Chapter 49
Chapter 49
Iron Emperor — Chapter 49
"Your Majesty, Supreme One of All Heavens who embraces all people and all things, your servant Eulji Buru pays his respects!"
"Buru... even you."
Watching Eulji Buru prostrate himself before him and deliver his salute without so much as pausing for breath just as he was leaving the Imperial Hall, Go Jin-cheon felt a profound sense of betrayal. Buru knew perfectly well what Jin-cheon hated most, yet he was drawing out his formal greeting anyway—there was no way Jin-cheon could find that endearing. But unlike Jin-cheon's crumpled expression, Buru's face was brimming with vitality.
"What? What's with that look?"
"Your Majesty—shut up!"
Buru clenched his right fist and thrust it upward, trying out something newly learned on Jin-cheon. At that bizarre gesture, Jin-cheon tilted his head and asked,
"What?"
"This here’s from a western island country, they say."
"Western?"
"That’s right. Means ‘cheer up,’ they say."
At Buru's enthusiastic instruction, a look of surprise crossed Jin-cheon's face. It was the first time he'd seen anything like it since teaching the children their regional dialect. But soon Jin-cheon's expression darkened. It hadn't taken him long to realize that he himself was the student in this lesson.
"Well, it does sound like an energetic word."
"That’s right!"
"Right."
"Your Majesty, Supreme One of All Heavens who embraces all people and all things, your servant Gye Ung-sam pays his respects."
Just then, Ung-sam, who had been heading toward the Imperial Hall, caught sight of Jin-cheon and offered his salute. Buru, beaming, shouted at Ung-sam.
"You’re here? Shut up!"
"......."
In an instant, Ung-sam's prostrate form went rigid. Slowly raising his head with a stiffened face, Ung-sam stole a glance at Buru. And in that smile, he sensed a flicker of unease.
"Gurajaengi, shut up!"
"......Haha. Yes."
"Yeah, means cheer up."
Then a thought abruptly surfaced in Ung-sam's mind.
'Don’t tell me this man said that to His Majesty?'
Ung-sam quietly shifted his gaze toward Jin-cheon. Fortunately, Jin-cheon's face was the same as ever. In that moment, the long-suppressed suffering in Ung-sam's heart began to churn.
'Right. If I can't let this out somehow, I might die young from the stress.'
In that instant, Ung-sam's audacity began expanding at a breakneck pace, and meticulous calculation followed right behind it.
'His Majesty has neither Risel's Interpretation Ring nor Gerard's Translation Bracelet. There's no reason for him to be using any translation item here, and I've never seen him wear one. Which means whatever I say right now becomes the truth. Good. I've made up my mind.'
Ung-sam's eyes glinted with resolve. His gaze was fixed on Buru, and the corners of his mouth were slowly curling upward.
"General Buru, the Yudonno deployment is complete."
"That so? Good, good work."
"General."
"Hm?"
Buru's eyes rounded as he turned at Ung-sam's call. In that moment, Ung-sam's pent-up resentment erupted.
"You don't know. Shut up!"
As Ung-sam's resentment flew at Buru with explosive force, Buru's expression brightened.
"That's right, the Yudonno's got me fired up."
"Yep!"
At Buru's gratifyingly clueless response, all the indigestion that had been lodged in Ung-sam's heart came flooding out in a single rush.
"Buru."
At that moment, Jin-cheon's voice cut in. Ung-sam's heart instantly began to pound with anxiety.
"Pay closer attention to troop deployment and intensify the training."
"Understood!"
"Mm."
Ung-sam's prediction had been right on the mark. Wearing a satisfied smile, Ung-sam rose to his feet, while Buru turned his back and called out a question to Jin-cheon, who was heading back inside.
"By the by, what'd you been up to, Your Majesty?"
"......."
Jin-cheon, who had paused mid-stride, turned his head slightly and answered.
"Teaching Gerard our language."
"Is that so?"
"......!"
Having answered, Jin-cheon turned his back again and walked away. Ung-sam hurriedly steadied his startled heart. But...
"Buru."
"Yes?"
"You don't know, so he says shut up."
"What's that mean?"
"......."
As Buru's face filled with bewilderment, the translation bracelet left Jin-cheon's hand and flew toward him. And Ung-sam could feel the killing intent radiating from Buru.
"Giyeok, nieun, digeut, rieul......"
The faint sound of Gerard studying drifted out from inside—and to Ung-sam, it sounded like a funeral dirge. In the end, Ung-sam spent that night swimming back and forth across the lake in full armor until dawn the next day.
"Kruoooooh."
"Huh!"
At the roar of a minotaur echoing from somewhere, Gerard's expression hardened in an instant. In this place, which was steadily taking shape as a city, he had seen living orcs brought inside before—but never a live minotaur. Yet the sound now ringing out was unmistakably coming from inside the city.
"Damn."
Gerard immediately drew his sword and ran toward the source of the noise. Since no human screams had followed yet, it seemed there were no casualties so far.
"Hold it!"
"Kruoooooh!"
A soldier's voice somewhere. Gerard, now certain that something had happened, quickened his pace.
"Stab it in, one go!"
"I got it!"
"Kruuuoooh!"
The sounds drew closer and closer. Gerard rounded a corner and arrived at the source—and froze as though turned to ice. The scene unfolding before his eyes was something that simply could not exist, something he had never even imagined.
"What in the world!"
"Gerard, you're here?"
"Kruuuoooh."
Instead of answering Gerard's horrified exclamation, Eulji Uru greeted him in a perfectly calm voice. The minotaur's horns had been cut off, and its body lay on the ground bound in chains. Soldiers were swarming over the bellowing creature's form to pin its movements, and Eulji Buru stood holding a large ring in his hand.
"What in the world are you doing!"
"You see and still don't know?"
"If I knew, I wouldn't be asking."
"Damn brat's as ignorant as they come......"
"......."
As Uru clicked his tongue, Gerard had to fight hard to keep the words that wanted to burst from his mouth in check.
'Getting called ignorant by you people is a bigger shock than being insulted!'
Of course, Gerard knew perfectly well that if he said that aloud, the repercussions would be anything but minor. As Gerard held his silence, Uru pointed a finger at the minotaur's face and spoke. The nose, to be precise.
"It's a nose ring. A nose ring."
"......."
Where Uru was pointing, Buru was busy fitting a ring through the minotaur's nose. Gerard might not know much about farming, but he knew well enough that this scene was far from normal, and he opened his mouth, stammering out a question at Uru.
"Why in the world are you putting a nose ring on it? And what do you mean, a nose ring?"
"If you're ignorant, then learn."
"......."
"You put a nose ring on so you can put the two-legged ox to work."
Gerard had no choice but to fall silent again. Now it clicked. In farming regions, they put rings through the noses of oxen to use them for labor. A nose ring was what made the ox work according to human will—and now he understood that this was exactly what Uru was talking about.
Having finally grasped the meaning, Gerard's mouth opened toward Uru.
"That's an ox to you?! It's a minotaur!"
"That's right, a minotaur. Ain't it a two-legged ox?"
"......."
At their naming conventions, Gerard threw up both hands and both feet in surrender.
It did indeed resemble an ox. That much was true. Because monsters resembling animals—minotaurs, orcs, and the like—had originally been cattle and pigs that were warped into their current forms by the influence of demonic energy during the ancient God-Demon Great War. But on the Haien Continent, no one anywhere ever called them or treated them as cattle or pigs.
"This place is the exception."
A hollow mutter escaped Gerard.
"Good! Bring the next one."
"Mmmooooh."
"......."
Buru's booming voice rang out, and a soldier led the minotaur away, its arms bound. As it was dragged off, the minotaur made a sound that shattered Gerard's common sense.
"Did it just say moo......"
It was coarse, but unmistakably the sound of a cow.
A moment later, a fresh nose ring was in Buru's hand, and another victim was being dragged over, thrashing desperately.
"What in the world are you planning to do with them!"
"Ah? For when we haul boats later."
"Hup!"
Gerard went rigid.
Not long ago, these were the very men who had personally led troops all the way to an orc village and raided it. The reason was that every orc they'd captured had been male. So to complete Go Jin-cheon's piglet-breeding operation, they had struck the village themselves, and the result was a flood of captured female orcs.
Thus, the domestication of these demon beasts had fallen into a system: they were even producing young orcs to haul the Yudonno. In short, the plan was to treat them not as disposable but as long-term assets—continually breeding them and exploiting the growing numbers over time.
And the talk of hauling boats, which had quietly faded away, had now resurfaced. A single image flashed through Gerard's mind.
'Gerard, the Pirate King.'
It was a dream steadily materializing before his eyes.
Gerard, who had been lost in his delusions, was jolted back to reality before long.
"Kuuuuooh!"
"Hurk!"
A farmer, receiving the minotaur's reins with trembling hands, had toppled over in shock. The minotaur, which had been docile while being led by a soldier just moments ago, had turned vicious the instant the handler changed. But a few kicks from the soldier soon quieted it down again.
"Huh."
"Gerard, what's the matter?"
"No, I mean—don't you find it strange?"
At Gerard's questioning tone, Uru raised an eyebrow and shot back.
"What is?"
"Why the soldiers don't even flinch at the minotaur's fear pressure, and why the minotaur doesn't resist the soldiers—I can't understand it."
"Are you stupid?"
Gerard reflected that he was hearing his least favorite word an awful lot that day. But there was nothing he could do about it. He'd once underestimated Uru for being an archer and had rashly challenged him—and gotten beaten until the bow staff itself broke. He knew all too well that any further resistance would be sheer recklessness.
When Uru clicked his tongue and stared at him for a long moment, Gerard felt himself shrink.
"Listen up."
"Yes."
With a sigh, Uru began to explain, slowly.
"Gerard. Say you're walking down the road, and some little mutt starts barking at you."
"Yes."
"You scared?"
Gerard tilted his head at Uru's example. A dog barking at him? He'd probably just kick it away.
"No, I wouldn't be."
"There you go. Things that can't even eat you—what's there to be scared of just 'cause they're big? A son of a bitch or a son of a cow, they're just a bit bigger and walk on two legs. What else is different? You've been living wrong, is what."
"......."
Gerard deeply regretted asking.