The Fox Hates the Young Lady
The Snowfield is a bleak place.
The Goddess herself forsook this land, and the spirits could no more love it than she did. Over that raw, endless terrain there is nothing but ash, heaped soft and deep, going on and on.
Now and then the wreckage of the civilization that stood here before the Snowfield swallowed it shows through, and among those ruins one sometimes finds a hollow still fit to shelter the adventurers who walk these wastes.
"Haaah... I'm bored out of my mind. If this is all we're doing, I could've just rolled around in bed."
I flopped onto the ash and rolled.
Roll. Roll. Why was I even here? Tumble... roll, roll, tumble.
We'd been granted a short rest, but there was nothing to rest from. I wasn't tired in the slightest.
The Hero had already dealt with nearly every monster. The students who were supposed to be training had been reduced to mannequins, clapping with great enthusiasm.
In the academy curriculum, a Snowfield practicum is one of the rarest chances a student ever gets.
By now, complaints ought to have been boiling over among them. Instead, the weight carried by the title of Holy Sword Hero, together with that same Hero's complete lack of tact, had left the whole exercise hanging in an awkward, unresolved hush.
The faculty who had come along to supervise tried, obliquely, to say something to him. He didn't seem to understand.
Whatever. I just want to get back to school. Someone—anyone—please put an end to this meaningless practicum.
I glanced over at Cecilia. Sure enough, she was hunched in a corner, knees drawn silently to her chest.
"Cecilia, you're not actually hurt somewhere, are you?"
"...I'm all right."
"If anything hurts, or anything feels wrong, tell me right away. That's the whole reason I came along."
"......I'm sorry."
"Huh? Out of nowhere?"
The apology came from nothing, and I was the one left flustered.
Sorry?
What did I just say...?
What had I said a moment ago? Why is she apologizing?
Did I scold her? Push her? Did I snap at her without realizing, like I was in a foul mood?
Agh! My mouth runs ahead of my brain! What have I done to my one and only student without even noticing?!
I was twisting in the ash—roll, roll—agonizing over how to sweep my spilled words back into my mouth, when an unfamiliar presence made me lift my haggard face. Rebecca was standing there. Mindful of the eyes around them, she spoke to Cecilia with a warm smile and a honeyed voice.
"Cecilia~ Could we talk for a moment~? When the break is over, I'd like you to come up to the front."
I looked at Rebecca without a word, but she aimed the next line pointedly at Cecilia.
"We miss you terribly when your spot is empty. You wouldn't say no, would you? Not if you're a member of the Hero Party. .........Oh! And of course you as well, Professor Neferna—advisor, or whatever it is you are. I'm afraid you don't have the right to refuse either."
"....I haven't even said anything yet..."
"Hmph. I'm sure you haven't."
Rebecca muttered it low.
I didn't have to force a smile. The moment she dragged in something outside the academy—the Hero Party—I had no grounds on which to refuse.
All I had was a faculty advisor's duty not to leave Cecilia's side.
"If Cecilia goes, I have to go with her. No problem with that, is there?"
"Do as you like. But don't expect me or the Hero to protect you. Swing that shoddy weapon of yours and look after your own hide."
"I'm not so decrepit I need snot-nosed brats looking after me. A bat's all I need."
"Snot-no—"
Rebecca's face twisted in sheer disbelief, and in that instant Cecilia stepped between us. Her voice was faint.
"....No. I'll go alone."
"Going alone would be a little difficult... Then go on ahead. If we're changing the formation, I need to speak with the other professors first."
When I put it that way, Cecilia looked at me with a rare flicker of distress and slowly shook her head.
I took a moment to guess what she meant, then let out a short laugh.
"Cecilia. If anything happens, don't forget the pendant."
At the word pendant she hesitated, just for a breath. Then she followed after Rebecca, tail hanging limp.
I followed Rebecca with my breath held tight. Each step dragged, heavy as if I had been fitted with shackles.
I did not need to ask why she had summoned me now. The reason was painfully clear.
The conversation I had overheard by chance in the corridor last night flashed through my mind, and a faint dizziness tangled my feet.
I could not let Professor Neferna be placed in danger as well.
"What's with that face? Keep it up and anyone watching will think I'm doing something to you."
"......I'm sorry."
"Do you have any idea how unpleasant you are to look at? Stop playing the victim all the time. It's already infuriating that we have to drag you around just because you're technically a party member, and then you wear a face like a corpse. Are you trying to ruin the mood for everyone beside you on purpose?"
"......I'm sorry."
"Enough. What would I even say to a filthy little beast. You reek of raw meat."
Gamy.
That single, utterly ordinary word brought tears welling to my eyes.
For the Fox Tribe, scent is a sense more important than sight or touch.
I buried my nose in my sleeve on reflex, but the air that brushed it carried no stimulus at all.
Truly—truly—there was no smell. Not even the most ordinary trace of a body's scent. I could smell nothing.
"This is your homeland, isn't it? The Fox Tribe comes from the Snowfield. If you're so happy, why don't you give us a howl? Don't foxes do that? Awooo~ oo-oo! Sounds just like you, doesn't it? Pfft!"
".........."
"Smile. That was a joke. You're supposed to laugh."
"......I'm sorry."
"That damned 'I'm sorry,' 'I'm sorry'—say it one more time. I dare you."
Rebecca stretched out a finger and pointed it at the corner of my mouth.
I flinched and backed away, and she smiled a thin, drawn-out smile as she indicated a direction.
It was an ordinary stretch of Snowfield, empty of anything, a little removed from where the others were resting.
"I......"
"Come on. Now do what you always do."
At what you always do, I stared blankly at Rebecca. Her expression crumpled all at once.
"Why are you looking at me like an idiot? Lure the monsters. Monsters! Go bring your little friends!"
"Right... now? The others are still resting—"
"I know that! Do I look like I don't have eyes? You think I'm saying it because I don't know?"
Her words were rather forceful. Her hand had started to rise out of habit, and I squeezed my eyes shut and ducked my head.
She must have been mindful of the people around us. The words might not have carried, and mercifully it did not turn into a blow.
I looked in the direction she had pointed.
The Fox Tribe inherits the power of the spirits more strongly than other races.
Another people might not have noticed, but a magical presence clung to that place—wards, or a trap, something of the kind. I was not so stupid that I failed to understand what it meant, being told to go there myself.
It felt as though the last thread I had been holding had snapped.
I had wondered, once, whether the things I heard that night were only a joke.
But she had meant every word.
Humiliation and insult are familiar. What it feels like to die, I do not know. And I did not have the nerve to walk toward a trap knowing it would kill me.
"Re... Lady Rebecca....."
"What are you so scared of? There's no report of Blood Kin appearing around here. A few monsters at most. Just take a light look over that way. Like you always do!"
".........Um, th-there... there's a strange presence over there... the spirits......"
"Th-that's why! I'm telling you to go and look at it! Are you deaf? Do you hang those hideous, fucked-up ears on your head for decoration? If you don't need them, shall I cut them off? Whimper in front of me one more time."
".........I... please......"
Rebecca shoved my shoulder, hard.
Forced along, I looked back several times, and when I met Rebecca's face—veins standing out in her neck—I lowered my tail.
"Hhh......"
One step. Then another, each one turned over and over before I took it.
It was not far.
It would only hurt a little. Only a very little.
There was magic there. A trap. I was certain.
The spirits who are kind to the Fox Tribe told me so, through the senses.
A magic circle this large, this precise, would have required the power of Rebecca's house.
I had no choice. Even if I ran, I knew all too well that I would only end up a plaything in Rebecca's hands, and her family's.
I sank down where I was, drew my knees in, and covered my ears. The circle must have met its conditions. The power it had been hiding began to stir.
Kurururung—
With that uncanny noise, the ground seemed to drop out all at once.
What opened beneath my feet was pitch-black dark.
The earth fell away without end. I could not see the bottom.
Then an unfamiliar weightlessness. A sick ache low in my belly, and the blood that had pooled in my head plunged all the way to my feet in a single instant.
I flailed, and by luck my hand caught a jutting spur of rock.
The uneven, sharp surface bit into my palm. A scream tore out of me, and I barely choked it down.
"Rebecca! Cecilia! What's going on?!"
The Hero's voice came from the top of the cliff. Before I could cry out to be saved through a choked throat, Rebecca's theatrical scream buried it.
"Kyaaah! Hero! The ground—all of a sudden! Cecilia got caught in it!"
"Ugh! What do we do?!"
"Hero! It's dangerous!"
"Rebecca! Cecilia's in danger...! Kh! I have to save her—!"
The strength left my hand.
But I did not want to die like this.
My mind washed white, and every sense sharpened to a cutting edge.
This is truly the end of everything—
The thought broke off.
"....Hah. You lot are in the way. Get out here."
......A face I could not believe reached down from the top of the cliff.
"Grab on!"
"Professor Neferna!"
Grief surged over me like a flood, and I did not even think to wipe my tears.
I felt his fingertips brush mine, just barely. How much farther?
Professor Neferna did not give up. He hauled himself closer still.
And in the instant I thought our hands had finally caught—ash from the Snowfield poured down over his head, and his balance broke.
"Huh? H-hey? Waaaaaah!"
"......Kh! I couldn't protect her. Cecilia...! I'm a sinner."
"Hero...! Please don't blame yourself so much. It was an accident no one could have helped."
"...I promised I'd protect her...!"
The Hero, Kim Yu-seong, ground the words out through clenched teeth. Rebecca clung fast to him, busy soothing him.
Other students and faculty, having noticed the commotion, appeared one after another.
Undine, drawing toward the cliff, did not so much as glance at them. Her voice was cold.
"I have no wish to meddle in your little game of house, but perhaps you might trouble yourselves to read the room? Unless, of course, you are enjoying the fact that someone has fallen off a cliff."
They had no answer.
Rebecca in particular seemed to have been struck where it hurt. Anxious, and wearing the look of someone who had just chewed a bug, she shot Undine a sharp glare.
Word had already been passed to the other professors. It was just as well that one of them knew Eugene; had that not been the case, the situation might have grown a good deal more complicated.
Undine gazed down past the cliff.
Toward him, somewhere beyond that endless drop, she smiled with exquisite grace.
"Mmm... It simply will not do for you to play too long, my Master."