When the mayor walked out and noticed his peers, he fell into silence. I noticed him stepping to the side as if to take his distance from both me and the crowd that was glaring at me. I could hear words of anger and derision, so there was no doubt what the crowd wanted.
After a few moments of mutters and wordless shouts, a man stepped out who seemed to be leading them. “You need to leave, stranger.”
Directly behind him was a woman who was clinging to his arm. She nodded her head enthusiastically, almost like she was goading him on. The pair looked terrified looking up at me who towered over them, but they were bolstered by the crowds behind them.
“You don’t need to worry. I plan to leave.” I spoke up, cause the mumbling to quiet. “I found what I wanted to know. I just never would have guessed the foxkin were such … animals…”
A wave of discontent swept through the crowd, the man huffed angrily. “You don’t even know what you’re talking about!”
I looked down at him with a frown. “I don’t? Aren’t you the ones who sold out your own families like cowards? I suppose I should have known better. After all, you were already selling them off to slavery so you didn’t have to deal with them. How could I expect such people to have any honor at all.”
I probably should have stayed quiet, but I was furious. Miki had never once spoken ill of this village. She had always treated it as a mutual understanding. Her family did their best, but in the end, she didn’t want to be a burden. She had always hidden the truth. They were just a bunch of cowards who sold off their families so that they didn’t have to struggle with things.
“They’re cursed people! Every day is a pain for them! They couldn’t bear to be in that pain anymore. We did what we had to so that their final days could be peaceful!” The man declared back defiantly.
“They couldn’t bear it? Or you couldn’t bear it.” I asked, snorting. “Miki was better than you. She was better than all of you!”
“She’s a monster!” The woman holding onto the man shouted. “She cursed us… she cursed me! She didn’t hesitate to ruin all of our lives!”
Her words were echoed by several more people. “She’s evil.”
“She’s destroyed us all!”
“That child should never have been born.”
“Curse…” I mumbled, and then my eyes widened as I began to realize what happened.
They all seemed to flinch with just that word. I looked back into the building behind me, and then out across the foxkin here. Within the inn, there had been too few to notice, but now seeing more of the village, I could see various people who looked paler and sicker than others. I couldn’t help but throw my head back and laugh. It was a harsh, unforgiving laugh.
“Master…” Alysia spoke quietly.
“That’s what is wrong with them. Their so-called curse.” I wiped a tear from my eye as the expressions on the foxkin turned increasingly ugly. “Before Miki left, she caused everyone to awaken their spiritual tails. She turned all of you into the very things you feared. She turned you into spirit foxes!”