A Virtuous General? No, a Chicken Coop
Not long after they had drawn up their plan, a chicken appeared near the house.
"There's a chicken over here!"
At a staffer's shout, the men who had been sitting on the wooden platform mapping out their strategy shot to their feet.
"I'll circle around and drive it down from above!"
An Jun-ho yelled as he took off running. Jin Yu-han gave a blank-faced nod and stationed himself in the alley.
"Then I'll hold the line from this wall to that one."
The staffers who had agreed to help catch the chicken scattered in every direction to match their positions.
"PD! That way! The net! The net!"
"Yes, yes! Wha—?"
Surrounded by humans, the chicken began to thrash about in panic.
Four grown men went into a frenzy over a single bird, darting this way and that. Between the men tightening their encirclement with a net borrowed from the village chief's house, the flustered chicken kept changing direction.
But the chicken was not the only one flustered.
They had thought they had it cornered—until the next moment left the drivers blinking in disbelief.
Flutter—!
Dodging the closing net, the chicken spread wings far larger than expected and sailed clean over a staffer's head.
"The chicken…"
"…flew?"
Beating its wings, the bird alighted on a rooftop, scurried a few steps, cast one disdainful glance down at the foolish humans, then flapped harder still and soared over the trees behind the house.
An Jun-ho and the other drivers stood dumbfounded, staring blankly after the escaping chicken.
Of course chickens were birds, so they could fly to some degree…
But no one had expected it to take off that lightly and simply leave.
"What the hell…"
"So what now? Do chickens normally fly that well?"
"No, wait—you caught one last night, right? How'd you do it?"
"How? Actor Ryu Yeon-woo caught it."
They had asked for the method. The answer that came back was a name.
And at that answer, the staffer who had asked simply nodded.
"Fair enough."
Meanwhile, at that same hour, a boat pulled up to the island's makeshift pier.
A girl hopped lightly ashore and took in the island's cozy scenery.
"Whoa, this is amazing. I've never been to an island in my entire life!"
The one chattering excitedly to the camera director beside her was Han Byeol.
"Aaaand hello, everyone. I finished my closing ceremony yesterday and came straight to the island. I got so seasick on the way that the sky was spinning!"
Though no one answered, she kept talking to the camera as if filming a vlog, climbing the hill at an easy pace toward the house where the others were staying.
Just then, something came flapping down from the sky and landed right in front of her.
Flutter—.
"Huh?"
Cluck?
A chicken tilted its head at Han Byeol. Han Byeol stared back with the exact same look of wonder.
A brief silence stretched as the standoff continued.
"Why is there suddenly a chicken? Is this just how the countryside is? Chickens falling out of the sky? Did somebody lose this one?"
Without a shred of fear, Han Byeol slowly approached and gently scooped the bird into her arms.
Surprisingly, the chicken offered no resistance. It folded its wings and nestled quietly against her chest like a puppy settling into its owner's embrace.
"You do smell a little funky… You haven't had a bath, have you?"
Han Byeol spoke to the chicken in her arms.
"I'll take you to the unnies and oppas and ask them to find your owner!"
Cradling the bird, she followed a staffer's directions toward the house where the production crew and actors were staying.
After a long climb, a house appeared—so thickly rusted it looked like one of those abandoned-house exploration videos that popped up on YouTube.
"This is our lodging?"
"That's right."
Even without the staffer's confirmation, the sounds of filming drifted over the wall from inside.
"It feels like a theme park. This is so exciting."
Han Byeol slipped through the half-open rusted gate.
"I'm here!"
At the sound of her voice, every actor turned their head at once.
The first to react was Son Jin-uk, who had been nearest the gate.
"Oh! I was wondering who the guest would be, and it's our Han Byeol— AAAH!"
Midway through his warm welcome, he locked eyes head-on with the chicken in Han Byeol's arms. He yelped and bolted behind Han So-hyun, who happened to be nearby.
A man a full hundred and eighty-three centimeters tall, crouching and hiding behind Han So-hyun, was comedy in itself.
"Wh-what? Byeol-ah. What's with the chicken?"
"Hmm? I was coming up the hill and it fell out of the sky, so I picked it up."
The staffers who had been driving earlier, along with An Jun-ho, muttered under their breath.
"That's the one we were trying to catch earlier, right?"
"…Looks like it."
Oblivious to their hollow despair, Han Byeol beamed.
"Anyway, somebody must have lost this little guy. Can you help find the owner?"
"Urgh… That's not quite…"
Meanwhile, Yeon-woo was climbing the mountain with a rope in hand, intent on capturing the remaining chickens.
The camera director, having zero confidence he could keep Yeon-woo's pace, had strapped an action cam to Yeon-woo's chest with a chest mount—the one he had prepared just in case they did any water sports.
Hiking up the mountain with an action cam fixed to his chest brought back memories of filming Survival Island.
Before the hunt, Yeon-woo had soaked the end of the rope in water, then dried it thoroughly over the fire pit in the yard, heat-setting it so the loop would hold a firm circular shape.
As he climbed, he took hold of the rope's end and gave it a few experimental whirls for the first time in ages.
It's been more than ten years since I learned this.
Whoosh—.
The rope end, held in a perfect circle, flew lightly and snagged the branch Yeon-woo had aimed for.
"Hmm. That should be enough."
Anyone watching might have wondered if this was something out of a cowboy movie or a cartoon—but films and comics had borrowed the technique from real life, not the other way around.
The nomadic peoples of Outer Mongolia still catch livestock this way just fine.
Once you knew the knack of the spin and the throw, it was a surprisingly powerful tool.
It had been used often in the American Old West to take down mounted opponents, and records of the Byeongja Horan—one of Korea's painful chapters of history—described Qing cavalry using rope throws to round up civilians and drag them off as prisoners.
Even in modern warfare, it could still snare an enemy's neck and bring them down.
But if it comes to that, you might as well just shoot them, so I never had reason to use it in the field…
Thinking of the chickens somewhere out there, Yeon-woo slipped into survival mode.
Whoosh—.
Whirr—.
Yeon-woo cut through the air, sweeping freely between the trees of Gaeya-do's low mountain.
He crossed paths with a squirrel gathering acorns for winter, and even met a wild cat—but still no chickens.
After running for some time, he had come quite far from the filming house when he caught the sound of something moving.
Flutter—.
Definitely not a seagull or a pigeon.
Judging by the sluggish wingbeats, it had to be a chicken.
Yeon-woo spun on his heel and charged toward the sound.
He wove between trees, broke free of the shade, and emerged onto a grassy clearing near the shore.
Cluuuck—?
A chicken that had never met a single predator on the island—that had reigned as king—tilted its head and regarded Yeon-woo.
To the chickens of Gaeya-do, humans were simply slow, weak animals that became a nuisance if caught, and so were best avoided at a comfortable distance.
They were never predators that stood above them.
But the dark-clad human in this chicken's eyes was different.
For one thing, the speed was different.
Swish—.
Seeing the human surge toward it, the chicken felt a prick of wariness and spread its wings, puffing up its body.
It kept swiveling its beak, calculating which way to dodge.
The distance was still plenty.
This was open ground. If it worked its chicken feet fast enough, it could slip away in either direction with ease—or so it thought.
Whoosh—.
Then came a sound of air being cut, and something coiled around its body.
Cluck-cluck-CLUCK—!
Startled by the sudden attack, the chicken steadied its pounding breast and bolted hard to the right.
But the more it ran, the tighter the thing around its body squeezed.
And then Yeon-woo hauled on the rope, closed the distance, and seized it firmly.
"Got you, you little rascal."
Cluuuck—!
It let out a long, indignant cry, but once caught, all it could do was thrash its chicken feet pathetically in midair.
"……"
The dark-clad human looked down at it without a word.
Some animal instinct flashed through its mind: if it resisted, that might be the end of its life.
On the way back, Yeon-woo held the snared chicken in his left hand and, throwing the rope one-handed, captured one more.
In the end, he came down the mountain with a chicken in each hand and headed for the house—only to find the yard noisy and bustling.
"Hm? They said they were going on a drive hunt. Is it already over? Or did they wear themselves out and take a break?"
Yeon-woo stepped into the yard with a chicken in each hand.
"I'm back."
"Oh, Yeon-woo's here?"
"Holy crap. He actually brought one in each hand. Is this real?"
Seeing Yeon-woo with the chickens, Han So-hyun pointed toward the house below.
"Han Byeol caught one on her way up the hill. She's down at the lower house putting it in the coop and feeding it."
"Ah, so Han Byeol came as the guest? Then we'd better pull something delicious out of the fish traps today. She's still growing—we have to feed her well."
At that, Son Jin-uk, who had been hiding behind An Jun-ho, pointed at Yeon-woo's hands.
"C-can you maybe put those guys in the coop first?"
Yeon-woo nodded at the sight and turned.
"Sure. I'll drop these off and bring Han Byeol back up with me."
He headed straight down the hill to the lower house and made for the chicken coop.
There was Han Byeol out front, scattering feed.
"Byeol-ah."
"Huh? Yeon-woo oppa."
"Was the trip hard?"
"I got a little seasick, but now it's so much fun!"
Yeon-woo smiled at her bright reply and put the chickens he had caught into the coop.
But the number of chickens was wrong.
One caught last night.
Plus the one Han Byeol had supposedly caught earlier.
Plus the two he had lassoed on the mountain—that should have made four.
"One, two, three… Why are there six chickens?"
Han Byeol answered with a sunny smile.
"I was feeding them when I got here! And all of a sudden—flutter-flutter—two of them flew down from the sky and popped right into the coop to eat the feed!"
"……"
Having just deposited his two captives, Yeon-woo pulled off his work gloves and scratched his cheek.
"So you're saying the chickens walked in on their own?"
"Yep!"
"Hmm…"
Indeed—the greatest general who wins a battle is the virtuous one who wins without fighting.
"…These guys were easier than I thought."