The Nine-Tailed Fox Yokai, Lord Beast – After (1)

Ah.

A familiar ceiling.

Well, not really a ceiling – it’s the azure moon emanating its blue glow.

I had returned to the other world.

The familiar scent of mugwort welcomed me.

How much time had passed?

A day?

A week?

Unsure, but I had instructed Dapoh to wake me if anything happened while I was gone.

It didn’t seem like any major incidents occurred in my absence.

Witnessing Lord Beast’s tale from a third-person perspective was like experiencing an extraordinarily long dream.

Yet Lord Beast’s story was no dream – it was an undeniable past reality.

A bit…

No, I was quite confused.

I never expected Lord Beast’s story to conclude in such a way.

I had acquired ample information, almost an excessive overload for my mind.

First, the most crucial piece of information for me:

A goblin’s weakness was not the spiral cycles, but the ‘liver’.

An obvious point, but as a fox, I had never once harvested anyone’s liver in my life.

No technique, no experience.

Yet for some reason, extracting a goblin’s liver felt like it would be simple.

It must be instinctual – just as humans move their hands, harvesting livers was a perfectly natural act for a fox yokai.

Whenever I had encountered goblins previously, I had focused intently on their spiral cycles.

Of course, since those bizarre goblin cycles seemed so far removed from reality.

But the weakness was the liver, not the cycles.

I almost wanted to express gratitude to Lord Beast.

Another shocking revelation was that Lord Beast had perished without manifesting nine tails.

How strange.

She was renown as the nine-tailed fox yokai, after all.

…Come to think of it, even during my previous conversation with Lord Beast, she never showed me nine tails.

Assuming she had nine tails was just an erroneous human conjecture all along.

Damn it.

I was curious how one could manifest nine tails from eight, but this aspect remained unresolved, unfortunately.

While I gained much information by witnessing Lord Beast’s tale, the most startling parts concerned the stories of ‘Jizi’ and myself, ‘Miho’.

That I was the reincarnation of Lord Beast’s persona ‘Miho’… well, I could accept that.

The Azure Spirit had already informed me I carried Lord Beast’s ‘vessel’, which implied some profound connection between us.

I had pondered many times whether I might be Lord Beast’s reincarnation, so while shocking, it was acceptabla.

However, the fact that ‘Miho’ was Jizi’s servant was… harder to accept.

Of course, I was a different being from the ‘Miho’ who appeared in Lord Beast’s tale.

One could say I simply inherited her ‘vessel’ as a completely new entity, not a true reincarnation.

She was no mere servant to Jizi – the two loved each other deeply, and Jizi cared for Miho more than his own ruler.

…While I was just a third-party observer uninvolved in those events, the Jizi I witnessed seemed like someone prepared to sacrifice himself for his servant named ‘Miho’.

After all, he was more devastated learning Miho’s true nature from Lord Beast than seeing his sworn ruler’s head explode before his eyes.

For that reason, after Lord Beast’s death, Jizi could not have simply sat idly watching the situation.

In other words, he must have taken some measures for the future ‘Miho’ – me.

If there was one lingering question, it was that Jizi likely could never escape the goblins’ bondage in his lifetime.

As the cliche goes, who ever made a deal with the ‘devil’ and came out ahead?

I knew nothing about Jizi’s true identity, what he did for me, whether he was alive or dead now, or where he might be if still living.

But then, did I really need to know?

The ‘Miho’ Jizi loved was a different person from me, after all.

Regardless of Jizi’s identity, my mission remained unchanged – to erase goblins from this world.

---

Spirit energy.

The power of freedom.

The two hands I could currently wield.

After witnessing Lord Beast’s tale, my spirit energy output and control had improved, and I could command the power of freedom more freely than before.

Throughout her story, Lord Beast would occasionally mutter asides to aid me – her words had become ingrained in me, flesh and bone.

“Haah.”

I had decided not to dwell on it, yet thoughts kept surfacing.

Jizi…

A person completely unrelated to me, yet I couldn’t fathom why he preoccupied my mind so.

As I let out a long sigh, Yi Haneul, training alongside me, asked:

“What’s wrong, Miho?”

“No, it’s nothing.”

“Feeling troubled?”

“…Yes.”

“Want your sis to give you a hug?”

“…”

“Of course, you’d have to revert to two-tailed form first.”

Hmm.

Could it be?

By any chance?

“Lord Yi Haneul, this may be an odd question, but…”

“Yeah?”

“…Were you”

I hesitated twice before speaking.

Finally, I asked:

“Were you perhaps male in a past life?”

“Of course not!”

Since Yi Haneul could wield goblin rods, loved yokai, and loved me, I briefly wondered if she might be Jizi’s reincarnation.

But that wasn’t the case.

The person I considered most likely turned out odd after all.

Hmm.

Since I had resolved to dig up information on Jizi, I may as well ask this person too.

“Lord Ho-jun.”

“What? Don’t come near me, your bodacious knockers are too distracting.”

…Could this shameless person really be the Jizi who cherished and loved ‘Miho’?

It didn’t seem likely at all.

“Nevermind, you’re clearly not him.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, you crazy vixen? Finish what you start.”

“…Lord Ho-jun, do you know anything about someone named Jizi?”

“I do. The loyal Shang minister driven to a pitiful demise by Lord Beast.”

While I was ignorant of history, Ho-jun was not.

Jizi must have been a rather famous historical figure featured in texts.

‘Pitiful demise’, he said…

“…How did he meet his demise?”

“Not sure why you’re asking, but from what I know:”

“One day, when the ruler acquired ivory chopsticks, Jizi urged him to stop such extravagance.”

“However, the ruler imprisoned Jizi, keeping him locked up until the first king of the Zhou Dynasty, King Wu, executed the ruler.”

In other words, the historical records differed from the actual history I had witnessed – it was neither King Wu nor Jizi who killed the ruler, but Lord Beast.

…No matter how much I researched historical texts, they would inevitably contradict the real history I had seen.

It seemed I could glean no further Jizi information here.

I carefully studied Ho-jun’s expression as he recounted Jizi’s story to me.

Not a shred of emotion could be detected in his gaze towards me.

“What are you staring at me for? Don’t want to hear more?”

“No, I think I’ve heard enough.”

“Then why ask in the first place?”

“Lord Ho-jun, what thoughts cross your mind when you look at me?”

“What’s with the sudden nonsense? Are you still having trouble suppressing that seduction ability or…”

“No, this has nothing to do with seduction. I’m asking seriously, so please answer seriously.”

“…Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously.”

After a momentary pause, Ho-jun slowly scanned my body from bottom to top with a discerning gaze.

Then he spoke:

“Well, it’s clear you have an utterly unsightly body, for starters.”

“…That’s sexual harassment.”

“What did you expect asking for a serious answer? In any case, while I won’t deny my appetite is whetted looking at you, I don’t particularly feel anything towards you. For the record, I’m a person honest about my emotions.”

“I know that. But why?”

I had wondered about this for a long time.

It felt a bit awkward voicing it myself, but…

Every man who looked at me had eyes filled with lust.

Yet Ho-jun had never gazed at me with such lustful eyes, even as he blatantly sexually harassed me.

Why was that?

I was, after all, a being born to consume the life force of human males.

Eventually, Ho-jun answered:

“It’s simple.”

“…?”

“You’re my comrade.”

“Ah…”

“Whether you like it or not, you’ve become a precious companion fated to experience life and death alongside me. Yes, if I must express my feelings… I suppose I view you as a friend of sorts.”

Utterly unexpected words came from Ho-jun’s lips.

A friend…?

This was rather…

Moving, perhaps.

“…”

As I remained silent, Ho-jun continued:

“Was that an adequate answer?”

“…Yes, more than enough. Thank you, Lord Ho-jun.”

“If you’ve got your answer, get lost now. You’re disrupting my training. Shoo, shoo.”

Hmm.

It was clear.

Ho-jun was not Jizi either.

Alright then.

Having confirmed the two closest to me were not Jizi, I may as well bury my curiosity about him.

Chances were, Jizi was someone completely unforeseen and unexpected to me.