Chapter 2

Silia had always been alone.

The moment she was born, she had been abandoned on the outskirts of the Holy Kingdom without even having her umbilical cord cut.

She would have become monster feed if a priest had not taken her into an orphanage and saved her life.

It was not such a terrible environment.

The orphanage was old and shabby, but the atmosphere was warm.

There were times they went hungry, but it was never a place starved of affection.

However, there was a problem with Silia.

Only Silia herself was the flaw.

“Priest! Silia’s trying to turn into a monster again!”

Bright hair like sunlight, milky white skin, and eyes as deep and elegant as pale jade.

Because of her lovely appearance, Silia easily earned people’s affection.

And just as easily, she became the target of their hatred.

Because of the cursed mark on her left shoulder.

People in the orphanage whispered that her beauty existed only to enchant others and spread the curse.

“She must be a witch or a monster.”

“Right. Witches are supposed to have pretty faces. She’s trying to kill us with her curse.”

Whenever she heard the children whispering, young Silia would think:

‘They’re right. That must be why my parents abandoned me.’

Even the priest’s attempts to treat her kindly hurt her deeply.

Because she knew it was not genuine, it felt as though her chest was being carved open.

Especially on the days when the seizures came, the children would panic and scream that Silia was finally turning into a monster.

“Silia!”

The priest’s voice calling her name like a scream.

The murmuring of the children.

Whenever that happened, Silia wanted to crawl beneath the bed and hide.

If not for the burning pain radiating from her left shoulder, she would have hidden.

But it hurt too much for her to do anything except writhe in agony.

For some reason, the curse did not only harm other people—it tormented Silia herself as well.

“Aaaagh! Aaaaagh!”

Her lovely face twisted grotesquely, and her limbs convulsed violently like an overturned spider.

The pain was severe enough to force such reactions.

Yet no one understood her suffering.

No one.

Not the priest, not the children.

They merely found her thrashing disgusting.

Whenever Silia began struggling, the adult priests would swarm her and bind her down roughly.

They slammed her head against the floor, restrained her urine-soaked body by force, and tore off her upper clothes as though ripping them apart.

Then the black scar of the curse on her left shoulder would be revealed.

“It hurts! It hurts so much!”

Ignoring Silia’s tearful cries, the priests poured holy water over the curse.

And then she would struggle even more violently.

Like an insect sprayed with poison.

Dozens of eyes pressed against the windows would secretly watch her writhing beneath their grip.

“Look at that.”

“Ugh, that’s disgusting.”

Silia understood the children who hated her.

She understood the priests who could not hide the disgust on their faces.

Anyone who spread bad rumors about Silia or tried to mistreat her always met misfortune.

They would fall down stairs, and in severe cases, even die.

The curse was real.

Silia truly was a cursed child.

Of course people hated her.

“Silia is a cursed child. She must be put to death before she brings evil upon us.”

“Silia possesses holy power. It is our duty to safely raise every child blessed with holy power and send them to the Holy Kingdom.”

That was what the priest insisted, but Silia knew the truth.

They were simply afraid.

Afraid the curse would harm them, and using her holy power as an excuse to look away from it.

“Silia. You are a mass of curses, yet the merciful Solar has bestowed holy power upon you. We lowly believers cannot understand His will. But just because you possess holy power does not mean you should become arrogant. If you wish to preserve the life you have miraculously kept, then remain obedient and quiet.”

Even so, Silia was grateful to the priest for not casting her out.

“If we don’t let you play tag with us, are you going to curse us too?”

“When they splashed holy water on you, you looked super gross. Squirming around like a crushed caterpillar!”

Even when they mocked and bullied her, she was grateful to the children for still allowing her to join their games.

Even when hatred, disgust, and sharp words stung her like a swarm of bees… she was still alive.

Because she wanted to live.

“I don’t have to play tag. I’ll just play with dolls.”

She simply wanted to survive.

Silia realized at a very young age that she was not even in a position to feel sorry for herself.

So she lived while being grateful simply to survive.

Using the holy power bestowed upon her by Solar, god of the Western Continent, as a shield, she desperately endured.

Because she did not want to die, she became a citizen of the Holy Kingdom.

And because even that did not reassure her, she became a holy knight.

The remote orphanage where she had grown up was closed not long afterward because it was considered too difficult a region in which to raise children.

The people who feared the curse kept their mouths shut and scattered throughout the Holy Kingdom, disappearing like mirages.

After becoming a holy knight, Silia concealed the curse beneath armor.

She wore a cold mask and never allowed anyone close to her.

And so, until now, she had always been alone.

Never once crying.

Never once leaning on someone.

Never once collapsing.

Never once voicing weakness.

Alone.

Always alone.

The only thing she knew how to do was endure, so she stubbornly forced herself onward.

She buried loneliness in training, sadness in monster hunts, and pain behind a gag clenched between her teeth.

That was how she had lived.

And yet—

‘Raise it. Raise this little fox.’

The thought suffocated her with helplessness.

---

Silia stared at the iron cage covered with cloth, silently mourning for no reason at all.

She had woken before dawn without even washing her face and was now sitting there like this.

Her beautiful blonde hair was tangled like straw, yet she had no mental space to tidy herself.

The bizarre dream she had experienced left her restless.

‘Who was that man?’

A dream about being held so tightly by a man.

Silia had never once in her life been embraced by anyone since her orphanage days.

On top of that, the man’s appearance had been so breathtakingly beautiful that she could not forget it.

‘I’ve never seen a man like that before.’

Never in her life had she seen a man with such dangerously sensual features.

She had spent her entire life among holy knights rolling around with monsters.

A man capable of bewitching people like that had never existed in her world.

‘It’s not like I have much imagination either. And yet he was someone from a dream…’

Silia abruptly came to her senses and shook her head.

‘This isn’t the time for this. I need to think about what to do.’

After sitting blankly for a while, she hesitantly stood and approached the cage.

‘Should I check its condition?’

Carefully lifting the cloth, she saw the heavily injured gumiho collapsed unconscious inside the iron bars.

The sight made her vision darken.

‘How am I supposed to treat this?’

Treat it?

She?

‘Good heavens…’

How could a cursed person like her possibly care for and heal a small life?

If it stayed in her hands, it would surely die.

The fox already seemed on the verge of breathing its last.

If she did nothing, it looked as though it would die by tomorrow morning.

“Grrrr…”

The cry filled with pain snapped Silia out of her panic.

“S-sorry.”

Awkwardly apologizing, she carefully lifted the gumiho out of the cage.

‘Since it’s a yokai, holy water probably won’t work on it.’

She covered the wounds with medicinal herbs she had received from healing priests, but she had no confidence she was doing it properly.

Then she sat there for a long while again, simply staring blankly at the suffering fox.

“Whine… mmng…”

The fox began groaning in its sleep.

Animals and monsters usually hid their presence when gravely injured, so rather than crying in pain, it seemed more like the fox was trapped in a nightmare.

“There, there…”

Silia cradled the gumiho wrapped tightly in bandages against her chest.

The warmth of another living creature touching her skin sent chills across her body.

The presence of a life that was not her own felt strange and unfamiliar.

‘What am I supposed to do with you?’

As she sighed, a certain healing priest suddenly came to mind.

The priest had a nasty temper and a blunt personality, but was not a bad person.

‘If I leave it like this, the gumiho might die. I have to ask for help.’

That healing priest might dislike the situation, but could never ignore a suffering life.

It was someone who had a true sense of duty toward their profession and never faked emotions.

Though rough and ill-tempered enough that everyone avoided them, that very honesty made them trustworthy.

‘Besides… for some reason, I think that person likes me.’

Silia had always found that rather strange, but in this situation, she felt grateful for it.

‘Asking for a little help should be fine.’

It was the first time she had ever asked anyone for anything.

Some troublesome creature had suddenly dropped into her life, making her attempt things she would never normally do.

“Grow quickly so I can send you away already. So grow big and strong, alright?”

Holding the tiny fox in her arms, Silia gently rocked it while whispering softly like a lullaby.

“Grow up quickly and become independent. Once you’re an adult, I’ll let you go without regret. Fly away freely like a butterfly.”

Freely.

Unlike herself, who could never escape her curse.

“You may be a yokai now, but since you’re the child of a heavenly fox, maybe you can become a sacred spirit too if you cultivate yourself.”

“…”

“Become a sacred spirit and receive lots of love. Make many friends. Meet a beautiful fox and fall in love. Become free and happy.”

Absentmindedly, Silia poured all the dreams and wishes she had once held for herself into the fox as she sang softly to it.

And somewhere along the way, the fox suffering from nightmares drifted into peaceful sleep.

The moment Silia quietly placed the sleeping fox back into the cage—

“Hhk!”

A sudden stabbing pain shot through the cursed scar on her left shoulder like a spike piercing her flesh.

Already far too familiar with this, Silia swallowed back her groan and moved deeper into the bedroom, placing a gag into her mouth.

“Ugh…”

By now, she knew very well how to stop herself from crying.

How to suppress her groans.

She knew all of it.

And yet…

This pain.

This horrifying agony that devoured her life itself—

She could never grow accustomed to it.

In the quiet night while the fox slept peacefully, Silia’s long, agonizing battle to suppress the pain silently began once more.

---

The next morning, Silia finally summoned the healing priest because the fox’s fever had become dangerously high.

True to the priest’s blunt personality, the response came immediately after hearing her request.

“What’s this? The commander is actually asking someone for help?”

Yet even while saying that, the priest busily gathered supplies and followed after Silia.

The priest even looked secretly excited.

“Are we finally getting a little closer?”

The priest muttered something under their breath, though it was too fast for Silia to properly catch.

Still, they seemed to be in a good mood, which she considered fortunate as she revealed the fox.

The priest had even been humming cheerfully—until suddenly clutching their cheeks in horror.

“A yokai!”

The scream was loud enough to rival a dolphin’s shriek.