TBML 17

At the thunderous roar that seemed to command the entire mountain, the deer jerked their heads up, ears twitching. Though their mouths continued to chew the grass and their nostrils flared toward the sky in alarm at the thunder, they sensed no real danger from the natural sound.

Now.

Yeon held his breath—one, two, three.

Just as he was about to release his fingers from the bowstring, the deer suddenly bolted in every direction, all at once slipping from his aim. It happened in a flash—too fast for Yeon to react. It was already too late to change his target, and the tension in his fingers, so delicately poised on the string, vanished.

The arrow released without his will, skimming in an arc just above the heads of the fleeing deer. It wasn’t misjudged aim. It wasn’t the fault of greedy hands pressing too hard. His aim had been sharp—worthy of a marksman.

It only took seconds for the lost arrow to vanish into the underbrush—but those fleeting seconds stretched painfully slow, making Yeon feel as if time had stopped.

And through the gap left by the panicked deer, something marked with a round pattern appeared. The very mark he had desperately searched for all day. A pelt that would’ve suited the estate of some grand noble under a heavy tiled roof. A leopard.

Smaller than a full-grown tiger in every way—size, length—but no less a predator. A leopard could leap in an instant and drag a full-grown man up a tree.

Without time to think, Yeon ran. The matchlock strapped to his back and the bow in his hand—neither were any use at such close range. All he could do was run, scramble with all he had, praying for a miracle.

The distance wasn’t enough. The leopard could leap and pounce in a single bound. Yeon’s escape, at the edge of life and death, was more desperation than anything else.

He no longer registered that the slope he had stood on only moments before was slick with fallen leaves. All that remained in his mind was one thought: I’m going to die.

There was nothing to grab onto. His flailing was frantic. His feet slipped again and again across the wet, leaf-covered slope.

In the end, the fragile body that could not defy nature collapsed with a sharp crack, like a dry branch breaking. Yeon’s small frame curled into a ball and tumbled helplessly down the slope like a toy knocked aside by some passing god.

As the world around him spun wildly, Yeon thought he saw something other than the leopard’s circular patterns—broad black stripes. They widened and widened, swallowing his field of vision in darkness.

Crows cried noisily overhead.

With every step the black tiger took, thin golden stripes along its body shimmered. Its fur had grown thick in preparation for the coming winter, glossy like silk.

Blending into the shadows of the brush, the black tiger crept with its presence completely muted, watching the figure ahead aim toward a tree branch.

It knew. From that branch, there would be a sharp sound—pishung!—and something deadly enough to take a small animal’s life would be released.

The goal of snapping the neck of the hunter who had killed its mother—and who threatened its own life—had long since faded. The pursuit had lost its purpose, but the black tiger had grown fond of the chase.

The more it came to know humans, the more unknowable they became. And today, watching the small human called Yeon-ah show greed for the first time, the black tiger felt something new. Its tail swayed in the air.

But curiosity was short-lived. A stench clung to its nose—the stench of a predator. Ominous. It was the same vile scent that had begun creeping into its territory of late.

Ja-oh was still young, and the black tiger, who hadn’t learned all it should from its mother, preferred to avoid contact. Though it didn’t believe it would lose to that scraggly, loud-coated thing, Ja-oh thought little of the tiger and treated it like a foolish child.

It should have ignored Ja-oh and chased the intruder. Even without being told, the black tiger instinctively knew—the creature wouldn’t merely watch the small human the way it did.

The crows, which should’ve been shrieking in warning, were unnaturally silent. They were doing it on purpose, no doubt. Wishing this bothersome little human would finally disappear, they stayed quiet, perched high in the trees, watching from above.

Rumble!! In place of the quiet crows, the sky roared.

I can’t leave it like this.

If Ja-oh had been there, he would’ve drawn out his words and asked, “Whyyy?” The tiger wouldn’t have answered. Not even if the crow asked a hundred times.

The young tiger—so big, yet still a child—didn’t know the answer. If it asked the little human, Why did you save me all those times? what would the human say? Did humans know the answer to that?

To ask the question, the human needed to be breathing, running, hearing, speaking. Without hesitation, the tiger sprang forward, closing the distance to Yeon.

The tiger had never seen a leopard before. And the leopard—lean with hunger—was no fledgling. It was fully grown, experienced. Despite the black tiger’s urgency, the leopard was far closer to Yeon.

Any other day, the deer would’ve been a fine prize—something to drool over—but today, they were in the way. In the tiger’s golden eyes, glowing like amber, the leopard rushed toward the small human—Yeon-ah.

With the sudden appearance of two predators, the deer scattered in all directions in a panic. And now, finally, the human noticed the leopard—too late—flailing in futile struggle.

Time slowed. So slow it was suffocating.

The tiger gritted its teeth and tore through that dragging time, pounding the ground with all its strength. Who dares touch my prey in my domain?

The tiger’s hind legs struck the thick carpet of leaves, sending them bursting into the air. its eyes were locked on Yeon, tumbling down the slope—but its fangs and claws were for the leopard.

The human, who had slammed headfirst into the ground, seemed to have blacked out. Even as his body struck rocks and roots on his way down, not a single cry escaped his lips.

Since the ground was thickly layered with fallen leaves, the black tiger judged—by its own standards—that the human wouldn’t be seriously hurt, and bared its large fangs at the leopard. But the seasoned leopard twisted away just in time, and instead of sinking its teeth into tough hide, the tiger became entangled with the reeking beast, both rolling across the forest floor. Only then did Ja-oh finally begin to squawk in a racket.

Hidden stones beneath the leaves jabbed at the beasts’ backs, but neither seemed to care. They bared their claws at each other without hesitation. Four long claw marks stretched across the leopard’s circular pattern. As blood welled up from the wounds, the leopard let out a catlike cry and slashed the tiger in return, leaving a similar wound across the black tiger’s striped flank.

As a streak of blood formed along the same line as the tiger’s dark stripes, a massive roar echoed through the mountain, blending with the cry of the crow.

The battle-hardened leopard instinctively realized that this fight with the young tiger before it would be far from easy.

Crude though it was, the beast with the circular pattern possessed a sharp instinct for survival. It had already lost the easy prey—both the human and the deer—and fighting a young but larger tiger now would only end in wounds and starvation.

With a vicious cry of frustration, the leopard gave a last snarl, rolled once over the fallen leaves, and sprang into the trees.

As the leopard leapt upward with its tail curled in, it landed on a sturdy branch and, like diving into water, vanished into the reddish underbrush.

Once the leopard fled, the black tiger shook itself wildly. Leaves stuck to the blood from its wounds, and no matter how much it shook, they didn’t come off easily. Only when it shook himself again did Ja-oh, who had been shrieking all the while, finally descend and begin picking off the clinging leaves from its fur. Ja-oh flapped his wings with irritation, clearly full of complaints.

The black tiger didn’t have time to entertain the nagging crow. it pushed past Ja-oh and began descending the slope where Yeon had fallen. Startled, Ja-oh flapped madly to avoid getting stepped on and flew after the tiger in frustration.

The trees below the slope were dense. For a human like Yeon, crashing into a tree while rolling down could mean death. Still, the black tiger was relieved to see that he hadn’t rolled far before being stopped by one.

Yeon’s pale face was scratched and smeared with dirt and leaves from the fall. its worn clothes were dotted with small patches of blood, but none seemed to be from serious wounds like those the tiger had received from the leopard.

The black tiger brought its fur-covered snout close to Yeon, sniffing for the scent of life.

Faint. Weak.

The beast exhaled a long breath of relief, its whiskers twitching. The breath, easily twice as strong as any human’s, stirred Yeon, and he let out a soft, pained groan.

“Mmgh…”

The tiger gently prodded him with its paw, but the impact of colliding headfirst with the mountainside had left Yeon senseless. He wasn’t waking easily.

Ka-aaak—!

A crow swooped low, as silently as an owl, and circled above the black tiger, now seated at Yeon’s side. With a long, grating cry that seemed to voice its displeasure, Ja-oh landed squarely on the tiger’s head.