So a Nation Fell, Huh?
*A whole nation just up and collapsed!*
Every time I come back from somewhere, people find me like they've got a sixth sense for it. Do I have some kind of tracking beacon hidden on me or something?
"Ah, you've returned?"
Hey, caught again. I snuck in quietly — how does she always know?
"Oh? Hey, it's been a while!"
"Yes. And it seems a disaster has just befallen the Xia Dynasty."
Wait, what? Why? Why are her eyes narrowing at me like that?
"Uh, yeah? What happened?"
*Was it me? It was probably me, wasn't it? Does she already know?*
"According to the messengers from Bongpyeong and Bonghwa, there was a massive fire. Fortunately, it seems unlikely to spread past the fortress walls they built up."
*They already know? News really does travel fast around here.*
"W-well... that's a relief."
On my way back, I'd seen the earthen walls they'd been so diligently stacking up. A triumph for humanity, really.
"By any chance..."
"Hm?"
*Is she suspicious of me? Does she really need to squint like that? I want to poke her right in the middle of it.*
"Did you perhaps visit the Xia Dynasty, Haneul-nim?"
"Hick."
"Pardon?"
"Hick."
*What is this? Where did a hiccup come from out of nowhere? Now anyone would think I'm hiding something!*
"Hmmm..."
Her expression was edging dangerously close to certainty.
"No, they picked the fight first! They kept trying to grab at me and touch me! They even tried to force a marriage on me!"
"That doesn't really hold up, does it?"
"Gestures! I got by fine on gestures!"
"Hmm. Regardless. It *was* you, Haneul-nim, wasn't it?"
*Fine. It was me, all right. I took our wildfire and passed it right along to them...*
"I just... didn't know it would turn out like that..."
"Heh heh... How on earth am I supposed to record this one..."
*Is she insane? Should I just plant her upside down in the front yard?*
"No? Why would you record that?"
"Would you like it recorded? It's embarrassing."
"...Yeah, I've got nothing to say to that."
*I do cause my fair share of incidents, don't I? Better lie low for a while...*
「tap」
At a loss for what else to do, I handed the Xia bow I'd absently brought back over to Jaehu.
"And take this too."
"What is it? It looks like a bow."
*I had, entirely by accident, succeeded in stealing their technology. At this point, wasn't that a successful spy operation? Sabotage *and* tech acquisition.*
"It's a Xia bow. Didn't look all that impressive to me, but the master craftsmen might see something in it."
"Understood. I'll have it examined."
"Right, I'm off to rest then."
"Yes, Haneul-nim."
And then, freshly returned after so long, I got dragged straight off to be scrubbed down again. Honestly, I couldn't stop thinking about that loofah. That one thing really was refreshing and wonderful.
And today, at last, I got my hands on it. The thing they call a loofah gourd. Clutching a white bundle, I headed for the public bathhouse tucked away in a corner of Sinsi.
Any attempt to smuggle it into the Temple bathhouse would fail — they'd materialize out of nowhere and confiscate it on the spot.
But with half my face hidden behind a cotton cloth, walking into the chapel, the truth was nobody recognized my bare face.
"Heh heh heh. One adult, please!"
I strode boldly in and marched toward the bath!
"An adult? You're way too short."
*Ack... ma'am...*
"Short adults exist, you know!"
"Fine, fine, don't get angry. I only asked because I figured you were sneaking in on an expensive adult fee."
I paid the full adult price with my head held high, yet somehow tears blurred my vision.
The men's and women's bathhouses were entirely separate buildings, so once you were inside, you could strip down and wander around freely.
Oh! Everyone's a natural human! But wait — what's this?
"Miss? Where do you get it done?"
"Right? Where do you get waxed so smooth?"
"Look how clean she is."
"Oh my, oh my."
"She's like a baby."
*No, wait. Why is everyone walking around shaved like this? The secretaries kept asking me about it so pointedly — is this a trend? I really have started all kinds of fads, haven't I?*
But what do I say? They don't look like they'll let me go until I answer everyone. I'm surrounded.
"I was born this way..."
"..."
"..."
"Oh, you poor thing."
*Huh? Did she just call me a child? I paid full adult price here! You're really going to do this just because I'm short and hairless?*
"That explains it. The height too."
"So *that's* why she's so clean."
*Sigh. My pride is wounded. I need to find a way to smuggle the loofah into the Temple bathhouse after all.*
「scrub scrub scrub」
"Oh? This is pretty good."
*This loofah gourd — whose invention was this? It's a bit rough, but it feels amazing! Man, this is fun!*
「scrub-a-dub scrub-a-dub」
"Hm? Miss, what's that thing?"
*Heh heh. This magnificent body of mine draws eyes wherever it goes. Ahh~ THIS, ladies, is a loofah.*
"Want to try it?"
"Can I?"
"Sure, I've got a few more."
*Good thing I brought extras. Hand them out, share them around —*
「scrub-a-dub scrub-a-dub」
The whole bathhouse filled with the sound of grime being scrubbed from every direction! *Now THIS is what a bathhouse is supposed to be!*
"Wow, this is wonderful!"
"Oh my? What's this? Something's peeling off!"
*That's right — the grime sloughing away feels absolutely heavenly!*
"That's called grime — dead skin flaking off your body. Too much is bad for you, but a moderate scrub is good for the skin."
*Once these people get a taste of this, there'll be no going back.*
"It feels like my body is being purified!"
"So refreshing!"
"I had no such thing existed!"
*I predict a massive trend. The looks on their faces — surely Columbus discovering the New World looked something like that?*
"Miss, what's this thing called?"
"It's a loofah gourd. And here's how you make one."
And so I spread the method far and wide. Which means someone will start making and selling them, and I can just buy mine like a proper customer!
*But is it really okay to scrub that hard, though? Their skin must be tough. Do these humans even have a weak point?*
Now and then I'd drop by the public bath to enjoy a good loofah scrub. A fine arrangement, really.
"Hm? What are you doing here?"
*Huh? What are YOU doing here, of all people? You bathe with me every single day!*
I ran straight into Jian at the bathhouse.
"Wh-who are you?"
"...Stop playing around."
*Not a chance.*
"I came to scrub off some grime!"
"Do you really like it that much?"
"You should try it!"
"I was already on my way to do just that."
*If I win her over, and she becomes the next Chief Secretary, maybe I'll be able to use one at the Temple bathhouse someday too.*
「scrub scrub scrub」
"Mmm, it is refreshing. But you wouldn't need one, Miss."
*The "Miss" was a nice touch, but no, you shameless woman!*
"What! Why not!"
"Nothing comes off you, does it?"
"Hey! Then why do you wash me all the time if nothing comes off?"
*That does it! I'm furious! I'm never bathing again!*
"It's a matter of etiquette. You're about to enter a ceremony, so it's washing the heart, isn't it? And afterward, you wash off the day's grime."
*Huh? That's weirdly persuasive... I do always wash once in the morning and once at night.*
"But still! At least let me use a loofah!"
"There's no need, is there? If grime comes off, I'll admit it."
*Fine. Let's see. There's no way *nothing* comes off, right?*
「scrub scrub scrub scrub」
Come on! Come out! Come out! Anything! Just come out!
"Look! Look! Something white's coming off!"
After minutes of frantic scrubbing, something was finally appearing! *A triumph for humanity!*
"Look closely. You scrubbed so hard you broke the loofah apart."
"Oh..."
"No one here will tell on you, so hurry on back."
"Hey! How can you be like this to a person!"
*I'm leaving because it's dirty and unfair! Going home! How can she scrub away so joyfully while crushing me like this? Are they all ruthless T-types or something?*
"Chief Secretary, I hear loofahs are all the rage at the bathhouse these days. Have you tried one?"
"Of course. I use one all the time."
"Amazing. Who on earth figured out how to use one?"
"Heh heh heh."
And amid all of them, only Jian — that shameless woman — wore an odd little smile as she looked my way. *One day, there will be revenge.*
*Not that it matters. There's more than one bathhouse in the world — worst case, I'll just fly off to another city~*
So I whiled away my days in bathhouse brawls with the secretaries, until Yuri Giju came to see me for the first time in a long while.
"Oh? Hello there!"
"It has been far too long. I've come with a gift."
And what he held out to me was glass so transparent you could see clean through to the other side. *What? It's not quite modern glass, but you can see straight through it!*
"Whoa? How did you do this?"
"It turns out that sand rich in transparent powder makes clear glass. I set the children to sorting out that powder, and while searching, we found a mine of transparent stone. I made it from that."
*Wow... That means he found a crystal mine. In all the vastness of Manchuria? That's no small feat.*
"That's truly remarkable..."
Finding a mine by hand in an era with barely any decent instruments for observation or measurement is no easy thing...
"It was all thanks to your divine grace, Haneul-nim. Heh heh. What should we make with it? I doubt ordinary folk have much use for glass this fine."
*Fair enough. For everyday use, there's really no need for it to be transparent.*
"There are uses for it, but for now, focus on making the glass smoother and developing techniques to shape it however we want. A thousand, two thousand years from now, the day will come when your descendants do that work."
"You bestow prophecy upon us! I shall make sure my family engraves it in their hearts!"
*Does that count as prophecy? Lens technology has so many uses. Glasses, telescopes, semiconductors...*
.
.
.
The years flowed peacefully by, without any great calamity — and in Daehan Year 741, the Xia Dynasty fell.
After the great fire of Year 655 left people starving to death in every direction, then floods and landslides that they'd only barely survived, the wounds festering within finally ruptured. A revolt by the feudal lords set them on the road to ruin at last.
"So according to the records, this was Haneul-nim's doing?"
"My memory is a bit... fuzzy?"
*They whined and whined until I rained down a fortress, and now what's this?*
At some point, people had started dividing themselves into ranks by fortress, claiming discrimination and building their own. Of these, three fortresses had come from me: the "Cheol" clan of the Chancellor's line, the "Yuri" clan of the glasscrafting family, and the "Geum" clan of the blacksmiths.
Bestowing a fortress on each family that rendered great service to the state — that custom would only keep growing.
"So what's the name of their country this time?"
"The Shang Dynasty."
"Huh?"
*A strange... sense of déjà vu?*
"For now, keep watching. And what are those fugitives playing at, running off like that?"
*I'm speechless, honestly. Just because they could scrape by, they decided to found their own nations — some fleeing to that peninsula, others sailing off to Japan. Utter nonsense.*
That's why I'd granted fortresses to the key artisans, I suppose... At the very least, those three clans' loyalty is beyond question.
"Hmm, well, such uncivilized people live there. They seem to believe they can found a nation of their own."
*Do they think running a country is easy? Even I want to quit half the time.*
"I suppose with the World Tree there, they don't realize how hard it is to scrape a living? Fine — never take the runaways back! Not even those ringleaders!"
Try farming once a year and surviving on that, you ingrates! *Too well-fed, the lot of you.*
"Shall we pursue and deal with them?"
*Is that the Intelligence Bureau talking? Those human weapons. Their numbers are far greater than I expected. You could call them the world's first special forces.*
"Could you?"
"Quite easily."
"Nah, forget it. It'd just be hard on the kids. Leave them be — they'll starve on their own soon enough."
*Those able-bodied youngsters of ours who could work as spies anywhere should just focus on keeping their households in order. But why run away from home? I've traveled other countries too, and honestly, you can't live there.*
"By the way, why are we building that port you mentioned? Isn't it terribly far away?"
"We don't need it now, but we will later. Better to stake our claim early."
*The Shandong Peninsula. Not that I expect the Chinese to come up and build mountain fortresses down there anyway, but there's no harm in marking the spot ahead of time.*
"Understood. It will be done."
"Now, about those peninsula folk..."
*Those peninsula people just refuse to give up, don't they? Watching them clash over the Han River day after day — it seems the Han River region falls within the World Tree's sphere of influence?*
"It's utter chaos there as well, with our own people mixed in."
"Should we just clear the board?"
"You mean launch a war of invasion?"
"Hmm, that's a bit much. Let's call it mediation instead. We'll swoop in on the pretext that they're tearing each other apart over the Han River."
*Aren't we being a bit thuggish?*
"Well, the owner changes every day anyway, so perhaps that's fine?"
*Hm? You're a thug too, aren't you?*