Plin Ch 2.2

The type of karmic pain felt varies from dragon to dragon. In Hugo’s case, it was a burning sensation.

The first sign is a headache. Then, heat rises from the throat, travels down the esophagus, and burns in the stomach where the organs are located. It felt like a fire rod was piercing his throat, reaching his stomach and then bursting into flames like lava.

When the pain started, he couldn’t move from his bed. He suffered for days, like ashes helplessly crumbling in the heat. It was an even more cruel pain because neither medicine nor sleeping pills worked.

“What does me sleeping with the fox have to do with karmic pain? I got his full consent and did everything perfectly.”

Hugo spoke with a bit of emotion mixed in. He was sensitive to karmic pain. It was because he had learned what was right and wrong not through human morality but by being hit with karmic pain. At least the fox had no reason to resent and hate him for what happened yesterday.

“I’m talking about the ‘periodic karmic pain’. Today is the ‘period’.”

Thibeau showed Hugo the calendar section of his diary. The 13th of the lunar month. Today’s date was marked in red. Thibeau’s calendar had traces of checks on the same date in past months.

“It’s already the 13th?”

“Yes.”

“Really. What is this?”

Unlike ordinary dragons, Hugo suffered from ‘additional’ karmic pain once a month, on a specific day. Since it came like a debt collector with money to collect on time even when there were no special events, it was called the ‘period’.

This was probably due to the anger (瞋) that represented Hugo’s temperament. ‘Anger’, one of the three poisons that lead to karma, did not simply mean an emotional reaction. Anger, when used well, benefits all people. The anger that becomes poison is when one looks down on others because of one’s own superiority, and when one gets angry without a good reason. In Hugo’s case, it was mainly the latter.

Anger illness. Or rage disorder. Hugo had a type of mental illness that modern psychiatry could not properly explain.

Sometimes, unable to control his anger, he would destroy all the furniture in the house, scream, and run around the streets. That didn’t make the anger subside.

It wasn’t an action with a specific reason, such as relationship problems. His rage appeared suddenly while he was sleeping, reading a book, or just sitting still.

Since there was no reason for the rage, neuropsychiatry could not offer a treatment method, and even Eastern medicine excused themselves by saying, ‘A case of anger illness without ever having suppressed anger is unheard of,’ and could not help.

It was probably due to his paternal lineage, the damn personality of some bastard. His anger, too much for a dragon, an unqualified temperament, did not improve as he grew up, but rather intensified.

When the feeling of being wronged took over all his blood vessels, he cursed himself and suffered from karmic pain. It was a total mess.

“Don’t you have a headache?”

“I don’t…”

Until now, the periodic karmic pain had never been postponed or skipped.

He had even tried to avoid the ‘period’ by staying at a temple for a month, listening only to the sound of a wooden block and meditating. At that time, while eating only vegetables at a quiet temple, the thought he had most often was to cut off the head of the monk in charge of meals.

Perhaps it was because he had harbored murderous intent beyond mere anger, but that month’s karmic pain was the most severe of all the periods Hugo had experienced. He couldn’t bear the pain and tried to jump into the temple’s pond, but three monks barely managed to stop him. Meditation was never going to fix his flawed temperament in the first place.

Thibeau narrowed his eyes. He was a capable and devoted secretary who accurately managed his master’s schedule. He had prepared for today’s karmic pain by inspecting the second-floor ward in advance and freezing a lot of ice. However, the person he was facing seemed to be in excessively good condition.

Why is he fine now? Is the happiness from last night’s first experience continuing until now, making him unable to feel even the pain? The ‘period’ is weaker than ordinary karmic pain, but it’s not a pain that can’t be felt.

“Anyway, it’s lucky.”

At the unexpected turn of events, Hugo, who was also lost in thought, spoke his conclusion. A thick vertical line was engraved in his golden eyes. It was a partial beastification phenomenon that appeared when he was very interested or deeply immersed in a thought.

Hugo turned around, looked in the full-length mirror, and swept up his black hair once.

He had a good feeling. Modern people tend to ignore luck, but as someone with dragon blood, he could feel it. This was great luck among luck. The periodic karmic pain that was like the curse of the 13th. An intense luck that breaks the rules of that misfortune.

People often think of luck as a ‘good coincidence’, but luck is not a coincidence, but rather intertwined with the wheel of inevitability.

It seemed like there was something to the fact that he had good luck the day after a satisfying night with the fox.

He had wanted to catch a white fox for over twenty years. He did so even though he had never actually seen one. He knew it was a strange obsession. Perhaps he instinctively knew that the white fox was a powerful luck for him. As a scapegoat to atone for his sins.

It bothered him that Ethan was involved, so he was going to wait and see.

Hugo emptied his glass of water. The chirping of the birds, which he usually wanted to shoot whenever he heard it, sounded unusually refreshing this morning.

More than twenty ways to control the life of the poor commoner fox popped into his head. As he was choosing the most effective and cheapest method, he let out a small laugh.

How many white dogs and red foxes pretending to be white foxes had he seen in the meantime?

“That peddler, he was a real white fox.”

“Oh, really?”

Thibeau, who was checking the schedule, answered casually without even looking up, after hearing him chuckle to himself for a while.

***

Before leaving the house, Plin had checked the weather forecast for the day.

[Weather] Early winter temperatures drop ↓ City Forest’s ‘first sub-zero temperature’ -2 degrees Full-scale cold ⁂☃ Get your winter coat ready!

As instructed, he put on the thickest clothes he had, but he couldn’t do anything about the cold that pierced his skin. The weather forecast was usually inaccurate, but it was always accurate when predicting bad weather. The biting wind scratched his skin, and the cold seeped in through the button fastenings and the collar, making his whole body cold.

When he arrived at The Scope building, his cheeks and ears were cold. His ears, in particular, were so cold that the tips were numb and stinging.

Depending on the species, some foxes have very fluffy fur in their ears, but Plin’s ears were smooth because he was not a polar species. His ears were also large, so they were inevitably vulnerable to the cold.

Carrying the heavy basket, he started to climb up to the 7th floor, his first delivery destination. The cheap soles of his shoes rubbed against the cement floor, making an unpleasant squeaking sound.

He hoped they wouldn’t complain too much…

When he made deliveries, most of The Scope people pretended not to see Plin, but some openly showed their disdain. As is always the case when dealing with people, a few strange people, rather than the majority of ordinary people, left lasting wounds in his heart.

There were some words that Plin still remembered.

‘He’s selling Viagra, but he’s acting like he’s on a picnic.’

‘Pfft. His ears are so big, he can hear everything.’

‘Is he high? What’s with that tacky basket?’

He understood that peddlers were treated like that. He wasn’t hurt by the whispers behind his back that he could clearly hear. But he had been depressed for a while after that conversation.

He carried a basket instead of a convenient plastic bag or backpack to make his deliveries quietly, without making rustling noises. It wasn’t a cheap basket, either, it was a high-quality, lightweight basket made of Ringodium branches…

When they called his hard work tacky, the wooden basket that he thought was so cool started to look really tacky to him, and it made his heart ache.

This morning’s delivery wouldn’t be easy either. He would hear a lot of complaints about yesterday’s evening delivery failure, and many people would probably cancel their delivery service… Business was all about trust, and he had lost it, so he had to accept the consequences.But when he entered the building with a heavy heart, the people of The Scope greeted him with unexpected warmth.