Just Let It Work Once!
Once it proves its effect, that's all that matters!
When I crossed over to the Eastern Continent in the year 3755, I became a totem. What does that mean? Well, being here feels like looking at the Original Continent about two thousand years ago.
Trains run, guns exist, tractors rumble across the fields — but the people are straight out of two thousand years ago.
“Oh!!! There she is — Haneul-nim!”
“So that's the tree spirit we've only heard about!”
“Just look! So bountiful!”
“Big. So big!”
What's big? The tree, maybe? I have no idea, but the people here love the bare ground.
They think nothing of getting dusty and plop themselves down wherever they please. Naturally, the chapel stayed small, and instead the representatives of each village — chieftains, more or less — would gather together. Aside from that, crowds assembled on open ground around the priests, sitting in circles and chatting about this and that.
“Thank you.”
“We give thanks for the delicious food you have bestowed upon us again today.”
“Let us give thanks to the grace of Haneul-nim.”
The atmosphere was completely different from Christianity or Buddhism — closer to some kind of thanksgiving festival. And honestly, looking at that mysterious tree that no words or science could explain, at the land around it grown impossibly lush and fertile, gratitude was the only possible response.
“Cough, cough. Forgive me.”
“Oh dear. You shouldn't have come out while you're unwell. Here, drink this.”
“This isn't why I came, but... thank you.”
A priest handing over Holy Water, and the sick receiving it carefully and drinking.
“Oh! I already feel better!”
“This, too, is the grace of Haneul-nim.”
“Thank you!”
“No — it is we who must be thankful.”
It does slow the development of medicine, but once you've tasted the grace of Holy Water, everything else feels unnecessary.
The priests' work amounted to one thing: studying the legal code, which was practically the same as studying Daehan's history.
THUD.
“Let us begin today's studies.”
The Daehan Legal Code covered everything from taxation to methods of governance, but about half of it read more like a history book — after all, it laid out the founding ideals and the circumstances that led to the nation's founding.
Whoosh.
I cut a path right through their midst and headed for the chapel. It was a kind of showmanship, and embarrassing as it was, I had no choice — apparently doing this made the surrounding tribes join up noticeably faster.
“Oh! Haneul-nim passes by!”
“She's like a lark singing at dawn!”
“I say she's like a spring breeze!”
“Could she not be a flower? Fragrance spreads wherever she passes!”
Indians? No, wait — should I be calling them the natives of the Eastern Continent?
Their metaphors still threw me off. They compared everything to trees, wind, and grass, and I couldn't keep it all straight. But I could feel that they loved me, so today, too, I flew along, mortified but cheerful.
Tap.
I was debating whether to walk into the chapel or fly in when I spotted an open window — so I sailed through it and alighted dead center in the room.
“...?”
“...”
“...!”
The room was packed, and dozens of people stared at me with expressions ranging from bewilderment to outright shock.
“Hmm? Did I walk into the wrong room?”
Should I have come in through the door? That might have been too much of a culture shock, though.
We had absorbed the southern Great Plains and were now bringing the western mountains into the fold — we'd brought back chieftains from those mountains and from the tribes down south near Mexico, where we planned to expand next.
By all accounts it hadn't been easy. There had been plenty of fighting, after all.
“&%@#%@”
“!$#!#$”
“*##%”
Everyone erupted in their own languages at once, and chaos reigned — but one thing I was certain of: they looked at me as an object of reverence and worship.
The plan now was to teach them Daehan Language, then have them recruit their own kin — a kind of multilevel recruitment scheme, really.
“Hehe. I can't understand a word, but it's lovely to meet you all~”
“Oh! $@!#$”
“#@!”
“&#*#%”
Ahaha. Honestly, it's a little loud... The languages sound sort of similar, but they must all be different, right?
“Thank you~ Let's all get along!”
Once I started stepping forward to greet the guests like that, the number of settlers grew rapidly. At first they came believing this was land where a god dwelt — but once they tried farming it, well. The land was no joke!
The year 3785 — in other words, more than thirty years since I'd come to the Eastern Continent.
Call it missionary work, maybe? Recruiting the natives. Time flew by absurdly fast.
The land was so vast that people I thought had hidden away somewhere would pop up again — the numbers just wouldn't shrink.
“Looks like the young lady's been out and about again today?”
“Yeah. You wouldn't believe how much they love touching my clothes. It's strange — the slightest brush of a fingertip, and they light up as if they've received some enormous grace.”
Even a small touch leaves grime, because these friends of mine still live half-primitive lives.
“Shall I tell them to stop?”
“No! It's not like they touch me in any creepy way. Just let it be.”
If they were pawing at me lecherously, I'd have decked them ages ago. Would I really have left it alone?
“How's the rail construction going?”
“I think we need far more patrol units and way stations.”
“There are still that many bandits?”
Look, it takes forty of our own just to lay a single rail. Who would steal that? But steal they did! The rails were too heavy to carry off, so they'd leave the rails and pry out the fasteners instead.
And that was dangerous, because it derails trains. There had been one major accident already... quite a few people had been hurt and killed, mind you.
“Then let's build signal stations along the tracks here as well.”
“Signal stations? Are they needed already?”
“The population's only going to grow — better to build ahead of time! You did bury the paths alongside the rails, right?”
I'd tested it before: a tower ten jā high gives you visibility for about a li in every direction. Which means one signal station every two li does the trick!
“Let's put up signal stations doubling as patrol posts every two li here too.”
“My... we'll need a great many patrolmen, won't we?”
Until now, we hadn't raised an army in the Eastern Continent — only recruited guard units to keep the peace.
“Wouldn't it be better to do it even if we have to cut down on personnel going abroad?”
People here don't think like primitives and swing blades at you without reason. The cultures are different and conversation doesn't flow, so misunderstandings arise — that's all.
Still, we had been sending armed men skilled in combat out into the field. More and more of them were coming back wounded from clashes with the natives.
“It's becoming time for internal security anyway, so we'll form an army.”
So long as we could smooth over those misunderstandings, an army hadn't been necessary — but now that we'd gathered nearly everyone who could be brought in as friendly partners, it really was time to show some strength.
“Yeah. There are plenty of people words won't reach anymore, aren't there?”
“Shall we wipe them all out?”
“Nothing so drastic. Their territory can't be that vast. Let them keep it, and talk them into agreeing not to harm us.”
Once word started flowing back and forth about how good our land was to live on, there was no way they wouldn't come over. Think of it as their final chance.
“Let's station about a hundred men at each outpost.”
The land was so wide it never looked crowded, but registered citizens alone already numbered sixty million.
“Do you know how to build a star fort here?”
“You mean the fortress designed to resist cannon fire?”
“Yes.”
Star fort, I think, was the English term. Simply put, the key is making the walls meet incoming cannon fire at an angle rather than head-on.
The greater the angle of incidence, the more the shell's force gets deflected. You ricochet it right off!
Granted, walls too low can be scaled, which is its own problem — but build sharp, jutting angular walls, and you get a magnificent castle shaped exactly like a star. Truly beautiful.
“Is that really necessary against people carrying bows and axes?”
Fair point — but I was worried those Western bastards might someday come poking into the east. Crossing the Atlantic is easier than crossing the Pacific, after all...
“Hard to say? It's not as though people will carry bows and axes forever, so we build them in advance.”
“Then we'll start with watchtowers and expand from there.”
“Oh! Right, that's good.”
If the West never does come, we can just use them as cultural landmarks. Build one and you'll see — these things are actually gorgeous.
In 3785, I was wandering the western desert with a group of people.
We were headed there through the introduction of a tribe that traded with the Hohokam who lived in the region.
“How does anyone survive in a desert like this?”
“The Hohokam, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“You'll be in for quite a shock when you see it.”
We'd sent word ahead that we were coming, so no one would be throwing axes at us, presumably. Most people out here used stone axes and stone arrowheads. Not terrifying — but startling enough.
“You'll see it once we cross that hill.”
“Let's hurry, then!”
When I crested the hill alongside our guide, my jaw dropped.
“Good heavens... what is this?”
“Hahahaha! I told you it would surprise you!”
Right in the middle of the desert, they'd dammed a river, laid out canals, and were farming the land.
“This is practically pyramid-building territory!”
And the scale was no joke. The weathered traces of those canals held the passage of years, plain to see. Centuries — perhaps a full millennium — of life stretched out before my eyes.
“Well? We live rather well, don't we?”
“We do. I'd worried because of the desert, but there'll be no need for a hard relocation. If you need anything, come down and trade for it.”
“Thank you.”
They wanted to keep living on their own ancestral lands, which was why I'd come to take their measure — and this much, they'd earned recognition for.
“Someday, I'll bring a railway through here too.”
“Oh! If you could do that, we would be truly grateful!”
“It might take quite a while.”
My conscience pricked a little. This friend might not live to see it.
“That's fine. Live in a desert long enough, and patience grows on you naturally.”
“Yes. Remarkable.”
If only there were more people here, couldn't this count as a civilization in its own right?
“And — a gift.”
“What fascinating patterns. Beautiful!”
“Thank you.”
They gave me heaps of pottery as gifts, decorated with designs I'd never seen, painted in dyes unique to their people.
Teaching them things like glazing and helping them develop their own distinctive ceramic culture would be wonderful!
“Later, I'll let you learn new techniques. So you can make your pottery harder and more beautiful still.”
“Oh! Such techniques exist?”
“They do. Everything exists.”
They hadn't seen guns or cannons yet since those were weapons of war — show them one of those and they'd really lose their minds.
“Pottery this beautiful deserves to be made in quantity and spread among the people.”
“Haha. I look forward to it. The day we ride a train across the desert to sell our pottery in the forests.”
Hope shone so plainly on the young guide's face — it was a joy to look at.
“!#%!!@@”
“$#%!!#”
After walking a while, someone approached the young man and the two began exchanging words in their own tongue.
“&##”
“!!#$”
The newcomer's face was full of worry, and the guide's face grew paler by the minute — clearly something bad had happened.
“Haneul-nim! There's a plague going around — many people have fallen ill. Please, you should turn back for today!”
“Hm? A plague?”
I don't get sick or wounded, yet people worry about me constantly, even knowing that.
“What kind of sickness?”
“That... we don't rightly know...”
“Then let's go see. I don't get hurt, and I don't catch sickness.”
“Ah!”
I followed him into a house built of sandstone where the sick had supposedly been gathered.
What on earth is this disease? The stench of rotting human flesh wafted over us — and fevers, too?
“!#%!#”
“Uuughh...”
Ugh... I can't tell what this is.
“There are many?”
“Yes... about half of us...”
What! Then counting the carriers, that's practically the entire town! This can't go on.
“Is there a body of water where everyone can gather?”
“There is a reservoir.”
“Gather everyone there. Quickly! The healthy ones too — bring them all.”
“Yes...”
Hey, you! I'm trying to help you here — what's with the lifeless face?
Slosh.
“Now — get the people together, and pour this into the water.”
“Gasp! Isn't that the water of grace?!”
“Knowing that, do you know how it's used? Go, hurry! The sick come first.”
“Thank you! I'll be right back!”
People began gathering at the reservoir in the center of the village — far more of them than I'd expected.
“Must be tens of thousands.”
Then, at the inlet where the water flowed in, I tipped in pure, undiluted Holy Water without the slightest hesitation. A tenth of that would have been plenty, honestly...
And as the people washed in the water and drank it, the discomfort began draining from their faces.
“$%@!#$”
“Oh!!!”
“^!!#! Wah!”
Of course they'd marvel. Anyone with athlete's foot had that cured too — soak in the water like that and everything goes.
“Everyone will be happy now.”
Thanks to the miracle of healing, assimilating with these people went quickly. There were more cities besides this one, and a cure like this is pretty much a miracle of god, after all.
Fifteen years had passed since I began living among them — it was already 3800. With so many people spreading out in every direction, it had taken a long time.
Even Spain took over a century to absorb a single culture, so this is remarkably fast, really.
“In the beginning they avoided us and wouldn't meet us at all. Those were hard days.”
All I need to do is show them a miracle — but to show one, you have to actually meet them, see? One tribe only came over after watching me treat a man struck by a stone arrow, so that says it all.
And so the central Eastern Continent was nearly absorbed. Time to head south, then.