55. Finding Ice Fruit

55. Finding Ice Fruit

“Kkang!!”

Does this mean that those who dare to break the rules have no right to set foot here?

Hamster, rabbit, penguin. Animals with no common ground whatsoever attack me in unison, as if they’ve become one.

“I-I-I-Ice fruit is mine! I can’t give it to you!”

“Kkya-a-a-aek!”

“Hieek…!”

The penguin let out a scream that sounded like it’s crawling up from the depths of hell. It’s a voice so terrifying that my tail trembles.

But I can’t give up the ice fruit. I haven’t eaten ice fruit for a whole fifteen days. I have to go home with this ice fruit somehow.

“Kkang!”

The penguin lunged with its beak, and its tail fur brushed past me. Fortunately, unlike when I met a penguin before, my tail fur wasn’t torn in the shape of the penguin’s beak.

“Ugh!”

Finally, the rabbit’s kick flew towards me. A muscular leg sprouted from the white fluff and shot out at light speed!

“You, a rabbit, how dare you!”

“Biiik!”

I ducked to avoid the attack and swung my tail wide to knock it away. It wasn’t a major blow, but it was enough to make it stumble.

Taaat-!

The moment a gap appeared in the encirclement that surrounded me, I leaped powerfully and escaped the spot.

But the animals haven’t given up on me yet. Six pairs of eyes glare at me.

A strong and powerful wolf would have easily hunted three animals, but I still lacked the strength to fight three at once.

However, wolves aren’t strong just because of their physical strength.

They are strong because, along with their powerful bodies, they possess superior intelligence that allows them to strategize.

Thinking with my highly intelligent mind, the way to escape this crisis is…!

“Shine!”

Paaat-!

It’s to use magic!

I raised the stone high into the sky and shouted. Then, the transparent stone responded by glowing, and a moment later, a brilliant light swept through the area and exploded.

There was no physical impact, but when the light, brighter than the sun, flashed for an instant, the blinded animals went into a frenzy, fighting amongst themselves.

This is a flashbang, you stupid animals!

“Phew….”

Having escaped far away, I let out a sigh of relief after confirming that no one was around. Fortunately, the ice fruit was safely in my embrace.

“Hee hee….”

Delicious ice fruit. Sweet ice fruit. Sour ice fruit.

Just imagining it makes me hum a tune. But I can’t eat the ice fruit yet. Because I planned to find more ice fruit and share it with Sister and Seol-gu.

I need to find at least two more.

“Ice fruit… you must not go extinct. You have to live for a long, long time to be eaten deliciously, okay?”

I smiled, looking at the bluish ice fruit. The relationship between ice crystals and ice fruit that Sister told me about earlier flashed through my mind.

If ice crystals disappear, ice fruit will disappear too. If the ice fruit disappears, I will be truly sad. Seol-gu will also be sad.

Therefore, I have a duty to protect the North Pole so that the ice crystals do not disappear.

… However, since then, there haven’t been any particular unusual signs. Seol-gu just played around with a happy face without leading me anywhere.

Perhaps the only ones targeting the ice crystals were those mechanical worms and spiders, but Sister didn’t seem to think so.

Either way, there was nothing we could do immediately, and time flowed by endlessly until today.

“Okay, then I’ll find more ice fruit…”

At that moment, I heard a rustling sound.

I perked up my tail and pricked up my ears. The source of the sound was the ground, or rather, below it.

Something is crawling through the snow.

Could it be a machine looking for ice crystals?

It seemed to be hiding intentionally to avoid being discovered, but perhaps it couldn’t escape a wolf with excellent hearing. I got into position and stared at the snowy field.

If the source of this sound is a machine… then Magical Wolf Rang Seol-ah, the guardian of the North Pole, must stop it.

“One, two… now!”

Finally, when the source of the sound reached beneath my feet, I jumped high into the sky and plunged into the snow.

However, for some reason, there was nothing in the place where I dug into the snow. I couldn’t have misheard the sound, and this must be the place. It was all white snow.

“Ah… M-my body won’t come out!”

I tried to pull myself out with a puzzled expression, but perhaps I had gotten stuck too deep, as I couldn’t move my body at all. In the end, I ended up stuck in the snow.

It’s no use shaking my tail or kicking my legs. My stuck body doesn’t budge.

W-what should I do?

Should I have brought Seol-gu with me?

I can’t move like this. I can’t go out and ask for help.

If it takes too long, Sister will come looking for me, but I don’t know how long it will take her to find me.

Besides, it hasn’t been long since the polar night ended, so night will come very early.

Then, as night falls, wild animals will roam around, and they will see a wolf with its prized tail sticking out of the snow, stuck fast.

There’s no need to mention what will happen after that. The animal that finds me will swallow my glorious, magnificent tail in one bite!

“No!”

In a panic, I desperately kicked my feet, trying to free myself. At that moment, the snow around where I was stuck suddenly collapsed with a crackle.

“Kkang?!”

The snow that had been holding me no longer held me. Due to the momentum of my frantic shaking, I was pulled out of the hole and fell onto the snow.

“Ouch ouch….”

My butt hurts.

I wondered why the snow, which hadn’t budged until a moment ago, had collapsed. I suspected that something else must have been at play, rather than just me shaking my body.

I turned my head and… then I saw a small, white ball of fluff.

“You… a hamster!”

“Chik!”

One of the animals I had argued with over the ice fruit earlier, a polar hamster, had followed me. I quickly assumed a fighting stance and howled at the hamster.

“Kkyang!”

“Chik chik!”

“Kkya-a-ang!”

“Jji-i-ik!”

A fierce battle of nerves. A tense atmosphere prevails. Then, the hamster lunges at me!

“Kkang!! … Huh? Huh?”

The hamster runs past me and goes behind me, towards the hole I was stuck in. I thought it would naturally attack me, but I watched the hamster with a bit of bewilderment.

“Chik chik!”

“Jji-i-ik!”

Only then did I realize that I could hear multiple hamster squeaks. Looking closely, I could see a burrow where baby hamsters lived inside the hole I had fallen into.

“Huh….”

“Chik!”

The mother hamster stood protectively over her young and squeaked at me. She seemed wary of me for breaking the wall of her home.

As I stopped moving awkwardly, the hamster licked her babies repeatedly, grooming herself. The babies cried incessantly, asking their mother for food.

Are they… hungry?

I couldn’t see it because of their fur, but looking closely, the hamsters’ bellies were hollow. Not only the mother hamster but also the babies looked like they had been starving for a long time.

“Ah….”

It wasn’t just wolf suins who had trouble finding food during the polar night. Hamsters, rabbits, and penguins – no one was exempt from hunger during the polar night.

In that situation, I probably snatched the ice fruit that they had struggled to find. It’s likely the same for rabbits and penguins, not just hamsters.

I fidgeted, unsure of what to do.

Although I could dismiss it as the law of the jungle, something felt uneasy about it.

I won’t die if I don’t eat ice fruit. I have plenty of food at home, even if it’s not ice fruit. But what about these hamsters? What about these baby hamsters?

“Ugh….”

I looked back and forth between the hamster and the ice fruit in my hand.

It’s a perfectly ripe and luscious ice fruit. It would be delicious to eat. It’s sour, sweet, and cold, so it would surely be so delicious that my tail would spin.

But….

“… Hmph!”

I closed my eyes tightly and put the ice fruit into the hamster’s burrow. The hamster looked at me in surprise, but I ignored its gaze and ran forward without hesitation.

“Well, I can find more ice fruit!”

Who am I? I’m Rang Seol-ah, the magical wolf! I can find more ice fruit by asking the stone. If all else fails, I can just wait until Sister brings some back.

I shook my head vigorously to shake off any lingering attachment. According to my number one treasure, my picture book, a cool wolf never dwells on the past.

“Let’s go!!”

… Just before sunset, I managed to return home with one ice fruit.

It’s far short of my target of three, but if we divide it into three portions, we can share it. Even if the amount is small, sharing is what’s important.

“Kkang!”

It was truly a rewarding day.

——

“Seol-gu. Find the card with ‘ㅇ’ written on it among these cards.”

“Kkang!”

“That’s ‘k,’ isn’t it? Let’s try again.”

… While Seol-ah was looking for ice fruit, Seol-yeon continued to teach Seol-gu letters.

However, no matter how much she taught, progress was slow, and eventually, Seol-yeon changed her plan from teaching words and sentences to teaching consonants and vowels.

“Can you find ‘k’ here?”

“Kkang!”

“That’s ‘ㅇ,’ isn’t it? Seol-gu, can’t you understand what I’m saying?”

“Kkang!”

“… Haa, Seol-ah understands perfectly what Seol-gu is saying, but why can’t I understand anything?”

Seol-yeon’s plan seemed unlikely to succeed.