Reincarnated into a Snow Griffin-Chapter 132

I did not consider where the other participants may have been until this moment, given how hard it is to get into this place and to survive this island as a human, immortal or not, but I should have considered that at least one would make it here, especially since the fox did say they had sold is available second tail to someone, and who other would be looking to get in such a dangerous place if not the other candidates.

And yet there she is, the woman in red herself, alone this time, her clothes in tatters with claw marks and a rip on the legs, blood covering her whole left side where I could see a rope swinging from her wrist, cut in half.

As much as her outfit told us a story, showed just how unkind this place had been with her as much as the lack of her followers, her eyes still remarkably flashed with fiery essence as she said:

"You! Stop bullying the weak!" She says, punctuating her phrase with an audible slash from her whip, denting the floor.

Right, this woman, the man devouring flower, strangely alone, though I got to give her tenancy from managing to get this far, even with the clear difficulties she apparently had, but it seems her fierce hot headed attitude seems to have created a misunderstanding here by jumping to some conclusion on her own.

And before I could even waste time trying to explain the situation to her, the foxy devil starts whimpering and crying, dashing with his little legs to her side.

"M-missy, please help!" What a great moment to show the acting skills crafted by centuries of practice. "T-they are hurting me, I-I don’t know why, I did nothing wrong, please help me." At that point her guard is completely down as the small black fox clings to her leg.

And yet the metallic bad taste on my mouth left by his betrayals intensifies when the woman, without questioning the small pitiful fox on her legs, turns towards the two men and giant beast with renewed fire in her eyes.

Well, that is why dealing with people is always tiresome.

"Miss, sorry for all the trouble but there seems to be a misunderstanding here, can’t you see we are not at fault? We did not hurt the fox." I say, trying to appease both parties, as much as there were accusations I still hesitate to act up without hearing the fox first too, and yet it proves unnecessary, in the end.

"Did not hurt? Are you blind?" Her toxic aggressiveness turns her into a ticking bomb, only flames and barely any reasoning left. "What about his tail then?" I do not understand what she is trying to say, but with my veil and my cold face that only the devil bond to me seems to know how to read instead of taking my gaze as a questioning look she takes my silence to be guilty hesitation.

"I’m from fire element too, you can’t fool me like the others."

At that point even the fox is looking at her doubtfully, his cute pitiful façade slipping for a second as he wages its black fluffy tail around, and a frown grows at the top of his snout as finally he comes down from her leg and passes a paw over the tail.

Literally passes right through it.

He does it again and it becomes clear this time, and as he moves his paws faster and faster the tail dissipates itself as if made of smoke. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

"M-my last tail! How, when?! This is bad, this is bad..." I hear him say, from exclaiming to whispering as reality dooms on him.

There is a reason as to why he never sells the last tail, that every magical creature from the fox lineage takes so much care over their tails and is that, even though fox demons gain a new tail after 100 years the fact is that, if you end up losing them all, every last one of them... then they die as the tail is the source of their powers and, without it, they will winter like a picked up flower.

Slowly, but surely.

So it is understandable that the fox starts panicking next, patting the fake tail as if to stick it in place, and yet it only dimmed the illusion further.

Lack of tail, fire element, someone prone to not trusting other’s words and guaranteeing a safer route than trusting the fox by taking its tail... before I know it my eyes are already moving and locking with the devil beside me, and Ethan steady gaze and lack of words says all that I need to know without telling me anything.

All is confirmed when, discreetly, I peek inside my purse with enchanted space and, truly, find a small black tail warped around talismans there, and another glimpse at Ethan’s strange quiet figure tells me much as he waits for my reaction.

And surely enough, even I did not know how to react, of how he did not trust this fox in the slightest, enough so to steal his last tail away as safe guard against the fog. Should I be worried about how much he does not trust others, proud of his actions that may have saved us now, or ashamed of trusting the fox, trusting our bargain even if the slightest, and being taken off from danger Ethan’s reaction?

So many little things to ponder about, and yet the only thing playing in my mind over and over is that, even if I had the fox himself already protecting me from the fog, even if it made more sense for him to have the tail and protect himself with it, still Ethan chose to leave it with me, chose to protect me twice as much even if at the cost of his own preservation.

Funny, I think to myself, looking into Ethan’s eyes, how chaos is erupting from the fox, the lady, and the mushroom tree, and yet the only thing I can think of is how he could so easily risk his life for me like this, how the choice came so naturally to him that he simply gave it to me, of how his protective nature did not bother me, and how that all made my heart beat a little bit faster.