NTH 124

Muttering as if in resignation, Gu Minho snatched the medicine bottle from Chaewoo’s hand. Grasping the bottle with his fernbrake-like hand, he poured the black liquid inside into his mouth without leaving a drop. Chaewoo quietly watched as his slender throat undulated as he swallowed the medicine.

Just then. The sound of someone running at full speed was heard from outside, and then the door to the abandoned house flew open with a deolkeok. Chaewoo, his eyes wide, turned around to see an unexpected figure standing there, panting.

“Haa, haa…, so it was true after all.”

Yonggeol, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, raised the corners of his mouth and smiled coldly. Chaewoo, startled as if he had had a seizure, quickly moved his body to block Gu Minho’s front with his broad back. Yonggeol, who had entered the room without even taking off his shoes, pulled an arrow from the quiver on his back and nocked it on his bow.

“Move. Or I’ll shoot you first.”

At his ice-cold words, Chaewoo spread his arms wide. From behind him, he heard the sound of Gu Minho coughing with a kollok. He hadn’t even been able to see what effect the medicine had yet, and a cold sweat ran down Chaewoo’s back, worried about what he would do if he was vomiting blood like the mouse that had died earlier.

“Why did you lie and say the red medicine was the antidote?”

As Chaewoo, still sitting, looked up at Yonggeol and asked, he raised his bow and aimed it at his chest.

“Because I was suspicious of you.”

“What…, why me?”

Chaewoo furrowed his brow. When they were talking on the porch, Yonggeol had done most of the talking, and Chaewoo only remembered chiming in from time to time. So what aspect of him had been suspicious?

“You don’t seem to know at all, but you’re not skilled at lying. It was so obvious.”

Yonggeol was convinced that Chaewoo was hiding the gumiho cub through his awkward words and actions. At first, Chaewoo had tried to insist that there was no such thing as a gumiho.

「Where in the world would such an animal exist? It sounds like a mythical creature from an old tale.」

「A g-gumiho… What n-nonsensical talk…」

「About that gumiho story from earlier, you said it was small and had two tails instead of nine. Then couldn’t it be another animal that was just born with a deformity, not a monster? Like a dog, or a wolf…」

When he could no longer refute the existence of the gumiho after Yonggeol told him the story of witnessing it with his own eyes, he then casually threw out the question of whether it was really necessary to kill the gumiho cub.

「But your father’s matter is truly sad and mournful, but now that you’ve killed the gumiho, shouldn’t it all be over…?」

「Haha, is that so. From what you said earlier, it felt like a very small and powerless thing, so I was just thinking it might starve to death if you just left it alone…」

And then later, hadn’t he asked this crucial question?

「It’s about that deadly poison you said you made yourself. Is there perhaps something like an antidote?」

Through this flow of conversation, Yonggeol came to suspect not only that Chaewoo had seen the gumiho cub, but that he was also hiding the injured creature.

If Chaewoo was truly unrelated to the gumiho cub, nothing would happen, but if he tried to help the gumiho, he would surely try to steal the antidote from Yonggeol and feed it to the creature. That was why Yonggeol had deliberately shown Chaewoo the red-colored deadly poison and fed him the false information that it was the antidote.

Yonggeol’s only mistake was not hiding the real antidote, the black medicine, somewhere else and keeping it in his bosom along with the red medicine. He had not expected that Chaewoo would take both types of medicine and be able to distinguish the real antidote.

“For your information, I am originally a heavy drinker. Even if I drink twice what I drank earlier, I never get drunk and lose my senses.”

Startled by Yonggeol’s words, Chaewoo’s eyes widened.

“Then you mean you knew I was stealing the medicine and pretended to be asleep drunk?”

“Yes. Because if I secretly followed you, I would reach the place where the gumiho was hiding. Your steps were so fast that I lost you in the middle and wandered a bit, but in the end, I found the hiding place, didn’t I? Just like this.”

Chaewoo bit his lower lip. The thought that Gu Minho might meet his death in this place because of his own foolishness in not noticing that Yonggeol was awake and was following him made his chest feel tight and resentful.

In the meantime, Yonggeol put more strength into the hand that was drawing the bowstring.

“I’m going to end it now, so move.”

“…Can’t you just pretend you didn’t see?”

“I really don’t understand. Why are you, a human, trying to protect that monster? Do you think you could still spew such nonsense if your father had been eaten alive by a monster?”

Chaewoo let out a short, dry breath. A moment ago, Gu Minho had also said that he couldn’t understand Chaewoo at all, that he wouldn’t be able to understand Chaewoo’s feelings even if he were to die and be reborn.

But this time, Yonggeol, a fellow human, also said he couldn’t understand Chaewoo. Were his heart and actions really that abnormal?

“The gumiho that killed your father, you already got rid of it. So why are you trying to kill a child who hasn’t done anything wrong yet?”

I rescued a creature that was injured and bleeding. I worked hard to feed it, treat it, and wash it. I know well that given this creature’s arrogant personality, it won’t feel gratitude toward me, nor will it repay my kindness like the beasts in old tales. But I know for a fact that it is entrusting its life solely to me, I know that if I turn away, it will die right here, so is it so strange that I want to save it?

That is compassion, the heart of a human.

“Ha! This is truly absurd! By the time that thing tears your child’s chest and rips out its liver, it will be too late to beat the ground and regret it, you utter fool of a child!”

“If that’s the case, then if another gumiho comes for revenge after you kill this one and tears your body to shreds, you won’t have anything to say, will you!”

“What did you just say? You little punk! Get the hell out of the way now!”

“I won’t! Don’t shoot!”

Chaewoo shot up and lunged at Yonggeol. As Yonggeol fell backward from the sudden attack and dropped his bow, Chaewoo got on top of him and held him down with his whole body, shouting at Gu Minho.

“Go quickly! Run away!”

“This moron! Get off me!”

“Ueok!”

Even while being punched in the face, Chaewoo clung to Yonggeol and did not let go. When Yonggeol finally managed to kick Chaewoo off his body, he curled up and hugged Yonggeol’s bow.

As Yonggeol, having no other choice, picked up a fallen arrow and was about to throw it at Gu Minho, an intensely bright light that seemed to blind him poured out from Gu Minho’s body.

“Min…!!!”

The light disappeared in an instant. Gu Minho’s revealed body had grown to the size of a full-grown fox, not a cub. As soon as he stood up and raised his tail high, Yonggeol shouted loudly.

“Damn it! His tails have increased!”

In that brief moment, Chaewoo’s eyes met Gu Minho’s. His eyes, with pupils long and vertical like a cat’s, shone with a bluish light. Although he did not move his mouth at all, Chaewoo felt as if he had heard his voice.

「I trusted you.」

With a shweek sound, Gu Minho slipped outside. He was so fast he was like a white snowstorm. Yonggeol, who had come to his senses, shot up and ran outside, but he couldn’t find even a trace of Gu Minho. Seeing Chaewoo who had followed him outside, Yonggeol flew into a rage and shouted furiously.

“You half-wit! You idiot! You son of a bitch! Because of you, I lost the monster I had all but caught! You are the monster, you inhuman thing!”

Chaewoo lowered his gaze. He had nothing to say to Yonggeol. He had ruined the revenge he had been honing for a long time, and he had even stolen the antidote and used it as he pleased, so he deserved to be cursed at.

And yet, more than Yonggeol’s curses, he felt a lingering sadness that he had not been able to say a proper farewell to Gu Minho. The words he had heard at the end, ‘I trusted you,’ were they Gu Minho’s true feelings, or were they just an auditory hallucination?

Still, he had saved him. The antidote must have worked properly. He had seen him grow up splendidly and sprout another tail, and he had confirmed that he had escaped safely, so that was enough. He felt a little sorry for Yonggeol, but Chaewoo was satisfied with that.

“Don’t think this is the end. Do you think I, who devoted three years to catching the big one, would care about a little thing like time?”

Yonggeol, grinding his teeth, glared at Chaewoo and clenched his fists. Chaewoo couldn’t find the words to reply and bowed his head.

“I am sorry for what I did to you.”

“Just you wait. As long as I’m breathing, I will hunt that thing down to the very end and kill it for sure. I’ll make a special trip back here to smash its fox marble right before your eyes.”

“…”

“I hope you’re still alive until then. No, with that weak heart of yours, you’ll probably be eaten by a monster and die even before the gumiho cub does. Hmph!”

Yonggeol, snorting loudly, gathered his bow and arrows and left without a backward glance. Dawn was already breaking.

Several years passed since then. In the meantime, the eldest hyung-nim, Woongrae, married a lovely maiden from the farmer village, and the second, Gaedol, and the third, Mansun, were introduced to a merchant they knew and got jobs at a large medicine shop in the capital. Chaewoo was left alone in the house where the four of them had lived together.

Chaewoo went with Woongrae to dig for medicinal herbs in place of Gaedol and Mansun. He grew to be eight feet tall, his shoulders broadened even more, and his arm and chest muscles became brawny, making him a gallant and sturdy man who was the object of admiration for the women of the farmer village.

Chaewoo sometimes thought of Gu Minho. When he sat alone on the porch at dusk when the sunset colored the sky red, eating boiled beans, the memory of sitting in this spot with him would suddenly come to mind.

I wonder if he’s doing well. I wonder if he’s still being chased by Yonggeol. Where is he getting his yang energy? Surely he’s not eating human livers. I hope we can meet again, but even if we can’t, I hope he lives a long life without any ailments and one day becomes a magnificent gumiho as big as a house. It would be even better if he doesn’t harm people.

When he went down to the village with Woongrae to sell medicinal herbs, Chaewoo would be away from home for several days. One day, after making the rounds at several villages selling herbs and returning home after a fortnight, Chaewoo discovered someone sitting on the porch of his house. It was a boy who looked to be about twelve or thirteen years old.

“Where did you come from? Whose son are you?”

Chaewoo asked as he took off the A-frame carrier from his back and set it down. The boy had a fair face and his eyes were long and slender. Suddenly recalling someone from that face, Chaewoo’s heartbeat began to quicken.

“You’re overflowing with yang energy, but it seems you have no place to use it. What a waste.”

Hearing the boy’s voice, Chaewoo threw down the staff he had been using as a walking stick and rushed toward him. As he pulled the thin body into a tight embrace, the boy spat out coolly.

“Why don’t you wash up first? You reek.”

“It’s because I sweated a lot while climbing the mountain.”

Chaewoo, who had grasped Gu Minho’s small shoulders with his large hands, looked closely at his face.

“Have you been well? Are you hurt anywhere?”

“No.”

“Did the poison really disappear completely back then?”

“Yes.”

“Weren’t you being chased by Yonggeol, I mean, that monster hunter from before?”

Seeing Chaewoo asking with a face full of worry, Gu Minho smirked.

“I grew another tail, didn’t I?”

“Yes.”

“A human’s speed cannot catch up to the movements of a gumiho with three tails.”

“But that man is cunning. He could hang poison pouches and set traps again.”

“I memorized that bastard’s scent perfectly that day. A gumiho never forgets a scent it has memorized once, and its nose is a hundred times sharper than a human’s.”

“Yonggeol said he got a talisman from a spiritually powerful monk! He said that if he uses it, a gumiho can’t smell him!”

“There’s no need to worry about that monk who killed countless monsters. His life ran out, and he died last year. All the monsters were so happy, the news even reached me, who was deep in the mountains.”

Only then did a big, bright smile spread across Chaewoo’s face.

“Then I can rest assured. What a relief.”

Gu Minho glanced at his smile, but there was no particular change in his expression. Suddenly, a loud noise like thunder rumbling rumbled from Chaewoo’s stomach. Embarrassed, Chaewoo quickly made an excuse.

“Well, I didn’t have much to eat on my way back here, so I was a bit starved.”

Gu Minho pointed indifferently at the end of the yard with his finger.

“I brought some food and put it in the shed, so go eat.”

“There’s food? In the shed?”