Chapter 84: The Gumiho Hunt (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 84: The Gumiho Hunt (2)
East of White Cloud Valley lies a plain where black clouds perpetually shroud the sky, erasing the line between day and night.
This region of darkness, where light never reaches, is called the Plains of Despair. On the ground, hordes of yokai roam. It is a high-risk zone, with access strictly forbidden by the nation of Vestia.
Yet even these yokai were reluctant to approach the ruined fortress that stood alone in the center of the plain.
Once one of the great cities that boasted the prosperity of the ancient Vestia Kingdom, it was conquered by yokai and fell to ruin. Now, it had been reduced to a meeting place for a handful of powerful yokai.
Inside the fortress was a massive meeting hall. In its center, an undying fire burned.
Skitter-skitter-skitter-skitter.
A hundred legs attached to a giant body moved as if each had a mind of its own, taking a seat at the round table.
His eyes were narrowed into slits, hiding his thoughts. He wore a black fedora and a tuxedo, a cane held neatly by several of his hand-like legs. It was the Centipede Gentleman, a centipede yokai.
“Well now, it seems I’m a bit late. My apologies. It takes quite a while to put on my shoes.”
Yokai with a certain level of power generally stayed holed up in their own territories and rarely ventured out. The Centipede Gentleman was no exception.
Living in seclusion in his underground tunnels, he wasn’t fond of coming to the surface, but today was a special day.
The Dark Fox had summoned the yokai, announcing that the pink fox had appeared.
“I never dreamed the pink fox would awaken now. Don’t you agree?”
“She must have been released from her seal for quite some time. She’s only just now recovered enough of her power for us to sense her presence.”
The one conversing with the Centipede Gentleman was a woman in the form of a horse: the Horse of the Twelve Zodiac Spirits.
“Gheheheheheh. That’s how it should be. Of course! A pink fox ought to be this powerful, shouldn’t she!” a giant with bulging muscles that looked too big to even cross his arms shouted heartily.
He was a dokkaebi.
A Dueoksini, also known as the king of the dokkaebi.
For the Dueoksini, who loved nothing more than testing his strength against the powerful, the pink fox’s return was welcome news.
“Where is the pink fox now? I must go meet her at once!”
Like a child who’d just been promised a trip to an amusement park, the Dueoksini grinned from ear to ear at the thought of meeting the pink fox. He looked to Heukbi, waiting for an answer.
Though she wore an eyepatch, Heukbi easily sensed his gaze but paid it no mind. She simply swished her black tail and leisurely savored her tea.
“Even if you go looking for her now, you won’t find what you’re hoping for. In her current state, she’s far from a true pink fox—she’s barely a six-tailed fox.”
She was one of the three great yokai foxes.
The Celestial Fox, the pink fox, and the Dark Fox, Heukbi.
The fox who reverses fate.
She could cast an emperor into the abyss or raise a vagrant from the streets to the throne. She was a dangerous being who could swap the fates of a prince and a pauper as easily as flipping her hand.
In the past, the Dark Fox was one of the two great leaders of the Fox Clan, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the pink fox, but she was also the greatest traitor in their history.
She had sided with the Heavens and aided in the hunt for the pink fox.
If not for her, the world might now be under the heel of the foxes.
“Besides, we have no time to play games with the pink fox. The order from the Heavens is to eliminate her before she can be reborn as a complete pink fox.”
“Hmm.”
The yokai’s reactions were ambiguous. They were yokai, a race that followed only their instincts, obeying no one’s commands.
Following orders went against their very nature. To be told to hunt a fellow yokai, the pink fox, no less—they couldn’t possibly be pleased.
The Horse of the Twelve Spirits asked, “Wasn’t hunting the pink fox originally the Celestial Fox’s duty? Why has this Mandate of Heaven been given to us yokai?”
“Even I do not know the answer to that. But perhaps the Celestial Fox has forsaken the Heavens.”
“Hmm…”
“Refusal is not an option. Do so, and you will be charged with the same crime as the pink fox and face Divine Punishment.”
Even for yokai who lived as they pleased, Divine Punishment was a fearsome thing. In that case, it was better to just hunt the pink fox.
“Lady Dark Fox, will you not entrust the task of eliminating the pink fox to this humble monk?”
As the other yokai hesitated, an old man holding a staff stepped forward.
He wore the skin of a human, but he too was a yokai. He was the Fallen Monk, a corrupt priest who, fearing death, had devoured his comrades to become a yokai.
“You are not strong enough. She may have lost her power, but she is still the pink fox.”
“I have a plan, I implore you…”
“Hmph.”
The Fallen Monk didn’t give up easily, persisting tenaciously.
The pink fox right now is like a fragile boat adrift on a vast ocean. She might sink on her own, but he wants to be the one to create the waves that will capsize her.
The Fallen Monk was particularly skilled in such matters, making him the right yokai for the job. The reason Heukbi hesitated was that she could see right through his intentions.
A chance to eliminate the infamous pink fox. His plan is to kill the weakened fox and monopolize her spiritual power.
Heukbi considered for a moment.
“Very well. I will entrust this task to you.”
She still hadn’t fully grasped the pink fox’s condition. Sending the Fallen Monk as a vanguard to gauge her strength didn’t seem like a bad idea.
The Fallen Monk was delighted and withdrew.
“I shall not disappoint you.”
*
Night fell, thick and dark.
The faint light of magic stone streetlamps illuminated the night streets, and aside from a few nocturnal beastkin beginning their activities, Vestia was quiet.
Tap. Tap.
A staff tapped rhythmically against the ground. The Fallen Monk, having successfully infiltrated the city, walked the deserted streets.
Somewhere in this city was the pink fox.
He didn’t know why the pink fox was living among people. The pink fox he knew would have gone on a rampage long ago, devouring humans.
If she were alone, it would be one thing, but finding her in a city like this would be no easy task. If he caused a commotion, the beastkin would get involved.
‘Perhaps I should take care of Vestia while I’m at it.’
If so, all he had to do was restrict the beastkin’s movements.
Kill the pink fox and get rid of the thorn-in-his-side beastkin. But if he recklessly used a wide-area curse, he’d be found out.
Subtly. Like a rat gnawing away bit by bit, he would corrode the unseen cracks until it was too late for anyone to notice.
As it happened, the Fallen Monk had the perfect spell for this. He targeted a defenseless rat beastkin passing through a deserted alley and cast his curse.
*
“Ugh, I’m so drunk…”
Veilan, a deer beastkin, staggered about, his body swaying. He had drunk far too much.
But it couldn’t be helped. No male in the world could refuse a drink offered by the bunny girls at Vestia’s best tavern, Rabbit in the Moon.
Anyone who could was surely not a man. Or maybe they just finished faster than a rabbit.
“Ugh, gotta piss.”
Veilan faced a wall, fumbled with his trousers, and soon the sound of a powerful stream echoed. He let it out with satisfying relief.
It was so refreshing to empty his bladder that Veilan started humming a tune.
“Pissin’ and a-shakin’, pissin’ and a-shakin’~”
Having finished his business, Veilan straightened himself up. He was about to stagger off in the direction of his home.
“Huh?”
Across the narrow alley, a dark shadow blocked his path.
The round ears marked it as a rat beastkin.
“Hey. Why are you just standing there blocking the way? Move it so I can get by.”
“…”
“Can’t you hear me?”
No response. She just stared into space with a blank expression.
Is this woman drunk, too? Or is she high on something?
His good mood, which had lasted all day, was suddenly ruined. Veilan deliberately shoved the rat beastkin’s shoulder hard as he passed.
*
The next day, in broad daylight.
Veilan shuffled forward one step at a time, his stooped shoulders rising and falling slowly.
As if the warm sunlight were pressing down on his head, Veilan’s steps were heavy and precarious. He looked as if a single gust of wind could topple him.
His complexion was pale, as if he’d been battling a long illness, having lost all its natural color, and his eyes were deeply sunken. Cold sweat poured down his cheeks, and his breathing was ragged and intermittent, like a broken music box.
The figure, which seemed to struggle with every step, no longer looked like it was walking. It was closer to a body simply falling forward out of inertia.
His once-proud antlers looked shabby today, and his emaciated frame made him look like a man on death’s door. Every passerby gave him strange looks and kept their distance.
“Hey, Veilan. Are you okay? You don’t look so good.”
A beastkin who recognized him approached with a worried expression, but Veilan showed no reaction. Trudge. Trudge. Trudge. He just kept walking endlessly.
Then, Veilan’s body tilted precariously.
Thud.
He finally collapsed to the ground.
“Veilan? Hey, Veilan!”
The man turned Veilan’s body over. Veilan’s pupils had rolled back into his head, and his veins stood out, black.
“What’s going on? Is he okay? Isn’t he dead?”
“A doctor! Don’t just stand there gawking, call a doctor!”
A crowd gathered at the scene of the commotion in the middle of the street.
It was the beginning of the plague.