Ch.84Is It True That You Engaged in Intimate Activities With the Princess?

# The Quest for Chinese Forces in Korea ended well.

Fortunately, the Villain’s Troupe came to pick me up—though I don’t know how they knew where I was—and I was able to escape the West Sea immediately by submarine.

The treatment afterward was a bonus.

Luckily, Dorothy was a Healer Hunter, even though she was also the official cancer character of Hunter’s Blood—timid with zero combat ability.

“I-I’ll treat you. P-p-please don’t kill me…!”

“…I won’t kill you.”

“H-haha, but! You j-just killed all those s-s-soldiers on the warship!”

“They were killed because they were prepared for it. You’re a good person, Dorothy. So I won’t kill you…”

“I-I’m a good person…?”

If there was any flaw in my statement, it was calling someone good when addressing a villain whose human rights had been revoked.

“I don’t kill kind women like Dorothy.”

“…! Th-thank you.”

It had been a very long time since Dorothy had received a compliment from an ordinary person(?).

Looking down at me lying in the submarine after returning to human form, she hesitated slightly but seemed secretly pleased.

“Phew… It’s fortunate that person escaped quickly…”

“…? Was someone else inside?”

“Ah, aaaah, it’s nothing at allllll!!!”

“??”

Anyway, I safely arrived back at my detached house…

“Hey, you can’t do that here!”

“Ms. Lee! Shinwoo isn’t like that, I’m telling you!”

…only to find this bizarre scene. What on earth was going on?

“Ah, Ms. Katarina. By the way, how did you know about my identity…”

“Se~cret! I’m absolutely not telling you.”

I never managed to learn from Katarina how she knew my identity, even on the submarine.

So I returned home with that unsettling feeling all the way to my front door.

But what I saw there made me forget that feeling entirely.

As soon as I arrived at my house, I was speechless at the grand spectacle before me—journalists spread out like an army and broadcasting vans from various stations.

“…Huh?”

“…Ah.”

“……Mr. Han Shinwoo?”

“……Yeah.”

“I-it’s Han Shinwoo!”

“There he is! Surround him immediately!”

Could my secret have been exposed to the whole world already?

If not that, then what was this crowd about?

Not just reporters from every Korean broadcasting station, but even YouTube streamers—all kinds of people started filming me with their phones.

I wanted to run away, but I was instantly surrounded.

“Ugh…”

“Sophia?!”

Sophia, who was trying to push through the crowd to reach me, turned pale blue as her misanthropy flared up.

That’s when it happened.

“Mr. Han Shinwoo. Have you seen the news?”

“What news…?”

“About Princess Kurumi! Everyone in the world already knows about your secret meeting with Princess Kurumi!”

“Please tell us how you two met!”

“……What?”

At least I could breathe a sigh of relief that the crowd wasn’t here about the monster incident in Jamsil.

However, hearing this strange rumor that was almost as dangerous, my face turned pale in less than a few seconds.

“What did you say…?”

***

Inside the mansion where Kurumi was staying.

The mansion that had been serving as the princess’s sanctuary even after the Lotte World incident.

Currently, four people were waiting for Princess Kurumi in the guest room.

However, except for the red-haired girl sitting at the far left on a cushion, everyone else was waiting for Kurumi in rudely comfortable postures.

Then…

Thump, thump, thump.

“Looks like she’s here.”

“That bastard child doesn’t even know her family is waiting…”

“At least she knows her place—her footsteps are quite hurried.”

Kurumi forcefully slid open the door and entered the guest room.

“…!!”

Upon seeing the four people in the room, Kurumi frowned visibly and shouted:

“What on earth have you done! My sisters and brothers!”

Looking at the fuming Kurumi, they laughed mockingly as if finding her reaction absurd.

They were only connected by blood.

They were the official “heir candidates” of the Kitsune Family, formally recognized by the family—unlike Kurumi, who had different birth parents and family rank.

“Kurumi, you’ve grown a lot. I never thought you’d dare to raise your voice in front of us.”

“Brother Rokyu…”

The man who immediately stood up at the illegitimate child’s presumptuous behavior.

He was the second oldest brother, Kitsune Rokyu, who had always played nasty pranks on Kurumi since childhood—dressed in a refined tuxedo with slick hair.

“Why are you so angry? …Oh! Is it because of that? Because we revealed your ‘servant’ to the public? Are you angry because you’re embarrassed about that?”

“…! Shinwoo is not a servant!”

“Well…”

Why was this girl acting like this?

In the past, she would have cowered and shut her mouth after just a few words from me.

Rokyu actually stepped back, surprised by Kurumi’s unexpectedly defiant attitude.

“Y-you…! Insolent girl!”

“Fufu. To think you’d speak so boldly to Brother Rokyu, a candidate for the next family head. You’ve grown a lot, Kurumi.”

“?! Sakura?”

At that moment, restraining her brother who had reflexively raised his hand, the third child of the Kitsune Family stepped in front of Kurumi.

She was Kitsune Sakura, the family’s genuine princess with an extremely innocent appearance, wearing the same red kimono as Kurumi.

“Kurumi~ Have you been well? It’s so nice to see you after so long, yes~”

“Sister Sakura…”

“What’s with ‘Sister’! Just call me ‘big sis’ like when we were little~”

“……”

Princess Sakura embraced Kurumi lovingly.

But knowing her true nature, Kurumi whispered into her ear with an ice-cold expression before pulling away:

“Sister Sakura. No matter what you do, I will never submit to you.”

“…That’s a shame. Even though you have the blood of a dirty whore mixed in, you’re still part of the family. I thought it would be fun to breed you with monsters.”

I wonder if she would still cry if I took her to my ‘farm’ now.

When she was little, I threw her naked into the pen where we controlled monsters, and she cried until dawn apologizing for nothing she’d done wrong.

‘Well, this defiance will disappear soon enough~’

Princess Sakura reminisced about the past while maintaining her sweet smile as she separated from Kurumi.

And finally.

“Kurumi…”

“…! Brother Katsuo.”

Though there were supposedly four candidates for the current head of the Kitsune Family, this man had essentially made it a foregone conclusion.

Seeing him walk through the space his half-siblings had cleared for him, Kurumi couldn’t help but feel tense despite her growth.

He was essentially confirmed as the next family head—a being on a different level.

Kitsune Katsuo, the eldest son of the Kitsune Family.

“I won’t say it twice.”

“……”

“Let’s return to Japan together.”

Her brother spoke with an emotionless expression, wearing a black kimono covered in flower patterns.

Even after all this time, facing him felt like confronting a machine, and Kurumi’s response was delayed for a moment.

And in that moment.

Slap!

A slap landed on Kurumi’s left cheek as if it were the most natural thing.

“I said I won’t say it twice.”

“Yes, brother…”

“Let’s go home, Kurumi. And it’s time you handed over the monsters inside your body that will become ours.”

That was the reason the direct descendants of the Kitsune Family had come looking for a mere illegitimate child.

To reclaim the four guardian monsters of the Kitsune Family that were being nurtured inside Kurumi’s body, having absorbed Amaterasu’s energy.

To become their new masters and be recognized as the true next direct descendants of the Kitsune Family.

But.

“Then you need to explain something first.”

“…? What?”

“About Shinwoo.”

Kurumi had something far more important on her mind.

Namely, the trouble Shinwoo had gotten into because of false rumors connecting him to her, which she discovered upon waking up.

“When I woke up this morning, there were strange reports about Shinwoo. That was all your doing, wasn’t it?”

“…Doing?”

“Kurumi, you…!”

“You insolent bastard child! How dare you speak so freely not only in front of us direct descendants but also before our eldest brother?!”

To the future family head, no less!

What on earth happened in Korea to make this child so insolent?

With such thoughts, Sakura and Rokyu were scolding Kurumi for losing her fear.

“Kurumi… you’re being noisy without knowing your place.”

Katsuo, standing in front of her, silently raised his hand again to silence her with another slap…

Rumble.

“Eek?!”

“W-what’s this?!”

“…!!?”

He tried to raise his hand, but…

“Kneel.”

What on earth was happening?

Thud!

At the illegitimate child’s single word, not only the second and third siblings who had been shouting…

“B-Brother Katsuo…?”

“Brother!”

“…Huh?!”

But even the man called the next head of the Kitsune Family.

Currently evaluated as the next National Authority-Level Hunter in Japan, even Katsuo had both knees pinned to the ground, unable to move.

Seeing this, the watching siblings quickly fell silent, with the most shocked naturally being the future family head, Katsuo.

‘What is this…?!’

He was currently experiencing a sensation as if his entire body was being pressed down by a being on a completely different level.

No matter how he tried to stand, his bones creaked, and his body was already drenched in cold sweat.

Still, he somehow managed to turn his head forward.

“Th-that…!”

For the first time, fear began to frost over Katsuo’s previously expressionless face.

And for good reason—the being that had emerged from behind the shadow of his illegitimate sister, whom he had treated like an insect.

It was the family’s cancer and the monster they had judged impossible to control…

“Amaterasu. Stay still for now.”

[If. She. Is. Attacked. One. More. Time. I. Will. Kill. Everyone.]

“No. We’re still talking.”

It was a genuine monster.

“Sisters and brothers. As you know, I’m a slow-witted illegitimate child who couldn’t even go to school and haven’t learned much. My actions are quite vulgar.”

“”…!””

“And I also have a bad memory, so I’ll only say this once.”

After taking a deep breath.

“If you mess with Shinwoo like this one more time, I’ll burn down the entire Kitsune Family, family ties be damned. Don’t ever appear before me again. Before I just kill you all.”