The Judgment of the Plains (1)
The voice on the other end cut through my half-hearted greeting before I could even finish saying “Yes, I’m on the—” All pleasantries were discarded. Only the raw purpose remained, delivered in an old, weary tone that crackled across the line.
“Ah, Seon-yeon. I called to ask if you’d be coming down for Chuseok. Are you busy?”
“Ah… Father, I’m sorry. I’m swamped with graduation preparations…”
“I see.”
Father’s silence stretched between us.
“That… what was her name again? The one you used to sing about wanting to marry. Harim, was it?”
“Again? No matter how many times I tell you… It’s Harin. Yoon Harin.”
“Oh, right. Are you two getting along?”
“Probably.”
I could hear the sharp click of his tongue even through the phone, heavy with disapproval.
“What do you mean, probably? It’s either yes or no.”
“We’re both so busy these days it’s hard to even see each other’s faces. You know how graduation season is…”
“Understood. …Still, look after her enough that you won’t have regrets later. No matter how desperately in love you once were, if you stop seeing each other you’ll drift apart. Don’t take this as nagging.”
I let out a small sigh where he couldn’t hear it and answered mechanically.
“I understand.”
“Good, then—then, then then then then then then, then… if—, if……”
A burst of static flooded the line, the kind of interference you’d hear on an old walkie-talkie. Could call quality really degrade this badly? Phones from thirty years ago never sounded like this.
“Father? The connection seems strange right now… Father? Can you hear me?”
“Hm? Was it bad? Ah. I can hear you clearly.”
The audio suddenly cleared, but something was wrong. Father’s voice had completely changed. It sounded like an entirely different person—decades younger, like a bright young man. No… this young voice was actually his real one…
While I was still reeling in confusion, he asked again.
“So, how was it?”
“Yes…? How was… what…?”
“How did my child taste…? How did your child taste, Kaira?”
“What? Child? Kaira…? Who the hell is—”
I had been staring blankly at the call timer when a crushing headache slammed into me. I clutched my skull. Kaira… Kaira… that’s me… But this is the lab… I was talking to Father…
Through the half-open window came the sound of rain and distant thunder. It was the middle of the night. I had stayed late in the lab because of graduation… No, that wasn’t right. This was… Kaira’s memory…
“You don’t need to worry about it, Kaira. I felt wonderful. Tasting my own daughter’s cunt while she was drugged—it felt truly wonderful. So good I could have abandoned the world without a single regret. Ah. I created her and Pirel gave birth to her, yet she grew into such a splendid child. Daddy is so very proud.”
“Daddy…? Da… ddy…? Why am I… But this is… Earth…”
“Earth? What is Earth? Kaira, this is Mittenburg. The final stop of your happiness. The place where Kaira ends. Everything you are will be shattered here, Kaira. Me. Pirel too. Well? Aren’t you happy—”
“St… op……”
Lee Seon-yeon’s voice and Kaira’s voice twisted together, splitting into something grotesque. Was that sound really coming from my own throat?
“Please… stop it… Daddy……”
No… This voice belonged to neither the man from Earth nor the bakery girl born in the empire. It was something else—neither male nor female, neither living nor dead. A voice layered with sensuality and majesty, malice and divinity, pouring from my mouth.
“Da… ddy……”
……
“Hik!”
I woke with a sharp gasp, jolted out of the nightmare. It’s hard to realize you’re dreaming while inside the dream, but the moment you wake, everything you had believed with absolute certainty collapses into illusion.
Father…
I was awake enough to separate dream from reality, yet my face was already soaked with tears. Both Lee Seon-yeon’s father and Kaira’s father were people I could never meet again. Simply remembering them—whether in dreams or in the waking world—stirred up unbearable sorrow. It couldn’t be helped.
It’s been a long time since I dreamed of Earth. I did fall asleep thinking about it, but I never expected to actually dream of it.
I slowly looked around. Beneath an empty ceiling that displayed stars and galaxies, surrounded by dense stone pillars in the heart of some ancient ruin, I had fallen asleep while thinking of Earth. But…
Why was I now inside a tent that completely blocked out the sky? And inside a wooden cage that looked exactly like an animal pen?
Hoo… Another kidnapping, I suppose. What is it this time? Men planning to rape me? A passing slave trader?
I had grown so used to such horrors that even these grim thoughts came out flat and emotionless.
At least I’m still fully dressed… so they haven’t touched me yet.
I conjured a faint magical light and checked my belongings. Nothing was missing. The backpack with my sleeping bag leaned against the bars, untouched. My precious watch, necklace, books, and rings were all exactly where they should be—inside my robe, around my neck, on my finger.
I deliberately made some noise to call out to whoever might be nearby.
“Excuse me… Is anyone there?”
The moment my voice faded into the darkness, heavy footsteps thudded just outside the thick leather tent wall. The tent flap lifted, and daylight poured in.
“Ugh…!”
My eyes, adjusted to the dark, stung at the sudden flood of sunlight through the gap. I groaned and instinctively raised an arm to shield them.
“Human. You’re awake?”
A shadow silhouetted against the midday light spoke in a booming voice. Both the shadow’s size as it filled the tent entrance and the voice itself were far too large to belong to any human. Truly excessive.
Whatever it was, the figure easily three times my height—with a bulk that looked twenty times greater—didn’t wait for an answer. It lumbered toward me with earth-shaking steps. That alone told me exactly who this was and where I had been taken.
An ogre.
While I slept in exhaustion, I had been kidnapped—no, transported or taken into custody—to an ogre tribal tent village. I could guess the general situation, but I still needed to ask for clarity. At least the atmosphere didn’t feel like they intended to kill me immediately.
“Where am I? Did you bring me here by force?”
“Force? Empire words hard.”
“I’m asking if you forcibly took me while I was sleeping.”
The ogre gave his swaying belly—mostly muscle, with only a little fat—a couple of heavy pats and nodded vigorously.
“Yes. Female human, you our… that… yes. Holy ground. Slept carelessly on holy ground. So caught. Brought here.”
“And what are you going to do with me?”
The ogre muttered a few words in his own tongue—sounds nearly impossible for a human throat to replicate—then switched back to clumsy imperial speech.
“Judgment… decision… resolve… Ah. We judge. You go before chieftain. I carry you. Decide there.”
I could have rewound the wooden bars into nothing but grass and vanished while he was still startled, but the fact that they could take me straight to the chieftain meant there were likely dozens of ogre tribesfolk swarming outside the tent.
Creatures who could shatter every bone in a small human girl’s body and burst all her organs with a single punch from an adult female ogre.
For now, I had no choice but to obey. They didn’t seem intent on taking my life.
No matter how slow-witted ogres might be, they weren’t foolish enough to ignore how dangerous a wizard with free hands and mouth could be. If they had wanted me dead, they would have crushed me like a fly in my sleep without any of this ceremony.
“I understand… Please carry me gently.”
“Yes. Carry like baby lamb.”
The ogre unlocked the cage and, true to his word, lifted me carefully with both enormous palms. For an ogre, his touch was astonishingly delicate—as though he were moving something fragile that might crumble under too much pressure. The stench rolling off his body made me want to wrinkle my nose, but I forced myself to endure it so as not to offend him.
Carried in his swaying grip, I watched the crude yet massively oversized tents of the ogre settlement pass by, trying to calm my anxiety about what bizarre punishment might await me.
I was being held like a newborn puppy in a rather embarrassing position, so I scanned the villagers with uneasy eyes. Male and female ogres of all ages kept stealing glances at me with open curiosity. Even the children—with their round cheeks and stubby limbs that clearly marked them as boys and girls—were the size of full-grown human men.
“We here.”
Completely ignoring the strain on my eardrums, he bellowed the announcement, then gently set me down. He shouted something in the ogre language toward the tent before us—one that was only slightly more ornate than the others, something you’d only notice after careful inspection.
Heavy footsteps echoed from inside. An ogre emerged with a long, ash-gray beard that was nearly white and a face deeply wrinkled with age. Unlike the others, he was fully wrapped in leather garments, which alone marked him as someone of high status.
Chieftain or shaman, most likely.
The elderly ogre chieftain asked the one who had brought me something in their incomprehensible tongue. The younger ogre nodded and replied. Probably confirming I was the right female. After offering what looked like a respectful gesture, my carrier withdrew, leaving only the chieftain and me.
I had secretly hoped, right until that moment, that this chieftain might be the warrior Glazalus. Of course, things were never that convenient.
The other warriors and villagers showed little interest in us. Only the children and a few at a distance stared openly. Standing on the ground made it even clearer how much larger they all were—even the young ones towered over me.
“You that female? Human who invaded ho… holy ground?”
“Yes. That’s correct. But… you call that place a holy ground?”
“Holy ground. Sacred place. Land that must not be stepped upon. Such stories passed down. From father, from grandfather. Do you insult tradition, little female?”
…It made sense. Long before the plains belonged to the ogres, even before the elves withdrew from this land, it had been a demon’s domain. From the moment they first set foot here, ogres who entered that astronomical observatory ruin—no, the Plain’s Entrance—would occasionally vanish.
The wisest among them first. Then those who couldn’t resist their curiosity. Over time, the land became known in their lore as a taboo place that swallowed people, animals, and plants alike.
“It wasn’t a holy ground. That was a demon’s territory. I was lured in by the demon myself… but I destroyed it! It’s no longer cursed, nor holy. It’s nothing now.”
…Though the truth was that I had walked willingly into temptation and brainwashing, there was no need to mention that.
The ogre elder—or shaman—frowned and stared hard at my face. I couldn’t tell whether he simply didn’t understand what I had said or was trying to discern if I was lying.
“Is it false? I cannot know. Is it true? I cannot believe. Difficult problem you give, female.”
At least he’s thoughtful for an old elder. He isn’t immediately assuming I’m lying and trying to force the issue.
While I was quietly sighing in relief at that thought, the old ogre, his face twisted with deep contemplation, spoke in a heavy voice.
“We live at the edge of the plains. We meet empire humans often. We do not treat empire humans recklessly. If relations sour, it becomes difficult for us too. But one thing is certain. You were there, little female.”
“…Yes. I won’t deny that.”
“I do not see you as a liar. That does not mean I see you as honest. Therefore, we leave it to the gods. To the beast beloved by the Earth Mother, I entrust you.”
Leaving judgment to an animal? In an animistic culture, it wasn’t surprising. Burning turtle shells to read the cracks, or releasing livestock between two stakes to see which one they gathered around more—such methods existed.
…They’re really going to leave my fate to something so ridiculous. Well, I can use magic. If I think carefully, I might be able to manipulate the outcome.
“Understood? Then follow. I will throw you to the Earth Mother’s child, the rockhoof.”
“I understand.”
Just knowing it wasn’t going to be a beating or rape was enough to ease my mind. I followed the chieftain. They hadn’t bound my wrists or legs, only taken my sword. It couldn’t be too harsh a punishment.
……
That’s what I thought.
…That’s what I believed.
“Um……”
“What is it, little female?”
They had taken everything—robe, dress, underwear, even my boots. I now stood completely naked inside a space enclosed by thick wooden walls. The air was thick with the distinct smell of grass-eating beasts and their waste.
Exposed to the cold plains wind with nothing to cover me, I looked up at the creature before me and asked in a trembling voice.
“Could you please… explain what exactly is happening right now…?”
A colossal beast that looked like a cross between a goat and an ox—slightly larger than an elephant from Earth—stared down at me. After a long moment, it brought its face close, its clear eyes showing no hostility whatsoever, and then—
“Euk!!”
It licked my entire body.
“I told you. Beast of prophecy. Child of the Earth Mother. Rockhoof. Before the Earth Mother’s child, you must become clean. Then we leave it to the sheep’s judgment. We promised the empire’s high chieftain. Whatever happens after, we will not blame each other.”
“I… I see……”
The ogres didn’t want to be on bad terms with the empire, and the empire—especially the lords of Vestebene’s frontier—didn’t want the ogres as enemies either. So rather than clash over such unscientific trials, they allowed this and turned a blind eye when imperial citizens suffered at the hands of these beasts.
“So… what kind of choice does this animal… make?”
I barely held back my nausea from the thick stench of saliva now coating my whole body. The answer that came back was the very last thing I wanted to hear.
“You spend three days with the rockhoof. After three days, you are released. That is all. Rockhoof only eats grass. It will not eat you.”
“Yes……”
The tension drained out of me. I had expected some heart-pounding gamble. It was just a short exile spent living with an animal. I felt relieved.
I reached up to stroke the space between the elephant-sized creature’s eyes, trying to calm it as it moved to lick me again. From behind me came the old ogre chieftain’s voice as he slowly walked away.
“Male rockhoof likes females of other beasts. Female rockhoof likes males of other beasts. That is all. Understood, little female? If you are still alive after three days, we will release you.”
The moment I heard those words, my legs gave out and I collapsed to the ground.
“What? W-wait. Wait a moment!? What did you just say? That kind of thing……”
Before I could finish, the rockhoof’s hard, heavy hoof pressed down on me. For something of its enormous size, the pressure was strangely gentle—as if it didn’t want to injure me—but it was utterly impossible to escape.
There’s no way… something like that… can fit… Ahaha… This time… I really might… die…
Face drained of all color, I could only tremble as I watched the long, spiraled pink thing between the rockhoof’s hind legs slowly swell, growing larger and larger until it was as thick as my own torso.