The Innocent Gumiho
After enduring Seol-hwa's fierce resistance, I brought her with me to a nearby motel. The moment we entered the room, I threw her onto the bed.
“You. Crazy. Bastard. Let. Me. Go. Right. Now...”
“I’ll untie you. But first, make one promise. Swear on your Fox Bead.”
“Wh-what?”
“You must not harm me.”
The Fox Bead. To a gumiho, it was no different from their own heart. Promising on it was an oath a gumiho had to keep without fail. Its binding power was incredibly strong, so even a verbal promise made on the Fox Bead would take effect. I needed at least this much assurance before I could safely release her. No matter how weakened she was, a yokai was still a yokai. She could dispatch someone like me—a mere civilian—in an instant.
Seol-hwa answered my suggestion by shifting her eyes. Seeing that, I didn’t hesitate to peel the talisman off her forehead.
The instant her body was freed, Seol-hwa immediately shouted at me.
“Hey, you crazy pervert bastard! Kidnapping a woman in broad daylight and dragging her to a motel?! I won’t let you get away with this. I’m reporting you!”
“Reporting me? Do crimes even count for yokai these days?”
“I can report you! I have a real ID and everything!!”
“Yeah, but it’s fake.”
Seol-hwa looked utterly frustrated. But since everything I’d said was true, she couldn’t refute any of it and could only huff angrily to herself. Her expression was pretty entertaining to watch, but I hadn’t brought her here just to mess with her, so I moved on to the main topic.
“I didn’t bring you here with any intention of harming you. Assuming everything you said is true.”
“...Aren’t you an exorcist? That talisman earlier looked pretty real.”
“You’ve lived a thousand years—how are you still this naive? If I were a real exorcist, I would’ve exorcised you the second I saw you.”
If I’d planned on that, I would have stopped by the house first to bring my parents. I wouldn’t have just grabbed a few talismans and come alone. I had no idea why she was so gullible after living for a whole millennium.
Realizing she’d been tricked, Seol-hwa’s face flushed red then turned pale. Her constantly shifting expressions made me a little nervous, so I quickly waved my hands to calm her down.
“C-calm down. If you really lose it, I’ll stick the sealing talisman back on. You already saw that the talismans are real, didn’t you?”
She seemed convinced. She let out a sigh so deep it could have sunk the ground, then looked straight at me. It didn’t look like she intended to harm me, just as she’d promised.
“...Then why did you bring me here?”
“Because I have questions. We couldn’t exactly keep talking about yokai and monsters out on the street. A café didn’t feel right either.”
I explained that I had a perfectly reasonable motive. Seol-hwa, who had still been watching me with distrustful eyes, gave a small nod. Her gaze seemed to have softened a little. It looked safe to get to the main point.
“Just answer my questions nicely. If you don’t, I’ll use the Lightning Strike Talisman.”
“B-before that, I have something I want to ask you.”
“What? A question?”
“You said you ask questions! So it’s only fair that I get to ask too, right?”
She wasn’t wrong. It was a reasonable argument, though I still thought about it for a second. I’d heard there were yokai who could infuse yoki into their words to exert power. But now that I knew this girl was a gumiho...
“...Fine. What is it?”
Deciding it probably wouldn’t be a problem, I accepted her proposal.
Seol-hwa asked her question like a child bursting with curiosity who had finally gotten the chance she’d been waiting for.
“You’re human, right? How did you get into the Ghost Gallery?”
“I want to know that too.”
I really was curious. I held up my phone. On the home screen was an app icon that looked almost identical to the community app I usually used. This one labeled Ghost Gallery opened the same window no matter how many times I tapped it.
[Logging in......]
This is a community for yokai, apparitions, and ghosts. Welcome to the Ghost Gallery.
I showed Seol-hwa the screen.
“I tapped it by accident while trying to browse the gallery like usual, and it let me in. It even installed itself on my home screen.”
“Huh? No way.”
“What do you mean? You think I’m lying? I’m showing it to you right now.”
“No, that’s not what I mean... The Ghost Gallery shouldn’t be visible to humans.”
“What?”
What the hell was she talking about? I stared at Seol-hwa with a strange look.
“Don’t look at me like that! It’s true!”
“Then how do you explain me getting in? It’s right in front of your eyes.”
“I-I don’t know either!”
...Was she really a thousand years old? Her answer, which revealed she knew absolutely nothing, made me sigh without thinking.
“What does that sigh mean?”
“Nothing... Never mind.”
Watching her fume gave me an odd feeling. Just by looks, she was so beautiful she seemed like a ‘human woman’ I would never have the courage to speak to in my entire life. But with these eyes that could see ghosts when I focused, I could clearly make out the ears and tail she hid with her power. So I definitely recognized her as a yokai, and yet...
Her behavior is exactly like that of an ordinary girl.
Could a thousand-year-old gumiho really be this harmless? Come to think of it, I still hadn’t checked what I originally intended to verify. So I asked Seol-hwa one more question.
“Now it’s my turn.”
“W-what is it? You’re not going to ask something weird or perverted, right?”
For some reason Seol-hwa wrapped her arms around herself and slowly backed away. The sight made me seriously consider sticking a talisman on her again.
...Let’s hold back. Even if I said so myself, I was showing impressive patience.
“Like I told you earlier, I said I was going to check something.”
“...If I’m a virgin?”
“That’s right.”
“Kyaaaaa!!”
When I answered simply, Seol-hwa freaked out and scrambled to the far edge of the bed. What the hell was she doing...?
“You pervert! Beast! I heard all human males are beastly bastards, and it’s true!! Get away from me, you pervert!!”
“......What the hell are you suddenly talking about?”
“Y-you said you were going to check if I’m a virgin!!”
“Did I say I was going to take your skirt off or something?”
This girl was completely insane.
“Then how exactly are you going to check...!?”
“Aish, I’m saying there’s a way, that’s why I’m checking. Do I look like I’d stick my dick in a yokai?”
“D-don’t say things like that, you crazy pervert bastard!!”
“So just stay still for a second! I won’t even touch your clothes!”
My patience finally snapped and I ended up yelling. The moment I realized I’d raised my voice, I quickly looked at her. It would be bad if she got even more scared. But maybe because she really was a yokai, Seol-hwa didn’t seem frightened. Instead, she looked relieved by my words.
“...I-it’s true then.”
“...Yes.”
“How are you going to do it...”
In response to Seol-hwa’s question, I pulled a talisman from my inner pocket. Seeing it, she looked like she might freak out again, but before this idiot yokai could scream, I quickly explained.
“It’s a talisman that draws out yin energy. It’s an item that determines how much a yokai has harmed people.”
“Huh...?”
“If you’re truly a yokai that hasn’t harmed any humans, the yin energy released should be minimal.”
Yin energy was a different type of spiritual force from yoki. If the ‘power’ of spiritual beings like yokai and apparitions was yoki, then yin energy was a force that only appeared when one living being harmed another. It accumulated in the soul, and it didn’t disappear even after the body was gone. Any living being you harmed would generate yin energy, but the most accumulated on humans. That was because humans were the creatures that harmed the greatest number of lives while alive. By harming beings that already carried yin energy, even more of it piled up in the soul.
For example, a murderer’s soul carried fairly strong yin energy, and a serial killer’s was off the charts. Yokai basically carried some yin energy by nature, but there was a standard amount a thousand-year-old yokai would possess if they had regularly harmed humans. So it was more than enough to make a judgment.
Whether she was a virgin or not, this would let me confirm whether this yokai had harmed people. And since she had sworn on her Fox Bead, even if she had lied, it didn’t matter. At least she couldn’t hurt me.
“I’m attaching it.”
“Does that thing have any side effects...”
“There aren’t any. What do you think this is, medicine?”
I pressed the talisman inscribed with the character for yin onto Seol-hwa’s forehead. Even though I had reassured her, she squeezed her eyes shut the moment it touched her. She had lived a thousand years—why was she such a scaredy-cat...?
“It’ll come out soon. Stay still.”
The talisman on her forehead gave off a faint light, and I saw it—the yin energy flowing from her...
“...Huh?”
It was such a tiny amount that I wondered if something was wrong.
It was honestly shocking. The yin energy that flowed out of Seol-hwa’s body was so little it wouldn’t even fill a single mug if I tried to collect it.
This was less yin energy than most ordinary people carried.
“...W-what is this?”
My voice came out dazed from pure bewilderment.
Seeing my reaction, Seol-hwa realized things had gone in her favor and shouted with renewed confidence.
“H-haha! See! It’s true, right? What did I tell you? That I don’t eat people’s livers? I said I didn’t!!”
“No...”
What the hell was going on? At the very least, a gumiho should have eaten meat to survive. Her true form was a fox, after all—she couldn’t have rejected meat entirely. In that case, she should have accumulated far more yin energy than this. All sorts of speculations swirled through my head, but one thing was certain.
The self-proclaimed ‘thousand-year-old gumiho’ in front of me...
“...With only this much yin energy, you’re basically weaker than a jap-gwi?”
“What did you just say!!”
She really hadn’t harmed any people. Once yin energy accumulated, it never disappeared. If she had hurt anyone, that energy would have remained in her soul forever. Even harming a single person would leave enough yin energy to fill a drum. But here...
“...Do you not even eat meat?”
“Why would I eat meat? I can live just fine by gathering spiritual energy.”
“You don’t eat normal food at all?”
“I like fruit.”
...So that was why she only had this pathetic amount of yin energy. Even among living beings, eating plants like vegetables or fruit only produced a microscopic amount of yin energy. Plants didn’t grow by consuming other creatures, so almost no yin energy clung to them. Meat, on the other hand, came from animals, and animals lived by eating other living things, so they carried a certain amount of yin energy. Herbivores had less, carnivores had more. That was why people who preferred meat tended to accumulate slightly more yin energy than vegetarians.
“How can a fox not eat meat?”
“It tasted bad... About nine hundred years ago I tried a wild boar and it was so gamey I never touched it again.”
“......”
Hearing a fox call raw meat gamey was surprisingly novel. Was this what they called a vegan gumiho? I clutched my slightly spinning head and removed the talisman I had attached to her.
“What, is it over already?”
“...Yes.”
“Then you believe everything I said now?”
“Even if I didn’t want to, there’s no other explanation.”
“H-haha!! Then apologize! Idiot! It was all your fault and you know it!”
Even though the words came from a yokai I despised, she wasn’t entirely wrong. I had judged her with prejudice and treated her like a criminal. Still, this girl really did feel extremely strange in the most extreme way... What kind of yokai lived without ever harming humans?
“...Yeah. I think I looked at you through too much bias. I’m sorry.”
“Hmph. If you’re sorry, hurry up and post an authentication thread on the gallery!”
“I’ll definitely do that later. But first, there’s something I’m curious about.”
“What?”
Seol-hwa’s expression overflowed with confidence now that the situation had flipped in her favor. Seeing her attitude that practically invited me to ask anything, I felt a strange sense of satisfaction. Still, an opportunity was an opportunity, so I didn’t waste the chance.
“A thousand-year-old gumiho should be an incredibly powerful yokai. You should be on the level of a divine spirit, yet you don’t look that strong at all.”
“Eep...”
“What happened? And how has a gumiho who lives by consuming spiritual energy stayed a virgin for so long? The normal way to absorb spiritual energy from humans is... through sexual intercourse, as far as I know.”
I could believe Seol-hwa was a gumiho because the evidence was visible, and the proof that she hadn’t harmed humans was right in front of me. But if that was true, the claim that she had lived for a thousand years became even harder to accept. If she had truly been such a monster, I would have died without a sound before I could even attach a single talisman. And the idea that she had lived a thousand years without ever meeting a man was simply impossible. People called a twenty-five-year-old virgin a wizard and a thirty-year-old one a grand mage or sage... so what the hell would you call a thousand years?
At my question, Seol-hwa slightly lowered her head. A moment later, I was genuinely startled by her reaction. Her ears had turned bright red, and she mumbled in an incredibly tiny voice.
“...I can’t do that kind of thing.”
“What?”
I couldn’t hear her. Her voice was quieter than a crawling ant...
“...I can’t do that kind of thing.”
“Speak up so I can actually hear you...”
“I-I said I can’t do it because it’s embarrassing! That’s why even after living this long I’ve barely collected any spiritual energy in my bead! If I had gathered it like a normal gumiho, do you think you’d still be alive right now!?”
“......?”
Because it’s embarrassing?