Chapter 15: The Islram Empire

“Of course it’s cold. It’s a cold that tears your flesh apart.”

“……”

“Ordinary humans can’t endure it.”

The thousands of chilling eyes in the silence were bad enough, but the cold was sharp and the air felt wrong. This was not the ordinary winter cold felt in the forest. It was gloomy, damp, and held a grotesque quality that could not be put into words.

Then the carriage felt as if it lifted. Startled, Luti grabbed at the fur hat flying away, and Jerond’s hand pulled Luti into an embrace. A moment later, evil spirits howled and thrashed with strange groans. Along with screams that tore at the ears, fierce wind repeatedly struck the carriage.

“This is Frigg’s Hill.”

A faint gleam settled in Jerond’s black eyes. It was killing intent. A cruelty that truly seemed capable of cutting everything down. It held a honed terror that could kill without a shred of pity.

“Don’t be afraid. Enjoy it.”

Jerond’s eyes as he said that were not human. Before his true nature, disguised as indifference, the real terror was not the ghosts outside the window but Jerond himself. Those sharp, merciless eyes seemed to strike down at the essence of a being without any emotion. Unaware of that inner truth, Jerond spoke as if whispering into Luti’s ear, who was only now realizing true fear.

“Being with you certainly makes time pass quickly. How nice.”

Jerond pulled the small, warm body close. He was quite pleased that Luti had managed to endure.

Luti’s mouth fell open at the sight of the empire beyond the carriage. The castles seen in picture books were only drawings. The real castle’s size could not be compared to mountains, and the village packed with people looked like an entirely different world. A river and a lake were visible around the village, yellowing grain fields, and among them rich trees and grass. Flowers bloomed, fruit hung from every leafy tree, and goats and cows played leisurely.

Jerond stopped the carriage for a moment. When he opened the door to introduce his land below the hill, Luti, who followed him out, opened his eyes wide again.

There’s no smell of ash…

There was no pungent stench of rotting corpses, no sticky dampness.

The sunlight sparkled honestly, and the flowers blooming around the hill were yellow, blue, and red.

Was that what they used to make candy colors…

Maybe flowers were abundant enough to put in candy, and sugar was plentiful. Luti looked up at the towering castle with disbelieving eyes. The high walls and dozens of towers rising even higher were a spectacle, and the armored guards protecting the castle all looked strong. A place safe from invasion, a land rich without any lack. This was that kind of place. The empire he spoke of. As if looking at the top of the millennium tree Sorotel had taken him to long ago…

“Is this your first time?”

Luti nodded.

“Is this your first time leaving the forest?”

Still unable to take his eyes off the castle, Luti nodded again.

“Then you must be even more surprised. It’s on a scale that can’t compare to Helter.”

Jerond grabbed Luti’s chin as if snatching away his entranced gaze. When he pulled the tip of the small chin, the still hazy eyes looked only at him.

“Islram. The Islram Empire.”

“……”

“An empire created by the three gods who ruled the sky. It is the only empire that has never once fallen, starting from the previous kings. It rules seventeen territories and has never had a single rebellion. The emperor is generous and strong. The empress is also virtuous and cherishes the people. Our knight order also serves the emperor and is responsible for the people’s safety. I am Jerond, son of the imperial knight commander. As you know, I am also the search captain of the reconnaissance unit that patrols the forest. In other words, my position within that empire is quite high.”

“……”

“My name is Jerond Boven Gladzor. The surname Gladzor means one who serves the emperor. Here, the emperor is like a god. So you can think of me as a man like an envoy serving a god. Do you understand?”

…I understood. This man’s name is Jerond Boven Gladzor, and he serves the emperor. He holds a fairly high position in this empire and must be among the leaders of the knights. And as a noble, he might even own a large castle.

“Now you have to choose. You were found in the forest and captured by me. You will be reported to the higher-ups as the eighth evidence of the search team and human number one, and become a trophy. They’ll put you on a dissection table, cut open your belly, split open your skull, look inside, and study you.”

For an instant, Luti’s glass-like eyes shattered. The word “belly cut open” shocked him so much that he could not think.

“Since you’re human number one found in the forest, attention will focus on you. For your information, Islram’s medical arts are scientific. They contain no superstition or crude sorcery.”

That was why Islram had never tasted failure once. It was a principle strictly kept from the first emperor to the present.

“They will determine whether you are truly human or a demon in human form, and study you thoroughly.”

It was the first time he had heard the word dissection table, but he could not fail to know what it meant. Cut open the belly, break open the skull, and look inside… And he was already a cursed child with different-colored eyes…

“Besides, no man would leave a beautiful woman with hair like this alone.”

Jerond toyed not with the differently colored eyes but with the hair. Hair that was blond yet looked like white sand, or held a transparent color. If Jerond did not hide his identity, it was obvious Luti would fall into someone’s hands and never escape.

“So make your choice.”

“……”

“Will you become human number one found in the forest, or will you come with me to my castle?”

The sudden proposal left him bewildered. No, he had never dreamed things would unfold like this. Not only did Jerond mistake him for a woman, but after giving him shoes and a hat, now he was telling him to come to his castle. Luti tried desperately to grasp the situation. But his mind would not turn at all.

Human number one found in the forest, or become the servant of a man named Jerond Boven Gladzor?

The man was certainly a knight with a fine appearance and an incredible body. He had high honor and status, and even his voice was sweet. But that kind of man was suggesting to a grubby (woman-looking) man found in the forest that they live together?

Ah, only then did he recall one fact. It was from a book Yondo’s subordinates had read. In the human world, free love was possible. It was not based on any particular promise, nor did it have set rules. And it happened very sporadically and impulsively, sometimes developing into cohabitation.

Back then, he had not understood what that meant and could not interpret it, but looking at the man now, those lines from the book made sense. So this man was now, very impulsively, proposing free love to him. But there was a problem. He was not a woman. He was a man. He clearly had male genitals, no breasts, and a body that could not bear children.

“This is for you.”

“……”

“I’m not saying this for my own selfish gain. Only.”

Jerond’s hand touched Luti’s hair again. His fingers twined once around Luti’s hair and slid down smoothly.

“…Because having this hair cut would be a loss in many ways.”

If he went to the dissection table, this hair would be cut. Not just the hair. His whole body would be bound, torn apart piece by piece, and used for research.

“I think the same.”

Clom, arriving late, stopped his horse nearby and cut in between them.

“If we report this woman to the higher-ups, they’ll order us to turn the forest upside down immediately. To summon knights and overturn the forest because of two hybrids and one frail woman. My head is already splitting from the smell of burning corpses, and just thinking about setting fire to that forest full of filth makes my stomach turn.”

He took off his gloves and shook them out. Though he had killed countless dragons and evil spirits, he was especially picky about the forest.

“Since when were you a clean freak?”

“Don’t you think that forest is strange?”

“What part?”

“It has a musty smell. It’s on a different level from the stench of rotting dragon corpses. Dragons don’t leave sticky blood when they bleed; they either vanish into the air or are washed away by water, but that forest is strangely sticky. It feels like it clings to the tips of my shoes and crawls into my body. Like hundreds of millions of fire fleas that won’t die no matter how many you kill are entering my veins.”

He stomped his thick iron boot on the ground as if it were truly horrifying. Jerond, watching him, made a look that said he could not stop him.

“I don’t want to go back to a place like that. Let’s gloss over it and be done.”

Clom pointed at the two hybrids dangling from Fey’s black horse as she arrived.

“We can report those hybrids instead of this woman. If we say we found them in the forest and toss them over, they’ll go to the dissection table instead.”

“Better to say we found nothing. The mere fact that those two hybrids exist would displease them.”

“True. If we say we captured those two in the forest, we might be summoned. There’s no need to make trouble over a woman who has nothing strange about her except blond hair.”

Clom glanced at Luti once and shook his head. No matter how he looked, she was just a thin, underfed woman. Putting a girl who looked pitiful on a dissection table felt uneasy, too. But Jerond’s expression was strange. As if he had heard something odd, he looked at Clom once, then studied Luti closely.

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