“No, So-ryong, it’s just that... you don’t really know. If you look carefully, it does have fur... like on the belly and...”

Sister Seol was trying to find flaws in the creature, insisting it had fur—but that was a lie.

I know very well what that creature is based on. The pangolin.

A strange animal among mammals, almost entirely hairless. Back in my previous life, even though it wasn’t venomous, I’d once seriously tried to raise one.

Of course, that dream never came true.

Due to its reckless use in traditional Chinese medicine, it had become critically endangered and was eventually banned from international trade altogether.

‘Seriously. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to eat something that cute?’

There are a few hairless animal breeds out there—like sphynx cats—but the reason I was so drawn to this one was different.

Not only was it hairless, but its back was covered in a shell similar to some reptiles—evoking the image of a dinosaur, the ancestors of reptiles.

The creature’s back was layered in keratin, the same material as fingernails and hair, and just by looking at it, you couldn’t tell if it was a mammal, reptile, or a straight-up dinosaur.

A badass creature wrapped in plated armor.

That’s what a pangolin is.

Of course, average pangolins, as Sister Seol said, do have some hair.

There’s a bit of fur between the plates on their back and around their bellies.

But the one lying here? Not a single strand of fur in sight.

Its exposed belly, sides, and face were perfectly smooth.

Like it had been waxed.

If I hesitated in the past because of a bit of fur, this one was the stuff of dreams.

I’ve given Sister Seol plenty of creatures up till now, but this one?

This one, I would not give up.

The appearance alone was more than enough to win over this Spicy Fabre.

‘No fur? Then it's a reptile. Sorry, Sister Seol. No way I’m giving this one up.’

And on top of that, this one had venom.

It was one of the venomous beasts listed in the Secret Compendium of the World’s Venomous Creatures: 24 Venom Beasts.

This one represented the “snow” in the four-character set: Cloud, Rain, Snow, and Hail.

A pure-white pangolin.

White Snow Shell.

That was its true identity.

The creature lying here matched the characteristics of the White Snow Shell exactly as recorded in the Compendium.

Though it didn’t say exactly what kind of venom it had, the mere fact that it took a spot among the 24 was proof enough it was venomous.

“You know how rough their fur is, right? Oh, and the smell! They reek! And they don’t even have teeth, so it’s a pain to feed them.”

Sister Seol was now rapid-firing all the downsides she could think of.

She wasn’t wrong—regular pangolins release a strong odor when threatened, and they don’t have teeth. They eat ants by slurping them up with a long tongue.

But honestly, none of that was a real problem.

If scent defense was the issue, then our Ranghyang was similar.

And as for food? Didn’t I transplant a colony of termites behind the Tang family’s mountain?

Even though it’s a spirit beast and probably doesn’t eat, if it did, that problem was already solved.

Just feed it termites.

“And also... uh... so... like...”

Running out of ammunition, Sister Seol began looping her closing phrase.

Time to shift the conversation.

We were going in circles now, and this wasn’t the time to argue—we had to check on the creature first.

“We’ll settle it later, Sister Seol. Let’s treat the little one first.”

“Huh? Oh, right! Don’t worry, I’m good with animals!”

“Be careful as you approach. You remember the forelegs, right?”

The pangolin might be a gentle, toothless insectivore, but it has long, sharp claws to dig up ants.

Its foreclaws are incredibly strong and sharp, evolved to rip into earth and termite mounds.

The claw marks we saw back in the cave? They were clear proof of that.

They're just digging claws, sure, but if that thing swiped in anger? That’d be a different story.

Those claws could seriously injure someone.

“Of course. I was wondering about those earlier—that must’ve been from its forelegs.”

Sister Seol and I carefully approached the creature, still unconscious with its long tongue lolling out.

She gave it a few gentle pokes, but it didn’t move.

Clearly out cold.

We both sat down next to it and began examining it closely.

Were there any wounds? Was it coughing up blood?

As I carefully observed its body, Sister Seol suddenly tilted her head.

“Hm? Something’s weird.”

She’d barely started looking it over, but something already struck her as odd.

“What is it?”

“Hang on.”

She told me to wait and resumed checking the creature’s body more carefully.

After a while, Sister Seol spoke with concern.

“It’s exhausted.”

“Exhausted?”

“Yeah. Doesn’t seem injured or sick, but look—the belly’s lost all tone. And that tongue’s just hanging out.”

Exhaustion meant it hadn’t had food or water for a while—or had gone through serious stress.

As Sister Seol examined the creature’s curled-up belly again, she murmured,

“This is strange...”

Again with the “strange.”

“What is?”

I kept asking what she meant, and she finally pointed at its stomach.

“Look. See this? Don’t you see its nipples?”

“Uh? Ah... yeah...”

“Look at this one—it’s swollen.”

“It’s... swollen?”

I looked closer—and sure enough, it was.

Swollen.

That meant it was producing milk. And if it was producing milk, that meant it had young.

One nipple was slightly elongated too—likely from a pup suckling it recently.

When babies feed like that continuously, the nipples stretch temporarily.

And if it was exhausted? That made perfect sense.

Mothers sometimes suffer fatigue from nursing when they’re undernourished, or the litter size is too large.

I remembered seeing YouTube clips in my past life of stray cats collapsing in alleys from nursing exhaustion.

If this was the same case, it all made sense.

“If her milk’s come in, doesn’t that mean she has a pup? And if she’s collapsed from exhaustion, maybe it’s because she’s been over-nursing in bad condition—!”

“!”

An exclamation mark might as well have popped up over Sister Seol’s head.

She locked eyes with me, quickly looked around, and said,

“So-ryong, I’ll check inside! You check the surrounding area!”

“Got it, Sister Seol!”

We split up—she went deeper into the cave, I checked toward the entrance.

But there was nothing °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° at the entrance.

We’d been near it the whole time, and there hadn’t been even a hint of another presence.

“Nothing by the entrance. Let’s check the inside together, Sister Seol.”

“Okay!”

We immediately searched the inner cave—but found no signs of a pup.

The cave wasn’t that deep. But the back, like the entrance, was sealed with ice.

There was no trail, no disturbance between the two walls.

No signs of a hiding place. No sign of the pup.

“What the heck? I swear she’s got one, right?”

“Yes, Sister Seol. It’s strange... why don’t we see it?”

We gave up the search and returned to the exhausted creature.

Just as we sat beside her again—

The moment Sister Seol plopped down in front of her...

A strange noise came from the tail.

-BBEEEEEH!

Startled, we looked toward the unconscious creature’s tail—and spotted something white, like a lump, stuck to the inside of it.

Sister Seol gently touched it—and the lump twitched and let out a high-pitched scream like it was dying.

-BBEEH! BBEEEEH!

Looking closely, the white lump was none other than...

The White Snow Shell’s pup.

It looked like it had been born only recently.

“Waaaaaaah!”

“Waaaahh! So cute!!”

Sister Seol and I cried out at the same time, completely floored.

***

Its shell hadn’t fully grown yet, so the baby looked more like a small lizard.

A white lizard as pale as snow.

It was still so young and tiny that its scales hadn’t properly developed yet, giving it the appearance of a lizard.

Pangolin pups develop thicker, tougher armor as they grow older, but as babies, their backs look more like soft scales.

“So cute.”

—Bbaaaah!

“We’re not trying to hurt you, little one. We’re here to help. You were worried about your mom, weren’t you? Don’t worry, we’ll take care of her.”

Sister Seol tried to reassure the pup, explaining softly.

But unlike its mother, the baby was still conscious.

Yet its condition didn’t seem much better.

Since the mother was too exhausted to feed it, the pup seemed on the verge of collapse as well.

It was panting weakly, tongue halfway out.

Sister Seol nudged me and turned her head.

[But how are we supposed to treat this thing?]

[Yeah... that’s the question.]

Though she spoke comforting words, Sister Seol wore a troubled expression.

And I wasn’t any better.

Ordinary exhaustion could be treated with water and a little salt, but this was a spirit beast. And worse, it had an affinity with cold. I had no idea how to help a White Snow Shell recover.

We didn’t know what it ate. If, as a spirit beast, it only absorbed energy, there was no obvious way to help it recover from exhaustion.

While I was lost in thought, trying to find a solution—

Suddenly, a thought struck me.

“So, it’s safe to assume she’s exhausted from raising the pup, right?”

“Yeah. But... don’t you think something’s off?”

“You think so too?”

When I asked, Sister Seol nodded as if she'd been thinking the same thing.

“There’s too few pups.”

“Exactly.”

For a mother to collapse from exhaustion while raising pups, there’d usually have to be multiple babies.

Maternal exhaustion typically comes from the burden of feeding several at once.

If the mother didn’t have enough nutrients to produce milk, feeding a large litter would sap her strength.

But she had only one pup.

Was that enough to push her to this point?

“Does that one eat a lot or something?”

“Doesn’t look like it, does it?”

That tiny, delicate thing didn’t look like it had a huge appetite.

—Plop.

Just then, a droplet of melted water dripped from the ceiling onto my nose, and something clicked.

“Ah!”

An exhausted mother. A single pup. Caves being relocated. Melting ice.

As I retraced the sequence of events in my mind, I started piecing together the cause of all this.

I stuck my head outside the cave and called to Hwa-eun.

“Hwa-eun, could you check if the nearby caves show signs of people being there? Just one or two should be enough.”

“Got it, So-ryong.”

Hwa-eun darted off with Cho and Yeondu, and Sister Seol turned to me.

“What is it, So-ryong? Did you figure something out?”

“The herb collector said ice kept forming and melting in the high-up caves. As if it were moving from place to place.”

“Yeah, that’s what they said.”

“Right. So if the White Snow Shell really was moving from cave to cave, I think I know why she collapsed.

Originally, she would’ve blocked off a cave entrance and raised her pups inside, but since people kept coming near, she had to keep relocating to safer places. That meant she kept using energy to freeze each new cave, which led to her exhaustion.”

“Ooooh! That does make sense!”

My theory was that she had sealed off a cave to raise her young, but as human activity increased nearby, she repeatedly moved to new locations.

Each time, she expended huge amounts of cold energy to freeze the cave—until she finally collapsed.

Soon after, Hwa-eun returned and reported her findings.

“So-ryong, you were right. There were signs of people at every cave. Looked like herb collectors had lit fires at the entrances too.”

Which meant my theory was more or less confirmed.

“So, how do we treat her?”

At Sister Seol’s question, I turned to Hwa-eun and spoke.

“We probably need to restore the energy she used up... Seol-ah!”

At my call, Seol peeked out from Hwa-eun’s robe.

—Kkuu? 『Yes, Father?』

In short, the White Snow Shell was probably exhausted because her internal cold-energy battery had run dry.

So wouldn’t Seol’s unique ability—her cold-type energy—help recharge it?

That was the idea that suddenly came to me.