BW C45

Chapter 45

Hoeun finished two bowls of porridge. Chilbok had served it in a bowl big enough to wash a face in, and after emptying that, he ate another. He had never eaten this much in his life. Had his parents seen it, they would have clapped, delighted at the auspicious sign.

For some reason, the porridge went down in easy gulps. Perhaps it was because Chilbok sat pressed at his side, watching him anxiously. Or because Dongja and Mansu came by in turns, offering to share their porridge with him. Or because Gilsang brought him an outer robe, saying the day was cool. Or because, for once, Taemuk sat beside him, eating porridge with him.

At any rate, after eating well for the first time in a while, his body felt very good. His sight was clear, and strength filled his limbs.

He wasn’t the only one brimming with energy. The other soldiers’ complexions were distinctly better too. Each had eaten a bowl of porridge. Having had it as a snack, neither breakfast nor lunch, their bellies were quite full. And since they’d done nothing all morning and even dozed in a nap, their faces gleamed.

According to Dongja, daytime sleep is the sweetest, and daytime idleness the most carefree.

It was all thanks to Taemuk that Hoeun and the soldiers were in better shape. At first he had wondered why make so much porridge when it would take a long time, and why sleep all of a sudden; perhaps it was so the soldiers wouldn’t hold him in low regard on Hoeun’s account.

“…”

Riding, Hoeun craned his neck to look at Taemuk’s back at the head of the column. In uniform, his back looked broader and stronger than usual today. The corner of Hoeun’s mouth lifted, almost imperceptibly.

It seemed he had misjudged Taemuk. He might be a little spiteful toward him, but he wasn’t a bad person. He was the general leading this large unit—a man who knew how to handle soldiers, and had won their trust. A hero who saved the country could hardly be a bad man.

Seen this way, Taemuk matched, to a tee, the Military God Hoeun had vaguely admired. No—he surpassed it. He killed monsters with his bare hands, was tall, taciturn in a manly way, had a fine voice, was handsome…

Now it was only up to Hoeun to do well.

He need only become a guide worthy of him.

Gripping the reins tight, he set his face in resolve.

“Marchin’ all the time like this wears you out, don’t it?”

Gilsang, beside him, asked. Hoeun started, then shook his head. It seemed the man was looking after him since he had been unwell in the morning—truly a kind person.

“No. It’s all right.”

“We’ll be at the garrison soon, so bear with it just a bit. Might even arrive tonight if we’re quick.”

“The garrison? Today?”

At the mention of the destination he had forgotten, Hoeun’s brows shot up. Gilsang bobbed his jaw.

“Yes. Once we get to the garrison, the bedding’s comfortable, and the food is much better. Ah, and you can bathe in hot water. It’s not a bad place to stay at all.”

“Hot water…”

At that, Hoeun’s lids softened wide. Bedding and food aside, a bath was what he truly longed for. Washing in freezing river water was a harsher trial than expected. If he could steep himself in hot water, all his fatigue would melt away.

“What kind of place is the garrison?”

He asked without thinking—and then started and shook his head quickly.

“Ah—I—misspoke.”

It must have been just after they set out—when they hadn’t yet left Hanyang—that he had asked Gilsang where they were going.

“We’re headed for Jeokudae’s garrison.”

“And where is that?”

“Well… can’t tell you.”

He had hidden the answer with a troubled face. He had completely forgotten that. He wasn’t a member of Jeokudae yet. He’d been wearing a cheollik on his own all this time and still hadn’t felt the incongruity. A few days of sleeping, eating, and talking together had made him fancy he had become Jeokudae.

How foolish.

He jerked his chin in, like a tap on the forehead, and squeezed his eyes shut and opened them. Gilsang spoke with a small laugh.

“It’s on the plain over the mountain.”

“A plain?”

“Yes. Right in the middle of a broad plain with no mountains, no trees.”

Picturing tents plunked in the midst of a plain, Hoeun tilted his head.

“Then… wouldn’t it stand out too much?”

“That’s right. You can see it from far off, clear as day.”

“What if the monsters attack?”

“We’d see ’em.”

“Sir?”

“They’d see us, and we’d see them. So we’d know right away when and from where they’re coming. That makes it easy to defend.”

“Ah…”

He didn’t fully understand, but he nodded anyway. There must be reasons enough. A broad plain with no mountains or trees—for someone who had lived only in the capital, where there were mountains or walls on all sides, it was hard to imagine.

Still, he felt a thrill—another new world was about to unfold. Though it would also be a battlefield, the very notion of a “destination” stirred him. In his life, the only destinations had been the hospital or the apothecary.

A garrison. Once there, this constant traveling would end. What would fill the idle hours? Would they draw up operations, and train? And the time left after that? What would Taemuk do then? Would he stay with Hoeun? Then—could they grow closer?

“…”

With eyes bright, Hoeun looked ahead. Today, the Taegeuk flag and Jeokudae’s banner seemed to flap more briskly.

A gentle descent continued on and on, and soon a level terrain began. The dense trees thinned to sparse, and the grasses that had reached his knees grew low. Then, he realized he had completely crossed the mountain.

Around the time the sun flushed red, a narrow path appeared.

A footpath.

It was unmistakably a trace of people. And soon after, clearer traces appeared.

Ridges and furrows rising and falling in steady rhythm, a narrow brooklet trickling, and above it, crops planted at even intervals.

A field. Fields stretched along the footpath to the left and to the right. From their breadth, it appeared at least dozens of hands had worked them.

With a face touched by excitement, Hoeun looked to Gilsang.

“Sergeant, there are fields. Do people live nearby?”

Gilsang nodded.

“There’s a small village nearby. We passed through it on the way to the capital, too.”

“A village?”

“Strictly speaking, it’s more like…”

He trailed off.

“…”

Hoeun waited for him to continue. But Gilsang closed his mouth and said no more. If not a village, then what? he wondered—but did not ask further. He was simply too eager.

A village. Never having visited another village, he was excited. What would it look like? What shapes were the houses? How did the people dress, how did they speak? Everything excited him.

He searched the fields for people. For some reason, there wasn’t a single person in the broad expanse.

Odd, but not strange. Along one side, tools and baskets were neatly stacked. It seemed, by the look of it, that it wasn’t working time.

And before long, thatched houses came into view.

“Uh…”

Hoeun was mildly surprised.

He was surprised that the thatched houses were “visible.”

Hanyang was ringed on all sides by high walls against monster incursions. He had heard that other towns had built similar defenses. The papers had said that small villages that could not raise walls had either failed to withstand the monsters and vanished, or had moved to nearby towns.

Why, here, did thatched houses stand so unguarded, in plain sight? Come to think of it, the fields were the same. They lay open, with no defensive lines.

Only belatedly feeling the strangeness, Hoeun frowned. He saw a wall around the thatched houses—a ridge of packed and dried mud, with rough, stake-like bits of wood thrust into the top. It was as high as Hoeun’s height, and didn’t look particularly sturdy.

There was no way it could hold back monsters. They wouldn’t even need to leap; a shove with their bodies would likely send it collapsing.

“…”

He had a curious feeling. He didn’t know why—but something felt musty and off.

Jeokudae skirted around with the village wall at its flank. Hoeun felt a pang of disappointment—he had hoped to look in on the village.

As a poor substitute, he craned his head and peered over the wall. A few thatched houses stood haphazardly, without pattern. Each was old and shabby. The sort of house shape hard to find within Hanyang, where new modern conveniences arrived daily.

Walls smeared thoughtlessly with mud into lumpy surfaces, roofs thinly thatched with straw, flapping lattice doors, an outdoor hearth opening, and a condiment jar stand so small one wondered what it could hold.

At a glance, the silent village looked peaceful. There were no screams, no bloodstains. No trace of monsters.

And… no people.

If they weren’t in the fields, where had they all gone? Perhaps to distant fields to work? But even if the able had gone out, shouldn’t there be elders or children?

The more he looked, the stranger the village. Fixing his gaze over the wall, Hoeun asked Gilsang,

“How can there be not a single person in the village?”