Chapter 4: Connected With Reservation

This time, sex with Kumiho was completely different from the first time. Not worse, not better, just different. Of course, the thought that she could simply kill De-Yong on the side and probably wouldn’t even have any remorse played a big role in the back of her mind. She certainly didn’t know that.

It was a purely physical act, although, admittedly, extremely satisfying. Satisfying several times over. And obviously on both sides.

Their joint sweat flowed in streams and formed a small pool in the hollow of the clearing, yet De-Yong did not feel tired or exhausted. However, he did feel a certain soreness in his best part. At least the painful pressure was now gone.

At that very moment, Na-Ri let go of him and climbed off his lance. Now that his hard cork was no longer obstructing their path, their shared juices flowed out of their love gate like a torrent and splashed onto De-Yong.

“Good, that’s enough for now! Let’s have something to drink and eat. Above all, your body needs nourishment again, even if you don’t realize it at the moment because you have my pearl inside you. Then we’ll set off.”

De-Yong’s stomach growled in agreement.

He got up and went to the nearby stream, where he drank copiously. He was surprised to see Na-Ri kneel down next to him and begin to drink. Not with her cupped hands like him, however, but like a dog, lapping up the water with her tongue.

“Do kumihos also have to eat and drink?”

She interrupted her licking and looked at him.

“Of course! We have a body that needs food, like all living beings.”

“But, if you Kumihos are immortal, what happens if you refrain from, I mean, eating and drinking?”

“Then we suffer, but we don’t die. Not like you. The power of the pearl keeps our body alive in case of need. As long as it exists, we live too.”

“What would happen if you were beheaded?” De-Yong asked before thinking. He immediately froze, expecting the Kumiho’s wrath.

“Then we’ll be very angry!” Na-Ri replied curtly and leaned forward again to continue drinking.

Inwardly he breathed a sigh of relief, he had apparently not angered her with his question, at least she had not killed him immediately. However, her answer had been unsatisfactory. What would actually happen if they cut off a Kumiho’s head?

Her water-dripping face, suddenly in front of his, startled him out of his thoughts.

“Don’t even THINK about it! I would be VERY angry!”

The water he had just drunk immediately left him uncontrollably downstairs. He hadn’t even seen her move, she had been so fast. Again.

“Uh, I don’t, I really don’t. It’s just that I’m a soldier, we’re at war, and if you come with me ... What if we meet samurai and it comes to a fight? They’re good at chopping off heads,” he stuttered.

Na-Ri’s eyes seemed to pierce him.

“You won’t meet a samurai with me unless I want you to. And if it comes to a fight, just worry about your head! Cutting off my head wouldn’t kill me, is that clear now?”

Unable to answer, he just nodded.

She stood up, turned around and walked to the improvised hut, where there was another bag that he had not yet noticed. She squatted down, opened it and took out a packet of leaves. When he realized what she had unwrapped, he turned pale again: it was a heart with pieces of the veins still hanging from it, tied up with strings. Now she untied one, put it in her mouth and squeezed the heart. A few drops of blood trickled from her mouth down her chin. She looked at him the whole time. He understood the message.

When she had finished slurping out the heart, she threw it carelessly between the trees and wiped her bloody mouth with the back of her hand.

She made a visibly disgusted face.

“It doesn’t taste as good cold as it does warm and fresh.”

De-Yong swallowed the lump in his throat.

“Do you have to drink human blood all the time?”

There was nothing in her expression when she replied.

“No, but it tastes the best to me. I only really have to suck a human every three months!”

His question had annoyed Na-Ri. How could he dare? But she had learned how to control herself over the last thousand years.

Cutting off her head didn’t actually kill her, but it did immobilize her. She shuddered inwardly. For a Kumiho, there was almost nothing worse than having her head severed from her body. Apart from the indescribable pain, there was also the feeling of helplessness.

This was one of the few methods mortals could use to incapacitate a Kumiho: Cutting off the head and keeping it separate from the body. If the head was reattached to its body, it would grow back within minutes.

Other body parts grew back immediately. A severed arm was complete again in a week. Even if only her pearl remained, a new body would be generated from it. At least as long as it wasn’t inside a human. But then it became unappetizing.

Losing her head was not an experience a Kumiho liked to have. And woe betide the person who did such a thing. Every kumiho would be obliged to avenge this act. And in the cruelest way possible.

The humans had even tried to burn them once. But that had been their mistake. Without an existing shell, their pearl simply generated a new one. And since the pearl was not material, there was no way to prevent it. Na-Ri had simply appeared on the next full moon at the spot where she had been burned. And then she had taken up the pursuit of her murderers.

One, yes, he almost escaped. He had been clever, became a monk and fled to a temple. He hadn’t left it for almost 40 years, no matter what Na-Ri did to lure him out. It was Na Baek-Hyun who had kidnapped him from the safety of the temple and handed him over to her. De-Yong’s great-great-grandfather. As thanks, she gave him the protective amulet, which De-Yong now wore without authorization.

She had lied to De-Yong about the taste of human blood. It tasted no better or worse than that of pigs. But she needed the life essence of humans at least once every three months. And that could only be found in human blood. The heart had just been a performance. She had packed it away just to remind De-Yong what she was when the time was right. She had learned her lessons. And hopefully he had too.

Meanwhile, De-Yong sat indecisively in front of the bag of rice cakes. On the one hand, he was hungry, but on the other, he had a knot in his stomach from what he had just experienced. In the end, his growling stomach won out.

To his surprise, it wasn’t long before he had eaten all the rice cakes in his bag. In the meantime, Na-Ri had crouched motionless nearby again and watched him. Now she stood up, very slowly.

“Ready, can we get going?”

He nodded.

For the second time that day, he got dressed. His eyes fell on the Kumiho.

“Why don’t you get ready?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, why don’t you get dressed?”

“Oh, that’s what you mean. No, I don’t.”

De-Yong paused in the middle of his movement to strap on his armor.

“You can’t walk around naked!”

“Why naked? I have skin, don’t I?”

“What about thorns, branches, snakes? You have to protect yourself!”

“Scratches heal quickly. I’m not afraid of snakes. But clothes are a prison.”

“Why prison?”

“It hinders my movements, makes me slow, is loud and chafes my skin. It also starts to smell unpleasant after a short time. That also hinders me.”

Shaking his head, De-Yong tightened the last buckles of his bamboo armor with the bronze fittings.

“If we are traveling together, you will need clothes. We will meet other people. You can’t be naked.”

“I’ll avoid them.”

“Dodge it? In the city?”

“I don’t enter cities.”

“I did! I thought you wanted to go to the temple? We have to go through villages and towns!”

Na-Ri looked at him in dismay.

“Then we’ll just go through there at night!” she insisted like a defiant child.

Of course, she knew that it was impossible to walk through a human city unseen. At least in human form. There were guards even at night. And with all the smells, she couldn’t avoid surprising encounters.