chapter 26
Grandmother told everyone that she was the one who broke the stone slab.
Amazingly, everyone believed her without question.
Normally, wouldn’t you at least doubt something like that? When I asked, Grandmother simply broke another slab right there on the spot.
With a single punch.
Crack! The slab split cleanly in half again.
“What’s so difficult about this?”
Brushing the stone dust off the back of her hand, Grandmother scoffed.
It was incredible. No wonder she used to be a general.
Now I understood why everyone bowed so low in front of her!
“That’s amazing, Grandma!”
“Tch.”
She gave me a look that said, Are you serious?
“You’re the one who broke the first slab—what’s so surprising about this?”
Well… she wasn’t wrong.
The power of the Haetae was… kind of like that—like the Hulk, I guess. It surged up when I got angry, so it never really felt like my strength.
But Grandma’s strength came from her own hard work, which made it feel far more impressive.
At my explanation, she raised an eyebrow.
“If it’s yours, then it’s your power. Don’t treat it like something foreign.”
“Because I need to learn how to control it?”
“Exactly. Once you take up a weapon, you must learn to wield it as you wish. That way, neither you nor those around you get hurt.”
It was good advice.
I nodded, and Grandma gently patted my head.
“By the way, just how evil a person were you imagining to break the whole ground like that?”
“Uh, well…”
There had been plenty of bad people in my past life. The kind that made national news.
But since I couldn’t exactly say that, I improvised.
“I imagined a bad guy setting fire to our house.”
“Fire?”
“Yeah. Like, really blazing—”
Wait.
Just picturing it made me furious. What, burn our house down?!
As I clenched my fists, Grandma nodded in understanding.
***
Now that I knew my maximum power, I had to learn how to control it in detail.
So, I created a standard for what counts as a “bad guy.”
The problem was what I had to memorize to establish that standard.
“Abduction, kidnapping, assault, theft, aggravated theft, robbery, murder…”
The list of crimes seemed endless.
When I started reciting them, Dad looked deeply concerned, but Grandma and Mom were firm.
As a Haetae—a divine beast that grows by devouring evil—I could never be separated from the concept of crime.
And I agreed.
To catch bad guys, you have to understand them first.
Dad eventually gave in and brought home a law book so we could read it together. That’s how I learned that even in this world, legal text was tiny and full of jargon.
“My little one,”
Mom’s lessons began to match Grandmother’s training.
“Let’s train your sense of smell.”
We started olfactory training.
At first, I was confident—I had a good nose.
Being part dog and part Haetae, how hard could it be? But I was wrong.
“Today we’ll start simple—memorize the scent of ten edible herbs. Tomorrow, you’ll learn to distinguish ten poisonous ones. Once you can recognize about a hundred smells, you’ll be able to survive for a while even if you get lost.”
It was far more advanced than I’d imagined—professional hunter-level training.
“You should train your nose steadily, even if it takes years. The scent of all things changes with the seasons, so you’ll always have something to study.”
“You mean I’ll spend years just learning to smell things?”
“Of course not. You’ll also learn stealth, how to mask your presence, how to find water, how to repel poisonous insects, and how to secure safe shelters.”
“Whoa…”
And we hadn’t even gotten to actual hunting yet. Just how amazing were hunters supposed to be?
When I could only sigh in awe, Mom chuckled.
“My little one will do great.”
“There’s just… so much to learn.”
“Hahaha!”
She laughed heartily and lifted me into the air.
“I once said the same thing to my mother.”
“Really?”
“I told her it would take ten years just to catch one squirrel.”
“Did it?”
“Of course not.”
She said she caught one the very day she learned how to set traps.
I cheered.
“You can do everything too, my little one. All it takes is time—and the patience to keep learning little by little.”
Mom kissed my cheek, and I pressed my lips against hers in return.
Hmm…
But without Dad, it felt kind of strange. Usually, this was where he’d jump in, but he was away working at Ilwolgak during the busy farming season.
“Should we give Dad a kiss later too?”
“Of course we should.”
Mother and daughter pressed their foreheads together, giggling.
***
When Dad came home, Mom and I each kissed him on a cheek, and his face instantly brightened.
He returned the gesture by kissing both our cheeks, then eagerly opened the law book—
Only to slam it shut again immediately.
“This part isn’t for Hyeon yet.”
Mom peeked over, read the same section, and promptly tore the page out.
Rip!
Watching the thick law book tear like wet paper made me gulp.
“You’re right. She’s still too young.”
“Mmhmm.”
“We’ll discuss with the head of the family when to teach this.”
“Please do.”
I had a rough guess what it was about, so I stayed quiet.
Even I knew that at age five, it was too early to learn about sex crimes.
But apparently they didn’t want to postpone it entirely, because the very next day, my great-aunt came over to give me a simple sex education lesson—
The difference between men and women, how the body changes as you grow…
It was like a flashback to health class from my previous life.
Just as I was thinking I was learning too many things too fast, the family’s shaman—who had brought So Baeksan’s birthday gift three days earlier—came back.
“How have you been?”
It was March 15th today.
Yesterday had been So Baeksan’s birthday, and I was curious how he liked my gift.
“Here’s his reply.”
“Thank you!”
I was so eager that I opened the letter right there—and something small fell out.
What’s this?
I picked it up from the floor—it was a bracelet made of white and blue threads.
Sniff.
Wait, this smell…
A fresh, pleasant scent—So Baeksan’s scent.
“It’s a thread bracelet woven with hair and colored string.”
“Hair?”
I gasped and looked closer.
Now that I noticed, the white part shimmered faintly, like a halo—just like So Baeksan’s hair.
“It’s a common method for imbuing items with spells. One moment.”
Baek Jusun took the bracelet from me and examined it carefully, then nodded.
“As I thought, there’s a simple protection charm woven into it.”
My jaw dropped.
Enchanted items were rare—they were hard to make and usually required a piece of the maker’s body. Even Aunt Hyeso didn’t make them often.
And he’d made one for me.
All that for a leather bracelet I’d gifted him? It felt like an unfair trade.
“Hold out your arm.”
When I hesitated, Baek Jusun smiled and tied the bracelet around my wrist.
Sparkle.
After a few loops, it fit snugly and looked beautiful.
“So Baeksan would’ve been delighted to see you wearing it.”
Her words made my toes curl shyly. For some reason, my chest felt warm and ticklish.
Why was So Baeksan so kind to me?
I didn’t really understand.
But it was impossible not to feel drawn to someone who kept showing me such affection.
“I want to see him wearing my leather bracelet too.”
I wanted to see that white, beautiful tiger again.
***
By April, the sun had grown quite warm.
By the time I could recognize over a hundred scents, my basic training with Grandma was complete.
That meant I could now walk, run, crawl, and roll—forward and backward—with perfect control.
(For the record, in my beast form, I couldn’t roll forward or backward—only sideways.)
Rumble rumble.
It might sound silly, but this was an important skill.
“Rolling distributes impact, so you get injured less.”
In short, it was a form of breakfall.
I vaguely remembered something similar from martial arts novels in my past life—called “Naryeotagon” or something equally humiliating.
“Do you really think survival allows for pride?”
Grandma’s sharp remark silenced my doubts instantly.
True.
When your life’s on the line, who cares if you’re rolling on the ground?
So I trained hard—rolling across the yard daily.
When I wasn’t training, I roamed all around the house.
Officially, it was for endurance. In truth, I was sniffing for bad smells.
Sniff sniff.
But lately, the stench around the house had almost completely vanished.
Only outsiders could still be detected.
Before, even perfectly healthy people sometimes gave off a faint odor, like spoiled food—but now, even that was gone.
Good news—it meant the household was being managed well.
Bad news—it meant my “food supply” was gone.
When I told Mom and Dad, they seriously considered it.
“Maybe it’s time to take her outside to public gatherings.”
“A stroll through the marketplace could be good. Plenty of petty criminals to keep her instincts sharp.”
“But be careful,” Dad warned. “Even a stone bridge should be tested before crossing.”
“You mean she could be exposed.”
“Exactly. I’ll look into it myself.”
Looked like my marriage meeting would be postponed again—our schedule just kept filling up.
So Baeksan… do you think we’ll even meet this year?
Turns out, I’d underestimated him.
In May, right after April ended—
“Your engagement date has been set.”
We’d skipped the formal meeting entirely and gone straight to engagement.
“Apparently, So Baeksan caused an uproar, saying that if the betrothal was delayed any longer, he’d give up his heirship and become a live-in son-in-law here instead.”
So Baeksan. Baek Hwiryok.
That white, beautiful tiger—he’d finally lost his patience and overturned the table.
***
In truth, both families had been taking things slowly.
We were both still young, and with all the current chaos, it made sense to wait for calmer times.
Spring had been so full of incidents it was almost suspicious.
But then, So Baeksan drew his blade.
Repeatedly postponing our meetings meant, to him, that his family valued other things more than he himself.
So he declared that if things continued, he’d give up his title as young master and even abandon the Baek family name—to marry into ours.
This bold threat worked surprisingly well, for two reasons.
First, his genius.
“They say So Baeksan is already on the verge of becoming a high-level shaman. Many never cross that threshold, but if he succeeds within a few years, he’ll be the youngest ever.”
“The current record-holder is Aunt Hyeso, right?”
“Officially, yes. She became a high-level shaman at twenty-two. But So Baeksan is only eleven this year—that’s astonishing talent.”
Grandmother emphasized “officially” because there was one rumored exception—
So Baeksan’s own father, Baek San.
Though he formally registered at twenty-four, most believed he’d reached that level much earlier.
So Baeksan, inheriting only his father’s best traits, was considered capable of building a whole legacy on his own, even without the Baek family’s prestige.
And second—and more decisive—
“He swore this would be the last time.”
When So Baeksan said he’d do something, he meant it.
Having once witnessed his stubbornness firsthand during his earlier “runaway incident,” the Baek family panicked and immediately moved forward with the engagement.
And that’s how our hastened engagement came to be.
