CH 5

It was when I was leaving a 1cm gap.

“What are you doing!”

Tak. Holding my hand and blocking it. It was his escort, Fior, not the Grand Duke.

The dazed Grand Duke’s eyes returned when he heard Fior’s loud voice.

‘It’s ruined.’

When the Grand Duke went for a walk alone, I thought he was really alone. I didn’t realize Fior was escorting him from somewhere I couldn’t see.

Why didn’t I notice that?

“What are you doing to Your Highness? Tell me the truth!” 

Are you crazy? Why would I tell the truth? 

I shook Fior’s hand quickly and ran away.

“Stop there!”

Fior is chasing me, but who is better at escaping, a man or a fox? 

It was when I ran away from Fior for a moment and turned the corner twice.

I tore off the sleeves of my maid’s uniform, turned into a fox and ran faster.

After counting to five inside, Fior came out from around the corner, looked at me, and exhaled heavily.

“Ugh… ugh… Did I miss?” 

Then Fior turned after taking a breath. The Grand Duke appeared slowly behind him.

The Grand Duke pressed his temple with the palm of his hand as if his head hurt from the temptation’s aftermath.

“…Did you catch her?”

“No, she ran away.”

No, I’m here, you fools. 

“She must be a skilled person. It was too fast.”

“It’s not that you’re slow?”

“No… She’s just too fast….” 

The Grand Duke pushed Fior away, lowered his head and looked down at me. 

“I guess this kid was after her.” 

As expected. I did a good job ripping the sleeves.

I did it because I was afraid they would be suspicious if I appeared in the location where the woman who had been seducing him had disappeared.

The Grand Duke leaned down and stroked my hair. Then he took the piece of the maid’s uniform that I had bit into my mouth.

“You are better than Fior.”

“Are you comparing me with a fox?”

“It’s an assassin, right?” 

The atmosphere suddenly got pretty heavy. Strictly speaking, it’s not an assassin but a good-natured thief looking for my thing. 

“Your Highness, do you remember that woman’s face?”

“…No.” 

“Then, let’s start by checking to see if anyone has left during mealtime.”

“The approach was very bold. She must have made up an excuse and moved.”

The Grand Duke handed the torn sleeve to Fior and said.

“First, figure out if anyone has torn clothes. Find out if any of the employees can use magic powers.”

“Magic power?”

“I don’t know what kind of magic it is, but I think she use magic. My head is dizzy.”

“What kind of magic?”

“I don’t know. I’m sure she dropped a bucket while watering in the garden, and after making eye contact, I suddenly became blank. I don’t think of anything… a little….” 

The Grand Duke sighed and continued.

“Desire…I felt like I was filled with it.” 

“What kind of desire?”

At Fior’s words, the Grand Duke flatly refused to answer, saying, ‘I don’t want to say that’.

I swallowed dry saliva. I think I underestimated these two very much.

It wasn’t surprising to see Fior, who hides his presence and escorts him around the area so that even I don’t notice because I’ve seen many similar people over the past thousand years. 

‘Does the Grand Duke remember?’

It was normal for him to forget what he did before I seduced him. No matter what I did, he couldn’t figure out what had happened or how it had happened before. 

It couldn’t work like a spiritual being with similar powers. 

‘Ha… What if this doesn’t work either?’

This time it seemed like a real disaster. All I have to do is take the fox bead. I’m going crazy.

When my tail fell to the ground sullenly, Fior said. 

“Anyway, we’ll strengthen our security.”

“Yeah. The Felluaga Young Lady will arrive the day after tomorrow, so try to find out secretly as much as possible. Because there’s nothing good if the atmosphere chaotic.”

The Felluaga Young Lady?

I pricked up my ears and looked at the Grand Duke again.

*****

The Felluaga Young Lady arrives the day after tomorrow.

Somehow, this situation is slightly different from the novels I’ve read, and now I understand.

This novel, which the writer said was inspired by ‘Madame and her male servant’, —I thought it was R19 just by looking at this, but it wasn’tー It was a love story between Roselia, a Countess whose status is falling because she doesn’t have money, but who values honor, and an escort knight who protects the family in that house.

One day, marriage talks came from the Grand Duke’s family to the Count’s family. Her father, desperate for money, gladly agrees.

Roselia, who has been secretly in love, is forced to marry the Grand Duke’s family but runs away, choosing love rather than money and fame.

After that, the Grand Duke puts a bounty on Roselia and searches the empire. 

Because of that, Roselia was in so much trouble. Throughout the series, the readers had heated discussions in the comments, saying [This isn’t a sad ending, right?]. 

There seemed to be no way for Roselia and Lucas, the male protagonist, to be normally happy. 

The imperial guards were looking for her wherever she went, and their encirclement was getting narrower and narrower towards the end of the novel.

With nowhere else to run, Roselia decided to break through.

She was trying to grab the Grand Duke’s weakness and ask him to let her go.

Roselia, who has become quite smart after going through all sorts of hardships, catches a big fish, not the small weakness of the Grand Duke. 

She finds out right away that the Grand Duke has been preparing for treason for a long time.

She calmly gathers evidence of treason and delivers it to the Crown Prince. The Grand Duke then disappears into the dew on the execution ground.

It was suitable for the role of villain, the end of a villain. 

However, whenever the Grand Duke smiled at me as a fox, it was very unfamiliar because it didn’t match the villain in the novel. 

Hearing that Felluaga Young Lady is coming, I know for sure.

‘It’s still before he get married to Roselia.’

So, it was before Roselia ran away and turned her eyes.

Well, no matter what, it doesn’t change that he’s a bad guy preparing for treason.

‘Anyway, not every day is a sensitive and bloody time.’

I turned my head to look far away at Mount Tiris, where the Grand Duke and I first met. 

‘Hmm… If this strategy is followed, I will be able to take back the fox beads.’

I roughly said goodbye to the Grand Duke with my eyes and got out of the Grand Duke’s castle through a dog hole.

*****

Since I used the seduction power, I, who lacked the power, changed into a figure of a human who put out nine tails as soon as I arrived at Mount Tiris.

‘Phew. Is it because there’s no fox bead? Why am I so tired just because I used a little bit of my power?’

If someone sees me while passing by, I should hide my tail.

Being a little fox can be less tiring as if it burns less calories.

‘I’m originally a human.’

I wanted to be a human for a thousand years, but I didn’t want to live in the form of a fox.

As I went up the valley water, I heard a cool sound magnificently.

‘It’s here.’

It was a rainbow waterfall that a rainbow floats all year round in Mount Tiris.

The stream of water descending along the waterfall embroidered a rainbow of seven colors with the dawn in its arms.

I flew lightly to the place where the rainbow was.

‘Now. Should I wait here?’

In the novel, after a while, the Felluaga Young Lady goes to see this rainbow waterfall and loses the ring by accident.

Though there are events that happen with the ring.

I was thinking of meeting the Young Lady and twisting this novel ‘very little’. 

I sat on a rock as if I were training and waited for the Young Lady while touching my wagging tail.

How long has it been?

It was around the time that the moon, which had come up during the day, was covered in white in the clear sky.

An aristocratic woman emerged through the fog created by the waterfall.

As soon as I saw the Young Lady, I felt a strange feeling.

The Young Lady of Felluaga was the character I liked the most among the characters in the novel.

Not because of her personality, but purely because her appearance resembles me in my human form —Except when taking on the form of someone else—.

My hair turned gray after living close to a thousand years, and my eyes turned red after crying for several months after becoming a fox.

‘She really look like me in person.’

The woman, similar to me, had shiny silver hair and red eyes like mine.

‘If you went around like that in Joseon, you’d be mistaken for a nine-tailed fox….’

As expected, it’s a novel, so it looks like it’s okay.

The woman stared at the waterfall for a long time, then bent down and dipped one hand in the flowing water.

While she was stirring the cold water with her hand with a dark expression, the ring she was wearing shimmered and sank to the bottom of the lake.

“Huh!”

The woman panicked when she lost something important and pulled her hand from the lake.

“Uh…! What should I do!”

Her expression turned pale.

She has to put her hand in there if she wants to find the ring, but will she take it out?

‘Now it’s my turn to step up.’

I got up and jumped into the lake.

The current was rough due to the violently falling waterfall, but I quickly found the woman’s lost ring.

As I climbed to the surface from under the waterfall, there was a lot of smoke around me with a ‘Pong!’ sound.

Seeing the woman fall back in surprise, I raised one corner of my mouth.

‘It’s been a while since I’ve seen this figure.’

Instead of having black hair and eyes like most Koreans, my true human form showed up in front of the woman with silver hair and red eyes like hers.

Even the nine tails were left to stand out in dignity because she wouldn’t know about the nine tails fox anyway.

In particular, the hanbok will look more mysterious because it is the first time someone has seen it here.

Since it’s my first time meeting her, wouldn’t it be better to let her know what kind of existence I am?

I held out my hand kindly.

A ring made of freshly cut grass was on the palm of my hand.

“Is this your grass ring?”

“…Yes?”

When I raised one eyebrow, the woman shook her head.

“N, no?”

This time, I showed the woman a roughly round piece of wet wood.

“Then, is this wooden ring yours?”

“…No.”

Now I showed her the ring that had been rescued from under the lake.

“Then is this gold ring yours?”

The woman covered her mouth with her hand and nodded.

“Yes….”

“You’re honest. I’ll give you this grass ring and this wooden ring.”

Did she see the golden ax and the silver ax? It’s a little different from fairy tales, but anyway, I just have to match the assortment.

When I brought the three rings to the woman with my power, she received them all in bewilderment.

“T… thank you.”

Yeah. I kept her from getting into trouble later because of that ring.

I just smiled leisurely and took a step closer to the woman.

“You.”

Looking at it up close, she really looks like me. Of course, I’m prettier in terms of features.

“Should I help you?”

“…A, about what?”

Do you know why people call cunning and mischievous people ‘like foxes’?

“You. You want to run away right now, don’t you?”

This is my strategy from the beginning.

Become the fairy Godmother and give Cinderella the gift of freedom.

“I’ll be Roselia Felluaga instead of you.”

I should be the nine-tailed fox version of Cinderella.