The fox twitched its nose. Its legs also flinched as if about to jump at any moment, but that was all.
It was higher and farther than expected.
Even when climbing from the floor to the desk, it had to step through multiple stages—could it reach the bookshelf in a single jump from here?
It was impossible. For itself, which repeatedly missed even butterflies right in front of its nose, attempting to leap all the way to the top of the bookshelf from this distance in one go was a reckless challenge. If its paws slipped even slightly, it would obviously plummet to the floor.
But there was something more powerful than fear. The desire for food.
For a fox that had lived in the wild, ‘food’ was always the top priority. If an opportunity was right before its eyes, it had to seize it. Since it never knew when, where, or what danger might strike, it had to eat when it could.
As if resolving itself, the fox slowly backed up and lowered its posture. Its tail trembled with tension. In an instant, a spark flashed in its blue eyes. And it gathered all its body’s strength and hurled itself into the air.
The small body cut through the air. It’ll reach. It felt like it could reach. However, the calculation was off.
Too short…!
Before its front paws even touched the bookshelf, gravity pulled its body down. In its eyes, the honey jar growing farther away was reflected. Adrian’s face saying he’d be right back came to mind.
I should have listened to those words. I should have waited obediently.
It had been blinded by food. But by the time it realized, it was already too late. There was nothing to catch its falling body. The fox flailed its front paws madly, clawing through empty air to survive.
Thud! Thanks to its desperate struggle, its front paws barely caught on the edge of an empty wooden shelf. In an instant, its entire body’s muscles trembled as its body hung precariously.
Thump thump thump.
Its heart pounded madly as if it would tear through its slender ribs and burst out. It struggled desperately to pull itself up, but its frail front paws alone were insufficient. Even when it tried to move forward with all its strength, its claws only meaninglessly scraped the smooth wooden shelf, and those tremors spread through the shelf.
From those vibrations, right above the fox’s head, a bust with a stern expression that had been precariously placed at the edge of the shelf began to wobble. Completely unaware of this fact, the fox flailed and kicked below the shelf with its hind legs trying to climb up. The bust swayed greatly, then tilted completely.
The heavy object slowly tipped over and fell. And the moment it hit the floor, an ear-splitting BANG! rang throughout the room. Startled by that sound, the fox misstepped on the shelf.
“Kyaeng!”
The fox extended its claws with reflexes that might be displayed once a year at most and grabbed onto something. This time it was the thick leather spine of a bound Empire law book.
Am I… alive…?
Alive. Barely hanging on. Just as the fox was about to let out a sigh of relief, rrrip—a sound like thick paper tearing bored in.
Huh?
Looking ahead, the old book couldn’t bear the fox’s weight and was slowly tearing.
Gasp!
The fox hastily climbed up by stepping on the book spine with its claws. Every time it pulled its body up as if climbing, books tumbled down. Crash. Books pouring down one after another fell onto the already broken bust.
Leaving the collapsing books behind, the fox reached the top of the bookshelf. Huff, huff. Breathing roughly, the black ball of fur sprawled out on the dust-covered top of the bookshelf. The moment it took a deep breath to steady its breathing.
“Cough!”
Whether the accumulated dust rushed into its nose, the fox couldn’t hold back and coughed, and from the recoil of the cough, its tail jerked up greatly and touched something.
What? The fox, with an ominous premonition, just slightly raised its head and looked back. In the dim view, at the edge of the bookshelf, it saw an object precariously losing its balance. It was the honey jar made of smooth glass.
“Kang!”
No!
The fox let out a sound close to a scream and hastily stretched out its front paw trying to catch the honey jar. However, the honey jar with its smooth surface had already grazed the fox’s paw tip and tilted into the air.
Crash! The moment the honey jar collided with the floor, a loud shattering sound filled the room. The fox reflexively squeezed its eyes shut at that sound. Its small chest heaved roughly as it gasped for breath.
After a moment, the fox caught its breath and cautiously opened its eyes and looked down. At the scene spread before its eyes, the fox’s face hardened stiffly.
The tidy study had transformed, in just a few minutes, into a miserable ruin mixed with honey and glass shards. Sticky liquid flowed in all directions, and around it were fragments of the bust shattered beyond recognition and books torn to tatters scattered chaotically, adding to the devastation.
“Kkyiiing…”
Big trouble.
This wasn’t simply a prank like spilling ink or interfering with Adrian’s work. It was an irreversible, terrible accident.
What do I do?
Adrian’s generosity surely had limits. And today, the fox seemed to have not tested that limit but completely shattered it to pieces.
The fox knew too. That it wasn’t exactly a well-behaved creature.
Nevertheless, Adrian had never once pressed or scolded it. He would always brush things off with a gentle smile with a generous attitude. Even when the fox crossed boundaries, his tolerance remained constant.
But such boundless generosity gradually became poison to the fox.
As it began to take Adrian’s tolerance for granted, the fox unknowingly became increasingly ill-mannered and willful. The belief that his kind smile would always forgive made the fox presumptuous.
And today, it had finally crossed that line.
“Nng…”
A groaning sound escaped from its throat involuntarily. What do I do now? It couldn’t jump down from here. It had absolutely no desire to land in the honey puddle studded with glass shards.
That said, it couldn’t wait on this dusty top until Adrian returned either. The moment he witnessed this scene, everything would be over. It couldn’t even imagine how those gentle eyes would change.
Perhaps it would never be able to sit on his lap again. Perhaps it would never receive his touch again and be driven out to the cold, dark forest.
Just that thought made all its fur stand on end. Banishment. The terror that word brought was far more horrible than falling from the bookshelf.
The terrified fox’s blue eyes rolled around desperately searching for a solution.
It had to somehow clean up this mess before Adrian returned. But how? Forgetting about getting down, with a beast’s front paws it couldn’t properly clean up even a single piece of broken glass.
At that moment, a fact the fox had forgotten for a very long time faintly surfaced in its mind.
A nine-tailed fox could transform into a human.
The problem was that it had never once succeeded in proper humanization. However, now there was no other choice. That was the only last resort to escape this desperate situation.
The fox squeezed its eyes shut and desperately concentrated. It sharpened all its senses and groped after the unfamiliar energy sleeping deep inside its body.
At the same time, it desperately searched its memories. From the distant past, the image of its father who had quietly told it to survive. Though his face was blurry, he had definitely spoken in human language, in human form, with silver-white fox ears and tail.
If father had done it, it could too.
At first it was merely a faint trembling, but when desperate and earnest will to transform was added, that energy gradually created a distinct flow, spreading through its veins throughout its entire body.
“……!”
This had never happened before.
A sensation it had tried countless times but never felt. Something deep inside its body was rippling and awakening. Startled by that unfamiliar yet intense energy, the fox’s eyes flew open.
At that moment, everything stopped.
The energy that had been burning like embers extinguished in an instant. Strength drained out like thread unraveling, and the fox collapsed right there with a thud.
“Kkeung.”
Was it because its concentration scattered? Or because it was too startled?
The fox hastily gathered its mind again. Just like before, it recalled its father’s image, wished desperately, and poured out all its strength.
But this time nothing happened. That energy sleeping somewhere inside its body didn’t budge. Only a few tail hairs faintly glittered then faded.
It really won’t work.
Was that hot flow it had just felt an illusion? The energy inside its body that had cooled wouldn’t return no matter how much it called. When strength drained from the futility of failing yet again, loud footsteps rang out from outside the door.
Those footsteps were different from Adrian’s. They were completely unlike his disciplined, light steps. Heavier, rougher.
The drooping fur stood on end.
The human coming here wasn’t Adrian. Not the maids, not Kael either.
As the footsteps gradually approached, conversation between humans could be heard beyond the door.
“Is there really a need to check? That fox or whatever, anyway it’s that beast making trouble again. It’s originally a rowdy creature, right? His Majesty even said not to enter carelessly when he’s not here because the fox gets startled.”
“Still, we should check. Didn’t you hear that sound earlier? That wasn’t a sound from a pet making a simple fuss. It could be an intruder.”
Clunk. The sound of gripping the doorknob was heard.
The fox hiding on top of the bookshelf reflexively lowered its body. It curled up as small and invisible as possible, even killing its breath.
When the door opened, two guards in armor entered. Long spears were held in their hands.
“Good heavens…”
