Oh God.
There had been a man. Definitely there. But now there wasn’t. And a fox had appeared. Theodor stopped breathing as if he had forgotten how to breathe. His mind emptied to white before instantly filling with tens of thousands of thoughts.
What did I just see?
Theodor’s eyes moved slowly. The fox sat atop the pile of clothes, flicking its tail and snorting. Its gaze seemed to say, “Do you believe me now?”
“You… are you saying?”
Theodor’s rarely trembling voice cracked in the air.
“You, that man just now… are you saying?”
“Kang!”
The fox’s sound drove like a wedge into Theodor’s mind. He slowly bent his knees. And with trembling hands, he reached out and grasped the fox’s scruff. This time, the fox didn’t avoid him either.
Theodor’s touch swept over the fox’s body. Warm body heat. Soft fur. The rapidly beating heart beneath it all. Everything was vivid.
Theodor reflexively pulled his hand away. As if he had touched filthy refuse, he unconsciously rubbed his palm roughly against his garments to wipe it clean.
Goosebumps crawled up his forearm.
God made humans in His own image, and created beasts to serve humans. This was an absolute and immutable providence, a sacred order. And yet a beast wore human skin and pretended to be human. This was not a miracle. It was blasphemy. A deception that went against the natural order, the most unclean and vile curse.
‘Was it a demon beast?’
He had thought it was simply a spiritually powerful beast, but the fact that it was actually a demon beast made revulsion rise from deep in his stomach. An impulse arose to burn away this unholy existence right here and now.
Sparks flew from Theodor’s fingertips. Generally, divine power was a force close to blessing, but to wicked existences like demon beasts, it was no different from poison. He was about to pour out his divine power to annihilate the being standing before him.
However, he ultimately stopped that hand.
What if this fox wasn’t simply a beast, but a being capable of thought and communication?
In the place where revulsion had ebbed away like a receding tide, cold calculation filled in. Theodor was an ambitious man before he was a clergyman. To him, faith was merely a means to grasp power, not an object of blind belief. That’s why he could view the ‘filth’ before his eyes as ‘utility value’ instead.
Theodor’s eyes narrowed. Until now, he had regarded the fox as merely a tool to absorb the Emperor’s curse. But if it was a being with human intelligence that could take human form, the story changed. It would be more difficult to handle, but its uses would be far more varied. If used well, it could become the most powerful weapon.
What did it matter if it was unclean? If it was useful, one had to pluck and use even medicinal herbs growing in the sewers.
Theodor completely withdrew his divine power and composed his expression. In the meantime, the fox that had been sitting on the pile of clothes had already returned to human form. Perhaps because he had transformed twice in a row, his breathing came roughly. But because there was something he absolutely had to convey to Theodor, he had no choice but to force himself to become human again.
After steadying his breath once, the fox looked at Theodor and parted his dry lips with difficulty.
“I, want, to go.”
His cracked voice was rough like the sound of metal scraping. His pronunciation was garbled as if his tongue had stiffened.
“Adrian. Ed, Adrian. Palace. Want to go.”
The fox stretched his arm toward the window. The place his fingertip pointed to was where the imperial palace was located.
“You want to go to the imperial palace?”
“Yeah!”
You finally understand what I’m saying! The fox shook his head vigorously. Theodor looked at the fox with sparkling eyes for a moment before slowly bending one knee to meet his gaze.
“In that body?”
What’s wrong with my body?
“Can’t… I?”
The fox looked down at his own body. Even he could see it was shabby, but that could be solved by covering it with clothes. The fox tried to get up to put on clothes, but perhaps because he had expended too much energy on transforming into human form, his legs had no strength.
The moment his knees buckled and he was about to collapse forward, Theodor quickly grabbed the fox’s arm. It felt like a supporting hand to keep him from falling, but at the same time, it also seemed like he was binding him so he couldn’t escape.
“You can’t even walk on your own two feet, yet you say you’ll go to the imperial palace. How reckless.”
Theodor sat the fox on the bed. And draped a blanket over his shoulders. The movement was courteous, but there was no warmth contained within it.
“Does His Majesty the Emperor know that you are a fox?”
The fox shook his head. Theodor made an expression as if he had known it would be so.
“Think about it. If an unidentified man, especially in this state, goes seeking an audience with His Majesty, do you think the guards will just stand by?”
The fox’s eyes wavered. The memory of glinting spearpoints came back to life.
“Your head will be cut off immediately. Before you can even meet His Majesty.”
The fox swallowed dry saliva. Then what should he do? To meet Adrian, he had to become human. Only then could he go to him. Only then could he apologize and say he was sorry. But as Theodor said, if he went to the imperial palace in this state, he would obviously be treated as a suspicious person and immediately arrested.
Wait, then… what if he entered in fox form?
He could go to the front of the imperial palace in human form, then take fox form inside the palace. As a small fox, he wouldn’t catch the guards’ eyes.
After entering Adrian’s room that way, he could transform back into a human in front of him. Then there would be no risk of being discovered by the guards, and Adrian would immediately recognize that he was that very fox.
At the thought of this perfect plan, the light of hope bloomed on the fox’s face again.
“Right now you’re thinking you could go to the front of the palace as a human, then sneak in as a fox, aren’t you?”
At Theodor’s words, the fox’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open.
H-how did he know…?
It was as if he had looked inside his mind. The fox slowly pulled his bottom backward, wondering if Theodor had perhaps cast some mind-reading magic.
At that reaction, Theodor let out a hollow laugh. He didn’t have an ability like telepathy, but even if he did, there was no need to use it. The man’s large eyes were vividly showing every step of the plan from beginning to end. The thought process of a simple, ignorant beast was utterly transparent.
“How naive. Let’s say you infiltrated the palace in fox form. Let’s assume you luckily avoided the guards’ eyes, didn’t get hit by arrows, didn’t get mauled by hunting dogs, and made it to His Majesty’s bedchamber.”
Theodor casually listed the worst-case scenarios in a gentle voice. The fox’s shoulders flinched at each word.
“If you transform into a human in front of His Majesty, do you think His Majesty will be delighted to see you and embrace you?”
“Isn’t… isn’t that right?”
The fox asked dumbly. The Adrian in his memories had always been kind. He had laughed off mistakes and didn’t get angry even when wearing clothes covered in fur. So he believed that if he appeared as a human, Adrian would be startled at first but would soon warmly embrace him.
Theodor crushed the fox’s hope with cold eyes.
“Not at all. The moment an intruder appears, His Majesty will cut off your head on the spot before you can even open your mouth.”
“…!”
The fox raised his hands and wrapped them around his own neck. A pulse beat distinctly beneath his palm. At the thought that this neck, so vividly alive, might be cut in one stroke by a cold, hard blade, his spine chilled.
“Think about it. Some man suddenly appears in his bedchamber. A beast transformed into a person, no less. What do you think humans would call that?”
Theodor leaned forward and thrust his face close to the fox.
“A demon beast.”
The fox’s breath caught. Demon beast. That terrible, cruel monster he had seen in the forest.
I would look like that?
“Humans fear what is different from themselves, what they cannot understand. And fear soon turns into aggression. The Emperor will regard you not as a wondrous being, but as a demon beast that must be disposed of.”
Blue eyes trembled finely with fear.
Adrian would kill me? With those gentle hands, he would lift a sword and cut off my head?
He wanted to believe it wasn’t true. That Adrian couldn’t possibly do that.
The fox looked down at his own hands. They were certainly human hands. But according to Theodor’s words, these weren’t human. They belonged to a monster. In the eyes of ordinary humans, the sight of a beast transforming into a human would appear no different from that demon beast he had encountered in the forest.
Adrian had been kind to him because he had seemed like a harmless fox. If he regarded him as a demon beast, then as Theodor said, he would kill him without hesitation. Because that’s what demon beasts were.
“Then… I can’t go?”
The fox’s voice trembled, soaked with moisture.
“You cannot go.”
At Theodor’s words driving in the wedge, the fox’s shoulders drooped. If he had ears and a tail right now, they would have sunk endlessly downward.
“However, it’s not that there’s no method at all.”
