Chapter 235
Chapter 235
Iron Emperor — Chapter 235
The next day, officials of every rank who had gathered at the Imperial Hall for the first time in a long while were chatting among themselves as they awaited Jin-cheon.
"Bwahahaha!"
The voices of Eulji Buru and Eulji Uru rang out especially loudly.
"So I'm tellin' ya! Our Sara comes snugglin' up to me goin' 'I hate you, dear husband~,' and I figure we'll be seein' our third soon enough!"
"Hey hey, your mouth's gonna tear wide open, bastard."
When Uru scolded him from the side, Buru shot back with a smirk.
"The bachelor should keep quiet!"
"Bachelor! Who're you callin' a bachelor!"
"Huh!"
"What else would I call ya!"
When Uru answered Buru's words with a dignified air, Dae Mu-deok, Gye Ung-sam, and the other officials all widened their eyes in surprise. Gowin, too, stared at him with astonished eyes.
Basking in their surprised stares, Uru let out a silly laugh.
"Heh heh heh."
The previous day's memory flickered through Uru's mind.
"I've returned."
Arriving before Haidia's house in the forest beside the Yeolje Palace, Eulji Uru called out to her in a booming voice.
He'd run so hard and so fast that this man who always flaunted his monstrous stamina was now gasping for breath. At his call, the door quietly opened and Haidia stepped out.
"I'm glad to see you're in good health."
Showing a radiant smile, she was for Uru someone he both loved and even worshipped.
"Have you been well?"
As Uru smiled brightly back at her, Haidia slowly walked toward him. Then she summoned the wind and cooled the sweat running down his body.
"I have always been waiting for you, Uru."
Thud!
A sound like a house-sized boulder smashing into his heart echoed through Uru's chest.
"I-I've always wanted to see you, Haidia."
"Heh heh."
Haidia answered Uru's slight stammer with a laugh. Gaining courage from her ever-unchanging smile, Uru steadied his breathing and continued clearly.
"I wanna eat."
"Pardon?"
At his sudden talk of food, Haidia's eyes went round as she asked back. Flustered by her reaction, Uru kept going.
"Every morning, I want to eat your cooking!"
"Have you been skipping breakfast every morning?"
"......."
At Haidia's reply, all the courage that had welled up inside Uru plummeted off a sheer cliff. But — was this not Uru, hero of a hundred battles?
"I'm sayin' I want to eat the breakfast you make every morning, Haidia. Do you catch my meanin'? I'm sayin' when I open my eyes in the mornin', I want to see you before anyone else."
"What do you...."
Could Haidia possibly understand such metaphorical language? But she was not the sort to miss even Uru's mood. Her expression, which had always seemed unchanging, began to shift.
Judging there was no more reason to hesitate, Uru went on.
"It's been fifteen years. I've looked at no one but you, Haidia. I know this is my own selfishness. I know that because you are of the High Elf race, you live nearly a thousand years. But I cannot only watch any longer. Please marry me."
"Uru......."
Uru, who had always been so indomitable, was pouring out his earnest heart. Haidia's eyes trembled. At last, Uru dropped to his knees and, keeping his back ramrod straight, spoke again with renewed resolve.
"I've lived only on battlefields all my life. I've lived through storms of swords, covered in blood. That won't ever change. Any day a war breaks out, I could die at any moment. That's my life. But even this Uru knows love. Please accept this heart."
When he finished speaking, Uru's lips were pressed firmly shut. He had spent all this time suffering in silence because of everything he'd heard from Risel about elves, and about the High Elf race in particular.
High Elves are nature.
High Elves are beings of contemplation.
A High Elf's love is nature.
In a High Elf's long life, a human life is but a speck of dust.
Unlike Elves, High Elves may come to like humans, but they do not love them.
He'd heard it until his ears were numb, but Uru could not give up.
And so now he had shouted it out.
"I, Uru, love only you."
As if to prove his resolve, a single tear trickled from one eye of this man who had always been so strong.
Softly.
Haidia slowly lowered herself and wiped the trail running down his cheek. Then, slowly, she moved her lips.
"I, Haidia Baipiumir of the High Elves......."
Haidia slowly smiled. Her voice paused for a moment, then resumed.
"I will wake each morning beside Eulji Uru, share meals with him......."
Uru's face grew brighter and brighter.
"And until the end not only of your life but of my own life — I will live loving only you."
"......."
So this is what it's like, when the moment you've wanted most in all your life arrives.
Uru's mouth fell wide open, and he stared intently at Haidia. She added one more word to him.
"From the moment you saved me fifteen years ago, you have been my beloved."
The moment her words ended, Uru scooped her into his arms and let out a roar that seemed it would shake the world apart.
"KYAAAAAAAAA!"
And then he sprinted through the forest like that. Until his heart felt fit to burst.......
When Eulji Uru's tale came to an end, every official in the Imperial Hall was struck speechless by the astonishing news. The truth was, everyone had known Uru loved Haidia, but no one had imagined it would ever actually come to pass.
"So you're the bastard who was screechin' in the woods yesterday?"
"Watch your mouth!"
Uru, snapped back to reality by Buru's offhand jab, flared up in a rage. But when the others approached to offer their congratulations, Uru's grin stretched wide again.
"Congratulations!"
"My deepest congratulations."
"Doesn't this call for a feast?"
As everyone showered him with well-wishes, Uru couldn't keep his mouth shut, continuously bursting into laughter and looking bashful. Meanwhile, Gye Ung-sam, who had already offered his greeting and turned away, tilted his head toward Mong Ryu-hwa standing nearby and spoke as if puzzled by something.
"Hey, Ryu-hwa, but if Haidia said he'd been her beloved for fifteen years, doesn't that mean he could've confessed way back then and it would've been fine?"
"Now that you mention it, yeah."
"Congratula......."
"Heh heh......."
"......."
Perhaps because Ung-sam and Ryu-hwa's conversation wasn't exactly quiet, the wave of congratulations began to slowly ebb.
It didn't take very long for Uru's laughing face to turn rigid. As if they knew or didn't know, Ung-sam and the Trio kept murmuring among themselves.
Buyeo Gi-yul, who was behind them, lowered his voice — or what counted for lowering it — and chimed in.
"So you're telling me General Uru spent fifteen years pining away all by himself, not knowing a thing?"
"I know, right."
"Heh, this isn't so much cause for congratulations as......."
Samdopyo, who had inserted himself into their conversation, glanced back at the deathly silence behind them and slowly let his words trail off.
A tremendous wave of killing intent surged toward them.
"Just firing arrows into empty air."
But Ung-sam's last words shot out even faster than the killing intent. When the stinging killing intent seized the Imperial Hall, Ung-sam, Ryu-hwa, and Giyul finally stopped walking and slowly looked back. Dupyo's dazed words reached their ears.
"Heh. Busted."
"......."
"Yer dead men now. Heh."
"......."
Dupyo's final words hammered into their hearts.
"You bastards're all dead meat!"
"Hold it! Hold it!"
"Gimme that bow!"
The Imperial Hall turned into a battlefield.
"His Majesty the Yeolje enters!"
The moment the chief attendant's voice rang through the Imperial Hall, the uproar that had been raging instantly subsided.
No matter how angry they were, they couldn't start grappling in front of Go Jin-cheon, could they?
"We greet His Majesty the Yeolje, Supreme One of All Heavens!"
"What's all this racket?"
Dae Mu-deok, Yeon Hwi-garam, and Risel followed behind Jin-cheon. Jin-cheon had evidently heard the entire commotion that had erupted in the Imperial Hall, because he tossed out that remark as he entered.
"Well, that is......."
"Speak."
Eulji Uru hesitated, then at Jin-cheon's prompting quickly laid out a summary of what had happened the previous day. Though by the end of the story, his face had returned to its grinning state, of course.
"You dragged it out for fifteen years just to say that."
"......."
At Jin-cheon's remark, Uru sat quietly to one side with a deflated look. Though he didn't forget to glare at Gye Ung-sam and his lot.
"In any case, congratulations. In honor of the occasion, I shall bestow generous gifts."
"Your Majesty's grace reaches the heavens."
At Jin-cheon's words of congratulations and his promise of gifts, Uru answered with another goofy grin, as if he'd never been deflated in the first place.
"Hmm. Isn't the weather truly fine today?"
At Jin-cheon's words, the officials of every rank stared at him, looking slightly bewildered. Truth be told, the sky was somewhat overcast and couldn't really be called fine. Sensing something strange, Eulji Buru studied Jin-cheon's face, then his jaw dropped with an expression of sheer shock.
Seeing that, the others also examined Jin-cheon's face and, their own faces gradually stiffening, fell silent.
The sight of his face overflowing with a beaming smile was something none of them had ever seen before, and it threw them into confusion.
To put it simply, he was grinning from ear to ear.
"H-have you some good news?"
When Daesaja Gowin even stammered as he asked, Jin-cheon waved his hand dismissively and burst into loud laughter.
"Pahahaha! Good news, what good news! More to the point, Daesaja Gowin, you look especially refreshed today!"
"......."
Watching Jin-cheon burst into laughter, slapping his knee, the high officials all shared a single thought.
'There's definitely something going on.'
Eulji Buru and Uru even felt a touch of unease. Only Dae Mu-deok wore a face of quiet satisfaction, as if he already knew. That was because early that morning, Eulji had come scampering to him, her cheeks flushed, and whispered something in his ear.
Gye Ung-sam, who had just moments ago felt his life threatened, now completely forgot about what had happened and bravely murmured to himself, trying to unravel his curiosity.
"What could it be?"
"No idea, I'm not sure."
"Heh. Don't tell me, with Lady Yeolhu......."
Giyul, seated beside him, tilted his head as he answered. And when Dupyo, scratching his head, brought up Eulji, Ryu-hwa shook his head.
"Nah, no way."
Their voices may have been quiet, but there was no way Jin-cheon couldn't hear them. Jin-cheon, who had grown embarrassed by their conversation, flushed slightly red around the cheeks when Eulji's name came up.
Gowin, who had been sitting with his head lowered after asking his question, failed to notice the change in Jin-cheon. With a laugh of disbelief at their conversation, he jumped in.
"Hoho, that's nonsense. Think about it. No matter how much Lady Yeolhu has matured, still....... Well, it's not that, of course she'll need an heir soon, but surely His Majesty wouldn't have done that the moment he returned? People would laugh if they heard you, my good fellow."
"......."
The face that had shown a slight flush had long since vanished, leaving only two deep furrows carved between his brows. Buru, who had been struggling not to laugh as he eavesdropped on their conversation, looked at Jin-cheon's face and went rigid.
"Gowin, even you......."
Jin-cheon's low, heavy voice spread through the Imperial Hall.
"Court is dismissed for today."
Unlike when he'd entered, Jin-cheon strode out of the Imperial Hall swiftly, his face hardened. Ung-sam and his crew realized their conversation had crossed a line. And now Gowin had been added to their number, frozen stiff.
"Looks like 'no way' just got them killed."
Seeing this, Mu-deok couldn't hold back his laughter and vanished, leaving only those words behind. Hwi-garam glanced at Gowin and tossed out one line in a pitying voice.
"Daesaja Gowin. I knew the moment you started running with those friends that something like this was bound to happen."
"......."
Gowin.
The greatest crisis of his entire life in Gauri had arrived.
And so the morning that foretold the gloomy future of these five men passed on, embraced by the gentle spring breeze.