Escort Service
"So what are we going to do about these damn bandits?"
"Should we send the kids out to deal with them?"
"We don't owe this country free public safety, do we?"
This is their job, and it landed on my lap for free? Public safety? For nothing?
"Oh! Let's send escorts!"
"Escorts?"
"Yeah. Spread the word to the merchants — anyone who buys a certain amount or pays a fee gets an escort detail attached."
As long as it's not free, it's fine, right? Charge them money and stick the kids on the job.
"Three or four kids can handle a bandit gang of thirty or forty, can't they?"
They run around in full armor without even drawing a sword, firing pistols while they're at it?
This is basically a wolf showing up in the middle of a flock of sheep.
"Hmm? That could actually work. The kids have been itching for action lately — they've been stirring up trouble all over the place."
Right. True... Though I'll never understand why they plant people upside-down in the dirt just for looking suspicious.
They even pay the medical bills and apologize afterward. Aiyo...
"Fine, let's rotate them out into the field then. Give each of them two pistols and that alone is enough to wipe out fourteen bandits in no time."
Seven rounds each, fired point-blank. As long as nothing misfires, the bandits won't even get grazed by a miss — they'll just get mowed down.
"Understood. I'll ask the kids, form the teams, and notify the merchants."
The escort service can charge a premium, right? Hazard pay and all that!
"Good, good. Oh, and start tracking the stolen goods too. Tell the nobles you heard their stuff was spotted at so-and-so's house, and they'll pay in tea, yokan, and chocolate."
Have to catch the thieves too.
In four thousand years, not a single soul who touched what's mine has ever walked away whole, you punks.
With the recent rise in bandit activity... (excerpt) ...those who are concerned are encouraged to make use of the Daehan Guard. Fees are... (excerpt) ...
A few days later, a new counter appeared at the Daehan trading post. The Daehan Company had gone into the security business.
"What's this say?"
"Is Daehan really assigning warriors to people directly?"
Crowds had gathered around the notice, reading it over one another's shoulders.
"Huh. But why is it so expensive per person?"
And it truly was outrageous. A four-man team cost what it would take to hire eighty ordinary warriors.
"Look over there."
"Hmm... Do they really cross mountains and rivers like that?"
Where the crowd was looking stood burly Daehan security staff in full plate armor.
"Hm. One punch from those guys would split a man's skull open."
"They look like gods standing there..."
The staff, gleaming and standing tall and proud, felt a little embarrassed, honestly. They were no different from monkeys in a zoo.
"But doesn't that mean four men are strong enough to take on eighty?"
"Huh? Now that you mention it..."
Looking at the guards, people began to think the price made a certain sense after all.
Still, the hiring fee was steep. But plenty of people could afford it — those carrying high-priced luxuries and valuables, for one.
One such merchant approached the Daehan Guard counter. A merchant in silk, apparently no ordinary trader.
"I'd like to hire an escort."
"Of course. To what destination, and how many teams will you need?"
"Three teams, as far as Edo."
"Hmm. If you're headed to Edo, wouldn't sea travel be safer?"
Edo had a port, after all — going by ship would be far safer. The merchant himself had arrived by boat, so he knew that well enough.
"There are places I need to stop along the way."
So he planned to take the long route home, passing through several towns.
"Hmm. Then the fee will be quite steep. Will that be all right?"
"No problem at all."
He was in something of a hurry. Word of how many orders had come in — the value of the goods he was carrying home beggared imagination.
He had already brought forty warriors with him. And he'd hired an escort anyway, just to be safe.
And so, the next day, the merchant set out from Naniwa.
"You're Mr. Kato, I take it?"
"That's right."
"Your escorts' orders are to protect the cargo and nothing more."
Privately, Kato's pride stung a little — he was the one paying, yet these hired guards didn't even bother with honorifics.
Hmph. They can all drop dead for all I care.
Bandits would surely ambush them on the road — and these twelve claimed they could handle it?
"Understood."
"Then let's make for our destination."
Each of the guards carried a large pack on his back.
Ammunition, rations, even Holy Water — and the armor itself was already heavy. The loads were anything but light, and to anyone watching, it looked doubtful how far they could actually march.
"Man, this is heavier than I thought."
Apparently even Daehan office workers found heavy things heavy.
"Yeah, no running with this."
Walking wasn't the problem. Running was going to be the problem.
"You dummy, just drop the pack when it's time to fight."
"What about the bullets?"
"Who's got time to reload in a melee anyway? Split them open with the axe."
"Oh!"
Watching a companion who was strong as an ox and missing something upstairs, Kato shook his head.
Splitting skulls with a swing of the axe. I've seen enough of it to trust him, but the man is high-maintenance.
Thus they set out on the road, passing through the countryside and Kyoto before beginning to climb into the mountain passes.
「Hihihiheeng」
"The horses are exhausted, it seems. Let's rest a bit before moving on."
"Everyone halt! The horses are spent — we rest here."
Horses can't travel as far as you'd think. Push one to walk or run until it drops, and it will never keep pace with a man on foot.
And so the merchant's party rested every time their horses tired.
"How do horses tire this fast?"
Ponies may be small and somewhat weak, but compared to other breeds, their endurance is truly remarkable.
To the people of Daehan, who had ridden nothing else, Japan's horses seemed pitifully frail, conking out at the slightest effort.
There was simply no way the comparison wouldn't be made.
"No kidding. At this rate, when are we ever getting home?"
"Wouldn't you rather be out roaming like this than sitting at headquarters?"
"What I'd rather have is a bandit ambush. This is boring."
They'd volunteered for this posting out of boredom — thinking they might at least run into a bandit gang while on standby at the branch office — and hadn't seen so much as a hair on one.
"I want to shoot my pistol..."
"Me too..."
Their one wish was to fire their brand-new pistols. Shooting at straw dummies and target boards all day just left you numb, didn't it?
But what do they say — speak of the devil and he shall appear.
「Rustle hiss thwump」
"Uwaaah! Enemy attack!"
"Ambush!"
"Watch the brush!"
Spears suddenly burst out of the waist-high undergrowth along the roadside and began stabbing at the escort.
"Oh! Enemies!"
"Boys! Let's go!"
"Waaah!"
The moment a few of the Japanese warrior guards on the perimeter went down, all twelve Daehan guards — not frightened in the slightest, if anything delighted — charged gleefully into the reeds.
"What—! What are they doing?!"
"Hold the formation!"
It was the merchant and his own guards who panicked instead.
"Die!"
「Ting! Clang-clang」
A bandit thrust his spear, but all it bought him was the screech of metal grinding on metal.
"What the—? Is this plate armor or what, you bastard?!"
「Crack」
And into the forehead of the bandit still staring dumbfounded at his spear sank a Daehan silver axe.
"Everyone, out! Kill them!"
"Waaaaah!"
"All of you, forward!"
There was a reason the bandits had thrown themselves at a force with so many escorts. A bandit gang of over two hundred strong had descended on the party all at once.
"Maintain formation! Protect the cargo!"
"Stay pressed up against the man beside you!"
The merchant and his warriors huddled in a tight cluster, watching the bandits come charging across the distance.
「Gulp」
"Damn it. Are we even making it home alive?"
Their numbers looked hopelessly outmatched. Abandon the cargo and flee, and they might save their necks — but their days as warriors would be over.
"Damn it all."
Just as the guards gritted their teeth and steeled themselves—
"Get back here! What do you think you're doing?!"
The Daehan guards were running straight at the two-hundred-man bandit gang.
"Nyahaha! Now THIS is what I'm talking about!"
"This is why you take a field assignment!"
"It was never about the per diem!"
"Let's go!"
To these twelve, two hundred men was nothing. Guns or cannons might have been another matter, but those people were carrying nothing but a spear or a single blade apiece.
「Swish-swish-thunk Ting! Ting!」
"Shield your eyes! Arrows!"
Arrows did indeed come flying. But with plate armor on, fat chance.
"You think a shot would land from here?"
"Wouldn't it just fly into the sky?"
What they carried were revolvers with genuinely stubby barrels — true close-range weapons.
"Ah, forget it. We'll shoot when we're close enough to split skulls!"
"Let's go!"
And that was exactly why they were charging head-on.
The two groups drew nearer and nearer, while the merchant and his guards — watching from far behind — watched their hopes crumble into despair.
"Damn it. Daehan's escorts are absolute dogs..."
"Who does that? Who ARE these people?!"
The merchant and the warriors, venting their fury, were treated to a terrifying sight.
「BANG! Ta-ta-tang! BANG! BANG!」
Twelve men firing at once — the reports overlapped into a deafening roar, and smoke began to swallow the view ahead.
The merchants couldn't see it, but before the guards who kept advancing as they fired, the enemies began toppling one by one with every shot, like wheat before a scythe.
"Fire at will and keep advancing! We'll need the practice for when it counts!"
"Nyahaha!"
"Drop dead, all of you!"
「Ta-tang! Bang! Bang」
Each man had been issued two pistols — fourteen rounds apiece. Twelve men charged, pouring out a hundred and sixty-eight bullets.
"Uwaaah!"
"Gaaahk!"
"What IS that thing?!"
To the bandit gang, it looked as if the guards merely raised a hand and lightning fell, sweeping men away in rows.
"Invisible arrows?!"
"Ghk."
"It hurts too much!"
"P-please, spare me!"
Some died on the spot, but the number of bandits wounded and collapsed all across the field soon passed one hundred twenty.
Of two hundred men, one hundred twenty had fallen to the pistols fired on the charge alone.
"No more smoke coming out — we're dry! Now's the time! Go!"
"CHARGE!"
The bandits, who had faltered in fear, found their courage and rushed forward again.
"What ARE these things?"
"Is the axe just for show?!"
"Go!"
「Crack! Thud」
One swing of the axe, one man down.
"Die!"
「Shing! CLANG!」
"What is this?!"
They swung their katanas, only for the blades to shatter against the armor or bend out of shape on impact.
「Thud」
A skull split in two came courtesy of the guards' complimentary service.
There was exactly one way to take down one of these guardsmen.
Like Aztec battle tactics — pile bodies on top of him so he can't move, strip off the armor, or jam a weapon through the gaps.
"Grab him! Somebody help pin him down!"
They realized it far too late — by then, only forty men were left standing.
"No... it can't be! They're demons!"
"Oni! They're oni!"
"Hiiiiek!"
"Run!"
Spattered head to toe in blood-red gore over their armor, the guards truly looked like gods of hell itself.
What remained of the bandits fled head over heels.
The guards even chased down the runners to whittle the numbers down as far as possible, so in the end, only about ten made it back alive.
"Aw... I was just starting to enjoy myself and they run off?"
"Man... maybe we shouldn't have used the pistols after all?"
Daehan's security staff, confident even against two hundred men, made their way back to the column through the lingering haze of gunsmoke.
"Good grief..."
"What in the world..."
"What WAS that?"
"Not a single one of them got hurt?"
It was hardly surprising they were stunned — they had expected everyone to die, and instead the entire bandit gang had been wiped out.
"Rather frightening, honestly... If these are the kind of guards you get, the fee for twelve men is a bargain... I'd pay double if they asked."
In that moment, Kato understood viscerally that money could buy his life. No price for these guards would have been too steep.
And as he watched them return splattered with blood, then calmly clean their armor and tend their weapons—
neither the merchant nor his warriors could bring themselves to speak to them at all.
"We didn't... do anything wrong, did we?"
"No. Nothing I can think of?"
"You don't suppose we said something unlucky, do you?"
"We're still breathing, so it can't have been that bad, right?"
Objects of terror — and objects of awe.
"Still... incredible."
"They faced that many enemies without a hint of fear."
"And not one of them so much as scratched."
"If the escorts are this good, I can't imagine how terrifying the actual army must be."
Word of the Daehan Guard began to spread like wildfire.
After all, the dispatched teams hadn't been sent to this road alone.
But the bandits of Japan didn't exactly thin out. They simply gave a wide berth to anywhere the Daehan guards were. Strutting about in gleaming armor, those men were visible from a mile away, after all.
The fact that the staff grew somewhat bored in consequence was a bonus nobody asked for.