I scratched at Kessler’s shoe like a tap-tap, then looked up at him.
He didn’t lower himself to meet my gaze as he usually did, so his face felt dizzyingly high above me.
“Don’t cling to me.”
Meow……
He cautiously stepped away. Then he turned his back to me. I bounced after him, but his steps came to a stop.
“Go your own way.”
A curtain of shadow sealed the space in pitch-black darkness. I couldn’t follow him any farther.
It didn’t seem like he hated me.
‘Maybe he just needs time to accept it.’
I stood there for a long time before slowly turning back.
***
“He starts getting fed a little, and now he thinks he’s a real fox. Acting all cutesy now.”
Kessler, who had cast a shadow to block the baby Arctic Fox’s approach, turned back with satisfaction.
Beyond the curtain, the baby Arctic Fox had drooped his ears and tail, looking pitiful as he licked the black wall of shadow. As if pleading to be let in.
“…So you do feel guilty.”
After sitting like that for about five minutes, the fox stood tall on all fours.
“What, leaving already?”
Then, just like always, he raised his tail high and strutted off with his butthole on full display for the world to see.
“That rude little brat.”
Kessler trembled with betrayal. That guilt toward him had lasted barely five minutes.
The hallway where the fox had vanished.
Kessler retrieved the shadows that had been blocking the corridor and went back into his room.
Trembling. The irritation swelled.
***
—Nyangbborrippuri Bbabbi-kko-ri♪?
I was lying belly-up on an outdoor table, soaking in the summer breeze. The wind kept making strange noises, as if inviting me to come play.
—Nyang-guri-soong-guri Bbiyalling?
The wind had snatched syllables from people’s voices and stitched them together into odd little composites. I wasn’t in the mood, so I rolled over, but it still giggled and tickled at me.
Leave me alone.
“Pro.”
Just then, Jung Da-hoon called out to me respectfully.
Nya?
I lifted my head slightly, and he bowed politely.
“The Administrative Division of the castle is looking for you.”
I was about to shift into my human form when he stopped me.
“In your fox form, please. I think they want you to send off the Pilgrim Ghosts before they head out again.”
The Shadow Festival had come to an end.
At Jung Da-hoon’s words, I gave a nod and slowly rose, my body slack with lingering lethargy.
Today was the day the Pilgrim Ghosts, who had been draining the market’s liquor barrels as fast as they were refilled, were finally leaving.
A week that had flown by, made even shorter by everything that had happened.
The market vendors were proudly polishing and straightening the long shadows they’d earned from the spirits’ visit.
At the intersection connecting the castle to the plaza, the traffic spirit managing the flow of people blew a whistle with vigor, a shadow tip wrapped proudly around its neck like a scarf.
“There’s the baby fox! Hey baby, everyone’s been looking for you!”
The send-off ceremony for the spirits—those praying for eternal peace—included high-ranking guests. And right in the center of it all, was me.
At last, when I stepped into position, the farewell requiem began to play.
Creeeak, creeeak—music that sounded like shattered glass scraping a wall accompanied the ghosts’ parting words.
Il-jang Ghost and Ii-jang Ghost approached and patted my head.
“Adorable little fox. Grow up well.”
Nyang.
“Eat well and live well.”
Nyang.
“No picky eating.”
Nyang.
The pilgrimage of the spirits in search of eternal rest had begun once again.
***
It seemed like the weather might clear up for once, but, as always, it rained.
The weather here was truly strange.
The moment it seemed nice, the sky would throw a tantrum and pour down rain.
But this particular tantrum looked like it was going to last.
Everyone prepared for the rainy season. The marketplace vendors had hung rain chains from the eaves of their shops, and beneath them, they’d placed skulls to collect the runoff.
Swaaah—
The rain poured down refreshingly, trickling along the rain chains. The baskets of the chains quickly filled, overflowing into the skulls below. Even the players were dressed in raincoats.
A rumor spread that one of the three brothers sentenced to forced labor after arguing with Kessler had slipped and died while reinforcing the levee along the castle wall.
The dream of sitting dry in a café, sipping coffee and enjoying the scenic rain through a window—no one in this castle had that kind of luxury.
The wealthy players rolled up their sleeves to stack levees and prevent water from flooding their treasure vaults. Those without much to protect roamed the castle, peeling black gunk from the walls like old gum stuck to the floor.
That muck, which looked like mold at first glance, was the residue of shadow-flesh shed by the ghosts who had visited during the Shadow Festival.
“Nice, another one.”
“They say you get paid more if you bring it back with minimal damage.”
Take it to a skeleton or a shadow, and they’ll exchange it for cash.
For them, accumulating shadow meant prolonging life—no reason not to buy.
Snake Rim had invited his new girlfriend to the castle and was enjoying a mud bath with her when he did something stupid and made her misunderstand.
“Let me introduce you, babe. This is my son, the baby Arctic Fox.”
The female, Snake Girl, who had looked momentarily shocked—thinking the fox was some kind of luxurious meal for her—immediately bit Snake Rim hard when he called him his son.
“ARGH! Babe! What are you doing?!”
“You never told me you were a married snake!”
I quietly watched their ridiculous lovers’ quarrel.
“Who’s the mom?!”
A lizard head was still a lizard head. Biologically, a lizard couldn’t have birthed a baby fox, but she had latched onto the word “son” and tore into Snake Rim like he’d cheated.
Swaaah—
The briefly paused rain began pouring down again, even heavier than before.
While the Weather Spirits at the rainfall measurement center floundered in the floodwaters during their readings, the Bath Spirits, who were scrubbing the yellowed skulls to a bright sheen, laughed gleefully that they no longer needed to draw water from the well.
Meanwhile, I had already lost count of how many times I’d visited the Relationship Panel gallery.
‘…What’s going on today?’
The one who used to prepare my pudding breakfast every single morning was unusually quiet. I even checked the room where meals were prepped—nothing was ready. I uploaded a shot of myself arriving at the dining room, but got no response.
So my heart felt complicated.
Had he really given up on me now?
Like the weather, my mood sank.
I was about to give up and leave the room when a Steward Spirit entered, clicking its jaw.
—Pat pat, rattle rattle.
The Steward Spirit gently patted my head, then placed a pudding in front of me. Kessler had sent him to feed me.
—The Lord is sick. I came in his place.
Nyang-nyang?
—He always hurts when it rains.
……
—Aches down to the bones, y’know?
I nodded.
—Happy fox. I’m happy too.
The skeleton patted my head once more before leaving.
I devoured the pudding, then, as usual, took a picture of the empty bowl and posted it to the gallery.
Kessler is sick?
I recalled a bit of game lore I’d nearly fallen asleep during in a presentation.
‘The child hated water.’
Because it swept everything away. After watching his sandcastles collapse again and again in the tide, the child decided to eliminate water entirely.
‘…That’s a properly insane backstory.’
He used shadows he crafted day and night to push away the sea—and the aftereffects were so severe that just the sight of a large body of water would trigger seizures…
‘This is bad.’
In my experience, the rainy season here drags on for a long time. Usually over two weeks.
I crossed the third-floor hallway and stood before the corridor that led to Kessler’s room.
I wanted to use a hospital visit as an excuse to see him, to ask how he was doing. And if he’d been hurt because of me, I wanted to apologize properly.
Meow!!
With a surge of courage, I stepped forward. But at that very moment, I was bounced back by a black barrier.
Ttgeurureureu—
My body tumbled helplessly across the floor.
[System]: You do not have permission to enter.
It was a place I used to enter freely without any resistance.
But now, for some reason, it was completely shut.
I didn’t give up. I charged at it again.
Ttgeurureu—
My body bounced right back.
Once more. And again. And again. Eventually, faint cracks began to form in the wall, and something resembling a doggie door started to appear.
Nyang! Nyang! Nyang-nyang! Nyang!
I struck it repeatedly with my front paws, then rammed it with my head. But I had run out of energy. I couldn’t go any further—really, I couldn’t.
[System]: The wall of shadows is ticklish.
Nyang???
Just as I was panting, tongue out from exhaustion, an unexpected notification popped up. I pressed my nose and licked it.
[System]: The wall of shadows melts from your saliva.
A small opening, just the size of my snout, appeared. Now that I knew the trick, I spread my saliva around the area and carved out a passage big enough for me to pass through.
I managed to slip into the hallway, but the picture that usually hung in front of us—of the two of us together—was nowhere to be seen. It had been obscured with shadow, blacked out.
‘…That kind of stings.’
I carefully padded down the corridor. On the bed in the room at the end, the blanket was mounded high.
Boing.
I jumped onto the bed. It took four tries, but I made it in the end.
I tried to tug the thick velvet blanket off with my snout, but I didn’t have the strength.
Rather than fight the blanket, I decided to burrow under it instead. I started from the foot of the bed. It was stuffy, cramped, like a long tunnel.
I crawled up over his knees, his stomach, and then his chest—finally breaking through to the surface like a dolphin breaching the water, using my paw pads to flick open the edge of the blanket.
In the now slightly brighter space, I examined his face.
“…Nnngh…”
Just as I’d expected. He was locked in battle with memories of the water.
