Prologue: A Memory from the Tail End of a Barbaric Age, 2011

The year, as it happened, was 2011.

It was the season when a full five-day school week had been announced for every elementary, middle, and high school in the country — a landmark year, the moment South Korea stood one step short of the tail end of a barbaric age and the threshold of civilization.

Of course, turn that "one step short" inside out and it meant we were still living in a barbaric age. The announcement was made a fool of. The five-day week didn't truly begin until the year after.

Which was also why, that Saturday, I was trudging home from school.

I was Do Jaeseong, a high-school senior with the CSAT bearing down, on my way home after morning classes.

I was passing the elementary school near my house, hauling an empty stomach, when a noisy shouting reached me.

"Grab her!"

"Aaagh! You little—! Get her off me!"

An alley a short way off from the school gate. Farther in, a knot of elementary kids were yelling themselves hoarse, thrilled to have a show.

"Yeah! Fight! Fight!"

Kids scrapping, by the look of it.

Up close, one girl and one boy were a pair, and a single girl stood against them. She kept throwing herself at the two even as their blows shoved her back, driven on by sheer fury. By their size, third or fourth grade, maybe. Either way, it was not a scene I could just walk past.

"Hey. What do you think you're doing?"

I ran in and shoved myself between the tangle. When I grabbed both sides and forced them apart, the girl twisted in my grip, panting hard.

"Let go!"

"So you can charge them again?"

Instead of answering, she glared murder at the kids across from her. More precisely, only at the girl. That one had probably been the first to pick the fight.

I held the two sides apart and let them cool for a moment, then turned to the girl who had been on her own.

"So why are you fighting?"

She burst out as if she had been waiting.

"Тэр муу новш намайг ч, асрагчийг минь ч доромжилсон!"

…Honestly, I didn't catch a single word. Whatever she had spat out, it wasn't Korean.

A black-haired foreigner? Mixed? Something like that. I had no idea which country, but it was a language I had never heard in my life. If it had been English, the scraps of CSAT English rattling around in my head might have gotten me somewhere, roughly.

A little stuck, I turned toward the elementary girl she was glaring at hard enough to kill. Not that this side was any easier to talk to.

"Mister, how about you mind your own business and keep walking?"

Had I ever seen a little brat this shameless? Exam life had ground me down, sure, but calling a high-school senior mister?

I wanted to thump her so badly I could taste it. She was an elementary kid, though, so I decided to settle it like a civilized person — with words.

"Oh yeah? Funny thing. I was just on my way to your school's teachers' office. You can escort me there yourselves, just like this."

I made a show of dragging them toward the elementary school, and only then did she shriek.

"Ah—she hit first!"

"She hit you? And that's the tone you use with me?"

"…Sir! She hit first, sir."

Right. Should have spoken politely from the start.

The moment I pretended to haul them toward the gate again, her manner turned respectful.

"Why did she hit you?"

"I don't know! …Sir. I didn't do anything, and she just went crazy all by herself and hit me."

Even then, the black-haired foreign girl was straining to wrench herself out of my grip, still staring at the girl opposite with eyes that could have swallowed a person whole.

"Look at that devil's face. Is that how you look at somebody who didn't do anything?"

Faced with that sight, the other girl glanced aside, then finally grew a little more honest.

"…We just teased her a little."

"What did you say?"

"That she talked Korean like a retard."

From the other side came a shout, the pronunciation clumsy.

"Liar! Worse word! She said!"

"A worse word? Did I say something wrong? Your mom's a hwanangnyeon, isn't she!"

The instant hwanangnyeon left her mouth, the black-haired foreign girl's body sprang.

"Hey—hey!"

I nearly lost the arm I was holding. I barely yanked her back and held on, but she screamed and tried, any way she could, to get at the other girl.

"Since when does a word like that come out of an elementary kid's mouth…"

End of days. Honestly, the end of days.

From the circumstances, this foul-mouthed elementary girl had cursed the black-haired foreign girl's mother. And she had called her a hwanangnyeon, at that. I let out a sigh and asked her.

"Hey. Do you even know what that means?"

"I don't, sir?"

"Look… I'll be straight with you. You had that coming. That's a seriously awful thing to say, all right? I don't know where you heard it."

The kid shut her mouth for a moment. Then, as if she had been wronged, she added:

"…But my mom said that lady really is a hwanangnyeon."

So the problem was the parenting.

Hearing that, the black-haired foreign girl thrashed even harder. I locked my grip on her and turned, this time, to the boy.

"Say that's her story. Why did you jump in?"

"My girlfriend got hit. Was I supposed to just stand there, sir?"

…Unbelievable. They weren't even dry behind the ears. Still, it was a reason that suited a barbaric age.

"Sigh. Everyone who was watching, go on. Nothing left to see."

I waved them off — get lost — and the spectators bolted.

"You three are coming to the teachers' office with me."

I was done. For a passing senior, sticking his nose in any further was nothing but a headache. Hand the rest over to the office, explain how it had happened, and their homeroom teacher could take it from there. The one who had cursed would catch it for cursing, the one who had hit first for hitting, and the boy who had jumped in because his girlfriend got hit would catch his own share. Then they would be made to apologize, told not to fight again, and a call would go home. That would be the end of it.

But after I had walked the kids a few steps toward the gate, something about it sat wrong. If I forced an apology like this, would it really be over?

"Just in case, I'm asking. Any of you actually planning to apologize to each other?"

Sure enough, both girls shook their heads hard. Looking at those blazing eyes, teachers' office or not, the second I let go they were ready to lock together again. A teacher could scold them and order them to say sorry, and they would say sorry. I just couldn't see the point. Would they even be convinced? Say a homeroom teacher split them up today. Turn their backs, and they would be at it again somewhere.

…If that was how it would go, wasn't it better to finish it properly once, so both of them walked away with at least a minimum of satisfaction?

Thinking about it now, it sounds like bullshit. But back when I was a senior living in a barbaric age, it felt reasonably sound. Being that close to the CSAT, my brain had probably fried for a second.

"Sigh. I don't even know if this is a good idea…"

I let both girls go.

Suddenly free, the two of them looked up at me as if they had planned it. When I neither grabbed them again nor herded them toward the gate, their eyes turned on each other.

A brief silence.

Then the black-haired foreign girl shot forward first. The girl opposite had no mind to dodge; she met her straight on. The boy beside me moved to jump in on reflex, so I snatched the scruff of his neck.

"Why are you getting in?"

"Because I'm the boyfriend!"

"Then I'll be her boyfriend, so should ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I get in too?"

He stopped dead. He seemed to have pictured, just for a second, the pathetic sight of me wading into an elementary-school brawl.

Either way, this time only the two of them were fighting. The black-haired foreign girl wasn't much of a fighter. She was vicious, though. The more she got hit, the harder she clung, like a burr. In the end, the other girl was the first to tuck her tail.

"You—! Just you wait! You too! And that mister!"

Huffing, she grabbed her boyfriend by the arm and dragged him off.

Watching the two kids' backs grow smaller, self-loathing washed over me late. What the hell had I just done with a pack of elementary kids?

"Sigh… Feel any better now?"

I turned to the black-haired foreign girl still beside me. There was no answer. What I got instead were tears dropping, one after another, onto the ground.

"…Hey?"

"Waaaaaah!"

The kid who, a moment ago, had looked ready to tear someone to pieces started to wail. She sank down where she was, wearing the most aggrieved face in the world.

"And why are you crying now."

She had held on out of pure spite, and once it was over the tension must have let go. This was a problem. Once a kid started crying like that, pressing one sweet into their hand worked faster than a hundred words of comfort. That had been true of my younger sibling, at least. Granted, my sibling was still in kindergarten — not even a schoolchild yet.

Anyway, I rummaged through my pockets and something usable turned up. A coin-shaped gold-coin chocolate. Cheap stuff they had been handing out in front of the school, tucked in with flyers for some cram school.

"Hey. Eat this, at least, and quit crying."

Even mid-sob, her eyes slid after the glinting gold foil. A kid was a kid, after all.

"Намайг хүүхэд гэж бодоод байгаа юм уу···?"

…From her face, maybe that wasn't it. She shot me a sharp glare, then muttered something under her breath. Not that she refused the chocolate. Well. If the crying had stopped, that was enough.

She took it and looked down at the glinting foil for a while. Then she said, as if tossing the words down:

"Тусыг тосоор хариулах."

"What?"

Seeing that I didn't understand, she repeated the same thing, a little more slowly.

"Tusug tosoor hariulakh."

"…What are you saying."

She closed her mouth for a moment. What came next was halting Korean.

"…Debt."

"Debt?"

"Pay back."

Hand a kid one cheap chocolate and suddenly I was a creditor.

"What debt. I didn't even take your side."

She didn't so much as pretend to hear me. She pointed at her own chest.

"Daya."

"Your name?"

"Yeah. Daya."

This time she stared hard at the name tag on my uniform.

"Do… Jae… seong."

She glanced up at me for a second, as if checking she had read it right. Daya turned my name over silently a few times, then clenched the chocolate in her hand once more.

"Debt. Pay back."

Brazen little thing. At the time, that was as far as I took it.

A few days later, the whole business reached the high school I attended. The other girl's parents had come to complain, it seemed. Their daughter had come home beaten, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and some high-school student, far from stopping the fight, had set the kids on each other again. The moment the talk of a hwanangnyeon came out of my account, they went dead quiet, quick as ghosts. That didn't make what I had done right.

I caught an earful from my homeroom teacher, wrote a reflection and something like an incident report, and pulled several days of in-school service on top of it. To add to that, until I graduated, my nickname was Elementary School Referee.

As luck would have it, the CSAT I sat not long afterward was a spectacular disaster. Whether that was because I had wasted my nerves on something pointless right before the exam, or because my scores had simply always looked like that, I couldn't say. If I had to pick, it was the latter.

And so I became a repeater. At the cram school printed on the flyer that had come with that gold-coin chocolate, of all places. Damn it.

In any case, after that day I never saw the kid called Daya again.

And fifteen years passed.

2026.

Do Jaeseong, thirty-three. A manager on the Construction Management Team at Mansan Construction Headquarters.

Pressed shoulder to shoulder with strangers on a packed subway, my back was already knotting up. Killing time on the commute, I flicked through the news on my phone without much thought. I stopped soon enough, though. Our company's name had caught my eye.

I tapped the article.

I had already been hearing the name Teguren around the company lately. Not that I knew much. My work was neither overseas business nor development projects. I scrolled a little farther down the article.

A large photo of the princess coming to Korea for the project filled the page.

Dayana Aldar.

The first thought I had, looking at the photo, was simple.

Pretty. Really pretty.

But something was a little off from what I had expected. Caspian Coast, so I had vaguely ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠pictured someone Middle Eastern, or Western-looking. The princess in the photo was nothing of the kind.

She's just East Asian? Are people from Teguren all like this?

Curious, I asked the AI on my phone.

I read that far and closed the window. AI was convenient, no question, but this was its flaw. It always had to rattle off things you hadn't even asked. Honestly.

I went back to the article. What nagged at me more than the photo was the fact that our company might actually win the contract for this project. It wasn't my job right now. But if we really landed it and the construction went ahead, that would be a different story. Cost, scheduling, progress payments, contracts — in the end it all came back as work for the Construction Management Team. Whether that work would fall to me was another matter.

I scrolled a little farther. A short interview with Princess Dayana, given ahead of the visit, was printed there as well.

…I feel like I've heard this somewhere. Where was it?

I was trying to walk the memory back when the train pulled into my stop. Well, whatever. I pocketed the phone and stepped off in the press of people. A princess from somebody else's country could wait. Getting to work came first.