Chapter 75: Rin Wants to Be With Her Master
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 75: Rin Wants to Be With Her Master
Our new house in the third district.
And I mean new, not a birdhouse.
Or at least a wolf’s den.
I felt bad saying this to Seira, but it was much newer than our previous home. The facilities were better overall, and it was spacious. Spacious enough that I could even give Rin her own room.
Having become a five-tailed fox, Rin had matured not just physically, but mentally as well. Her spirit form was no longer that of a naive child who knew nothing of the world, but had grown closer to the shape of a woman.
Physically, she looked like she was going through puberty. There’s a saying that women are in puberty from birth until death, but in any case, Rin was currently in her rebellious phase.
I had to recognize her as a young woman of that age and be considerate. Things I used to take for granted were now off-limits.
But I was bored, so I decided to test the waters.
“Rin, want to bathe with your master?”
“Yeah. Of course I'm going to bathe with you.”
Huh.
I didn't actually think she'd take me up on it.
Her confidence actually made me the one who hesitated.
“I was just kidding.”
“Huh? Whyyy~? Let's bathe together~”
“Rin, you're all grown up now. You need to learn to wash by yourself. More importantly, you shouldn't bathe with a man.”
Was her sense of modesty still lacking? Rin tilted her head with a look of pure innocence, as if she didn't understand.
“I don't mind if it's you, Master.”
“Well, I mind.”
“Don't you want to see how much I've grown? Rin's gotten bigger here and there, you know?”
Muttering this, Rin looked down and placed a hand on her chest. There was definitely a gentle slope there that hadn't existed before…
Gah.
What am I imagining right now?
Begone, worldly desires!
Remember how TOS was ruined!
“Absolutely not. If you keep this up, I'll make you live as a slave forever, you hear?”
“But I like being a slave.”
“…Rin. I've told you time and time again. Being a slave is not a good thing. You can't talk like that. People will think it's strange. Understand?”
“Keehee. Master, your face is hilarious right now. Fine, I get it. I'll let you off the hook today. Seira~ Let's go bathe.”
Rin giggled, her response ambiguous as to whether she truly understood or not.
These little squabbles happened every time she bathed, but it wasn’t just limited to bathtime. Bedtime wasn’t much different.
Rin used to sleep coiled up on my stomach. Naturally, now that she was bigger, she couldn't sleep in the same position.
Frankly, if I let her sleep on my stomach now, I'd probably wake up with my belly caved in. But Rin insisted on sleeping on top of me.
“You have your own room now, Rin. The bed is nice, so please sleep there.”
“The bed is uncomfortable! Rin can't sleep unless it's on Master's stomach! Why do you keep saying no to everything?!”
Rin shouted loud enough to shake the house. The leisurely tone and attitude she'd maintained until now were torn to shreds by her single shout.
“What if something happens to you again while I'm away?”
“It's just the room next door, and you've grown up, so you need to act like it.”
I did sleep while holding Mirabelle, but her situation was a little different.
Aside from feeling like a pleasant comfort doll to hold, Mirabelle, who mistakenly believed her parents had abandoned her, had severe dependency issues. She couldn't sleep unless I held her.
But Rin wasn't that extreme, and besides, I'd raised her since she was little, so she felt more like a daughter. I wanted to give her a proper upbringing, so to speak.
But it seemed Rin didn't see it that way at all.
“Rin worked hard so she could stay by your side, Master. If I knew it would be like this, I wouldn't have tried in the first place. If you keep acting like this, Rin won't become a gumiho!”
Threatening me by saying she won't become a gumiho. I never dreamed Rin would play such a trump card. As her tails grew and she became more of a fox, she started using cunning tricks I'd never experienced with the other slaves.
If she were throwing a tantrum with brute force, I could just subdue her with a command word, but this was different. Since my goal is their complete liberation, I couldn't just force the issue.
“Alright. Let's sleep together.”
“Okay!”
Rin clung to me, hugging me like a body pillow. She used her limbs and tails to bind me so I couldn't move.
She buried her face in my chest and took a deep breath. Then, her hand slipped under my clothes, her slender fingers tracing my scar.
I thought she was teasing me again, trying to stir my heart, but her mismatched eyes, glittering in the darkness, held a profoundly serious light.
“You know, Rin… couldn't sleep for days after you got hurt. I kept thinking, ‘Master got hurt because of Rin…’ What if I woke up and you were dead? I was so scared, I lay beside you every day. I couldn't bear it unless I could at least smell your scent like this.”
One by one, Rin began to speak of the hardships she had endured alone for the past month.
“Actually, I'd vaguely realized it. That there was a reason people pointed fingers at me, calling me a cursed fox, a monster that brings misfortune. That I was different from everyone else.”
“…”
“But it was more okay than I thought. Because you praised me, called me pretty. As long as you saw me as pretty, that was enough. But after what happened this time, Rin started to hate herself, too.”
Rin paused for a moment before continuing.
“What Persi said wasn't wrong, either. I know Rin was in the wrong. But I was angry because it was so true. Rin just wants to be by Master's side. But she made me realize the reality I was trying so hard to ignore.”
Rin let out a deep sigh, her self-deprecating words tumbling out like a lament.
“Why was Rin born like this? What exactly is Rin? If I were just ordinary like everyone else, I could have been happy with you, Master. Why is Rin so unhappy…? Why was I born with this fate?”
Rin murmured, a bitter smile on her face.
Rin had grown up. It wasn't just the emotion in her voice; she could now interpret the meaning behind the words. Her sense of self had been established, and she now understood what kind of being she was.
She was different from the childish girl she used to be. Trying to persuade her with sugar-coated words would be like handing her a poisoned apple.
“It's a good thing that you're a gumiho, Rin. You think you could have been happy if you weren't special? Not a chance.”
But have I ever once offered sugar-coated words to my slaves? What I give them isn't just plausible-sounding words, but always 100% sincerity.
“Think about it. If you were an ordinary fox, would we have met in White Cloud Valley?”
“…No.”
“If you were an ordinary fox, why would I have made you my slave? The Fox Clan is a dime a dozen. I may not look it, but I'm a slave trader with high standards, you know?”
“But…”
“Did you call it fate just now? This isn't something like fate. I went to White Cloud Valley of my own will, and you appeared before me on your own two feet. Let's not lump our choices together and pass them off as the will of some unseen heaven, okay?”
Rin fell silent, thinking it over.
“…Yeah. I understand.”
She nodded her head, as if by inertia, seemingly convinced. Thankfully, it seemed I'd handled it well. I patted Rin on the back, and she savored the touch, rubbing her cheek against me.
“Oh, right, Master.”
“Yes?”
“Rin, actually, I did something else besides just smelling you when you were unconscious.”
All her previous seriousness vanished as if discarded, and Rin's eyes and mouth curved into crescents. It was the expression she made when she was about to cause trouble.
I get scared just walking ten steps with my eyes closed, let alone being completely unconscious. No matter how pretty she was, the thought was chilling.
“…What did you do?”
“Well~? What do you think Rin did?”
That was Rin's answer as she wagged her five tails. We were only halfway there, and my future already looked bleak.
*
“Yuhwa, it's been awfully hard to see you lately.”
Late at night, a visitor came to the Celestial Pavilion. It wasn't the two troublemakers who checked in daily, but Hilde, the Lioness of Vestia.
Hilde spoke condescendingly, sitting in her chair with the posture of a third-rate back-alley thug, not at all like the princess of a nation.
“My apologies, Princess. This old woman hasn't been feeling well lately…”
Yuhwa had refused Hilde's visits several times. She'd claimed to be ill, but in truth, it was a lie born from the fear that Hilde and Rin might meet.
After all, upon their first meeting, Hilde had swung her fists without warning, shouting, “Are you strong? Fight me!”
Even if Rin was born a gumiho, it would be too much for her to defeat Hilde yet.
If they met now, the tails she'd worked so hard to grow would all be plucked out. So, she had done her best to prevent the two from meeting. She had just failed to do so today.
“Well, you certainly do look sick. You've aged a lot since I last saw you.”
Having begun to raise a gumiho in earnest, the backlash from defying the Mandate of Heaven was slowly starting to set in for Yuhwa. As a spiritual being, she had always possessed a mysteriousness that time could not touch.
But now, that light had faded significantly. She looked frail, just like a grandmother of her age.
Thanks to this, Hilde didn't question the excuse of her being sick, which was a relief, if anything.
“I heard the news. That you've been meeting often with that human called the Slave Reaper. He opened a cat café, didn't he?”
“That is correct. I found him to be a man I could converse with quite well, so I asked him to keep this old woman company.”
“Now that's strange. I never thought there'd be someone in this world that you'd take a liking to, Yuhwa. You don't even like me that much, do you? Then again, how many people in the world actually like me?”
Hilde was self-aware enough to know her personality was abrasive. She was the type who couldn't resist when she saw something interesting.
But as you could guess just by looking at her now, she had no intention of changing. She was in a position where she didn't have to, and she had the power to keep it.
“But is it true that the Slave Reaper has a pink fox with him? And that it's even a three-tailed fox.”
“That is correct.”
“Is that so…”
Hilde seemed to be pondering something with a serious expression, then lowered her voice and said.
“That's not a gumiho, is it?”
“A gumiho? What do you mean by that all of a sudden?”
“Just a thought. I remembered the nine shimmering heat hazes that your orb once showed. And I can't help but wonder if the sealed gumiho has somehow been released.”
Yuhwa's reaction back then was strange, too. She herself claimed her spiritual powers had waned and closed her fortune-telling booth, but it kept bothering Hilde.
The moment a real gumiho appeared, the world would be devastated. If that pink fox was the gumiho, she intended to eliminate it before it could grow its power.
“You're asking if that young fox is the gumiho.”
“That's right.”
“I do not know for certain. We yokai cannot use our abilities on one another, so I have no way of confirming it. However, I did not sense any great danger from the child.”
“Is that so?”
Hilde's eyes narrowed sharply. The vertical black slits in her golden pupils flashed as she stared at Yuhwa, as if aiming for her innermost thoughts.
Yuhwa calmly sipped her tea with her eyes closed.
The tense standoff, filled with a subtle atmosphere, continued for a moment. Then, Hilde let out a chuckle and relaxed her posture.
“Well, if you say so, Yuhwa, I guess that's that.”
Hilde downed her tea in one gulp and slammed the cup down with a thud!
“It's nothing important today. I just couldn't sleep, so I came to get my fortune told.”
“My spiritual powers are not what they used to be.”
“Doesn't matter. I'm just doing it for fun anyway. I'm not the type to be swayed by fortunes.”
“If you insist, then I shall try to read your fortune.”
Yuhwa created a pure white fox orb and offered it to Hilde, who placed her hand on it. Soon, Yuhwa's tails began to sway as if possessed, and a mystical, hazy fog filled the area.
The crystal flashed, divining Hilde's fate.
“The black beast shall turn its back to the heavens and lower its feet to the earth. At the end of the path it walks, radiant liberation and disaster shall intersect. There will be no iron, yet the shackles shall be eternal.”
The fog dissipated, and the crystal lost its light. Hearing her fate, Hilde furrowed her brow.
“What the hell is this bullshit?”
She couldn't make heads or tails of it.
She didn't even know if it was good or bad.
“Princess, prophecies have always been ambiguous. Within the bounds of what is destined, small coincidences can give birth to new endings.”
“So, you're saying that depending on how I act, a good future could come, or it might not?”
“That is one way to interpret it.”
In that case, Hilde was confident she had nothing to worry about. After all, with her power, she could snatch even a fleeing happy ending.
Radiant liberation.
Perhaps she was about to experience an amusement on a whole different level from anything she'd known before.