Victims Without a Crime
The victims of a crime that never happened.
Until only recently, Yosef had been living in Venice with his wife Sarah and their daughter Miriam.
In Europe, Jews were barred from nearly every occupation—farmer, knight, clergyman, you name it. In a continent devoted to the Christian faith, the entire people who had killed Jesus were considered sinners.
"Charging interest is a sin... Hah..."
Yosef could read and write well and was quick with numbers, but with no lawful trade open to him, he had made his living lending money to others and collecting interest on it.
Then, without warning, the Church declared usury a mortal sin—and fearing what might come of it, he had hurriedly liquidated his assets and fled. Fortunately, Islam did not view his people nearly so harshly, and for that he counted himself lucky.
"Well, land is hard to come by, so I suppose I'll have to make money with money..."
He was still in the moneylending business. And there were those who looked upon him with resentment for it...
"What are we going to do? We borrowed far too much. We can barely afford the interest anymore."
"Same here..."
Two Arabian merchants trading in Suez were on the brink of bankruptcy, their carefully chosen wares refusing to sell at any decent price.
The problem was that for this venture, hoping to strike it big, they had borrowed money from those Jewish devils.
"If only they'd disappear, we'd be free of all this worry..."
"Are you suggesting we kill them?"
"No, no, nothing like that..."
Besides, even if they dealt with the man himself, his family would surely come looking for what was owed. A promissory note doesn't simply vanish.
They could, in principle, seize his assets outright—but word would spread, and who would ever trade with them again?
Several months passed in the grip of such deliberations, and then the Black Death began to spread through Suez.
"By the way, have you heard the news?"
"What news?"
"They say plague is running rampant at the port?"
"Good grief... Best not go anywhere near it for a while."
In the Middle Ages, an epidemic was a truly dreadful thing. No one knew why it struck, and people died in droves all the same.
"I heard half of them are already dead? Even people who were too frightened to leave their homes died!"
"God! Then what are we supposed to do?"
The two men began to worry about the families waiting at home—especially since one man's son had fallen gravely ill not long ago and nearly died.
"People are saying someone must be spreading the poison..."
"Ha, if that were true, they'd all be dead already."
"But what if we put this to use somehow?"
"Use what?"
The sight of his friend's sinister smile sent a chill down the man's spine, but he forced himself to ask again.
"We say the Jews have been poisoning the wells."
"What on earth? Why would they do that?"
It made no sense, either to the one saying it or the one hearing it. The Jews drank from the same wells—why would they poison water they themselves needed?
"Doesn't the Church in the West call those people sinners? So they must have come here to take their revenge, no?"
"You mean just invent the crime and spread the rumor?"
"And if they happen to disappear in the process, so much the better?"
"Ah..."
Only now understanding his friend's meaning, the man let the same sinister expression creep across his face.
Two men, hoping to escape their debts by fabricating a crime out of thin air, and a faint darkness was already settling over their features.
"Grab them!"
"Sarah, run! Now!"
Yosef, his daughter Miriam on his back, ran for his life alongside his wife Sarah.
One look at the furious faces chasing them was enough to know that if they were caught, nothing good would come of it.
"Honey, where do we go?"
"Ugh..."
He could see no path at all. He had watched the friend who lived next door get dragged away and bolted out in a hurry—but now, standing here, he had no idea where to turn.
As he cast about desperately, his eyes landed on a fortress.
"Let's go there!"
"To the Daehan compound?"
"They believe in neither Islam nor Christianity. Pragmatic sorts who trust only what they see with their own eyes—let's pin our hopes on them!"
It was no lie. Daehan Company employees were simple-minded enough to believe only what was right in front of them.
They decided that rather than run until they were caught and killed, they would try their luck at the fortress.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
"Hello?! Please, help us!"
"Is anyone there?!"
"Please!"
The couple pounded on the gate searching for a soul, but strangely no one appeared. Someone, anyone, should have been there to greet visitors...
"There they are! They're at the fortress!"
"Catch them!"
"Quick! Before they get inside!"
The mob came running, brandishing bloodstained clubs—they had clearly already claimed victims on the way.
"Honey..."
"I'm sorry..."
The couple looked at each other, knowing the end had come, and began to weep. Seeing this, their daughter, who had cowered in silent terror until then, broke into sobs as well.
"S-sniff..."
"Hck..."
"WAAAAAAH!!!"
The crowd closed in on the family and began to sneer.
"You poisoned the wells! That's why people are dying like this!"
"We took you filthy criminals in, and this is how you repay us?"
Watching the crowd creep closer, clubs raised high, the couple closed their eyes.
It seemed a family's flame was about to be snuffed out just like that.
SCREEEECH—
"What is all this racket?!"
A man clad in gleaming silver armor, twin battle-axes hanging at his belt, flung the gate open and bellowed as he strode out.
And the crowd faltered.
"We've... we've come for the criminals!"
"That's right! Those men are murderers!"
"My son died because of them!"
"They must all die!"
Clatter, clatter.
As the man advanced a few steps toward the shouting, shoving mob, the frightened crowd backed away.
In the decades since Daehan had established its concession here, everyone knew well enough what these men were capable of—cutting an attacker clean in two with a single axe swing, or dropping a man dead with one punch.
"Why... do you approach?"
"This is Daehan's concession territory. If there is guilt, it will be judged under our law."
The fortress and the surrounding grounds fell within Daehan's concession zone, so his words were no lie.
"Someone step forward and state these men's crimes."
"Ahem..."
Though everyone hung back, one man finally stepped forward. The very man who had borrowed money from Yosef after fleeing here—he needed a reason to see him dead, no matter what.
"They poisoned the wells and spread the plague! That is their crime!"
"Is that so? And who witnessed them poisoning the wells?"
The man standing before them was Kim Dae-cheol, a section chief and a veteran far beyond his years in dealing with people.
"Me! It was me! I saw it!"
When no one else dared come forward, the two friends had no choice but to both step up.
One doing the explaining and the other playing witness—whether the two were truly friends was anyone's guess.
"Really? And when did they do it?"
"Two nights ago! I saw them poisoning the central well!"
"Hmm? Then what about the people who died before that?"
"They must have poisoned it before, too! Two nights ago is just when I happened to see it!"
It was a little odd, but people nodded along, thinking it plausible enough. Surely the culprits wouldn't poison openly in daylight—of course there wouldn't be many witnesses.
"Is that so? Then you—do you have anything to say?"
Yosef thought carefully. Two nights ago, in the evening, at the central well? In the dead of night?
"Um... sir? Two nights ago I was unloading cargo here at the fortress."
"Ah? The night we worked straight through until dawn?"
"Yes! That's right. My name is Yosef—my name was written on the work manifest."
There was nothing that needed checking here. Once he gave his name, Dae-cheol seemed to recall him a little as well.
"What? Did you lot confuse him with someone else?"
"Er... was it yesterday?"
"..."
"Regardless, that man must die!"
"And who died and made you the judge?"
And then, studying the pair closely, Yosef suddenly remembered—they were among those who had borrowed money from him just last year.
"Sir! Those two are the ones who borrowed money from me last year! They've been falling behind on the interest this whole time!"
"What?"
It looked for all the world like a scheme to railroad an innocent man as a criminal and wipe out a debt. Dae-cheol seemed mildly irritated.
"You damned wretches! Can't you tell the truth about anything?!"
"AAAAAH!"
"Run!"
"Help!"
Watching the entire crowd scatter at a single shout, Dae-cheol could only feel hollow. How could human beings be so vile?
"Come inside, all of you. There may be friends or other family of yours in there."
"I beg your pardon?"
"You Jews are many, inside."
Jews could read and calculate, which made them perfect for desk work. To the Daehan people, who hated having to think, they were precisely the talent they needed most.
Dozens of people were already sheltering inside—workers from the fortress and others who had fled the mob to this place.
Though some had escaped thanks to the fortress, many other Jews failed to get away and fell into the mob's hands.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
"Ghhhh..."
"KYAAA! Honey! No!"
In the eyes of the man bleeding out, his limbs shattered, dying on the ground, he saw his wife—stripped naked, seized by the hair, and dragged away.
Filthy wretches, all of them...
Robbed of justice, the man could not even close his eyes peacefully, bloodshot and wide open to the last.
"Ptui!"
"There's nothing in this house worth any money."
"Shall we try another one?"
"But first I've got to have a taste of that woman?"
Two men followed their companion into the bedchamber.
And here, yet another Jewish family.
"If I give you money, you'll hide us?"
"Of course. But you'll have to give it all—every last coin."
And there were those who turned the terror into commerce—taking a Jew's property in exchange for hiding them, or smuggling them abroad.
"This is everything I have..."
"Oh? Quite a tidy sum. Come in, come in."
"Thank you! My family is with me."
Grateful beyond words to have found refuge for his family, he gestured toward the bushes across the road where they had been hiding—come quickly.
Out of the thicket emerged a woman and her daughter, the mother quite beautiful—and greed took root in the merchant's face.
Those would make quite the valuable merchandise.
Slaves traded in shadow, here and everywhere. A beautiful woman always commanded a fortune.
In this way, amid the massacres and crimes born of a baseless accusation breaking out on every side, half the Jews of the Middle East vanished within six years.
Some fled to the protection of Daehan...
But others were sold off somewhere, as slaves or as playthings.
And Suez was not the only place where this was happening. Wherever word of the Black Death traveled, the rumor followed without fail.
The gist of it was always the same: the Jews were spreading the disease.
Without so much as verifying the truth, people made the Jews the target of their fury and killed them.
And so, in the year 3807, the Black Death that had been tormenting the Middle East was slowly preparing to make its full-blooded march into Europe.
"Wow! This whole town's been emptied out!"
"Ahahaha! It's all ours now!"
"Let's hurry and grab everything!"
"I'll go call the sailors."
Goods sold out of Suez had spread even to the Mediterranean ports. And these were Venetian merchants heading to harbors devastated by the Black Death, intending to sneak off with whatever they could carry...
"Ahahaha! Pepper!"
"What did you say?!"
"Whole crates of it!"
"Chili powder too!"
"God! This is from Daehan!"
In this era, pepper was a rare treasure that only Daehan—which had established itself on the Eastern Continent—could supply.
"Jackpot!"
"AHAHAHAHA!"
Invisible to the merchants as they embraced one another in celebration, a flea or two was already hitching a ride—and inside the crates, rats crouched in hiding, biding their time.
And no single merchant thought this way alone. Countless traders loaded their plundered goods aboard and set sail for the myriad ports scattered across southern Europe.