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Chapter 04
Plop.
Patter, patter, patter… leap!
Having successfully outpaced Uncle Baek, I leaped up and dashed quickly toward the inner house.
‘Hee-hee, it was a good thing I dug this out in advance!’
The secret that allowed me to outpace the uncle and arrive first. That was none other than a tunnel.
‘If there is no way above ground to go see Lady Hang-ah, I just have to make one below ground!’
The tunnel I began digging by following Lady Hang-ah’s divine aura. It took a bit of time because I had to dig it secretly, but earlier in the afternoon, I had succeeded in digging all the way to the inner house.
Who knew it would be useful this quickly! The room’s door is already right in front of me……!
“Euaaat!”
It was right then. Suddenly, the door swung wide open, and a huge hand bursting out from inside grabbed my body. In an instant, I was hoisted into the air and ended up dangling upside down.
“……Tori? What are you doing here?”
The owner of that hand was none other than the master lord of this Beom household. Though it was only for a split second, seeing the lord’s razor-sharp, chilling eyes made my saliva gulp down hard.
“The inner house is not a place for you to come and go. Hurry and leave.”
What’s more, even that cold voice…! My fur stood on end, but I shouted out energetically:
“Hurry and run away, my lord!”
“…Run away?”
“Uncle Baek is coming over here with a big sword, you have to run away right now!”
However, no answer came back.
Out of nowhere, a blade came flying in.
Whish—a finely sharpened blade flew in with a sound so sharp it split the air.
Driven by instinct, Beom Hyeon shoved the child and his own body inside the room, simultaneously slamming the door shut and latching it. By a hair’s breadth, the blade got caught between the doors, rattling loudly.
At this, he immediately reached for his sword. His sword was in its usual place. Though a thick layer of dust rested upon it, the sensation of it fitting snugly into his palm remained unchanged.
And at that exact moment, the doorknob shattered. An intruder had broken in.
“……Baek Su-jong?”
Faced with the appearance of an unexpected figure, Beom Hyeon doubted his eyes for a moment. Assassins had been a part of his life since birth, so he was accustomed to them, but this was the first time his own right-hand man had come directly to strike him down.
And of all people, Baek Su-jong.
Beom Hyeon irritably hurled the scabbard onto the floor. As if that were some kind of signal, Baek Su-jong charged straight at him. The vibration traveling up through the clashing blades heavily thudded against his shoulder, which hadn’t been used in a long time.
“Ugh…….”
Not missing this, Baek Su-jong’s eyes gleamed sharply. Baek Su-jong continuously unleashed attacks in the direction where force was being applied to Beom Hyeon’s shoulder. The manner in which he dug in the moment he caught a weak spot dripped with pure murderous intent.
The clashing blades joined and parted countless times, but…. The fight was not easily settled.
It was only natural, as the two men had spent most of their childhood together in the training grounds. Since they were always together even during sparrings, it was impossible not to know even the smallest habit of one another.
Was that all? They were also dependable comrades who had trusted each other with their backs on the battlefield.
“Why on earth… did you.”
Beom Hyeon’s hands began to tremble with a sense of betrayal. He was a close friend who had guarded his side without changing through good times and hard times.
How stood things now? Right in front of his nose was the tip of his friend’s sword.
Parrying a lethal attack, Beom Hyeon asked:
“Whose instigation is this?”
“It ain’t anyone’s instigation.”
An attack followed immediately, but Beom Hyeon—whose body gradually loosened up—dodged it with greater ease than before. Noticing this, Baek Su-jong’s eyes also wavered.
Though he currently remained shut inside his house like a wrecked man, even so, Beom Hyeon was still an unrivaled swordsman in the nation. The youngest Grand General produced by the Jangsan Tiger Clan—once the foremost among the tiger families.
There hadn’t even been any family intervention in that position. It was purely the result created by Beom Hyeon’s own extraordinary skill and the monarch’s sharp vision that recognized his talent.
“That cannot be. Name your mastermind.”
“I told ye, there ain’t no such thing.”
“…Is it the Geumin Tiger Clan?”
Beom Hyeon spat out the name of the most likely faction. After the fall of the Jangsan Tiger Clan, Beom Gyu—the leader of the Geumin Tiger Clan, the wealthiest and most influential among the current tiger families—was a person who had intensely loathed Beom Hyeon ever since childhood.
It was because no matter how hard he trained, he could never beat Beom Hyeon.
Of course, besides him, there had always been many who targeted the lives of the Jangsan Tiger Clan and Beom Hyeon, but after the family fell, almost all of them had drifted away. In the end, when it came to a matter like this, the Geumin Tiger Clan was the first to cross his mind.
“…….”
“You cannot answer, can you?”
“I told ye, I didn’t take nobody’s instigation.”
“Very well. Then Su-jong, it seems you won’t be leaving this place alive pleasantly.”
Beom Hyeon’s fiercely digging blade sliced a long line across Baek Su-jong’s shoulder blade. Along with a muffled groan swallowed back, droplets of blood scattered across the floor.
One step, two steps—every time the two clashed blades, the balance tilted progressively to one side. It was a situation where Baek Su-jong was noticeably being pushed back.
“Kugh….”
“Give up and name your mastermind. Then I shall at least spare your life.”
At that moment, something caught Baek Su-jong’s field of vision. A small, white rabbit beastfolk crouching in a corner of the room.
Seeing her, his eyes flashed. Guiding Beom Hyeon so he wouldn’t notice, Baek Su-jong gradually moved closer toward Tori.
And finally, when the distance was narrowed enough. Without hesitation, he snatched Tori by the scruff of her neck.
“Kyaaaht-!”
Tori, who had been shivering in the corner ever since the fight broke out, squirmed frantically.
“Hiek! S-Save me!”
“…How cowardly, Su-jong. You would be better off just dying.”
“I’m up against the General who used to command this nation, so I got no choice.”
Holding Tori in his arms, Baek Su-jong aimed his blade straight at her neck.
“If ye don’t want to hurl this young life straight onto the path to the underworld, put down yer sword right now.”
“Damn it all.”
Beom Hyeon’s insides boiled furiously. Telling him to put down his sword was equivalent to telling him to offer his neck before Baek Su-jong’s blade.
Either the child dies, or he dies. He had to choose one of the two.
‘……Ha.’
It hadn’t even been long since he met her, so what was that tiny child to him? Finding himself hesitating over whether to drop his sword felt utterly ridiculous.
‘I should have sent her out sooner…. Why did I keep her here as if this were some great place?’
Had he done so, a situation like this—where the child’s face turned as pale as his own hair—would never have happened.
And just then.
“L-Let go of me! Otherwise…!”
Tori bared her front teeth. The moment he saw the plump front teeth unique to rabbit beastfolk, Beom Hyeon instantly divined what Tori was trying to do.
Two pairs of eyes—red and blue—met, and Beom Hyeon nodded his head.
Without delay, Tori bit into Baek Su-jong’s hand with all her might.
“Chomp!”
“Ugh!”
A rabbit’s front teeth were quite powerful. The moment his hand was bitten, strength drained from the arm of Baek Su-jong, who had underestimated the force of those small front teeth.
Seeing that, Beom Hyeon reached his arm out toward Tori.
“Jump over here!”
“R-Right now?”
“Yes!”
Just as Baek Su-jong tried to grab Tori again, Tori clenched her cotton-paw-like fists as if making up her mind. Then, kicking off against Baek Su-jong with her hind legs, she leaped up with all her strength.
“Kguuuugh….”
Even while stumbling as he lost his balance, Baek Su-jong swung his sword, but Tori landed safely in Beom Hyeon’s arms.
“Euat! Hwee-ing…, it worked!”
Beom Hyeon looked down for a moment at the baby rabbit held in his arms, gazing up at him. At that face smiling innocently, her red eyes sparkling.
“T-This ain’t, kugh, how it’s supposed to go….”
At Baek Su-jong’s voice heard at that moment, Beom Hyeon hid the child behind his back. Having been hit squarely in the groin by Tori as she leaped, Baek Su-jong was barely trying to gather himself.
Grit teeth grinding, blood vessels stood out in the whites of his eyes.
Hiding Tori behind him, Beom Hyeon hastily clashed swords with Baek Su-jong.
“Su-jong, it seems you’re out of luck when it comes to having children.”
“…Can it compare to someone who had one and couldn’t even protect them?”
“…….”
The sly expression vanished entirely from Beom Hyeon’s face. A single strike from Beom Hyeon shattered Baek Su-jong’s blade.
What flew toward Baek Su-jong right after was a fist. A fierce barrage of punches laced with pent-up resentment rained down. Hit on both cheeks and the abdomen, he lost his balance and collapsed.
Baek Su-jong’s consciousness gradually grew hazy.
“You…, the one who jumped into that burning house together with me… how could you say such a thing.”
And right before losing consciousness, the last words he heard from Beom Hyeon were unmistakably laced with resentment. As if Beom Hyeon’s voice from some past day—saying that though they didn’t share blood and came from different statuses, he sometimes felt like a brother—brushed past his ears.
With his fading vision as the last thing, Baek Su-jong lost consciousness.
“……That took all my energy.”
Withdrawing his hand from the unconscious Baek Su-jong, Beom Hyeon let out a sigh. Checking him over, he saw that breath still remained, so he roughly stopped the bleeding and bound him up next to him.
And once his emotions finally settled down, Beom Hyeon suddenly realized he had forgotten something.
Tori. …The fight just now was far too gruesome a scene for a young beastfolk to witness.
Turning around in startled surprise, his eyes caught Tori, who was head-first against the wall, trembling uncontrollably.
“…….”
Beom Hyeon hurriedly wiped away the bloodstains roughly even in his bare socks, and fearing he might startle the already terrified child further, he even draped a quilt over Baek Su-jong to cover him up.
It was around that time that a sound of a gasping breath leaked out from behind.
“Hiek…?!”
At the successive scream, confusion momentarily surfaced on Beom Hyeon’s face as he quickly drew closer to Tori.
It was because of the hairpin Tori was holding tightly in her arms. That hairpin was decorated with an unusually large, round piece of jade, an item Beom Hyeon had purchased while thinking of his deceased wife.
However…….
‘Why on earth does this child have this?’
“To think it’s a treasure jewel and not Lady Hang-ah, where on earth is Lady Hang-ah!”
Faced with a child speaking words that were completely incomprehensible, Beom Hyeon was flustered.
However, he couldn’t ask any further about it. It was because the white fur scattered across the floor entered his eyes.
“…Are you hurt anywhere?”
“Huh? Ah, u-uh? My lord, so, this hairpin is, um,”
Tori, who was blabbering incoherently at his pale-faced question, came to a sudden halt in an instant. The white fur on the floor had just caught her eyes as well.
Her gaze fixed on the floor, Tori’s hand slowly reached toward her bottom.
“M-My tail, m-my tail is…!”
Before long, realizing that half her tail fur had been chopped off in a big clump, tears began to pool heavily in Tori’s eyes.
“Hwoo, hwooo-ooh…, my taaaail…! Hwaaaang!”
The thing she barely managed to find wasn’t Lady Hang-ah, but a treasure jewel Lady Hang-ah cherished. And the tail fur she had nurtured and adored her entire life had been snipped right off, too.
To a certain 5-year-old baby rabbit, these were nothing short of events that shattered her whole world.
