Chapter 44: How to Enjoy a Festival (2)

"Foxes, foxes. Truly wonderful animals."

Jinseong recalled the red foxes he had seen while working as a mercenary in England.

Like friendly stray cats commonly seen in other countries, the red foxes didn't avoid people, and often showed cunning behavior like performing tricks or acting cute to get food. Moreover, they were so intelligent that they could even be seen using buses or the subway.

Thanks to these abundant foxes, Jinseong could easily use sorcery.

He could easily collect parasites like heartworms (Dirofilaria immitis) or echinococcus, and use these collected materials to carry out assassination requests.

Especially, killing with an anaphylaxis reaction caused by echinococcus was good for disguising as a natural death because it looked like death due to allergy.

I used so much sorcery with fox fur, how nostalgic.

Moreover, the usefulness of foxes didn't end with parasite collection.

Foxes were animals symbolizing 'wisdom' in most countries. Although this was described both negatively and positively, it was commonly underpinned by 'wisdom', making it versatile.

Naturally, as an animal associated with wisdom, many sorceries cast with foxes affected wisdom. Although there were differences between sorceries, most fox-related sorceries improved brain function, and because of this, Jinseong used to carry fox fur around almost every day and cast spells on his colleagues.

Later, they avoided me even when I offered to cast sorceries. Tsk tsk tsk.

Brain function activation.

But the brain was a very, very delicate thing.

Artificially activating it couldn't be without problems.

Issues kept occurring, like getting into a state of hyper-focus due to problems in the frontal lobe, or greatly reduced application ability due to damage to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, or developing anger management issues due to damage to the orbitofrontal cortex.

Moreover, some mages had their magic become unstable due to brain wave abnormalities, or had problems in combat due to dopamine nervous system abnormalities.

To solve the problems caused by this, he would cast sorceries with fox fur again, which led to further brain function damage... a vicious cycle repeated.

Blame?

There were people who did.

But most didn't blame Jinseong.

From the start, mercenaries did all sorts of things to survive in battle, and it was their daily life to drink designed drugs before starting combat. No matter how much Jinseong's sorcery damaged the brain, could it be worse than guzzling drugs?

Especially after World War III broke out, most people were half out of their minds, so they didn't think much of selling their future to buy the present. The general opinion was that there was no need to make a fuss about slight malfunctions when it wasn't like the brain was being cut out.

Mercenary life was rough, but it was rewarding.

Of course, those who were overly cautious about their bodies avoided Jinseong and stayed away.

The reason was that he destroyed people with parasites and used up the lives of his colleagues as if they were bullets.

They didn't hesitate to call Jinseong and his colleagues crazy, and they would be terrified not just of fox fur, but even at the sight of foxes.

"Foxes. Foxes."

Jinseong suddenly thought of Lee Arin.

Martial arts that mimic predators. And foxes. Hmm.

He briefly took out his phone like he was pondering something, and then looked at Rise.

Rise was standing quietly one step behind Jinseong with her head slightly bowed, looking as if she was following Jinseong with reverence.

Mukurikokuri no Inugami would be classified as a dog. And foxes also belong to the dog family...

Rise's long straight hair reflected the electric light and shone. Her hair, which was unusually glossy perhaps due to divine power, shone and flowed like glossy thread.

Jinseong turned around and lightly stroked Rise's hair with his hand. Rise seemed slightly surprised by this, but she closed her eyes and relaxed as if entrusting her body to Jinseong.

"Hmm."

Jinseong felt the sensation of hair slipping smoothly through his hand, soft and smooth like fine silk. He also felt the flow of divine power quickly reaching the ends of the hair and returning to the body, like signals flickering in an optical cable.

"The overflowing divine power flows even to the hair."

The divine power poured generously into Rise overflowed to the extent that it flowed through each strand of hair.

It would be good to send a text message at least. If they both receive foxes, there's no loss and only gain anyway, so even if there's a difference, it's just a matter of order.

Thinking this, Jinseong sent a text message to Lee Arin.

Then he headed to the lodging with Rise, pondering deeply about who the power holders related to Tottori Prefecture might be.

*                     *                     *

『 Is life in Russia bearable? I'm doing well in Japan. Thanks to good information, I've had some harvest, and now I've got some leisure time to try and see some festivals. But seeing the festivals made me think of you, so I'm sending this text. Even with international exchange, you should have holidays, so it would be nice if you could make time to come over to Japan and see the festivals together. I also have connections to introduce and gifts to give. 』

Lee Arin smirked at the long text message that had arrived on her phone after she finished her martial arts training.

"He’s finally contacting me, this oppa."

She read the message slowly with joy and gladness all over her face, then after pondering for a moment, she ran with her phone to where Lee Serin was.

Pitter-patter!

Thud!

She didn't just run but moved like a beast by jumping over windows and climbing the tree outside of it, arriving at the room in an instant, and familiarly knocked on the window.

"...This idiot."

Lee Serin opened the window with a slight frown, and scolded Lee Arin who was jumping into the room like a cat.

"I told you not to come in and out through the win– window. That's why the Russian students call you Puma Koreanka (Puma Корея́нка)!"

"Why~ Puma Koreanka. In English, it's Puma Korean Girl! Doesn't it sound like a hero name? It's cool~"

"That... Haa."

Lee Serin let out a small sigh at the sight of Lee Arin, who let the scolding in one ear and out the other. Then she firmly locked the window that was letting in cold air and asked.

"So... What is it this time?"

How many incidents had Lee Arin caused since coming as an exchange student?

It was her daily routine to engage in eccentric behavior every day.

Skipping class to sunbathe on the roof because the sunlight seemed good, getting drunk after getting beer from a bear she saw drinking... She even became friends with that bear, meeting occasionally to drink beer and coke.

"It's not serious enough to get a warning this time, right?"

So Lee Serin's tone couldn't help but naturally be tinged with worry.

Not worry about Lee Arin, but worry about warnings and penalty points.

But Lee Arin reacted angrily at Lee Serin instead, saying why was she assuming that she only cause trouble, and then thrust her smartphone at her, shouting:

"Here! Look! I got a text from oppa!"

At that, Lee Serin took the smartphone and slowly read the text.

Is life in Russia bearable...

Jinseong's text, which started with asking about her well-being, was really long.

It was so long that it seemed like he had crammed all the content he hadn't sent until now into one message.

After reading the text for a while, Lee Serin suddenly stopped scrolling.

"It smells fishy."

Gift.

Lee Serin stopped her gaze right on it as if she was stuck on the word.

[ Gift, gift. It's been a while since a word has emitted such a strong fishy smell. I wonder what secret it holds to smell so strong. ]

The demon also frowned as if its nose hurt from the fishy smell.

Its frowning camel face looked funny as if it had been crumpled up, but that face was full of seriousness.

[ The word 'gift' surely contains a secret, and if it's related to secrets, it's my domain. So, contractor, my lovely contractor who likes to see secrets. You too should be able to feel at least a fragment of what this word emits. ]

Lee Serin frowned at the fishy smell, enlarged the text, and placed her index finger on the word 'gift'. Then she closed her eyes.

In Lee Serin's closed-eye vision, she could see golden threads floating in the air. They were suspended in the air like floaters in meaningless shapes, and like the light that seeped in blindingly when you close your eyes in front of a bright light, they constantly emitted light, clumping together and scattering repeatedly, unable to form a shape.

But then a silver-shining vibration spread out and enveloped the golden threads, and the golden threads fluttered and moved to form their shape, looking like a picture drawn with golden thread.

Fox.

The golden threads drew the shape of a fox. The golden fox had glossy and sparkling fur, and whether it was because it was made of golden threads or not, it had smooth and beautiful fur that looked like water droplets could slide right off it. The fox was wagging its two tails gently and eating something, which had a flat, square shape.

Hand.

But that joy was short-lived. A huge hand touched the fox.

The hand, reminiscent of a giant's hand, was of a faint dark color as if made from the blank space in closed eyelids, and it grabbed the fox roughly as if to squeeze it.

Then it moved as if kneading it, changing the golden threads into the shape it wanted!

And the shape thus created was the form of a person.

The form of a person...

Huh?

The human form changed.

The human figure, which looked like it had been roughly drawn by a child holding a crayon, got smudged. The shape got smudged and became threads again, forming a clump, then unraveling again its form became clearer. A small circle stuck in the middle like a nucleus, and a large circular line drawn centered on that circle. And as if lightning was spreading, thin threads spread out in all directions from the circle, and they stopped moving at a certain line as if hitting a wall, creating another shape.

That shape was formed by two gently curving lines.

It looked like an eye.

Eye.

From person to eye.

The human form changed into an eye.

The shape of that eye curved into a crescent moon shape as if laughing.

"Ugh!"

At that moment, Lee Serin couldn't help but open her eyes with a short scream due to the tingling sensation felt in her eyes.

[ Huh? What's this? ]