Chapter 86: The Fallen Monk (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 86: The Fallen Monk (2)
The curses of a yokai are similar to the black magic wielded by mages.
Just as they wield wicked effects, they also possess a fatal weakness: the moment a curse is cast, it leaves a trace that cannot be erased except by divine magic.
Of course, if it were a wide-area curse cast on a group, pinpointing the origin would be difficult, but that wasn’t the case this time.
There was an obvious starting point.
Veilen, the deer beastkin who had died before the curse began to run rampant.
According to Seira’s information, the royal infirmary was preserving his body instead of cremating it. As the first victim of the curse, there was much to investigate.
And so, Rin made her way to the royal infirmary. She didn't bring Karami.
His presence would only restrict her movements, and unlike Rin, his frail body was highly susceptible to the curse's contagion.
Though it made Rin anxious to be away from Karami, she had no choice.
After infiltrating the royal infirmary, Rin found a room under particularly heavy guard. Dog tribe sentinels in full armor stood watch.
But infiltration was nothing to Rin. She had practiced shapeshifting and stealth more diligently than any other yokai art.
Shapeshifting to become Karami’s ideal type. Stealth to peek at him in the bath after he grew up and stopped washing with her.
In these two arts, she was confident she was the best in the world.
Sigh.
Reading Rin's lewd thoughts, the Gumiho heaved a deep sigh that seemed to well up from the very depths of its being. A gumiho was optimized for seducing humans, yes, but it was still a gumiho, for crying out loud.
If this were all part of a process to drain someone’s life force, that would be one thing. But the fact that all this effort was merely to win the heart of a single human was simply pathetic.
Rin, who had been observing the situation from the ceiling, landed softly on the floor. The guards’ eyes widened at the sight of an intruder dropping from the sky, and they thrust their spears forward.
“Who goes there!”
“Be quiet. You’re hurting Rin’s ears.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
At Rin’s command, the guards answered crisply and lowered their spears, their eyes glazing over.
It was Rin’s charm.
She was confident in her shapeshifting and stealth, but nothing beat illusion when it came to entering a secret room.
“Open the door.”
A guard fumbled with his armor before unlocking the door with a key.
“Wait here.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Passing the guards without issue, Rin was able to find Veilen’s isolated corpse.
Just as she’d been told, the body was blackened as if it had decayed. It was the mark of the curse. A minuscule amount of yokai power, the remnant of the spell, also lingered.
It was an amount so small a normal person would never notice, but for another yokai with the Gumiho’s Solar Eye, reading such traces was not difficult.
Rin examined Veilen with her Solar Eye.
Fragments of fate appeared. The number of Veilen’s fragments was laughably small compared to Karami’s—so few she could count them with her eyes.
A gumiho could twist the threads of fate, but it had no influence over the dead.
Rin focused her gaze on a fragment stained with black light among those scattered in the air.
And then, she saw it: the process that had pushed Veilen toward his fatal destiny, the thread of fate itself.
An alleyway.
An encounter with a strange-looking rat beastkin.
In that moment, Veilen’s fate had turned murky.
This one. She wasn’t infected; she was cursed.
She’d found the host.
Her next move was decided.
*
Atop the city’s clock tower.
Rin stood on its highest spire.
From the tallest point in the city, she looked down upon the world below.
She needed to find the rat beastkin based on the information she’d just gathered, but it wasn’t easy. The curse, which had spread throughout the city like a spiderweb, was interfering with her vision.
Even so, the Gumiho’s Solar Eye should have been able to single out what she was looking for, but Rin was still inexperienced in its use. The Gumiho had no choice but to offer more advice.
Rin moved her fingers. She formed two “fox hands,” pressing her middle and ring fingers to her thumb.
She touched her left pinky to her right index finger.
Then, her left index finger to her right pinky, crossing them. Finally, she relaxed her other fingers, creating a hole in the center.
The Fox Window.
She peered at the world through it.
Suddenly, the very thing she was searching for appeared outside the frame. The thread of fate from the contact between Veilen and the rat beastkin. A red thread connecting the two became visible to Rin’s eyes.
The thread led down, into the city’s underbelly.
Rin immediately searched for a path to the underground.
Below the city was a domain for beastkin like rats and moles. While not as large as the world above, the underground was still vast.
But the moment she entered the tunnels, she no longer needed her Solar Eye. A putrid stench that made her nose wrinkle automatically filled the air.
Following the smell, Rin found the rat beastkin she had seen in Veilen’s fate.
The host had long been abandoned by her own kind and was, quite literally, rotting away in a pile of dirt. Her body was in such a state that it would have been no surprise if she were dead, yet she clung to life.
This was a measure the Fallen Monk had taken to ensure she spread the curse for as long as possible. Even now, an ominous haze was radiating from her in all directions.
Blocking the curse’s energy with her own yokai power, Rin moved closer to inspect the rat beastkin’s condition.
“If I remove the curse, can she be saved?”
Her body is rotting. Do you really think she can be saved just by lifting the curse? Why, do you want to save her?
“This happened because of Rin.”
The Gumiho scoffed.
Do you think she’ll thank you for saving her? Not a chance. You’ll be lucky if she doesn’t blame you for what happened.
Rin had experienced it before. She remembered saving an adventurer in peril, only to have the blame pinned on her instead.
As Rin fell into thought, the Gumiho began to plant a story in her mind.
From ancient times, the gumiho was born with the qualities of a king. The king of yokai, who need not look down or to the side, but only ever upward.
“No need to look around?”
A king always stands alone. To reign, you must forget how to stand by another’s side, forget how to sacrifice for others. You must simply ascend and look down upon the world.
Having entered Rin’s body, the Gumiho could see much of her inner world.
Loneliness.
Distrust.
Those two emotions made up most of her.
Whether it was the Gumiho’s influence or because Rin herself had lived such a life, she was remarkably similar to the Gumiho.
If it could exploit that, it might be able to raise Rin into a gumiho much like itself—
“What are you talking about? Rin has a Master.”
Hm?
“And it’s not just my Master, I have Seira, too. Don’t think Rin is the same as you.”
…
Rin didn’t even flinch at the Gumiho’s sweet whispers. The unexpected reaction made the Gumiho raise an eyebrow slightly.
Was it because she was also a gumiho, and thus had a high resistance to charm?
That was possible, but the Gumiho sensed something else flowing from within Rin.
An overwhelming sense of trust that no sweet words could shatter. An unshakable faith that her Master would never betray her.
Before this impenetrable fortress, the Gumiho’s temptations were nothing more than a puff of air.
I see~ My apologies. I was mistaken. Rin has a wonderful Master, doesn't she~
“Hmph. As long as you know.”
It seemed that ordinary methods wouldn’t be enough to sway Rin. In that case, it just had to change its strategy.
Well then, shall we hurry up and catch this Fallen Monk so you can go get praised by your wonderful Master?
“But Master told me to come back once I found a clue.”
That’s when you go catch him in secret to win his favor. It’s a surprise gift.
Rin thought it over.
That sounded plausible.
It was a chance to show him how much she had grown.
“Okay.”
Rin nodded.
She checked the rat beastkin’s thread of fate.
An encounter with the Fallen Monk on a street at night. As he used a curse with the hand that held his staff, the rat beastkin’s fate was instantly plunged into darkness, just like Veilen’s.
Rin was soon able to pinpoint the Fallen Monk’s location.
He wasn’t far.
*
In Vestia’s underground aqueduct.
The Fallen Monk knelt, slowly extending a hand toward the flowing water. From his submerged fingertips, a black haze spread like a living creature.
The clear, white water of the aqueduct began to turn murky.
Using the rat beastkin as a focal point to spread the curse had been remarkably effective. Not only had it spread throughout Vestia, but those in the incubation period had unknowingly carried the curse to other cities and kingdoms.
But that alone was not enough. Their swift response had prevented the curse from penetrating too deeply, so he needed another method.
Unlike yokai, who could live on essence alone, living creatures couldn’t survive without water. His plan was to contaminate it. This way, the curse would flow all the way to Vestia’s royal palace.
Once he absorbed the essence of the incapacitated beastkin and the power of the Gumiho… he would have more than enough power to evolve into a higher being.
The Fallen Monk’s satisfied smile was reflected in the jet-black water.
Splash, splash.
Just then, the sound of footsteps echoed through the damp aqueduct. The Fallen Monk turned his head to see a young fox girl approaching from the darkness.
Pink hair tied in pigtails. One golden eye and one blue eye—the unmistakable mark of a gumiho.
But when he saw the six tails swaying behind her, a muscle in the Fallen Monk’s jaw twitched. He bowed his head, hiding his face.
“This humble monk is but floating dust. I am honored to stand before the great Spirit Queen, the Gumiho-nim.”
“What’s with the way he talks?”
A lowly creature like him is meeting the king of yokai. This is how he should act. The people around you are the strange ones.
The Fallen Monk, who could neither see nor sense the Gumiho, only saw Rin talking to herself. He paid it no mind and continued.
“This humble one was planning to seek you out myself, but I never imagined you would grace me with your presence.”
“You spread your foul energy everywhere and claim you didn’t expect me? It’s like you were advertising for me to come.”
Finding the Fallen Monk had been a piece of cake.
She hadn’t even needed to follow the thread of fate.
The rat beastkin, who had been directly struck by the Fallen Monk’s curse, was saturated with his wicked yokai power. The stench of that same energy was leaking from the underground aqueduct.
“However, O Spirit Queen… from what this humble one’s unworthy eyes can see, you do not yet appear to be in your complete gumiho form.”
“You can tell just by looking, can’t you?”
“Merely the majesty of a six-tailed fox is enough to strike fear into a humble creature such as myself… but I worry that it was reckless of you to come here in your incomplete form.”
Simply put, he meant that a mere six-tailed fox had come here without knowing her place, drunk on the glorious memories of a past where she might have been a true gumiho.
But this played perfectly into the Fallen Monk’s original plan. He slammed his rusty staff onto the ground.
Jingle, jangle~!
The rings and bells on the staff clashed, sending a metallic sound echoing in all directions. Talismans placed throughout the aqueduct began to glow with an ominous violet light.
Threads of light wove together, covering the space. They slithered like snakes along the walls and ceiling, forming a massive barrier that enveloped the entire aqueduct.
A barrier that prevented any escape or outside intervention.
The Fallen Monk whispered lowly.
“Heaven and Earth Net.”
Rin looked around at the barrier that had instantly surrounded them and asked.
“What’s a Heaven and Earth Net?”
Ah, that. It’s a term for a useless net that can be broken by anything and can’t even catch a single ant.
As the Gumiho spoke, it could already see it.
What would become of the Heaven and Earth Net.
Now, stop worrying about such trash and let’s continue our lesson. We happen to have a suitable opponent right here.
The Gumiho placed a hand on Rin’s shoulder, a smirk curling its lips.
The sight was like that of a ghostly yokai king, about to fight a proxy battle through Rin.