🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 25
When I turned back and went into the training grounds again, the stench of blood that hadn’t fully dissipated hit me in a rush.
“Tsk. The smell’s still lingering.”
“Well, it’s underground. The odor doesn’t clear out easily, which was a problem. Must’ve been pretty flashy, huh?”
“No need to go easy on them.”
That’s true. If they were the kind of bastards who kidnapped kids and even tried to abduct humans under my command, they deserved to pay the price in full.
“What about the ten-thousand-year hasuo?”
“Here. You’re going back to your main body to eat it, right?”
[Of course.]
After quickly returning to my main body, I looked at the item wrapped in high-quality paper and placed on the fox’s hand. Seeing that, the fox snorted with a laugh, unwrapped the paper, and held the contents out to me.
“Here, Mountain Lord. Eat up. I’ll stand guard with that Jimjo guy.”
[Even if you hadn’t said so, I was going to.]
Jimjo, who had followed along at some point, snorted and shot the fox a glare.
[I’ll eat well.]
Since herbs like this had to be eaten all at once, I steadied my breathing and set my mind. Then I started crunching down from the thickest end of the main stalk.
As the ten-thousand-year hasuo went down my throat, I felt the intense energy packed into each fragment surge in like a tidal wave.
Without yielding to it, I swallowed everything down to the last rootlet. Then I hurriedly lay prone, closed my eyes, and focused on what was happening inside my body.
No matter how much of a spirit creature one was, energy that couldn’t be accepted would eventually destroy the body—like a curse that stole one’s life.
In that sense, consuming the ten-thousand-year hasuo in my current state was like walking a tightrope.
An enormous amount of energy was raging inside me, far more than expected, and if I slipped up even a little, my body might shatter.
But unless I’d never handled energy of this magnitude before—which wasn’t the case—I’d dealt with it countless times already.
I drew the relatively compliant energy into my inner core, swelling the condensed power stored there. At the same time, I had to rein in the rampant energy, so it wasn’t an easy task.
Still, once a certain amount of energy gathered in my inner core, the problem solved itself.
The moment I had accumulated enough, I could gather the surging energy of the ten-thousand-year hasuo into one place and control it.
After all, my issue was never control—it was simply the total amount of energy.
It’ll take quite a while to absorb all this energy…
Even so, this was enough.
I hadn’t fully absorbed the ten-thousand-year hasuo’s energy, but doing so completely would take far too long.
Wasting time like that wasn’t an option with the Blood Sect on my mind, so I absorbed only enough to keep the energy from running wild and gathered the rest near my inner core.
I planned to absorb that energy gradually. Unlike humans, spirit creatures didn’t need to perform regulated circulation and breathing exercises.
With that thought, I opened my eyes and turned my head, scanning my body once over.
[You’ve grown.]
Perhaps because of the aftereffects of taking in the ten-thousand-year hasuo’s energy, my fur had returned to a bluish hue. My body had grown as well—enough to look like I’d entered adolescence.
Yes, yes. This was about right. Now I’d be treated like a proper tiger.
[Mountain Lord. Can you return to your size from before eating the ten-thousand-year hasuo?]
The fox asked while looking at me.
[Why?]
[To humans, you’d look suspicious enough as it is. You grew so suddenly.]
[I’ll change it before we head out. Let’s see.]
Wrapping my body in energy drawn from my inner core, I kicked off the ground and sprinted. Sometimes I leapt, sometimes I ran full tilt and pushed off walls as I went.
Compared to a cub, my movements were far faster and lighter.
My muscles were much stronger and more elastic, and my claws and fangs had grown sharper and sturdier.
[Looks like you’ve recovered quite a bit.]
[I still haven’t absorbed all of the thousand-year hasuo’s energy, but… once I do, I should recover about twenty-five percent.]
[You ate that much and that’s all you recover…?]
The fox muttered worriedly, but to me, this was more than enough. After stretching lightly, I transformed into my human form.
“How old do I look like this?”
“Around ten, maybe thirteen.”
“So my human form has to stay the same as before, right?”
“Otherwise they’ll accuse you of being a monster.”
“How rude, those humans.”
“When humans encounter something that falls outside their common sense, they turn into cowardly rabbits and try to wipe it all out.”
“Hm, then… like this?”
As I drew my form in along with energy spread evenly throughout my body, my field of view suddenly shrank.
“Too young.”
“Then… how about this?”
“That’s it. Just like that. Now go back to your main body and try changing your fur color too.”
Recalling the sensation and advice from when the fox had changed my fur color before, I spread my energy. The deep lake-blue fur gradually shifted to a yellowish hue.
[Oh, it works. It works.]
I smiled in satisfaction as my fur changed just as I intended.
“So can we stop searching for medicinal herbs for a while now?”
“Until this is digested.”
“…Right. So we still need to find more.”
The fox, sounding like he’d reached enlightenment, let out a low chuckle and shrugged.
“Well, we’ll deal with that when the time comes. Shall we go, Mountain Lord?”
“Huh? Where to?”
“To Luoyang, to celebrate your recovery. You haven’t really explored Luoyang properly yet, have you?”
“That’s true, but…”
“If you’re going to imitate humans, shouldn’t you know how they live? So let’s go have some fun.”
At the fox’s playful wink as he held out his hand to me, I let out a sigh.
“…Even if I say no, you’ll come up with all sorts of reasons to make me go, won’t you?”
“Well… isn’t it fine? You need to get used to the human world anyway—it’ll make imitation easier and help with tracking those guys. They’re humans, after all.”
At the mention of the Blood Sect, my brow furrowed.
Just bringing it up made irritation well up inside me.
The anger I’d suppressed under the guise of training began to leak out, and I bared my teeth.
“…Right. We can’t forget our purpose.”
“Made up your mind?”
“Up until now, I’ve focused only on training. Like you said, I need to get used to it.”
“Good. Then it’s decided. Let’s wander around, buying mostly street food. We can also watch how humans buy and sell things.”
“…That actually helps?”
“Trust me, Mountain Lord.”
I wasn’t entirely convinced, but sensing his concern for me, I reached out reflexively. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, the fox scooped me up.
Ah… I’d gotten used to this.
The fact that I’d grown accustomed to being carried by the fox felt oddly sad.
As I lamented my lot internally, the fox—oblivious—smiled brightly and removed his mask, then changed the shape of his face.
“Didn’t you say changing your facial features was difficult?”
“It is, but I practiced. The head of the Hao Sect ends up with their life threatened more often than you’d think.”
What on earth do you even do? I stared at him in disbelief, and he just shrugged.
“Besides, walking around the human world wearing a mask is basically announcing, ‘I’m suspicious!’”
“That’s true.”
“And this form of ours isn’t real anyway. No reason to feel bad about changing it.”
The fox laughed mischievously and retraced the path we’d come. Judging by how he avoided places with signs of people, he clearly didn’t want to be noticed by anyone inside Cheonwol Pavilion.
Luoyang, huh.
All I remembered was that it was one of the largest human cities, and that it had been crowded and chaotic when we’d come to Cheonwol Pavilion.
“Oh, right.”
“Hm? Something wrong, Mountain Lord?”
“While we’re at it, teach me how children talk. That big guy made a fuss about what kind of kid would talk like that.”
I hadn’t never seen children before, but at most, they were kids who came into the mountains to gather wild greens or medicinal herbs.
Those kids usually worked silently, so I’d never really heard how children spoke.
As for Cheonwol Pavilion? The kids there looked far older than their transformed appearances, so they weren’t much help either.
Since no one had questioned it, I’d stuck with that way of speaking—but really, was the problem my size, or the people of Cheonwol Pavilion?
The fox seemed to think for a moment, then broke into a grin.
…That expression was one he only ever made right before playing a prank.
“Mountain Lord’s way of speaking has ab-so-lutely nothing wrong with it. You can just keep talking like that.”
“…Really?”
“Of course! I guarantee it!”
“You always make that face right before messing with me.”
“So who knows the human world better— you, or me?”
Put that way, I had nothing to say.
“Alright, alright. Let’s go. People-watching!”
Still, there was one thing that worried me about people-watching.
Will the smells be okay?
With a slight worry about whether my nose might get overwhelmed, I left Cheonwol Pavilion together with the fox.
