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Chapter 36
After snorting angrily for a while, the fox added, as if to say this wasn’t resistance born of being teased.
[Humans are fine to enjoy from the cracks in between, but they’re not beings you should seriously look at or get close to, Mountain Lord. Do you know how hypocritical, cruel, and horrific those human bastards are? Are there any other creatures besides humans who slaughter their own kind on such a massive scale? If I get deeply entangled with them, I’m the only one who’ll lose.]
Making a genuinely disgusted face, the fox waved its hands dismissively.
[Right. All spiritual beings probably think that way. The problem is that the white deer didn’t.]
I never imagined it would have even left descendants among humans.
[Anyway. I’m shocked because I’ve never seen it happen before. Knowing the true nature of humans, I was even more surprised than you, Mountain Lord.]
[But it’s true. If you get the chance later, take that child’s hand and look inside.]
[Huh? But… Wijihak is also a descendant of the white deer, right? Do we not need to look into that guy?]
[That’s right, Mountain Lord. That noisy, overreacting human man should also be of the white deer’s bloodline…]
It was only natural for them to have such doubts. I added an explanation for their questions.
[There’s something I’ve learned over my long years. Exceptional traits often don’t get passed down directly from generation to generation.]
[Huh? What do you mean by that?]
[In other words… the parents’ strengths don’t immediately appear in their children, but often show up in the grandchildren. Not always, of course, but wasn’t Wijihak quite sturdy? So I guessed that the parents and the child in between were sickly.]
At that, the fox let out an exclamation.
[To think something like that could happen…]
[From what I can tell, the union of humans and spiritual beings doesn’t seem to have a good influence on their descendants.]
[What on earth was that white deer lacking to make such a choice…?]
I didn’t answer the fox’s muttering.
[There are two things we need to deal with here.]
[…One is catching the one connected to the Blood Cult, and the other is the white deer’s inner core, right?]
[Yes. I don’t particularly want to, but since the white deer asked me to, I have to take the inner core. It’ll help me recover my energy, too.]
[What kind of promise did you make?]
To that question, I replied as casually as possible.
[I promised that if something happened, I would take care of its end. But since it went to the human realm, I couldn’t keep that promise…]
Back then, I had no intention of getting involved with the human world.
Besides, going to the human realm was the white deer’s own will. Asking me to take care of its end was only a request to do so if the opportunity arose.
‘But now, that’s no longer the case.’
I had descended into the human realm, and I was now at the place where my final connection with the white deer had been forged.
Humans go mad and rush in if they hear of a spiritual being, so surely the white deer’s remains—including its inner core—would be here.
If that’s the case, shouldn’t it be me who decides her end?
Perhaps the reason I came back in time was to make amends for a mistake I’d made in the past.
[Now that I’m in the human realm, it’s time to keep my promise.]
[It won’t be easy. I don’t know what kind of spiritual beast the white deer was, but a spiritual beast’s inner core is treated as extremely precious in the human world. Just threatening to leak that information to Wijihak would make them spend a huge amount of money as hush money. If things go wrong, it’s information that could bring down an entire merchant guild.]
At that, I burst out laughing.
[Aren’t we forgetting something because we’re in the human realm?]
[Huh? What?]
[The world runs on survival of the fittest. Money is a human concept, isn’t it? We’re not human.]
If it came to that, I planned to return to my true form and run off with only the white deer’s inner core in my mouth.
Besides, trying to bring down the Blood Cult was, above all, for the safety of myself, the fox, and Jimjo, as well as the spiritual beings I was connected to.
Humans, though not as aggressive as the Blood Cult, were still a race that coveted spiritual beings.
Even if it ended up looking like we were helping humans, it was closer to humans picking up scraps that fell our way.
Just look at the Silver Deer Merchant Guild. The fact that they were keeping the white deer’s remains already showed they weren’t much different from the Blood Cult.
The reason and method by which they lured the white deer, and the reason they were storing its byproducts—
Every single one of them was utterly disrespectful.
‘I probed them thinking they might be keeping the white deer’s remains without selling them, but to think they really were keeping them.’
I knew why the white deer had to go to the human realm.
Humans threatened it in a way the white deer couldn’t refuse, and because it didn’t want my involvement, all I could do was watch.
It was a matter of the safety of the white deer’s child.
[Ah… my precious child.]
The white deer had once mated with a male deer. It wasn’t a spiritual beast, just an ordinary stag, but I remembered it being unusually large, with magnificent antlers.
The two were affectionate with each other, and the child they bore miraculously possessed the aptitude of a spiritual being.
The white deer cherished its child dearly. Unlike its mate, who had exhausted his lifespan and returned to the earth, the child had formed a small inner core early on—how could it not be precious?
Though its mate had died, the white deer could see its partner in the child. That was why it never left the child’s side for even a moment.
Then, something happened.
No one knew what methods they used, but humans captured the white deer’s child.
From a human’s perspective, the white deer’s child must have looked tempting. Though young, its jade-colored fur was exceedingly beautiful.
[I have to go find my child.]
[I’m against it. To humans, you’re a far more tempting prey than your child. Give up on the child.]
I wanted the white deer to abandon its child.
The world is survival of the fittest, and cunning is also a way of surviving.
The child was captured simply because it wasn’t smarter than the hunters. That, too, could be called fate.
But the white deer didn’t give up. The reason it headed to the human realm was because humans lured it by imprisoning the child in a cage.
[Don’t go. At least protect yourself.]
That was the advice I gave it. But the white deer shook its head and said—
[A child must be protected by its mother. Even if it’s the other side’s trap.]
Leaving those words behind, it went to the human realm, even knowing that the humans’ true target was itself.
Even if it meant offering up its own life, it was the product of a mother’s instinct to protect her child.
‘And yet, it didn’t want my involvement.’
…It must have worried that getting me tangled up in its affairs would interfere with my ascension. A thought very much like it.
That was why the existence of a human mixed with the white deer’s blood held such great meaning for me.
If they had killed it simply to obtain its byproducts, I wouldn’t have been this furious.
That was a trophy proving just how filthy and despicable that human had been back then.
It was still left in the world, neither rotted away nor absorbed into someone’s body.
That fact made me unbearably angry.
I briefly told this story to the fox and Jimjo. They were left speechless and could only remain silent.
[Of course, taking the inner core in my true form is the last resort. But I’m serious. I couldn’t do it back then, so now, at least, I have to take care of the white deer’s end.]
[…I understand. That would be enough to turn anyone’s insides upside down.]
[Survival of the fittest is natural. But capturing the child to lure out the mother—I can’t accept that. Especially since they didn’t even spare the child in the end.]
I’ve never heard of a deer with jade-colored fur.
And… no matter how weak a spiritual beast might be, I never believed humans would let it live.
[…What are you going to do?]
[I’ll retrieve the inner core while maintaining this identity as much as possible. I don’t like either the Blood Cult or the Silver Deer Merchant Guild, but…]
[You’re right, Mountain Lord. It’d be better to follow human methods. That way we won’t stand out, and we can still keep our goal of eliminating the Blood Cult.]
The fox spoke carefully.
[The Silver Deer Merchant Guild distributes medicinal herbs on a large scale. If we maintain an amicable relationship with them, you’ll be able to obtain the herbs you need easily, Mountain Lord. Even if we can’t use the guild, at the very least we shouldn’t let those Blood Cult bastards do whatever they want.]
[That’s true. I don’t like it, but just watching the Blood Cult swallow everything whole would leave a bad taste in my mouth. And the young one is innocent, too.]
Yes. The young one is innocent.
The ancestors who deserve punishment have already turned to white bones, so I suppose I’ll just vent a little spite and leave it at that.
