Shapeless Shadow: The Leopard Cat Yokai Legend (8)
For now, it seems the immediate crisis has been dealt with…
"…Well done."
"…"
Hojun patted my shoulder in an uncharacteristic show of encouragement, but my mood didn't improve in the slightest. No. If anything—
"Urgh…!"
It was the first time in my life I'd seen a human corpse. I ended up vomiting everything in my stomach.
Thump, thump. Hojun patted my back.
After retching for a long while, I shook my head and staggered back toward the fallen people, then began pouring out my yokai energy without thinking.
I can save them. I can save them. I can…
"That's enough."
…I can't save them.
Hojun looked around. Then, gritting his teeth until blood welled up, he berated himself.
It's all my fault. If I hadn't spent the whole previous day drinking… If I'd arrived just a little sooner… If I'd been here when this happened, I could've killed that unidentified yokai.
Of course, even if he had been present, the outcome wouldn't have changed. It would've just added one more corpse to the pile.
Three government-sanctioned Force Arts users. One Taoist master from the Taoist Association. Dozens of Yokai Hunter Department combatants and an entire military company. That was more than enough firepower to hunt a single yokai. They hadn't lost in a contest of raw power. They'd fallen for the yokai's vile scheme.
In a battle against yokai, the most important thing isn't personal strength or a flawless plan. It's information. Without any information on the yokai, even a government-sanctioned Force Arts user could fall to a fifth-rank yokai.
With no information on the yokai, even he—a powerful Taoist master—wouldn't have been able to avoid death if he'd been here.
Still, scoundrel though he was, he had a conscience. So he condemned his own pathetic state. Then he offered a moment of silence for those who'd died meaningless deaths at the yokai's hands. As a human being, it was only natural to grieve.
Yet… why was that fox yokai also wearing a sorrowful expression as she gazed at the dead?
After vomiting her guts out for a long time, Miho eventually fixed her glowing blue eyes on the corpses scattered across the floor and murmured softly.
"They're all dead."
"…"
"I've… never seen a dead person before."
"…"
"Hojun-ssi."
"…Yeah."
"That yokai."
She unleashed an enormous surge of yokai energy—enough to make the ground tremble—as if the yokai detection radar no longer mattered.
"Let's kill it."
Hojun thought to himself that this fox yokai named Miho, in some ways, possessed a more human heart than he did.
I asked the Taoist master who had grabbed me and was flying through the sky.
"Do you know about doppelgangers?"
"Of course I do."
"Think of it as a doppelganger. It's not an ordinary yokai. That thing can change its appearance at will."
"How do you know?"
"The scent is exactly the same."
I only realized it after enhancing my senses with yokai energy. The pheromone scent coming from the dead man in the building matched perfectly with the pheromone scent left behind by the yokai that had vanished after spilling so much blood.
…What a terrifying ability.
If that yokai took the form of a young girl… or the form of a newborn baby… would I really be able to attack it without hesitation?
"It's that way."
While pointing Hojun in the right direction, I answered my own question.
Of course I could attack without hesitation. No matter what it looked like, a yokai that indiscriminately slaughtered humans could never be considered human.
What does it mean to be "human"? What is a "human heart"?
Humans are creatures with far more complex emotions than any other living thing, so a human heart cannot be defined by any single thing.
If someone asked whether Miho has a human heart, I could say yes. She acts like a person. She feels joy like a person. She is a creature capable of feeling compassion for others like a person. She is a yokai who practices benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom.
Conversely, if someone asked whether the shapeless shadow—the leopard cat yokai—has a human heart, I could also say yes. It acts like a person. It is cruel like a person. It is a creature capable of feeling jealousy and envy toward others like a person.
Although it is not a yokai that practices benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom like Miho, it still knows what those virtues are.
Knowing the human heart, it transformed into a tiger and devoured humans by stirring their fear.
Knowing the human heart, it transformed into a child and devoured a lieutenant by stirring their compassion.
Knowing the human heart, it transformed into that lieutenant and devoured the lieutenant's subordinates and the Force Arts users by stirring their camaraderie.
Knowing the human heart, it transformed into a female Force Arts user and devoured the Taoist master by stirring a man's sexual desire toward women.
'Not much time left.'
There was no longer any need to hide. After devouring three Force Arts users and one Taoist master, it became even more certain.
In this era, no human existed who possessed the power to stop it.
Soon it would reach one thousand. The moment it devoured its thousandth human, it was certain it would finally obtain its true form.
To fill the remaining count, it began to move. While heading toward a place crowded with humans, it noticed two figures in human form descending from the clear blue sky.
One was a man dressed like the "Taoist masters" it had encountered before.
The other was a fox yokai.
It couldn't understand why a human and a fox yokai were traveling together, but as always, it first took the form of a sobbing young girl to exploit the human Taoist master's compassion.
"Hic, hic, huuuu… Please help me, waaah!"
Its current appearance was that of a ten-year-old girl—an utterly pitiful sight that would stir compassion in any human man.
However, for a human blinded by vengeance, compassion was nothing more than a trivial emotion.
This is bad.
Sensing danger through centuries of accumulated experience, it immediately shed the girl's form and transformed into a swift tiger to escape.
Or rather, it tried to.
The moment the Taoist master fluttered his robe, a loud pop rang out, and a brush taller than a person materialized in the air. The Taoist master began writing characters in the air. When the character [囚] was completed, the yokai found itself trapped as if inside an invisible prison, unable to move an inch.
Next came the fox yokai's attack. Her tails glowed blue in an instant, and countless blue flames came rushing toward it. The tiger form was reduced to rags after being struck directly by the foxfire.
Now it was time to take the next form.
Nine hundred and thirty-two forms remained. There were still plenty of forms left.
It was endless. Hojun kept hurling killing techniques at the yokai, and I kept unleashing foxfire with all my yokai energy, yet the doppelganger yokai refused to die no matter how many times we killed it.
This vicious yokai knew human psychology far too well. It deliberately transformed into the forms of frail old people, young girls and boys, handsome men and women, tormenting both Hojun and me.
An old woman screamed pitifully, begging to be saved. Hojun's Taoist Arts burst her body open, spilling her entrails.
A young boy cried, "Please save me, noona, hyung!" My foxfire burned him alive as he screamed in agony.
The sight was too horrifying to watch, so I squeezed my eyes shut and kept hurling foxfire, but even that couldn't block out the ear-splitting screams.
What irritated me even more was that after being trapped by Hojun's Taoist Arts, the yokai offered no resistance whatsoever.
If this continued, Hojun's mental strength would run out first.
"This… is one nasty-tempered yokai."
"…"
In truth, Hojun spoke as if nothing was wrong, but his voice trembled.
As expected, killing a creature that looked like a human was never an easy thing to do.
In my case, while I felt a strong aversion to killing humans, it wasn't so painful that my hands shook like Hojun's.
A fact I couldn't deny no matter how much I wanted to.
I am not human.
I am a yokai.
Was even the nausea I felt earlier at the sight of human corpses just an act to deceive myself?
I was confused.
The one-sided slaughter continued for several minutes. The first to lose the will to fight wasn't me—the yokai—but the human Taoist master, Hojun.
"Shit… shit, shit!"
The moment Hojun's mind collapsed, the prison he had created—[囚]—dissolved. With a thud and a sharp crack, Hojun foamed at the mouth and collapsed.
"Hojun-ssi…? Hojun-ssi, snap out of it!"
While shaking his shoulders, I kept my eyes fixed on the yokai before me.
What… what kind of form is that now?
Human? No. No human takes a form like that.
Yokai? It's not a yokai either. Yokai come in all shapes, but my instincts as a fox yokai are telling me—this is not a yokai.
A club. Horns. Ah…
A dokkaebi.
It's the form of a dokkaebi.