The Audience
First impressions matter above all else. The hunters had come at us with drawn blades from the very first meeting. By that measure, they had already dug their own graves — though mercifully, a chance to make things right still remained.
I, of course, had been a modern man once, so while I'd treated them like barbarians in the heat of the moment, I could at least understand their actions. And Bunhee, who'd been attacked alongside me, probably held no grudge at all.
But the same could not be said for my other subordinates.
"……"
"……"
"……Gulp."
That barbarians would dare set foot in a land touched by the Heavenly Emperor's grace — and on two legs, no less, striding in openly — happened only when a pass had already fallen.
At my command, four men and women were escorted into the audience chamber, yet my soldiers' eyes brimmed with murderous intent. One wrong twitch of a finger, and they seemed ready to slit throats on the spot.
The visitors must have sensed it too, for they could barely bring themselves to speak.
It was a long silence. Honestly, I was a little anxious.
From the Empire's standpoint, these people were, head to toe, one hundred percent pure barbarian. No king to speak of, they'd come from somewhere impossibly far away. Even if they managed to say a word about themselves, coaxing a favorable reaction out of my men would be a tall order.
And the visitors had no idea that was the case. How the first stitch was sewn mattered more than anything.
"Ahem. I am Park Ingyu, from the Korean Hunter Association."
The moment Park Ingyu opened his mouth with a dry cough, the very thing I'd feared came to pass. Several of my subordinates began to rein in their killing aura.
Because for a pack of barbarians, he had looked extraordinarily disrespectful.
To be fair, he had bowed before addressing me. Deeply, too — I knew well that the angle approached the depth of a new employee groveling after causing a catastrophic accident at a ordinary company. Nearly an outright apology.
But for a barbarian to merely bow before the Great General — and then to raise his head again — was, figuratively speaking, no different from lighting a cigarette while standing on one leg.
I'll grant that you're the Heavenly Emperor's errand-runner, but I haven't the faintest idea who you are, and I certainly don't see you as some great figure with the power to bind my movements. That was roughly the depth of the insult.
"……!"
"That bastard……!"
This won't do, I thought. If this kept up, far from getting use out of the newly built audience chamber, we'd be starting with the cleanup of a bloodstained floor.
I wanted a conversation, not a pointless war.
Just as I signaled my men to stand down — and just as I was about to bark at the visitors myself and force at least one knee to the ground —
"Huh?"
"S-Shin Yuyu!?"
Out of nowhere, the most unexpected person performed a perfectly proper bow.
"W-what on earth are you doing……!?"
"You do it too, you idiots……!"
"Excuse me?"
"Shut up and just do it! You think anyone kneels because they're in a good mood, damn it!?"
An S-Rank hunter counted among the very best in South Korea — a woman who had likely never once bowed her head to another human being in her entire life — was prostrating herself flat on the floor. The hunters were struck dumb.
After a brief silence.
"W-we greet the Great General!!!"
The instant Moon Seoyoung, apparently struck by some realization, slammed herself down after her, the other two scrambled to follow suit.
"We greet the Great General!!"
"We greet the Great General……!"
'Hooh?'
'So there are barbarians who know their place.'
My subordinates murmured under their breath. As they retracted their killing intent, the oppressive atmosphere began, at least slightly, to thaw.
Thank goodness. I settled back into my seat and addressed the four.
"That will be enough. Raise your heads."
Now, at last, we could have a proper conversation.
*
Intercultural exchange is harder than it looks. Especially when the outsiders in question have crossed over not from beyond the sea or another continent, but from a completely separate time and space.
Most nations within Hidden Stages took a considerable length of time simply to accept — let alone understand — the existence of the Earthlings, the hunters, who appeared before them. But the Yuhyeon Park Ingyu beheld was different.
"I have heard from the ones we held in the cells — who you people serve, and by what road you came."
"I-is that so."
"So we can dispense with the pleasantries. They would be a waste of time for us both."
"U-understood."
Their relief at learning that An Junhyeon and the rest of the Birang Party were still alive lasted only a moment. At first, they couldn't help but wonder whether he truly knew everything about them.
Those in power, after all, were the sort to conceal their ignorance, and soldiers treated ignorance as a shame to be hidden away. Yet Yuhyeon — who appeared to be both at once — did not miss a single grain of Park Ingyu's explanation, nor twist it in the receiving.
"You dwell within the great pillar we call the Tower, and you possess the means to come and go. Is that the sum of it?"
"Y-yes, precisely! It may be unpleasant to hear, but it is the plain truth……"
"It hardly matters."
"I beg your pardon?"
"The center of heaven is and always has been us, and this land was founded by the First Heavenly Emperor."
It was the investigation team, in fact, who were startled by his placid attitude. They had heard he was a Great General — but when they learned he was only the second Grand Marshal of Military Affairs in the Empire's history, a post reserved solely for the supreme commander who guarded the frontier from the barbarians, they grasped just how monumental a figure Yuhyeon truly was.
"Th-then, you really did endure fifteen years in that gorge we crossed over through?"
"Endured? You insolent—"
"Enough. No need to squabble over petty words."
Yuhyeon calmed his men, who had bristled at Shin Yuyu's shrill tongue. Park Ingyu's party had already lowered themselves far enough that there was nothing left to pick at them over for being barbarians.
That said, Yuhyeon was unquestionably a man of the Empire.
And so there were moments of crisis along the way that even the head of the Strategic Countermeasures Division could not easily brush past.
"Commander — no, Great General. That woman over there. What about her?"
"Hm? What of the girl?"
"She keeps talking down to you every time she opens her mouth. Shall I pull her tongue out?"
"Leave her be."
"But……"
"Is it her fault that she fails to use honorifics? The body is granted by one's parents, as the saying goes — look, she's cropped her hair down to a bob. She must have lost her parents early and never received a proper education."
"I see. My thinking was short-sighted."
"Grrrgh……!"
Shin Yuyu — a walking time bomb if ever there was one — endured with superhuman patience, and no great disaster came to pass. What wind had blown in, Park Ingyu wondered, that an S-Rank hunter rumored to have downed an actual airplane was showing such restraint?
So a little time passed. By the point Lee Jihye tried, ever so slightly, to stretch her numb thigh — only to catch Moon Seoyoung's frost-cold stare and bite back her tears, gritting through the pain —
Yuhyeon raised the most important matter of all.
"So. Why have you come to this place?"
"Well, we……"
"Have you come to fight, or to petition?"
The exact same question he had put to the Birang Party. Having received the report in advance, Park Ingyu already knew it was coming.
"What is it you desire, that you craved so desperately to set foot on this land? I will give you the chance. Speak."
"Well, that is……"
Park Ingyu deliberated. He could say with complete confidence that in fifty years of living, he had never once been this nervous.
Every nation on Earth had maintained what you might call a horizontal relationship with the civilizations they encountered in Hidden Stages — mutual aid between equals. Conflicts had arisen in that process, and more than one side had walked the road to ruin, but not once had anyone taken the position below.
The official stance of the South Korean government he had confirmed before coming here was much the same. A constructive alliance where both parties could find profit. Building that framework was the mission of Park Ingyu, Director of Strategic Countermeasures.
But in Park Ingyu's eyes, the Tianyu Empire — no, Great General Yuhyeon — was not a man who would accept such flimsy arrangements. Indeed, it seemed certain that were they to provoke him a second time, there would be no third act of mercy.
He understood the reality of their situation better than anyone. Korea and the Hunter Association desperately needed his help. And so, after much agonizing over Yuhyeon's question, Park Ingyu answered thus:
"We have come…… to serve you, Great General Yuhyeon. To serve the Tianyu Empire."
And just as he had predicted.
Yuhyeon, unlike before, gave a simple nod.
"Do as you please."
"Y-you mean that sincerely?"
"You were moved by His Majesty's grace and now wish to serve us of your own accord — why would I, who draws the Empire's stipend, stand in the way of that?"
"Thank you!!"
He even said he would release the imprisoned members of the Birang Party and let them take them along. Free of charge. A great nation, one might say, was simply like that.
"Truly, your boundless gra—"
"Don't."
"Director, don't! That's reserved for the Emperor alone!"
Thanks to Moon Seoyoung, another blunder had been caught in time. He had a new task now: to return home and rewatch every historical drama ever made.
A short while later, just as Park Ingyu, having taken custody of the released prisoners, was cautiously testing the waters to request a second audience —
the woman standing behind Yuhyeon suddenly drew close and whispered to him. The distance was short enough that their exchange carried clearly.
'Five or six have fallen.'
'Whose doing?'
'The Togwal. Fortunately, the distance is not far.'
'I see.'
At the same time, Shin Yuyu turned to her party.
"Something's come toward my barrier."
"Something?"
"No idea. The ones we left behind are under attack right now — we have to go immediately."
The gathering looked about to break up. As Yuhyeon rose, the soldiers who had been kneeling on one knee sprang to their feet and lined up on either side.
"Park Gyu."
"Yes, sir."
"Bring the soldiers up onto the wall. Should anything climb as far as this place, we must be ready."
"Underst—"
"We have one request for the Great General!!!"
There would be no chance after this one. Ignoring the disgruntled glare of Park Gyu, whose words he had cut off, Park Ingyu flung himself to the floor before Yuhyeon once more. Moon Seoyoung did the same.
"Our comrades appear to be in danger, threatened by the barbarians as we speak!"
"P-please, bestow your mercy upon us just once more!!"
Every second counted — they needed to return to the barrier at once.
With his gut burning, Park Ingyu waited on Yuhyeon's reply. At last, the man spoke.
"Barbarians."
To his own men — not to the hunters.
"Surely there are some among you who find today's course baffling, or cannot fathom the reason behind it. Why do I allow barbarians through the pass and hear their words? Why do I extend them mercy? There will be those who do not understand."
"……"
"But if it is the unchanging order of this world that all beyond the walls who receive our grace and turn from their savagery are baseborn by nature — that no matter how they labor to repay their debt, they are fated to wither and be swept away by hardship—"
"……"
"—then by that same order, how is it that you stand in this place today?"
Not a single hunter could grasp what Yuhyeon meant. But to the soldiers filling the barracks hall, it was otherwise.
"You who built this place with your own hands — every action you are yet to take as the Great General's army, the very thing you longed for above all else—"
With each step he took down the line of men arrayed to either side, an unshakable loyalty took root in their eyes.
"Is it not, in essence, no different from the day fifteen years ago when I, newly raised to Commander of the Border Guard, tore Geum Bok's head from his shoulders!"
"Chung!"
"Who among us would refuse such glory!?"
"CHUNG!!!!"
The thunder of combat boots slamming the floor surged up through the crown of the head.
Boiling rage-marrow, molten as lava, seared the rims of ears and the bridge of every nose.
"Park Gyu."
"YESSIR!!!"
"Saddle the warhorses and open the gates."
"BY YOUR COMMAND!!!"
And when the soldiers, falling in one by one behind Yuhyeon, swept past them like ghosts —
"We ride to punish the barbarians."
Not one of the Earth hunters present regretted the decision they had made that day.