Academy’S Gumiho Is A Magical Genius [EN]: Chapter 183

Evil Human Nature (3)

I don’t share my life with Tamamo, but she shares her life with me.

More precisely, while I am alive, she can interact with me and other objects.

This means that if I die, she won’t even be able to have minimal interaction with objects.

“Bound to the ring, you lose your value when I die. It would be hard for you to meet someone like me again, who can communicate with you in this way.”

Tamamo has spent over 1,000 years in the ring.

Normally, she wouldn’t want to spend such a long time in the ring again.

That’s what I was assuming.

Maybe I was thinking that way because I hate wasting time.

So, I slightly changed my perspective.

“Are you thinking that you can use my corpse to interact with you even if I die? Or are you thinking of enduring another 1,000 years or more?”

Two immediate views came to mind.

The first was using my corpse.

My tail is spiritually linked to Tamamo’s spirit, and the growth of the tail is the same as her growth. In fact, as a result of reaching the Five-Tailed Fox stage, Tamamo could grab objects without using any special abilities.

The amount of magic she can use also seemed to have increased.

If the Five-Tailed Fox is at this level, what if I become a Nine-Tailed Fox?

She might be completely freed from this ring.

Is that why she’s urging my growth?

Another possibility was that Tamamo was lenient with the passage of time.

She might not care if she spends 10 years, 100 years, 1,000 years, or even more waiting for a new contractor in the ring.

You shouldn’t analyze the other person only from a human perspective.

Tamamo is a Nine-Tailed Fox.

At the same time, she was one of the greatest monsters in the archipelago.

Even before she died, she had lived a long, long life that far surpassed human life. For her, time might just be a concept that flows aimlessly.

So, it could be said that she doesn’t really care about my life.

‘Of course, these are all just hypotheses for now.’

Hypotheses.

They can all be wrong, and they can all be right.

As I waited for her answer.

With a sweet laugh, Tamamo’s smile came into view.

She stroked my head with a look of admiration.

Swish, swish.

My hair moves along with her touch.

A hand with clear physical power.

How can you call this a ghost anymore?

A living spirit is no different.

─You figured it out.

“Are you stroking me because you think I’m impressive?”

─Don’t you like it? Should I hug you then?

“Keep stroking.”

In fact, I don’t care if she doesn’t care about my death.

After all, our relationship is very calculated.

If I want to stay alive, I just need to give her the corresponding price. That’s all.

She’s much better than those who pretend to trust you and then betray you.

“Honestly, I don’t care about you. But I can’t stand it if you interfere with me.”

─Ah, you don’t have to worry about that. I want to see you struggle, but I don’t want to see you bend even if you break. Hehe… After all, it’s rare to see someone as crazy and insane as you.

“How sly. Okay, let’s stop talking about this.”

Even if your actions become a threat to me, if I have enough grounds to overcome that threat, and if that threat becomes a high-risk, high-return that will bring me great benefits, there was no reason not to respond.

Get stronger quickly at the cost of danger.

That was what I wanted in the first place.

─Then let’s move on to the next topic. Let’s see, it’s about that left arm, right? It’s not certain yet, but as far as I know, it’s a remnant of ancient sorcery.

“Ancient sorcery? What you teach is old enough.”

─My sorcery is the sorcery of origin. It was the first sorcery created, but this only means the first based on what was established as a system.

“Are you talking about primitive religious events like totemism, shamanism, and animism?”

If so, I have one thing I can guess.

The identity of the black left arm.

About the energy that resembles the magic power surrounding the left arm.

I was mistaken because it was so similar, but how many monsters and demons have I killed so far?

Too many to count.

That’s why I can be sure.

This is not magic power.

It’s similar, but this flowing through my arm is a symbol of evil that cannot be called a fragment of magic.

A mark proving the Sin.

“It seems my past life sold the country.”

This is not a metaphor.

It was literal.

The wretched traces that grew on my left arm were something that should be engraved on someone who committed a crime greater than betraying the country.

* * *

Around the time I was collecting and reading books about Baek Seung-woo at the mansion.

I found an old fairy tale in the family archives.

The fairy tale was so old that I felt like I was looking at an ancient tome the whole time I was reading it.

The content of the fairy tale was as old as the material that made up the book.

The setting was very old ancient times.

Before humans flourished.

It was a story from before numerous beasts, races, and tribes were reduced to rare entities called demi-humans.

A story from at least thousands of years ago.

At the center of that background was a village.

A village where foxes lived together.

White, gray, brown. Foxes living together regardless of fur color awakened enlightenment and learned supernatural powers.

It is difficult to naturally learn supernatural powers and become close to immortals.

They, who were close to demons, wanted to reach the sky fox with ten tails at all costs.

Then one day.

A fox with ten tails was born.

The Heavenly Fox ascended beyond the sky.

The foxes who wanted to achieve the same level as him began to follow in his footsteps. Following the color of his fur, only white foxes built a separate village.

They began to preserve the supernatural powers he used for generations.

In that way, those who followed the Heavenly Fox soon formed a huge family.

The birth of the Cheonho Baekga [Thousand-Fox Baek Family, a prominent lineage of foxes].

The foxes, linked together in a close group called a family, began systematic research to become Heavenly Foxes.

In the process, they realized that in order to become a noble being like an immortal, they had to abandon their evil nature and leave only their good nature.

Humans could somehow shake off their evil nature through training.

It was close to impossible for foxes, who were born with evil natures including greed, to leave only their good nature.

It is only because there was a precedent for the birth of a Heavenly Fox that I say ‘close to impossible.’

The reality was impossible.

Then, one fox reached the truth.

If you can’t shake off your evil nature, shouldn’t you transfer it to others?

Just in time, a black-furred fox, far from the pure white of the Heavenly Fox, was born. The goal was set.

The foxes turned their idea into reality.

In that way, the black fox became evil from the moment he was born.

The fairy tale ended with the story of a persecuted black fox.

The only lesson the fairy tale wanted to give was.

White supremacy.

I don’t know why they discriminate based on fur color, as if it were racial discrimination.

The content of this fairy tale was quite effective.

So much so that even thousands of years after the background of this fairy tale, even the biological parents who gave birth to their child hesitated to abandon them without hesitation.

However, they wouldn’t know.

The child to whom they transferred their evil nature.

Became a beast full of desire and evil.

The existence of a man named ‘Baek Seung-woo’.

Was the concept of inherent evil itself.

* * *

“Tamamo, you actually knew it all along.”

─Hehe, who do you think was the first to see the change in your arm?

“I knew it.”

There is no other theory of inherent evil.

Passing on evil to a child unrelated to them, and building a path based on good nature to become an immortal. For the foxes, the realm of the Heavenly Fox was an ideal they had longed for their entire lives.

However, the seat of the head of the family, who should be their leader, is in the hands of a black fox unrelated to the Heavenly Fox.

I know why the elders hate me.

More than the atrocities Baek Seung-woo has committed so far.

It must be because of the family tradition.

─But they wouldn’t have known. To think that the child they persecuted would literally become a beast. I’m looking forward to seeing them suffer from the evil they wanted to abandon someday.

“It’s not always a good thing.”

As the level rises, a black arm grows through the place where the left arm should be.

The arm of an ominous color that cannot be seen as a human body belongs to a beast.

It grew by eating the evil nature of the foxes.

The trace of a real beast.

“It’s unpleasant no matter how many times I look at it.”

It’s especially unpleasant.

Not only is the evil nature of others in this body, but it also means that they dared to define me as evil.

‘The thing that grew on my left arm is proof that I am evil.’

It’s not easy to cut off even if you try to cut it off.

Even if you cut it off, it grows back quickly.

No matter how many wounds you make, they heal.

I carved scars on the scars and made wounds on top of them. After repeating the process several times, the healing speed slowed down.

The sin engraved on my left arm was endless, as if to make me eternally aware of the sin.

I hated seeing it, so I wrapped a black bandage, a shroud, around my entire left arm like a bandage.

‘In the end, even the sacred cloth was stained black.’

If Sun Tzu [famous Chinese general, strategist, and philosopher] saw this, he would have liked it.

Well, the proof that human nature is evil is this body.

If it weren’t for the text I received today, I might have hesitated to grow any further.

As my level grew, something like this grew on my empty left arm.

For me, who hates magic power so much, the existence of the left arm, which smells worse than magic power, was pain itself. I didn’t know what would happen on the day I became a Nine-Tailed Fox.

It was my teacher who saved me.

It was Nam Hwa-yeon’s text.

The text contained a message telling me to come to her dormitory tomorrow, along with dozens of pages of images.

It looks like an artificial arm blueprint.

“!!!”

The moment I saw the blueprint, I knew it.

This is not a task that will be completed in a day or two.

“You’ve made up your mind.”

The bigger problem was not just time.

There were many process steps that I and Nam Hwa-yeon could not do alone.

In order to apply all the formulas and details written in this blueprint to the artificial arm, we needed a craftsman who could make an artificial arm of this level and a healer with the skills to intervene in cells and optic nerves in the process of attaching and adjusting the artificial arm.

At least 4 people including us.

Depending on the case, dozens of people.

It was a large project that could require thousands of people.

[Upper Limb Prosthesis, Silver Arm]

That was the name of the blueprint written by Nam Hwa-yeon.

Upper limb prosthesis means artificial arm.

The Silver Arm means a divine object.

“Originally, I theoretically implement something that exists in the realm of mythology and reproduce it to suit me. I might die if I make a mistake. This teacher of mine is quite crazy.”

A certain one-armed man degrades the level of God.

Unlike what a certain tailed woman did to me, she lowers the level to a level that humans can wear.

‘Actually, she’s not an ordinary human.’

A fox who has finished preparing to form the five elements with five tails.

The level of the Five-Tailed Fox is quite high.

Moreover, if it is a beast’s bloodline that has been persecuted by its own kind and burdened with unwanted sins.

That pure level is above S-class.

Compared to monsters, it was comparable to the 4th level.

To reiterate, the 4th level has the power to easily destroy a city. It was the moment when a city-level weapon coveted a divine object.