The Priestess, Sold (1)
In the nation that worshipped the dragon, Cheongsin.
It was a country with a long history, one of the most advanced in shamanistic arts across the continent… and at the same time, a weak state caught between two great powers.
Therefore, the king and ministers of Cheongsin knew the truth.
They existed only as a tiny buffer, kept alive solely because their two powerful neighbors did not wish to clash directly.
Tap.
That was why they had to swallow their saliva as if dead, carefully reading the mood of the man who had just thrown a wooden tablet onto the table with clear displeasure.
“Now that I think about it, your country has something rather interesting.”
The voice belonged to a man who appeared to be in his late twenties. Seated at the highest place of honor, he looked down even upon the king, who should have been the master of this palace.
“The calamity-blocking priestess, I believe it’s called.”
The king and ministers of Cheongsin trembled faintly, startled by the unexpected word.
“I sometimes wonder. Just how great is this dragon you all revere so much… that you dare to look down on me like this?”
“Your Majesty…! That is not—”
“Did I say anyone could open their mouth?”
“…Hup!”
They were not fools. They could clearly sense the rage woven into his voice.
“I have generously overlooked the poor quality of the tributes you have sent for the past several years. Since the four seas are all one family, how could I call myself emperor if I failed to understand my brother’s difficulties?”
“……”
“However… from what I hear, what you offer to Ju-ryeon is quite different from what you send to us.”
The man before them—the emperor of Ran, one of the two great powers sandwiching Cheongsin—spoke calmly.
“Yes. Since Ju-ryeon also worships a so-called god, just like you, I suppose you felt a sense of kinship. Of course you did.”
Are you telling me that you dared to make me come all this way over something as trivial as that sense of kinship?
“Since it seems difficult for you to say it yourselves… I shall speak the thoughts I have inferred on your behalf.”
At the emperor’s chillingly low command, the king and ministers of Cheongsin immediately dropped to their knees and pressed their foreheads to the floor.
“—There is no need to bow our heads to uncivilized wretches who do not know how to worship a god.”
They had no choice but to shake their heads desperately, foreheads still glued to the ground.
It was the only way they could express their intentions right now.
“When I discussed your intentions with my court officials, they all said the same thing. That things which do not know their place should be wiped out immediately.”
The emperor leaned back against his throne, crossed his legs, and rested both hands on his knees as he continued.
“But it seems I am not cold-hearted enough to abandon a long-time brother for such a reason.”
He hoped that the mere fact he had come here in person would be enough to convey his will.
“Remember this well. The next one who visits will not be me.”
The emperor of a great power had personally made the journey. The weight of that fact should be carved deeply into their bones.
“Now then… since I have gone to the trouble of coming myself, I suppose it is reasonable to expect a gift worthy of that effort.”
He was now permitting them to speak freely. The emperor smiled playfully like a child and opened his mouth once more.
“—We are endlessly grateful for Your Majesty’s benevolence!”
Those who had been pressing their heads to the floor all bowed even deeper in unison to express their thanks.
“What’s there to be grateful for?”
At the emperor’s light wave of the hand, the king and ministers of Cheongsin returned to their seats. Though they showed nothing on the surface, they all breathed sighs of relief… already thinking only of how to offer the most lavish hospitality possible so as not to offend the emperor’s mood again.
“I want the priestess you all cherish so dearly.”
“Your Majesty…?”
The king of Cheongsin let out a dazed sound without thinking. The emperor’s sudden demand had caught him completely off guard.
“The calamity-blocking priestess.”
“Your Majesty… with all due respect, that is…”
“Why? Is it not possible?”
“The calamity-blocking priestess is the being who protects this small nation of Cheongsin from disaster. If she is gone, then…”
The king explained that when the current priestess completed her term and the time came to select the next one, all kinds of misfortunes would descend upon the country, throwing it into chaos.
“That is exactly why. Is this not precisely the time for that priestess to fulfill her role?”
“…This servant’s learning is insufficient, and I have failed to fully grasp the profound meaning behind Your Majesty’s words, which are as deep as the sea.”
“Haha! Yes. Since your learning is lacking, it seems I must teach you personally.”
The emperor gave a light laugh… then twisted one corner of his mouth upward as he spoke.
“Since she has blocked a calamity called me, has she not sufficiently fulfilled her duty?”
Only then did his true intention reach them. The sighs of relief they had been breathing inwardly a moment ago vanished, replaced by the feeling that their blood was drying up inside their veins.
“Do not think of it too heavily. When you react like that, it makes it seem as though I am forcing you.”
With those final words, the emperor quietly rose from his seat.
“I will not demand an answer. As it has always been, the choice is yours.”
Without giving the king or his ministers any chance to reply, he simply left the room, followed silently by his attendants.
* * *
A short while later.
“What? Me?”
Seo-ryeong, Cheongsin’s one and only calamity-blocking priestess, received news that struck like a bolt from the blue.
“Ran? But they don’t even worship a god there, do they?”
The news was that she had been chosen as one of the tributes Cheongsin would offer to Ran.
“So… from now on, I have to become Ran’s calamity-blocking priestess?”
She listened to the message delivered through the shrine—the institution to which all of Cheongsin’s priestesses belonged, and which oversaw every shamanistic matter in the nation.
“…Are you kidding me right now?”
Seo-ryeong narrowed her vertically slit golden eyes and answered.
“Hey, say something, old man. It was you, wasn’t it? You’re the one who dragged me in, turned me into this, and stuck me here.”
“……”
“You said there was no one to become the priestess. That all the girls you had selected weren’t virgins. That the damn dragon didn’t like them. So you brought me here, changed me into this, and forced me onto the priestess seat, didn’t you?”
If a priestess was not appointed, calamity would descend upon the nation. That calamity would swallow not only Seo-ryeong’s family but the entire village where she had once lived. That was what the shrine’s high priest and ministers had told her.
That was the reason she had resolved to become a priestess—even abandoning her original gender.
“The same bastards who were desperate enough to take a man and turn him into a woman are now saying they want to offer me as tribute to a great power?”
That was why, for the first time since entering the shrine, Seo-ryeong grabbed the high priest by the collar—an existence she would never have dared look at directly in her former life—and began to growl.
“Look with your own eyes. Look at this hand. Does this even look like a human hand?”
“…For now, let go of me.”
“If you’re going to do this, just turn me back to how I was! Send me back to my family!”
Hands and feet covered in blue scales, pupils that were clearly not human at a glance… and what about the yellow horns sprouting from her head and the blue tail growing from her backside? The grotesqueness was beyond description.
“If you people arbitrarily captured me and turned me into this, shouldn’t you take responsibility until the very end?!”
Five years had passed since she drank that unknown drug. She had endured, hoping only for the peace of her family and village, becoming a being who had stepped outside the bounds of humanity… and bearing the unwanted role of priestess.
“It is impossible.”
At the old man’s chilling voice, Seo-ryeong flinched, her blue-scaled hands trembling as she took a step back.
“Did I not teach you? Your body is yours, yet it is not yours.”
“Ah, ugh…”
“You are not simply being sold.”
“Stop, please stop…!”
“This is to block the enormous calamity that threatens our nation, Cheongsin. Therefore, this too is the duty of the calamity-blocking priestess.”
Seo-ryeong covered her ears with both hands as if to block out the voice.
“Or do you still require further education?”
Was five years not enough? At the sight of the old man quietly raising one hand and drawing a seal in the air, Seo-ryeong desperately calmed her violently shaking body and lowered her head in silence.
“N-no… I understand.”
“Who are you?”
“I am… the calamity-blocking priestess. One who has devoted her body and soul to the Dragon…”
“Good. That is how it should be. Then, what must you do now?”
At the old man’s final question, spoken while glaring at her…
“…I must become Ran’s calamity-blocking priestess.”
Seo-ryeong answered with resignation, feeling as though she stood before an overwhelming existence she could not possibly resist.