episode_0187

A world filled with starlight.

As the spring breeze brushed by, Irene looked up at the sky.

A field of constellations where nothing but starlight remained.

The girl merely held her sword.

“……”

Silence settled gently.

At the ends of her flowing white hair, faint embers fluttered.

The pitch black of the deep night had, by now, brightened to pure white.

The surroundings, which had been noisy just moments before, now kept a cozy silence.

Irene savored the breath flowing through the night.

‘I feel at peace.’

Nothing remained by the fox’s side.

Not even the teeth of the snarling hounds.

Nor the businessman she had hated with all her life.

Not even the darkness that had once heavily obscured her vision.

A flash of light in an instant burned all those scenes into a handful of ashes.

All that was left for Irene was merely the pungent smell of burnt things from a dawn consumed by fire.

Her pupils and eyelids, dyed pure white, blinked listlessly.

It was quiet.

‘Why.’

The fox couldn’t rashly break the silence.

Stepping upon the world, the night sky she finally reached was dazzlingly beautiful.

It felt as if all the constellations connecting the seasons were singing in chorus.

She couldn’t bring herself to close her eyes to that holiness.

Irene sank into thought.

‘This feeling…’

Perhaps.

Was it because the businessman’s end was quite anticlimactic?

The fox could hardly grasp the reality of the situation.

Even though she had cut through the night with her own hands, her steps still lingered in the dawn.

The starlight in her pupils flickered.

“……”

How should this feeling be described?

A feeling of unrealistic relief mixed with a hint of emptiness.

Irene merely fiddled with the flame at her fingertips.

-I, too, will give you the night.

As those red lips declared.

No one who had given the girl the night remained in her dawn anymore.

Only pure white ash and dust were swirling.

The traces of the past were so faint.

Just as she was lost in thought for a moment.

“Miss Irene.”

Suddenly, a voice was heard.

A voice that found her even as she wandered through the desolate plain.

Standing at the end of her gaze as she turned was the boy with narrowed eyes.

A faint smile gazed at her.

‘My star.’

A light cast beyond the iron bars.

The boy who had given another night to her gloomy world.

The one who didn’t torment her like a scar, but instead enveloped her with his coziness.

The constellation she had made her life’s guiding point.

Irene pronounced it with trembling lips.

“Yuda…”

That name became a small reverberation.

She simply felt like doing so.

Perhaps it was because she wanted to truly feel that he existed in her night.

With the embers scattering in the wind behind her, the fox’s steps rushed towards that name.

The starlight racing through the dawn brightly illuminated the land.

The serpent, as if it were natural, pulled the approaching girl into a tight embrace!

“Oh my.”

A warm embrace.

Even though her own body temperature was clearly hotter.

The fox felt the boy’s embrace was cozier.

His unique cool scent, subtle warmth, and the hand supporting her waist…

The gentle hug, its mere presence brought a sense of fulfillment.

For a while, Irene had to breathe with her face buried in his chest.

Her senses, which had been sharply honed, gradually relaxed.

“Yuda, Yuda…”

“Yes, I am here.”

“I… I killed him. That man, I mean. I burned him without leaving a trace.”

“I see. That’s truly admirable. You’ve been through a lot as well.”

“I, with my own sword…”

Irene mumbled.

Yuda was merely responding to her murmuring.

While gently stroking her white hair.

“It’s over… It’s all over.”

The sixteen-year-old crushed by irrationality.

Three years utterly broken.

A scar she had carried for nearly nine years, including the time she wandered through her subconscious.

For the girl trapped in iron bars, it had been a long and painful night.

And she had finally achieved the future she had yearned for.

Irene leaned into the lack of a sense of reality.

“Now, truly…”

“Miss Irene.”

But.

If there was one fleeting misconception she had.

It was the misconception that everything was over.

The boy with narrowed eyes smiled quietly.

“It’s only the beginning, isn’t it?”

It was as he said.

Just as she herself had declared to the star.

The fox quietly nodded her head.

“Yes… that’s right.”

The dazzling starting line that had approached.

Before standing there, there were still things that needed to be taken care of.

***

The Apple Tree, which had been utterly scorched.

It had been the largest illegal slave auction house in the Empire, but its former prestige could no longer be found there.

It had devolved into a desolate wasteland with nothing left but blood, ash, and flames.

That gruesome scene was like a punishment descended from a star.

The night was illuminated.

“……”

The fox took unfamiliar steps.

She traversed the collapsed pillars and corridors strewn with debris.

Before long, stairs leading underground appeared.

Her halted steps hesitated in place for a moment.

However.

Stomp.

Then, as if she had never hesitated, she moved forward.

As she descended the steps, the darkness deepened, but the girl’s starlight illuminated her vision.

As if vowing never to be buried in this pitch black again, it fulfilled its brilliant calling.

The ever-deepening path ended, and Irene stepped onto the lowest floor of the building.

A somewhat familiar fishy smell tickled the tip of her nose.

The fox confronted it.

“……It’s the same.”

A dreadful memory.

It was the iron cage where she had been imprisoned, just a year ago.

Countless slaves still crowded the place.

Her white eyes scanned beyond the iron bars.

‘All of them…’

The slaves included both beast-folk and humans, indiscriminately.

To the businessman, they were merely a means to make money.

Irene’s fist clenched tightly.

‘I wanted to save them.’

When she escaped from this place.

At that time, she had no power, so she didn’t even have the luxury to care for them.

She had merely run through the corridors while taking care of her younger siblings.

The fox had often recalled that day.

‘I won’t run away anymore.’

The weak me.

The me who was powerless to help anyone.

And the me who, though weak, couldn’t forget the pleas from behind her.

The girl had never forgotten the cowardice of that day for a single moment.

Finally, only today had she returned to this place.

To the side of those she had abandoned and fled from.

“It’s okay now.”

Slice.

A sword strike that cut through an instant.

Following that, thousands of iron bars installed in the basement were cut away.

The cages that had imprisoned the slaves were neatly stripped away.

It was a cutting sound that heralded liberation.

“You are… free now.”

Her pronunciation was slurred for a moment.

For some reason, her throat felt choked.

Rustle.

“……”

People stepping out of the iron cages, yet wary of the outside.

Clear fear was etched in their eyes.

What had happened?

Was it a trap?

Could they be safe?

While all sorts of worries were layered on, beyond them, a clear light existed.

If there was a word to describe that light, it was hope itself.

That confusion overlapped with a certain scene.

-Would you not be tamed by me?

-I will take you in.

-I will allow you to escape from this hellish place.

At that time.

Were my eyes also like theirs?

When I first met you, did I have a similar look in my eyes?

Did you see such precarious hope in me?

“……Ugh.”

Her mind unnecessarily grew complicated.

Irene turned and exited the basement.

Outside, a deep night sky awaited.

A scene where stars bloomed abundantly like shimmering ripples on water.

Only then did the girl’s steps halt.

-Irene.

Softly.

Her tension eased, and her hair slowly regained its original color.

Along with that, the burning fire and body temperature also cooled down.

However, her eyes, conversely, grew warmer and warmer.

Her vision strangely tingled.

-My fox.

Only then did the girl realize.

She truly felt that her own night had finally ended.

She had endured that painful, agonizing, lonely… dawn.

Suddenly, an intense feeling of liberation pierced Irene’s heart deeply.

The fox’s story stood at the starting line.

-Miss Irene.

The world blurred indistinctly.

Following that, lukewarm tears streamed down her cheeks.

From her throat, which felt as if it had a lump, only fragmented sobs leaked out.

It soon blossomed into a single, flowing sob.

“Ugh, ugh…”

The girl could, only then, cry.

It was no longer night.

“I did it.”

Irene stood with her sword.

Unlike before, neither falling nor submitting.

She was gradually greeting the approaching morning.

It was quite metaphorical.

“In the end, I did it…”

Another voice in her ears.

The prayer of an old man, which she no longer needed to hold onto.

-Find your star.

I found it, Teacher-nim.

I finally found the star you spoke of.

From now on, I intend to move forward with that person.

I don’t know what kind of dawn this path will point to, but I won’t break.

As per your teachings, even when frustrated and crying, I will ultimately overcome the trials.

And so… I will carve my name into the highest night sky.

So that my story can be conveyed even to the sky where you became a star.

“Sob…”

Tears pouring out like a broken dam.

Beyond the horizon, dawn was breaking.

Her orange hair fluttered in the spring breeze.

The star-filled sky faded, and dazzling sunlight illuminated tomorrow.

The day, slowly awakening, was uniquely beautiful with its pure white.

The girl merely stood.

“Because… it’s just the beginning now.”

The fox was no longer trapped in iron bars.