell.
It's not much, but... Ansi is still a little chick, after all.
I held back the laugh that threatened to escape, and holding the burning tiger painting, I claimed a human's privilege.
"I pray, I pray, to the Sun-and-Moon Gods. I offer this sacrifice—accept it, and lower a rope to the one who is pursued."
The response came the instant the short prayer ended.
The fire clinging to the tiger painting flared up, then moved across the paper, scorching characters into it as it went.
Accepted.
The Sun and the Moon—the sibling gods who were also the Sun-and-Moon Gods—had received my offering.
I quickly set down the tiger painting. The enlarged flame devoured the whole picture in a blink, then licked over the bowl of tteok before flickering out.
Only the ash of the burned paper remained in the empty bowl. And that ash had arranged itself into two short lines of round, childlike script.
Delicious, thank you, Princess.
Your Highness, it is an honor.
So the Sun and the Moon each left their own message.
I'd have to send an extra gift of tteok through Sangra Palace later.
[Wh-what...?]
At once, Seokjuk's bewildered voice came through the screen. He shifted the fox bead to show the scene in front of him.
Out of an empty sky, a golden rope was descending.
[Is—is this your doing, Princess?]
"I asked the Sun-and-Moon Gods. That rope is here to save you, so grab on, quick."
[Thank you!]
Seokjuk seized the rope at once. It shot upward at a staggering speed, and the ground fell away into the distance.
Through the smoke-formed screen, I could see the storm cloud of yokai shrinking to the size of an insect swarm.
A few of them tried to fly up in pursuit, but once the rope reached a certain altitude, clouds gathered and erased every trace of it, leaving those yokai circling round and round inside the cloud cover.
Hanging on to the rope, Seokjuk let out a long breath of relief.
[I—I'm alive...]
"That rope will carry you wherever you want to go. Get somewhere safe first, then contact us again."
[Thank you, Princess! I'll be in touch then!]
Seokjuk thanked me with brimming eyes, and the screen went dark. Seok-ran lifted her front paw from the fox bead and bowed her head to me.
"You really did save Seokjuk, nyang. Kyeng. Thank you, nyang."
"It's nothing. I have work for him anyway, so of course I'd help with this much."
After waving it off, I turned to Seok-ran.
"The moment Seokjuk contacts us, you need to take the call right away—so stay and sleep here tonight."
"Keheng? R-really, nyang? I can?"
The white fox glanced warily at Ansi yet again. Ansi's eyes narrowed into blade-sharp slits.
"Your Highness! To keep something wicked by your side as you sleep—it must not be said, I protest! A neighboring room would be more than sufficient, I declare!"
"If I put her in the next room, Nain will find out."
Which was, in truth, nothing but an excuse.
Honestly... ever since I first laid eyes on Seok-ran, I had secretly wanted to sleep with that lush, pillowy fox tail wrapped in my arms.
It was fuller and bigger and softer than any ordinary fox's tail by miles, and because she was a thousand-year-old fox, it gave off a faint glow besides—and ever since she'd eaten the celestial peach, it even smelled like peaches.
I lay down on the golden bed and beckoned slyly to the fox yokai.
"Come here. Let's sleep together."