A Little War (2)
「Wheeee-ee」
"Chilly out here."
"Everyone's wearing thick clothes, right?"
"Yes, sir!"
As they prepared for a stone-throwing battle, it occurred to them that padding their bodies would help, so everyone had come out wearing layered clothing.
For Lisbon's mild climate, where even winter never froze the ice over, it was a bit much.
Still, better safe than injured.
"Let's go!"
"Move out!"
The faces of the villagers marching out of town with proud, defiant steps carried a certain grim resolve.
"If we beat them, maybe we'll get into heaven, eh?"
"You think this counts?"
"Has to be better than doing nothing, right?"
Since they were off, in their own minds at least, to pass judgment on the traitors, it seemed they half believed some divine blessing would be watching over them.
The carts they hauled behind them were piled high with the wooden planks they'd been crafting to use as shields.
Their village sat about an hour's walk from the outer fence of Pyeong-an Naru.
The villagers were spotted fairly early.
"Huh? What's that?"
"People coming this way? Migrants, you think?"
From up on the fence, the crowd approaching in the distance looked just like the band that had snuck in to settle here themselves, so they wondered for a moment if these might be fellow travelers.
But as they watched a while longer, something odd caught their eye.
"That's weird."
"What is?"
"They've got no luggage. Just carts—and they're hauling nothing but wood?"
"Huh? That really is strange."
If they were migrants, they ought to have bundles carrying valuables and spare clothes.
And migrants traveled furtively through the mountains, not swaggering about in the open like this.
Because the local lord would seize them if they did.
"Something's off! Go report it and request reinforcements!"
"Got it! Stay sharp!"
"If it comes to it, I'm running too."
Sensing something wrong, they hurried off at a run to inform the village council.
Daehan had purchased the land, but with race and culture so different from the locals, everything beyond the port proper had been entrusted to the residents themselves.
Those residents had hand-picked their own educated men and formed a small council.
「Clatter-clunk」
"Hah... hah..."
A man who had run flat-out from the fence for a good fifteen minutes flung open the council door, his face frantic.
"Hmm? What's the matter?"
"A suspicious crowd is approaching! At the eastern fence!"
"What! We'll convene the council! You—run to the guard post!"
"Yes, sir!"
The village council began to bustle as well. Members were summoned, and scouts were dispatched to the fence to find out what was going on.
Depending on the situation, the port might need to be notified too.
Meanwhile, the guards on standby were already hurrying toward the fence.
"Hah... hah... how many are there?"
"Hah... didn't get a count, but it looked like a village's worth of people."
"Hah. Hah. Let's hurry."
By the time they reached the fence, the shouting from beyond it was already in full roar.
"Hey! You cowardly bastards! You'll be punished by God!"
"Come on out! Come fight like yesterday!"
Hearing the jeers from across the fence, the captain of the guards remembered the guard who'd come in days ago with a cracked skull.
He'd been picked on by a Catholic village nearby.
"So the neighboring village is picking a fight..."
"What do we do, Captain?"
"For now, let's climb up and assess."
Men clambered up the fence.
From the top, they saw nearly a hundred villagers gathered beyond.
"Ha! So they brought their friends! Spineless cowards!"
"Bah! Ptui!"
"That's about what you'd expect from these people!"
The captain of the guards couldn't fathom what this was supposed to be. A whole mob showing up just to hurl insults and taunts.
"Everyone. Doing this here will only sour feelings on both sides. Please, go home."
Then again, a man doesn't get to be captain of the guards without a measure of character and sense. It showed in how politely he tried to reason with them and send them home.
"What garbage! Show them who we are!"
"Wooo! Let it fly!"
「Whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh」
What came back, however, was a baptism of stones.
「Thwack-thud, thud」
"Ugh! What the—! Guh..."
"Everybody get down! Argh!"
"Rocks incoming! Take cover!"
It had all happened in an instant, and already a dozen-odd men lay groaning, struck by stones.
What was throwing rocks at each other even supposed to accomplish? Rage surged up in the captain without warning.
"Stop this and withdraw at once!"
"You withdraw, you traitor!"
"Go fall into hell!"
The Protestant side found it absurd. Traitors? Told to fall into hell? Hadn't these men been the ones who never abandoned God?
All they did was follow His teachings in a different way. At the ignorant babbling of men who couldn't even read the Bible themselves, their blood began to boil too.
"Someone pass me stones! We can't just take this!"
"That's dangerous! You'll get hurt!"
"Doesn't matter! Quick!"
"Whew... make them wait."
「Rattle, thock, tap-tap, whistling-thud」
Stones whistled overhead while rocks cracked against the fence in a ceaseless drumbeat.
"Hahahaha! Look at them! Scared and hiding!"
"Cowards, every last one!"
And the abuse kept pouring down. Under the sustained assault and the stream of insults, the guards could bear it no longer.
"We'll throw stones too and drive them off!"
"Attack!"
"Throw!"
「Whoosh! Whoosh!」
Stone-hurling broke out from atop the fence as well.
「Rattle-rattle, THUD」
"Gah! They're throwing rocks! Raise the shields!"
"Quickly! Urk!"
Thrown weapons, after all, favor the high ground.
Every stone the guards threw burst skulls open on the other side, so the Catholics began raising the wooden-plank shields they'd brought in reserve.
「Thock, thunk-thock」
"There we go! It's holding! Keep throwing!"
"Waaaargh!"
From atop the fence, the defenders hurled stones from behind parapets as those below passed them up; on the ground, the attackers crouched behind wooden planks. A full-scale stone battle had begun.
A crude little war between villages had ignited.
The stone-throwers fought on for a good long while, but even with places to hide and things to block with, injuries were inevitable—bloodied, swollen bodies appeared on both sides.
"Ugh! Falling back for now!"
"Everybody retreat!"
"Shields up, pull back slowly!"
"Easy now!"
They had the numbers, but they had to carry shields too, and the attackers were finding themselves at a slight disadvantage.
Realizing the fight was going against them, they withdrew.
"Ugh... damn it!"
"We're way too outnumbered!"
"Any way around this?"
"We need more men! How many could possibly be living in there?"
They'd assumed the enclave held few people, but far, far more lived inside than they imagined.
"Let's gather men from the surrounding villages!"
"Then we'll need more shields made, too."
"Move fast."
And so the first day's battle ended in a Protestant victory.
"They're retreating!"
"Wooo!"
"We won!"
Drunk on the joy of victory, the Protestants screamed themselves hoarse—loud enough for the fleeing Catholics to hear every word.
"Still... something bothers me about this."
"Should we report it to the port?"
"Whew... I doubt it's worth their time... but should we stockpile some stones ourselves?"
The captain of the guards was certain this wouldn't end here. But going to the port to say so felt like tattling over a children's game.
The enclave began its own preparations. Thick, padded garments sewn with cotton bought from the port, and helmets of quilted cloth for the head.
"Phew... I just hope it all blows over."
Contrary to the captain's hopes, it wasn't long before the whole thing flared up again.
"Captain! This time they've swarmed like a hornet's nest!"
"What did you say?!"
What on earth were these people, throwing themselves into this life-or-death brawl? He simply could not understand it.
"Haaah. Notify the council and summon every guard we have!"
"Yes, sir!"
What he found when he ran to the fence was truly a sight to behold.
People already lay collapsed here and there, and peering over the fence, he saw what looked like several hundred men assembled outside.
「Rattle-rattle-rattle」
"Ugh."
In the brief moment he poked his head up to survey the scene, a storm of stones hammered against the fence.
"Have you lost your minds?! Why are you doing this!"
"Death to the traitors! Every last one of them!"
Not even calling for repentance—just death. Weren't they supposed to worship the same God? Why couldn't they see that?
His heart grew heavy. What was it about this thing called religion that drove people to this?
「Rattle-rattle-rattle」
With hundreds hurling stones, the pile outside the fence began stacking higher and higher.
"Waaaargh!"
"Let's go!"
And then the Protestant villagers came into his view.
"This is insane..."
It looked like the entire population of their village had simply come running out.
Honestly, not responding behind the fence like this seemed the best option—nobody would get hurt.
"Throw!"
「Whoosh, thock, whoosh, THUD, crack」
People called in more people, and the scale kept swelling.
By the seventh day, so many stones had been thrown that they'd piled up to the very top of the fence.
「Crrrack」
"Gah..."
"..."
And slowly, people began to die.
"Kyaaaaah! A man's dead!"
"AAAAGH!"
"Mad! They've gone mad!"
It was the slack farming season, and plenty of people had turned out half in boredom, treating the whole thing as a bit of sport or recreation.
But these were stones. Take one badly, and a human skull breaks like an eggshell.
"Gasp... wait, is this actually okay?"
「THWACK-crack, thud」
It went without saying that the stones thrown from the higher Protestant ground carried that much more force.
「Creeeak-splinter」
"AAGH! The shield's shattered!"
From the very start, this had been a losing battle for the Catholics.
「SPLAT」
"Ghhh..."
"Hey! Oi! Stay with me!"
That said, the men atop the fence died just as easily when a stone caught them wrong.
People sensed that something had gone deeply wrong. Once the dying began, this was no longer a game.
"I'm going home! AAAGH!"
"Me too! I'm going home!"
"I'm not dying a dog's death in a place like this!"
The crowd outside the fence began to scatter, and the enclave folk who'd come out thinking it was all in fun dispersed just as quickly.
"What in the holy hell is this supposed to be!"
Only the captain of the guards, slumped against the fence, seethed—why had a fight like this even started?
Who knew how many innocent people had already died.
When everyone had finally scattered, all that remained along the fence were the wounded, bleeding out, and the dead.
"Uuuuurgh..."
"Get them to the hospital, now!"
"Anyone unhurt, start carrying people, one at a time!"
"No! Get the carts! Quickly!"
The crowd outside the fence could sort itself out; the captain was busy seeing to his own men.
People had died—all for the ignorance of Europeans who treated slaughter as a pastime.
How hollowly this fight had ended. The corpses sprawled inside and outside the fence, eyes still open even in death, stood as proof of it.
Wasn't the religious war raging across Europe right now exactly like this?
Wow. Absolute lunatics.
"Why are you people tearing up someone else's front yard!"
"You just stay put, Haneul-nim..."
"If you're bored, go home and take a nap! What is wrong with you all!"
The hospital had filled up with an absurd number of patients, so she'd wandered over for a look—and apparently these fools had been out there hurling stones at each other.
They were telling her this while bones shattered and broken, blood trickling everywhere.
They weren't even children. Honestly, so exhausting. Exhausting.
"So these are the people eating the rice I provided, wasting their strength on nonsense?"
"Wh-what are you planning to do...?"
"There's no such thing as a free lunch! Tell them to earn their meals by farming, like everyone else!"
Truly, these people were so ignorant they'd passed right through ignorance into barbarism. She could hardly bring herself to count them as human.
She'd sooner hold a conversation with the cavemen still running around that primeval forest wearing nothing but underwear and wielding stone axes.
At least those kids never pulled deadly nonsense like this.
"And don't let them wiggle out of a single coin of their medical bills. Collect it all!"