Having intertwined their bodies day and night for several months, even a stone woman would not be able to resist becoming pregnant.
Even though her monthly cycle, which had been faithfully regular, stopped, the obstinate servant, who had never budged, only permitted Nokhee to leave her quarters once her lower abdomen began to swell. However, he refused to even entertain the request to open the castle gates.
"You insolent fool. How dare you imprison your lady like this?"
Taking advantage of a brief moment when Kijoon was out, Nokhee checked the castle’s main gate and saw that it had been firmly nailed shut. She sighed in frustration, grumbling to herself in dissatisfaction, but there was nothing she could do.
She wandered through the desolate castle, looking for something she could do. Hoping to find someone, she checked several residences, but as expected, not even the shadow of a person was in sight.
The not-so-distant past, which had always been lively and bustling, now felt like a lie. The castle's interior, where no one existed, was empty and downright eerie.
She wandered through the empty halls for a long time and reached deep within Hwangju Castle. It wasn’t until she arrived at the vacant lot behind the Grand Shaman’s residence that she found what she was looking for.
It was a secluded funeral site where members of the Yoon family were secretly laid to rest whenever they died in horrific forms due to the curse.
As soon as she stepped through the entrance of the shrine, the foul stench of burnt flesh and decaying corpses fiercely assaulted her nostrils. When she reached the funeral site, as expected, charred bodies were carelessly piled together. At least, with the cold weather, she could be thankful that maggots hadn’t begun to swarm them.
The charred bodies, discarded haphazardly, were unrecognisable; it was impossible to tell who they had once been. However, it was clear without even trying to identify them. They were most likely members of the Yoon family, destroyed by the very servant they had despised and mistreated.
With dry eyes, Nokhee stared at the dead bodies for a long time before eventually finding some firewood and flint in the corner of the room to start a fire. Having been accustomed to such sights for nearly a decade, it was nothing new or difficult for her.
Crackle, crackle―.
The fire caught on the wood and quickly spread. The charred bodies began to shrink back into the flames once again.
As the black soot and horrible smell enveloped her, Nokhee sat in front of the fire and copied the Yoon family genealogy onto paper. With no one around to object, she was able to freely use the expensive paper and ink, which was quite convenient.
"Ugh! Hah..."
Could it be because she was pregnant? The last time she spent an entire day performing rituals and inhaling the burnt stench, it hadn't bothered her at all. But now, her stomach kept churning, and waves of nausea surged up.
Moreover, when she copied the name and birthdate of her deceased half-brother, Seonghyeon, the pain in her heart was so unbearable that she wanted to throw everything aside and escape to her quarters, which were filled with traces of Kijoon.
But Nokhee endured all of it with patience and silently carried on with her task.
Transcribing the names and titles of the remaining fifty or so people from the family register onto paper wasn’t particularly difficult. The real challenge was attaching that paper to a long, thick piece of unsplit firewood and driving it into the ground.
She moved to the centre of the vacant lot, where the flames that had consumed countless bodies were dying down, and began digging several holes with a shovel. Then, she inserted the long pieces of firewood with the names written on them into the holes and firmly packed the earth around them to make them stand upright.
The first four or five were manageable. However, starting with the sixth, even though the weather wasn’t particularly hot, sweat began to drip down her face, and her vision started to spin. In the past, she could have easily handled ten, but her pregnant body was very different from her maiden days.
'I might miscarry at this rate.'
Frightened, Nokhee hesitated and hurried back to her quarters.
A while later, as the sun began to set, the servant who had been out returned quietly
“Did you leave your quarters and return?”
Then, without even changing out of his dust-covered clothes, he rushed over and asked urgently.
'He’s like a ghost.’
Nokhee felt a pang of discomfort and lowered her gaze.
"Y-yes, you clearly said it was okay to go out."
Kijoon stared at her with an expressionless face as she answered, then slowly opened his mouth to speak.
"...What did you do to pass the time?"
"I just… walked around inside the castle. What else would I have done?
Nokhee awkwardly smiled and made an excuse. Then she turned her head to avoid the servant's gaze. She couldn't bear to look him in the eye, feeling guilty for what she had done.
"..."
After hearing her words, Kijoon remained silent for a long time. Even though she had washed herself and discarded her clothes as soon as she returned, the strong smell of smoke that clung to her hair and skin must have been noticeable. His lack of response made Nokhee even more anxious.
Should she confess now? As she nervously considered it, her eyes trembling like an earthquake, she counted the grains of the wooden floor, feeling restless and uneasy.
“Is that so?”
To her surprise, Kijoon's voice was unexpectedly indifferent, almost to the point of being disheartening. The tension that had gripped her body suddenly loosened.
"Uh, yeah, that's right..."
Nokhee, with a flustered expression, half-heartedly agreed and quickly changed the subject.
"So, what about you? What did you do outside the castle today?"
"I bought some dried pollack."
“Dried pollack?”
Kijoon nodded and added.
"Didn't you keep saying that you wanted to eat it?"
"M-me? When did I?"
Nokhee was startled and unknowingly asked loudly. Recently, she had often thought about wanting to eat the side dishes and rice her mother used to make when she was a child, but she had never spoken the thought aloud.
Though living with her beloved felt like a dream, it was also true that she was confined by a terrifying snake yokai. Like any captured prey, she had no choice but to eat whatever the predator provided to fatten her up.
Of course, it wasn’t as if he’d devour her and their unborn child, but asking for something as trivial as dried pollack — especially when it was already hard to find even in Hwangju, and coming from the one who served her lavish meals every day — was simply absurd.
However, the servant immediately shattered his lady’s deeper intention.
"Last night, you were murmuring in your sleep about wanting dried pollack grilled over a brazier and served on water-soaked barley rice. So, I made a trip to Boryeong to get some."
"Wh-what?!"
Nokhee was so startled that she jumped up from her spot, never having imagined she had spoken such words in her sleep.
"I-if I was sleep-talking, you should’ve just woken me up! Wh-why would you take that seriously…?!"
“...”
"Even so, how could you think of travelling that far after hearing all that? You’re not fully recovered yet!"
The Boryeong Region, adjacent to the East Sea, had more fish available than meat.
When Nokhee was young, she lived in that area, so she ate more fish there than she did in Hwangju which was far from the sea. Of course, since her family wasn't well-off, they mostly had cheap, dried, and shrivelled fish.
Boryeong was located even further south than the capital. And although Kijoon was a yokai, not a human, travelling such a long distance in one day would have taken no small amount of effort.
"From now on, if there's anything you want to eat, don’t hesitate to tell me. I’ll get it for you right away."
“There’s no need for that.”
For some reason, Kijoon’s face looked especially pale today, perhaps due to exhaustion.
"I told you, I don’t need any of that, Kijoon."
Nokhee reached out and gently stroked his smooth cheek, speaking with a tone that was half-angry, half-pleading.
One day, curious about a small illustration drawn in the corner of a book, she mentioned it by mistake. The next morning, before dawn, he left the castle gates without a word. When he didn’t return that day, she anxiously paced, wondering where he could have gone. It was only after two days that he reappeared, his face weary with fatigue, and silently handed her an old painting box.
It turned out that he had crossed the sea during the war to retrieve something from the lands of the barbarians. The mere thought of that time made Nokhee feel faint, her heart sinking in her chest.
Kijoon always said he was fine, but there were times, during their intimate moments, when dents would suddenly appear all over his body, and blood would begin to flow from the wounds.
He seemed to use his spiritual powers to quickly conceal it, but even someone as oblivious as she was could easily tell that something was wrong with his body. She also knew the reason: it was due to divine retribution.
Nokhee couldn’t help but worry. What if, like the day she had bid her final farewell to Eokbun, Kijoon transformed into a black snake as large as a house, bled endlessly, flipped over onto his back, and died?
Every time Kijoon used his powers because of the trivial words she had spoken, Nokhee felt as if the blood drained from her entire body, starting from her toes, leaving her cold and empty.
Why couldn’t he understand how she felt?
He suddenly looked at her with a cool, detached gaze and bluntly said:
“You said you wanted to eat it, so I brought it. Why?”
"It was just sleep talk. Have I ever once asked you to do anything for me? Please, don’t just do this on your own without saying anything."
"It’s not because of you, but because of my children inside you."
He said this and suddenly reached out, placing his hand on Nokhee’s bulging lower belly, which was hidden under her skirt.
"My children, born to a mother who can’t even give them what they wanted, must be growing up in such hardship, so that’s why I travelled such a long distance. So, please don’t trouble yourself with it, my lady."
"What...?"
Nokhee was stunned by Kijoon’s words, her mouth hanging open. She had expected him to at least promise not to do it again, but his words made her feel as though he was treating her as nothing more than a breeding vessel.
And as if that wasn’t enough, he added in a cold voice:
"Why do I do these things without saying anything…? You, too, often hide things from me without telling me."
"You..."
As she stared wide-eyed, speechless, he smirked, as if mocking her for everything she had done since early morning.
The cold, steely look in Kijoon’s eyes, despite his smiling mouth, made Nokhee feel a sharp pain in her heart as if it were being sliced by a knife.
"Y-you insolent..."
Tears welled up in her eyes.
"Y-you jerk! Do you have to say it in such a spiteful way?"
“My lady, if I don’t speak harshly like this, don’t you always act like a person who doesn’t want anything?”
Kijoon seemed to realise something after seeing her tearful face and responded with a slightly softer tone. However, his words and actions often drove Nokhee to the depths of despair.
"Why do you think I don't want anything?!"
“...”
"Even if I want something, I'll take care of it myself!"
What could he possibly know, speaking like that when he understood nothing? He was just a clueless servant. Ever since she realised that what she had been consuming were Kijoon’s reverse scales, she wondered if he ever truly understood the state of her heart, the suffering she endured while bowing to the Grand Shaman and Yoon Jucheol, enduring countless humiliations in silence.
“If I want dried pollack, I’ll get it myself. If I want to open a bookstore, I’ll do that too. If I want to become an empress or contribute to the country, I’ll handle it myself! I’ll do it all on my own!”
“...”
"When have I ever asked you to do it for me?"
Kijoon's eyes widened in shock, as though struck by her words, just as she had been moments ago.
Nokhee gasped for breath, her chest heaving with frustration. A wave of resentment and sorrow crashed over her like a torrent. She had never asked anyone to recognise her past efforts. All she wanted was for Kijoon, whose health was failing, to stop wasting his energy. So why did she feel so helpless and miserable in front of him every time?
Because of the weight of her past sins, she had endured and followed Kijoon's every wish. Without him needing to say a word, his every word and action made it clear that he loved her and, just like her, feared losing the peaceful life they shared together.
Even a mighty Imugi with great spiritual powers felt that way, so how could she, a mere mortal who could be swept away by the slightest gust, not have felt anxious and afraid?
The weight of their sins was too immense for them to live together carelessly now. All the killings Kjoon had committed, the unforgivable deeds warranting heavenly retribution…
How could they possibly dismiss all that as mere misunderstandings, as unavoidable or trivial matters?
Sometimes, Nokhee had nightmares of Kijoon transforming into a giant black dragon and ascending to the heavens, only to crash back down, his body horribly disfigured as cursed scales burst forth.
But a nightmare was just a nightmare. She couldn’t let herself be swallowed by fears that might never come true. To prevent the nightmare from becoming a reality, they both had to take one step forward at a time, no matter how difficult. For both Kijoon and herself.
"You should stop treating me like an idiot and start taking care of yourself."
Nokhee, her eyes brimming with tears, glared at Kijoon, then pointed sharply at his shoulder area. A wide stain of red spread across his clothes, clearly illuminated by the lamplight. The deep colour suggested that it had been there for quite some time.
Following her finger, he turned his head to look at his shoulder, his expression turned to dismay as he seemed to suddenly realise his oversight. How frantically must he have hurried to Boryeong not to notice the heavy scent of blood lingering like this?
It seemed he immediately used his powers, as the bloodstain spread across his clothes quickly began to fade. However, her heightened sense of smell since her pregnancy made it difficult to simply ignore.
"The smell of your blood is making me nauseous. Get out."
“...”
"Don’t even think about entering this room until the smell is gone. Unless you want to watch your baby starve to death."
Reflecting on their former relationship as mistress and servant, Nokhee coldly issued an order for him to leave. Yet inwardly, she trembled with fear, wondering what she would do if he resisted. After staring intently at her for a long moment, he abruptly turned away, stirring a chill in the air.
"Do as you please, my lady."
And with that, he just walked out the door.
“...You jerk.”
Even though she had ordered him to leave, Nokhee felt so upset that she pulled the blanket over her head and quietly sobbed.
The next morning.
There was nothing but a single meal set out in front of the door, and Kijoon was nowhere to be seen. That servant, with his brazen audacity and insolence, was beyond words.
‘What? You're saying it's not because of me, but because of your child?’
Though anger surged within her as she recalled the harsh words he had thrown at her the day before, when she saw the barley rice and grilled dried pollack placed on the meal table, tears welled up in Nokhee’s eyes.
Her mood had soured since morning, and with no appetite, she forced herself to take a spoonful of rice. Although she found the servant’s words infuriating, she also knew they weren’t entirely wrong. After all, she had to eat well and stay healthy for the baby inside her.
After finishing her meal, she placed the empty dishes outside the door. But even then, there was no sign of Kijoon. At this point, Nokhee’s stubbornness kicked in.
Even when she was living the life of a cherished daughter in a noble family, it was rare to catch a glimpse of that arrogant face.
Assuming he was hiding somewhere, as usual, she too decided to walk her own path.
Upon reaching the vacant lot behind the shrine, just like yesterday, she saw that the dug hole, the discarded firewood, and the bundles of papers with the copied genealogy were still exactly as they had been. That, at least, was a stroke of luck. It seemed the insolent servant hadn’t come to check on this place yet.
"Well, even if he had seen it, he probably wouldn't have cared much."
Muttering to herself, Nokhee rolled up her sleeves and immediately resumed the task she had started the day before. Now that she had been given free rein, she was determined to do things exactly as she pleased this time.
However, even on a crisp autumn day, spending hours under the blazing sun driving thick wooden posts into the ground felt like nothing short of gruelling manual labour.
Once again, before she could even finish ten, she was drenched in cold sweat, her vision blurring. A sharp pain shot through her lower abdomen, and Nokhee quickly retreated to the shade of a nearby tree to rest.
Collapsing onto the dirt ground without a care, she looked at what she had accomplished and saw that about twenty wooden grave markers were already standing.
The grave of the Yoon family, who had once ruled the world while riding on the back of an Imugi, was now nothing more than a grave in the backyard of a residence, with the epitaph crudely attached to unsplit firewood. If Yoon Jucheol and his relatives were to see this, they would have been so shocked that they might have collapsed, clutching their necks.
However, the dead could not speak. Gazing upon the miserable fate of those who had tormented her without respite, she felt an indescribable emptiness and profound sorrow.
・・・・・
Day after day, Nokhee ate the breakfast prepared by the phantom before heading to the gravesite to erect the tombstones for the Yoon family.
Thinking of the child in her womb, she didn’t overdo it and took breaks, but after several days of backbreaking labor, her hands and feet were covered in blisters, and her muscles ached.
Finally, on the fourth day, the Yoon family’s graves were nearly completed. A few tombstones were still left to be set up, but now that she had gained some skill, she was able to finish those quickly.
Just then, the sky darkened with a gloomy hue, and cold raindrops began to fall one by one. At this rate, the rain would soon turn into a downpour.
Nokhee moved faster than usual, eager to finish burying the remaining graves. She planned to cover the papers, which had the names and birthdates written on them, with a cloth to keep them dry.
It was at that moment. Suddenly, a shadow was cast over her head.
“Stop.”
A familiar voice pierced her ears. Nokhee looked up.
There stood the servant, glaring at her coldly, holding an umbrella tilted towards her, just as she had done before.
"Please stop now."
“...”
"For a woman of a noble family to be working as a gravedigger, this is absurd."
Was he angry? Nokhee instinctively held her breath and cautiously studied Kijoon.
However, as always, his expression was blank, and the dimming light made it hard to gauge his thoughts. The corners of his eyes, upturned as usual, seemed fiercer than normal, but then again, maybe not...
Nevertheless, unlike before, Nokhee did not repeatedly bow her head in fear, anxiously trying to read Kijoon’s mood.
Having not shown his face for four days, she wondered what had brought him to stand in her way now. Giving up on trying to figure out his thoughts, she simply shrugged her shoulders.
"What does it matter? I'm not a real noblewoman anyway."
"I told you to stop."
As she bent down to finish levelling the ground around the tombstone she had just set up, he warned her in a lowered voice. But what could he do to stop her?
"Instead of nagging, go stick some firewood in that pit over there. If you’d helped earlier, we would have finished much sooner. Tsk."
Knowing he would dislike it, she brazenly scolded him and casually walked to the next pit. As expected, the insolent servant neither helped nor stopped her.
Despite not helping, he followed her like a stray dog, causing more trouble than anything. By the time the last tombstone was set, the heavy rain finally poured down.
Sssswwaaa―.
The torrential downpour drenched not only the paper with the names and inscriptions but also Nokhee and Kijoon, leaving them both soaked to the bone like drowned rats.
From the beginning, Kijoon had been holding the umbrella over her, but because she was running around so quickly, she couldn’t avoid the rain at all. Eventually, it became so bothersome that she even snapped at him to put it away.
After setting up all the tombstones, she walked to the front and stood before the grave of Yoon Jucheol, the head of the Yoon family. She had brought incense, but because of the rain, she couldn’t light it.
Since there was no sign of the rain stopping, Nokhee had no choice but to kneel down and perform a deep bow.
Unfazed by the dirt, Nokhee performed four deep bows on the bare, muddy ground, earnestly praying for the souls of the departed.
She hoped that the spirits of the Yoon family, whose bodies had not been properly cared for and were now wandering in the underworld, would at least find some peace with this humble funeral. She prayed that they would stop harbouring resentment and ascend to the heavens and that the gods would take pity on them, easing their suffering, even if only a little.
With all her heart and sincerity, Nokhee prayed again and again.
When she finally finished her bows and stood up, Nokhee was drenched in rain and covered in mud, appearing utterly dishevelled. As she looked at the tomb she had erected, the ink on the tombstone inscriptions had been washed away by the rain. The ashes from the burnt bodies had also turned to mud, dissolving into the earth as if absorbed by it.
“...Is this what you intended to do, my lady?”
The servant, who had been holding the useless umbrella behind her the whole time, suddenly asked.
“You gave those who had tormented you for so long a pitiful funeral, and you prayed in front of the ashes of nameless bodies?”
“...”
“And now, you’re just confirming that it was all in vain, getting drenched in the rain?”
“No.”
At Kijoon's harsh and blunt words, which pricked at her heart, Nokhee shook her head firmly, refusing to be hurt any further.
"I have forgiven them for the wrongs they have inflicted on me over the years."
At those words, the servant's mouth, which had been open, snapped shut as if locked with a padlock.
The raindrops beating against her body grew even stronger. She might catch a cold at this rate. Before she had to endure more of his nagging, Nokhee turned towards her quarters and casually took Kijoon’s hand, leading him along.
“The smell of death is suffocating, isn’t it?”
“...”
“The little one inside me wants some fresh air, so let’s open the castle gates. What do you think?"
The wet skirt clung to her, making her protruding belly stand out even more. She placed his hand on her stomach and asked, but the insolent servant offered no response.
Nevertheless, Nokhee smiled brightly, as if she felt an overwhelming sense of relief and pride for having accomplished what she set out to do with her own strength.
・・・・・
A few days later, the gates of Hwangju Castle, which had been tightly shut, were thrown wide open.
Nokhee began taking out all the treasures stacked in layers in the warehouse and distributing them to the people. Kijoon, displeased, showed his dissatisfaction, wondering why she insisted on doing such bothersome things.
“There isn’t much left now. Can you help me a bit, hmm?”
Unlike the other task involving the Yoon family’s tombstones, where there was resistance and tension, a bit of gentle coaxing sufficed, and the unreliable servant reluctantly offered his help.
Word spread that wealth was being distributed in Hwangju regardless of status, and people from all over the country began flocking there. Beggars, slaves, commoners, and even nobles arrived.
Among them, the majority were people from the capital. Many had lost their families and homes overnight due to the sudden yokai attack and were now wandering aimlessly.
Nokhee and Kijoon distributed the wealth as fairly as possible, allowing those without a place to stay to live inside the castle. After all, the wealth was never theirs to begin with, so there was no reason to be greedy.
Eventually, the warehouse was completely emptied, and the people who had come looking for scraps slowly stopped arriving.
“My lady.”
“Hmm?”
“I have something for you.”
Kijoon, who had been assisting her, suddenly placed something in her hands.
The black objects piled up like a mountain in her hands, spilling onto the ground, and there seemed to be at least several dozen of them.
She wondered what these were, only to realise they were none other than black snake scales.
“...Ki-Kijoon. What is this...?”
Had her efforts only led to the reverse scales growing even more?
Nokhee, pale with fear, alternated her gaze between the reverse scales and Kijoon’s face.
Seeing his female tremble, unable to breathe, as if imagining something, the snake yokai immediately undid his transformation spell and reverted to his true form.
Only after seeing the delicate, newly sprouted scales growing in the right direction on the massive black snake, which filled the entire room, did Nokhee feel a sense of relief. Overcome with emotion, she then burst into tears.
Finally, what she had longed for and deeply wished for had come true.
Nokhee embraced her hideous and pitiful lover, crying uncontrollably for a long time.
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