Chapter 62: Rin, the Three-Tailed Fox
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 62: Rin, the Three-Tailed Fox
It was a lucky day for Seira.
She woke up feeling refreshed, her neck free of its usual stiffness. When she cracked an egg, two yolks plopped out. The jam jar had exactly one spoonful left.
It was a rare day of good fortune, the likes of which she hadn't seen since Rin came to live with her.
But Seira couldn't bring herself to enjoy it.
She couldn't even eat the twin-yolked fried egg sitting in front of her.
“Meatie. I wanna eat meatie.”
“You have to eat your vegetables, too. That’s how you’ll grow up to be a healthy, pretty fox.”
“Hmph, veggies are yucky.”
“If you eat your vegetables, I’ll buy you a snack later.”
“Yay!”
The two of them chatted away like a loving family. Seira was supposed to be the owner of this house, yet the atmosphere at the table made her feel like a guest.
Clutching her fork and knife, Seira stared blankly at the pair across from her.
“What in the world is going on?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why is Rin… talking?”
Just yesterday, Rin had only been capable of yips and whines. Overnight, she was speaking fluently.
Karami and Rin acted as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Seira was the only one who found it strange.
“Why shouldn’t she? Kids grow up fast.”
Is that so?
Fine, let’s say that’s true. Beastkin were known to develop faster than other races.
From that perspective, her starting to talk was somewhat understandable. Besides, it wasn't strange for a child Rin's age to be speaking.
But.
“I think I’m seeing things.”
“What are you seeing?”
“It looks like Rin has three tails.”
And she did. Rin had three fox tails. Three pink tails swayed back and forth as if dancing.
It was a mesmerizing movement that made her mind go blank just by watching. Like being slowly hypnotized, she couldn't look away.
Maybe I’m not fully awake and I’m hallucinating. Or maybe they’re moving so fast that I’m seeing afterimages.
Seira rubbed her eyes and opened them again, but nothing changed. The tails didn't disappear. It wasn't a hallucination.
“Why on earth have Rin’s tails multiplied?”
“It’s normal to grow this and that during a growth spurt. Don’t deer grow antlers as they get bigger?”
“I’ve never heard of a fox that grows more tails.”
No, that wasn't right.
She’d never seen one, but she remembered hearing about it. An image from a collection of beastkin folklore she’d once read surfaced in her mind.
“A Gumiho…?”
A thousand-year-old yokai fox.
A mystical fox with nine tails.
“What do you mean, Gumiho? The kid only has three tails.”
“They could keep growing until there are nine, just like this time!”
“Gumiho only exist in fairy tales. Do you really think having three means she’ll grow nine? Rin was just a three-tailed fox all along. A Sammiho.”
While no one had ever witnessed a Gumiho, a creature of pure imagination, three-tailed foxes were, on very rare occasions, found among the Fox Clan.
Just as there were Pegasi and Unicorns among the horse beastkin.
“Why? Are you planning to kick her out if she’s a Gumiho? Rin, Seya says she doesn’t like you.”
“Kick me out…? Does Seya hate Rin?”
“I never said that…”
“Mastah, what if Seya kicks me out…?”
Rin looked at Karami, her eyes trembling with anxiety. Karami let out a deep sigh and put on a look of pity.
“What do you think? You’ll have to sleep on the streets. Shivering in the cold. Soaking in the rain.”
“Hey, you have plenty of mon—”
“Hic, I don’t like the cold…”
Sniffle, sniffle.
Rin’s gaze fell to the table. Her lips jutted out in a pout, and her eyes welled up with tears. Her drooping ears and tails looked utterly miserable.
“You’ll have to eat nothing but grass. Eve-ry. Single. Day.”
“The meat she’s eating now is all from you—!”
“I hate graaaaass! Seya! Don’t kick Rin outttt!”
Rin finally burst into tears. Seira tried to argue, but it was too late. An image of the Little Match Girl was already forming in Rin’s mind.
Rain falling.
Snow falling.
Begging for food in tattered clothes.
A plate with nothing but scraps of grass.
Sleeping on the hard ground.
Shivering in the cold.
“And when you finally get a piece of meat, a stray cat steals it away…”
“Don’t take Rin’s meatie, kitty!”
Karami whispered the cold, hard reality—or something very much like it—into Rin’s ear. Rin reached out desperately for the imaginary piece of meat.
Seira squeezed her eyes shut and clutched the back of her neck, a throbbing headache starting.
“That’s just so cruel. Kicking her out just because she has a few extra tails. Honestly, all that talk about abandoning beastkin, and they’re the worst of them all…”
“I won’t kick her out! Whether she has nine tails or twenty, I won’t kick her out! Are you happy now?” Seira finally snapped.
Rin, who had been sobbing her heart out, cautiously peeked at Seira with swollen eyes.
“Really…?”
“Really.”
“Seya doesn’t hate Rin?”
“I don’t hate you. I like you.”
Rin turned her gaze to Karami.
“Mastah, Seya says she won’t kick me out.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
“Did Rin do good?”
“You did great.”
As if her tears had never existed, Rin stopped crying and broke into a wide grin. She stabbed a piece of meat with her fork and popped it into her mouth.
Seira couldn’t help but let out a hollow laugh.
With her new tails came a new level of slyness. Perhaps it was something she’d picked up from her master.
*
“Mastah, where are we going?”
“We’re going to see the Fox Gwanny.”
“Fox Gwanny?”
Rin looked up at me.
Her three tails swayed gently behind her.
Overnight, Rin’s tail count had grown to three. Tails tended to grow easily in the beginning, but I hadn't expected her to sprout two at once.
For Rin, an increase in tails meant an increase in physical growth. She was a little taller, and though her speech was still clumsy, she could talk.
Her speech will get more natural with time.
She was cute as she was now, but it was a parent’s wish to see their child grow.
Anyway, that wasn't the important part.
The key was that this was her third tail, not her second or fourth.
Three, six, nine.
Whenever her tail count became a multiple of three, Rin’s power as a Gumiho increased dramatically.
It meant that while she fought like a beast yesterday, she could now wield magic like a proper Gumiho.
Thus, we were on our way to find a teacher who could instruct Rin in the mystical arts.
It’s amazing how much has changed.
It felt like I’d only just met Rin, and yet she’d already grown so much. Was this really the same Rin who used to growl whenever she saw me? My heart swelled with pride.
Is this it?
A deserted path.
An old alleyway tucked between buildings.
A mural of a fox holding an orb, surrounded by clouds.
This was it.
This was the alley.
No matter how much you play a game, you can’t memorize the location and details of every single character.
But she was one of the few witches in TOS I remembered.
A spiritual guardian of Vestia whom I absolutely had to meet to liberate Rin.
The Witch of Fate.
Heaven’s messenger, the Celestial Fox, Yuhwa.
Yuhwa was in the fortune-telling booth in this alley!
“But why isn’t she here?”
The fortune-telling booth was deserted.
I pushed open the creaky old door to find only a table and a chair. Instead of Yuhwa, a cloud of musty dust greeted me.
Did she just step out for a bit? In the game, she was always here whenever I came. I’d never seen it empty before.
Well, it’s not like today is my only chance.
I decided to come back tomorrow and headed home.
But Yuhwa was nowhere to be seen the next day, or the day after that.
After several fruitless trips, even Rin was getting a little annoyed.
“Mastah, did the gwanny die?”
“I don’t think so. She may look like a grandmother, but she’s fated to live longer than me.”
Yuhwa wasn’t coming to her shop. She wasn’t the type to just drop dead overnight, so it was safe to assume she’d quit the fortune-telling business here.
Hmm, if that’s the case…
This was a new situation, and it was perplexing, but thankfully, I knew one other place where Yuhwa might be.
The problem was, it was information you only learned after building a rapport with her. I wasn't sure if it was okay to go there now.
An accidental-on-purpose encounter in the alley would have been the best-case scenario.
But I couldn't afford not to meet her, so the decision was made quickly.
*
Vestia was the main stage for Rin’s story.
In the world of TOS, which generally cosplayed as medieval Europe, Vestia was a unique nation where Western and Eastern styles coexisted.
Its monsters were called yokai instead of demonic beasts, and the main slave, Rin, was a Gumiho, a frequent figure in East Asian folklore.
Furthermore, while beings from Western literature like Pegasi and Harpies existed, so did beings from Eastern literature, like the Four Mythical Guardians.
The reason was simple.
Because it’s what gamers like.
At its core, TOS was a character-driven otaku game.
Just as Chinese games had regions with a distinct Chinese flavor and Japanese games had their obligatory samurai and ninjas, Vestia was a city designed around Rin, the Gumiho.
But I digress. The point was, the place we had just arrived at was no different. It was an Eastern-style building standing in the middle of Vestia’s capital, which was otherwise filled with Western-style architecture.
Looking like something straight out of a wuxia film, this was the home of Vestia’s top merchant group.
The Celestial Pavilion.
Just like the trope where the old lady collecting scrap paper turns out to be a building owner, the master of the Celestial Pavilion was Yuhwa.
“How may I help you?”
As we entered the Celestial Pavilion, a tiger in Eastern attire came out to greet us.
“I’m here to see the leader of the merchant group.”
“I don’t believe I’ve seen you before. Do you have an appointment with the Elder?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Then I’m afraid a meeting will be difficult. She is not someone you can see without an appointment.”
Busy? That old woman who holes up in a shabby fortune-telling booth playing prophet is busy?
Then again, very few people knew her secret.
It was understandable that a mere employee wouldn't know.
“If it’s really not possible, could you at least deliver a message to her?”
“Hmm, as long as it’s nothing strange…”
Fortunately, the good-natured tiger seemed willing to pass on the message.
In that case, I needed a message that was short and would immediately grab Yuhwa’s attention.
“Please tell your leader this.”
Words that Yuhwa would understand in an instant.
I had just the thing.
“Tell her a gumiho has come to see her.”