The Legend of the Fox Yokai of Jirisan

It was a perfectly clear day without a single cloud.
From the beautiful chirping of the birds in the mountain, it seemed like a good morning when something fortunate might happen.
However, here.
At the Yokai Extermination Office of Jirisan National Park, a veritable pandemonium had erupted, akin to a battlefield.

“Report the location! Give me the precise location with a margin of error within 5!”
“Sector 4, Point 45… No, correction! Sector 5, Point 1!”
“Damn, why is it moving so fast…! What are the yolyeok readings?”
“It’s too fast for accurate measurements! Estimating from the scale of destruction, it’s at least Grade 4…!”
“This is chaos, pure chaos. Any word from Squad 4?”
“…None. We’ve lost contact since an hour ago.”
“Dammit!”

Lee Han-wool, the Director and Grade 4 Section Chief of the Jirisan National Park Yokai Extermination Office, clicked his tongue and furiously scratched his head.
His already thin hair was further thinning, though why he kept messing with it was a mystery to Han-wool himself, his team leader, and even the newly hired Grade 9 official.
That’s how dire the situation was.
After all, it was the fox yokai that had reappeared after a full 2 years.

2 years ago, when the fox yokai was first detected in Jirisan, he had foolishly let it slip away.
Ironically, it was due to his sense of duty as a civil servant.
Even with the entire office personnel deployed, it wouldn’t have been enough to exterminate the fox yokai, but adhering to that damn civil servant manual, he had conserved manpower, resulting in failure.
While receiving a reprimand from the higher-ups, his inner rage had festered.
If that’s how it is, they should revise the Yokai Extermination Manual.

[Yokai Extermination Manual #1]

When dispatching personnel to exterminate yokai, the dispatched personnel must not exceed half of the total office staff.

I get the intention.
It’s to ensure there are still personnel guarding the base in case of an attack.
Anyway, the fox yokai that reappeared after 2 years had grown tremendously, far beyond its power 2 years ago, presumably from training diligently.
Han-wool resolved that he would definitely exterminate the fox yokai this time.

Not for achievements, but look at the result of leaving the fox yokai alone for 2 years.
A fox yokai that was merely Grade 6 in yolyeok had rapidly grown to Grade 4 and revealed itself to the world again.
If he failed to exterminate it this time…
‘It would be a catastrophe. At this rate of growth… it might reappear not as Grade 4, but Grade 3.’

The Yokai Extermination Office could somehow handle up to Grade 4 yokai with their capabilities.
But from Grade 3 and above, it far exceeded the office’s abilities.
That’s because Grade 3 yokai and higher warranted an emergency evacuation alarm for a major disaster.
At minimum, they would need to call upon a renowned Taoist to barely suppress it.

In that sense,
As the Director of the Jirisan Yokai Extermination Office, Han-wool made a decision.

“…All combat personnel, arm yourselves.”
“Di, Director, but according to the manual…”
“Manual? Screw that, I’ll take responsibility.”
“Di, Director…! Understood! All personnel, arm yourselves!”

Indeed.
He was a civil servant brimming with a sense of duty, a rarity these days.
Having resolved to definitely exterminate the fox yokai this time, he soon headed out carrying an anti-yokai sniper rifle.

In the olden days, when tigers smoked tobacco for fun,
There was a fox yokai that only bared its fangs on moonlit nights.
Its name was the Demonic Fox Vollya, the blue-furred fox yokai of moonlight.

Summer (June).
Yi Ho-sang, a scholar of humble birth who had passed the national examination, set out on the long journey home to quickly share the joyous news with his aging mother, who had endured a difficult life as a concubine.

About 2 weeks into his return journey,
Weary from the mountain trails, Yi Ho-sang stopped at an inn and asked the innkeeper for drinks to soothe his fatigue. But he sensed something strange – the innkeeper’s expression seemed unnaturally exhausted.
Her expression was darker than Ho-sang’s friend who had failed the national exam, so he asked her what was wrong. With a sigh, the innkeeper said:

“Oh, it’s such a strange occurrence. The entire village is in an uproar because of this ominous blue fox. That damned blue-furred fox is so ominous that even the village’s best hunter, the son of the miller, fell victim to it… What are we to do…”

Perplexed by the innkeeper’s words, Ho-sang said:
“Have you reported it to the County Magistrate? I’ve heard this county’s Magistrate is an upright man who truly cares for the people.”

“It’s been five days since our headman left the village to report to the Magistrate. I’m gravely worried that something might have happened to him on the way back, leaving me behind.”

Indeed, it was a strange occurrence, just as the innkeeper described.
As an aspiring official who took the national exam to become an upright bureaucrat, Ho-sang could not simply ignore this ominous incident.
So he gathered the village hunters and blacksmiths known for their might, and they set out to hunt down the ominous fox.
All of them, including Ho-sang, ended up having their livers eaten by the ominous fox yokai and died.
Not long after, the village was annihilated.

Autumn (September).
The upright County Magistrate set out to hunt the fox, following the mountain range. While fox hunting, the Magistrate discovered the exceptionally rare blue-furred fox. To capture the blue fox, the Magistrate and his county soldiers simultaneously opened fire, but not a single arrow struck the blue fox.
Astonished by this strange phenomenon, the upright Magistrate suspected this might be the same ominous fox yokai that had attacked the village. So he led the entire county army to launch a full-scale operation to exterminate the fox yokai. Indeed, he was an upright Magistrate who cared deeply for his people.
However, despite scouring the mountains for a full day, the ominous fox did not reveal itself again, and the operation to exterminate the blue-furred fox yokai ultimately failed.
Some time later,
The upright Magistrate was found dead, his eyes wide open and liver devoured.

Winter (December).
A scholar who went into the mountains to gather firewood to endure the cold winter discovered a blue-furred fox shivering violently.
Feeling pity for the fox, the scholar asked if it wanted something to eat. The fox replied:
“A liver. Give me a fresh liver. Before going into hibernation, I must eat a liver.”

As the fox seemed gravely ill, it could have easily fled, but the scholar was somehow entranced and willingly offered up his own liver.
The fox then devoured about half of the scholar’s liver, yet the scholar did not die.
Puzzled by this, the blue fox asked the scholar:
“Clearly I have eaten half your liver, yet why do you not die?”

The scholar said:
“According to the ancient texts, the human liver has exceptional regenerative abilities, so losing merely half would not lead to death.”

Having gained this unexpected knowledge, the blue fox sincerely thanked the scholar.
But the fox said:
“However, that does not seem reason enough for me to spare your life. I am extremely hungry now, and must devour a whole liver to enter hibernation…”

Afterwards, the blue fox fully devoured the scholar’s liver before going into hibernation.
This is
The final record of the ominous, blue-furred fox.

Crunch crunch.
Crunch crunch crunch.
Crunch.
Crunch crunch.
Crunch crunch crunch.

“Nngh…ughhhh…”

The savage sounds of bones being crunched and a human’s anguished groans echoed through Jirisan.
For the blue fox to smoothly devour the liver, removing the ribs was not an option but a necessity. The blue fox greedily devoured the man’s liver, indifferent to the cries that would torment any human soul.

[Delicious. Truly a feast after five hundred years.]

“Nngh… Just, just kill me, damn iiiiit!”

At the man’s scream laced with resentment, the blue fox paused her feasting and asked the human out of sincere curiosity:

[Why should I kill you? As I know, the human liver has excellent regenerative abilities, so as long as you don’t die, I can devour it indefinitely.]

In the past, she hadn’t known that, so she had killed humans first before feasting. But she had acquired new knowledge from a certain scholar.
Having spoken, the blue fox resumed devouring the man’s liver.
However, she did not completely consume it.
Eating it all would exhaust even the pitiful human’s life force, and then the liver could not regenerate.
She ate only about half.

“Nngh. Nngh. Nngh.”

The man who had his liver taken could no longer even scream, yet he did not lose consciousness.
Perhaps the blue fox yokai had used some trick.

[Ah, how beautiful…]

The blue fox gazed somewhere with an ominous smile.
At the end of her gaze,
“Urgghhhh…”
“Mommy, mommy, mommy…”
“My intestines… my intestines are spilling out…”

Were dozens of humans hung upside-down from trees, their internal organs fully exposed as they cried out in agony.
For a five-hundred-year-old fox yokai, using tricks to prevent humans from dying was not particularly difficult.
If she left them tied up in the trees and continuously poured in yolyeok, she could probably harvest fresh livers within a month at most.

The blue-furred fox yokai let out a pleasured moan and spoke.

[More livers are needed.]

She had only a single tail.