I carefully left the clearing.
The forest was deeper than I had expected.
The inside of the clearing had been quiet and sacred, as if someone had tended to it, but outside was completely different.
The trees grew densely, and beneath my feet lay damp fallen leaves and soft soil.
Fortunately, the body of a young fox adapted easily to the forest path.
At first, walking on all fours felt awkward, but after stumbling a few times, my body began to move on its own.
Tap, tap.
Every time my small paws stepped on the earth, a moist sensation came through.
And strangely, though I shouldn’t have known the way at all, my sense of direction was clear.
The smell of wind.
The smell of earth.
The smell of water.
And the smell of smoke from far away.
Scents I wouldn’t even have been able to distinguish as a human now felt like different colors.
‘There’s water this way… and over there, smoke?’
I sniffed.
There was definitely the faint scent of smoke from afar.
The smell of burning wood, and the smell of food cooking.
And the smell of people.
There were people.
Realizing that made me a little tense.
But at the same time, I felt relieved.
‘Good. That way.’
I walked in the direction of the smoke.
From time to time, I saw unfamiliar animals.
A deer with blue horns.
A small bird with transparent wings.
A creature that looked like a squirrel moving through the trees.
When they saw me, they stopped for a moment.
At first, I lowered my body, afraid they might attack.
But strangely, they neither avoided me nor threatened me.
If anything, some of them seemed to quietly bow their heads.
‘…What?’
A small bird perched on a branch folded its wings.
When the blue-horned deer met my eyes, it slowly stepped aside.
Rather than fear, it seemed like they were showing courtesy.
‘To me?’
Considering what this body was, perhaps it wasn’t that strange.
A gumiho.
An ancient being with nine tails, no less.
Animals or spirits might be more sensitive to that kind of aura than humans.
But even among them, there was one slow-witted fellow.
“Kyah?”
A plump furry beast popped out of the grass.
It looked like a cross between a weasel and a rabbit.
The creature looked at me, its eyes sparkling.
Then it suddenly charged.
‘Huh?’
It was a little smaller than me.
But its momentum was terrifying.
It grabbed my front paw and tried to roll around with me.
“Kiik?!”
Startled, I backed away.
The creature was hanging from my front paw, but I barely felt its weight.
‘This one is different from the other animals.’
Unlike the deer and birds from earlier, this creature seemed completely unable to recognize the aura coming from me.
It had simply found a little fox and rushed over to play.
I lightly pushed its forehead with my front paw.
Thump.
The creature tumbled over the grass.
After sitting there blankly for a moment, it sprang back up and ran toward me again.
‘No. Too troublesome.’
I quickly fled.
Like that, I passed through thickets several times, crossed a small stream, and descended a slope covered in fallen leaves.
The sun was slowly tilting west.
By the time the light in the forest had turned orange, I finally found the edge of the woods.
A broad road could be seen between the trees.
It wasn’t a dirt path.
It was a smoothly paved road.
Here and there, stones engraved with blue patterns glowed faintly.
Carriages were passing along the road.
But they weren’t ordinary carriages.
A blue light shimmered beneath their wheels, and instead of horses, metal devices and what looked like small mana stones were attached to the front.
‘A magitech carriage?’
An unfamiliar term surfaced in my mind.
It wasn’t my memory.
It was a fragment of memory left in this body.
Mana stones.
Mana circuits.
Magitech engineering.
It seemed this world wasn’t entirely medieval fantasy.
I hid in the roadside bushes and watched the carriages.
And at that moment.
Wuuung.
As a magitech carriage passed nearby, my head shook slightly.
“Kiing…”
I felt nauseous.
The waves of blue mana flowing from the carriage felt as though they were clashing with the yokai power inside my body.
It made me feel sick, like being on a violently rocking boat.
‘Ah, this doesn’t agree with me.’
I quickly moved away from the road.
It seemed I had poor compatibility with magitech devices.
I had to remember this, too.
‘Stay away from magitech carriages.’
I slowly walked along the side of the road.
Riding in a carriage was impossible, but if I followed the road, I should at least arrive at a city.
After walking for quite some time.
The sky began to darken.
And in the distance, I saw lights.
At first, I thought they were starlight.
But they weren’t.
They were countless lights.
High city walls.
Spires rising beyond them.
A massive clock tower stretching toward the sky.
And blue magic lamps glowing softly beyond the walls.
It was a city.
It wasn’t a modern city like the ones I knew, but it was definitely a city where people lived.
Above the city gate, a large crest was carved.
A sword. A star. A cogwheel. And wings.
The moment I saw that crest, another fragment of memory surfaced in my mind.
Excelia.
The empire’s greatest educational institution.
An academy where nobles, knights, mages, magitech engineers, and familiar mages gathered.
‘A city with an academy.’
To be exact, it looked more like an academic city formed around the academy.
Inside the walls, people who looked like students, merchants, knights, and carriages were constantly coming and going.
But there was a problem.
There were guards in front of the gate.
I watched them from within the bushes.
Transforming into a human and entering would be dangerous.
My fox ears would remain as they were.
But confidently walking in as a young fox felt awkward, too.
‘Should I sneak in?’
Just as I was thinking that, luckily, a freight wagon was heading toward the gate.
The wagon was loaded with boxes covered by cloth.
It was an ordinary freight wagon without any magitech devices attached.
I carefully lowered my body.
‘Sorry. I’ll be freeloading for a moment.’
The instant the wagon passed in front of me, I lightly kicked off the ground.
Tap.
My body leapt higher than expected, startling me a little, but fortunately, I landed on the cargo at the back of the wagon.
When I hid myself between the canvas covers, the guards didn’t see me.
“Next!”
The wagon passed through the gate.
At that moment, the sounds inside the city rushed in all at once.
People talking.
The sound of horse hooves.
The sound of carriage wheels rolling.
Shopkeepers calling out to customers.
The sound of bells ringing in the distance.
I poked my head out from between the canvas.
‘Wow.’
The city was far larger than I had expected.
Stone buildings lined both sides of the streets, and magic lamps that looked like streetlights cast blue light.
Young men and women who looked like students walked around in uniforms, and beside them moved animals that seemed to be familiars.
A feathered cat.
A dog with small horns.
A crystal bird perched on someone’s shoulder.
A weasel with two tails.
Among them, one little fox might not seem as strange as I thought.
‘This is better than expected.’
Just as I felt relieved.
Grrr.
My stomach made a sound.
“…”
So even a fox’s stomach makes that kind of noise.
Thinking about it, of course it did.
Since dying and waking up again, I hadn’t eaten anything.
Still, even a spiritual creature like this gets hungry, huh.
When the wagon stopped for a moment, I carefully jumped down.
Then I entered an alley.
The city was splendid, but the inside of the alley was a little different.
The stone floor was wet, and old posters and notices for academy events were pasted on the walls.
From somewhere came the smell of bread.
I instinctively walked toward it.
It was a small bakery.
Freshly baked bread was displayed by the window.
The smell of butter, the smell of flour, the smell of sweet jam.
‘Looks delicious.’
I sat in front of the glass window and stared blankly at the bread.
But I had no money.
I remembered words like sol and mana stones, but I had nothing on me.
Even if I did, there was no way I could pay in the body of a young fox.
‘Ha, life.’
No, should I call it fox life?
Just then, the bakery owner noticed me.
“Oh my, a fox?”
I flinched.
I thought I would be chased away.
But the bakery owner looked at me for a moment, then smiled faintly.
“Are you lost? How adorable.”
Then she held a small piece of bread out the door.
“Here, this is leftover from today.”
I hesitated for a moment.
The pride from my previous life raised its head slightly.
But hunger was stronger.
“…Kiing.”
I carefully took the piece of bread in my mouth.
It was delicious.
Enough to bring tears to my eyes.
After eating the bread and regaining a little strength, I wandered the streets again.
Once my hunger had been somewhat dealt with, something naturally came to mind.
If I had lived long enough to have nine tails, it would have been normal for me to be an adult gumiho.
So why was I a young fox?
I thought that, but as hunger came surging back, the thought did not last long.
There was something more urgent right now.
I didn’t know where to go.
But strangely, I could tell which direction the academy was in.
Toward the city center.
A place with enormous spires, a wide wall, and a faint blue barrier surrounding it.
Excelia Academy.
Even within the city, that place was clearly different.
It was like a small city of its own.
A high main gate, a broad plaza, corridors connecting the buildings, and magic lamps illuminating the night sky.
I looked at it from afar, then suddenly curled my body inward.
Because it had begun to rain.
At first, it was only one or two drops.
Soon, the rain grew heavier.
Cold rain poured down over my silver-pink fur.
Wet fur became heavy faster than I had expected, and my body gradually sank under the damp chill.
“Kiing…”
I hurriedly searched for a place to avoid the rain.
But the unfamiliar city streets at night were more complicated than I had thought, and people’s footsteps were quick.
Some saw me and reached out, saying I was cute, while others avoided me, calling me a stray beast.
I slipped through them and hid in a narrow alley near the outer wall of the academy.
Under an old wooden crate.
Thinking I could barely avoid the rain there, I squeezed myself underneath, but the ground was already wet.
Cold moisture soaked my belly.
‘Sleeping rough as soon as I reincarnate.’
No, is it fox life now?
I curled up my damp body and let out something like a sighing whimper.
That was when it happened.
Step.
The sound of footsteps came through the rain.
I pricked up my ears.
Someone had stopped at the entrance of the alley.
It was a girl wearing clothes that looked like an academy uniform.