Blood Moon Rising Over The Plains - Chapter 6: The End (5)

Her small frame compared to his was very fragile. Not only was she fragile, but if he left her outside, it seemed like a villain would snatch away the naive fairy. Then, like when they first met, she would blink her eyes, not knowing what situation she was in.

As if she wasn’t a fairy, she didn’t understand what kind of trouble she had almost gotten into. The fairy, who calmly explained the situation in her lacking language as if reciting a poem, couldn’t imagine how cruel the things she heard were.

The king, who had presumptuously discussed revenge against him, wouldn’t have held his woman gently. To top it off, he said he would throw this delicate body to beggars and soldiers, and the end would be a life of torture.

Plucking out her eyes, deafening her ears, and even cutting off her limbs, leaving her in a state where she couldn’t live even if she lived, and throwing her into a latrine. It was absurd. How much did he look down on him to treat his woman like that?

Daring, daring, daring.

This was the second time.

What kind of treatment had he received from the pig-like guy who didn’t know his place and flaunted the name of king? Hadn’t he even tried to make him bite his dirty thing?

Thanks to that, it was easy to bite.

He had a branding iron pressed against his chest, his mouth gagged, and his feet shackled before being rolled into a latrine. It was treatment below that of livestock, let alone a slave. He didn’t receive proper meals, let alone clothes.

One day, his neck was tied to a horse with a rope, and he rolled naked on the ground. Everyone in the imperial city, from palace women to soldiers to slaves, watched him rolling around and laughed. It was the most humiliating day of his life.

Temujin barely suppressed his murderous intent. He bit off the emperor’s balls, and taking advantage of the commotion, he ran desperately. At the time, his shackles were just ropes. He snatched a sword, broke free, and killed all the soldiers and palace women he saw.

He ran with a body covered in blood and filth, and he was prepared to run away.

I will tear apart and shred all of Jin who ignored me.’

He stole a horse and ran and ran. He, who was just a young man from the Borjigin tribe, escaped from Jin in just two years and rose from the status of a slave to the position of Khan in just one year.

Temujin, who was just a Khan, had more than fifty clans under his command and had the largest group in Mongolia.

It was then that the title of Great Khan was created. The title ‘Khan,’ which meant just the king of a tribe, was insufficient, so it was the first title ever created.

Temujin, a young man from the Borjigin tribe who had been captured as a slave, received the title of ‘Great Khan’ for the first time in history about five years after escaping from Jin.

Temujin did not forget Jin, who had humiliated him in the past. To erase the slave mark engraved on his chest, he scraped the skin with the tip of a knife every night. Some days he dug into it, and some days he cut off the skin.

He lived for revenge and gained strength for revenge. Temujin, who became the Great Khan, led his troops and invaded Jin.

The first time he met a Westerner, she was wearing slave-like clothes. No, what was no different from rags was ridiculous to even call clothes.

Her disheveled hair shone brighter than the moonlight that illuminated the world. Her body, stiff with tension, was so messed up that it was thin and full of scars.

Golden eyelashes fluttered above her tightly closed eyes. The movement was like starlight shattering, and for the first time, he became curious about what a woman was.

That day was the first time Temujin hadn’t used force. For the first time, he tried to tell a woman to open her eyes, not order her, and he even tried to soothe a woman who had stopped breathing.

To him, Yeojin was a woman who was all firsts. For the first time, he wanted to hold a woman, and for the first time, he felt insufficient. He craved her as if he would never know the end, no matter how much he held her.

For the first time, he waited on a woman, and for the first time, he nursed her. It was something he had stubbornly endured even during his slave days.

Her hand, which was barely wiping her body with her exhausted strength, was small, and her body, which had dropped the cloth she was wiping with, was trembling, so it was just an impulse. He wiped her body, which was soiled with juices and semen, and even helped her dress because she was struggling to wear the clothes here.

In fact, he wanted to leave her as she was, but her body, filled with his things, was so pretty that he might have wanted to give the woman who showed it to him a reward.

That’s why he couldn’t even touch her after she had escaped once.

…Actually, he was so distracted by the collapsed woman that he didn’t even think about the punishment. The woman, panting as if she was out of breath, was suffering as if she was about to die, and Buka even told him to give up and leave her.

In reality, she suffered from a fever high enough to kill an ordinary person. Looking back, her being a celestial being must have played a part in her survival back then.

He placed cloths soaked in cold water on her forehead as she gasped with a cold, wiped her sweat-soaked body, fed her porridge with his own hands, and even helped her chew and swallow medicinal herbs.

The Mongol Khan realized for the first time when she opened her eyes:

He could never bear to see her in pain. Even less could he bear to see her die.

Temujin had met such a person for the first time.

Someone he couldn’t even communicate with. A woman he had only shared physical intimacy with. Why? Where, from when, had he fallen for her?

Now, looking back, he could only answer, “Every moment.”

When she shone her blue eyes, seemingly resolved to embrace him amidst the villagers cursing him as a barbarian as they died.

When she, reaching her limit, first uttered the title “Khan.”

When she, with eyes like a soldier standing precariously on the edge of a cliff thinking only of their own safety, embraced him with greed.

Starting with all of that, she melted the Mongol Khan without anyone noticing.

“Men also protect their families and take on hard work, difficult tasks. It’s not only women who suffer losses.”

“I don’t need any of that. I can live alone.”

She was right. The Mongol Khan was useless to her. It was true that she didn’t know the ways of the world. But she would learn even that quickly, just as she had learned their language.

“I, Temujin, missed you.”

Before her, the Mongol Khan became a man named “Temujin.” In Mongolia, a man without status was the most useless person at the bottom, and yet.

She was more interested in the scenery of the world than in jewels or ornaments. She often stared blankly at the common grasslands and preferred to watch animals come to life.

Thinking about it, she often placed her ear on his chest. She often fell asleep like that. Had she said she didn’t have people, and that’s why she found the sound of his heartbeat fascinating?

A place without kidnappings, without danger. He could tell by looking at her how safe she had lived. But she abandoned that and chose to be by his side.

Then, shouldn’t he repay her by eliminating all that danger?

The Khan who ruled over fifty tribes, the one with the largest tribe in Mongolia. He felt a lack for the first time.

Knock knock.

“Speak.”

At the quiet sound from outside, Temujin gently patted Yeojin’s stirring back and answered softly.

“Khan, the Emperor has passed the throne to Prince Odobo. They say the execution ceremony will be held tomorrow.”

“Buka.”

“Yes, Khan. What is your command?”

“I’ve decided to try unification.”

“I knew you would say that. My, my, you’re the first Khan to unify the tribes for Khatan.”

“A celestial being is coming as my bride, so I should at least do that much for her honjageum.”

At Temujin’s absurd words, Buka had to doubt his ears for a moment. Honjageum? Marriage expenses given to the bride’s side to prepare the wedding goods? He was saying he would unify the country with that? That meant he was giving an entire country to his bride!

“…You’re going to unify with the honjageum?”

“Yes.”

“Then what about the wedding gifts…”

“Yeojin is already here, why would we need wedding gifts?”

He wouldn’t even accept the wedding gifts that the bride’s side should prepare. In short, the Khan would take care of everything from the wedding preparations to the preparations for living together from now on.

Buka had a lot to say, but he gave up thinking. He had seen the Khan who would do anything for Khatan too many times to continue thinking.

“…Yes. Ahem, then you’ll have to start preparing for unification as soon as we get there. Then what about the princesses of the Jin Dynasty? Usually, they marry the Khan.”

“I don’t need them.”

“Yes, I figured. But for the sake of the alliance, someone has to take a Jin princess as a bride.”

“You can take her.”

“Ugh…”

He had brought it up for nothing, and instead of getting anything out of it, the problem had come back to him.

“What about Huchite and Bayan?”

Buka passed the bomb to those who were not in this place now.

“Well, that’s up to them.”

“Yes. Then rest well, Khan.”

Buka hurriedly finished his greetings and left the room, afraid that the Khan would change his mind at any moment. Huchite or Bayan would soon have a wife. Whether they wanted it or not.

***

“[KHAAAN!! Marriage, marriage?!]”

“[KHAAAN!! How could you do this to me, to me!!]”

The large guest room was instantly bustling with the behavior of the two burly men who had stormed in noisily.

Amidst the commotion, Buka, the culprit who had failed to stop them, couldn’t even think of looking inside the room and instead rubbed his forehead. Unfortunately, they had never seen the Khan treating Khatan because they had been stationed in the middle of nowhere, and then they had been enjoying the war.

“[Shut up right now—]”

“Ugh.”

“[…]”

Temujin’s mouth, which had been chanting eerily, was tightly shut at the small groan. However, the problem was the nature of those two humans who ran forward looking only ahead, which was no different from Mongolia’s chronic disease.

“[Khan! Why are you telling me to get married?! How could you even think of leaving me out of this fun war!! Isn’t that too much?!]”

“[Khan! You said you were going to unify! I want to fight too! We don’t need a woman who’s just a hindrance!!]”

Buka couldn’t bear to look at Temujin’s face, which was contorted fiercely, so he finally turned his head away.

“Noisy…”

Rustle, finally, with a soft voice, Yeojin rubbed her eyes and opened them. How deeply she had slept, her cheek touching Temujin’s chest was red. At the end of her blurry vision, she saw two burly men for the first time because she had suddenly woken up.

“[You bastards—!!]”

Temujin hugged Yeojin with the blanket and kicked Huchite and Bayan away. If his two arms had been free right now, he would have swung a sword.

“[Get out right now!!]”

“[Khan!]”

“[All of you will have to get married!! Marry the Jin princesses right now!! That’s an order!!]”

What should have been one person getting married was instantly confirmed as a celebration for two people. Huchite and Bayan, who had been kicked out by Temujin, stood frozen with their mouths wide open in front of the door.

Tsk tsk, I told them not to go. Buka, the only one among them who had not received a marriage order, clicked his tongue.

***

“……?”

The noisy people who had been noisy before I woke up were chased out by Temujin, and I tilted my head and looked up at Temujin. I couldn’t understand the situation because they were speaking in Mongolian.

“Who?”

“Huchite and Bayan.”

Temujin, who was breathing roughly, still couldn’t calm his anger. The meaning of who wasn’t asking for their names. But judging from Temujin’s reaction, it seemed impossible to explain any further.