Chapter 39

Telling her now to eat only five strands a day felt impossible.

He hated seeing her all skinny and weak.

He couldn’t even provide her three meals a day.

If he limited her to five strands, who knew where she might suddenly collapse.

A monster, it turned out, took far more care and was far pickier than expected.

Looking at Hisa almost like a tamed pet, Hong Yeom-rang completely forgot what the goblins had said about his father searching for him.

“I can live on one meal a day!”

Hearing his muttering, Hisa completely overturned his rare moment of serious thought.

Then she even held up five fingers.

Meaning five strands would do.

“I can’t allow that.”

He used to dismiss married men talking about the burden and responsibility of being head of a household as nonsense.

Why did those words come to mind now.

Maybe stained by flower dye, Hisa’s fingers looked faintly pink, and at his firm answer they drooped weakly.

“Don’t lift the blanket. Stay still.”

“Okay.”

Hisa gave a small yawn.

She sat perched on the blanket, then toppled sideways as she was.

Her eyes were half-closed with sleep.

Her knees were pulled to her chest, which made the top ride up and reveal most of her thighs, and Hong Yeom-rang hurriedly rummaged through the bundle.

Then he unfolded a still perfectly good deep violet durumagi and draped it over her body.

New padded mats, clothes, and…

Hong Yeom-rang watched Hisa absently fiddling with the new clothes he had covered her with.

Even while sitting at the small desk writing down things he needed, he didn’t miss those little movements from the corner of his eye.

She likes it.

For someone who turns clothes into rags every time, she likes new clothes.

It was obvious to him how excited Hisa was, touching the fabric.

Without realizing it, the corners of his mouth lifted.

A smile he couldn’t help escaped soundlessly.

Taking the roughly scrawled letter, he stepped outside the cave.

“Deliver this.”

He tossed the letter in its envelope into the air, and a hand shot out of nowhere and snatched it.

Hong Yeom-rang, about to turn back, paused.

“…Goblins live a long time, right?”

As if choosing who would answer, they rustled among themselves.

– We live long. Hiccup. Longer than Mr. Kim by faaar. Hiccup, hiccup.

Usually the female goblins spoke, but this time it was a rough voice.

It sounded like the bastard had been drinking, those hiccups grating on his nerves.

Apparently a thoroughly drunk one had somehow been shoved forward as representative.

Hong Yeom-rang’s voice, always fierce when threatening them, turned only as cold as the wind blowing in.

“Then you’d know how to make hair grow faster too.”

He didn’t ask if they knew.

He stated it.

Because those ill-minded creatures would never admit ignorance.

They exaggerated, boasted, swelled with pride.

Hong Yeom-rang was using that habit.

– Of course. We know everything. Ahem, hiccup!

– If you think lewd thoughts long enough, hair grows. Hee hee hee!

– If you think lewd thoughts long enough, hair grows indeed. Hee hee hee!

– Who let this brat only fifty years old interrupt!

The ones tense that he might draw his sword all came rushing out noisily at his one remark.

“I do that every day already, and it seems to do f*ck all, so tell me another method.”

When Hong Yeom-rang said it with a dead serious face, shameless as ever, the cackling creatures snapped their mouths shut.

Only the wind stirred again.

“Forget it. My mistake expecting anything from goblin brains.”

– Yang energy can be replenished another way~

– Yang energy can be replenished another way indeed~

The corner of Hong Yeom-rang’s mouth slowly lifted as he had just been viciously insulting goblin brains.

“Oh, there’s a way?”

The goblins knew best why he kept asking about making hair grow faster.

They had watched Hong Yeom-rang’s hair getting shorter by the day.

– Bald men aren’t popular.

– Bald men aren’t popular indeed.

– This rude little brat only fifty years old keeps talking back!

– Mr. Kim is a virgin so we can’t tell him.

– Mr. Kim is a virgin so we can’t tell him indeed.

– You little bastard!

– Mr. Kim is a virgin so the mountain likes him, so we can’t tell him.

– Mr. Kim is a virgin so the mountain likes him indeed.

– You little shit, even so!

The shouting over the fifty-year-old brat who kept repeating everything was deafening.

Then a fight broke out between the fifty-year goblin and one supposedly twice that age, and Hong Yeom-rang realized his question had landed exactly as intended.

“…The mountain fcking likes me? Why the hell would it like me. Because I’m a… virgin? Fcking… bastard…”

The instant he heard it, chills ran over him.

Now not god, goblin, monster, none of that.

Just the mountain liked him.

F*ck.

His mood dropped off a cliff.

And the moment they said it liked him because he was a virgin, the white tiger he had seen in that strange white forest suddenly came to mind.

If that was the mountain deity, then it was the mountain itself…

That thing likes me?

The moment he realized he had been played by goblins, Hong Yeom-rang felt trampled and dirtied somehow.

This time not his hair.

He wanted to cut off his whole head, start from the ears, and dunk every thought inside into water and wash it clean.

“Will you get lost right now, huh?”

Rushing back out with his sword, Hong Yeom-rang shouted gripping the hilt.

The noisy forest fell silent in an instant.

The clamoring goblins vanished all at once.

And then he heard a quiet voice calling him.

– Mr. Kim, Mr. Kim.

It was a female goblin.

“What.”

A black shape appeared atop a rock in the dark.

She was about his height, though he was larger than most men, and far bulkier.

Her hair was braided in two plaits, tied with silk ribbons of different colors.

Her chest was bound with a sash, wearing only a crimson skirt without a jeogori.

A sharp-looking goblin.

A single horn rose straight from the center of her head.

The female goblin, Mirang, edged closer to Hong Yeom-rang.

When he removed his hand from the sword, seeing she was wary of it, she looked ready to leap with joy.

Her bright red lips stretched, the corners curling up.

He had been frustrated already.

Seeing this man unable to understand the goblins’ roundabout way of speaking, Mirang thumped her chest.

This was why virgins were hopeless.

Too lacking in sense.

Was it because he knew nothing of women.

In the end, deciding to show kindness with broad generosity to this pitiful virgin who seemed likely to spend every night clutching his cock and waiting for hair to grow, Mirang helped.

– Sleep a flower-night together. However much hair she nibbles, it won’t compare to the yang energy a man puts in himself.

“What?”

Hong Yeom-rang asked again.

At him only saying what, what, Mirang lowered her voice and said while thumping her chest,

– I told Hisa several times too, but Hisa didn’t do it. But with Mr. Kim, I think it’ll work, so I’m telling you.

Hot heat climbed from the base of his throat.

Hong Yeom-rang clearly understood what she meant, and his expression was nothing like before when he shamelessly spoke without embarrassment.

He covered his mouth with one hand and turned his head away from Mirang.

The thick vein standing out in his neck looked blue.

Mirang sniffed.

The scent of a very aroused man.

“…What does that make me.”

Still turned away, avoiding her, Mr. Kim asked.

Mirang answered,

– The one putting in yang energy. She’s wasting yang energy right now. That’s why she’s always hungry.

“Oh, really?”

– Mr. Kim, look where you’re talking. I’m here. Ho ho ho-

Mirang stuck her head out and chased after the head Hong Yeom-rang kept turning away.

Then she pressed right up in front of him, floating only her face there as she talked.

An ordinary person would have screamed and pissed themselves.

Hong Yeom-rang barely reacted, only lazily pushed her between the brows with the hand covering his mouth to force distance.

“Don’t shove yourself at me.”

His face and nape had reddened, the blue vein showing even more clearly, yet he still wasn’t flustered.

What a man.

What a man.

Even if the shaman wanted to help, this was a man who had tightly caught hold of Hisa, who stole only the sacrifice’s hair like a night thief.

Mirang wanted to help Hisa somehow.

That clueless frustrating girl.

At year’s end, the mountain deity would return to the mountain.

Mirang wanted Hisa, before the final parting, to eat her fill at least once.

That child had wandered the mountain hungry, always hungry.

Mirang wanted to see her looking healthy and full-fed even once.

With a face that completely understood her words, Hong Yeom-rang passed Mirang and went back into the cave.

Mirang, floating only her head there, for the first time took a man’s side instead of teasing a human.

It was all for Hisa.