Breeding Season - Chapter 9
Yasamin furrowed his elegant eyes and brushed his hand over his chest. He couldn’t completely ignore the will of [this] lurking within him. [This] and he were one yet two, two yet one.
Still, it was better than a yapping bastard of a dog that acted as if it had never been hurt. Such things were noisy and unpleasant to look at.
Yasamin knew well that he was a twisted man, and he felt no shame about it.
When he saw happiness, he wanted to destroy it. When he saw someone laughing thoughtlessly, he wanted to hit them so they could never laugh again.
Those who had lived like maggots all grew up harboring the same kind of venom. They gathered together and ultimately brought down the Wilkeron dynasty. Every achievement he had built was impossible without [this]’s help.
“Your Highness. How much longer do you plan to keep the princess with you?”
Though there had been no sound of approach, Yasamin was already aware that someone was coming. He even knew who it was.
“The warriors are greatly dissatisfied.”
The man, wearing glasses and with his long hair tied back into a single tail, was named Eltan.
His strategist.
“Dissatisfied?”
When Yasamin raised an eyebrow, Eltan quietly lowered his head.
“You promised to wipe out everyone bearing the Wilkeron name. They even attacked us the moment we entered the hall.”
“Ah, did they?”
“If you take her all the way to the south like this, there will be an uproar. If you intend to spare her, it would be better to release her here. Otherwise, you should treat her more like a proper prisoner.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Giving a vague reply, Yasamin furrowed his brows as he focused on the faint sound of water behind him.
Even washing up, she was that cautious.
Well, Eltan had a point. If he took her with him, the woman would surely be stoned by the enraged people of the south.
If he wanted to let her live, it would be right to set her free here.
It was the right thing to do.
‘But I don’t want to.’
He had a justification of sorts.
The prophecy about the Wilkeron woman with blue eyes. From the start, the very reason Yasamin had intervened in this matter was because of that ‘prophecy.’ And Siren Wilkeron was, to him, the closest existence to that prophecy.
There was no logical reason… but if she wasn’t, then why would [this] want her?
‘The problem is, that’s hard to explain.’
In any case, he was an uneducated man. He had never been able to explain things in a structured manner. If he wanted something, he took it. If he didn’t like it, he cut it down. If it annoyed him, he killed it. If he got angry, he crushed it, and if he was in a good mood, he was generous. That was the way of life for someone raised as a gladiator slave since childhood.
So, even now, he could only express this feeling as, ‘I just don’t want to.’
As for why…
Well, why should he have to explain that?
As Yasamin silently retraced his thoughts, the tendons in his jaw tensed.
“If they have complaints, tell them to formally challenge me to a duel. If they can’t do that, then they should shut up and stop concerning themselves with what’s mine.”
“Hmm, understood.”
Sensing his master’s displeasure, Eltan carefully moved on to the next matter.
“Shall we maintain our current marching speed?”
“Yeah.”
“There are some saying that the entire army is moving too slowly because the princess is limping.”
“So?”
A cold wind began to stir around Yasamin.
Faced with the sudden wave of murderous intent, Eltan suppressed his trembling body and fell to his knees.
“I misspoke. Please forgive me.”
At this point, he truly needed to watch his words.
No matter how much Yasamin trusted him, no matter how rare it was for someone to be able to speak to him directly, not everything could be forgiven.
Yasamin was a brutal ruler who did not tolerate defiance. That was precisely why he had been able to dominate the south, a land filled only with madmen.
Looking down at Eltan, Yasamin tossed out a sharp remark.
“Tell them to stop entertaining useless thoughts now that we’re nearing Taran. They should focus on being cautious instead. Soon, we’ll be entering a region crawling with infected.”
“Infected.”
Reanimated corpses. The dead that could move and even run. If bitten by one, the living would also become infected.
The only way to take them down was to crush their skulls, but typically, the infected were three times faster than an ordinary person. The warriors who had followed him past Taran had all faced the infected before, yet even the most experienced could not afford to be careless. If even a single person among them got infected, they could all die.
“I-I… I’m done washing up.”
Even after Eltan had left, Yasamin was still frowning when a barely audible voice slipped into his ears.
A voice as delicate as the way she had been raised.
She had never been scratched by an infected’s claws, never been strangled by her own father’s hands, never been sold off by her mother. She had never smashed a sibling’s head with a rock just to get an extra bite of a rotten potato.
She had never wandered the streets as a child, eyes bloodshot with hunger, standing at the edge of life or death, ready to stab or be stabbed.
Of course, it didn’t seem like she had been loved by her parents, either. After all, her eyes overflowed with tears.
But even so, she had lived a life far happier than 99 percent of the people in the south. A life sustained by the wealth stolen from them.
‘So, I should find her disgusting.’
When their eyes met, her blue ones flinched and trembled. She wavered, unsure of what to do, before ultimately lowering her head.
It was pathetic.
Yet, he didn’t feel the urge to crush her.
