Chapter 4: . woman, salida (2)

A few days later.

“Shamaness. It’s almost time. Please prepare.”

“…Yes.”

As always, she wore a milky-white *durumagi* over her shamaness robe.

“Please check once more if you’ve forgotten anything.”

At the voice of Jina, her escort and overseer, who had been nagging her incessantly by her side since morning.

“Ha…”

The woman, Shamaness Seoryeong, whose white hair usually got in the way, had gathered it neatly and tied it with a red hair tie. With a deep sigh, she quietly picked up a black *satgat* and placed it on her head, as if hooking it over the horns that grew there.

“…But Jina, why do you have so much luggage?”

Only then did she notice Jina, like herself, busily moving and packing her bags.

“Aren’t I just being handed over to them, and then you’re coming back anyway?”

Seoryeong asked Jina, who was moving busily as if she would be accompanying her.

“What are you talking about?”

“Huh?”

“I am the Shamaness’s escort. No one else’s, only yours. So, of course, I must accompany you.”

Perhaps Seoryeong’s words were absurd. Jina, whose face was always expressionless, rarely showed a look of bewilderment.

“Jina…”

“And if I weren’t here, the Shamaness’s utterly lazy demeanor would be revealed to Ran’s ministers… Do you think the Shrine would allow that?”

She said, with her eyes full of annoyance, that if no one was by her side to nag her, Seoryeong would obviously just lie around all day.

“…It was my mistake to hope.”

“Yes. Don’t hope for anything futile. I am, after all, your overseer assigned by the Shrine.”

“Do overseers usually say that so openly? Why are you so brazen?”

“For someone like the Shamaness, it’s easier for me to be direct.”

In the end, it meant nothing would change even in a foreign land.

Seoryeong let out another deep sigh that had risen from the depths of her chest, then.

“…Without even knowing what I hoped for.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing at all.”

She quietly grumbled, watching Jina’s figure as she gathered her black, silken hair into a small bun, then retreated into the shadows with her face veiled.

****

Ran.

One of the two great nations located on either side of Cheongsin, the country that reveres dragons.

“Wow… Is this Ran?”

“Yes. Please don’t lean too far out of the carriage. The Shamaness is, after all, one of the tributes offered to His Imperial Majesty of Ran. It would be troublesome if you revealed yourself too much before your audience with His Majesty.”

Seoryeong’s golden eyes beneath her veil sparkled as she seemed captivated by the scenery outside the slightly open carriage window—a spectacle of various objects she had never seen in Cheongsin.

Thinking that, in Ran, they didn’t believe in gods or rely on sorcery, so science had developed.

Pshhh—!

“How fascinating…”

She looked with curious eyes at the strange carriage on the opposite side of the road, which was slowly moving without horses, emitting a cloud of white steam.

Not only were the main roads adorned with iron decorations, a rare sight in Cheongsin, but the attire of the people walking about was also quite different from Cheongsin’s… For Seoryeong, who had never traveled to a foreign country before, everything was simply astonishing.

“They said Ran adopted a lot of Western culture, and it’s true.”

“It means they lack conviction.”

“Jina… What you just said, it’s exactly what the High Priest used to say.”

At Jina’s sight, clucking her tongue and saying it was merely adopting foreign culture because they lacked their own.

‘They won’t be able to say anything in front of His Imperial Majesty of Ran anyway, so what’s with all this pride?’

The other great nation next to Cheongsin, Zhulian, was the same… She wondered why people involved with sorcery looked down on Western technology so much.

‘Isn’t it rather amazing?’

Seoryeong’s eyes sparkled beneath her veil once more as she thought.

Wouldn’t it be truly remarkable to build such technology with their own power, without relying on the power of gods?

‘By the way, I wonder if my family and village are doing alright.’

At the same time, she worried if something bad might happen to her hometown because she left the country.

With a worried expression, she looked towards the direction where the sun was rising—the direction of her hometown—and offered a small prayer.

‘When I arrive, I should write a letter first.’

As the rhythmic clatter of horse hooves continued, Seoryeong, holding her gently swaying tail that moved with the jolting of the carriage, and combing the white mane at its tip, was…

Thump.

With the sound of the coachman calming the horses outside, and a final big jolt of the carriage… she surmised that the moment had finally arrived, and tucking the tail she had been caressing back under her skirt, wrapped it around her leg.

“I will go report on the situation, please wait a moment.”

“Yes.”

Following Jina’s instruction, who carefully opened the carriage door and disembarked first, she waited quietly in her seat for a moment.

Knock, knock.

At the sound of two knocks soon after.

‘Two knocks means an immediate audience, she said.’

Seoryeong recalled the signal she had discussed with Jina beforehand and began to prepare to alight from the carriage.

‘I only saw His Majesty the King twice in five years, but now it’s His Imperial Majesty the Emperor? My stomach feels a bit upset…’

As she always felt, meeting high-ranking individuals was truly burdensome for her, a child of an ordinary herb gatherer.

‘Today, maybe I should secretly brew some special herbal soup.’

If the audience went well, she thought she should find a place with a hearth and brew some herbs to drink, as usual.

“Hoo…”

Seoryeong placed a hand on her nervous chest and carefully alighted from the carriage.

“Oh…”

“Indeed, there was a reason His Majesty took an interest.”

“A person with colored eyes… no, slightly different.”

As soon as she stepped out of the carriage, she heard whispers and felt countless gazes.

‘…Uncomfortable.’

They whispered quietly, presumably so she wouldn’t hear, but Seoryeong could clearly hear them.

Those voices that treated her not as a human, but as a strange, non-human creature.

Unlike the coarse hair of elders, her hair was as white as snow.

Her coral-like yellow horns, revealed when she didn’t wear her *satgat*.

And her golden eyes with strangely elongated vertical pupils.

The fortunate thing was that her hands were gloved and tucked into her sleeves… and unless someone specifically removed her shoes and lifted her *durumagi*, her feet and tail wouldn’t be revealed.

“This way.”

Seoryeong walked silently behind the person guiding her, her head slightly bowed to avoid looking straight ahead. She earnestly wished for this terrible time to end as soon as possible.

“Don’t be nervous. You won’t have to say anything. If His Majesty happens to ask you something, answer as we discussed beforehand.”

“Yes.”

Finally, at the place where she was to have an audience with the Emperor… Seoryeong reiterated the words she had prepared in case the Emperor happened to question her directly.

“His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor, approaches—!”

At the voice, she quietly knelt down with the head of the diplomatic delegation in front of her, bowing her head deeply.

Because, by any chance, merely looking upon the face of a revered person without permission could be considered high treason.

“Indeed. I am a little late. You may raise your heads.”

“Your Imperial Grace is boundless.”

When Seoryeong heard the strangely familiar voice of a man, one she seemed to have heard somewhere before… she almost instinctively raised her head, but recalling the desperate voice of the diplomatic delegation’s head, who had explained things to her until her blood ran dry before coming here, she barely managed to suppress that impulse.

‘She definitely told me to keep my head bowed quietly unless I was explicitly called out.’

To prepare for today, she had even been subjected to court etiquette for seven days and nights without proper sleep.

Recalling that terrible time, Seoryeong began to pray to the Celestial Dragon, whom she usually didn’t even believe in much.

‘Please, don’t call me. Don’t call me. I’ll just stay quiet.’

Had Seoryeong’s wish reached the heavens?

After the head of the diplomatic delegation finished his speech, ceaselessly praising the Emperor with all sorts of flowery language.

“Shamaness of Amulets. Raise your head.”

She had only fervently prayed that her name wouldn’t be called, but the heavens, seemingly indifferent, allowed the Emperor’s voice to call her.

“…Your Imperial Grace is boundless.”

Seoryeong respectfully placed both hands on her stomach, which felt as if a hole might appear at any moment… then slowly raised her head, slightly obscuring her face by letting the sleeves of both raised hands fall.

‘Oh… that person… definitely, back then… in the market…’

Was it because, right in front of her—from the Emperor seated on the splendid throne—she saw the figure of a stranger she had once made eye contact with in the market?

“The person who kept staring at my backside… Ah.”

What she thought she was merely pondering, she inadvertently, without realizing it… committed the sacrilege of pointing a finger and speaking without permission in front of the Emperor.

“…I’m screwed.”