The women I set free are obsessed with me

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It was a lucky day for Seira.

She woke up feeling refreshed with no neck stiffness, cracked an egg to find two yolks, and had exactly one spoonful of jam left.

It was a rare stroke of good luck since Rin had come to live with them.

But Seira couldn't enjoy it.

She couldn't even eat the double-yolked fried egg in front of her.

"Meaaat. Gimme meaaat."

"You need to eat vegetables too. That's how you'll grow into a healthy and beautiful fox."

"Bleh, veggies taste yucky."

"If you eat your vegetables, I'll buy you a snack later."

"Yayy!"

The two chatted warmly like family. Though Seira was clearly the homeowner, the meal atmosphere made her feel like a guest.

Seira stared blankly at the two across from her, fork and knife in hand.

"What in the world is going on here?"

"What do you mean?"

"How is Miss Rin speaking…?"

Just yesterday, Rin could only make sounds like kiing and kyaang, but overnight she was speaking fluently.

Karami and Rin acted as if it were nothing unusual. Only Seira found it strange.

"What's the big deal? Children grow up quickly, you know."

Is that so?

Well, let's just say it is. Beastkin do develop faster than other races.

Thinking that way, her suddenly speaking was somewhat understandable. Given Rin's age, it wasn't strange for her to speak anyway.

But.

"I think I'm seeing things."

"What do you think you're seeing?"

"I see three tails on Miss Rin."

Indeed. Rin's sole fox tail appeared to have become three. Three pink tails swayed gently as if dancing.

Their mesmerizing movement made one's mind go blank if stared at for too long. It was hard to look away, like slowly falling under hypnosis.

Maybe she wasn't fully awake and was seeing things? Or perhaps they were moving so fast it created afterimages?

Seira rubbed her eyes and looked again, but nothing changed. The tails didn't disappear. It wasn't an illusion.

"Why did Miss Rin's tail multiply?"

"Well, during growth spurts, this and that tend to develop. Don't deer grow antlers as they mature?"

"I have never heard of foxes growing more tails…"

No, that's not quite true.

She hadn't seen it, but she remembered hearing about it. A collection of mythical beastkin tales flashed through Seira's mind.

"A gumiho…?"

A thousand-year-old fox spirit.

A yokai fox with nine tails.

"What gumiho? The child only has three tails."

"But they might keep growing until she has nine, like this time."

"Gumiho only exist in fairy tales. Just because she grew three tails doesn't mean she'll grow nine. Rin was just a three-tailed fox all along. A sammiho."1

While no one had ever witnessed a gumiho, sammiho were occasionally found among the fox spirit clans.

Like how there were pegasi or unicorns among horse beastkin.

"Why? Are you thinking of kicking Rin out if she's a gumiho? Rin, Seira says she doesn't like you."

"Kick out…? Sewa doesn't wike Rin?"

"I never said such a thing…"

"Mastah, what if Sewa kicks me out…?"

Rin looked at Karami with anxious, wavering eyes. Karami sighed deeply and put on a sympathetic expression.

"What else? We'll have to sleep on the streets. Shivering in the cold. Getting rained on…"

"Hey you have plenty of money─"

"Wahh, I dun wanna be cold…"

Sniff, sniff.

Rin lowered her eyes to the table. She pouted, her eyes welling up with tears. Her drooping ears and tails looked utterly miserable.

"We'll have nothing but grass to eat… Everyyyy singleeee dayyyy."

"All the meat she's eating now is because you──!"

"I hateeeee grass! Sewa! Don't kick Rin outttttt!"

Rin finally burst into tears. Seira tried to defend herself urgently, but it was too late. In Rin's mind, the image of the Little Match Girl was already forming.

Rain falling.

Snow drifting down.

Begging in tattered clothes.

Nothing but grass on the table.

Sleeping on the hard ground.

Shivering in the cold.

"Finally getting some meat, only for a stray cat to steal it…"

"Don't take Rin's meat, kittyyyy!"

As Karami whispered these harsh… imaginings into Rin's ear in real-time, she desperately reached out for the imaginary meat.

Seira squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed her neck, feeling a headache coming on.

"This is really too much. Kicking her out just for having a few extra tails. And here you were going on about beastkin abandonment…"

"I'm not kicking her out. Whether she has nine tails or twenty, I won't kick her out. Happy now?"

Finally unable to bear it any longer, Seira gave in. Rin, who had been sobbing loudly, looked at Seira cautiously with puffy eyes.

"Really…?"

"Really."

"Sewa doesn't hate Rin?"

"I don't hate you. I like you."

RIn turned her gaze to Karami.

"Mastah, Sewa says she won't kick me out."

"Well, that's a relief."

"Rin did good?"

"Yep, Rin did good."

The tears she had been shedding moments ago vanished without a trace. Rin, having stopped crying, grinned happily and stabbed a piece of meat with her fork.

Seira couldn't help but let out a wry laugh.

It wasn't just Rin's tails that had grown; her craftiness had blossomed in tandem. Perhaps she had picked up some tricks while spending time with her master.

***

"Mastah, where are we going?"

"We're going to meet a fox granny."

"Fox gwanny?"

Rin looked up at me, her three tails dancing behind her.

Her tail had grown to three overnight. While tails tend to grow more easily in the early stages, I hadn't expected two to sprout at once.

As her tails increased, Rin's physical growth accelerated as well. She had grown a bit taller and could now speak, albeit clumsily.

Her speech will naturally improve with time.

While she was already adorable as she was, a parent's heart couldn't help but want to see her grow up.

In any case, that wasn't the important part.

The key point was the third tail, not the second or fourth.

Three, six, nine.

Every time Rin's tails became a multiple of three, her abilities as a gumiho increased dramatically.

If yesterday she fought like a beast, now she could wield fox magic befitting a gumiho.

So we were now on our way to find a teacher who could instruct Rin in fox magic.

It's amazing how much things have changed in such a short period of time.

It seemed like I had just met Rin, but she had already grown so much. Was this really the same Rin who used to growl at me on sight? My heart was overflowing with pride.

Is this the place?

A path where no one traverses.

An old alley nestled between.

A mural of a fox with clouds and an orb painted on the wall.

No doubt about it.

This was the right alley.

No matter how many times I played the game, it was impossible to memorize the location and details of every character.

Yet, among the few witches of TOS that I could recall, there was a spirit beast I absolutely had to meet to liberate Rin.

The Witch of Fate.

Yuhwa, the Celestial Fox, and Messenger of Heaven.

Yuhwa is in the fortune-telling shop in this alley!

"But why is nobody here?"

An empty fortune-telling shop.

Opening the creaky old door, I found only a table and chairs inside. Instead of Yuhwa, who should have been there, only acrid dust flew about.

Maybe she stepped out for a bit? In the game, she was always there whenever I visited, so this was a first.

It's not like today is our only chance.

I decided to come back tomorrow and returned home.

But the next day, and the day after that, I visited the shop, yet there was no sign of Yuhwa.

Even Rin grew slightly irritated at the repeated fruitless trips.

"Mastah, did gwanny die?"

"I don't believe so. She may look like a granny, but she'll live longer than me."

Yuhwa wasn't coming to the fortune-telling shop. Since she wasn't likely to die overnight, it's safe to assume she quit running the shop here.

Hmm, in that case…

This was a first, so it was perplexing, but fortunately, I knew one more place where Yuhwa might be.

However, since it was information you'd only learn after building a relationship with Yuhwa, I was unsure if we should go there now.

A chance encounter in the alley would have been the ideal scenario.

But since we couldn't afford not to meet her, the decision was quick.

***

Vestia, the center stage of Rin's story.

While TOS generally cosplayed as the Western medieval era, Vestia was a unique country where Western and Eastern styles coexisted.

There were monsters called yokai instead of demonic beasts, and the main slave Rin herself was a gumiho, often appearing in East Asian folklore.

Not only that, while there were beings from Western literature like Pegasus and harpies, there were also creatures from Eastern literature like the Four Divine Beasts.

The reason was simple.

Because gamers like it.

At its core, TOS was a weeb gacha game.

Just as Chinese games featured Chinese-flavored regions and Japanese games always included samurais and ninjas, Vestia was a city designed around Rin, the gumiho.

The story got sidetracked, but where we had arrived now was similar. An Eastern-style building standing in the middle of Vestia's capital, surrounded by Western-style buildings.

This place, looking just like a martial arts novel's tavern, was Vestia's top merchant group.

It was the Celestial Pavillion.

Like how the old lady picking up trash turned out to be the building owner, Yuhwa was the owner of the Celestial Pavilion.

"What brings you here?"

As we entered the Celestial Pavilion, a tiger wearing Eastern-style clothing came to greet us.

"We're here to see the Head of the Merchant Group."

"As this is our first meeting, do you have an appointment with the Elder?"

"No, we do not."

"Without an appointment, I'm afraid a meeting will be difficult. She's not someone you can see casually."

Busy? That old lady who had nothing better to do than play fortune-teller in a shabby shop?

Well, only a select few knew about that.

An ordinary employee wouldn't know.

"If it is truly impossible, could you at least pass along a message?"

"Hmm, if it's nothing strange…"

Fortunately, this good-natured big feline seemed willing to relay the message.

In that case, I need something short but impactful enough to grab Yuhwa's attention.

"Please relay this."

A phrase Yuhwa would understand immediately…

There was one.

"Tell her a gumiho has come to visit."