The Blue Fox of Jirisan
Lee Ha-neul, the nationally certified Force Arts practitioner, had been a prodigy from the moment she drew breath. A genius among geniuses, the kind people pinned all their hopes on. She grasped qi at the tender age of fifteen, began commanding power at seventeen, and naturally awakened Force the moment she became an adult. At the absurdly young age of twenty-one, she became the youngest nationally certified Force Arts user in history. From there, she carved out a name for herself as a yokai extermination specialist, the kind who crushed evil spirits and held the country together on her shoulders.
Or at least… she was supposed to.
Now twenty-four, Lee Ha-neul had never quite lived up to that early promise. She had simply become… an average Force Arts user. Nothing more.
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…
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Right after earning her certification as the youngest Force Arts practitioner in the nation, her shoulders had been squared with pride. The world held no fear for her. Yokai? Come at me. I’ll obliterate your demonic energy with the Force that carries the power of the earth itself.
A few months later, the government’s summons finally arrived. A yokai had appeared at a temple halfway up Mangdaeam Mountain and was threatening the monks. The report was grim.
She was furious. Filthy yokai bastard. How dare you threaten monks without knowing your place in the heavens?
With the single-minded determination to save those holy men, she raced straight for Mangdaeam Mountain.
What she encountered there — her very first yokai — was neither a white-haired old man sprouting countless teeth nor a human-faced bird wearing stolen human skin.
“Waaah… waaah… waaah… waaah!”
It was a baby. No… not even a baby. It was a fetus. A pitiful little body crammed inside an impossibly narrow bamboo tube. A dead-tube fetus.
Grudge Charm Technique. A long-forgotten, utterly heinous sorcery that had circulated among the common people hundreds of years ago. The practitioner would slice open an innocent pregnant woman’s belly and remove the fetus. Using spells to keep the fetus alive, they would then seal the crying infant inside a narrow bamboo tube. Starved, thirsty, and in agony, the fetus would thrash horribly until it finally died, its body crumpled and twisted inside the tube. Such a being was called a grudge charm.
The sorcerer would then travel from village to village, showing the fetus inside the tube to people, weakening their minds, and extorting money or valuables. That was the Grudge Charm Technique.
And the yokai before Lee Ha-neul’s eyes was a bamboo-fetus ghost — a vengeful spirit born when a fetus killed by that very technique turned into a monster.
Just as the government had warned, the bamboo-fetus ghost was indeed threatening the monks. Having starved for who knows how long inside that cramped bamboo prison, it was slowly — ever so slowly — tearing off and eating strips of the monks’ flesh.
Yet for some reason, the monks’ expressions were endlessly benevolent.
“Ugh… bleeeeergh!”
Lee Ha-neul vomited everything in her stomach at the grotesque sight. It was the moment her pride as a nationally certified Force Arts practitioner shattered into pieces.
Overcome by rising nausea, she gathered Force into her hand, ready to annihilate the bamboo-fetus ghost right then and there.
But one of the monks stopped her.
“Please… just wait a little longer, Force Arts practitioner. Can’t you see the child is happy…?”
“M-Monk? What are you even—”
Unable to comprehend the monk’s words, Lee Ha-neul shouted in agitation.
“That thing is an evil spirit!”
“It is not an evil spirit. It is a vengeful spirit.”
“It’s eating your flesh!”
“Just a little longer… just a little more.”
“You’re going to die! You’re already in danger!”
Just as she said, the monk whose flesh was being torn away was bleeding profusely from his entire body. If nothing was done, he would surely die from blood loss. Yet the monk continued speaking as if his own body meant nothing to him.
“I ask you. Does this child have a heart?”
“…Excuse me?”
“Does it have a heart?”
“Of course not! How could a yokai possibly have a heart!”
“You are wrong. This child does have a heart.”
The monk continued.
“It can see, hear, feel, and know. How can you say it has no heart?”
“…”
Just as the monk said, the expression of the fetus inside the bamboo tube — the one that had been tearing at the monk’s skin for so long — looked incredibly happy.
How many minutes passed like that?
The child stopped crying. The monk drew his last breath.
Lee Ha-neul could do nothing.
Step. Step. Step.
She approached the monk to finish the job, swallowed hard, and peered into the bamboo tube.
But there was nothing inside.
Only the sound of a child’s delighted laughter — “Kyaaaruruk, kyaaarurururuk!” — echoed in her ears.
It wasn’t she who had exorcised the bamboo-fetus ghost.
It was the monk.
After that first encounter with a yokai, she suffered from severe trauma.
Even when the government called her to face other yokai, the thought What if this one has a heart too? would stop her from using her Force. She could only bring herself to use it when the creature was unmistakably, undeniably evil.
The government was cold. She had failed to prove her usefulness. And since her talent itself was first-class, they began treating her as little more than a disposable tool.
In that sense, she was the perfect person to send for the current incident — the ‘Blue Fox Yokai of Jirisan.’
According to the reports, the blue fox of Jirisan was an utterly heinous evil spirit.
Yokai Type: Blue Fox Yokai (presumed Rank 4 evil spirit)
Threat Level: Extreme
Status of Strike Team: All communication lost. Presumed annihilated, including the director.
Recommendation: Immediate dispatch of certified Force Arts practitioner. Lethal force authorized.
Upon arriving at Jirisan, Lee Ha-neul first stopped by the Yokai Extermination Office to assess the situation. The office was in complete panic — the sorry state of soldiers who had lost their commander.
According to the remaining staff, every single combatant had gone silent. In the worst-case scenario… the director and the entire team had already been killed by that fox spirit.
…This is way more serious than I thought.
She couldn’t fathom why the government had sent her on such a critical mission. Of course, Force Arts practitioners existed on a completely different level from ordinary people. Even a novice who had only just awakened their Force could take down a Rank 4 yokai without too much trouble. And Lee Ha-neul was a woman of exceptional talent even among those legendary practitioners. Exterminating a Rank 4 fox yokai should have been child’s play for her.
The problem was—
The fact that I’m only half a Force Arts practitioner.
Three years had passed since her encounter with the bamboo-fetus ghost, yet she still couldn’t forget the monk’s dying words.
Does a yokai have a heart?
For the past three years, she had traveled everywhere, encountering countless yokai, trying to verify whether the monk’s words were true. But she still couldn’t reach a conclusion.
Some yokai were evil spirits that lived for the thrill of devouring humans. Others were beast-type yokai that killed people for no reason at all. Despite meeting so many different kinds over three years, she had yet to encounter a single yokai that made her believe it truly had a heart.
This time will probably be the same.
According to the report, the blue fox yokai that appeared in Jirisan was a Rank 4 evil spirit. Given that all the combatants had gone silent, it was obviously an utterly heinous monster. Evil spirits had no hearts. And even if they did, their hearts were so wicked that showing them mercy was unthinkable.
Lee Ha-neul thought that was for the best. If her opponent was an evil spirit, she could unleash her Force without hesitation.
After gathering all the information she could from the office researchers, she strode confidently toward the last known location of the missing strike team.
When she finally arrived, she couldn’t help but let out a low groan.
…How horrible.
The ground was soaked in blood. Human flesh lay scattered everywhere. The protective suits they had been wearing were torn to shreds and discarded like trash. It was a nightmarish scene that would scar an ordinary person for life, but for Lee Ha-neul — whose first yokai had been a fetus trapped in a bamboo tube — it only made her frown slightly. Nothing more.
But… where are the bodies?
Did it really eat all of them? Every single one of these people?
No. Looking closer, she saw a trail of blood leading in a specific direction.
Thanks for leaving a trail, but it could still be a trap.
A fox yokai. She had never encountered one before, but according to old legends, fox yokai were extremely cunning. You could never let your guard down for even a second.
Should she follow the blood trail or not?
Her hesitation didn’t last long. No matter how half-baked she considered herself, she was still a Force Arts practitioner.
Just as she was about to follow the trail of blood—
“Sniff, sniff sniff.”
A sniffing sound came from somewhere.
Enemy?
Lee Ha-neul gathered Force into her hands, entered a combat stance, and stared warily in the direction of the sound.
What emerged was not an enemy.
It was an incredibly cute white fox.
“Sniff, sniff… k-kying?”
The white fox seemed so startled by the sight of her that it let out a little whine and began trembling all over.
So… so cute…!
Her heart screamed at her to hug the white fox right that instant, but given the situation, Lee Ha-neul barely managed to restrain her desire.
Wait a second.
That white fox…
…didn’t it have three tails?
Fox yokai are extremely cunning. They toy with human hearts…
Highly intelligent and wicked. Let your guard down for even a moment and…
They use fox sorcery to transform and…
All sorts of old tales about fox yokai flooded her mind.
She understood now. That white fox was the fox spirit of Jirisan.
She had heard it was a blue fox, but it must have used transformation magic to change its appearance.
Having made up her mind, Lee Ha-neul acted quickly. After everything she had seen in the past three years, she was no longer swayed by cuteness.
She gathered Force into her hand and spoke.
“Fox with no heart. No — fox with an evil heart.”
“K-kying…?”
“Atone for the humans you killed with your death.”