BW C77

Chapter 77

“…”

Hoeun pressed his lips shut. He wanted to answer, yet no words came. He could neither deny nor admit what had been said. At that moment, the doctor pushed something across the desk.

“Here. This is yours, isn’t it? Looks valuable.”

It was Hoeun’s handkerchief. He accepted it, leaving the money untouched. He turned to express his thanks once again when—

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

A heavy pounding resounded from outside. The whole building quivered as though struck at its foundations. Hoeun knew the sound—it was the same one he had heard when he first arrived at the hospital.

Cannon fire.

Unthinking, Hoeun moved toward the window. But Seong-im, suddenly at his side, seized his arm and pulled him back before she checked outside herself.

Again, Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! The cannons thundered, walls trembling so fiercely it seemed the hospital itself might collapse.

Seong-im drew her blade. Hoeun clutched the child to his breast, and the frightened child in turn wrapped his arms around Hoeun’s neck. All three froze, taut with alarm.

“….”

“….”

Yet the doctor and nurse showed no surprise. If anything, they seemed indifferent, as though this were routine.

The cannon fire rang out a few more times, then stopped. Still, Seong-im kept her blade bare, her eyes ceaselessly flicking toward door and window alike. Then, in a flat voice, the doctor said:

“You’d best leave. More will come.”

“Pardon? What will…”

Hoeun began, but the door banged open.

A soldier stood there, drenched in blood. “Doctor!”

With a deep, weary sigh, the physician rose to his feet. The nurse too stood, wiping her cheek with a tired shoulder. They only exchanged a brief nod of acknowledgment with Hoeun before hurrying out.

So it was left strangely inverted—Hoeun and Seong-im, their supposed guests, becoming the last to exit the room.

Outside, the scene was even more hellish than before. Bodies bleeding everywhere, soldiers especially numerous among the wounded.

Hoeun now understood why the cannons had fired. The monsters, coming in swarms, must have launched another full assault against the hospital.

“It seems monsters charged again. I hope Sergeant Oh is safe. The cannon fire has ceased now… The child is treated—perhaps we should return.”

He spoke to Seong-im quietly. Gilsang had said he would come once matters were settled, but the silence gnawed at him.

Hoeun walked the blood-slick corridor slowly, child in arms. Seong-im followed, impassive, unreadable.

Upon leaving the hospital, the acrid reek of powder smoke stung their nostrils. Amid the haze, Jeokudae soldiers and the town’s guards rushed busily about.

Hoeun stretched his neck high, searching for Gilsang. At last he saw him, near the gates, issuing commands. His face was smeared with blood, but none seemed his own.

Following his orders, Jeokudae fought the monsters that had breached the wall. Those struck by cannon shot were spared only their helmet-skulls; their bodies were already melted and ruined, making them easier to finish. Yet the breach itself meant the defense was faltering.

Hoeun, watching from afar, sank down on the low stone edging of a flowerbed. His arms ached from holding the child. Seong-im, as naturally as breath, remained at his side.

“I’ll stay here,” Hoeun told her. “You should see to your duties. Thank you for escorting me this far.”

But Seong-im shook her head.

“You mean… you’ll remain by me?”

She nodded firmly.

“….”

Hoeun opened his mouth to dismiss her again, then closed it. She would not leave simply at his word. He recalled something Gilsang once said:

‘If I die protecting you, young master, another guide will come. If that one dies too, another still. However many die, you must remain.’

Perhaps Seong-im lived with the very same conviction.

The thought weighed on him—he felt himself a heavy burden to these people. Maybe he truly should have stayed behind at camp. Was that the right choice, after all? He sighed softly, silently.

—

Taemuk, entering Ramjae Town from the western wall, was forced to halt at once. His black eyes narrowed, twisted with disdain at the scene before him.

“…Hah. What is this?”

It wasn’t his first time entering a town under monster attack. Sometimes he’d arrived in chaos, corpses still falling. Sometimes he’d come too late, when all had already been devoured and the beasts had fled. He’d seen every kind of devastation. But never this.

The town was swallowed by earth. Not only the ground but the entire settlement was buried in soil. Buildings were half collapsed or toppled outright, trees either wrenched out roots and all or driven back into the ground at grotesque angles.

“….”

Taemuk’s narrow eyes swept it over. Hard to say this was the doing of monsters. More like a landslide.

He turned toward the local soldier—the one who had gone to Jeokudae’s camp for aid. His gaze was clear: Explain this. But the soldier only gaped, turning about, bewildered. When he had left two days earlier, the town had not been like this.

Taemuk clicked his tongue. Then leapt from his horse; behind him, Jeokudae soldiers swiftly dismounted to follow.

“….”

Striding boldly toward the mounds of earth, Taemuk let his gaze sweep sharply. He was searching for the cause.

A landslide itself was not unnatural. Nature was fickle, vindictive. But for such a disaster to strike precisely when monsters besieged the town—that was strange.

Had heavy rain fallen these two days? Strong winds?

Ramjae-eup—“Wind Pass Town.” Aptly named, flanked on either side by enormous mountains, battered by fierce valley winds throughout every season. But these mountains had endured millennia. Mere rain and storms could never topple them so.

“….”

Taemuk pressed a boot deep against the fallen soil. The dark brown dirt hardly sank at all. It was dense and compact, settled over eons between soil and stone. This wasn’t loose dirt that slid away—it was solid, as though something had broken it apart.

“Bring the map.”

He gestured behind.

“Yes.”

Byeong-uk, the soldier who was ever at his back, hurried forward and unfurled the map.

[Map of Ramjae Town]

“….”

Taemuk’s eyes traced it. Gates, guesthouse, officials’ quarters, armory, Yeonghwa Restaurant, Geumgyo Clinic… His gaze returned again, settling on—

[Armory]

The armory. Resting right beneath the mountain.

“Do they also store powder in the armory?” Taemuk asked, eyes still on the map.

He addressed the town soldier, who was still staring dazed at the sea of earth. Byeong-uk barked a sharp “Hey!” and the man finally blinked out of it.

“Y-yes?”

“The General asked—do you store powder in the armory?”

“Ah, yes. I—I believe so.”

Taemuk’s brow darkened.

“What fool sets powder beneath a mountain?”

“Ah, w-well…”

The soldier stammered, tongue-tied. Taemuk only waved him off. Of course—some idiot in command had done it. Thinking shade beneath the mountain was a safe place. And that stupidity had buried the town entire.

Taemuk’s gaze lingered on the shattered buildings crushed beneath the slide. Even monsters alone could not make such destruction. What of the people who had lived here?

“What will you do, General?” Byeong-uk asked.

“….”

Taemuk considered. The soldier had said he’d left only two days before. That meant, at most, those trapped within had endured two days without food or water. Still alive, perhaps. But any longer—and they’d die.

Another flick of the tongue. Roughly he shoved back his hair. This would be tedious. To kill was ever simple. To save—hard.

His plan had been simple: secure the shelters, rescue the townsfolk, slay the monsters. Now the order was changed entire.

He jabbed a finger at the map’s western shelter.

“Choose the fastest men. Send them to see if this one still stands.”

“Yes!”

“The rest—our task is to dig the living out. Be cautious lifting rock or timber. If we cause it to fall, we’ll crush those beneath.”

“Understood.”

“And I will…”

His words trailed as his gaze turned past the collapsed buildings.

KRAAAHHHK! KHK! KRAAAHK!

Monsters, catching the scent of human flesh, came running, howling, drooling.

“…Take care of those.”

Taemuk’s eyes turned black as pitch.