Chapter 53: Escort Warrior [3] The place Yeoni pointed to was the only one around that had no smoke rising from it.
Which meant it was most likely safe.
"Right, let's go. How far do you think it is?"
"That... I'm not sure."
"As long as we get there before the sun goes down."
"Yes."
"Can you walk?"
"Yes, Young master."
Yeoni forced a smile and took a step.
It was clear there was no problem with function.
Though there would be pain.
"Want me to carry you?"
"No. I'm fine."
"Then at least use this."
Kanghyeok handed her the sword he had dropped on the ground.
It was a little short, but it would do as a cane.
Especially if she held one in each hand while walking.
"This?"
"Yes. As a cane."
"Ah, yes."
Using the sheathed sword as a cane, Yeoni managed to walk quite well.
Kanghyeok did not even need to slow his pace for her.
After they walked like that for some time, they saw the end of the thicket.
Beyond it stretched rice paddies and fields.
There was no sign of people, but at least there were no corpses or flames either.
"That way, right?"
"Yes. I remembered it because it was a fairly large village."
"It is. It's huge, isn't it?"
At a rough glance, it easily looked to be over five hundred households.
There were many Japanese raiders, but a village of this size probably would not have been easy for them to target.
"Yes. I think it should be all right... but we should still be careful."
Yeoni whispered as she poked her head out past the thicket.
"Should we move after it gets dark?"
"Shall we?"
"Yes. Right now we're too easy to spot."
If they were discovered, it would be fine if they could run, but that would not be easy for Yeoni.
Since they had already confirmed there were houses here, resting a little was not a bad choice either.
"Yes."
"We should've brought some food."
"Ah, I think I have some."
Yeoni took down the bundle she had been carrying on her back.
It had been something given to the soldiers, and it seemed she had taken one too.
The contents inside were truly pitiful.
There was some kind of powder, but the color was strange.
"What is this?"
"Pine needle powder."
"Pine needles? People eat this?"
"Yes. It looks like rice flour was mixed in too, so it should be edible."
"Huh."
He was not some pine caterpillar, so why was he supposed to eat pine needles?
Kanghyeok was so dumbfounded that he was speechless for a moment.
She actually eats this.
There was not even any moisture in it, so it looked like it would choke her, yet she swallowed it down just fine.
More than anything, what hurt his pride was that the longer he watched, the hungrier he became.
—Grrr
As Yeoni shoveled powder into her mouth, she grinned.
With an unwashed hand, she held the powder out to Kanghyeok.
"Young master, eat."
"Ah... right."
It was not as if he had any clever alternative.
He could not ask injured Yeoni to go hunting.
And Kanghyeok could not go himself either.
It would be no different from wandering around lost in the forest.
What kind of forest doesn't even have berries...
He had seen mushrooms on the way, but they all looked like they would kill you at a glance.
A doctor could hardly let himself get poisoned to death on a low mountain.
"Hoo."
With a shallow sigh, Kanghyeok poured the mix of pine needle powder and rice flour into his mouth.
"Urk."
The moment it went in, a scream burst out instead of a sigh.
Because it was so dry, it all stuck to the inside of his mouth at once.
"Cough, cough."
"Are you all right?"
Yeoni hurriedly patted Kanghyeok on the back.
"I-I'm f... urgh... water."
"This is all we have..."
What Yeoni handed him was, of course, saline.
To think he would end up drinking this again.
And this time willingly.
Goddamn it...
Kanghyeok muttered a curse under his breath as he took the IV bag.
The saline sloshed inside the plastic, and it looked just like his mood.
"Ugh..."
Even the second time, the taste was still unbelievably strange.
If not for the powder, he would have wanted to spit it out immediately.
"Young master, if you want to live, you have to eat."
"Right..."
"If you keep chewing, it starts to taste sweet too."
"I'll try."
Kanghyeok ate the powder like a man forced to swallow mustard through tears.
Before long, the sun that had been hanging high overhead began to sink.
There was still light, but nowhere near as much as in daytime.
"Shall we go now?"
"Right. Will you be okay?"
"Yes. I'm better than before."
Perhaps because the bandage had been redone, even her movements looked much better.
As long as she did not run too hard, there should be no problem.
She had also redone her sangtu by now, so she looked as normal as ever.
"At least it wasn't near a joint. All right, let's go."
"Yes, Young master."
The two of them carefully stepped out of the thicket.
The village was still without any sign of life.
Even after crossing the waterlogged paddies and reaching the entrance to the village, they did not see so much as a single ant.
Why does this feel so strange?
It was clearly a quiet village.
If not for the Japanese raiders, it was peaceful enough that one might have wanted to stand and look at it for a long time.
But something was off.
It felt very different from the villages he had seen before.
"Wait, wait a second."
"Yes, Young master."
Kanghyeok hid beneath the wall at the edge of the village.
Yeoni followed him and hid beside him.
She was so small that it felt as though she fit neatly inside his arms.
"Doesn't something feel strange?"
"Yes?"
"This is somehow..."
"Too quiet, you mean?"
"No, more than that."
It being quiet was possible enough.
Everyone might have bolted their doors and hidden inside.
Powerless commoners would have every reason to do that.
Especially when just last night the punitive force had been wiped out instead.
It would have been stranger if they were not terrified.
"Right. That's it."
Kanghyeok muttered as he struck his palm with his fist.
Yeoni asked with a baffled look,
"What is it?"
"There's no smoke, no smoke."
"Wouldn't that just mean there are no Japanese raiders here yet?"
"No. That's not it..."
Kanghyeok looked around the village once more.
Again, it was quiet, and there was no smoke.
But was it not already past supper time?
"There's no cooking smoke."
"Ah!"
Yeoni let out a cry without thinking, then hurriedly shut her mouth.
Fortunately, it did not seem anyone had heard.
"Then shouldn't we leave quickly?"
"I think we're too late."
Kanghyeok pointed behind them.
Armed Japanese raiders were crossing the paddies in a line.
There were not that many of them, but in any case, not a number the two of them could handle.
"Damn."
"Let's run inside for now."
"Yes, Young master."
The water had already been spilled.
The two of them began running across the village.
There seemed to have been an earlier attack, because there were bloodstains here and there inside.
But there were no corpses at all.
It seemed someone had already taken care of them.
As they ran like that for some time, someone called out to them.
"Hey, over there!"
Turning around, they saw a man holding a crudely made bamboo spear.
"Ah, so there are still living people."
"What did you come here for?"
"There are all kinds of reasons."
The man looked over Kanghyeok's clothes, then tilted his head.
"You're not dressed for a battlefield... but you're wearing a sword."
"I was with the punitive force."
"Ah! The punitive force! Come this way first. Everyone's gathered together."
"Looks like there are a lot of survivors."
"Gyosu-nim did the hard work."
"Gyosu?"
This time Kanghyeok tilted his head.
Among the people he knew, there was only one Gyosu in Joseon.
As the man had said, quite a lot of people had gathered in the village clearing.
Simply in terms of numbers, there seemed to be even more of them than the Japanese raiders.
Their level of armament was miserable, though.
Everything they were holding as weapons was either farming tools or bamboo spears.
Everyone was extremely agitated because of the Japanese raiders.
It was as if they could not endure unless they kept saying something.
The man who had brought Kanghyeok there opened his mouth and addressed them.
"All right, all right. Let's listen to Gyosu-nim first."
Then in an instant, everything fell quiet.
—Clack
Almost at the same time, someone opened a door and came out.
As expected, it was someone Kanghyeok knew well.
It was Changgwon, wearing a neat but grimy durumagi that had clearly not been washed.
With his graying hair tightly twisted up without a single gap, he even gave off a certain stern impression.
"The Japanese raiders came again?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good grief. Where is the punitive force we were supposed to get..."
"What should we do?"
"Hm."
Changgwon's face was full of worry.
Neither he nor anyone else gathered here had ever held a sword in battle before.
Most of them were scholars from the hyanggyo, so that was only natural.
They had read military texts, but only as a hobby, so it was not much help.
They had somehow endured the first attack through sheer desperation, but this time there was no guarantee.
After hesitating for a moment, he finally spoke with difficulty.
"We'll have to gather all at once and hold them back like last time."
"Yes. Ah, there's someone here who says he was with the punitive force."
"Really? Where is he?"
Changgwon's face visibly brightened, then darkened even more than before.
Because there were only two of them where the man pointed.
They looked more like routed survivors than members of a punitive force.
Which, in fact, they were.
"Why are there only two from the punitive force?"
"Didn't you hear the fire and the sounds of weapons last night?"
"So that's what happened... I see. Let's talk first."
"Yes."
At Changgwon's order, the rest headed toward the clearing.
Carrying weapons too shabby to even call weapons.
"Oh?"
"So it really was you, Elder Gyosu."
"What are you doing here?"
"I accompanied them at the Busa's request, but during last night's attack, I got separated from the main force."
"I see. Good. We're short even one hand as it is."
Changgwon clasped Kanghyeok's hand and shook it.
For hands that had held nothing but a brush all his life, they were remarkably soft.
This did not look like a war they could possibly win.
"Do you really intend to fight?"
"We have to fight."
If the village had still been intact, perhaps it would be different.
But with only a few dozen scholars and farmers, it was impossible.
They were professionals, and this side was less than amateur.
"From what I saw yesterday, those bastards are savagely fierce."
"Even so, we must fight. How can a scholar flee just to save his own life?"
Changgwon had lost none of his usual rigidness.
"Even slender arrows are hard to break once bundled together. Join us."
"Hah..."
Without thinking, Kanghyeok looked down toward the lower part of the village.
Japanese raiders were already pouring in from all sides.
Escaping them looked even harder than fighting.
And Yeoni isn't in perfect shape either... at least there are a lot of people here...
What else could he do?
He would have to fight.
"All right. Let's go."
"You've made the right decision. Your teacher would be proud of you."
By "teacher," he must have meant Seungmun.
The way he said it was so much like he already assumed they were dead that it was depressing.
By then everyone had already gathered in the clearing.
Each of them held a weapon with a determined look on his face.
Without a trace of hesitation, Changgwon stepped to the very front.
"All right, everyone, steel yourselves."
"Yes, Gyosu-nim."
Several scholars stood around him.
Kanghyeok naturally moved toward the rear.
No, he tried to.
"Young master, shouldn't we go to the front too...?"
"You're injured too. Where do you think you're going?"
"But that's Yeoju's father, isn't it?"
Why were there so many people around him who only ever said the right thing?
Sometimes what you needed was a flattering schemer.
With a deep sigh, Kanghyeok moved behind Changgwon.
"Fine. But if things go bad, we run, understand?"
"Yes. Don't worry. I'll protect you, Young master."
"Thanks."
At last Kanghyeok drew his sword as well.
At least his weapon looked better than anyone else's here.
As for skill, they were probably all about the same.
"They're coming!"
Someone in the back shouted, and the Japanese raiders began to charge.
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