She was a girl whose composure did not falter even on the rain-soaked night street.
Her bluish cloak looked heavy, drenched with rainwater.
Even so, the girl’s shoulders were held straight, and a sword hung at her waist.
The leather of its grip was naturally worn, as though long accustomed to her hand, and the scabbard was neatly maintained.
That sword was surely drawn every day, swung every day.
The girl’s blond hair was wet with rain and clung to her shoulders.
Her blue eyes seemed calm on the surface, but within them, a faint, suppressed impatience trembled.
Yet that light had not gone out.
The frustration of someone unable to advance as far as she wished.
And yet, the stubbornness of someone who still refused to let go of the sword.
Those were the kind of eyes she had.
‘A noble?’
The moment I thought that—
“……A fox?”
I instinctively lowered my body.
Should I run?
But my body was soaked, my stomach was empty, and my mind was exhausted.
Above all, I sensed no hostility from this girl.
The girl did not immediately reach out her hand.
Instead, she slowly bent her knees.
The rain-soaked hem of her skirt touched the stone pavement, but she did not seem to mind.
“It’s all right.”
She spoke in a low voice.
“I won’t hurt you.”
Instead of answering, I let out a small cry.
“Grr……”
It was meant to be threatening.
But in reality, it was closer to the weak whimper of a baby fox.
The girl smiled ever so slightly.
It was not a mocking smile.
It was a gentle smile, as though some of her tension had eased.
“You must have been very cold.”
She carefully spread the end of her cloak and held it out toward me.
She did not try to grab me by force.
Nor did she block my path of escape.
She simply waited, allowing me to choose.
I looked at her hand.
There were calluses on her palm.
For the hand of a noble young lady, the traces of training were unmistakable.
It was the hand of someone who loved the sword, who had gripped it again and again.
Then, I felt something strange.
The energy flowing around the girl’s body.
At first, it was extremely faint.
Mixed with the sound of rain and the mana of the city, I could not sense it properly.
But when I narrowed my eyes and looked, it gradually began to appear.
Threads of light flowing within her body.
It was probably what the people of this world called aura.
But something was strange.
It was not weak.
On the contrary, there was far too much of it.
An enormous amount of potential lay dormant inside the girl’s body.
An energy that had not yet bloomed.
Something sharp, pure, and capable of growing powerful.
But its flow was not smooth.
Like a great river forced into a narrow channel and blocked, her energy collided and scattered in places.
It was not that she lacked strength.
Her strength had not found the direction in which it should grow.
‘What is this?’
For a moment, I stared up at her blankly.
This child was not weak.
Nor was she talentless.
It was the opposite.
She possessed so much talent that, unable to find the proper path, it was hindering her natural growth.
If it were refined well.
No, if only the right path were opened for it.
This child would become terrifying.
“……?”
The girl tilted her head slightly.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
I could not answer.
I simply looked up at her.
Though she seemed puzzled by my gaze, the girl spoke again, carefully.
“If you stay out in the rain, you’ll catch a cold. Come here.”
A cold.
I had no idea whether a gumiho could catch a cold.
But her voice was strangely warm.
I hesitated for a moment.
An unfamiliar world.
An unfamiliar city.
An unfamiliar body.
And the girl before my eyes.
At least she did not seem like someone who meant to harm me.
I slowly came out from beneath the wooden crate.
My wet paws stepped onto the stone pavement.
The girl waited for me to approach, then very carefully wrapped my body in her cloak.
“You’re cold.”
Her fingertips brushed my wet fur.
They were warm.
At that moment, I trembled ever so slightly.
It was not an unpleasant touch.
If anything, it made me feel strangely relieved.
“You’re pretty.”
The girl murmured softly.
“Silver…… with a hint of pink.”
For no reason, I flattened my ears.
It seemed this fur color stood out even in this world.
The girl held me in her arms.
It did not feel as though she was forcing me against her.
She handled me carefully, as though I were something fragile.
But there was strength in those arms.
The firm strength of someone who swung a sword.
The steadiness that only someone who had trained consistently could possess.
In her embrace, I savored the warmth.
“My name is Elysia.”
“Elysia von Valerion.”
Valerion.
The moment I heard that name, a faint fragment of memory left somewhere in this body reacted.
Sword.
Lion.
The imperial military.
A prestigious house of aura.
The ducal family known as the Sword of the Empire.
I looked up at her again.
‘A duke’s daughter?’
If so, there was nothing strange about it.
That upright posture.
That well-maintained sword.
The etiquette ingrained in her body.
And that immense sword talent that had yet to fully bloom.
With me in her arms, Elysia walked out of the alley.
“Do you not have an owner?”
Instead of answering, I let out a small cry.
“Yip.”
“I see.”
No, I hadn’t answered anything.
She nodded seriously.
“Then come with me.”
I knew nothing about this world.
I knew nothing about this body, nor how beings called gumiho were treated.
So for now, it would be better to be under someone’s protection.
Besides, this girl.
Elysia Valerion.
The vast potential flowing within her bothered me to a strange degree.
Like seeing a tangled skein of thread and wanting to unravel it.
Like seeing a blocked waterway and wanting to open it.
‘It feels like all she needs is a little guidance in the right direction.’
I did not know why I was thinking that.
Perhaps it was because of the fragments of memory left in this body.
An ancient breathing method.
The way to use one’s body like a sword.
The way not to go against the flow, but to open the path the flow should take.
It was faint, but I knew it.
What she needed was not stronger power.
It was a path for the power already within her to grow.
Wrapping my body in her cloak, Elysia spoke softly.
“How strange.”
My ears twitched.
“When I hold you…… I feel a little at ease.”
Leaning against her chest, I blinked.
Perhaps the fox-spirit power flowing from me was calming her tangled energy a little.
She did not seem to know the reason, but her expression softened ever so slightly.
The rain was still falling.
But her embrace was warm.
Hiding my wet fur inside the cloak, I thought.
‘For now, let’s follow her.’
Perhaps it was not such a bad thing that the first person I met in this world was this girl.
And one day—
—At the time, I did not yet know that this meeting on a rainy night would lead one girl down an entirely different path.—
And so I ended up heading to the girl’s home.
To be precise, I was being carried off in her arms.
‘For now, let’s behave.’
Half resigned, I quietly curled up in the girl’s embrace.
The rain continued to fall.
The girl’s cloak was already soaked, but strangely enough, it was warm in her arms.
The sound of rain, the sound of footsteps, and the distant sound of carriage wheels mingled together.
Before long, we arrived before a mansion.
“…….”
Without realizing it, I lifted my head.
I had expected it.
Valerion.
The ducal family known as the Sword of the Empire.
From the moment I heard that name, I had thought there was no way her home would be ordinary.
But the mansion that unfolded before my eyes was far larger than I had expected.
A tall iron gate.
A neatly trimmed garden.
Grass that had not lost its blue hue even while wet with rain.
Golden lion crests engraved here and there on the walls.
In my previous life, everything I could imagine when hearing “medieval-style mansion” came from novels or scenes in movies.
But now, something like that actually existed before my eyes.
No, it was not merely similar.
It was far clearer, larger, and more overwhelming than that.
‘Wow.’
No words came out of my mouth.
Instead, only a small cry escaped.
“Yip……”
Elysia nodded to the guard standing before the gate.
“Open the gate.”
“Yes, Lady Elysia.”
The guard glanced briefly at me in her arms.
His eyes widened slightly.
But he did not ask.
That alone was enough to show the level of discipline in this household.
The iron gate opened, and we entered the mansion grounds.
When we arrived at the entrance, the butler and maids who had been waiting all paid their respects at once.
“Welcome back, Lady Elysia.”
The old butler standing at the front calmly bowed his head.
His gaze immediately reached me.
“……My lady. What is that in your arms?”
“I found it on the street.”
Elysia held me a little more carefully.
“It was getting rained on, so I brought it with me. It’s very wet.”
The old butler looked at me for a moment.
His gaze was sharp.
It was not the gaze of someone simply thinking I was cute.
It was the gaze of someone who had long served a noble household, inspecting an unfamiliar object, an unfamiliar guest, an unfamiliar creature.
I shrank back for no reason.
‘Ah, will he figure me out?’
But the old butler soon bowed his head quietly.
“In that case, it would be best to wash it first. Its body temperature appears to have dropped considerably.”
“Please.”
“Yes, my lady.”
And so, in an instant, I was handed over to the maids.
“Yip?”
Wait.
What about my opinion?
But my protest emerged only as a small, thin cry.
The maids were skilled.
First, they wiped the dirt and rainwater from my fur with a wet towel,
and then they moved me into a small basin filled with warm water.
As the warm water wrapped around my body, the tension left me without my realizing it.
‘Ah…… I’m saved.’
Of course, at first, there was shame.
In my previous life, I had been a full-grown adult man.
Yet now I was being washed by maids.
But that shame did not last long.
My body was too small.
My fur was too wet.
And the water was too warm.
In the end, I gave up resisting.
One maid carefully lifted my front paw and wiped the pad.
“Oh my.”
She exclaimed softly.
‘Don’t look.’
I tried to pull my paw away, but my strength had left me, and I could not move properly.
Another maid spoke in a voice that seemed to be holding back laughter.
“Its fur color is really unusual. It’s silver, but the tips have a pink sheen.”
“I’ve never seen a fox like this before.”
‘Neither have I.’
That was sincere.
Even when I looked at my own body, it was strange.
After the bath was over, a soft towel wrapped around my entire body.
Then warm air flowed from a device that looked like a magic tool, drying my fur.
At first, the mana flowing from the device made me feel slightly queasy, but compared to the magic carriage, it was much weaker.
It was bearable.
After a little while, my damp, flattened fur puffed up again.
A silver-pink ball of fluff.
That was exactly what I looked like in the mirror.
‘……I look even smaller.’
Maybe because my fur had dried, I looked even rounder.
I felt conflicted, realizing why the maids were looking at me with strangely pleased eyes.
A short while later, I was seated in a small basket lined with warm cloth.
Then two small plates were placed in front of me.
One held warm milk.
The other held small pieces of torn meat.
“…….”
My pride raised its head once again.
But this time, too, hunger won.
I carefully lapped at the milk.
It was warm.
Then I chewed a piece of meat.
‘It’s good.’
My sense of taste felt a little different from when I had been human.
The smell of the meat was much clearer, and the rich nuttiness of the warm milk felt stronger as well.
By the time I came to my senses, the plates were nearly empty.
Elysia was sitting in a chair a short distance away, watching me.
Her expression as she looked at me after my bath was far softer than before.
“You were pretty even when you were wet from the rain.”
She spoke quietly.
“But now that I see you like this, your color is even prettier.”
“Yip?”
I lifted my head.
Was that a compliment?
No, it was a compliment, but still.
Elysia very carefully stroked the tips of my fur with her finger.
“It’s silver, but when the light touches it, you can see pink.”
I flattened my ears slightly.
Then a question suddenly occurred to me.
‘Come to think of it…… how am I understanding the language of this world?’
The language of this world was certainly not the Korean of my previous life.
The sounds were different, and so was the intonation.
The words spoken by the butler and maids inside the mansion were completely different from the language I had used in my past life.
And yet I understood them naturally.
I did not know yet whether I could read, but at least when it came to listening and grasping the meaning of speech, there was no problem.
I soon understood why.
The memories of this original body.
Fragments of memory.
Language, concepts, and the basic common sense of this world remained within the body, however faintly.
Like vaguely recalling the contents of a book memorized long ago.
‘Good. The language problem is solved for now.’
Of course, the issue of being unable to speak with a fox’s mouth was another matter.
After confirming that I had emptied the plates, Elysia rose from her seat.
“……I should ask Father and Mother.”
‘All of a sudden?’
I froze while licking the milk from around my mouth.
Father and Mother?
In other words.
The Duke and Duchess of Valerion?
‘Wait.’
I was not mentally prepared yet.
But Elysia seemed to have already made up her mind.
“I need to ask permission to raise this child.”
No, wait a second.
Me?
Raise me?
Elysia wrapped my body once more in the soft cloth the maid had brought.
Then she very carefully held me in her arms.
I tried to resist, but soon gave up.