You Said This Was a Patrol? (1)
Might as well have a proper chat while I'm at it.
"Hey, are you actually managing all this?"
"More or less, my lady."
Really? How, exactly?
"From Sinsi to that city at the very far end — how long does the trip take?"
"Um... four months."
"So if something happens out there and they send a messenger, we wouldn't hear back for eight months?"
That's absurdly long.
"Still, an urgent courier can make it in about ten days..."
"That's still twenty days round trip, isn't it?"
"Yes..."
How is that possibly supposed to count as being managed? I thought we'd only pushed into eastern Siberia, and here they are already raising a fuss about being all the way into western Siberia.
"There are two options."
"What are they?!"
So eager. You're not going to like them.
"The easiest is to give up the land, for now."
"We can't do that! The settlers would hate it!"
"We're pulling up the World Tree branches and heading home, so go back to hunting for a living like the old days." Yeah, I'm sure they'd love that.
Once people have tasted proper settled life, the nomad life feels brutally hard. Even that Mongol confederation that vanished ages ago abandoned the steppe for farming and split off from us entirely, didn't they?
"Then we need to find a way to get there faster."
"Is there anything faster than a horse?"
Should I try birds? The land's too vast for that, and I suspect far too many messages would simply never arrive. So there's only one way left? This is going to be an enormous amount of work...
Whew... one step at a time, then.
"For now there's no shortcut. We build more relay stations, grit our teeth, and develop the machines."
"Machines?"
"How usable is the steam engine these days?"
"Hmm... enough to pump water, I'd say?"
Hasn't it been a few hundred years since we built the prototype? Why is progress this sluggish? Is it because I keep touching things? Cursed hands, honestly.
"We throw a lot of people at it and make it more efficient, more powerful. That's the only path."
"That old clunker?"
Clunker?! It's a clunker because you people neglected it into one! That blank, dim look on his face — I swear I want to smack him.
"The technology's all already there. Somehow, from what I can see, it just never advanced. Have them go back over the fundamentals, step by step."
"You think it'll work?"
"If it doesn't, I told you — we abandon the land."
That clunker has to do a man's job — drive a reflector furnace or whatever it takes to pour out steel in bulk. Then rails. Then trains. How many lifetimes is all this going to take...
Maybe I should divide the territory into administrative districts and let most things run on local autonomy for now?
"We'll find a way to make it work!"
"Fine, then here's the order of business. Improve the steam engine, bring it to Moda first, and use it to pour out molten steel in volume. Then build the means of transport with that."
"Yes, my lady!"
Great at answering — you think any of that is easy? China seems to have unified under the Qin. Let's just quietly slip past this time without a war...
I really do hate western Siberia, though. What am I supposed to do? Europe's surprisingly close from there, and so is the Middle East... Am I seriously going to get ganged up on by the whole world one of these days?
I've been idling away the days, praying night and morning for the steam engine to become usable, and what do you know — the Qin dynasty is splitting apart again.
It's fractured into north and south, and up north the states are taking turns crowning kings in one chaotic free-for-all.
"I mean, it's good news for us, but that country never seems to know a moment of stability, does it?"
"Is the land itself just unlucky?"
"More than that — territory that vast is always like that."
"What about ours?"
"You think we're any different?"
Even I hadn't expected western Siberia and Alaska — I figured they'd have shaken loose long ago — to still be hanging on.
I'd left the Intelligence Bureau to watch the situation and just make sure the trees were found and brought back properly, but by the time I'd become a hoary old grandfather, they were rotating through duty posts like it was nothing.
"So the steam engines are good enough for the bellows now?"
"Yes. Truly on a different level from men or waterwheels, I must say."
Right. However weak, anything a machine does is on another plane entirely.
"Which is why the important equipment has been relocating to the riversides lately."
"Watch out for floods."
"We're raising the embankments extra high and setting everything on top of them."
Do they have strength to spare or something? Every single task turns into stacking the Egyptian pyramids.
"Out west — they keep clashing with the... Sasanian Empire?"
"Not armies, my lady. It appears people simply keep coming and going."
"So it's not trade or anything of the sort?"
"No."
A nomad empire, is it? Why do they keep hovering around like that? Maybe they covet the plains there.
"Seonnam is going to see an enormous number of clashes from here on."
"We should send plenty of soldiers, then?"
"Choose the ones who want to go carefully. It's far, so families will probably fare better. Pick settlers."
It would be nice if this redistributed some of the population crammed into the capital region, too.
"Honestly, as long as the long walls stand, not many will dare pick a fight. Nomads especially — they raid, they don't want real war."
"Then we should mobilize the soldiers in shifts to help build them."
Do we even have that much hwanghoe mortar, though?
"Can you haul hwanghoe all the way out there?"
"We haul plenty of stone from the nearby mountains, and the hwanghoe only fills the gaps."
"Hm? So you do have a plan."
"Yes, my lady!"
Still, at this rate the yellow earth's going to run dry. Not my land — they'll figure it out.
I should go see Seonnam for myself.
So I did come to Seonnam, but...
Clop, clop. Clop, clop.
We left with the word "patrol" clearly stated, and yet here we are, charging south through rocky mountains and sandy wasteland. We've been riding out for nearly a month now? Exactly how far is this going?
"Hey, kids!"
"Yes, Miss!"
"You said this was a patrol!"
"Yes! We are on patrol!"
What kind of patrol takes a month? This clearly isn't their first rodeo — they find lakes and oases with uncanny precision. And the headcount is suspicious too. A patrol is four or five people, no? Forty of them, moving as a swarm?
Something's off. Really off.
"A river!"
"Oh! Looks like we've found it."
Found what, exactly? You said patrol...
"Well? Do you see the city?"
"Yes! It looked fairly large."
"And the walls?"
"They're there, but... we'll manage somehow."
Walls mean you turn back — that's the normal response! "We'll manage somehow"?! These kids are bandits! Wait — that wretch of a Chancellor filed a false report, didn't he? These aren't clashes that happened out there. These are clashes they caused! Karma like this piles up, and someday they'll all turn on me!
Maybe because it's a wasteland region? A wall of bricks — or dirt shaped like bricks, who could tell — rose up before us. Do they know their material is weak? The thing is enormously thick.
But whose country even is this? It's absurd. Nobody challenges us? They just take us for nomads passing through? Not a word from anyone at the gate, and inside, people only sneak glances.
"You kids know this place?"
"Nope? First time here."
Right — we look suspicious as hell to anyone! Foreigners in completely foreign clothes! And all they do is glance sideways and let it go?
"But why is nobody stopping us? Not even asking questions?"
"Who knows?"
The whole world is nothing but strange people. Earth is weird...
"So where are we headed?"
"That big building over there."
That glittering thing is, to anyone's eye, exactly where royalty or nobility would live.
Yeehaw~ and here comes the bandit gang strolling right up to the front gate~
Clop, clop.
"!@!%^@"
Oh? They finally blocked the road!
"Do you kids understand what they're saying?"
"Nope?"
Why so brazen? I'm the one flustered for even asking.
"So what now?"
"We'll play nice?"
"!(*^#%"
You. You realize you're smiling something wicked right now? Even the guards got thrown off by your face.
THUD.
"Oof!"
Two of them sprang out from the flanks and kicked the guards down — twisting their bodies above their saddles like breakdance windmills, which was honestly a little impressive. They'd make fine breakdancers someday.
The two guards dropped with a single grunt. Servants still bustled about inside — a bloodless capture. The servants ignored us too.
"You know where we should go?"
"The good stuff's usually at the very top or the very bottom. Today, it's the top."
Veterans, clearly — pure professional instinct. Desert setting, so today it's Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves? Something like that.
"Half of you hold the horses and stand by below!"
"Yes, ma'am!"
Tramp, tramp, tramp.
Without a word about order or seniority, twenty of them started up the stairs — pointlessly resolute about it, too? It was something to see. Discipline, would you call it? Military bearing? It would've looked downright heroic if it weren't banditry.
All this time I'd been quietly writing my kids off as meatheads, but at their actual job, they were no joke.
Clang. Clang. CLANG!
"*%##*#"
"Cut them down!"
A fight must've broken out with the vanguard up above.
Crash! Thud! CRAAACK!
What a racket. The weapons here must be poor — you could hear blades snapping.
"Whoa..."
At the top, armored bodies lay sprawled this way and that, and in the inner chamber a nobleman and noblewoman shivered uncontrollably. This is a sweltering region — why were they buried under a mountain of curtains? Man and woman alike, their clothes looked unbearably hot.
Rustle, rustle.
The Intelligence Bureau swept back and forth hunting hidden valuables, scooping up anything that so much as looked like documents or books as well. Do they even know what they're grabbing?
Clunk.
"Oh?"
Wow — they found the secret safe hidden under the bed.
Grrrk.
"Aha!"
And another one hidden between the stones, too. These are no amateurs — this is real professional work. I badly underestimated them.
"Kyaaaah..."
Sounded like it came from downstairs — somebody screamed and fainted mid-cry, from the way the sound cut off.
What kind of country is this, that banditry can be this peaceful? Nothing better to do, so... maybe I'll snack on the fruit the nobles were eating.
Nom, nom.
"How is fruit this fresh even possible out here?"
"%_@$)^&@"
"And how am I supposed to understand you?"
What are you muttering about while shaking like a leaf? But hold on — this is fascinating! This isn't anywhere near the sea. Shouldn't fruit like this only be hauled in by ship from the coast or a riverbank?
Looking closer, their clothes were ridiculously ornate too... I haven't picked the wrong target, have I? Nah — nobody's dead, so it's fine!
Shing.
")(&^&$@)"
Hm? Is that... a knife? There's a blade at my throat. The woman had it hidden under her skirt, apparently.
"Hey now? You play with things like this, someone could get hurt."
"!@#"
Thk.
Oh? Well, look at that? Normally, this kills you! So it was never about taking a hostage — she meant to kill me and go down with me?
"???"
Grip — CRACK!
I caught the blade bare-handed and smashed her wrist with my other hand, politely relieving her of it. Things like this are dangerous, you know.
"It stings a little, but I don't get hurt by this sort of thing."
"!@#!"
Look at those saucer eyes. Makes me want to stab her.
Thk.
"KYAAAAAH!"
Hm? Did I stab too hard — why is she carrying on like that? Ahh~ a noble who's never been hit in her life, so she has zero tolerance for pain.
"Hm? Miss, did something happen?"
"Nothing~ keep working."
You two owe me your lives, by the way. If the kids had seen that, both your heads would've rolled right here on this floor.
Trickle, trickle.
Oh? Gross? The boy watching from the side just wet himself.
"Ugh! Now it stinks."
"Miss, we've got everything!"
"Right, let's go~"
Maybe that's what all the manpower is for? The next room got stripped in no time, and now they're heading home.
"Doesn't doing this all the time cause problems?"
"Sometimes. Haha."
"And what do you do then?"
"The land's big — run around long enough and they lose you."
So they survive by the skin of their teeth... and yet they're way too relaxed about it.
Clop, clop. Clop, clop.
Wow, they didn't even go straight home. They hit a few more places, got caught in the act, and now mounted soldiers are chasing them.
"Less thrilling than I imagined, honestly."
"What is, Miss?"
"They're not exactly tearing along at full speed."
"Haha. Unless it's truly desperate, you mustn't gallop flat-out. Horses can't sustain a full gallop anywhere near as long as people think."
Right. Hence this leisurely, clip-clop of a chase. The pursuers are hauling armor, though, so their horses will probably tire out faster.
What kind of chase is this? Hmm. It's deflating badly — like a leaky balloon.