The Priestess, Sold (3)
Everyone present had to doubt their own ears for a moment.
“...We’re fucked.”
Not only had she dared to point a finger before the emperor of an entire nation, but she had also uttered a piece of vulgarity so crude it belonged in the gutters.
“......”
The representative of the delegation from Cheongsin already looked as if his soul had fled his body. He staggered in place, clutching his stomach.
“......”
As for the priestess… her face had turned deathly pale. She quietly seized her outstretched finger—still sheathed in its white glove—with her other hand and dragged it down. Then she dropped to her knees.
“Please kill me…!”
Thud…! She struck the floor with the horn sprouting from her head and pleaded in a trembling voice. She had no real desire to die, but she knew that if she did not do this, her single life would not be enough to settle the matter.
“Your Majesty…! Execute them at once…!”
“They have dared to insult Your Majesty!”
“If you but give the order, I will personally seize the king of those ungrateful wretches and drag him before you!”
The ministers, faces flushed crimson, began shouting one after another.
“......”
The emperor calmly surveyed the chaos that had erupted beneath his throne.
“—Enough.”
With a faint smile and a light wave of his hand, he silenced the entire hall.
“Heh.”
In the silence that settled once more, the emperor recalled the words the priestess had spoken moments earlier and let out a low chuckle.
“It’s all right. Raise your head.”
He stopped gazing down at her from that oppressive posture, hands braced on the throne’s armrests.
Instead, he leaned casually against one armrest, resting his chin in his palm as though lounging at ease.
“I told you to raise your head.”
There was a trace of irritation in his command as he looked at Seoryeong, who was still trembling with her forehead pressed to the floor.
“Y-Your Imperial Majesty…!”
“Enough. Forget all that. Raise your head quietly and look at me.”
Only then did Seoryeong lift her gaze, teeth chattering, her face twisted with fear. Their eyes met.
“Good. I have a few questions for you.”
“Please ask anything you wish…!”
Staring directly into the golden eyes of the priestess who looked up at him as though she might burst into tears at any moment, the emperor spoke with a serious expression.
“Those eyes of yours—when did they become like that?”
He asked as if he already knew her body had not always been this way, inquiring precisely when the change had occurred.
“…Five years ago, after I became a priestess.”
“Then the horns came at the same time.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
The emperor’s gaze shifted to her sleeves as he asked again, his voice calm.
“Your name?”
“…Seoryeong. My name is Seo Seoryeong.”
It was written with the character for auspicious used twice and the character for bell. A commoner who had never possessed a proper surname had received both name and family name upon becoming a priestess. Seoryeong bowed her head once more.
“Seoryeong. Seo Seoryeong.”
He seemed to like the sound of it. The emperor murmured the name several times as though rolling it on his tongue.
“Seoryeong. Do you understand the position you now stand in?”
With a mischievous smile, he asked how much she truly knew about her current circumstances.
“…I was told that as a tribute presented to Your Majesty, I must become the priestess of Lan from now on.”
It was a perfectly rote answer.
“Wrong.”
Her reply had been exactly what he expected—so much so that the emperor’s brows drew together in clear displeasure.
“In this nation of Lan… there is no need for creatures such as priestesses.”
At the emperor’s declaration that priestesses were utterly unnecessary, Seoryeong hid her trembling eyes behind her sleeve and bowed her head in silence.
“You do not ask why. Then tell me—do you know why you are here?”
“…How could a mere priestess dare question the great will of Your Imperial Majesty?”
Curiosity was forbidden. The emperor’s word was absolute. A single sentence from him could decide the fate of her homeland. Therefore, all Seoryeong could do was obey.
“For someone who claims that, you spoke rather freely earlier.”
“T-That was…! I am deeply sorry…!”
Seoryeong hastily covered her mouth with her sleeve as if scolding the lips that had uttered such presumptuous words before the emperor. Her face burned scarlet as she apologized again.
“It’s fine. I am not so petty as to punish you for what is already past.”
“Your benevolence is—”
“I told you not to say that, either.”
At the emperor’s continued words, Seoryeong could only watch his expression in silence, feeling as though her stomach might sprout a hole from sheer anxiety.
“Envoys, listen well.”
“We shall obey your command.”
This time the emperor’s gaze turned toward the delegation that had accompanied her.
“Return and tell your king this: I am greatly satisfied. Continue sending tributes in exactly the same manner.”
“Your benevolence is immeasurable!”
Seoryeong thought the audience had finally ended. A faint spark of hope rose in her as she quietly retreated and lowered her head.
“And have everyone withdraw, leaving only the priestess Seo Seoryeong behind.”
Unfortunately, it seemed the one whose end had truly come was Seoryeong’s stomach.
“......”
She cast an envious sidelong glance at the envoys who had come with her. They withdrew with audible sighs of relief.
“Priestess Seo Seoryeong.”
“…Please give your command.”
Struggling to hold back the tears that threatened to fall, she looked at the emperor as he called her name once more.
“From now on, you shall live in my garden.”
At those words, Seoryeong’s mind began to race.
The emperor’s garden? Wait… surely he’s joking?
In every era and every land, there was only one place known as the emperor’s garden.
—The rear palace.
The residence of those chosen as candidates to become the emperor’s consorts, the place where they would bear his children. That had to be what he meant.
I don’t like it. That is the one thing I truly cannot accept.
Becoming the emperor’s breeder might be tolerable for an ordinary woman, but for Seoryeong—who had once been a man—it was a fate too horrifying to contemplate.
Yet she had no choice. The emperor himself had spoken. There was no option except to bow her head.
“…It is an honor.”
Seoryeong hid her gloomy expression as best she could and offered her respects.
“It appears there has been a misunderstanding.”
“......?”
“Did you truly believe I would take you as my consort? Even I have preferences.”
The emperor looked at her with genuine astonishment.
“Ministers, do not misunderstand either.”
Perhaps the officials around them had been watching him with the same eyes as Seoryeong. The emperor added the remark with a faintly flustered air.
“It would be better to show you directly rather than explain with words.”
His gaze settled quietly on Seoryeong—more precisely, on the hem of her robe.
“Remove your gloves and your outer robe.”
“……Ugh.”
Only then did she seem to realize why the emperor had kept her behind. Even at his command she did not move at once. She wrapped her arms around herself as though to shield her body.
“Your Majesty. With all due respect…”
“I told you to take them off.”
At the repeated order, Seoryeong finally began to remove the robe that had covered her, her expression one of resignation.
Swish…
The first thing revealed was her impossibly white skin.
Her sleeveless shoulders came into view, and with the motion of removing the robe, the clean line of her underarm was exposed.
From her neck downward, between the folds of fabric that wrapped her sides, the swell of her breasts spilled out where they could not be contained.
Below her pelvis, the cloth split front and back to reveal the elegant, seductive lines of her long white legs.
It was a style so open that even the ministers of Lan—who had absorbed foreign cultures and possessed a far more liberal society than Cheongsin or Juryeon—flinched in surprise.
Thud.
Yet what captured every eye in the hall more than the outfit itself—which carried a subtle, almost ethereal allure greater than that of any courtesan—was not the clothing but what emerged from near her hips and struck the floor.
“…A tail?”
Just as someone had unconsciously muttered. A blue tail, far too large and plump to belong to any dog or cat, trembled anxiously. Its white mane—the same color as her hair—quivered pitifully, reflecting her mood.
Swish.
After folding the removed robe and holding it to her chest, Seoryeong peeled off the long pure-white cotton gloves that reached her elbows. Her hands, like her tail, were covered in blue scales.
Half-human, half-dragon.
From a distance it might appear that her hands and feet were merely tinged blue, but once her tail and limbs were fully revealed, the description fit her perfectly.
“It is my hobby to raise rare creatures occasionally sighted in foreign lands.”
Even though her appearance had long since departed from the human form, the emperor’s first thought was not of ugliness but of beauty. He drank in the sight of her with open appreciation.
“From now on, you shall be my pet priestess.”
With a playful glint in his eyes, the emperor spoke to her.