The Difference
The wall enclosing the Pyeong-an Naru Concession Zone had two gates, both facing toward Lisbon — and both were in absolute chaos.
"Get in line! LINE UP!"
"Kyaaah! Stop pushing!"
"He said get in line, you damn—!"
Tents had been pitched on either side of the gates, and the rich smell of potato porridge along with billows of steam drifted out from them. People stood in line, drooling, their eyes glued to the pots. No matter how much the crowd shouted at each other to keep order, some shoved and cut ahead right in front of the guards.
The weak — women and children — were steadily pushed further and further back.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
"Are you all going to line up, or do I have to knock the whole lot of you down before you do?"
"Uwaaah!"
"My ears!"
A Daehan Company employee who could no longer bear to watch fired his pistol into the air and bellowed — and his voice was so thunderous that anyone standing nearby collapsed on the spot in fright.
"Who do you think you are, ordering people around!"
Someone who'd clearly eaten something wrong stepped forward, shouting even louder than the man with the gun. His face was well-fed and greasy — the look of a man who lived comfortably. What business did he have here?
"Me? I'm the one handing out this food!"
"So that gives you the right to act however you please?"
Something suspicious was going on with this fellow. And the employee soon understood it.
Lord Haneul said it, didn't he. Anyone who doesn't know their place — fold them up first, then talk.
Crrrack. THUD. THUD.
Was it because he wore armor, or because he walked with such deliberate force? The man advanced, cracking his knuckles, each footstep sinking deep into the ground. The moment it seemed that glint of light flashed within the slit of his helmet—
"Wh—! Gahk!"
"Say that again."
"K-kuhk!"
He lunged at the fleeing troublemaker like a bolt of lightning, seized his head with one hand, and hoisted him into the air.
"P-please spare me!"
"Say it again, I said."
"What did I do! Put me down first! It hurts too much!"
Lifting a man off the ground by his head is no small feat of strength — and the grip required to keep hold of him is another matter entirely. Naturally, the one being held felt as though his skull was about to split open.
"Uuuuugh. Please!"
"You should answer when someone asks you a question, shouldn't you?"
The man wept and begged, but it wasn't the answer the company man wanted to hear.
"KRAAAAGH! You son of a—"
WHACK WHACK
The dangling man swung his fists and kicked his legs, but the armor made it all meaningless.
"Gwah! My hand! My leg!"
Only his own hand and leg hurt. Dangling him like that, the armored man began rocking him back and forth, toying with him like a plaything. As the man swayed back and forth like a scarecrow in the wind, his eyes slowly began to roll loose.
"The nobles! The noble lords ordered it! Please, spare me! Ggrrk…."
"Tch. So he was just a puppet."
SPLASH.
If he'd said it sooner, he'd have suffered less. What loyalty made him hold out until that very last word before fainting?
"What! The nobles? Why!"
"When it's not even their food to hand out?"
"Then weren't all the line-cutters and shovers sent by the nobles too?"
The common folk had no schooling, but they weren't slow. Looking back on it now, they could see it plainly enough — the nobles had stirred up trouble to muddy the atmosphere and keep the people from getting their food rations.
"Hey! You cut in line! Were you sent by the nobles too?"
"Me? No way!"
"You cut ahead, didn't you! Grab him!"
"I didn't! Uwaaaah!"
People mobbed each other, swinging fists every which way. Humanity, truly a species you could never expect too much of.
"Everyone, shut up and get in line or get lost!"
"U-uh…."
"Gah!"
The company man had served stints at overseas fortresses before, but he truly could not bring himself to like Europe. In the Middle East, in Qajar, in Africa, India, Southeast Asia — wherever he went, he'd always managed to bring back at least one or two locals to Daehan with him. The fact that not a single soul here merited that said everything.
"L-let's all line up, then…."
"Heheh… good grief…."
He let go of the collar he'd been clutching — but only the ones in front of him. Back there, out of sight, the cutting and the brawling carried on as before.
"Haaah. I'm getting sick of this…."
Behind him, the madness continued.
"Give me more!"
The bowl was already heaped to overflowing — if she filled it any more, it would spill. Asking for more left the server staring at her, dumbfounded.
"Hmph! What are you looking at! Just ladle a little more in!"
Apparently she assumed he was gawking because he'd fallen for her. Her face was pretty enough, granted — but with her unwashed, matted hair and the sweat-slick sheen on her cheeks, who in their right mind would fall for that?
"Hoooh…."
PLOP.
"Ahh! It's hot! What's wrong with you!"
He'd indulged her and filled her bowl to the very brim, and now she was carrying on because it had touched her fingers. As if it were his fault.
His own parents had been Portuguese who came inside the walls quite a long time ago. Same blood, same people — and yet something about this woman he simply could not stand.
"Are you perhaps interested?"
"No."
"Shall I come by your place tonight?"
"No."
"…."
He'd gathered roughly that she lived inside the concession and looked about his age, so she figured she could reel him in and get inside.
"Aren't I pretty, though?"
She thrust out her chest with her hands and wiggled her hips, but it was hopeless.
"You're dirty. That's why."
"Ugh…."
"I need to serve the next person, so move along."
"Screw you! Fine then, to hell with you!"
"Haaah… this is exhausting…."
At the spots where young men like him served the food, there were always plenty of women like this waiting. Even a few desperate widows, hoping against hope. And still, he could not quit. There were far too many people standing on wobbly legs, hollow-eyed with hunger, just to remain upright.
Around Lisbon in Portugal, there were at least places distributing food to feed people. But everywhere else was in an uproar of famine and starvation.
"How much food do we have!"
"We are chartering ships to purchase grain abroad, Your Majesty, but the ships are far too few…."
"Can Daehan not bring it to us?"
This was hardly the first time such a thing had happened, and now the various nations of the world had begun straining desperately to overcome famine and hunger on their own.
"That is…."
"What is it! Out with it!"
"The harbors are far too shallow…."
Ironically, because Daehan's ironclad warships drew deep water, it had become fashionable everywhere to build ports in the shallows. The harbors that had been dug deep were now being torn down instead.
"Then build them now, won't that do!"
"Forcing the people into hard labor in these conditions is… difficult, Your Majesty."
"Damn it all!"
The people were starving, and now they were to be set to work without even a proper meal — it amounted to telling them to go off and die. In the end, the crown ordered every available ship to be gathered.
"See to it that we acquire every ship we can!"
"Yes, Your Majesty."
If the serfs — ninety percent of the population — dwindled, the food supply would dwindle with them, and the population would never grow. The king had finally grasped that his tax revenue would never increase, but was it not already far too late?
In Europe, everyone was racking their brains, trying by any means to secure food.
Some nations attempted to secure food through their overseas colonies.
"What became of the plan to bring food in from the colonies!"
"The ships are far too small, Your Majesty. It's running a deficit, in fact."
Food was not cheap, and above all it was bulky — terrible value for the cargo space it consumed. Even if a ship left fully loaded, half the cargo was eaten over the course of the round trip, and once the sailors' wages were paid, nothing remained.
"Haaah…. Then convene the council of nobles! We shall collect gold!"
It seemed he intended to gather the nobility and hold a gold collection, but—
"Heh…. And what if, in doing so, you turn half the nobility against you, Your Majesty?"
Fear of betrayal and rebellion made even that impossible.
"Hahaha. So neither this nor that will serve, is that it!"
The king seemed to have lost his mind — and truly, he had. The gilded caskets and candlesticks adorning his chamber, the gold-hilted daggers mounted on the walls — if he'd sold even those, Daehan would have held its ships off his coast for days on end, waiting, until the food could be ferried over. But he would never touch what was his own; he could only strip what belonged to others. The king was no different from the head of some bandit gang.
Clip-clop, clip-clop.
"Well now, isn't this splendid?"
"It's as if the carriage wheels are gliding over water."
A carriage rolled along Japan's immaculately maintained roads, its wheels turning without a whisper of noise. With the bearings imported from Daehan connecting the wheels, there was no rattle at all — and the horses needed far less effort to pull the load.
When the Nakamura clan had unified Japan long ago, the very first thing they had done was build roads across the length and breadth of the land.
"If Daehan hadn't been distributing food for us, we'd have been in real trouble…."
"Tell me about it. Whew. It's cold…."
"Should've worn a Kkalkkali under your coat."
"I thought I'd be fine."
Japan, at least, lay close to the Original Continent, so Daehan could ship over supplies in abundance. And since so many of its towns hugged the coastline, the harbors had been expanded well in advance so ships could dock directly — allowing goods to spread across the whole nation right on schedule.
"Haaah… what strange weather we're having. I was stunned when it snowed so late into spring last time."
"The children were beside themselves. Ran around shrieking, saying they'd never seen it before."
Snow was a genuinely rare sight in southern Japan. For most people it was only the second time in their lives — and it had been spring, no less.
"Hahaha. Thank goodness there are no more starving children."
"The Nakamura clan accomplished something great."
"I hear that in the old days, people starved to death in droves…."
That they could stroll about chatting this comfortably was, by now, an old story in Japan. Several generations had passed since then, and tales of people starving so badly they ate other people were things you only heard in old fairy tales. Japan was nowhere near Daehan's level, but it had grown comfortably livable in its own right.
There were still people who went hungry — but no one starved to the point of death.
"Sniff. Why is it so chilly out?"
"Right? I could really go for something warm."
"Shall we go get some gukbap — soup and rice?"
"Ooh! Yes! And let's have a glass of hongju while we're at it!"
The night streets of Sinsi glowed bright and welcoming. People wandered the night market, eating snacks and browsing the stalls. With streetlamps lit along the main boulevards every evening, coming out at night to graze on street food and amuse oneself had long since become everyday life.
FWEEEEEE — BOOM! WHEEEE — POP!
"Fireworks again tonight?"
"Must be a lot of old powder lying around."
In southern Sinsi, where Daehan's gunpowder factories stood, they'd long since decided that simply burning off expired gunpowder was a waste — so they'd started turning it into fireworks and firing them into the sky. When the munitions trade was booming, the evening fireworks displays thinned out noticeably; this year, they were unusually frequent.
With the strange climate making a living harder everywhere, wars had dwindled. That was why.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
"Hahaha! Let's go somewhere even more beautiful!"
"Hm? You mean that theater?"
"Yeah! They play instruments and sing — the music is wonderful!"
"I wonder who's performing tonight~"
Daehan, raking in wealth beyond counting, was always abundant.
Piiii! Chk-chk!
Even a certain household's pet weasel that patrolled the streets catching rats had grown plump and glossy — it would carry the rats back to one spot and pile them up without ever eating them. With abundance the rule rather than the exception, people's hearts had grown generous, and hobbies multiplied.
Ting~ di-ding~ ting~ ding~
"Wow! That's incredible!"
Street musicians who'd started playing as a hobby turned it into a profession, and their numbers grew, delighting the ears of passersby. "Portraits drawn while you wait!" "Draw us, please!" "Of course! I'll make you lovely! Have a seat." Those deft of hand drew pictures — and some went further still, becoming true painters.
"Custom carvings made to order! Yours free of charge!"
There were even sculptors, and with customers scarce, the carver took to making whatever sculptures he pleased and setting them out on display — and there was something oddly reminiscent of Haneul about it.
"Heheh… Lord Haneul…."
Hyperrealism, was it? Why on earth would anyone bother carving a statue with its undergarment strap showing? Apparently the style had crossed over from Japan — like that one sculpture someone had made at Himiko's school, ages ago.
The statue smiled so sweetly and beautifully. But did its subject have any idea that, somewhere off there in the west, she was at that very moment drenched in lamp oil and drowning in curses?