Episode 33
Zenox found a baby fox in the forest and brought it back to his mansion.
He handed it to the butler and locked himself in his room.
Even though Zenox was the master of the Kraseum mansion, he never felt at ease there. All the servants, except the butler, were afraid of him.
Zenox also preferred to be alone. He had lived that way for so long that being near anyone felt strange.
But above all, he couldn’t even trust himself.
He used the fox orb regularly to suppress his madness, but it was not perfect. More often, he lost control and his reason slipped away.
If things continued like this, the madness would swallow him completely.
He had already decided: if that day came, he would go somewhere far away, where no one was, and die alone. That had become his quiet resolve.
Not long after he shut himself in, hallucinations started—voices urging him to kill, and visions of corpses clinging to him.
Insomnia tormented him every night, and soon he even forgot he had brought a baby fox home.
One night, when the madness burned especially strong, he struggled desperately to stay sane—but finally blacked out.
When he woke, he was lying on the cold hard tiles.
Slowly opening his eyes, he saw the hallway in ruins: broken pottery, shattered furniture—too familiar a sight.
But something was strange. His side felt warm.
Looking down, he muttered without meaning to:
“…Fox?”
At first he thought it was another hallucination. But no—curled up beside him, sleeping soundly, was a small fox.
Its big fluffy tail was hugged tightly in its little paws. Its soft fur under his hand felt real.
It was the baby fox he had picked up earlier.
When he tried to get up, the fox jumped onto his chest and sprawled there.
It was light as a ball of cotton, yet he couldn’t move as if pinned by a rock.
Zenox stared at the tiny creature breathing peacefully.
“Has it lost its sense of fear?” he muttered.
Otherwise, how could it sleep so calmly next to him?
Most animals were born able to sense their predators. But not this one.
Zenox judged the little fox to be a foolish creature.
Still, nothing changed afterward. Zenox stayed in his room, the fox was cared for by the butler, and they barely met.
He planned to leave the fox behind anyway when he soon departed the capital.
One day, while working in his office, Zenox heard noise in the hall.
“Boksil!” someone called.
What a strange, ridiculous name, Zenox thought.
He ignored it and returned to work—until a white fluff appeared in his vision.
It was the baby fox. Their eyes met and both froze.
The fox suddenly ran to him and hid under his desk.
The door burst open, and a servant entered.
“S-sir…”
When the servant saw Zenox, his face went pale. Trembling like a leaf, he dropped to his knees and pressed his head to the floor.
“P-please, spare me!”
Zenox was used to this. People always begged for their lives, convinced he would kill them, even when he hadn’t done anything.
Normally, he wouldn’t bother correcting them. He was about to tell the servant to leave—
—when something tugged at his trousers.
The baby fox was climbing up his leg.
Zenox picked it up in one hand. “Name.”
“E-excuse me?” stammered the servant.
Zenox stared coldly. The man panicked. “J-Jason! My name is Jason!”
“Not your name. Its name.”
The servant glanced at the fox and quickly nodded. “Boksil.”
“That’s supposed to be a name?” Zenox frowned.
The servant dared not explain that the head butler had named it. Sweat rolled down his back.
“…Whatever,” Zenox muttered. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t planning to keep the animal himself anyway.
“Kyeng!” cried the fox, flicking its ears and wagging its tail, clearly unhappy at being held.
Zenox frowned even more. Perhaps the creature had something wrong with its head.
Other animals fled at the mere sight of him, yet this fox didn’t.
Just recently, hunting dogs had run away from him, and the butler’s birds had fainted in their cages. The fox was unusual.
“Get out,” Zenox said.
The servant bolted.
Zenox set the fox on his desk.
Instead of running away, it explored the desk like a little adventurer.
At one point, it pawed at a drawer and looked up at him.
“Kyung.”
He opened it, and the fox’s mouth curled upward as if satisfied.
Zenox didn’t even realize he had obeyed it.
The fox hopped into the drawer, digging around like it was making a burrow, ears twitching, tail wagging in delight.
It made a mess of three drawers before finally resting.
Zenox stared down at the tiny creature, acting as though it owned the place. He almost laughed.
Enough. It was time to kick it out.
He lifted the fox from the drawer.
“Kyung! Kyaang!” It cried, glaring at him with surprising defiance.
Zenox hadn’t looked into anyone’s eyes this closely in a long time. Usually, people couldn’t meet his gaze—they always looked away in fear.
Finding it strangely refreshing, he called the butler to take the fox away.
Once gone, the office grew silent again.
Zenox tried to focus on his papers, but the image of the bold little fox kept appearing in his mind—the soft white fur flashing before his eyes.
He shook off the thoughts and worked.
Yet after that, he found himself glancing at the fox more often. Not because he cared, he told himself, but only to see if it still wasn’t afraid of him.
The fox, as if mocking him, visited more and more often.
One day, it even carried a bowl almost as big as itself into his office.
Zenox stared. “Ha…”
Food? From me?
He rubbed his forehead in disbelief. Even Berdo, the family butler who had served the Kraseums since before Zenox was born, had never approached him so freely.
Yet this fearless little fox had, in less than a month, crossed every line Zenox had drawn.
It didn’t even understand the concept of distance.
Maybe he should scare it away. If he threatened it, surely it would never return.
That would be easy—everyone else always fled at the slightest gesture.
But strangely, he hesitated.
Instead, all he said was:
“Go to the kitchen.”
“Kyangg! Kyang!” the fox barked, shaking the dish so hard it clattered on the floor. Then it slapped the ground with its paw.
“….”
And so, that day, for the first time in his life, Zenox visited the kitchen.
