The Legend of the Fox Yokai of Jirisan

“…Ho, Miho!”
“…”
“Miho, wake up, Miho! There’s big trouble, an emergency, an emergenccyyyyyyy! No, not an emergency for you, but a golden opportunity maybe? Anyway, wake up!!!”

Ah.
So noisy.
Depo’s loud yelling woke me from my deep slumber.
With bleary eyes, I greeted Depo good morning.

“Good morning, Lightning Squirrel.”
“Good morning, my ass! It’s night, you idiot, you moron! And that’s the reaction from a yokai waking up after four months?”
“Chick chick chick. Chick chick chick chick. Chick chick chick chick chick.”
“Don’t cry like that, squirrel, Miho…”

Seeing Depo’s pouting expression, I marveled at the rich ink-like scent I hadn’t smelled in a long time.
The smell has grown stronger, hasn’t it?
Did the number of yokai increase while I was obliviously asleep?

“Ah, anyway, there’s big trouble, Miho!”
“Nngh… Yawn. Yeah, big trouble. My lifespan just shortened again because you woke me up, Depo…”

The fact that I could not absorb yolyeok for ‘some reason’ and had no choice but to sleep was a well-known tale in this inner realm of Jirisan.
It had already been 2 years since I became a fox yokai.
Naturally, in those 2 years, I had not touched a single human male.
I disliked eating livers, and even more so devouring life force.
Yolyeok was such a wasteful energy that drained from the body like the ebbing tide, even if I just sat there breathing.
To delay death a little longer, the only thing I could do was sleep up in the trees.
Fortunately, sleeping did reduce my yolyeok consumption.
The yolyeok I have left now is probably…
…enough for about 3 months?

One facing imminent death… No, unbecoming of a yokai, I was calmer than expected.
I had accepted my reality.
Why, there is a saying about the five stages of death, after all.
Stages 1 and 2, denial and anger.
The day I denied and raged at the fact that I had to eat or devour human males to absorb yolyeok.
I used up more than half of my yolyeok reserves then. Even thinking back now, it was an extremely foolish act.

Stage 3, bargaining.
Desperate, I approached all sorts of yokai hiding in this inner realm, begging them to save me.
The Lord of the Mountain, Old Swindler Turtle, Flameflower Fairy.
The Golden Pig, the Two-Headed Four-Eyed Monster.
I even went so far as to beg evil ghouls like a dog. No, like a fox.
However, not only was the existence of a ‘fox yokai’ itself extremely rare, I was the first fox yokai with multiple tails since the nine-tailed gumiho Daji of the Shang Dynasty.
There was no yokai with knowledge that could help me.
…Except the Lord of the Mountain.
He seemed to know something, but the Lord was more of an observer.
No matter how desperately I asked, his responses were always cryptic, so I gave up expecting anything from him.

Stage 4, depression.
Unable to see any solution, I fell into severe depression.
Even when Depo chattered endlessly at me.
Even when a yokai I had never seen before bared its fangs at me.
I had no desire to react at all.
What was the point of conversing with other beings?
I was fated to die anyway.

The last.
Stage 5.
Acceptance.
My current state.
I had accepted death.
As an individual, meddling with human males was more undesirable than death itself.
Yet I was still afraid of dying from the inability to absorb yolyeok.
But either way, I had accepted it.
Pondering brought no brilliant ideas, and taking action did not change the situation.
I had accepted it.

“…So it seems Miho needs to step up… What do you think? It will definitely help you too.”

Ah.
Lost in my wandering thoughts, I didn’t hear anything Depo said.
In this situation,
I might as well just pretend to sleep.

“Miho?”
“…”
“Miho, Miho, Miho, Miho, Miho.”
“Grr.”
“Don’t pretend to sleep, Miho!”

Busted.
This squirrel is unnecessarily perceptive.
So.

“What happened? I didn’t hear anything because my mind was elsewhere.”
Being honest, Depo sighed and kindly explained again.

“Jirisan is in chaos, Miho. It’s on the verge of becoming a hellish sea of fire, so it’s no time to be sleeping peacefully!”
“Jirisan was already hell, chick chick.”
“Not a metaphor, I mean literally! The Demonic Fox has awoken!”
“Demonic Fox? A fox yokai?”
I pointed at my own face and asked.
“Me?”
“No, a different fox yokai, not Miho…”
“…There was another fox yokai in this inner realm besides me?”
“No, not awakening within the inner realm…”
Soon, Depo pointed with his finger towards the portal’s direction and continued.
“It awoke outside.”

Depo’s subsequent explanation was quite shocking.
The unidentified fox yokai that awoke outside the inner realm, in the human world, immediately began devouring human livers indiscriminately upon awakening.
Its rampage was so disastrous that even the yokai quietly residing within the inner realm could sense its wicked aura.

It was strange.
The Jirisan Yokai Extermination Office was not an organization to be taken lightly.
After all, it was established to monitor Jirisan’s inner realm and eliminate any yokai escaping from it, so it was only natural they would possess a certain level of force.

In other words,
This fox yokai was so powerful that not even the Extermination Office could stop it.

Hmm.
Quite an interesting and amusing tale.
So what?
Why list out these details that have nothing to do with me?
It’s not even a story from within the inner realm, but from the outside.
Whether they call upon Taoists or Martial Artists, the humans can deal with it themselves.

I yawned again and told Depo:
“I heard you, Depo. Now I’ll go back to sleep, Depo. Since I can probably live another 3 months or so, wake me up after 2 months and 29 days. I’ll say my final farewells then…”

“You fool! Idiot, blockhead!”
Depo’s following words:
“This could be Miho’s golden opportunity to survive!”

Thump.
Without realizing it, I roughly grabbed Depo and asked:
“How? Why? What’s the basis? What’s the reason, why?”

“…Look at this, Miho.”
Depo said further:
“You wanted to live, didn’t you.”

“…”
I felt an indescribable sense of futility.

Ah.
I thought I had accepted it.
I thought I had resigned myself.
I thought I had come to terms with death.
But it seemed I had not.

I released Depo from my grip and apologized to him.
“…Sorry, Depo. I got too excited.”
“If you’re sorry, then hurry up and drag that heavy butt out of this inner realm, Miho.”
“But I haven’t heard the explanation yet…”
“Haah… I thought Miho was a somewhat intelligent yokai, but I was wrong. Did sleeping too much make you stupid? Fool, idiot, blockhead! Don’t you get it yet, Miho?”

“…?”
“As far as I know, there are only two fox yokai in this world. One is Miho, and the other is that Demonic Fox of Jirisan who recently awoke.”
“…!”

At Depo’s explanation, my blue eyes shone with a crazed light.
“Being the same fox yokai, it might know something. Go and ask it, whether you have to tear it apart or torture it. Miho is strong enough to subdue it. Besides, it’s an evil yokai indiscriminately massacring humans anyway…”

“Depo.”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks. I’ll be back.”

2 years.
After a full 2 years,
I resolved to leave this inner realm.

“Urgk, huck, huck, urgk…”
Something had gone terribly wrong.
“Huck, huck, nngh… Da, damn it…!”
Very, very wrong.

Lee Han-wool, the Director and Grade 4 Section Chief of the Jirisan National Park Yokai Extermination Office, staggered as he bled profusely.
From the sheer amount of blood gushing out, his physical condition was clearly abnormal.
His left leg was twisted to an unsightly degree, and his side had a gaping hole large enough for his intestines to spill out soon, as if mauled by some beast.

Barely clinging to his fading consciousness, he thought:
‘Did I let my guard down? No, I didn’t let my guard down.’

He was the one who had gone so far as to deploy all personnel, completely disregarding the manual.
He had definitely not let his guard down.
The enemy was simply too strong.

‘That damn crazy fox yokai bitch grew stronger in real-time…!’

At first, it had seemed they could easily subdue the fox yokai.
The blue-furred fox yokai had flinched at the gunfire, bled when hit by bullets, and fled leaving a trail behind.

But it adapted.
The exceptionally cunning fox yokai lured the humans one by one, devouring their livers, and gradually grew powerful enough to easily shrug off anti-yokai bullets.

Taking advantage of the moment his subordinates had their livers ripped out, Han-wool barely managed to escape as well.
It was not out of selfish desire to save his own life that he fled.
It was a momentary retreat to conquer the yokai.

‘Grade 4 yokai…? No, definitely not… At this rate, it will soon become Grade 3… No, perhaps even higher.’

There was no need to hesitate any longer.
Han-wool used the emergency contact network to request the dispatch of a nationally certified Taoist or Martial Artist…

Crunch!

“Urgh…!”
[So here you were, old man. You’ve caused me quite a bit of trouble…]

“Nngh, ughhhh!”

With a scream of agony, he was bitten and dragged off somewhere by the fox yokai.
In the spot where he was dragged away, only a smartphone screen remained, displaying the message: “Dispatching nationally certified Martial Artist, Lee Ha-neul.”