There was a witch born three centuries ago who became feared above all witches by the Nitheans for some time. They call her "The Fox Demon of the Red Night". She was born and raised in the infamous red district of Luzeus, in the famed brothel Bbalkkoch. No one believed she would grow to be an agreeable girl, seeing as her mother died in childbirth and she had only prostitutes to raise her, but the Fox was not unhappy. She was glad to be raised by the women of Bbalkkoch, who doted on her and were as beautiful as pear blossoms. There was only one other young girl who was raised in the brothel with the Fox; the Fox clung to her like a bramble to cotton, calling her eonnie and following her everywhere she went. Even when the Fox's eonnie began to work with the other prostitutes and take customers, the Fox would try to follow her into her private room, having to be convinced to leave her eonnie to her work with candies and pretty hairpins. Years passed before the Fox did not have to be lured away with sweets and jewels.
One day, the Fox's eonnie took a certain Nithean customer. Men are dogs; this, all women who perform such work know well. They dream of killing their wives and raping their daughters. Moreso do Nithean men dream of raping Geuman girls. But any man rarely harmed a valuable prostitute, for they would incur a large fee with the brothel and fall into debt. Unexpectedly, the Fox's eonnie was unfortunate tonight. Her customer was so drunk that he did not care about future debt. When he began to choke her in a frenzy of fantasy, the Fox's eonnie fought back, running for the door to call for help. But the customer had no inhibitions. He ran at her and bashed her head into the door, killing her. Hearing the commotion, other women came to see what was happening, and the man, finally seeing what he had done, fled out the window and into the night.
The women tried to hold the Fox back at the door, shielding her eonnie from her eyes and trying to distract her with the sweets and hairpins that had held her eyes as a child. But the Fox was no longer a child. She smelled blood. She fought her way to her eonnie's room, only to find her eonnie's body violated and crumpled on the ground, her blood staining the floorboards, her silk ripped and bones cracked. The Fox screamed. She had seen death before. Bbalkkoch sat in the red district of Luzeus, after all. The dead bodies of women littered the alleyways after the busy times of night. But the Fox had never seen this death before, on the face of a beloved.
That night, the Fox became different. Before her eonnie's body was taken for burial, she took the hairpin from the body and slipped it into her own hair. She had been training to work with the other women for some time, but had not yet done so, being the treasured younger sister of all the Ballkkoch women–and also having no interest in men. She sat and powdered her face, painted her lips red like blood, and combed her hair, adorning it with golden, flowering pins. Then, she went into the snowy streets and smiled at passing men, covering her lips with a golden fan. The other women of the brothel who were working were shocked, but did not stop her; she was often allowed to do as she wanted. Perhaps she had suddenly taken an interest in men.
It was not long before she found the man who had killed her eonnie. She remembered his face from earlier that night; she always looked at the men her sister took as clients. He was stumbling in an alleyway, looking afraid–perhaps still worried he would be chased for his crimes. But the other women, who had not seen him earlier, overlooked him. The Fox smiled sweetly at him, holding out her snow-white hand. The man looked at her, and became drunk on her beauty. Like a dog, he followed her inside Bbalkkoch, up to a bedroom draped with silks. The Fox pushed him onto the bed. She climbed on top of him as he groped at her, and drew her hairpins out of her hair, which cascaded down her shoulders. The man was impatient, dazed with alcohol and lust. He reached out to grab her. The Fox sank her eonnie's hairpin into his throat to the hilt and twisted it until his blood spewed from his throat in a fountain. As he screamed in silenced horror, she stomped on his male organs until they turned to a bloody pulp, her robes and face sprayed with sweet blood.
When the other women discovered this, they screamed and ran to their Mistress, who threw the Fox out the door and onto the streets of Bbalkkoch. She dragged herself into an alleyway and lay there in her bloody dress, her knuckles white around her eonnie's hairpin, and she laughed. Some men stumbled into the alley, seeing a beautiful woman; but they quickly scurried out upon seeing her grinning face covered in blood. Heavy snow began to fall, and the Fox still sat in the alley, becoming buried in the cold.
It was some time before someone approached her. In the flurries of snow, it was hard to make out their figure. They spoke to the Fox, reaching out to her. It was a sister from the brothel Bbalkkoch. The Fox looked at her hand coldly. What do you want? she snapped. The figure flinched, but did not retract her hand. Her voice was afraid, but determined: Will you let me join you, E████-ssi?
The Fox was reluctant, but was secretly lonely in her grief. Revenge is sweet, but grief is constant. She allowed her sister from the brothel to sit with her. That night in the alleyway among the flurries of snow, they came to an agreement: seeing as the Fox had been cast out from her home, the two of them would travel and search for another brothel to work at. The sister had a request, however: at whichever brothel they were taken in, they should find a sickening man and kill him. The Fox was suspicious. Why did this sister want to kill more men? Was she not afraid? The sister laughed softly, wrapping her cloak around herself. Men are pigs. They take and they foul. You have given me hope that we might foul them in return. To this, the Fox was in agreement. Men were pigs. Worse than pigs–they were sick creatures who knew their wrongdoings but continued anyhow. She remembered her eonnie's lifeless eyes coated in blood, and she and the sister agreed on the request. They would find more men to kill together.
The two of them set off soon after. There was much arguing for their possessions at the brothel, but the mistress of Bballkoch, who had helped raise the Fox, took pity on them and allowed them to return and take some of their possessions. As they packed their things, the sister told the other women of the brothel of their plan. Some paled like ghosts; others grew curious and excited. That night, it was not only the Fox and the sister who left the brothel to search for another, but five women in total–the first members of the Sisterhood of Kkoch.
The story of the Fox grows foggy and winding now. She set out to the west, towards Udvall, the royal capital. She and her sisters stopped at brothels along the roadside, lying in wait in jewels and silk, leaving the brothel in silence in the middle of the night with the bloodied bodies of men lying behind them. They would move onto the next brothel, and the next. The Fox had always been bold; now, she grew bolder, holding the position of a leader like a torch. The sisters looked to her with admiration, and she thought of only blood, for it eased her thoughts of grief and her dreams of the lifeless eyes of her eonnie. One night, as the Fox sat out by a pond while the sisters made camp, she was approached by a woman who shone like the moon. The goddess Yuna had descended from the heavenly realm.
The Fox was wary. "You are a god," she said, her voice flat. "It is you who watched while my eonnie was killed."
The goddess Yuna was not offended. She smiled bitterly down at the Fox, but her bitterness was not directed at her. "Even gods cannot stop the violence of men. I understand your grief and your anger. I wish to grant you a gift. Perhaps it will aid you in your journey."
It is best not to offend a god. The Fox accepted, and the goddess Yuna placed a hand on the Fox's head, granting her the divine power to transform into a Kumiho, from which her name is taken. The Fox transformed under the goddess' hand into a white nine-tailed fox with fangs as sharp as daggers and eyes as clear as stars. The Fox bowed her head in thanks, and the goddess Yuna returned to the heavens.
The Sisterhood of Kkoch lived on. Protected by the divine power of Yuna, they traveled to Udvall's red district and found a new set of brothels to infiltrate. Word began to spread throughout the royal capital of a "cult of Geuman witchcraft" and a "fox demon". Men's bodies began to litter the streets of the red district, torn to pieces by the claws of some animal. Geuman bodies, Nithean bodies, rich and poor, they all were thrown onto the streets to be identified. Women wailed as they learned their husbands had not only gone out to brothels, but had also been torn apart. Even the royal Witch Hunters were notified, for a few minor noblemen had been shredded during nights of pleasure, and the culprits remained hazy. There were reports of a group of women showing up to brothels and disappearing the next night; but with the divine protection of Yuna, their names and faces were always foggy and unremembered.
In the strongest year of the sisterhood's activities, a great hysteria gripped the royal capital of Vallness, called the Three Years' Bloody Nights. In these three years, the Fox dropped her careful act of infiltrating brothels and began to roam the streets as a Kumiho, picking off men who looked at women the wrong way until it was the entire city of Udvall that would awake each morning to more men littering the streets like piles of bloody snow. This was when the Witch Hunters began to tighten their investigations. One night, a member of the sisterhood stumbled out drunk from a celebration the sisters had been throwing over the murder of a particularly awful nobleman. She was swept away by Witch Hunters without a chance to scream. The torture that awaited her at Avinkalld was unspeakable. They managed to squeeze out the location of the Fox's favorite pond outside the city before they killed her.
In this way, the Fox was finally caught. She sat by the pond one night, praying to the goddess Yuna. The Witch Hunters snuck up all around her. When they emerged from the trees, the Fox did not seem afraid, or surprised. She did not bother to transform into a Kumiho to fight them. It is said that her grief had overtaken her that night, her eyes red and wet. She merely raised her eyebrows and smiled.
"Take me, then. It is good to have a reason to kill a man. I am sure you will give me plenty. Try and bring me to my eonnie, won't you?"
The Witch Hunters were suspicious of her willingness to go with them, but they did not delay. They placed her in chains and dragged her back to the eastern coast. None of them dared touch her; her words rang in their ears like ice. It is said that she laughed like a fox when her cell in Avinkalld was sealed. It is said, too, that if one stands just south of Ymvik, her laughter can still be heard echoing from the towers of Aevinkalld, cold and sharp as her claws. The divine powers she had been granted by the goddess Yuna came with the curse of immortality; though she longed to join her eonnie in death, there was no path for her to take but forward. Even now, she waits in her cell, hoping that perhaps one day, her eonnie will come for her.