Chapter 76: The Three Little Pig Sisters
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 76: The Three Little Pig Sisters
“Hmm, it seems she’s showing no further signs of growth.”
Yuhwa murmured to herself as she observed Rin’s condition during one of their usual training sessions.
Ever since growing her fifth tail, Rin’s progress had stagnated, unlike before. It was the same even when she absorbed the essence of powerful monsters.
It was as if she had hit a massive wall. Like a character in a martial arts story who needs some kind of epiphany to break through to the next realm.
It seemed Yuhwa, too, was at a loss as to what that epiphany might be. And maybe I was imagining it, but I got the feeling she was more anxious about Rin’s stalled growth than I was.
“Is something wrong?”
“Princess Hilde paid a visit earlier.”
“That madwoman?”
“You’re probably the only person in the world who calls Princess Hilde a madwoman.”
“Everyone else is just thinking it. They just don’t have the guts to say it.”
Plucking the feathers of a passing bird beastkin.
Burning down a squirrel beastkin’s acorn storage.
Flipping a turtle beastkin on its back so it couldn’t get up.
And those were her tamer antics. When she was bored, she would sometimes venture outside the kingdom just to wreak havoc.
Even back when I played the game, the moment the message ‘You have encountered Hilde, the Lioness of Vestia’ popped up, the words ‘That fucking bitch is here again!’ would fly out of my mouth.
It was just easier to assume you were fucked the moment you ran into her. I couldn’t help but be concerned, hearing that such a lunatic had come looking for us.
“Why did that madwoman come here?”
“She claimed she wanted her fortune told, but that was just a pretext. She suspects that Rin is a gumiho. I managed to send her away with a plausible excuse, but you two will cross paths one day. A thread of fate connects you.”
“Can’t we just cut it with scissors?”
“Fate isn’t something you can just snip… Sigh.”
What was that? Why the sigh? Don’t give up on me.
I thought it was a pretty brilliant idea. As if she didn’t want to waste another breath on me, Yuhwa let out a deep sigh and took a sip of tea to wet her dry throat.
“Master, don’t worry. Rin will scold her for you.”
“That would be wonderful, but…”
A five-tailed fox was nowhere near enough. Rin puffed out her cheeks, as if to ask if I didn’t trust her, but there are some things in this world that can’t be solved by faith alone.
She needed to be at least a seven-tailed fox.
She still needed two more tails.
“We’ll have to go to White Cloud Valley.”
“Why there?”
“Because you said her growth has stalled.”
In Tale of Slaves, the slaves, each with their own story, couldn’t grow infinitely just by repeating their training. To reach a higher state, they had to resolve their own personal circumstances.
It was true for Mirabelle and Harold, and for Alfia’s suffering.
Liberation from the shackles that bound them. Growth and liberation were intricately intertwined.
In Rin’s case, it was the Fox Clan of White Cloud Valley. She had to break the chains of persecution that had oppressed her for an eternity.
And there’s something I need to get there, too.
The fortunate opportunity hidden deep within the fox den would accelerate Rin’s growth.
However, from the moment I brought up returning to White Cloud Valley, Rin began to vehemently express her displeasure.
“Rin hates them. I don’t even want to see their faces. They can stay there and rot for all I care.”
I understood. She was no longer the frog in the well, the fox in the valley.
Back then, she might have been happy with just potatoes, but now that she was out in the world eating meat, she must have realized just how harsh her past environment had been.
And that wasn’t even the worst of it. They had driven her into mortal danger, forcing her to act as bait for yokai. It was a miracle she hadn’t gone back for revenge the moment she gained some power.
“That’s all the more reason to go. We’ll bring them meat and ask them, ‘Bet you don’t have anything like this, do you?’ Wouldn’t that make you feel better?”
“…Really?”
“Rin didn’t do anything wrong, so why should you avoid them? Let’s go and show them just how well you’re living.”
“If that’s the case…”
Rin seemed to be reluctantly coming around.
She didn’t seem completely convinced, but I wasn’t worried. She was in for a big surprise when we got there.
*
The plan was set, but it felt premature to leave right away. I had only just woken up, and my body hadn’t fully recovered enough for a long carriage ride.
So, I decided to enjoy some culture for the first time in a while as I recuperated. It would be a waste to come all the way to another world and just rush forward all the time, right?
Sometimes, you need to take a detour.
“Get out here this instant! If you don’t, I’ll blow your house down!”
The place I found was a theater.
The stage was shrouded in darkness. On it, a pig beastkin looked out from a house-shaped set piece, while a wolf-man stood before the door.
Today’s play was one we all know very well: The Three Little Pigs.
The first and second pigs, too lazy to put in any effort, build a hut of straw and a shack of wood.
But when the wolf comes, their houses are miserably destroyed, and they flee to their youngest brother’s house.
The youngest pig, unlike his brothers, invested time into building a sturdy brick house, and because of that, the wolf cannot destroy it.
It was a fairy tale with the lesson that one should prepare for the future, just like the youngest pig. The story I remembered from my childhood picture books was being reenacted by beastkin.
But why is the youngest pig first?
The set piece was a brick house. Its owner was the youngest pig, Popo.
In The Three Little Pigs, doesn’t the youngest, who built his house of bricks, appear last? Yet here he was, the first one up.
“Hey, loser! Blow it down if you can!”
The youngest pig taunted the wolf. Huffing and puffing in a realistic display of fury, the wolf took a pickaxe to the brick house. An entire wall caved in, and the house collapsed.
“Aaaah! My house!”
From the rubble, a female pig, Popo, emerged. Waving her limbs adorably, she fled and entered the second house, the one made of wooden planks.
The wolf, chasing the little pig, inevitably arrived at the wooden house.
“You nimble little pigs! Open this door at once! Before I tear into your plump flesh!”
“This house is made of sturdy wood! You won’t be able to break it with a pickaxe like before!”
In response, the wolf began to build a fire. This was no stupid wolf who only knew how to huff and puff. Naturally, the house caught fire, and the pigs fled.
The pigs took refuge in the first pig’s straw hut. It was, of course, much shabbier than the previous houses. Huddled together inside, it looked like the wolf was in for a feast today.
“Hah, hah… Get… out here… now!”
The wolf panted, exhausted from destroying houses and chasing pigs. Just then, the curtain-like bundle of straw that barely served as a door parted, and the first pig emerged.
“Finally giving up…?”
But her appearance was strange. Behind the first pig, the second and third hesitantly appeared. All of them were dressed in revealing, risqué outfits, showing off their seductive figures.
The first pig approached the wolf with a sultry smile. She leaned forward slightly, emphasizing her cleavage at a perfect angle.
“Mr. Wolf, you look so tired. Why don’t you come inside and rest for a bit?”
“Hmm?”
“Don’t you want to eat a plump little pig?”
The first pig ran a finger through the wolf’s fur, as if to seduce him. She whispered, her hot breath tickling his ear.
“It’s your chance to have all three sisters at once, you know?”
“…!”
The roles of predator and prey were reversed. As if hypnotized, the wolf was led by the pigs into the tiny hut, and with that, the play ended.
Today’s lesson:
Even if you’re lazy, you can survive if you shake your ass well.
The title: The Three Little Pig Sisters.
…
What the hell did I just watch?
This was so different from the story I remembered. Wasn’t it supposed to be more hopeful, something that could teach children a life lesson?
Where did the pigs go? These were femme fatales.
It seemed I was the only one who found it strange; the surrounding audience erupted in cheers and a standing ovation.
Rin clasped her hands together, an ecstatic look on her face, and began to furiously scribble something in her fox orb.
“In a crisis, a female can survive by wagging her tail to seduce a male she likes. Memo…”
I decided it was best not to see what she was writing.
*
“Master, that play was amazing! That’s really how you’re supposed to live. As a fox, I feel like I’ve had a great epiphany.”
“You think so…?”
Different people can watch the same thing and have different impressions. The gap between my reaction and Rin’s was stark.
While I was trying my best to erase the memory, wishing I had never seen it, Rin was savoring it, determined never to forget.
“The next play is about Little Red-Cap Boy and the Wolf Sister. We have to come see it.”
Why a boy instead of a girl?
And what the hell was a Wolf Sister?
I decided not to think about it too deeply.
I had been confident that I’d more or less adapted to Vestia, but that was clearly a premature thought.
“Since I showed you something fun, Rin, how about we go somewhere you want to go next, Master?”
“Really?”
What a windfall. There were, in fact, several places I’d been wanting to visit.
“Rin, you see that place over there, Rabbit in the Moon?”
“What kind of place is it?”
“It’s a bar.”
The fact that it was a bar wasn’t the important part. As the name suggested, the main point was that rabbit beastkin worked there as staff.
Not cosplay, but real bunny girls!
Hop, hop!
“No.”
“Huh?”
But Rin shot me down flat.
She glared at me with an icy expression.
“But you just said we could go where I wanted…?”
“Master, are you really going to a bar with Rin right here? You want Rin to just stand by and watch you drool over some rabbits?”
“Then where should we…”
“A shop with no beastkin. Otherwise, I won’t allow it.”
A shop with no beastkin in Vestia?
There was no way such a place existed.
“Let’s just go home…”
“Really? We can look around more. Well, if that’s what Master really wants, Rin will follow. Let’s go. Rin will give you a tail pillow.”
I petted her tails to my heart’s content.