The humid land of Namman.
Head north from there, and there is Yunnan Province.
Then past Sichuan, and on to Mount Heng in Hunan.
The road from Yinglong’s dwelling to the Azure Forest was that far.
It would still take a long time even on horseback.
To set out alone on foot was little different from madness.
The world was dangerous enough as it was.
A wanderer might lose their way in the vast forests, be eaten by wild beasts, or be targeted by thieves, bandits, even yokai.
Yet Cheongho set out on a journey by foot.
It could not be called a thoughtful plan, but neither Cheongho himself nor Yinglong was worried.
There was, however, one regrettable thing.
“Slow.”
That was right.
It was far too slow.
Cheongho had thought he could reach the Azure Forest in about a week.
A week was, in truth, an absurd estimate.
Even on a horse at full speed, it would have been impossible. There were only so many roads where a horse could run freely.
But Cheongho’s standards were different from those of ordinary people.
He had once crossed the Central Plains and Xinjiang region in only a few days with Dam Hyun riding on his back.
Scattering blue sparks, he had raced across the land like lightning alongside thunder.
Now, that kind of transformation was impossible.
This was all due to Cheongho’s own choice.
He had decided to become human.
For a yokai to become human was no easy thing.
To achieve that difficult task, Cheongho had to give up many things.
‘Look. Wasn’t it better before?’
The face of Yinglong saying that with an emotionless expression rose in his mind.
‘I know that too.’
Cheongho imagined himself replying like that.
Speed was not the only thing the yokai who wanted to become a boy had lost.
Cheongho wrinkled his small, straight nose.
Then he sniffed.
It was a habit Yinglong had told him to restrain.
Originally, when he did this, it had felt as though he could smell every scent in the world.
Especially the scent of Yi-gang, who shared the Heavenly Thunder Bell with him. He could smell it from anywhere, no matter how far apart they were.
But that scent didn’t come.
All he could smell was the stench of blood.
Cheongho swept back his dark blue-black hair.
Blood smeared onto his hand.
He couldn’t tell whether there had been blood on his hair, or whether there had already been blood on his hand.
Lick. When he tasted it, it was salty.
The savory taste was not bad, but Cheongho spat onto the ground.
Eating meat raw was not something a refined person would do. That was what he had been taught.
Cheongho was inside a storehouse that was half collapsed.
What he was sitting on was a tiger whose warmth had not yet faded.
Its fur was ash-gray rather than yellow.
Its size was so great that even the term giant tiger hardly seemed enough.
That was why it had been able to smash through the mud wall of the village storehouse and rampage inside.
Ever since the world had gone strange, more and more things like this, beings that were neither yokai nor beast, had appeared.
Yinglong had described it by saying, ‘The world has twisted.’
In any case, it was Cheongho who had hunted down and killed the ash-gray tiger that had been rampaging senselessly.
It was an achievement accomplished with only a single sword.
Though the sword had broken because of it.
“E-excuse me……”
A trembling voice came through the gaps of the collapsed storehouse.
“A-are you aliiive?”
It was a villager asking after Cheongho’s safety.
He was one of those who had snorted and tossed him a single spoonful of dry millet rice when the scruffy-looking Cheongho had appeared and asked for food.
But that same scruffy boy had clung to the back of the raging tiger and crashed into the storehouse with it.
Perhaps compassion, and a sense of adult responsibility that had not been there before, had now come alive in him.
“I’m alive.”
“That’s a relieeef.”
“T-t-t-the tiger, is it dead?”
In truth, that was probably what he had wanted to ask first.
Whether that monster that had come down from the mountain and torn through the village was dead.
Cheongho checked the tiger’s corpse beneath him.
It was certainly dead.
“It’s dead.”
A moment of silence passed.
“Uwaaaahhh!”
“Open it, open iiit!”
With the sound of something being smashed apart, the twisted door was torn away.
They kicked in the crumbling mud wall and broke it down, leaving the side of the storehouse wide open.
The eyes of the villagers and Cheongho met.
“H-he’s a young hero!”
“He’s a chivalrous warrior!”
Cheongho’s eyes widened in surprise.
He had not expected this kind of reaction from the villagers.
“He really killed it!”
“Uaaahhh! We’re aliveee!”
They rushed at Cheongho.
In the past, it was the kind of overwhelming reaction that would have made startled Cheongho electrocute them all.
The men hoisted Cheongho up high.
The others vented their anger by kicking the tiger’s corpse with their feet.
The villagers, crying and laughing at once, lifted Cheongho high and carried him out of the storehouse.
Outside, the village women and all the other villagers were gathered there too, many of them in tears.
“Hold a feast! That damned tiger has finally been taken down!”
“Uheuheuk, thank you. Thank you so much!”
Every last one of them expressed their gratitude to Cheongho.
What Cheongho felt in the face of this dramatic change was bewilderment.
He didn’t know.
That in the three years since this tiger had appeared around the village, it had eaten no fewer than fifteen villagers.
That number was nearly one fifth of the villagers, and that Cheongho had killed the object of the village’s greatest hatred.
“Is your body all right?”
It seemed Yi-gang and Dam Hyun had often received gratitude like this.
But to Cheongho, who had only ever wagged his tail in their arms, it was treatment he could never get used to.
“……I’m fine.”
As Cheongho said that, a faint smile rose at the corners of his mouth.
The villagers slaughtered pigs, boiled chickens, and held a feast.
Cheongho was the hero of the feast.
On the road leading from Yunnan up into Sichuan.
Wang Family Village of Yukgi County was the very place Cheongho had visited.
There might have been hundreds of Wang Family Villages in the Central Plains where people with the surname Wang lived together, but the Wang Family Village of Yukgi County was a little special.
It was special in that there were no Wangs there.
“It was originally founded by the Wangs. In our Wang Family Village, we take the crops we grow and sell them in Sichuan, but that road is no ordinary hard road. There are lots of fierce beasts like tigers, and above all, there are many bandits. So a lot of the Wangs died. And the number of newly settled people increased.”
The road from Yunnan into Sichuan was rough, but near Wang Family Village there was something that could be called a trade route.
Bandits were always stationed around there, so it was all too common for the unlucky and poor people of Wang Family Village to die.
A drunken villager beside Cheongho told him all of that.
“But it’ll be no problem for young hero. You beat a tiger to death with just one sword!”
When he raised his cup of cloudy liquor, the drunken villagers raised their cups with him.
A whole pig was sizzling as it roasted over the bonfire.
Fat dripped onto the fire, and a rich savory aroma spread everywhere.
“You said you’re heading to the Azure Forest, right? Eat a lot, and please be sure to get there safely. Ho ho ho!”
“Yeah.”
Cheongho had not the slightest interest in the history of Wang Family Village.
He was only waiting for the pig to roast properly.
He seemed lacking in social graces and even rude, but there was no one who could blame him for it.
It seemed certain that Cheongho was a Murim person.
The women who had not been drinking whispered among themselves as they watched Cheongho.
“He’s no ordinary one. Amazing.”
“Now that I look at him, even his hair color makes him seem like the child of some noble house…… How did he end up traveling alone?”
“Isn’t he one of those Taoist priests from Wudang or the Azure Forest or somewhere? They say Taoists often look young even when their spiritual power is high.”
There was that much about Cheongho’s appearance that was unusual.
He was not human.
He was only a fox who wanted to become a boy.
The form Cheongho had taken now…… that is, it was a little different from a transformation art.
It was not that he had chosen a certain appearance and disguised himself as it.
A heart that wanted to become human.
You could say that heart had shown itself in his outward appearance.
Dark blue-black hair, and two eyes glinting with blue light.
And skin so pale it resembled Yi-gang and Dam Hyun’s.
To the villagers of Wang Family Village, he looked like a noble young master descended from the heavens.
One of the women murmured quietly.
“……Should I try introducing him to my daughter?”
“You crazy bitch.”
The scolding came at once.
Even the woman who had said it laughed in embarrassment.
“You ought to look at a tree you can actually climb.”
“That’s true.”
Just look at Cheongho.
Could they not feel that high bearing in every little detail of his looks and mannerisms?
The village women watched Cheongho tear into a pig’s hind leg.
“……”
“……”
Cheongho buried his face into the leg he was holding and ripped into the meat greedily.
His straight nose and face were smeared all over with grease.
“The way he eats really ain’t it……”
“Seriously……”
The sight was more beast than human, so even the women laughed in disbelief.
Cheongho accepted and ate whatever they handed him.
He even drank whatever liquor they gave him, and the people were delighted, saying that indeed, this young hero already had the bearing of a great hero.
Cheongho stayed one night at the village chief’s house.
Since he did not know how to dispel drunkenness with internal energy, he woke the next morning with a hangover.
“Travel safely!”
“You could stay and rest longer, you know. Be careful of bandits!”
All the villagers came out to see Cheongho off.
They had sincerely come to like the young chivalrous warrior who had avenged them, so of course they packed him a huge amount of food.
With overflowing strips of jerky slung over his shoulder, Cheongho set out as well.
His head felt as though it would split from the hangover.
Cheongho walked with his eyes half closed.
The villagers had likely felt affection while drinking liquor and sharing meat.
The extraordinary boy setting out on his journey might even have felt like their own child to them.
Among the women, there were even some who wiped away tears as they watched Cheongho leave alone.
But they didn’t know Cheongho’s true thoughts.
“……My head hurts.”
Cheongho didn’t feel even the slightest regret about leaving the village.
Even at the sight of the villagers weeping, he remained indifferent.
Whether that was because Cheongho was not yet human, no one could say.
Cheongho didn’t turn his head back even once until Wang Family Village was no longer in sight.
He walked with his eyes half closed.
Perhaps to the bandits guarding the road.
Cheongho, walking with his eyes closed, must have looked peculiar.
“What the hell is with this brat?”
“Those are some pretty fine clothes.”
“And he’s hauling a ton of stuff too.”
Even the Green Forest had its rules and code.
They didn’t rob every single passerby.
They also knew the old saying warning them to be careful of the old, women, and children.
“Hey, keep that up and you’ll fall on your face and break your nose.”
“Heh heh, look at that fool zoning out.”
But honestly speaking.
It was extremely rare to run into a young master out in a rural backwater like this.
And there certainly were no young masters who went around wrapped up in dried meat.
The ordinary sword Cheongho had carried at his waist had broken while killing the tiger, and he had left it behind in the village.
“I’d almost let him go, but we’ve got an important guest at our stronghold right now. We need results.”
One of the bandits walked up in front of Cheongho.
He swung the axe in his hand loosely back and forth.
Whether it was on purpose or not, sticky, uncleaned blood clung to the axe blade.
“Strip everything but your underwear. Do that, and I’ll let you live.”
Cheongho stared blankly at the bandit.
For a moment, a blue light flashed in his eyes.
The bandit flinched.
Not because of the look in his eyes, but because of Cheongho’s expression, which seemed far too emotionless.
Cheongho didn’t feel anger toward the bandits.
He merely acted the way Yi-gang and Dam Hyun had taught him.
“You fucker, answer m……!”
Cheongho’s fist slammed straight into the bandit’s face.
Broken teeth flew through the air.
