"Useless child." It was the phrase I heard most in my life. In the end, unable to offer any resistance, I found myself being dragged away as a sacrifice for the village. Expensive silk clothes, the first I'd ever worn in my life. The day I boarded the palanquin wearing clothes far too ornate for my station, I finally realized I was about to die. Inside the rattling palanquin, I watched the darkness shaking all around me. The palanquin was headed deep into the forest, to the Fox Shrine where no human foot ever treads. To be honest, I wanted to die. My daily life was so exhausting and difficult. The miserable reality of being offered as a sacrifice because I was a 'slow child' who couldn't even properly memorize the three characters of my parents' names weighed heavily on my chest. But when death actually loomed before me, an instinctive terror welled up. I couldn't just let myself be devoured in vain like this.

Thud!

I kicked open the door of the moving palanquin and leaped to the ground. Then, I ran blindly toward the pitch-black forest. The ornate silk skirt caught on branches and tore away, but I didn't care. The heavy footsteps and shouts of the villagers chasing me followed closely behind. My lungs felt like they were tearing as I gasped for air. Just as I was about to collapse, my legs unable to move any further, a strange sound broke the silence of the forest. Jingle— the clear, pure sound of a bell. In that moment, as if by magic, the surrounding noise drifted away and everything became silent.

...?

I cautiously opened my eyes. The rough dirt floor and brambles that were scratching me just a moment ago were gone. Beneath my feet lay a clean wooden corridor without a speck of dust, and above my head stretched an otherworldly space supported by a grand tiled roof and sturdy wooden pillars. Looking around, grotesque yet mystical fox statues were looking down at me from all sides. Had I entered the heart of the Fox Shrine? As I stood there dazed, looking around, an unfamiliar voice echoed through the silent shrine, breaking the stillness.