‘Where could it be?’
Where was it right now, what was it doing? Had it caught a cold from being drenched in the rain? Wasn’t it starving? All kinds of worries continued one after another.
But worrying alone wouldn’t bring the fox back. As emperor, he had mountains of work piled up to handle. Adrian swallowed a deep sigh and turned his gaze to the documents on his desk.
He held his pen and his gaze remained on the documents. However, the hand gripping the pen was immovable. The letters didn’t register in his eyes, and his empty lap felt unfamiliar and awkward. With that small ball of fur that had always occupied his lap and interfered with his work now gone, that empty space felt especially large.
He eventually put the pen back down and leaned deeply into his chair. He pressed his fingers firmly against his brow. His head throbbed from not sleeping properly.
Since the fox had disappeared, sleepless days were continuing once again.
His body desperately wanted sleep, but whenever he closed his eyes, that rainy night’s garden invariably came to mind. The small living creature that might be collapsed somewhere, soaked in rainwater and sprawled out limply, flickered before his eyes. Having briefly tasted sweet sleep only to have it suddenly cut off, he became more sensitive.
“Foolish creature.”
Though he muttered that, his voice carried deep worry and despair rather than reproach.
Why had it run away? Had it thought he would punish it because of that honey jar, because of that small mess? It might have. With that small head, it would have been more than enough to fear him.
Adrian sat in that position for a long while. The documents still lay piled on the desk untouched, and the pen rolled around having lost its place.
Soon he couldn’t bear it and rose from his seat, leading his heavy body. When he opened the bedroom door, the bed came into view. And as expected, it was empty. The small ball of fur that had always occupied that spot was now nowhere to be found.
He stood at the doorway in silence for a long while. Had that fox truly existed here? A hollow doubt that perhaps it had been a phantom he’d created instantly swept through his heart.
He approached the bed and carefully lifted the blanket.
On the white bedding lay only a few strands of black fur that the fox seemed to have shed. Adrian reached out his fingers and slowly stroked that soft fur as if handling the most precious treasure.
That alone was the only evidence that the fox had been here, that its warm presence had been real.
***
A ray of light seeping beyond its eyelids awakened its hazy consciousness. The fox slowly opened its eyes. An unfamiliar ceiling came into view. It was a smooth beige ceiling without a single decoration.
‘Where is this?’
When it turned its head, an unfamiliar scene unfolded. A room that wasn’t fancy but neatly organized. Thin curtains swayed in the wind by the window, and on one side of the room sat a small bookshelf with several books neatly arranged.
This wasn’t Adrian’s room.
The fox jerked its body upright. It couldn’t stay long in an unidentified space. Unfamiliar places meant danger, and danger always summoned death. However, as if someone had been waiting for that moment, the door opened.
“You’re awake.”
It was that very man it had seen in the darkness of last night’s alley. He wasn’t its father. He had the same silver hair as the father in its memories, but this man’s hair was much longer and more abundant.
His eyes looking down at the fox were different from its father’s blue. Pale gray. Those eyes held no wariness or hostility. Only pure goodwill and deep compassion could be felt. He sat in the chair beside the bed. In his hands he held a small bowl, and from the bowl, steam rose abundantly along with warm heat.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
The man slowly brought the bowl in his hands close to the fox’s nose. It was soup carefully stewed with mashed meat and grains.
“You must be hungry, so eat some.”
Reason was saying not to trust strangers, but right now the fox was very hungry and an unbelievably good smell came from the bowl.
“Here.”
The man stepped back several paces. That action reminded it of Adrian. Perhaps because of the careful consideration not to startle it and the appearance similar to its father, its wariness eased slightly.
The fox began lapping up the soup without hesitation. The taste was very good. Of course, it couldn’t compare to the meat the imperial palace chefs had grilled, but it was still quite excellent.
As the fox’s gaze shifted from him to the bowl, the man—Theodor’s—eyes instantly changed. The warmth vanished without a trace and turned cold.
He recalled last night.
In a dark alley beside a garbage pile, he had discovered a small living creature nearly dying. He thought it was dead since it didn’t even move, but when he approached, it was barely clinging to life. At first, he’d even thought to just pass by. There were too many things in the world that couldn’t be saved. No matter how much of a priest he was, he couldn’t save every life.
But then.
At the very moment he was about to pass by, Theodor’s eyes captured a faint light.
A familiar energy was swirling around the fox’s heart.
Divine power?
At first, Theodor thought someone had healed this beast with divine power. When healed with divine power, that residual force remained in the body for a day to several days, continuing the healing effect.
But his thought soon changed to doubt.
Just what kind of priest would use precious divine power on a mere beast?
Theodor thought of two possibilities. Either a foolish priest who believed divine power should be bestowed equally on all living creatures, or a greenhorn who didn’t yet know how precious their ability was.
In any case, Theodor was thinking it must be some idiot when he realized the energy flowing from the fox’s heart was different from everything he’d ever seen. To call it pure divine power, something was strange about it.
What flowed from the fox’s heart was clearly sacred energy. Warm, gentle, the power to heal life. But within it, some heterogeneous darkness was mixed. Cold, an energy that seemed to swallow everything. Light and darkness were strangely intermingled, forming a balance.
Intrigued, Theodor decided to bring the fox to his temporary lodgings to observe more closely. There were still many people passing through the streets, and it would be easy for people to notice him in his pure white priest’s robes peering at such a beast.
Having brought the fox to his lodgings, he examined that energy once more in detail. That energy was still chaotic, but one thing became certain.
This is not ordinary divine power.
Ordinary divine power should emit a soft white light. However, the light emanating from the fox’s heart was different. It was closer to blue rather than white, and the light formed a perfect sphere. What was even more peculiar was that black energy was constantly seeping out from the edges of that light.
Each time that black energy tried to nibble away at the fox’s life force bit by bit, the blue light violently pushed that force away. Conversely, when the blue light tried to completely purify the black energy, the black energy tenaciously resisted and wouldn’t retreat.
In that tense tug-of-war, the fox’s body was miraculously maintaining life.
‘It doesn’t seem like it’ll die right away if I leave it like this, but… shall I help a little?’
Unable to overcome his curiosity, Theodor did something he would never normally do. He gathered divine power and let it flow into the fox’s body.
Then the cracked ribs recovered instantly, but it didn’t stop. His goal was elsewhere. He continued injecting divine power to purify the black energy and revive the weakened blue light.
However, he soon had to hastily withdraw his hand.
“This is….”
A curse nearly spilled between his lips before scattering into the air.
The black energy remained motionless in that spot. But that wasn’t the problem. That blue light that had seemed weak suddenly awakened and began absorbing Theodor’s divine power. Like a thirsty desert gulping down rainwater indiscriminately.
Bewilderment overwhelmed Theodor. This was something that shook all the common knowledge he possessed.
This small beast had touched the divine authority that no one dared infringe upon. It was a case he’d never experienced or even heard of in his entire life. A deep displeasure and sense of crisis, as if a sanctuary had been violated, seized Theodor.
Divine power is god’s ability. It was an ability that couldn’t be transferred to others, especially to those not chosen by god.
So how could it steal divine power?
His gray gaze bore into the fox as if to pierce through it. He tried to dig into the origin of the blue light surrounding the fox to find the answer to this mysterious phenomenon. Surely, the answer would be in that strange light, he thought.
However, his attention was gradually drawn to the black energy rippling eerily at the edge of his vision. Because it was somehow familiar and strange to ignore.
Where had he seen energy similar to this?
The opposite of divine power. And something that even his divine power couldn’t purify.
Theodor fell into thought. There had been only two moments in his entire life when his divine power was powerless. One was when he had to treat a congenital defect. And the other was when he had to purify ‘that curse’ slowly encroaching upon Emperor Albrecht’s heart right now.
That’s right, it’s the same. This black energy enveloping the fox was the same as that curse driving the emperor to death.
