June 15, Gangwon Province- South Korea
The heat had been unbearable during my travels, but has proven to be well worth it. There is a village not so far off from Seoraksan that I had stumbled upon while attempting to find the Ji-Ah plant that was told to inhabit near the mountain range. They were more than hospitable, and warned me to not explore the mountains any further, for they said that it was too dangerous. When I questioned them what they had meant, the people remained quiet and only insisted I would stay the night with them and travel back. I explained my purpose to them but my insistence had not reached their ears. The man left in charge of me was a fellow by the name of Jin-Ho. I had seized the opportunity to try once more, and luckily, once assuring him I'd keep an open-mind, he agreed to explain.
Jin-Ho had told me about the folklore of kumihos, a topic I was only vaguely aware of. He had explained that in tales they were known to be lone travelers. The danger, he had said, was apparently due to the fact that the village was terrorized by an actual pack of kumihos. Jin-Ho expressed his worries and told me I needn’t believe him, but all the more it would be best to listen to the words of his village. At the very least, he told me, there were vicious foxes in the mountains that were unforgivable. My interest piqued, I asked him more about the habits of these kumihos or foxes, excited at the opportunity to study some firsthand. Jin-Ho told me that for the most part, the men of the village had to be wary about the women that would approach them. He explained that kumihos could shift into the forms of your beloved, and with what they had believed to at least be three of the creatures living nearby, it had left the village in a state of paranoia over each other. He continued to say that it seems for the most part, these creatures tended to like only being women and as consequence, the women of this village had been treated with suspicion. There was even a rumor that one of the men looked upon as a leader had been tricked into marrying a kumiho since his wife had always stayed hidden and his own behavior had become so unusual that he had become an outcast. Jin-Ho said that even if they tormented the village and focused on the young adults, the pack would also go to neighboring villages and at times pillage graveyards, which was not a sight to stumble upon. With remorse, he had said that at times they felt better when the graves were attacked because that meant no one else had to disappear for a while.
It was only then that I had happened to notice a smaller figure near the frame of my room. I had at first assumed the child was the daughter of Jin Ho, someone I had already been introduced to, but upon closer inspection found that it was a little boy. Jin-Ho had introduced him to me and said that he was a lively orphan that the village adored and cared for in their own little ways. This detail seemed unimportant at the time. When Jin-Ho had dismissed himself from the shelter they had given me, however, the boy did not.
He made for nice company, and when I asked him his name, he said he couldn’t recall it. The little boy was the one who had took hold of the conversation and told me he had heard what we were talking about and that he knew his way around the mountains. If I truly wanted to find this weird plant, he wasn’t afraid to help me find it, though it probably didn’t exist.
Perhaps it had been the good stroke of luck I had been experiencing up until that moment, or the fact that the boy seemed so energetic and curious, but either way I told him I was a wizard and that it was alright if I couldn’t find the plants, because my new goal was to investigate these kumihos. Of course I simply thought that he would have fun with this fact and play it off as fiction, but instead the boy told me that to investigate them, I would have to be extremely careful and could only observe from a distance. He boasted that he knew more about these “foul creatures” than anyone else in the village, and if I wanted to learn more, the best course of action would be to stick with him.
It was a little hard to believe, but this little boy had become one of the best guides I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. He knew the terrain better than any of the other villagers, and what he lacked in size, he had made up for in bravery and strength. Yes, he was surprisingly strong for a child of his age, and he was more than willing to help me collect other indigenous herbs in exchange for telling him experiences I have gone through my travels. He had also helped me locate the habitat in which the pack of kumihos seemed to dwell. It seems that although kumihos can shift into anything they desire, each had a particular form they seemed attached to. In this case, the four I encountered had chosen attractive female forms as Jin-Ho had told me. The particular scene the orphan boy and I had witnessed that night had reminded me of my adventure with the sirens off the coast of Cyprus, except far less subtle in their killings. Even with all that blood splattered upon their clothes and faces, something about how the moonlight hit them and their mischievous features made them still seem intoxicating. My guide explained under his breath that it was part of an illusion they had casted and it was normal to feel an attraction towards them even now. There was a corpse in between them that appeared freshly hunted. My companion suggested I turn away because if I made any sudden movements or noises, they were sure to hear, seeing how their sense of hearing was sensitive. I refused to turn away, and had I not experienced worse things, could see why the little boy had warned me.
This pack was clearly not an amiable one, not towards the villagers and not towards each other. In an instant the peace had broken and the kumihos before me had begun snarling at each other, fighting over the corpse. They shifted continuously a little too quickly for me to keep record of to my dismay, since I couldn’t study the fine details of these transformations. This had lasted a while until at last, the one in the middle shifted into a form I never knew was possible. I felt the small hand of my guide pull me down further into the grass and saw his face in a sort of panicked shock.
I cannot imagine anyone else had witnessed this form and lived. It was not the fox form I had been used to. She was a massive giant, nine tails swaying as if they each had a mind of their own. There were unexplainable markings over her body, her lips charcoal black, but what had caught me off-guard were two things. First off, she seemed to have eight eyes, the bigger ones were gaping black holes. Secondly, there were horns protruding from her skull. Though her fox ears had remained, these horns were massive and curled suggesting something far more sinister than anything I expected from these species. The others did not challenge her after that and returned to their human forms rather submissively. I had inferred that they couldn’t change into that grand form, and that perhaps it had something to do with the tails. I noticed they could control how many tails they had, but each had their limits. The one in the far right, for exmaple, with long straight black hair had at least eight tails, but would not make another appear. After the three had returned to their human forms, the one in the middle let out a very inhuman laugh. Diabolical is the only way to describe it. It resonated in the air and ground and had made the trees sway dangerously with just that one laugh. But soon she too had shifted into her human form and began feasting on the corpse in the middle with a joyous (and very feminine) giggle. After I had seen that form, I thought the effects of her illusion would wear off, especially since the massive form was still painted in my mind with so much more questions attached. If I had trembled, it was from excitement. I grew even more excited to learn that even after that experience, I still continued to feel that intoxicated tug towards her if I so much as glanced at her direction. It was enough excitement for one night, however, and my guide had led me home promptly.
After a few days in the village, I had grown somewhat attached to the village life, and my guide as well. They had experienced attacks during my stay, but I was never a witness to how exactly it had happened, though I did have my theories as to why some of the villagers had let their guard down around those creatures. Jin-Ho had asked me if I had seen his daughter, since she too had been curious about me and chosen to spend her time with the orphan and I, but I told him I did not have a clue. At the moment, I had not considered a kumiho attack on her, since it seemed that the targets were usually young adults or older for these kumihos. Later I found out I was wrong, to Jin-Ho’s misfortune. Her body was found near Yukdam and had been torn to pieces, once again, rather unusual to the behavior I had studied until that point. The victims of kumihos did suffer heavy attacks and unnecessary damage to their body, but this particular body had been unrecognizable to the point that if we hadn’t been searching for Soo-Min, we probably wouldn’t have recognized it to be her. Everyone attended her funeral with heavy hearts. The little boy that had accompanied me for so long stayed at a distance but cried harder than most over her. He did not want to go exploring for the next couple of days and I had not yet gotten a hold of how the land worked, so I explored the outskirts of the village before returning without much success. It seemed that it was time for me to move on, armed with more knowledge than I could ever hope to gain. I shared my plan with the orphan boy whose name I still had not learned. I told him my only regret was not being able to study the actual shifts more closely.
This is where I learned the truth.
Imagine my surprised when he revealed that he was in fact a kumiho as well. His mourning period was over and that all too familiar spark in his eye had returned. All of a sudden, a lot of things started making sense and falling into place. He then allowed me to study his different forms more closely, explaining that kumihos could control their foxlike features at will, such as ears and tails. He could conjure any number of tails that he wanted, though his limit was six-a fact that he seemed proud of for someone his “age”. He would not reveal his age to me, but did show me that he could in fact shift into an adult but chose to stay in his child form because it was simply easier that way. He also showed me his vulpes vulpes form, and I found out he could understand what I was saying but he could not communicate with me in that form. He was practically an actual animalistic fox. I wished to confirm my belief of the nine tails and asked him to shift to that grand beast which I now refer to as prodigium vulpes, but, as I suspected, he grudgingly told me that form was reserved for nine tails and he only had six. Regardless, he seemed very well informed with the topic and to my delight, answered most of my questions. The vulpes vulpes form did not require energy to shift into. In fact, when he was tired, he couldn’t help but shift into this form and had to be careful to have all his energy and remain attentive when around the villagers. Kumihos, he said, usually have one human form they’re attached to because it’s usually a form they can’t mess up. If they saw a person, for example, and decided to shift into them but had not paid attention to the beauty mark near the right eye, their guise would be ruined and it took them numerous attempts to finally be comfortable with shifting into people that actually exist. He expressed their overall dislike for dogs, since dogs can always sense them and happen to act violently towards them as well. When asked about his origins, he said he couldn’t really remember, but knew that his family was dead by now and that it was alright because they were just regular foxes and he couldn’t remember any established relationships with them regardless. His goal was to achieve nine tails because it granted immortality apparently. He also said that if a kumiho refrained from eating human heart and liver for a thousand days, it can become human and no longer be evil (he made sure to tell me he did not think they were QUITE evil, but that was the legend) and that it seemed dumb to follow that path because humans did not live that long anyway. At this point, he had grown antsy and wanted to know some information about wizards. He also wanted to take a break from so much talking and shifted into his vulpes vulpes form to snooze off a little. I noticed that even in his fox form, there were still some features that reminded me of his boy form and was able to sketch him out (see the attached paper on the back.) Once he woke up, I asked him if he thought it was possible that I could talk to the kumiho with nine tails. He refused and said that I was lucky HE was talking to me and that’d be pushing it.
The next day he did tell me that he’d share what he knew about that nine-tail form, since I was so clearly interested. The young kumiho told me that it was a difficult form to control, and the hunger for livers only increased dramatically in that form. He also explained that though he did not know what most markings meant, they represented their personalities. A kumiho would gain more eyes based on sensitivity. He also said that horns depended on how evil a kumiho was, and could grow or shrink based on their actions. He asked me if that was enough information and grew a little irritated when I persisted with more questions. I was reluctant to leave him alone, but it was clear that’s what he wanted and he did not return to the village, even when I had to leave. I think at that point it was clear that the only reason he shared that information was to get back at So-Yeung, the nine-tailed kumiho I managed to talk to earlier that day, and that he was angry at me for disobeying his orders. I’m not sure how he found out so quickly, but I lamented the lost chance to say goodbye to such a helpful aide. Jin-Ho gave me a warm goodbye, along with the other villagers, and overall I was more than satisfied with my trip. It was quite the experience and offered insight on a species I did not think I would ever see. I would definitely like to go back and pursue the rest of my unanswered questions one day. And it might show me how long a young kumiho’s grudge can truly last.
-Henry Paige