IEJ 07

Chapter 07

Is It Now the 22nd Year of Emperor Harsha’s Reign?

Chungbi felt uneasy being alone in the room with a foreign man she had never seen before. She almost wanted to call the middle-aged woman back.

Perhaps noticing Chungbi’s discomfort, the man kept a reasonable distance and did not come any closer.

He was Prince Adros.

“Are you feeling a little better now?”

Seeing Chungbi’s stiff, frightened expression, Adros smiled reassuringly.

It was ironic. Although he was a man she had never seen before, somehow his presence made her feel relieved and at ease.

He genuinely seemed worried about her.

“I brought you here after finding you collapsed by the river.”

His voice was low and smooth, pleasant to listen to.

With slightly downturned eyes and lips that seemed to be smiling even when he wasn’t, he gave off a neat and kind impression.

Even the lines of his face were so fine.

If there were a textbook example of a handsome, well-groomed man, he would be it.

It might be unfair to judge someone based solely on their face, but Chungbi felt an overwhelming sense of trust from him.

She felt that if it were this man, he would tell her everything she wanted to know.

“You brought me here? Where is here? And who are you? Do you also know why I was by the river?”

Unable to hold herself back, Chungbi fired all her questions at once.

“My name is Adros. I am also curious about why you were there. Until recently, that place was practically a dead river. But the river and its surroundings had all come back to life. And you were lying there.”

“Then this place is…”

“The capital of the Itan Empire, Taneshi. This is the detached palace at Pertain Palace that I use as my residence.”

Every place name was completely unfamiliar.

The Itan Empire? Taneshi? Pertain Palace?

I don’t know a single one of these places.

Chungbi’s mind went blank.

This man said this was Taneshi, the capital of the Itan Empire, right?

The capital of South Korea was Seoul. So does that mean I’m not in Seoul—or even in South Korea—but in another country?

Wanting to see outside, which had been too dark to make out yesterday, Chungbi walked to the window and drew back the curtain.

And without realizing it, she blurted out,

“W-What is this?!”

Chungbi’s body stiffened, and her eyes widened as if they were about to pop out.

Unable to close her wide-open mouth, she could only stare blankly at the sight spread out before her.

She rubbed her eyes in disbelief and looked again, but nothing had changed.

Immaculately maintained green gardens, as if they had been painted onto the landscape, stretched endlessly in every direction, making it difficult to take everything in at a glance.

There were countless Western-style pavilions scattered throughout, along with so many fountains and ponds that she couldn’t possibly count them all.

On either side of the gardens stood enormous buildings resembling the palaces and mansions she had seen in books about Western history.

Is this a movie set? Or a museum recreating ancient Western history?

Right. She had seen sets before, where everything looked incredibly realistic on the outside. They even showed them on television.

Maybe that man is practicing some kind of acting with me?

“Is this some kind of set? Korea has a lot of foreign movies filmed there. Is that what this is?”

“I do not understand what you mean. Where exactly are you from? You do not appear to be from the Itan Empire.”

“Where am I from? We’re in Korea right now.”

“Ko… rea…?”

“Yes. The Republic of Korea. We shorten it to ‘Korea.’”

“I have never heard of such a place.”

What?! He’s never heard of it?

Chungbi was stunned by the man’s completely serious response, with not even the slightest trace of playfulness in his expression.

Maybe she had heard him wrong.

“You’ve never heard of it? You mean you’ve never heard of the Republic of Korea?”

“No. It is a place name I have never heard before.”

“Even if you’re a foreigner, how can you not know Seoul? Seoul, the capital of South Korea. Samsung, BTS, Kim Yuna—you seriously don’t know Korea, the world’s only divided country?”

As Chungbi rattled off her words like a machine gun, Adros could only look troubled.

Sigh. If this were acting, that man’s eyes were far too sincere.

Even if foreigners didn’t know anything else, they usually knew Samsung.

And BTS had even topped the Billboard main chart. Not knowing about South Korea, the only divided country in the world?

“If it is a village inhabited by only a small number of people, it is possible that I would not know of it. I shall have someone investigate and find this place called Korea.”

A small number of people…? A village…?

Suddenly, the headache she hadn’t had before came crashing down on her.

Chungbi was so dumbfounded that she even let out a hollow laugh.

Korea is a village?! How could fifty million people possibly be considered a small number?

This guy is really good at acting.

If he isn’t acting, then there’s something seriously wrong with him.

Right. Judging from the way he kept saying things she couldn’t understand at all, sorry to say, but he didn’t seem quite right in the head.

Then it made a little more sense.

He lives in a world of imagination and fiction, so of course he could say things like that.

Poor guy. He looks perfectly normal, too.

Chungbi withdrew her sympathetic gaze from the man and turned her attention back to the scenery outside the window, examining it carefully.

And then she realized something.

This was far too elaborate to be a set. If it were a movie set, there should have been staff wearing modern clothes, cameras, or filming equipment somewhere.

But there was nothing.

Every person outside was dressed in hairstyles and clothing that looked like they belonged to the Middle Ages in the West.

And they all looked peaceful, as though simply going about their daily lives.

There was absolutely no sign that they were acting.

Could this really be real?

If so, then everything this man had said…

Could it all be true?

Then the language she was speaking and understanding as naturally as her mother tongue—was that the language of this Itan Empire or whatever it was?

Chungbi staggered from the shock.

“W-Where did you say this place was?”

“The capital of the Itan Empire, Taneshi…”

“Yes, I got that. Up to there. Then, by any chance…”

Her voice trembled, and even her breath shook as she asked.

“It probably isn’t, but I just want to ask to make sure. W-What year is it right now?”

“It has been twenty-two years since His Majesty Emperor Harsha ascended the throne, so it is the twenty-second year of Emperor Harsha’s reign.”

The man’s answer plunged Chungbi even deeper into shock.

She was practically on the verge of fainting.

“The year is a little unusual. Okay, I get it now. This must be a dream. A really long dream. I guess I haven’t fully woken up yet.”

As though desperately denying reality, Chungbi went back to the bed, lay down, pulled the blanket all the way over her head, and squeezed her eyes shut.

Adros quietly watched the woman as she tossed and turned, muttered to herself, and eventually lay down on the bed.

After twisting around several times, Chungbi suddenly sat upright again.

When her eyes met Adros’s, she realized that reality had not changed at all. She buried her face in the pillow and began screaming.

“Aaaah! This is driving me crazy! If it’s not a dream, then what the hell is this?! Aaaah! This makes no sense! None of this makes any sense!”

If I fell into the water, shouldn’t I at least be in the Dragon Palace or the afterlife?

Of course, neither of those would make any sense either, but at least they would have some kind of logic to them.

What is this? Did I suddenly get dropped into an entirely new world?

And not just any world, but somewhere in the Middle East? The West? Some unknown region around the Middle Ages?

How am I supposed to explain this?

As horrifying as it was, Chungbi could no longer deny that she was somehow in the distant past.

And in a country she had never even heard of—the Itan Empire!

The language she was speaking and understanding like her native tongue was apparently the language of the Itan Empire.

The country’s name was unfamiliar, and so was its language.

She had never heard the title Emperor Harsha before, either.

Chungbi let out a deep sigh.

“This makes no sense. How could something like this… How could this happen to me…”

Fainting would be better.

She wanted to escape this situation somehow, this impossible situation that had suddenly become her reality.

Was this some kind of divine prank?

She didn’t know where she was or why she was here. Why had this happened to her?

I want to see Dad.

Thinking about her father, Chungbi’s eyes filled with tears.

After years of trying, her mother and father had finally been blessed with her when they were both over forty.

They had even chosen her name themselves.

Her surname was Kim, and her given name was Jacheongbi.

Kim Jacheongbi—the name her parents had given her themselves, meaning a daughter they had willingly chosen to have.

Not long after she was born, her mother passed away. Her father never remarried and raised her alone, taking on the role of her mother as well.

His only daughter had disappeared.

He must have fallen ill from worry.

He must have been searching everywhere for her by now.

And what about my plane ticket to Spain? I worked so hard to win that competition and earn it!

Her eyes burned, and tears rolled down her cheeks.

“If you are crying because you want to return home, then I shall take you there. I will make sure to escort you home as quickly as possible.”

There was no way he could take her there.

Why had this happened to her?

Even the warm words of this kind-looking man could not comfort Chungbi now.

What had happened to her was impossible to explain, so she couldn’t easily tell him her story either.

The thought that she was completely alone in this world suddenly made Chungbi feel unbearably lonely.

After shedding tears for a while, she buried her face completely in the blanket and began sobbing loudly.

“It seems you would prefer to be alone. I shall return once you have calmed down.”

How much time had passed after the man left?

Perhaps because she had cried so much, her eyes were swollen and she could barely open them. Her eyelids even stung.

She just wanted to lie there, but even in a situation like this, hunger refused to make an exception.

“Even now, I’m hungry.”

Because she hadn’t eaten anything for so long, Chungbi’s stomach was growling violently.

A table had been set with soup and various kinds of food, presumably for her to eat.

Chungbi immediately rushed over and sat down, then gulped down the soup as though she were drinking water.

She grabbed a piece of bread in one hand and a chicken leg in the other and began tearing into them ravenously.

Bread, chicken, bread, chicken.

She kept stuffing them into her mouth one after another when suddenly, without any warning, the door flew open.

Chungbi looked toward the door with her mouth completely full of food.

It wasn’t the polite and kind man from earlier.

Another foreign man was walking toward her.

Chungbi slowly took in his appearance as though savoring the flavor of a new dish.

She naturally lowered the piece of bread she had been gripping tightly and began seriously appraising the man.

That man’s clothes also look like something from a Western historical drama.

His clothes fit well, and his overall proportions were pretty impressive. One glance was enough to tell that he didn’t have an ounce of extra fat on him.

And his face…?

Gasp!

He was absolutely top-tier!

Why is this man so pretty?

Handsome? Rugged? No, he’s a gorgeous man!

If I keep staring at him, I might actually lose my mind.

It was as though a statue that belonged in the British Museum had come to life, with a face that looked as if it had stepped straight out of mythology.

Chungbi couldn’t speak with food in her mouth, so she could only stare at him.

His sharp eyes, cold enough to send chills down her spine, held the faintest trace of a smile.

His straight, elegant nose and sharply defined jawline were so sleek that Chungbi thought he absolutely belonged in one of those advertisements promoting a perfect V-shaped jaw.

His tightly closed lips were tinged with red, and the corners curved naturally upward. If there were such a thing as a man born specifically to captivate women, surely this man was it.

And strangely enough, although she was certain she had never seen him before, he didn’t feel unfamiliar.

“What are you staring at so intently?”

“……”

What a combination.

Even his voice had the refreshing coolness of peppermint candy.

“You seemed better when your eyes were closed. And when it was dark.”

As she remained captivated by the man’s breathtaking appearance, Chungbi’s head gradually filled with question marks.

Who the hell are you?

Do you know me?