"We're already this far. Where exactly are you dragging me?"
"To elope, of course!"
Deep within the forest, Samael froze for a moment and instinctively glanced back at the camp, now fading into the distance.
"What about them?"
"Oh, come on. Isn't leaving them behind enough? Do you really want to hold a wedding right in front of them and declare your claim? Isn't that a bit cruel?"
The girl named Tamamo looked reluctant on the surface, but her golden eyes sparkled with excitement, clearly intrigued by the idea.
Now that she thought about it, how should the wedding be arranged to make the biggest impact?
Scatter flower petals? Maybe add a sunshower? And at the end, they should definitely hand out gifts. The looks on those women's faces would be priceless.
Smack!
Samael's face darkened as he smacked the pink-haired girl on the head.
"What are you even thinking about? I'm asking about their safety!"
"Their safety? Does that really matter? Wouldn't it be more appealing to go off and enjoy a sweet little world just for the two of us?"
Tamamo clung to Samael's arm, swaying it coquettishly, her eyes glinting as she answered with a smile. Then she rubbed her head, looking aggrieved.
"We've been traveling nonstop for two days and nights. We haven't eaten well, we haven't slept well, and we're all shedding… ahem… our skin's gotten so dull…"
"We're almost in Athens. Just endure a little longer…"
"Since we're already so close, why not let them walk the rest of the way themselves?"
"The closer we get, the more uneasy I feel. And the number of Magical Beasts along the way has been unusually high. Logically, the Ether levels in this era shouldn't support this scale of activity…"
Samael recalled the journey, his brows drawing together as he muttered.
The ambient conditions in Greece were clearly abnormal. The concentration of Ether seemed to be rising.
"After all that, you're just reluctant to part with that Spartan woman, aren't you?"
"Not at all. I'm here on business. Helping Helen is just incidental."
"I didn't even say who, and you already blurted out her name. Exposed yourself, didn't you? Hmph. Men are all the same."
Tamamo lifted her brows and snorted in displeasure.
"From my experience, don't waste your effort. You've run into danger again and again just to help her, and what has she done? Apart from making empty promises of a reward, nothing at all. Anyone can tell she's not a decent woman. Women like her are experts at playing with men's hearts."
For a moment, she hugged her arms, her gaze drifting toward the vast night sky. A dark, unfathomable ripple passed through her eyes. After a brief pause, her tone dropped.
"And that scent on her… I won't mistake it. Beauty like that is bound to bring disaster. Wherever she goes, trouble follows. At best, she ruins families. At worst, she destroys nations.
If you get too involved, you might not even get what you want before losing yourself entirely."
Samael rolled his eyes, completely unconvinced.
"The rise and fall of nations, people's fortunes and misfortunes, all blamed on a woman's beauty? What kind of logic is that? It's nothing more than shifting blame out of one's own incompetence.
Helen hasn't done anything wrong. Even if others desire her and conflict arises because of it, so what?
When did beauty ever become a sin? It's human hearts that fail to tell right from wrong that are truly at fault."
Tamamo froze for a moment, surprise flashing across her eyes as she unconsciously turned those words over in her mind.
What fault does beauty bear? The fault lies in the human heart.
"Let's split up and gather some firewood and food. We shouldn't keep them waiting."
Samael glanced up at the moon, gauged the time, and spoke as he prepared to get to work.
"No way! Let's just elope! If this keeps up, my figure's going to fall apart. And after all this bouncing around, my butt's about to split in half. Don't believe me? Go ahead, feel it…"
The girl leaned slightly to the side, a teasing smile curling at her lips. She lifted her rounded hips and swayed them alluringly, enough to make anyone's throat go dry.
Invisible strands of distorted light rippled like a solar halo, slipping into Samael's vision and painting fleeting colors across his pitch-black vertical pupils.
Spell Layer: Radiant Sun!
In a brief daze, his hand reached out, drawn toward the pink-haired girl's hips.
Smack!
A sharp sound rang out. The sudden sting snapped him back to his senses, and the instigator yelped, clutching her backside as she jumped up, baring her teeth while rubbing the spot. She turned toward him with teary eyes, looking utterly wronged.
"If you don't agree, just say so. Why hit me?"
"Are you trying to elope with me, or are you just worried you'll get too skinny from the food lately?"
Samael frowned and let out a cold laugh. His sharp, piercing gaze made Tamamo's hair stand on end, as if she were being watched by something dangerous.
"Mushrooms! I just saw a bunch of mushrooms growing over there. We can pick them for soup!"
As if jolted by static, the pink-haired girl suppressed the tingling running from her scalp down her spine. Her eyes darted, and with an awkward laugh, she pressed herself against a tree trunk and slipped toward the bushes behind her.
Samael, now fully clear-headed, watched coldly as she disappeared into the forest, silently cursing.
No wonder he had felt so out of it just now, going along with her and seriously discussing eloping.
Tsk. Careless. He had actually let that damn fox charm him without noticing.
If she hadn't gotten greedy and pushed further, triggering an ether resonance that snapped him awake, who knew what would've happened by morning. He might've woken up stripped clean and sold off by that shameless fox, dragged off to who knows where.
And she dares call Helen a femme fatale, a scheming fox? Does she even have the nerve to say that again with a straight face?
Even in the original history, Helen only sparked a war between Troy and Greece.
This one, on the other hand, was a legendary calamity, tied to the fall of five dynasties and the ruin of three regions of the Age of Gods. And she still had the audacity to smear others. Where was her sense of shame?
Standing there, Samael's thoughts churned as he grumbled inwardly.
That's right. This pink-haired girl called Tamamo was the one he had fished out of the Sea of Chaos by sheer accident.
Her true identity was the legendary white-faced, golden-furred nine-tailed fox.
Her notoriety spread across China, India, and Japan. Time and again, humans and heroes had hunted her down, yet thanks to her cunning, her knack for survival, and her love of causing trouble, she always slipped away. Every time she caused chaos, she changed identities and vanished, leaving behind a trail of misdeeds too numerous to count.
In theory, the five infamous women tied to fallen dynasties, Lady Huayang of India, Moxi of the Xia Dynasty, Daji of the Shang Dynasty, Baosi of the Western Zhou Dynasty, and Tamamo-no-Mae of Japan, were all connected to this very fox.
Tamamo-no-Mae was likely her last known name, and the alias "Tamamo" clearly matched.
From what Samael could faintly sense, her nine tails weren't even complete.
Most likely, she had stirred up trouble again, been hunted down, and fled in panic, only to end up drifting into the Sea of Chaos by chance, eventually crossing paths with him.
Samael preferred to call it a "bad fate."
After all, this fox was infamous as a king-slayer. Any ruler she attached herself to met a miserable end.
It hadn't even been a few days, and her lazy, troublesome nature had already surfaced.
Dissatisfied with her current treatment, she had resorted to seduction and charm, trying to lure Samael away and turn him into her personal meal ticket and walking treasury, without the slightest concern for the others traveling with them.
As expected, dealing with a fox like this required constant vigilance.
Coincidentally, Samael himself carried a king's blessing, a double stack from Uruk and Greece, earning him the reputation of a wise ruler.
And recently, he had taken on work for Rome as well, acting as an uncrowned king to help the empire through its crisis. That made it three layers in total.
A calamity consort meeting a virtuous king… things were bound to get interesting.
What a troublesome fate.
Samael gazed toward the distant bushes, rubbing his cheek with a quiet sigh.
Boom!
Just as his thoughts were spiraling, an explosion roared from the thicket ahead. Grass and debris flew everywhere as ether surged violently through the area.
Damn it. She can't even pick mushrooms without causing trouble?
His pupils shrank sharply. With a curse under his breath, Samael kicked off the ground and rushed straight toward the source without hesitation.