A Land No One Wants
Alright! One more thing to prepare!
"Hanna!"
"Yes..."
"Go make me an outfit!"
"Wouldn't it be easier to come get fitted yourself, since we'd have to take measurements?"
Why does she sound so unmotivated? How did she even get this job?
"There are people who don't know my measurements?"
"Ah~"
Right, no secrets here. Everyone who should know, knows.
"Could you make me a pair of pants? The top is fine, but every time I move, the skirt flips up."
"It sounds like you're off to do something improper. Could you please just stay quietly at home? My workload is already..."
What? Why do I feel like I'm losing this conversation?
"So you won't go?"
"Haaah... I'll go..."
Hmm... something about this grates on me?
"Hmm... should I take you along?"
"Eh? Me? No thank you! What kind of clothes would you like? I'll be right back!"
Look at her suddenly snapping to attention. Why is it that the moment you're told not to do something, you want to do it more?
"Just make pants. The top and everything else is fine, but if I have to run, the skirt flips right up."
"Wouldn't it be better to just not create situations where you need to run?"
"Tch!"
"Hing..."
Why does everyone keep talking back to me? I should give someone a proper scolding.
Oh? She did bring clothes back?
"How is this pants?"
"Spread your legs."
Swoosh.
Okay, they stretch well. They do stretch.
"Why are they so wide?"
"You look pretty in these, Haneul-nim."
"Aren't they a bit too frilly?"
These are basically a skirt, aren't they? I mean, with legs this loose they're ridiculously comfortable to move in, but still?
Hm? Actually... maybe they're better? They're incredibly comfortable?
"Shall I remake them?"
"No, on second thought, I like them."
"But are you really going to that dwarf of a nation?"
"Why? Wouldn't it be fun?"
"From what I've heard, they've only just barely crawled out of the primitive stage. Would that really be fun?"
Huh? They were that backward? And here I thought they'd swiped all sorts of things from Joseon?
"Well, from what I saw, they still go around in nothing but underwear."
"They have no clothes?"
"Only the nobility wear a little, apparently. What would there even be to look at, in a country like that?"
"Nothing, I suppose..."
And I prepared so much... Seems they're still quite the backward nation.
So the era of samurai swinging katanas around is farther off than I thought?
"Sheesh..."
"By the way, that sword of yours."
"Yeah! Isn't it cool?"
"Pff-hah. Isn't it a little too cute?"
"What!? Why!?"
Fine, so the blade can't even be drawn, and the whole thing is a bit shorter than half my height!
But it's still a sword!
"It looks like a toy sword for children?"
"No! You little—!?"
"!#$!"
"*&#%"
Slash! Thud!
"Ugh."
"Hahahaha! !#$!#%"
Hm... what on earth is this?
"You've come out, Lady Haneul?"
"Yeah..."
I rushed over here flying at full speed because Seonnam was reportedly under attack, but this just looks like somebody else's family feud?
Their clothing was... how should I put it? A pinch of medieval Europe like in the dramas, with a dash of ancient Greece?
They were brawling right in front of someone else's house, all on their own.
"Why are they doing that here, of all places?"
"We hastily sent out a messenger, and by the time we knew it, things had turned into this. Hahaha..."
My people were baffled at first too. One morning, out of nowhere, a crowd comes swarming up — naturally they assumed it was an attack.
After the messenger was rushed off, the group just loitered around near the walls. Not knowing what to do with the messenger they'd already sent, they fired off a second one to cancel the first.
"At first it was the ones with the blue circle emblem, but after a few days, the ones with the sword crest showed up over there. And then they started fighting."
We couldn't understand a word they said, and nobody had the faintest idea why they were doing this here.
Ha. So frustrating.
"Hey! You bastards! Get lost! What the hell are you doing in front of someone else's house!"
"Whoa! !#%!#%"
"Whoa! Whoa! ^!$%!"
All I did was yell at them out of irritation, and they react like that?
"Is there anyone who understands what those guys are saying?"
"Our diplomat is here, but he says this is a first for him."
"What about the Intelligence Bureau?"
"They've overheard something similar while poking around, but they don't really concern themselves with things like that."
Right. Of course. Those guys are the type who throw punches first and loot second whenever words fail.
"Waaah!"
Parp-parp-parp!
"!#$!#$ Hahaha!"
And they're at it again.
"Look, more of them running up that we've never seen before?"
"They couldn't possibly know anyone here, so why on earth?"
"Shouldn't you know, seeing as you've watched this place a day longer than I have?"
"Yes'm..."
We can't understand a word, and all they do is fight right in front of us?
"Should we try offering them some food?"
"Food?"
"When you can't speak the language, isn't that the best way to show goodwill?"
Judging by their clothes, they don't look like they're living rough. They've got their own style, at least.
And they have swords, shields, armor. That means they have smithies too.
"Do we have anyone clever around? Someone good at picking up foreign languages just by watching."
"Hm... oh! There's one!"
"Oh! Send him out!"
"He's timid, though. I don't think he'll go..."
"Come on, you know how to handle that, don't you?"
"Ah..."
A good beating solves everything. Things that didn't work before somehow work afterward.
Before long, a soldier with a thoroughly bruised backside rolled a cart heaped with food out beyond the gates.
Us, we never want for food. We could give away as much as we liked.
"Ahahahaha!"
Dum-dum!
"%&#*#%@"
There was laughter, the atmosphere actually looked rather festive — but I couldn't guess at what they were saying for the life of me?
And why do they keep stealing glances over this way?
After chattering away for a good long while, here's what they had to say:
"Um..."
"What are they?"
"Judging by the vibe, mercenaries."
Then shouldn't they go fight wherever they were hired, instead of doing it here?
"Why did they come here?"
"Apparently they got lost wandering around and ended up here. They're asking to be hired."
"Seriously?"
"They say if you just give them food and such, they'll fight hard for you?"
Hm... food we have to spare anyway, so we could just chalk it up as charity?
"Huh? But why were they fighting?"
That's what I wanted to know most. And there they were, the very same guys who'd been brawling, all sitting down together drinking and tearing into meat?
"It seems they were hired by opposing sides. Some of them are from the same tribe or neighboring tribes, so they all know each other through and through."
"What the..."
Isn't that just absurd? What kind of place is this? Even ancient Europe was below expectations?
Word has it Christianity is spreading through Rome, and Jesus apparently passed through a few hundred years back.
Was it really not that long ago that humans on this planet became civilized?
"Phew..."
"Shall we send them away?"
Give them food and supplies, and they're on our side? It makes us sound like pushovers, but just think of the Mongol tribes and it's fine, right?
"We've got plenty of food and clothes left over, don't we? We could hand them a few weapons too?"
"What if they attack us one day because of it?"
"Would you want to attack these walls?"
"Ah..."
Even if you leaned a ladder against it, it'd snap halfway up before you could climb. And why is it so thick? Would a catapult even break anything if we flung one at it?
They'd run out of a mountain hauling stones for catapults before they made a dent.
The way I see it, this thing wouldn't even crack in a world war... with a little reinforcement, it could probably take a bomb.
"By the way, something's been on my mind. Why do you all keep building the walls like this?"
"I don't know?"
"What?"
If you're the ones building it and you don't know, how would I know?
Come to think of it, they've been building for over a thousand years, haven't they? The fool who started stacking the first stones grew old, died, and hasn't left so much as bone dust behind — so of course nobody knows.
From the looks of it, they're building it for job creation, more or less...
The moment hair dye and Holy Water stop selling, this country's finished, isn't it? Should I stash some gold in my subspace ahead of time?
"Give them whatever supplies you can spare without strain, and stay friendly."
"We could feed every last one of them and it wouldn't put a dent in anything."
"I said just be friendly with them!"
Smack!
"Yelch!"
Why are there so many people talking back to me lately?
Watching from atop the walls, these folks actually had their own rules and worked hard.
Whether their homes were close by or not, they commuted to and from work and everything.
As the days passed, I noticed they were building quite a lot of things next to the wall — surely they weren't planning to freeload off us?
There's a river nearby — were they trying their hand at farming? They were busy plowing up the land and making fields.
"Out here again today?"
"Yep. Have you learned a lot of their language?"
"Yes. We're picking up vocabulary."
"Learn it well. We need to understand what they're after before we decide whether to send them off or let them stay."
From the look of things, there must be a lot of nations out there without any real concept of statehood yet.
I'd thought Western civilization was impressively advanced, but it turned out to be nothing much after all.
"We probably won't have any reason to send them away."
"That's a problem too..."
They look far too different from us. Our own people have been bound together under the word 'nation' for so very long.
That American continent over there is isolated enough that it might be fine, but here it'll be difficult.
"Can't we just keep using them as mercenaries?"
"Perhaps that's the way to go."
A mercenary nation is still a nation, after all? They're not crazy enough to set up right next door and declare war, surely.
Oh? Although that does mean we might end up obligated to protect them?
They're a nuisance in more ways than one.
"Hurry up and learn their language."
"Yes!"
Something I'm always reminded of — ancient, medieval, primitive, it's all the same old gruel in the same old bowl.
Movies and dramas romanticized things far too much. Just look at the fellows down there — they don't bathe.
Spreading bathhouses across Daehan quickly was truly a stroke of genius. From up here, their grubbiness really stands out.
Over these past few months, our soldier friend had been studying the foreign tongue with real dedication. The diplomat watching him found it all so ridiculous he'd given him a swift kick in the rear to keep him at it.
"Lovely weather, isn't it? Nice and cool."
This place is more livable than I expected? Seonnam was surprisingly cold — can there really be this much difference?
I'd have thought there'd be more nomads around here?
Look at them, galloping around on horseback over there?
"Huh?"
There are people riding those horses?
Parp-parp-parp~
Must have been spotted from the watchtower too, judging by the horn? But did this fool just wake up? He has a telescope, and he noticed later than I did with my naked eye?
Clack-clack-clack.
The walls are so high that even the ones climbing the stairs over there take ages to get up.
Wouldn't one good earthquake split this whole thing in two?
"Hurry and prepare!"
"Arrows — hold and only take firing position!"
They're a decent-sized group, but surely they won't just charge these walls on horseback?
Not knowing the situation, the mercenaries down below just stared up at us in bewilderment.
Was the visibility across these flatlands better than I'd thought?
"Stand down the archers!"
Hm? Do they know these people?
"Prepare some water and provisions!"
"Yes'm!"
As I watched all this unfold, the commander who'd been speaking with the soldiers came up to me.
"First time seeing them, Lady Haneul?"
"Yeah. Are they on our side?"
"I suppose you could call them that? They're called... what was it — Aebo-dallo? They're people who pass through now and then to get food."
Wait — are we getting scammed on the international market here?
"So it's not trade?"
"It's basically charity. We give them various things, but they don't really have any use for them."
"Good grief. No wonder they keep coming back."
"Shall we stop?"
"Just keep taking whatever they bring and ship it off to Sinsi — put it in a museum or something."
"Yes'm."
We hand things out here, they hand things out there — hah hah.
Right. Honestly, if handing things out like this means no fighting, that's even better?
We can afford to give away as much food as they want, so I'd rather we all just got along. War would be pointless anyway — there's nothing here worth taking. Nothing at all, my friends.
This frozen earth only becomes good land once the world starts needing oil. Right now it's a worthless wasteland you couldn't survive on even if I told you to.
Why else would Russia have sold Alaska — perfectly good land — off to America for a pittance?
If they'd known there were gold mines and oil fields under it, they never would have let it go.