Chapter 9: 9

Last night, Dayeon saw a dirty puppy within the imperial palace.

She thought she heard a dog barking, and when she looked outside the window, she caught sight of a small, unkempt puppy.

At first, the puppy’s dirty gray body was hard to see, so she squinted her eyes for a while.

The imperial palace, which was massive in both scale and territory, was surrounded by nature and was like a forest in itself.

Deer, rabbits, and other herbivores—as well as the occasional fox and wild boar—could sometimes be seen on the palace grounds. However, there were more or less measures in place to prevent animals that had diseases from entering and to prevent uncontrolled animals from running wild.

So how did this puppy slip through?

Dayeon decided to call this small and unsightly puppy “Samsik.”[1]

Samsik scratched its neck with its hind leg and fought by itself against a wooden post. After gallantly running around and playing for a long time, it disappeared again somewhere into the dark.

Will I be able to see you again? Dayeon wondered.

 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

 

While Dayeon had been lost in thought about the puppy she met last night, an unfamiliar person walked into the conference room.

She had thought that since they were coming from the temple, she might know them, but the face in front of her was one that she had not seen yet and one that she did not know at all.

“Hello?”

When Dayeon tilted her head and said her sort of question, sort of greeting, the man wearing white priest robes smiled gently.

“Hello, Dayeon-nim.”

“Yes, hello.”

“Please call me Theo.”
At his pleasant tone, Dayeon smiled back at him with an awkward face.

The man’s attitude was such that anybody could feel the friendliness—but it wasn’t like there were only one or two such people at the temple.

Dayeon’s mind was filled with distrust and suspicion.

“…You’re a priest, right?”

“I’m not a full priest yet, only an apprentice priest who is following the path of the goddess.”

The man smiled brightly while clarifying. It was a refreshing smile.

“Um, I heard that you’ve been trying to meet with me. Why is that?”

Dayeon asked about his business with her first, not knowing how to use elegant and diplomatic language nor even thinking about using such language. Still, the man did not erase the smile on his face.

The smile was soft and quiet.

 

However, it was dignified and had no hint of wavering.

…Was he really an apprentice priest?

All the emperor’s knights and the maids accompanying Dayeon in the room also felt doubtful.

“It’s natural that the temple is interested in your safety and any news about you, Dayeon-nim.”

He tried to smooth over Dayeon’s blunt inquiry with his soft words.

However, maybe the emperor’s words yesterday had influenced her. Dayeon felt that he was lying.

“Is it because I’m proof of the revelation? But I’m not the type of person that you think I am,” she said.

The man beamed at her again.

“And what kind of person would that be?” he asked instead.

“…I have no divine power or any other special ability. It’s true that I’m from another world, but that place isn’t Hergonia.”

Dayeon sighed.

“I can’t do anything.”

“……”

“So my discovery in the holy forest was just a coincidence.”

Like a mistake, she meant.

But the man who claimed to be an apprentice priest shook his head at Dayeon’s speech.

The light brown-haired man’s eyes shone warmly.

With a friendly tone that was nonetheless firm and certain, he negated Dayeon’s words.

“It wasn’t a coincidence.”

“……”

“Don’t say that it was a mistake, either.”

“……”

“There is no way that Herunia would have sent you for no reason. There definitely has to be a reason for why you’ve come to this place.”[2]

“……”

She thought that was definitely wrong, but… Dayeon could feel the strong conviction and certainty contained in his words.

That was why Dayeon couldn’t refute him right away.

Why was he so certain?

She wanted to ask him, but this time, the man changed the subject.

“How do you spend your time in the imperial palace?”

Dayeon was flustered by the sudden question.

What did she spend her time doing?

She did nothing at all.

“…I’m starting to exercise and learn the sword. And soon, I think I’ll be learning to read, too.”

In the end, they were all things that the emperor recommended.

She only started to eat her meals because of the emperor’s barrage of nagging recently, so it wouldn’t be wrong to say that the only thing she did of her own volition was breathe.

…I really do live like trash.

The sudden realization made her solemn for a very short moment.

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“Will you be learning the Altius writing system?”

“Yes. Though it’s still just a plan for now.”

The man followed up with a surprising question.

“Then, who’ll be teaching you?”

“That hasn’t been decided yet. The grand chamberlain said he would let me know once it’s been decided.”

The man briefly looked thoughtful at those words.

So that’s how his face looks when he isn’t smiling, thought Dayeon.

His smile immediately returned, and he made a suggestion to Dayeon.

“If you’ll be learning the language, then how about me? As your teacher, I mean.”

Theo said that he had experience teaching children letters at the temple, and Dayeon replied that she would think about it.

Dayeon didn’t say that because she trusted him or the temple.

She didn’t believe his words about her coming here having a purpose, either.

No. It might have been a shrewd idea, but Dayeon thought that since she didn’t know what would happen in the future, it would be best to have at least one connection to the temple.

Was it shameless? Maybe, but this was a world where she had no footholds.

 

Dayeon slowly walked back to her room in the lateral palace. There, the emperor had already come inside and was waiting for her.

“You’re here,” said the emperor.

“What is it?”

Mikhail frowned a little at Dayeon’s question.

“Didn’t you receive a guest today?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Dayeon. “I was coming back after the meeting ended just now.”

“I came by to check if anything went bad.”

“Um, nothing notable happened.”

Still, the emperor did not leave. He sat down at a chair in the middle of the room like it was his own.

Dayeon, the actual master of the room, naturally sat opposite him with a table between them.

“What did you talk about?” asked the emperor.

“Uh… He introduced himself as an apprentice priest. His name is Theo.”

Without being asked, the grand chamberlain cut in, saying that he would learn more about the man. Then, he whispered to the emperor to continue speaking with Dayeon.

The grand chamberlain seemed to be a capable employee who knew when to join the conversation and when to leave.

Dayeon vaguely imagined for a moment how many stomach aches and how much work stress he must have suffered to become this way.

“Um, and there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. He asked me how I was and how I pass my time these days. So I told him that I’m trying to learn the writing system… and he said that he could teach me.”

Hoo. The emperor’s eyes flashed as he made a vague sound that was a mix between a groan and a scoff.

The grand chamberlain and the knights who had been listening in felt their hearts squeezing.

They knew from their long experience when the emperor’s temper was flaring.

Actually, the emperor’s mood was already poor.

Why did these impudent upstarts still not know their place and play their games in the imperial palace?

However, Dayeon, who still did not know much about Mikhail and was repeatedly failing to adjust to this new world, delivered the finishing blow to make the emperor furious.

“Can I learn to read and write from that person?”

The attendants’ hearts pounded, and then they felt a shrinking feeling.

The emperor laughed ferociously.

 

In the end, it was decided that Dayeon would be taught the writing system from Theo, with permission from none other than the emperor.

But she wasn’t totally imperceptive, so she recognized that she had completely ruined the emperor’s mood.

Anybody could tell. The emperor’s expression was unfathomably turbulent, and the attendants and the maids’ complexions turned pale.

꘏꘏꘏

Sitting still on the bed and staring out the window, Dayeon asked Marie something.

She had been waiting for Samsik, but it seemed the puppy would not be showing up today.

“Marie, about me learning letters from the priest. Why does His Majesty hate that?”

Marie’s eyes grew round.

Then, she replied like it was a natural fact.

“It’s because His Majesty is not on good terms with the temple. What emperor would welcome a political enemy coming in and out of his territory?”

That was right.

Dayeon accepted the clever explanation.

It was because Dayeon had also anticipated that much—that the emperor might hate it.

Still, there was a question in her mind that was yet unresolved.

If that was the case, why did the emperor allow it?

“Then, why did His Majesty say I could?”

Marie couldn’t answer that question right away either.

That was the same question on the minds of all the emperor’s servants.

After pondering it for a long time, Marie averted her gaze and answered in an uncertain voice.

“Isn’t it because Dayeon-nim, you yourself said that you would learn the language?”

After the words were spoken, it seemed that this could be the answer.

꘏꘏꘏

[1] “Samsik” refers to the three meals in a day.

[2] Technically, “Hernia” would be the most… correct… way to write the goddess’s name in English. Let’s not do that. The “r” is a separate syllable anyway ^^

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