Chapter of Long Ears

The tiger was able to satisfy its hunger for the first time in a while. The neck of its snatched prey broke softly.

Along with the sensation of the spine snapping, a mouthful of blood entered its maw. The Mountain Lord wrinkled its nose at the metallic smell, burying its head further into the limp prey.

The Mountain Lord’s meal continued deep in the mountains, untouched by human feet.

Despite the moniker of ‘King of the Mountain,’ the tiger tore at the prey’s body ravenously.

It ripped through the soft fur with its teeth, chewing on the tender flesh and organs with its molars.

It wanted to move the prey to a safer place to eat, but its rumbling stomach wouldn’t allow it.

After chewing on the meat for some time, the tiger startled, raising its head and looking around.

The tiger realized where it was. Surely, it hadn’t entered their territory.

It sniffed the air, gauging the boundaries. Thankfully, this was its own territory.

In truth, they weren’t scary. Only their leader was.

Thinking of the leader, its fur bristled involuntarily. Perhaps it was just a feeling, but the surrounding trees and grass seemed to waver.

The tiger finished its meal around the time the sun began to climb over the mountains.

The tiger tried to move the remaining torn and opened carcass to its den.

Just then, a chilling wind blew from the summit. The tiger leaped back, facing the wind.

Its front paws trembled, and its tail curled up on its own. To maintain the Mountain Lord’s reputation, which existed in name only, it lowered its body and growled.

Ancient trees, well over a hundred years old, bowed their heads, and the peaks, which had been embracing the gentle breeze, opened wide all at once.

A pungent fragrance began to fill the mountain.

And then another gust of wind blew.

The wind that swept down the mountain wrapped around the prey the tiger had just been feeding on.

And as if it had always been that way, the prey stood up abruptly.

Just as it had looked in the bushes, with a clean body without a single wound, the prey stood up.

The man stood up. He looked different from when he had been captured in the village.

The same face, the same build, the same scent, but something was different.

“Where is this now?”

The man’s demeanor, who had just been lying with his stomach cut open with dead eyes, had changed.

As if bored, as if used to it, he quickly scanned his surroundings and asked the massive beast before him.

The tiger could only growl, never having experienced such a situation.

“Ah… you can’t talk. That’s right. A talking tiger would be strange.”

The man examined his body, clad in tattered clothes. Then, he stepped into a puddle of blood on the ground.

With a splash, blood splattered onto a flower.

The man paused, glancing at the flower painted red, then pulled up his rags to cover his body.

While he modestly covered his upper body, the Mountain Lord began to circle the prey it had caught.

“Can’t I just go? It’d be nice if we didn’t waste each other’s energy.”

The man tossed the words out casually as he made a knot with the torn clothes, but the beast didn’t understand human speech.

Without any warning, the tiger darted forward like an arrow. The massive body soared into the air with the force of its hind legs.

Raising its right paw, the Mountain Lord intended to crush the man with its full weight.

Before the tiger’s attack could create a trajectory, the man, once the prey, moved his foot into the path of the trajectory.

Not too fast, not too slow, with the natural flow of water flowing from the top of a valley to the bottom.

Thud. Just as he had forced the northern warrior to kneel, he knocked the tiger back. The beast of the mountain did not retreat despite the pain in its abdomen.

The beast bared its teeth, aiming for the man’s neck as he came within its reach.

“Wow… I’m running out of strength.”

The man lifted the opening jaws with his hands.

He had the courage and skill, but the body to execute it was not trained.

As he continuously lifted the tiger’s increasingly wide-open maw, the man broke out in a cold sweat.

“I don’t mind dying, but… being bitten to death by a tiger would be too painful.”

The stench of death and rotting flesh from the beast’s mouth assaulted his nose.

His lips trembled as he lifted the beast’s jaw with both hands.

The man’s body gradually crumbled under the weight of the tiger, which leaned on him as if pressing him down.

“You son of a…”

With his breath growing ragged, the man foresaw the end of this world.

Whether he lived long or short, it was all the same anyway, so there was nothing to regret.

Just then, along with a thick floral scent, the sound of wind was heard.

Thwack! Blood splattered.

Bright red blood splattered across the man’s face.

Something protruded from the side of the tiger’s head, which had been opening its maw.

“An arrow?”

It was an oddly shaped arrow made of woven tree branches.

The massive beast collapsed to the side as it died.

The man also slumped down, gasping for breath.

He estimated the direction from which the arrow had come.

Through the gaps in the densely packed trees, he caught sight of a gaze watching him.

There was someone hiding under the thick greenery.

Their attire was similar to his, but there was one difference.

Long ears extending horizontally, golden eyes.

Even though he met the eyes of the woman with the mysterious impression, he did not avoid her.

Rather, as if she had discovered something fascinating, she stared at him as if trying to see through his soul.

‘I wish she would just leave.’

The fact that there was no hostility in the other person’s eyes was a good thing, but he declined to form a hasty relationship.

“Ah….”

Just as the other person opened their mouth to say something, he sensed the approach of a number of people.

“Young master! Young master Inho!!!!”

A number of men were rushing over, blowing whistles and shouting.

“!!!”

When he briefly turned his head towards the sound, the woman who had been observing Kang In-ho from under the shade of the trees suddenly disappeared.

Kang In-ho admired the woman’s movements, which even his own eyes could not follow, and waited for the voices of the people looking for him to grow closer.

The man who called out my name is called Bangja.

When I stood still, Bangja groped my body here and there, and after confirming that my body was intact, he let out a sigh of relief.

“Do you know how surprised I was?”

“Yes. I was surprised too.”

It was difficult to imitate the archaic way of speaking.

“To be carried away by a tiger and not have a single wound on your body… surely the Mountain God must have helped you, Young master.”

Bangja said while the young men of the village, hired by Bangja, were dismantling the skin of the fallen tiger.

“Not the Mountain God, but I received help from a woman.”

“A woman, you say? In these mountains?”

“See that arrow? Just before I was bitten by the tiger, a woman shot an arrow and killed it.”

When I pointed to the oddly shaped arrow made of woven tree branches, Bangja’s eyes began to waver.

“…Young master. By any chance, what did that woman look like?”

“I don’t know because I saw her from afar. Her eye color was unique, and her ears were long.”

When I conveyed what I had seen, the hands of the men dismantling the tiger stopped all at once.

“Y-Young master, let’s go to the village for now.”

“Huh? Isn’t the skinning not finished yet?”

I can see the men tidying up their places. What’s wrong with everyone?

“This is not the time to leisurely tear off tiger skin. Now that we know that they are here, we must leave the mountain quickly.”

“They?”

At my question, Bangja pounded his chest as if frustrated and shouted.

“Jang tribe! The Jang tribe are in this mountain!!”