Silia closed her mouth for a moment, then, unable to withstand Shula’s intense stare, answered quietly.
“It should feed on the life force of living animals.”
“But I heard humans are a gumiho’s primary prey.”
“As long as I’m raising it, it will not eat people.”
When Silia drew a firm line with her stiff expression, Shula suddenly burst out laughing.
“Good heavens, Commander. I’m not worried about other people right now.”
“Then what?”
“I’m worried about you, Commander!”
This time, Silia smiled.
“Spiritual charm techniques do not work on me.”
“The fact that you think charm techniques are the only problem already proves you’re doomed.”
Would a gumiho truly enchant people with spiritual power alone?
They were creatures born with the intent to seduce humans—through their faces, their hair, their voices, even their scent.
Every glance and gesture would surely grow increasingly alluring and decadent over time.
“Don’t underestimate their instincts. One day you’ll regret it.”
After casually delivering her warning, Shula bowed her head briefly and left the house.
Finally alone.
“Haah…”
Completely drained, Silia returned to her room.
When she removed the cloth covering the cage, the exhausted gumiho slowly lifted its head.
Silia carefully inspected the fox’s wounds.
With only slight exaggeration, its recovery ability seemed even better than a troll’s. The injuries were already almost healed.
“Feeling cramped?”
“Kyurung.”
The sight of the gumiho trapped inside the cage made her strangely sympathetic.
It reminded her of her own childhood, spent locked inside a room day after day.
“I’ll let you out, but stay quietly inside the room. If you don’t, I’ll lock you back in the cage.”
The fox blinked as though it understood.
Without much hesitation, Silia opened the cage door.
At that exact moment, the gumiho—which had looked so weak and docile it seemed half-dead—shot toward the window.
Like an arrow released from a fully drawn bowstring.
Silia did not panic.
With the dynamic vision of someone capable of fighting several monsters alone, she tracked the gumiho’s movement with her eyes and reached out at the precise spot.
Her gaze was far sharper than when she looked at Shula.
Thunk!
The baby fox’s scruff landed squarely in her grasp.
“Kyaaaaaak!”
The gumiho shrieked savagely and struggled violently, no longer looking sick at all.
‘So it was pretending to be tame. Just like a fox.’
Silia reached out with her other hand to safely move it back into the cage.
The fox did not miss the opportunity.
Baring its teeth, it bit viciously into her forearm.
Silia grimaced, but that was all.
Compared to the agony in her shoulder blades, this was nothing.
The fox was so terrified that foamy saliva dripped from its mouth.
“Oh, little fox.”
“Kyaak! Kyaaak!”
“Let’s calm down, hm?”
She coaxed it softly.
The moment she decided she needed to soothe a frightened child, the gentle voice came more easily than expected.
As though it had once been her natural voice all along—a slightly higher, clearer tone.
Far more comfortable than the low, intimidating voice she normally used.
“Shhh…”
She waited quietly.
Slowly… very slowly… reason returned to the baby fox’s clouded eyes.
“Why are you so frightened? It’s alright. I won’t hurt you.”
Silia gently wiped the foamy saliva from the fox’s mouth and smiled faintly.
The moment she smiled, her cold face—normally frosted over like ice—softened into something astonishingly warm and lovely.
That was her true face.
The baby fox stared up at her with wide round eyes.
“Your fur’s all wet from the drool.”
When the tension finally left its jaw, Silia carefully set the fox back into the cage.
“I’m not letting you out today. You broke your promise. Do you understand?”
Naturally, the fox did not answer. Silia did not mind.
“But tomorrow, you’ll have another chance. If you don’t run away, I’ll let you out.”
“……”
“You’ll have opportunities every single day. The choice is yours.”
After instructing it neatly and firmly, Silia closed the cage door.
Clack.
Thus passed the second night between the strict holy knight—renowned as one of the harshest in the land—and the gumiho said to be the most seductive creature in the Eastern Continent.
The gumiho could not bring itself to trust Silia.
After revealing its true nature once, it must have realized pretending no longer worked, because now it openly guarded itself against her.
Though a gumiho was a creature that seduced and consumed humans, this one was still a child and clumsy at hiding its feelings.
‘Was it abused?’
Amid the fox’s extreme wariness, Silia sensed traces of past abuse.
If the shrine maiden’s words were true and it had lived nineteen years in the Eastern Continent, then it could only have spent at most two months with humans before ending up in the Western Continent’s trafficking market…
‘Was it captured by humans in the Eastern Continent too?’
She did not know what it had experienced, but one thing was certain:
Its hatred toward humans had not appeared overnight.
Her heart grew heavy, like someone who had discovered an abused child.
No—because it was a young being with limitless possibilities ahead of it, it truly was no different from a child.
Knowing firsthand what the pain of abuse felt like made her feel even sicker.
Cold sweat formed unconsciously, and her hands trembled.
‘I’m strong.’
Silia steadied her breathing while gripping the sword hanging at her waist.
‘No one can threaten to kill me anymore.’
She threw herself obsessively into training.
Ever since bringing the gumiho home, the intensity of her training had only increased day by day.
Her vice commander jokingly warned that she would collapse at this rate, but his words had no effect.
‘I’m someone who should have died, yet I’m trying to live. I have to do at least this much. This is how I protect myself.’
Silia swung her sword as she thought:
‘But if protecting myself is already difficult, can I really raise that child?’
The fox was a yokai, but neither good nor evil.
Unlike herself, it was not cursed.
It was a gray existence that would become whatever it was raised to be.
If it became an evil spirit, Silia would eventually have to kill it herself.
That alone she wished to avoid.
To kill an abused child with her own hands…
To prevent that, it needed proper guidance.
Graceful. Kind. Upright.
It must never even think of seducing and devouring humans.
‘That child’s life and death depend on me.’
The moment she realized that, her mind snapped fully awake.
The more she thought about it, the more overwhelming the responsibility became.
‘What exactly did the shrine maiden see in me to entrust me with a gumiho?’
She could not understand it.
How could someone casually entrust the future of a gumiho to a holy knight of the Western Continent?
Especially since shrine maidens of the East were said to serve sacred spirits and divine beasts.
The baby gumiho was not yet a sacred beast, but it stood right on the boundary.
And yet such a precious being had been entrusted to her…
‘There’s no point thinking about it now. The shrine maiden vanished without a trace afterward anyway…’
Shaking her head, Silia headed toward the commander’s residence.
The living room was thick with the metallic smell of blood and the foul odor coming from the fox.
After opening the windows to air the room out, she approached the cage.
“Kyaaaaak!”
The fox immediately puffed up its fur and bared its hostility.
‘I can’t keep leaving it like this.’
Silia crouched in front of the cage.
From the shadowy corner inside, a pair of large golden eyes gleamed brightly.
It was tiny, no larger than a two-month-old kitten.
‘That tiny thing is a nineteen-year-old yokai?’
Curled up in the corner, it looked like a fluffy little cotton ball.
“Little fox. Aren’t you hungry?”
The fox only puffed itself up further and breathed harshly.
“You must be thirsty…”
“Kyaaaaak!”
The fox snarled with its teeth bared.
Don’t try anything funny!
It sounded exactly like that.
“You need water. You lost a lot of blood.”
She had heard that when rare animals were rescued, people sometimes force-fed them to keep them alive.
She could not simply wait forever for it to lower its guard.
The fox looked stubborn enough to starve to death rather than change its mind.
‘What a difficult temperament.’
Silia opened the cage.
Realizing she was not an easy human to deal with, the fox refrained from moving rashly and instead tracked her every motion carefully.
Silia felt her muscles tense as though she were entering a monster subjugation battle.
Such pressure should not have been possible from a mere pup.
Its spirit was extraordinary.
‘The moment I show an opening, it’ll rip my throat out.’
Keeping a calm face, Silia spoke.
“Little fox.”
She turned her hand palm-down and carefully extended it toward the fox.
The moment her fingertips were about to touch its shining silver fur, the fox lashed out with its claws.
“Ugh!”
Suppressing the pain of torn skin, she grabbed hold of the fox’s body.
To force-feed it, she first had to take it out of the cage.
“Kkyuang! Kkuang!”
The moment its body was forcibly restrained, the fox’s cries changed.
Earlier, they had sounded like threatening growls.
Now they were closer to terrified screams.
“Shhh, good boy?”
As the fox struggled, scratches spread across Silia’s body.
Tiny as it was, it was still a yokai—its claws were frighteningly sharp.
Her cheek was slashed, and blood streamed down her forearm.
It was a disaster caused by someone with no experience handling animals.
Wrapping the fox in a towel would have helped, but Silia lacked that kind of know-how.
Instead, she simply endured the injuries and stubbornly held the fox in her arms.
“Shhh. I won’t hurt you. I won’t hit you. Please don’t be afraid. Alright?”
She soothed it endlessly in a gentle voice she had never once used in her life before.
“It’s alright. Don’t be scared. Sweet little fox. You’re so adorable—how could I ever hurt you?”
Once she spoke in that warm, ticklish tone once, the second time became easier.
It was not difficult to come up with kind words.
All Silia had to do was say the things she herself had wanted to hear her entire life.
The words she had wished priests—or friends—would say to her.
The affectionate words she had longed for so desperately.
She gave those words to the fox instead.
Silia parted her pink lips.
“The people who failed to recognize how lovable you are were foolish. You may be from the Eastern Continent, but Solar will love you too. Because you are such a precious child.”
