180 – Fox Noise #1

180 – Fox Noise #1

Within Seo Gaeul resided the power of ‘Miracle.’

To what extent was this great, you ask? Enough to reverse the order of cause and effect.

For example, it would go something like this.

Ordinary folk, when preparing a cup of ramen, must follow these steps:

Open the cup of ramen.

Add the powdered soup and dried ingredients, then pour in boiling water.

Wait 2-3 minutes.

Done!

But for Seo Gaeul, touched by the concept of Miracle, ramen preparation goes like this:

1. Open the cup of ramen.

2. Done!

Skipping steps 2 and 3 entirely.

Its usage was boundless, making it an incredibly potent force.

Even that Gu Sejun, who had grasped the power of ‘Time,’ couldn’t hold a candle to Seo Gaeul’s Miracle.

So, how would Miracle operate in the birth of life?

Normally, there would have to be a process like this:

A girl, late and biting into a bread roll, bumps into a boy at a street corner.

Arriving at school, they discover a new transfer student.

“Ah! You’re that awful jerk from earlier!”

“You’re that violent girl!”

“Who are you calling a violent girl!”

They absolutely despise each other.

But somehow, they become entangled in incident after incident.

She wouldn’t let it show, but the girl was subtly aware of the boy.

Then, Girl B appears, showing interest in the boy!

“Does he just like any girl, is that it? Grinning like an idiot!”

The boy and girl bicker, clash.

They endure hardship together and fatefully reconcile! Even share a little kiss!

Graduation. The boy makes a shocking confession – “I… I have to study abroad in America.”

Five years later, they reunite at the airport, looking radiant.

Wedding.

Baby born.

Something like that?

In order for a baby to be born, roughly 1 to 16 steps must be taken.

I shall christen this Hanamjin’s Hexadecimal Method.

But, before the miraculous power of Seo Ga-eul, this order is meaningless.

Baby born!

Starting right from #1.

And that’s how this child came to be.

“Papa! Mama!”

The sight of the fox-eared girl, maybe ten years old, hopping through the clover field felt strangely unfamiliar.

She called me Papa, and the word felt intensely awkward.

It’s like playing pretend.

You’re Papa! I’m Mama!

You’re Bow-wow!

Something like that?

“Such a Kore-infused maiden, she is…!”

“Since she has fox ears, we should name her Yeou-noi…!”

The nymphs named the girl.

Yeou-noi.

They sure phoned that name in!

If she were my daughter, I’d give her a cooler name, you know?

The girl, in fact, bristled at it.

“I have a name! A name Mom and Dad gave me!”

“Oho, let’s hear you talk out this name of yours…!”

“…Ugh, but I forgot…”

To forget your own name.

In the end, the girl’s name became Fox-noi (temporary).

“That she’s my daughter. It’s not easy forgetting your own name, you know.”

Seo Gaeul crossed her arms, watching the girl, Fox-noi, playing with the nymphs.

I assessed her attitude with my emotions, and that intensely furrowed brow made her seem less like a mother and more like a critic rigorously evaluating a work.

Sounds like one of those Daechi-dong mothers who keep their kids cooped up in cram schools all day.

“How does a person have a tail…”

Just then, Yoo Yeoreum reached out towards Fox-noi.

I guess she was fascinated by the fox tail wagging left and right?

*Thwack-*

And just like that, Fox-noi’s tail was grabbed.

“Hieeek…!”

The little thing puffed up the fur on her ears and tail.

And then, she slapped Yoo Yeoreum’s hand away with her own palm— *whack*!

*Smack-*!

“Don’t touch me all willy-nilly!”

“Ah?”

Yoo Yeoreum seemed quite surprised.

Because the back of Yoo Yeoreum’s hand was swollen red.

She’d delivered a pretty serious blow to Yoo Yeoreum’s hand, which was usually as sturdy as steel.

“That stings.”

*Rub, rub, rub.* Yoo Yeoreum rubbed the back of her hand.

Watching that, the frown lines vanished from between Seo Gaeul’s eyebrows.

“Hmph, if she’s my daughter, she should naturally be able to do at least that much.”

She seemed proud that her daughter possessed such formidable abilities.

I’d heard that children born to Awakened parents with proper sense and good principles were more likely to have even greater power.

Looks like that hypothesis was true after all.

“Could I… maybe touch your ears instead of your tail?”

*Swoosh-*

So carefully, Bangdaeng reached out a hand.

Seemed the fox ears atop its head were occupying her thoughts.

“Grrr….”

Of course, Fox Noye showed wariness at Bangdaeng’s hand.

But didn’t exactly reject it.

And so, Bangdaeng ended up petting Fox Noye’s head.

“…Whoa-oot! They’re so tiny and cute! Thinking about it now, Seo Gaeul looked exactly like this when she was little! Except for the ears and tail!”

*Thump-thump-thump-*

Bangdaeng took off running somewhere.

“Wait up! Mom should have the photo albums!”

Ten minutes later.

Bangdaeng returned from a trip to the family home, clutching photograph-filled albums.

Elementary school graduation albums, at that.

“Look here! Seo Gaeul’s photos are right here!”

Come to think of it, Seo Gaeul and Bangdaeng did mention attending the same elementary school, didn’t they?

Indeed, the album held quite a few photos of Seo Gaeul from her later elementary school years.

She looked just like Fox Noye.

“Where did my genes go? Is she really my daughter?”

I scrutinized the photo with narrowed eyes.

At that, Fox Noye jumped, startled, and clung to me.

“I’m your daughter, I am! Look! Ten fingers! Ten toes! Just the same!”

“Whoa.”

“And I have a tail, like this! Grandma said that! When Daddy was little, he also had a tail… *Gasp!*”

Fox Noye clapped a hand over her mouth.

Her eyes shifted sideways, the whites showing wide, as she eyed us warily.

However, we’d already heard the startling tale.

“Now, what was that you just said?”

“Dunnoo….”

Seo Gaeul pressed the fox child, Yeou-Noui.

Surely, he, too, was curious.

About those words he had just heard—

“—I had a tail…!!!!!!”

The astonishing tale that I, Ha Namjin, possessed a tail!

The truth, unveiled!

Come to think of it, it had always been a question in my mind.

Why my tailbone so often throbbed with a grand, electric pulse.

I figured there must be a reason.

“…Could it be I actually did have a tail!”

A shocking twist: the man, Ha Namjin, in truth, had a tail.

But why isn’t it there now?

Did I, perhaps, transform into some giant ape-like creature whenever I saw the moon, like a S-ape, and eliminate it?

A plausible scenario.

“No, not that! He mentioned something about a grandmother!”

It was Seo Gaeul, still badgering Yeou-Noui.

If he calls my daughter ‘grandmother,’ does that mean… my mother?

“You, do you know Kore? Have you two ever met?”

“……”

Yeou-Noui brought his hands together neatly in front of him and scanned the eyes of everyone present.

And just when the tension had risen to a fever pitch, he opened his mouth, ever so slightly.

“Knowing too much… is a dangerous thing!”

# # #

Electricity had returned to the village.

But life remained rife with inconveniences.

In this world, there wasn’t so much as a proper convenience store, let alone a megamart.

Of course, things were gradually improving.

Still, for those accustomed to the comfortable infrastructure and content of the 21st century, this new era was overflowing with discomfort.

The inability to use their cell phones was, undeniably, the most frustrating.

But then, what about the children?

I went to the playground.

“You’re it!”

“Freeze!”

“Break free!”

So terribly loud.

In this world of personal cellphones and computers, the playground was supposedly a fading place.

But maybe because there weren’t any cellphones here, the playground was absolutely swarming with children.

“Fox-nymph! Let us wager with Back-Eddy, who will seize a nymph first…!”

“oooh yeah!”

“Hieeek…! You mustn’t strike Bao-nymph…! Striking and seizing nymph Bao-nymph is a nymph-hateful act that violates the soon-to-be-created Constitution, Article 7…!”

“Let us Ino-nymph play together too…!”

Little girls running and playing with the nymphs.

Watching them, Seo Gaeul murmured, very softly.

“That one… no matter how I look at it, she seems awfully suspicious.”

Suspicious, true.

But, she looked exactly like Seo Gaeul in her childhood photos.

There was no doubting she was Seo Gaeul’s daughter.

It was just then.

Wooo, wooom-.

Fox-nymph’s body glowed with an uncanny light.

Again, her body turned slightly transparent, like a ghost.

Her presence thinned out, too, giving a feeling of unease?

“Are you alright?”

I approached the self-proclaimed daughter of Han Namjin and asked.

Fox-nymph nodded her head frantically.

“This is fun! I hope every day is like today! With Mom and Dad too!”

Unlike the adults, who found this world without cellphones inconvenient, it seemed to be exactly to the children’s liking.

Wooo, wooom-.

Just then, Fox-nymph’s body blurred again.

Just in case, I reached out my hand, and it passed right through Fox-nymph’s body.

Like a real ghost!

What could it be?

Of course, Fox Noye was playing with the kids as if she didn’t care at all.

Instead, Seo Gaeul pulled at my shoulder.

And then, leading me to a deserted back alley, cautiously revealed her worry.

“I can’t help but be concerned.”

“That I had a tail?”

“…Not that! Well, honestly, that bothers me a little too… but her body keeps becoming transparent. This means the limit to the ‘miracle’ I can force is approaching.”

“What are you saying?”

“Let’s say I use my miraculous power to make instant noodles. An ordinary person would have to open the lid, pour water, and wait for it to be done. But I can complete the noodles as soon as I open the lid.”

“Yeah, that’s your power.”

“But actually, that’s not all there is to it. I have to back it up with at least something that can be called plausibility. I’ll show you rather than tell you.”

“Agh!”

Suddenly, my shoulder hurt.

Wondering what it was, I looked at my shoulder and saw a bite mark.

Seo Gaeul had bitten me with her miraculous power.

“Normally, it should be ‘[1. Bite.], [2. Bite mark appears]’. But, just now I skipped the step of ‘[1]’ and just left a bite mark on you.”

“That’s a really convenient power.”

“But it’s not omnipotent. Look. In just a little while…”

Srrr-.

The distinct bite mark on my left shoulder faded away.

As if it had never been there. The pain vanished completely.

What in the world?

“My miracle is the power to reverse the order of cause and effect. It’s not a power that can omit the cause itself. After the result, I must perform the corresponding action. Otherwise, it will disappear as if it never happened.”

“I see. If you leave a bite mark on me, you absolutely have to bite me afterwards, right? Otherwise, the result that happened first will also become nothing?”

“Exactly! That’s why it’s a problem! Look at her. That Fox Noye is literally a result that appeared first. But if we don’t perform the cause to support that result, the corresponding action…”

“Fox Noye will disappear? Like she never existed?”

It was a serious and frightening story.

Fox Noye disappearing.

Seo Gaeul also stroked her arm with a gloomy expression.

“…Definitely my fault. I, who went to the moon and returned to Earth, clearly couldn’t control my powers. My emotions were all over the place back then, too.”

Indeed.

So, what to do?

As I pondered solutions from every angle, Seo Gaeul quietly added,

“But, thinking of her as my daughter, she seems so incredibly cute. She looks exactly like me. I wonder if this is how my mother felt when she looked at me… Did you see the way she looks at me?”

The way Yeou-Noi looked at Seo Gaeul.

Eyes filled with unconditional affection, those apple-red pupils.

All adults were once children.

And in every child’s eyes, their mother and father are steadfast and amazing, like superheroes.

There was a time when I looked at my parents with eyes like Yeou-Noi’s.

“Ha Namjin, so, what I’m trying to say is…”

Seo Gaeul hesitated greatly.

“I think I’d be incredibly sad if she just disappeared like this. Ha Namjin, what do you think?”

What do I think?

She was a daughter who suddenly appeared.

There wasn’t even time to grow attached, but just by meeting each other’s gaze and talking, we had forged a connection stronger than a wire twisted from steel.

If such a Yeou-Noi were to vanish, I would definitely be sad enough to burst into tears!

“Then we have to make sure Yeou-Noi doesn’t disappear!”

“……!”