Chapter 12
Chapter 12
The Iron Emperor — Chapter 12
Clang—clang! Clang-clang—clang!
"......."
Clang—clang-clang! Clang—clang-clang!
"......."
Clang.......
"Hoo."
Elder Jang stopped his hammer and let out a heavy sigh. His aged eyes twitched.
"You bastards......."
"......."
The three dwarves who had barged in earlier were quietly squatting to one side, staring at him intently.
"Well, I'll be......."
Elder Jang suppressed his rising anger, clicked his tongue, and let out a hollow laugh. As far as Elder Jang could tell, those three looked like blacksmiths. Their hands, their developed shoulders—that was muscle you only got from smithing. And the look in their eyes as they watched him from their squat was a thirst for learning.
"......Come here."
"Nein? (Yes?)"
Unable to understand him, Mawin Stone simply stared blankly when Elder Jang beckoned.
"I said get over here, now!"
"Nein! (Sir, yes sir!)"
But at Elder Jang's subsequent sharp yell, Mawin Stone hurried over.
They had already recognized Elder Jang's skill. Unlike an ordinary human blacksmith, the steady rhythm that rang out with every hammer strike was no less than a dwarf's, and although he lacked the superior stamina of their kind, the blows he struck with equal force and equal strength were something only the greatest of master craftsmen could achieve.
And what had aroused their deepest curiosity was the forge. The fire was different.
Though they were of the Dwarf Tribe, this was the first time they had ever experienced such a thing, and when a master craftsman of this caliber beckoned them over, they had no choice but to obey. Even they, who had lived their lives looking down on humans, couldn't help but shrink under the current circumstances. Dwarf society is strictly merit-based.
"Hm, sturdy bone structure....... Let's see."
"......."
Elder Jang examined Mawin Stone's body here and there and gave a slight nod. Then he handed over the hammer he used, the one sitting off to the side.
"Ah!"
"Ooh."
Mawin Stone let out a small exclamation at the hammer placed in his hands, and Galling Stone and Hwain Stone sidled closer from behind.
"Perpek gyuhoen! (Perfect balance!)"
"Midium seuton! (Meteoric iron!)"
"Ho-oh. You lot have a good eye, just as I thought."
There are things craftsmen understand among themselves. The hammer now held by Mawin Stone was forged from meteoric iron. And it was a treasure with a perfect balance that you'd be lucky to find one or two of even in their own village.
Elder Jang looked at them and chuckled before speaking.
"What's the use of standing around idle? Get these things shaped up."
As if it suited him perfectly, Elder Jang handed over the work he had been finishing. The dwarves' faces lit up, and they each picked up hammers and began hammering with intense focus.
Ka-gang! Clang!
"Ho, these ones are useful."
Elder Jang was probably the only human in this entire world who would judge a dwarf as "useful."
That was how they began to put their hands to the forge's work, and for the first time, Elder Jang found the free time to go fishing.
"Niborau."
"Malhagiyo."
Buru, who had been staring blankly, spoke to Uru, who was still looking dumbfounded behind him.
"We had relatives?"
"What relatives. Look, they're pale and pasty. They're not from around here."
"Gilteui."
Buru and Uru were watching the dwarves, who had the exact same body structure as themselves, with great fascination. At first, they had been startled, thinking they were seeing their own family. On Buru's maternal side, this physique ran in the bloodline.
The dwarves, for their part, were beginning to grasp what had been going on.
"Taitan uljokga saellonhaen niullai. (The Titan Clan survived.)"
"Girae daeul wiseulludaei. (Then these techniques are.)"
They had convinced themselves that these were the techniques of the legendary Titan Clan.
Chapter 5: The Beginning of History
A few days after joining them, the slash-and-burn farmers began to adjust to some degree. Truthfully, at first they had all been afraid of the soldiers. If the soldiers decided to force themselves on their wives and daughters, they obviously couldn't stop them.
But over those few days, thanks to the soldiers' warm care, even without a common language, the walls around their hearts had, to some extent, come down.
When you say warm care, though, if you looked beneath the surface, it was actually the desperate efforts of the soldiers trying to win the young women's hearts. Things like bringing back meat from occasional hunts or offering animal skins had occurred with near-competitive intensity.
Jin-cheon did not stop them. But he did forbid them from fighting.
And so, amid this friendly(?) competition, the soldiers began spending their off-duty hours hunting and on similar pursuits. The ones who grew uneasy about this were the young unmarried men of the existing village. That the soldiers were making them uneasy, however, was no concern of the soldiers.
But there were serious side effects as well.
"What's your name? What was it...... ireum, ireum. (Name, name.)"
"Siara."
"Yes, good girl. Don't talk to the other men—just play with this oppa."
"......?"
"Eat this."
The soldier pulled a fruit from his belt and handed it to her with a smile, and stroked the girl's hair. The little girl looked at the fruit she had received and gave him a cute smile. Delighted by the sight, the soldier spoke even more cheerfully.
"Yes, grow up quickly. It always starts with 'oppa'; later it turns into 'honey' and 'the baby's dad.' Repeat after me—Giyul oppa!"
Thwack!
"Ow!"
"What are you doing with a child!"
Uru, who had been watching from afar, clicked his tongue and scolded Giyul, and as the man grumbled and mumbled his answer, the reply was a masterpiece.
"General, really. A child? She'll be a young lady in just ten years."
"You wanna die, or are you gonna get back to work?"
"All right, I’m going! Siara, I’ll be back later!"
"Hehe."
In short, because of the shortage of women, the number of bastards now reaching out even to children of five or six was increasing.
About thirty young men from the slash-and-burn farming village had been mobilized alongside the soldiers to expand the encampment to accommodate the increased numbers.
The original village of the slash-and-burn farmers was in a secluded location, difficult for outsiders to find—it was good for hiding, but it had no escape routes. They had begun expanding outward from it as a center, little by little.
Sometime later, Jin-cheon gave Mu-deok an order in response to his concern over the language barrier.
"If they don't understand the words, you teach them."
"Letters, do you mean?"
"They are my people now; they should speak my language. Or should I be the one to learn theirs?"
"Understood."
He meant that since they were his people, they must speak his language. And because the slash-and-burn farmers had no one among them who knew how to read, Jin-cheon ordered them to be taught the easy-to-learn Garimto—the prototype of Hangul.
The Garimto script, handed down from the Baedal Era, had remained little known despite being easy to learn, because the ruling class had used the older Nokdo Script—the prototype of Hanja. But Jin-cheon and his soldiers were familiar with Garimto and had no fondness for Nokdo script, which looked like squirming earthworms.
And so, the Garimto script—the prototype of Hangul—began to spread in this land. The education, naturally, was placed in the hands of the language genius known as Gurajaengi, Ung-sam.
A month after they began expanding the palisade and building houses, people had reached a point where they could communicate to some extent. The children's acquisition was especially fast, to the point that there was talk of having each general take one as an aide.
"You sons of bitches, shut up!"
"Huh?"
Jin-cheon, who had been making his rounds of the sentry posts, had no choice but to stop and furrow his brow at the familiar dialect. Because the owner of that voice was painfully young.
"You wanna fight?"
"Yeah, that's right!"
"Oh, really? Come on, then!"
"You think I can't?!"
Watching two children glare at each other, ready to brawl, Jin-cheon clutched his throbbing head and called for Hwi-garam, who was behind him trying to hold back his laughter.
"Hwi."
"Kk-kk-kk. Yes."
"Did I hear that wrong?"
"Puhahahaha!"
It was not a hallucination.
Eventually, Hwi-garam had to break up the children's fight, and Jin-cheon made his way toward where the language lessons were being held.
"Aeminai."
"Aeminai!"
"Good, that's right. Repeat after me. You son of a bitch."
"You son of a bitch!"
There, Buru was teaching the children.
"Hwi."
"Kk-kk-kk...... Yes."
"Haul that bastard out."
"Keuhahaha!"
In the end, Hwi-garam's laughter had exploded.
Since Ung-sam's teaching had looked amusing, Buru had wanted to do it too. Buru, who consistently heard that he was hopelessly ignorant, had deeply envied anyone who got to teach.
Thud!
"Damn it."
Thud!
"Kuaaaaak!"
"General, please calm yourself!"
In the end, Buru, who had been dragged out in front of the children, found himself with the axemen, felling trees with an axe. The soldiers trying to pacify the rampaging Buru were a pitiful sight.
"What's this, you not done yet?"
"Uru, shut your mouth!"
When Uru, who was returning from a hunt with the archers, passed a sarcastic remark, Buru shrieked at him. But Uru was not a man who frightened easily.
"You look great like that, punk."
"Damn it! the Daesaja and I are the same when it comes to being ignorant, so why's the mistreatment all falling on me alone? Is that fair?"
"The Daesaja doesn't speak in dialect."
"Damn it all."
At that moment, the gap Buru had left behind was being filled by Jin-cheon. As Uru had pointed out, Jin-cheon didn't use dialect, so there were no real problems. Well, except for the fact that the children who learned from Jin-cheon occasionally used transformed words like snout or noggin.
Another month passed in that way.
"The sowing of the crops?"
Jin-cheon's voice came from the makeshift command post, built from the timber of felled nearby trees. Two months had now passed since they arrived. It was gradually becoming a livable environment. But the greatest problem was food.
"First, we planted the wheat that the slash-and-burn farmers brought from the old village, along with the unhulled rice seeds we collected for food resupply during our withdrawal. With the help of the local people, we can see that the wheat is growing well. For the rice, we planted it with the help of soldiers from the southern Han River region and former Baekje soldiers. But the outcome still requires more observation. At least, after investigating the rainfall and weather patterns, we've learned that the conditions aren't bad for growing rice."
"That's fortunate."
"All this meat alone's killing me. I'm craving some kimchi."
The prototype of kimchi existed as far back as Gojoseon. Of course, the form with chili powder that we eat today came after the Imjin War, but the early form of salted cabbage kimchi has a deep origin.
Jin-cheon ignored Buru's grumbling and moved on to the next matter.
"The work to replace the surrounding palisade with stone walls?"
"Elder Jang's disciples took the lead and got it done quickly. It turns out that on top of being blacksmiths, they are also excellent architects."
"Good."
The dwarves had not the slightest intention of going home and were just trailing behind Elder Jang everywhere. What was amusing was that the dwarves hung on Buru's and Uru's every word. Apart from that, they were an odd breed who would even pick a fight with Jin-cheon himself. Of course, after Jin-cheon had straightened Buru and Uru out, and a chain reaction of beatings had extended once to the dwarves, such things no longer happened.
"Also, tomorrow, we have the first wedding ceremonies between the soldiers and the local young women."
"How many couples were there?"
"Yes, seven couples."
"Tomorrow, let's distribute some of the food we've stockpiled to boost morale. And that... ma..."
"You mean the beer?"
"Yes, let's distribute that as well."
One day, the dwarves had gotten into the food warehouse, taken barley that looked somewhat different from Gauri barley—the ingredient for beer is two-row malted barley—and brewed alcohol right there. Of course, they'd been pounded within an inch of their lives through Buru and Uru, but the taste had been unexpectedly fantastic. They'd been saving it until now and were going to break it out for the celebration.
In truth, aside from that, the food situation had kept them from making any more, and the small amount of fruit wine that the villagers had previously made was all there was.
When the talk of alcohol grew long, Mu-deok quietly brought up the next item.
"The most urgent matter is the issue of clothing. There are several other necessities, but self-sufficiency is difficult."
"A solution?"
"I will speak on that, General."
Hwi-garam cut in after Mu-deok.
"We have been collecting the hides, claws, and bones of the things they call monsters from our hunting, and we now have a substantial amount. According to Beron, if we secretly take these to a city and sell them, they will be worth money."
"Mm. Then, I'll go myself."
"I'll go!"
The moment Jin-cheon spoke of going in person, Uru leapt to his feet and shouted.
"Hold still."
"I—I will go."
The leader of the group, Jin-cheon, moving personally was out of the question. But sending Uru was also an uneasy prospect. In the end, Mu-deok carefully submitted his request from his side.
"No. To read the political situation of this place and act, it's better that I go myself. And since the Captain of the Guard is entrusted with all matters here, it would be hard for him to extract himself."
"But...... General, are not tasks requiring one to read the political situation usually assigned to me?"
"......."
At Hwi-garam's counter-question, Jin-cheon forgot what he'd been about to say.
Jin-cheon had simply been curious about the city here.
In the end, it was decided that Hwi-garam and Jin-cheon would go, and that Darun and Beron would guide the way. Darun was the man who, early on, had stopped Jin-cheon's footsteps and declared himself his first subject.
"Buru, how go the drills?"
"Those fellas must've barely had a bowl of gruel. They're a sorry lot."
Buru and Uru had taken charge of training the young men and the roughly ninety men of middle and older age who, while up in years, could still be of use as fighting strength, but from the beginning, they had failed to adapt to Buru's training.
"General, and we're short on bows."
"Mm."
"The bows around here aren't even fit for children. They're all plain wooden bows; the only things worth a damn are the crossbows, and even those aren't nearly enough."
However, there was no source of water buffalo for making horn bows anywhere nearby.
Having said that much, Uru cautiously continued.
"So, that walking cow thing we saw before, you remember?"
"Mino...... Minotauseu, was it?"
"Minotaur, sir."
"Ahem. Right."
When Hwi-garam interjected from the side, Jin-cheon's brow furrowed again. Uru nodded to confirm that the minotaur talk was correct and went on.
"We'll have to go deep to hunt the beasts. Their horns and ribs make bows with good range."
When it came to bows, no one could match Uru, so Jin-cheon readily nodded.
"I'll leave it to you. Select who you need. And for now, rest, then continue in the afternoon."
"Where are you going?"
When Jin-cheon cut the meeting short and rose from his seat as though in a hurry, Mu-deok tilted his head and asked. Jin-cheon, who had paused on his way out of the barracks, spoke in a low voice.
"I'm going to teach writing."
"......."
At a loss for words, the people stared at the door through which Jin-cheon had departed.
"Let's hope that, I beg of you, he doesn't end up teaching them words like beak or gullet......."
Mu-deok's heartfelt worry passed quietly through the room.