Return Home 2
As a supervisor, one ought to know the worksite like the back of one’s own hand.
But Jang Dae-bu was not that sort of man. To put it plainly, he was lazy, and he had little to do with diligence or discipline. He was not the kind of person who threw his whole heart into the job at hand.
Still, today was different. A new Banghosa was coming, and that meant he had to prepare with care.
Of course the man would arrive knowing nothing.
He would have met the former commissioner, naturally. They might even have clinked cups in some gaudy tavern or elegant wine house and exchanged pleasantries over drink.
But there was no way he would have been the sort to corner a greenhorn and dribble out every last point of the handover in detail. More likely, he had simply told the new man to listen to the supervisor.
Which was why—
For three days and nights, Jang Dae-bu had strained himself to cram everything into his head.
The progress of construction, the demand for materials and what remained on hand, even the various standards for inspection. He had even sent laborers out to check the fortress wall itself.
If he delivered the report he had prepared, there would be nothing for the man to seize on.
He could say it with confidence. No one would die today because the wall was weak—no one would lose his life in the Banghosa’s hands for that reason.
Just as he thought he could finally breathe easy, Jang Dae-bu let out a tired sigh and propped a hand on a tree trunk, preparing to lower himself onto it.
But before long, he rose again. No—he had no choice but to rise.
A rumbling approached from far off, followed by a cloud of dust and the beat of hooves.
His eyes fixed on the southern gate tower where the signboard of Heoksan Fortress hung.
Jang Dae-bu hurried out, wondering if the Banghosa had arrived, and beyond him the silhouettes of two men came into view. He could tell at once, from the bearing alone, that both were martial artists.
First, a middle-aged warrior dressed neatly in black martial robes dismounted.
Only after the man who seemed to be his guard had stepped down did a broad, heavyset figure finally lower himself to the ground.
A jade-colored silk jacket adorned the man’s massive body. That was why he had taken the black-clad warrior for a guard.
“Clear the way. Where is the supervisor of the mountain fortress?”
The guard’s calm voice carried with a surprising edge of refinement.
“I—I’m the supervisor, sir.”
The introduction that followed confirmed his worst suspicion.
This was the Banghosa, Gong Tae-o, and he had arrived a full shichen, nearly two hours, earlier than expected.
—
The night before, at Yanhong Pavilion.
A brazen, vicious man had taken root there.
He wore a rough, untended beard whose growth seemed either cultivated or simply neglected, thick, weighty arms, and a belly that bulged hard from his middle.
He wasn’t so massive that one would call him a giant, but he was certainly bigger than the average man—a formidable brute.
Gong Tae-o had spent a full silver nyang to rent the best three courtesans and the spacious center room, the one with a clear view as soon as the door was opened, for an entire night.
“Kraha! Wol-hyang, you know what?”
The woman he called Wol-hyang was beneath him, pinned under his body.
Ignoring her, Gong Tae-o kept talking to himself.
“There’s a place called Go-chon. It’s where the forced laborers who build the fortress live. But listen.”
Wol-hyang could only cough and gag.
“There’s a girl there who’s unbelievably pretty. They say she’s strong as hell, too, and cute in a way you wouldn’t expect.”
He had heard it from the former Banghosa, at a meeting held over drink: there was a village girl from Go-chon who came to work and was insanely strong and pretty.
“Heh. I’m going to go see her in the morning. After I’ve had a taste, I’ll drag her back here and enjoy myself properly.”
He had asked about her looks, but the laborers on site had protected her so fiercely that no one could manage to find her. She had been hidden away so thoroughly that the former commissioner had eventually given up and let the matter drop, muttering that it was what it was.
Foolish little wretch. Was he treating slaves like people? If so, the man was truly an idiot.
Beating a disobedient slave to death would not earn punishment. And anyway, as Banghosa, he had no need to concern himself with whether they were government slaves or household slaves.
There was no law anywhere that said otherwise.
Not in the Demonic Cult he served now, and not even within the rigid legal domain of those high-minded righteous sects and the imperial court they guarded so proudly.
He could always invent a justification later. If he got bored after his fun, he could discard her. What was there to answer for?
He began to picture the face of the girl he would meet tomorrow.
He was a man in his forties who had preyed on countless women, so the filthy fantasy came easily.
A cute face and fierce strength. Then she’d be a bold one, probably with baby fat still lingering on her cheeks. She’d have no time to tend to herself, what with having to rise and go to work, so her hair would likely be long and unbound.
Her figure would have to be seen to be known, but if they said she was cute, she couldn’t be too grotesque.
Good. Very good.
There was nothing in this world as exhilarating as trampling a stubborn woman flat.
When he imagined her finally tamed, writhing beneath him as she tried to climb into his lap on her own, a strange heat stirred in him.
Of course, it had nothing to do with the cheap slut beneath him, whimpering and writhing.
“Hmm...”
He would stay up all night like this. The moment dawn broke, he’d go to Heoksan Fortress and take the girl with him. After a bit of sleep, he’d sample her raw flavor until night fell. Then he’d stuff her into Yanhong Pavilion and enjoy her in secret, away from his wife’s eyes.
Gong Tae-o finally laughed.
It was a vicious laugh, with a taste of blood to it.
—
“So, as I was saying, we built up the outer wall with the rammed-earth method...”
Jang Dae-bu’s expression was far from good.
He had been tightly wound, wary of the Banghosa’s imposing frame—he looked every inch the great greenwood hero of the jianghu—but the site inspection had been going surprisingly smoothly.
That only made him more uneasy.
The man—the newly arrived Banghosa—didn’t even pretend to listen to the explanation he had so carefully memorized.
He only nodded off now and then, reeking of alcohol.
There had never been a Banghosa this slovenly. He had never seen one, never even imagined one. The man had crossed the line and kept going.
“Right. I understand. But why build it with earth? Use brick instead. It doesn’t look right.”
Jang Dae-bu felt as if he might suffocate from frustration.
He knew very well the man wasn’t listening at all. Then he should at least have kept quiet.
Instead, because he happened to be the Banghosa, he had blurted out the absurd demand that they rebuild it in brick.
Idiot. Had he even bothered to learn anything about mountain fortresses before coming here?
Jang Dae-bu looked off toward the distant mountains, then forced an awkward smile and looked back up at Gong Tae-o.
“Well, sir, since the fortress sits so high up, brick construction would be difficult. And earth is easier to repair during battle, so the construction efficiency is actually higher.”
That was common knowledge to any normal Banghosa.
He had not spent three days and nights burning himself out for some dimwit who didn’t know the first thing about the strengths and weaknesses of earthen and stone fortifications.
Not that it stopped there—his arrogance was outrageous, and his knowledge was pitifully thin.
Jang Dae-bu’s suspicion was hardening into certainty.
He could say it with confidence: that fool had definitely bought his way into office.
—
The fortress inspection was over almost before it had begun.
The Banghosa and his party were now counting laborers in the level clearing used as a timber yard.
It was a staggering piece of behavior. The man had shown no interest in the fortress at all. He was the sort who walked with a rolling sway, dozed with his head bobbing, and spat out yawns like a wastrel from the gutter—and yet he had suddenly decided to inspect the condition of eight hundred laborers.
It made no sense.
Only the occasional young Banghosa who plunged so deeply into his duties that it seemed excessive would do such a thing. And yet here this man was, acting the part.
Still, an order was an order.
Jang Dae-bu gathered the reports the overseers had turned in and immediately presented them to Tae-o.
“Two hundred and ten from Go-chon, one hundred and seventy-one from Hwang-chon. Four hundred and fifty from Seok-chon and Nae-chon combined.”
“That makes eight hundred and thirty-one in total.”
“Hmm...”
The Banghosa’s expression remained displeased.
His eyes rolled back and forth several times.
It was a grotesque look, as though he were searching for someone—no, for a chosen piece of prey.
“There’s a missing ‘girl,’ isn’t there?”
His voice was sharp and clear. He still smelled of liquor, but he didn’t drag his words.
A cold chill ran down Jang Dae-bu’s back.
The worthless idler he had taken him for had somehow become another man entirely.
“Uh...”
Jang Dae-bu felt something off. In fact, he felt a pressure that went beyond mere unease. He had gone momentarily speechless, but then forced his mind back into order.
“Today there are thirteen absent.”
“Thirteen?”
“Yes. Seven with broken ankles, five with head injuries, and one with a fever.”
“Bring them.”
“All of them, sir?”
“Not one missing. Every last one.”
“B-but, Banghosa-nim. From each village, it’s at least seven ri to here—”
Sching!
The sound of metal rang out.
The Banghosa had drawn the guard’s sword.
A line of blood trickled down the side of Jang Dae-bu’s neck.
Everyone gasped and began to murmur in shock.
“Uu... ngh...”
Jang Dae-bu fought to endure the pain. With a cruel snort, Gong Tae-o opened his huge mouth.
“Now tell me. Are you defying me?”
“N-no, sir... I’ll do whatever I can, I... but...”
“But?”
“The child with the fever... I’m worried the sickness might spread...”
For a moment, silence.
Then, “Keh-heehee... Just as I expected. You’re all in league together. To think I’d see with my own eyes the likes of common trash bewitched by some lowly creature.”
“What, spread? Are you saying you’ve even gone so far as to take that girl to bed? Or what reason do you have to worry?”
“Spit it out! What’s this, now—are you refusing to answer me?”
Jang Dae-bu’s vision blurred.
It was because the blade, resonating with the man’s fury, had sunk even deeper into him.
Before long, his world tilted sideways. His body would no longer obey. He could not even draw breath. A vital artery had been severed.
A quiet relief came over him.
The pain was gone. Now drowsiness began to guide him to the other side.
Through his half-closed eyes, he saw shadows of people.
Tall, bent, small, skinny as rails, familiar.
Backs he had watched for a long time.
They had risen up.
The small child whose head barely came into view was Mal-ddong from Hwang-chon, the youngest there.
That back, so much like a branch from a withered old tree, belonged to the Nae-chon grandfather who had forgotten even his own name.
Even stubborn Man-seok, who worked alongside So-yeon, was out front, his face twisted in anger.
That couldn’t be. The man was dangerous.
So-yeon couldn’t be shown to him. But neither could they fight him here.
What should they do? He had to say something. He had to shout at them to run, to tell them this wasn’t an opponent they could face. That man knew martial arts.
But his mouth would not move. Half his neck had been sliced away; there was no way for words to come out.
The coldness of the wind, which had only ever touched his skin, now reached deep inside his body.
A short time passed.
And then, one might say Jang Dae-bu—reduced by the endless winter wind to a branch fallen from a tree—was looking at the fallen leaves.
He saw them. He truly saw the heap of leaves scattered down in a rustling pile.
“Hh... uh... uhh...”
It was the overseer Go.
Go stood there frozen in silence.
Now no one spoke. The dead were already gone, and the living had gone rigid with fear.
Jang Dae-bu was only now truly realizing it. Where was this place?
It was a place where only the strong could rule.
A place where only tigers and rabbits existed.
The Demonic Cult.
He was a rabbit. There was no room for doubt. Rabbits were only ever eaten. They had no choice but to submit to the tiger.
And then, to that overseer Go—no, to that rabbit—
The tiger standing before him began to walk.
One step, then another, sword in hand and dripping blood.
Only when he came within breathing distance did the tiger finally speak.
“Bring me the girl from Go-chon. Now.”