Cat Power Gauntlet (1)

The Saemaul Undong. The New Village Movement.

Alongside the Miracle on the Han River, it was the foundational project that let my homeland climb from the bottom of the OECD ranks into a place among the world's advanced nations. Whatever later generations made of the man who led it, the movement succeeded because the people came together as one—diligence, self-help, and cooperation, all three—and carried it through.

And from where I stood, what was happening in the North now was not so different.

Tear down the thatched huts and bring in Western-style housing. Distribute farm machinery and advanced equipment. Scrape the old dirt roads flat and pour cement over them. Beautify the towns and roads, and so on.

Here the Western-style housing had been swapped for hanok, the advanced equipment for iron cauldrons and ondol, and the cement for concrete ramparts—but the bones of the project were the same. I had always meant, someday, to raze the villages of the North and rebuild them clean from the ground up. I hadn't expected a mining town to be the first, but it still fit the larger frame.

Even so, there was enough to keep me from pure celebration.

"The yield isn't especially good, I'm afraid."

Having received the report on the iron ore coming out of Mining Village Number One, old Max offered his assessment.

"With the technical side still so lacking, I suppose it can't be helped."

Bearwolf had been practically dancing—enough ore, he said, to arm three whole knight companies. That was a knight talking. Max, who actually ran the administration, clearly saw the thin spots everywhere.

"Some time ago, Young Master, you explained the gap between the continent and the North. Since then I've looked into production figures from other regions. Relative to the deposits, our yield seems to lag by at least a factor of two."

"A factor of two."

I sat at the desk in my office and rubbed my chin. The North was short of more than one or two things, and technical skill was among the gloomier shortages. Architecture, as I'd seen on my first visit to the neighboring villages, was effectively extinct. Metallurgy was serviceable, not brilliant. Mining was much the same—we could dig a hole, and the details after that were wanting.

"If we could only bring in specialist technicians…"

"People like that have no particular reason to come north."

"Ahem."

Max cleared his throat at the uncomfortable truth. But what was there to do about it? Uncomfortable or not, it was still the truth.

"For now, let's take the creation of jobs as the point. Honestly, one of the problems I'd been fretting over feels resolved, and I've been breathing a little easier."

"A problem you'd been fretting over?"

"Well. I may be drinking the stew before it's cooked—counting chickens, as it were—but the projects I've been pushing have been making the North a place a person can actually live, haven't they?"

"You may allow yourself more confidence than that, Young Master. Not 'somewhat.' The improvement is visible to the eye."

"Thank you. In any case, as life grows more comfortable, something is bound to appear of its own accord."

"And that would be?"

"The gap between rich and poor."

When everyone was equally destitute, it hadn't mattered. When every house was scraping for that day's food, no one had the leisure to care whether the neighbor got one more spoonful of thin gruel down his throat. Anyone who did have that leisure was simply a man who had gone a little less hungry.

But now a measure of ease was starting to take hold.

Hanok were going up, ondol floors laid so people could feel real warmth. Concrete walls rose around the villages. Those walls did more than raise survival rates—they let people beat back the wild beasts and monsters that came for them, and turn the tables into a hunt. Creatures that once could never have been taken were being taken now; the mutant ogre was the clearest example.

And the hanok villages were still spreading northward in real time.

At first the engineer battalion, still short on skill, hadn't built especially fast. With time their craft rose steeply, and word of it brought people from the neighboring villages, all of them begging to be taught. I'd ordered that the teaching not be stinted, and the extra hands only ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sped things further. Even hard labor runs at wildly different efficiency depending on whether the crew has a system or not.

On top of that, I had sharply increased the trade ratio with the continental caravans for the growing take of game. Northern life was still cold and bitter, but inside that cold we had dragged it up to a level where people could eat. The gukbap on northern tables—and the combat power that came with it—was a bonus.

All of it would have been pure gain if gain were all there was. Economic growth, though, has always cast a shadow with its light.

"Villages that receive ondol and concrete walls first will develop at speed. Their hunting returns will sit plainly above those of villages that don't, and the caravans will favor them more often. Naturally, the gap ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in how fast the villages grow will open wider still."

The ones who are already doing well keep doing well. Conglomerates stay conglomerates decades on. The so-called unicorns that once made such noise die off, and the outfits that were already eating well are still eating—that's the proof.

Max, listening, tilted his head with a look that said, Is that all?

"Surely you don't mean the slower villages will grow resentful over that? Young Master, you pledged that every village in the North would share in the ondol's blessing. There will be those who receive it later and those who receive it sooner, but all of them will live better in the end. So why…"

"That there is a difference at all is precisely what matters."

Sooner or later was not the point. The point was that a difference existed.

Difference breeds cracks. And cracks breed division.

I had learned, in the outfits I belonged to, that human beings will endure unfairness but will not endure being put at a disadvantage.

"And that isn't even the whole of it. That conflict is still only the one that grows out of people. The real problem is the ground they've put their roots in. Take a ready example—what kind of people migrated into the mining village this time?"

"…Ah."

Max let out a short breath of recognition.

"Villages planted next to monster dens. In the old days, the worst possible siting. Once survival rates rose, those same places became the best possible siting overnight."

Concrete walls had taken their real estate from the neighborhood of a nuclear plant and a landfill and rocketed it, in a single stroke, into prime, transit-adjacent ground. A good thing, clearly—but who was to blame for the wealth gap that came with it? You couldn't very well demand to know why there was no monster park next door to your house.

"Whether they can complain or not, the gap that opens for them is real. Lately I'd even been thinking of spreading some of the soap business into private hands—and that, too, would only let the villages good at hunting pull in more coin and widen the polarization. Repeat the cycle, and division follows of its own accord…"

"And some villages will dissolve themselves and disappear."

"Exactly."

As I saw it, the mining village was only ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the first symptom of that natural current. It was also, at the same time, something that could not be avoided.

Those differences are what let comparative advantage drive real economic growth in the first place.

I had expected all of this, and I spoke calmly.

"That's why I said the birth of the mining village took a weight off me. Mining gives them a strength of their own, a comparative advantage separate from living by the hunt."

Their ground was still hard country, no less than anyone else's—but they didn't have to bury themselves in hunting. Work the mines hard enough, and there was room enough to live. A clean illustration: however well a northern knight might cook gukbap as a private man, he was still better off eating a bowl from the mess battalion and riding out on a purge.

"Heh. So this is no time to be quibbling over yield efficiency."

"That's about the size of it. Going forward, more villages will vanish because of the concrete walls—but just as many mining villages will rise because of those same walls. We can hold the division together that way, can't we?"

Of course the method was not perfect. Even among villages that lived by hunting there would be rich and poor, and the same among villages that lived by mining. From there on, though, it was a problem no human hand could fully manage. If I could get us that far, I would count myself lucky enough.

"Well now. This is no hour to be sitting about at ease."

As if something had clicked, Max set the papers he had brought down on the desk and turned on his heel.

"Where are you going?"

"Hearing you out, I expect the number of villages dying and villages being born to explode. Administrative handling for that needs preparing in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠advance, and new veins need finding if the current is to run smooth."

With that, Max left—a man who had found his work and meant to do it.

Excellent.

Hand him the cue and he was already moving. That was why I liked old Max. An ace who found the job himself and did it—if he'd been under me in the modern world, I'd have had him re-upped on the spot…

"Hah!! What kind of demon—?!"

Repaying kindness with a chain around the neck—clearly some evil three-star octopus-headed spirit had taken up residence in me. Begone. Shoo. Out!

"What're you doing, nyang?"

I was still flapping my hands in a hurry when a voice came from beside me.

"Wh—when did you get here? No—how did you even get up here?"

I spun around. Yumi was perched in the window frame, licking a forepaw. My office sat at roughly the height of a tenth floor.

"Just now, nyang. And I climbed the wall, nyang."

Is that even possible…? The thought rose, but there wasn't really another way she could have managed it. Not that I'd meant to ask that in the first place.

"Miss Yumi. Ordinarily, you are not supposed to come in this way."

I said it looking at her where she straddled the sill of a window that had apparently been opened from outside. If you went wherever you could go, what were the sentries for, and what were the walls for? I let it pass because it was me. Any other commander would have been roaring Sentry! and writing her up for a breach of perimeter discipline.

Yumi apologized with perfect calm.

"Sorry, nyang. But I had something to give you, so I had no choice, nyang."

"Something to give me?"

"The whole tribe owes you a debt, nyang. We couldn't just take and take, so we decided to repay it, nyang."

Some kind of cat's gratitude? I started to wave her off—it had all been under contract, nothing more—but before I could, Yumi pulled something from her clothes and thrust it out.

"This, nyang!"

"…And what is that?"

"The whole tribe made it together, nyang!"

"No, I mean—"

What was it, exactly? What she held out looked like a cat's forepaw. Not like one—it was one. Thick with fur, claws and all. For a lurching second I wondered whether someone had cut a paw off and brought it here.

Yumi answered.

"It's the Cat Power Gauntlet, nyang!"