13. Going Home

13. Going Home

“You saw an Arctic fox?”

“Yes! It saved me!”

That white ball of fur helped me avoid getting hurt on the exploding ice field. Did the fox use some kind of mysterious magic to sense the explosion that had no warning? I don’t know how it did it, but in the end, I was helped, so it’s fine.

I think the setting of a fox using magic is usually applied to foxes with golden fur, but an Arctic fox is still a fox.

Just looking at its fluffy tail, which has a way of strangely mesmerizing people, you can tell that the term “fox” wasn’t attached to Arctic foxes for no reason. Of course, my tail is even bigger and fluffier, so I wasn’t mesmerized!

“Right, well, it’s good you weren’t hurt.”

“Yes, but Uncle, what exactly were you doing down there? Are eels that strong? And where is the eel you caught? Was it injured in the fight?”

I ran a short distance from Uncle, who was scratching his head vigorously, and asked.

I clearly heard him say he was going to catch an eel, but the result was the great destruction of the ice field.

Moreover, Uncle’s sturdy body had various wounds, and blood was flowing profusely. I’m sure whatever an eel is in this world, it’s no ordinary creature.

In the first place, the eels I know are fish with long, slippery bodies that move in a “Waa-ra-la-la” fashion. They wouldn’t be able to generate vibrations that shake the ground with a “Ku-gung,” so I wanted to see what it looked like.

Given that Uncle came out like this, he must have succeeded in the hunt, but where is the prey!

To my barrage of questions, Uncle sighed after a moment and opened his mouth.

“It wasn’t just an eel.”

“Huh? Then what was it?”

“Eels are generally only large and soft, and weak. They’re also timid, so if you hit them a bit, they’ll curl their fins and escape underground. But that thing… sigh.”

Uncle paused to catch his breath and continued.

“It was… a fish made of steel? An eel? I don’t know what it was, but anyway….”

“Explain it in detail!”

Adults always explain things poorly. This was a rule that applied in my past life, and it’s the same now. They ramble about things only they understand and leave the interpretation to others. It’s like the speaking style of a university professor.

Of course, as an excellent wolf, interpreting what he says isn’t difficult for me, but first, I need him to tell me something so I can interpret it.

Uncle described its appearance with gestures.

“It was a big one. About tens of meters long, like an eel. It made some strange creaking noises, and like an eel, it wriggled its body and dug through the ground. Also, it was hard to see clearly because it was underwater, so I just thought it was an eel and hit it, but the texture felt different.”

Huk.

Tens of meters!

My big fluffy tail is about 1 meter long… so it’s as long as dozens of tails. It’s hard to imagine. It seems bigger than the Wyvern the villagers caught recently.

While I was comparing the size of my tail and the air, Uncle continued.

“It felt like hitting a steel plate… no, a steel ingot. As if it was offended by being hit, it looked at me with the spot where it was hit indented. Then it opened its mouth, and the inside glowed red, and suddenly a beam of light shot out… phew.”

“A beam?”

“Yes. What broke the ice field earlier, that was it.”

I thought the ice field exploded because Uncle was fighting, but it seems that wasn’t the case. A giant steel eel that shoots beams from its mouth.

Cool!

“When the light shone, I could vaguely see its form, and it wasn’t an eel. Its body was made of steel, covered with all sorts of mechanical devices, and it moved while spinning around… I was so flustered when I saw that.”

“Mechanical? So it’s a mechanical steel eel?”

“Huh? I guess so?”

“Do things like that live in the lake?!”

“If they lived there, would I have been flustered? I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

A giant mechanical steel eel that shoots beams from its mouth…

So cool!

I wish I could shoot beams from my mouth too. That would be really cool. I could shoot beams into the sky and show everyone, and it would be incredibly helpful when hunting….

But I’m still a young wolf. At least for now, I can’t shoot laser beams from my mouth. But the world is wide and time is plentiful, so maybe someday I’ll be able to shoot beams too.

“After I hit it a few more times, it swam away somewhere. The wounds were just scratches from when it was causing so much trouble. And….”

I couldn’t hear Uncle’s words anymore. I was lost in imagining the cool image of a wolf shooting destructive beams from its mouth, and after wagging my tail and giggling to myself several times, I snapped back to reality and found myself in front of Sister.

“Ugh!”

Uncle tossed me to Sister and, with a light wave, walked away to find Dad. It seemed he had something to tell Dad.

Sister asked.

“Seol-ah, are you hurt anywhere? You weren’t dragged into the water while fishing, were you? Or maybe you were eaten by a fish….”

“No way! I’m such a good fisher!”

I had to quickly show Sister the giant fish I caught, as she didn’t seem to believe me at all. I pointed to the fish container Uncle had left, but Sister asked about something else first.

“And what was Uncle doing there? Why are there so many wounds….”

“Uncle said he got a few scratches while catching a giant mechanical steel eel that shoots beams from its mouth. He said it’s nothing serious.”

“Beams… what?”

“A giant mechanical steel eel that shoots beams!”

Sister seemed to find my words hard to believe and showed a look of contemplation several times. I shouted with my arms spread wide, emphasizing that it was true, but my cry didn’t seem to reach her heart. Sister spoke to me in a tone used to soothe a child.

“Yes, yes. It’s good that you weren’t hurt. You said you caught a fish earlier, right?”

“Yes!”

“Shall we go see it?”

“Yes!!”

Although I had been confined to home for the past few days, I am actually friends with other tribe members. This is undoubtedly due to my excellent sociability and this fluffy tail. Thanks to my irresistibly fluffy tail fur that everyone wants to reach out and stroke, I’ve been able to become friends with most wolf suin.

That’s why I was on friendly terms with the Auntie who was preparing the fish next to the fish container. The wolf suin Auntie with permed hair greeted me warmly.

“Oh, Seol-ah, have you been well? I heard you went hunting recently?”

“Yes! I caught a rabbit!”

“That’s amazing.”

Receiving praise made my tail wiggle uncontrollably. I led Sister to the fish container, shaking my hips with a sway.

“Look! Here’s the giant… Huh?”

However, the fish container was empty. Only the remaining snow and ice inside told me that something had been there. Sister said.

“There’s nothing here?”

“No way! I definitely caught a huge fish…!”

I deliberately didn’t give it to the fluffy creature, which was licking its lips while looking at the giant fish, because I wanted to show it to Sister. Even when I was bored while fishing, I recharged my energy by looking at that fish, but where did it go!

As I frantically looked around, the Auntie said.

“Are you perhaps talking about the fish in this container?”

“Yes! Did you happen to see it…?”

“Oh my, I dismantled all of it for preparation….”

Huk.

Huk!

Huk!!

“Th-then, where’s my fish…?”

“It’s probably mixed in somewhere over there?”

The Auntie pointed to the piles of prepared fish in various containers and said. With so many containers and so many fish piled up, it seemed almost impossible to find any trace of my fish among them. Moreover, even if I found the fish, its majestic appearance would be gone.

Thud, I knelt on the snowfield in despair.

My fluffy tail, having lost all its strength, drooped limply. My triangular ears, which had been perked up with the anticipation of showing it to Sister, also fell powerlessly and folded.

Snow falls from the sky, and tears fall from my eyes.

“Sob, sob….”

“Seol-ah. It’s okay, you can go fishing again later….”

“Fishing is boring… sob.”

The moment a fish bites is exciting, but the waiting time is boring and not fun at all. And I have to do it again!

Besides, the first time always has a big impact, but the second time isn’t as surprising. So, even if I fish again, Sister won’t be surprised.

In short, everything is ruined!

I said, whimpering.

“I want to go home….”

“Okay, let’s get on my back, my Seol-ah.”

Although she said to get on her back, Sister picked me up by the nape of my neck and walked home. I was held by Sister’s hand, swaying limply, as we headed home.

My limp tail dragged on the ground. Next to Sister’s footprints in the snow, the trail of my tail dragging was clearly visible. It looked so silly that it was funny.

So, just as I felt like I might start laughing, I remembered that I had been feeling down earlier and quickly put on a sad, gloomy expression.

But then, every time I felt the sensation of my tail dragging and brushing against the snow, I would start laughing again….

After repeating the cycle of laughing and crying, laughing and crying, I was finally able to remove that strange expression from my face only after arriving home.

After a moment of pouting at Sister’s petting, I felt something tap-tap inside my tail.

“Oh, right! Sister, I saw a fox again today!”

“A fox…?”

“Yes! And I got a really pretty stone!”

I pushed my face into my tail and pulled out a transparent stone that sparkled beautifully from within.