Eithne’s soul heavily fell back into the fox’s attendant body.

“How dangerous… Thank god I’m alive. Praise the Order…”

She laughed to herself. The situation was so scary that she could only be happy that she survived.

“The unknown god… What is He up to? Does He want my soul as a prize for helping me save Rigel? The Order has stopped Him...”

“But what shall I do now?”

“Ha… I don’t want to die again before Raphael is defeated by Rigel and Noori’s love power.”

Eithne half-jokingly said to herself. Honestly, she wanted to live to find out the truth behind the Primordial Serpent and the unknown God – who had been actively targeting her life ever since she saved Rigel with His help.

At least, she wanted to live long enough to witness the protagonists’ wedding.

She had been a half-guardian to Rigel after all. It was a parental wish to see their children start a new family, and a reader’s wish to witness the end of this goddamn romantic story.

For all the reasons, she was not ready to die.

“Is there any way to repay my debt to the unknown God without using my soul?”

She pondered and tried to stand up with the fox attendant’s body.

“!!!”

Suddenly, indescribable emotions surged to her head. Eithne unsteadily fell down. The scenery in her vision was twisting and turning into different places like she was watching a dizzying flashing video.

“Argh!!!”

Eithne groaned. Her action became chaotic. She began to talk nonsensically with her hands and feet moved in a disorganized manner.

“I will change my nickname to Red Fox… How’s that? I don’t want to be called the Fox like a fox-headed man again. Hm? Where is my beard?”

“I’m just a small ant! I don’t want to be crushed under a giant's foot!”

“Woof! Woof!”

“News for today! Two silver each! Ack! The rain is ruining my newspaper!”

“You bitches can go fuck yourselves! I will see you in hell!”

“Look at my dress. It’s trendy these days. You should order one too. Tsk tsk tsk! Look at your hair! Don’t you think you resemble a monkey?”

“Hu… whoa… Mommy!!!”

“Eithne Noceur died unusually. Where did that fox-headed man come from?”

“Sigh—We parted our ways too early. I sometimes think that you are still a naughty little girl in the past. Eithne… Don’t worry, I’ll find your head back and kill that fox-headed bastard.”

“Eithne… I can’t believe you died like that. I’m not ready for this… I thought we could have more adventures together when the High Priest finally allowed you to go out…”

“Meow…”

“Crock! Crock! Crock!”

Eithne crouched on the ground making frog sounds. She had forgotten who she was, until she heard a fox’s screeching.

“KEEEEK!

KEEEK!

KEEEK!”

The screech was like an axe hitting on her fragile glass-like delusion.

CLANG! A sharp sound of glass shattering hit on her consciousness.

“Argh!”

Eithne hugged her head and collapsed on the ground. Her head painfully throbbed. She gasped for air as images and voices ran through her head like a flood.

The appearance of priestess ‘Eithne Noceur’ shattered in her mind, which then was replaced by the faces of Henry Fox, an unfamiliar young boy, a middle-aged woman with bright red lips, a muddy baby, a dog, a cat, a frog, Demir Noceur, Aubrey Moros and Hesata Ragnar.

“Hurgh… Hurgh… urgh…”

Eithne breathed heavily. The pain became sharper every time her ‘identity’ switched.

“KEEEEK!

KEEEK!

KEEEK!”

After hearing another series of screeching, all the faces shattered at once.

When they all sank down to the darkness, Eithne found back the stillness of her mind. She gradually put together the pieces of her shattered original appearance – a young woman with blonde hair and golden eyes.

After the pain died down, she finally remembered her true identity.

“I… I was thinking of myself being… being who I saw from the sea of Fate!”

She shouted out in fear.

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All the people and creatures that she took a peek from the sea of Fate were Henry Fox, the ants, a dog, a cat, a newsboy, a criminal, a rich widow, a crying child in mud, and a frog! Also, the High Priest of War – Demir Noceur, the Vice High Priestess – Aubrey Moros, and Hesata Ragnar!

“Anyone who I did not ask to see in the beginning… except Rigel, Azriel, Noori… I became ‘them’ for a moment!”

Eithne hugged her face. Not just her identity was temporarily changed, what she saw was also different for each identity, as if she was ‘them’ in each of their current places! For Henry, she saw a wooden house. For the criminal, she saw a death court. For a widow, she saw a lavish party. For the newsboy, she saw a gloomy rain. For the animals, she saw dirt roads and a house’s roof. For Demir, she saw the sky as if he was hovering midair. For Aubrey and Hesata, she saw the War temple’s hall.

Everything had been chaotic in her mind. The ‘personalities’ had taken turns in a circle to take over her consciousness, each ‘personality’ had lasted about three seconds before they moved on to the next one.

“Is it the punishment for looking at Fate without permission?”

Eithne thought. If not for the fox attendant’s call, she would not recognize that she was stuck in that cursed circle. Eithne might have seriously thought she was a frog and hopped to find a lake, then became a dog which took a poo in the middle of the road. Although the hallucination was easy to break, what could have happened was dangerous and potentially shameful.

“Thank you so much, big fox. It could’ve been so devastating without you.”

“Eak!”

The fox attendant answered.

“No problem. But be careful with Fate.” – The fox said. “Don’t look around carelessly again.”

“I understand.”

Eithne agreed in regret. Curiosity should be hampered when she did not have adequate preparation. This life was sadly not a game that she could resurrect many times, so one mistake could be deadly.

“But wait, you could guess what I have done to become like this?”

“Yes. You returned from divination in a crazy state, so it is clear that you were corrupted by Fate. With the Order’s protection, Fate can only attack you when you have gone beyond the initial request.”

“How do you know that?”

Indeed, she had gone beyond just seeing the children to take a peek at the sea of Fate.

“Some knowledge is ingrained in my mind once I evolved in the castle.”

“Huh…”

Eithne rubbed her chin. That was unexpected.

‘Truly, it was the fox attendant who guided me to possess its body to get out of the castle. Its intelligence is quite high at the beginning. I wonder what kind of wisdom that the fox attendant acquires upon awakening? The source of wisdom must be the castle.’

– Eithne thought.

Anyhow, too many things happened so fast so Eithne wanted to write them down in a note to remind herself in the future. She must also test the remaining memory of the original priestess Noceur.

“I used to not be bothered by the fragmented memory because I was confident that I could act like priestess ‘Eithne Noceur’ without suspicion. However, lacking memory means lacking knowledge. I become passive in many situations that I’m not aware of potential dangers, like how I blindly did divination multiple times using nine eyes before I died. Investigating Eithne Noceur’s past from her memory might give me some clues about the Primordial Serpent and the unknown God.”

Eithne took out the three hundred golden coins that she ‘claimed’ from Henry Fox. She stored two hundred and eighty coins in the fox’s subspace pocket along with her head. It was quite a sumptuous amount of money. Needless to say, bounty hunters who risked their life catching criminals were usually rich. It was the job that Eithne was considering switching to, since she would not receive a War priestess’s allowance anymore.

“I have the money now. Let’s go shopping in the nearest town. I need to buy necessities like pens and paper.”

“Are you entering the town with my head or your head?”

The fox attendant asked.

It was a critical question.

“Both heads are not suitable for a morning stroll in the human town…”

Eithne recognized the circumstance. Towns in Northern Lumovas had stricter guards as they must stop the disguised monster from entering the town. The guards would not let anyone cover their face and walk around suspiciously. If they saw her original head or the fox’s face – despite its cuteness, Eithne could imagine the messy consequence.

“Then we should go shopping before the sun goes up.”

Eithne quickly decided.

Sneaking inside a town should be easy with her current strength. As the people were mostly sleeping, it was less likely to encounter the town’s residents.

Eithne and the fox attendant ran toward the Stero town which was two-hour walking from her spot. Exploiting the fox attendant’s legs and darkness domain, their speed was greatly increased that they reached the town within fifteen minutes…

Eithne saw the small town surrounded by a three-meter-high rock wall. At the town’s main entrance, she saw a big board with the word ‘Stero’ attached on the gate. She recalled the map of Lumovas in her memory.

“This is Stero town, so I’m currently close to the Death temple.”

The Stero town was around three hundred miles to the North of Kole fort. The Death central temple was another one hundred miles to the North of Stero town.

At the moment, the sky was still dark. Eithne estimated she had around one hour before the sun went up.

The domain of darkness closely surrounded her body. It was a trick that Eithne invented to move stealthier. She was technically invisible in the dark, and all of her sounds were absorbed by her own domain so nobody could hear her movement. Just like that, Eithne sneaked to a corner of the town’s wall and climbed over the rocky wall to enter the town.

As she was jumping on the house’s roof, she noticed several patrolling guards.

‘They look tense… Are monsters very active these days?’ – Eithne thought.

It took Eithne half an hour to run a few laps around the town to find a stationer. She stealthily broke the window’s lock and jumped in.

Eithne quickly grabbed a pen with a notebook, some newspapers, then she placed a golden coin on the front counter. All of those things should only cost her 20 silvers, but since she broke their window, Eithne would not take the change[1].

([1] : 1 gold = 100 silver = 1000 bronze)

‘Let’s go!’

She returned to her old route.

When Eithne ran past a clothes shop, suddenly, the fox attendant seized a control of their legs to stop running.

“What’s wrong?”

Eithne was nervous to get out of the town because it was her first time to go shopping in a non-traditional hour. She did want to get caught by the guards.

The fox attendant was staring at the big glass window of the clothes shop, where a vintage man’s suit was displayed. It studied the suit so hard that Eithne thought that their body had frozen still.

“Did you fall in love with the clothes?” – Eithne jokingly asked.

“Heeeaar---”

The fox replied with a slow whine.

Quickly, the fox attendant took down its white half top hat and flicked once. The hat instantly turned to beige color with black band. The fox then shook its clothes. Their light-grey jacket shortened to hip-length, then converted to white colored together with the trouser. Also, the fox’s white waistcoat became brown herringbone patterned. The fox adjusted the tie on its collar, which had been modified from plain light grey to dark green windowpane. Their suit now looked identical to the displaying model in the shop.

After dressing up, the fox attendant happily barked.

“Keek!”

Eithne observed its transformation in awe. How convenient! The fox attendant’s clothes were made entirely of mana, also a part of its body, so that it could change the clothes any time it wanted.

The fox attendant was satisfied with the new look so it controlled the body to continue to run out of the town, without the need for Eithne’s telling…