I decided to assess the situation once more.
Maybe because the gap from my memories of just moments ago was too severe, my head refused to work properly.
I couldn’t organize it. I couldn’t understand it.
First of all, I had been a man.
And I had been human.
I died while saving a cat, and when I opened my eyes, I was in a forest.
It resembled the developments in the novels I had read while cutting down on sleep.
Reincarnation—dying and being born in another world.
But not just reincarnation. Possession—entering another being’s body.
And not even a person, but a fox.
Not even an ordinary fox, but a nine-tailed fox.
‘……Is this right?’
By common sense, it was an impossible situation.
But the forepaws in front of my eyes and the nine tails swaying behind my back proved that it was reality.
Then there was only one problem.
What had happened to the soul of the nine-tailed fox who had originally owned this body?
I closed my eyes.
I wondered if I might be able to see the memories that remained in this body.
At first, I saw nothing.
I only felt a sensation like sinking into deep, dark water.
But after a while, extremely faint scenes began to seep into my mind.
Not all of them.
They were fragmented, blurry memories, as though they might scatter at any moment like an old dream.
The final memory of this body was ennui.
Ennui toward everything.
It had lived too long.
It had seen too much.
At first, there had been beings who came to find it, spoke with it, laughed, and tilted cups of wine.
But as time passed, they disappeared one by one.
From age.
From illness.
From being swept up in battles.
Or simply, from being pushed along by the years.
Fewer and fewer came to visit, and all that remained was stillness.
And so the owner of this body chose to vanish of its own accord.
It was closer to extinction than death.
Without resenting anyone, without clinging to anything, it had simply closed its eyes in silence.
And it seemed that my entering this body had overlapped with that timing.
But at the very end of the memories, I saw something strange.
A fading soul.
And from that soul, something incredibly small broke away and flew off somewhere into this world.
‘……What is that?’
I was curious about its identity.
But it wasn’t something I needed to worry about right now.
What had already happened couldn’t be helped.
Then there was only one thing I had to do.
‘I have to live.’
And if possible.
‘……Enjoy life as a fox a little, too.’
Of course, there was something I had to do before that.
Learn more about this body.
I slowly rose from my place.
No, I tried to rise.
“Kkiiik?!”
But my body lurched forward, and I planted my face straight into the grass.
Blades of grass entered my mouth.
‘……Walking on four legs is harder than I thought.’
The sense of balance that had been so natural when I was human had completely changed.
The distinction between arms and legs felt awkward, and with nine tails attached, my center of gravity was strangely pulled toward the back.
I staggered and got up again and again.
One step.
Then another.
At first, my legs tangled with one another.
When I tried to step with my forepaw, my hind leg wouldn’t follow, and when I tried to move my tails, my whole body wobbled.
But strangely, I got used to it quickly.
It felt as if my body already knew the movements, and I was only belatedly catching up.
After walking a few more times, I cautiously tried running.
Tap.
I thought I had lightly kicked off the ground.
But my field of vision suddenly rose.
“Kkieeeek?!”
I sprang up to nearly the height of a person, then flailed my paws in a panic and rolled down into the grass.
Fortunately, it didn’t hurt.
No, it was strange how completely fine I was.
‘……What was that just now?’
I stared blankly at the spot where I had jumped.
The grass had been slightly gouged out.
Even though I had stepped there with a small forepaw, the ground had been pressed into a round indentation.
This was not the body of a simple fox cub.
On the outside, I was a small, soft ball of fur, but inside was an absurd amount of strength.
I tried to swallow.
Of course, maybe because I was in a fox’s body, all I felt was my throat moving strangely.
‘All right. My physical abilities are dangerously high.’
Next were the tails.
I turned back and looked at the nine tails.
The silver tails were swaying slowly even without my conscious effort.
As if each one were a living creature.
‘Move.’
As soon as I thought that, the tail on the far left lifted slightly.
‘Oh.’
I tried moving the other tails, too.
One.
Two.
Three.
They moved better than I expected.
It wasn’t as natural as moving my fingers, but they definitely responded when I focused.
I tried wrapping one tail around a nearby branch.
Crack.
The branch snapped.
‘……Gently. Let’s do it gently.’
This time, I reduced my strength very carefully.
Then the tail softly picked up a single leaf.
Delicate manipulation was possible, too.
They were powerful, and they could move softly as well.
If I could properly control all nine of them, they might be more convenient than hands.
The problem was that I still couldn’t do that.
I tried to sigh, but a small cry slipped out of my mouth.
“Kaeng…….”
‘Not dignified at all.’
The next thing to check was power.
More precisely, the strange energy flowing inside this body.
It was different from mana.
It wasn’t a power flowing through the air like the mana I’d seen in fantasy novels, but a sensation that gently bloomed from somewhere deep inside my body.
It was warm, yet cool.
Like moonlight, like flame, like mist.
I tried gathering that energy at the tip of my forepaw.
‘Is this…… how you do it?’
At that moment, a small spark bloomed above my forepaw.
It was neither blue nor red.
A faint flame closer to silver.
That flame flickered and swayed even though there was no wind.
‘Foxfire?’
Before the thought even ended, the flame suddenly grew.
Whoosh!
“Kiaaaak!”
I accidentally let words slip out.
So I could speak even in fox form.
I just couldn’t do it consciously.
Startled, I swung my forepaw.
Then the silver flame flew forward and struck a nearby boulder.
Crack.
The boulder split.
I froze on the spot.
The forest went quiet as well.
Even the wind brushing against the leaves seemed to have stopped.
‘……I did that just now, right?’
I looked back and forth between the split boulder and my forepaw.
A small, fluffy forepaw.
The flame that had come from that forepaw had split a boulder.
‘Dangerous.’
This wasn’t a power to play around with.
If I made even a small mistake, I felt like I could burn down an entire forest.
I hurriedly settled the energy inside my body.
Then the silver flame vanished as if it had never existed.
Fortunately, it wasn’t completely uncontrollable.
The problem was that my output control was a mess.
‘It’s nice that I reincarnated and got a cheat ability, but there’s no tutorial.’
I let out a small groan.
This time, I imagined something a little different.
If I was a nine-tailed fox, then transformation.
The technique of a fox turning into a person.
To be honest, it was also the ability I had wanted to check first.
If I became human, it would be much easier to grasp the situation than it was now.
I could speak, and I could use my hands.
I closed my eyes and pictured the way I had looked as a human.
Height.
Hands.
Legs.
Voice.
And I said.
‘Human form.’
The energy deep inside my body stirred.
One of the nine tails shone faintly.
Silver mist began to wrap around my body.
‘It’s working.’
I felt certain.
The mist grew denser and denser.
My low field of vision rose, and I felt my forepaws changing into fingers.
Fur disappeared, and skin emerged.
The tails behind my back melted into the mist.
And a moment later.
I was standing on the ground with two feet.
‘Did it work?’
I slowly raised my hand.
Slender, pale fingers.
Long nails.
Skin so soft it felt strange.
……It was not my hand.
I had an ominous feeling.
I walked over to a small puddle nearby.
And looked into it.
There was a person I had never seen before.
Silver hair was mixed with a faint pink hue.
The eyes were long and narrow, and the eyelashes were far too long.
The lips were red, and the lines of the face were absurdly delicate.
Beautiful.
Truly, ridiculously so.
The problem was.
‘……That’s a woman.’
I stared blankly at the face reflected in the puddle.
No matter how you looked at it, it wasn’t a man.
And not just a woman, but an unrivaled beauty who would leave passersby staring in a daze.
With trembling hands, I touched my face.
Then I looked down.
“…….”
I looked at the puddle again.
And quietly thought.
‘No.’
Something was wrong.
I had been a man.
Definitely a man.
But the thing reflected in the water now was, no matter how I looked at it, a mysterious and beautiful fox spirit woman.
At that moment, a faint fragment of memory surfaced somewhere in my mind.
A nine-tailed fox’s transformation reflects essence, desire, and the perception of those who behold it.
In particular, an immature transformation is led by instinct.
‘Instinct?’
I looked again at the face reflected in the water.
Overwhelming beauty.
Eyes that seemed capable of bewitching people.
Silver-pink hair.
Only then did I vaguely understand.
The nine-tailed fox instincts of this body had interpreted the command to transform into a human in a strange direction.
A form suited to bewitching people.
The most alluring form.
In other words.
‘When this body transforms, does it automatically become a beautiful woman?’
I covered my face with both hands.
I was screwed.
My strength was great.
I could use foxfire.
I could move my tails.
I could transform.
But the result of that transformation was an unrivaled beauty.
I glared at the beautiful face reflected in the puddle and gritted my teeth.
Of course, in reality, all that happened was that the incredibly lovely face frowned slightly.
‘All right.’
Let’s organize this.
This body is incredibly strong.
But if I don’t handle it properly, it’s dangerous.
And I can transform into a human.
However.
‘I can’t turn into a man yet.’
I looked up at the sky.
Faint moonlight was shining over the forest.
I murmured very softly.
“……But I’m a man.”
That voice was not the voice I knew.
It was clear, low, and strangely alluring enough to bewitch people.
I was certain once again.
‘I’m really screwed.’