About Two Years and Eleven Months Later
Gami sat upon the seat of judgment at Sunjel's court, where once Sheriff Juraki had reigned. Behind her stood her family, solemn and silent, gazing down at the man now dressed in prisoner's garb—Juraki himself. The new sheriff stood at her side in quiet deference.
Juraki confessed everything—openly, without embellishment, without hiding a single detail from that day. Gami listened in silence, her face unreadable, her posture calm and composed.
Then, she spoke.
"Tell me," she asked coldly, "your wife—the tiger monster. Had she ever consumed a human being before?"
Juraki, kneeling on the cold floor, raised his head toward the seat he once occupied.
So this is how it must have felt—for those who once looked up at me from below.
He bowed low, pressing his forehead to the ground, and answered honestly.
"No, your highness… It started six winters ago. The snow was relentless, and I failed in every hunt. In desperation… I gave my wife a condemned criminal. That was the first time…"
Sui suddenly shouted, unable to restrain himself. "How dare you! You still call that thing your wife—a beast that devoured a man?!"
Juraki's face was sorrowful. "It was all my sin. I will bear the punishment of every crime. But please…"
Gami remained unmoved. "And after that? Did you continue feeding her… people?"
Juraki shook his head vehemently. "No… she endured it. She lived on other meat."
Oh… I see now. Even if I explain truthfully, it will sound like a hollow excuse.
Juraki sighed deeply. "But once she had tasted it… she could not resist the craving."
Well, at this point… honesty might earn me some pity.
"One dawn before morning, I followed her. I saw her with my own eyes… saw her… doing it."
There was a strange sense of release in saying it—this truth that had weighed so heavily on him. His voice trembled.
"She was the mother of my children. I couldn't let her live like that. So… I stepped forward. I took it upon myself."
Sui's face twisted in fury. "And that justifies it?! You turned innocent men into criminals, sentenced petty offenders to death, and fed them to that monster?! What kind of man does that?!"
Gami reached out, gently grasping Sui's trembling left hand to calm him. Sui, feeling his sister-in-law's quiet restraint, forced himself to settle.
Yes… perhaps that's how it always is. When you sit there, looking down from that seat, the perspective changes everything.
Juraki's eyes filled with tears. He knew it was futile, but he still wanted to defend his wife.
"When our first child was born… he was covered in tiger fur."
Sui's heart stirred with rage again, but Gami's hand tightened slightly—just enough to let him know: Let him speak.
Juraki continued, his voice thick with emotion.
"My wife held the child in her arms… and blew gently across his skin. The fur scattered like ash in the wind. And there he was—smiling up at me. My son. He looked just like me."
Gami shook her head softly.
"No matter how deeply you loved her… a human cannot do such things to other humans."
Zeali looked down at Juraki with cold disdain. "Enough, niece-in-law. Let it go. That man will be executed in early next month, anyway."
Sui clenched his fists again. "I still don't understand Goi," he said bitterly. "Why did he let the monster and her three children go free? Why show them mercy?"
Young Dui, however, spoke up. "I think Goi did the right thing. A tiger lives by its nature. The real crime was what that man did."
Juraki felt as if something inside him cracked open.
Even a child can see the truth from that seat…
Yes… she wasn't the beast. I was the monster all along.
Juraki wept. "Master Goi said… that it is no sin for a human and a beast to love one another."
"When he told my wife to take the children and never return to the human world… I was shocked, even then."
He bowed low to the floor again and again.
"Princess Gami of the Jin family of Baekje… I humbly beg you: if you ever meet your husband, please tell him this: I will repay his mercy, in this life and the next, for as long as it takes."
His voice rang out across the court, echoing through stone and silence.
Even the new sheriff and the soldiers felt the weight of his words, turning their eyes to the surrounding space, as if seeing the chamber anew.