Chapter 167: The Tiger’s Memory

The ‘Power’ that had fallen here opened its eyes. The first thing it saw was a tiger cub on the verge of starving to death in winter.

The cub had been abandoned by its mother because of a lame hind leg. The ‘Power’ stared at it, then twisted its body into the cub.

It staggered to its feet and walked aimlessly.

It reached a thatched-roof house where smoke was rising. There, a child fed it.

“Mother, this one eats just like a chicken.”

The tiger cub looked up at the child’s smiling face. The child was small, grubby, and rosy-cheeked. But the attention he gave was nice. The casual stroking touch was fine too.

Before long, the tiger cub curled up in the child’s arms and fell asleep.

So season after season, as the child grew into an adult, it always stayed by Eomdongi’s side.

It thought it would last forever. It thought it would go on.

Until the day the child, now a young man as tall as a tree, stood under a bare tree, tears streaming, and drove it away.

“…Don’t come here no more.”

The man’s hands trembled violently. He roughly wiped his tears with his sleeve, then sobbed with his head down. Guilt, confusion, fear, and self-reproach were etched on his face.

“You can’t… you can’t bite people…”

He clutched the clothes of the person who had been torn to death. The tiger had just brought back an animal as usual. Because it was winter, because they needed to store food.

It just happened to see a person. It deliberated on what difference that made from a four-legged animal, then bared its fangs and charged. Don’t they also kill wild animals and bring them?

“Don’t ever… bite a person again. And… don’t come here either. Go live in the forest. That… that’ll work. That’ll keep you safe. I’ll clean this up… so go now. Don’t come back. If you bite people, scary things will come after you. So, Cheong-a… don’t come here anymore.”

The man wiped his tears as he spoke. He looked desperate for some reason. After that, he looked around, then threw a stone to chase Cheongi away, afraid someone might see.

“Go! Don’t ever bite anything like a person again! If you come down to the village, you’ll be in trouble! Understand?!”

Every time the man threw a stone, Cheongi backed away.

[Why… are you driving me away? Why don’t you give me attention? I just wanted you to like me. I did it because I was afraid you’d go hungry…]

Was that so wrong?

He liked the attention the man gave him. The stroking hand quenched his thirst. He thought he could live like this forever. Sometimes the attention was lacking, but he endured. Because he liked the man.

Cheongi lingered in front of the thatched house until it got dark. Only after a flying stone hit his forehead did he retreat to a deep cave in the mountains and weep bitterly.

All night, dew formed, the sun rose, the day passed meaninglessly, and the moon rose. It was only after repeating that for five days that Cheongi stopped crying and could open his eyes in the pitch-black night.

If I go now, maybe Eomdongi has calmed down… Maybe it was just a moment. Yeah, I won’t bite people anymore. I’ll only bring deer.

After a long deliberation, the tiger got up, shook itself off, and trudged back to the house where it had grown up. But the man he met again did not smile.

Countless times, he went to seek forgiveness. And on the sixth day.

That day was different from the others. That day, he was crying again.

He was sitting on the ground, soaking his cheeks with endless tears and sobbing. Cheongi’s heart ached at the sight.

“I told you… I told you that I don’t kill people… But why…”

In those tear-stained eyes, a tiger was reflected. A beast now too large, capable of devouring a person.

“Why did you do it, Cheong-a… Why are you doing this… I told you scary things would come… Hic…”

No. After that day, Cheongi had not killed anyone. He wanted to talk. He wanted to shout with all his might that it wasn’t him.

But what his eyes fully reflected was.

“People will come to catch you now, Cheong-a… So run away. Hurry… run away!”

Just a ferocious tiger. Nothing more, nothing less.

In the distance, it seemed like torches flickered in the pitch-black forest.

***

“Ha!”

Ju Uiryeong gasped and woke up with a start. His breath raced uncontrollably, and his heart pounded. Yet the memory that had entered his head was vivid. Every scene came back clearly.

What was that just now… A person and a tiger…

They were scenes that passed like a movie. In the deep forest covered with snow, there was a rustic thatched house. The untouched mountains and fields were so beautiful they made his nose tingle.

Maybe this is what the Joseon Dynasty looked like. As soon as he finished the thought, the cold hit him belatedly. Ju Uiryeong looked around where he had been sitting.

Gurgle, gurgle.

A few steps ahead, there was a half-frozen stream. Beyond a crude earthen bridge, a woman holding a laundry paddle was beating a soaked jacket. Her hands, which she occasionally blew on and rubbed together, were chapped from the icy water.

“…Why is there a person here?”

He had definitely entered through a gate. He had never heard of or seen a gate like this before. The world beyond the gates was always a place where monsters swarmed, attacking hunters the moment they set foot in.

But this place was too quiet and peaceful. The woman doing laundry did not look like a monster at all. Moreover-

Ju Uiryeong slowly scanned the surroundings. Only the white snowy landscape caught his eye, painfully bright. In the distance, a pale village seemed to be visible. At the foot of the mountain, trees with bare, snow-covered branches stood densely behind him.

“…Mr. Geon Ita. Mr. Kang Taesan… Are you all here? If anyone’s nearby, say something…”

Then Ju Uiryeong stopped talking. He only now realized how eerily silent it was. Aside from the thumping sound of the paddle, there was no sign of anyone, no trace that anyone had been here.

He was alone, stranded in this unfamiliar place.

“…What the hell… how annoying…”

Ju Uiryeong rubbed his face in irritation, then noticed he was sitting on the dirty snow. He quickly got up and fussily brushed off his clothes. Even if he had been separated from his party when entering the gate, Han Dokyeom was the problem.

With no information about this place, Ju Uiryeong could only rely on Geon Ita, Kang Taesan, and Lee Jihyun, whom he had personally interviewed and recruited.

“First… I need to head to the village. Yeah, maybe I just ended up near the village alone.”

Whatever the situation, if he wanted to reunite with his party and move before Han Dokyeom, information was the priority. It would be even better if he could find and kill the boss… but was there a boss here?

This was a place where people lived.

Ju Uiryeong’s gaze turned again to the woman beating the laundry. She kept blowing on her cold hands, but her pounding was fierce.

He thought about trying to talk to her but hesitated. There was a nagging fear that, just maybe, the woman might be a monster.

After staring at the woman endlessly, he made up his mind and took a step. He would approach and see; if it seemed wrong, he could just flee.

But the moment his black shoe crunched against the snow.

Ju Uiryeong saw something black dart swiftly out of the forest. In an instant, his neck stiffened. It was a beast so huge and ferocious that a scream almost escaped.

It was as if a whole house was flying. It was so fast he could barely track it with his eyes.

Swish!

His eyes widened as it leaped across the stream in one bound and charged at the woman, baring its teeth. Its fangs, glistening viciously, were as thick as an arm. And before the woman could even see it-

Crunch!!

The woman’s face was crushed alive between the hideous fangs. Ju Uiryeong instinctively clamped his hand over his mouth to stifle a scream.

Unbelievable!

It was a tiger. The beast with golden fur and black stripes was indeed the tiger he knew. But its size was monstrous.

Crack-

His limbs trembled, his knees buckled, and he could barely stand. The tiger’s gleaming eyes, having just killed a person, seemed about to turn on him.

While the beast chewed its prey, Ju Uiryeong slowly backed away. When it seemed a bit smaller, he turned and sprinted away.

“Huff, huff…!”

What did I just see? A tiger? Is that a tiger? No. Even the grown tiger that the mother had raised wasn’t that big. Then why…?

“It… it’s the gate… It’s mutated because of the gate…”

The tiger was the monster of this gate. It was an enemy to be eliminated. After running until his breath was ragged, Ju Uiryeong spotted a village surrounded by a solid fence in the distance.

He slipped into the village, calming his trembling body, and surveyed the situation. It was a large village, with countless people passing through the marketplace.

He wandered among the thatched houses behind the walls for a while, then stopped at the worried words of some men gathered under a tree.

“No, are you saying that tiger bastard came down from the mountain again?”

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