Chapter 344
Chapter 344
Iron Emperor — Chapter 344
"It seems to be the burden borne by the one left behind alone."
"I see."
Jin-cheon nodded slowly as he rose to his feet. He paused for a moment on his way out, looking beyond the barracks door, and asked another question.
"I heard you witnessed his last moments. How was it?"
Avilrun lifted his head, fixed his gaze on Jin-cheon's back, and spoke in a clear voice.
"He was dancing."
The scene Avilrun would never forget came back to him.
"He said he was performing the Requiem Ceremony. Until that final moment, the Great General remained invincible."
"......."
Leaving Avilrun's words behind him, Jin-cheon stepped out of the barracks.
The moment he emerged, the cold night air rushed at him. It was a crisp wind, as if trying to cool his heart. The wind did not linger; it raced on to touch someone else.
Step. Step.
Go Jin-cheon's feet moved forward with no destination.
How long did he walk?
A great drum came into Jin-cheon's sight. Perched on a high platform, the drum—taller than a grown man—wavered in the torchlight.
Without stopping, Jin-cheon walked toward it. Just as the soldiers standing guard moved to salute him, Yeon Hwi-garam, who had appeared from nowhere, raised a hand to stop them.
Whether he noticed or not, Jin-cheon slowly climbed the steps leading up to the drum platform.
Silence hung in the air, wordless. Standing before the drum, Jin-cheon reached out a hand.
A soldier quickly handed him the drumsticks, then hurried back down the platform.
"......."
The drum and the sticks.
Jin-cheon's eyes moved back and forth between them, then rose to the sky. Countless stars were scattered overhead. He stood there, staring upward for a long moment. His gaze was the gaze of a man looking at someone.
He grasped the drumsticks—each as tall as a man—with both hands.
He gripped them tight.
Whooosh!
Slowly, the drumsticks rose toward the sky.
After a fleeting instant in the air, the drumsticks plunged toward the drum. Then they struck.
BOOM!
The drum cried out.
"......."
A drum that should not have sounded under ordinary circumstances rang out across the camp.
Outside Uru's barracks, Gye Ung-sam and the other three—as if on cue—turned their heads toward the source of the drumming.
THUMP!
The drum resounded again.
It was not a drum signaling the enemy's approach, nor one announcing battle.
THUMP!
It was a sound that held only the meaning of a drum.
THUMP!
Step.
Whether he had seen Ung-sam and the others or not, Eulji Uru emerged from the barracks and walked in a daze toward the drumming.
Ung-sam followed. Samdopyo followed. Buyeo Gi-yul followed. Mong Ryu-hwa followed.
THUMP!
It was more than a drumbeat.
THUMP-THUMP!
It was the pounding of the heart.
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!
It was the sound of horses' hooves racing across the earth.
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!
The rhythm quickened.
The soul's resonance grew fierce.
Soldiers who had gathered without realizing it now clutched at their own hearts.
When the heart beat—
THUMP!
The drum cried out.
When the chest swelled—
THUMP!
The drum cried out.
The drumming, whose beginning no one could pinpoint, grew faster and faster. The drumbeat ran wild, one note biting the tail of the next in an unbroken chain.
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!
In the midst of it, Eulji Uru approached, spread both arms wide, and began swaying exuberantly—
—dancing to the beat of the drum.
Shring.
Gye Ung-sam's long sword sliced through the night air, keeping time beside Uru. It traced one unending circle after another. Next to him, Risel awkwardly joined the dance.
And so, one by one,
they danced.
At the sudden eruption of drumming, King Alsein, Duke Baikal, and the commanders of every allied nation rushed out. And all of them stopped, as if by some unspoken agreement, and simply watched.
Go Jin-cheon beat the drum. The others danced. Even Yeon Hwi-garam, who had always shown only calm composure, danced more fiercely than anyone else in this moment.
"What on earth is going on...?"
Duke Ken of the Marlon Kingdom could not hide his bewilderment at the sudden commotion, and the same was true of Duke Gaun of Haian, King Alsein, and Duke Baikal.
"A festival for the dead..."
At the entranced voice from behind them, King Alsein and the allied nobles turned as one.
"Marquis Bels?"
Seeing Marquis Silen Bels's expression, as though he were walking through old memories, King Alsein looked at him questioningly.
But Marquis Bels seemed in no hurry to satisfy their curiosity. He simply walked forward in a daze.
"Ahem. I say, Verus!"
Feeling somewhat awkward, Duke Baikal cleared his throat and called to him. Marquis Bels answered in a distant voice.
"I have seen this before."
"What?"
"What do you mean?"
Marquis Bels was traveling back to that day, long ago. The day they loaded their comrades' bodies onto catapults and launched them. The day they stacked the corpses of their comrades to build ramparts...
"I saw it at Vihanen Fortress."
That desperate battle rose up in his memory. Hadn't he seen it for the first time back then?
'By the will of His Majesty, Supreme One of All Heavens who embraces all people and all things! We shall become Gauri’s sword and spear, and with wills and bodies as unyielding as steel, shatter all who oppose us and stand as the vanguard that makes His will resound throughout heaven and earth!'
Standing atop the wall, covered in blood, Samdopyo had sworn that oath. That was the first time he had seen the red Three-legged Crow flag.
That evening, amid the flames, he had seen Go Jin-cheon perform the sword dance. Tonight, that image overlapped with what he was seeing now.
"What in blazes are you talking about?"
Leaving Duke Baikal's repeated question behind, Marquis Bels walked out toward the dancers.
As he passed the kings and nobles amid the clamor of the drum, Marquis Bels's voice rang out clear.
"It seems General Buru is there with them."
"......."
"Can you not see it? The dead, dancing together..."
A tear rolled down from the corner of Marquis Bels's eye.
"Can you not see it? That terrible sorrow."
With those words left behind, he slowly, awkwardly, stepped among the Gauri people, spread his arms wide, and began to dance.
Throb.
"Y-Your Highness!"
King Alsein suddenly clutched his heart and staggered. Duke Baikal rushed to him in alarm and supported him.
"...They are."
"Pardon?"
"They are human too. Strong, but unmistakably human!"
Alsein had never felt so ashamed as he did now—he who had been ready to throw a celebration based solely on the fact that Gauri had successfully held the fortress. He had never felt so selfish as he did now, realizing joy had been his first response even after a towering figure like Eulji Buru had fallen.
Throb!
His heart ached.
Through his tears, he saw Jin-cheon beating the drum. And their eyes met. Jin-cheon smiled at him.
Throb! Throb!
Inside that smile, Alsein saw a sorrow that seemed to tear at the heart.
"Your Highness!"
Leaving the cries of his people behind, Alsein, too...
danced.
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!
The drumbeat still wept, shaking the night sky.
The drumbeat made the hearts of the living tremble,
gave comfort to the dead,
and gave comfort to the living.
The drumbeat was Go Jin-cheon's weeping.
Yeon Hwi-garam sent a pillar of fire into the sky, embroidering the night in time with the drumbeat.
Chapter 119: A Life That Is One and Only
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
The sound of Emperor Millior's single finger rapping the armrest of his throne in steady rhythm resonated through the hall like a piece of music.
Tap.
The moment the sound of his finger stopped, goosebumps swept down the spines of the nobles assembled in the great hall. Through the suffocating silence, the emperor spoke.
"Do they hand out the title of Sword Master to any son of a bitch these days?"
At the sight of him twitching, one eye raised in a glare, the nobles lowered their heads still further, as if words had deserted them entirely.
"One dies sprawled on his back over there. Another runs for his life, half-dead, and comes crawling back."
No one dared rebut Emperor Millior's words. Silence was all they could maintain.
But even that silence seemed to grate on his nerves. He rose from the throne and swept his gaze across the assembly. His slowly moving eyes came to a stop. Where they halted was the place where the empire's military commanders stood.
"Was everything I knew about the Ten of the Continent based on mistaken common sense?"
The commanders hesitated for a moment at the emperor's question, then cautiously spoke.
"That is not the case."
"Then explain yourselves."
As the emperor spat the words with a face set in stone, one of the commanders carefully parted his lips.
"In truth, this expedition did suffer from a lack of intelligence. Our estimates of the military strength of this nation called Gauri may have been correct, but the campaign was conducted with a severe shortage of information regarding the terrain and various other factors."
"Was it not you gentlemen who said you could subjugate them easily even without such things?"
The commanders' faces crumpled at the emperor's rebuke.
Who could possibly have imagined that a single imperial corps would collapse against a mere kingdom—not even one of the other two great empires?
Of course, they had spoken half in jest, and the plan to strike from the sea and hit them from behind had been devised by the emperor himself. The problem was that any further delay might blur the grand picture of continental unification he had drawn, so a measure of recklessness had not been absent. Still, no one here was fool enough to point that out.
"Clearly, they fell into a trap. A large-scale trap, at that—how else could Marquis Luchia have returned so gravely wounded?"
"Half of that is right. Half is wrong."
A voice suddenly rang out from the entrance of the great hall. It was followed by the flustered voice of the chamberlain.
"M-Marquis Luchia is entering!"
Step. Step. Step.
It was a confident stride for a defeated general.
At a glance, he looked perfectly fine, but the blood-soaked bandages visible beneath his cloak proved he was far from normal.
With wide strides, Marquis Luchia approached the emperor, performed the full court salute, and straightened up.
"Now I can hear the story from the man himself, rather than the speculation of these fools."
The emperor had always shown a certain degree of courtesy toward those called the Ten Great Sword Masters, but now he seemed to have no such inclination. His words came barbed.
"What exactly is half right and half wrong, Marquis Luchia?"
To the commanders listening nearby, it sounded as if the emperor was telling him: if you have an excuse, let's hear it.