Meeting the Treasure
"Thank you, my lord!"
"I only did what any soldier should do."
"No, truly! If you hadn't come, our village would have been wiped out this time!"
Young and old, man and woman alike, the villagers bowed their heads again and again as they spoke.
Please stop. You're making me uncomfortable.
Setting aside the swelling pride of being treated like a war hero, I was genuinely terrified that the hunched old grandfather over there would throw his back out every time he bowed.
Unable to endure the awkward situation a moment longer, I had no choice but to change the subject.
"Is there a village elder among you?"
At that, an old man leaning on a cane stepped forward and bowed his head toward me.
"This humble elder is the oldest of those who remain. What business brings you to us?"
"What was the original household registry of this village?"
"Thirty able-bodied men, five elders, and the women and children together numbered just under fifty."
Even a rough head count told me barely half that remained.
"...At first, we resisted. We took the hunting rifles we kept in the storeroom and dug up the old firearms we'd buried in the ground, hoping to do something, anything—but it only fanned the flames."
The tip of the old man's cane scraped against the parched earth.
"...Elder. Your hand is trembling badly. Are you all right?"
"I am fine. I must be fine. Everyone left alive looks only to this old man, so I have no choice but to be fine."
The old man placed his other hand atop the trembling one and gripped it firmly.
What kind of life must ordinary people endure in a world where public order and the administrative system have collapsed entirely?
As I chewed over the thought, a soldier called my name from behind.
"Staff Major, sir."
"What is it?"
"Captain Zhang Baochen is asking for you."
***
"Oh. There you are."
"You called for me. What's the matter?"
"Take a look at this."
Leaning crookedly against a dilapidated wooden building, tapping a cigarette alight, he gripped the padlock hanging from the building's door with both hands and shook it as soon as he saw me.
Clang! Clang-clang!
The heavy lock didn't budge an inch. Zhang Baochen took the cigarette from his mouth with his hand.
"Doesn't that strike you as odd? The lock is pristine—for the shabby storeroom of a shabby village like this."
"Who found it?"
"Th-that was me, sir! Staff Major!"
A young soldier, perhaps a year or two older than me, answered stiffly.
"His name is Ma Jeom-san. He's one of my cavalry company. Born and raised here in Manchuria, yet he can read and write, and even studies books on his own. Loyal and quick-witted besides, so I keep him close."
Whoa. He can actually read and write?
My appetite is piqued. Want to work at staff headquarters, kid?
The moment my eyes slid toward him of their own accord, Ma Jeom-san flinched and snapped to attention.
"I found it while clearing the bandits' corpses and collecting their weapons, sir!"
"You haven't looked inside yet?"
"No, sir! Not at all!"
"Captain Zhang. Shall we crack it open?"
"Do as the Staff Major says."
"Step back a moment, please."
I drew my pistol, aimed at the ∩-shaped shackle at the top of the lock, and angled my body slightly so no ricochet would fly back at me.
A gunshot cracked, sparks flashed a few times, and the rattling padlock dropped onto the dry ground with a heavy thud.
At the same instant, without anyone ordering him to, Ma Jeom-san hoisted his rifle like a spear, kicked the door open with a bang, and charged inside.
"AAAAAGH! ANYONE IN THERE, COME OUT!!"
"...He's rather energetic, isn't he? He's always been an eager sort."
"Well. That's a hundred times better than having no drive. He's at the age when the blood runs hot, after all."
Back in the 21st century he'd be at school right now, playing hallway soccer with his friends during every break.
Hormones raging at full blast, so I suppose it makes sense.
"Ha ha, aren't you three or four years younger than that boy?"
"Uh. Yeah. Well. Kids without parents grow up fast, I suppose."
"True enough. I hardened overnight myself, after my older brother was murdered by bandits. ...Do you suppose a man is only truly complete once he has no family left to lose?"
Hey, stop! That path leads to becoming a demon!
I was genuinely afraid Zhang Baochen was about to awaken his kaleidoscope Sharingan.
You, sir, are really going to suffer if you keep this up.
"Ahem. Shall we go in, then?"
"Hm? Ah, yes. Pardon me, lost in my thoughts."
The two of us followed Ma Jeom-san inside.
Through gaps in the wooden planks, sunlight streamed in as though someone had switched on a floodlight, chasing the fine motes of dust drifting in the warehouse air as if playing a game of tag.
"It's remarkably clean in here. As though someone has been maintaining it regularly."
"Captain. Over there."
I pointed at the dozen-odd crates stacked in the center of the warehouse.
About the size of a postal service's large moving box, give or take.
"Jeom-san. Open one."
"Yes, sir!"
At Zhang Baochen's order, Ma Jeom-san dragged a crate into the brightest patch of light and battered the small lock with his rifle butt, stroke after stroke.
Once the lock had been beaten to scraps and clattered to the floor, Ma Jeom-san lowered his rifle and lifted the lid.
"Ugh."
"Ack."
"My eyes!"
All three of us squinted at the same moment.
That was how brilliantly the contents of the crate reflected the sunlight.
***
Gold coins, silver ingots, jade rings, silver tableware, and even jewels that looked like sapphires and rubies.
"...I've lived a long time, and this is the first treasure of this scale I've ever laid eyes on."
Zhang Baochen bit a fresh cigarette with trembling hands.
"Damn it, Staff Major, could you give me a light? My hands are shaking too hard to strike a flame."
"Of course."
"Sss. Phew. Much obliged."
Ma Jeom-san had his mouth hanging wide open, unable to tear his eyes from the jewels and silverware.
Ahem. Zhang Baochen is no better.
······.
One more correction. Neither am I.
Before all three pairs of eyes could be swallowed whole by the maelstrom of treasure in that crate, I strode over and shut the lid.
"Ah."
"Ahem."
Souls that had flown out of vacant eyes came flooding right back in.
Seriously, what are we, Gollum? What is this, a portal to a mental world or an Imaginary Space?
Zhang Baochen cleared his throat and spoke.
"Ahem. What do you think we should do, Staff Major?"
"Follow the proper course."
"The proper course?"
"Report it to the battalion commander and await his disposition of the spoils."
What else could we do? This isn't pocket change for schoolboys.
I didn't see it alone, either—Zhang Baochen saw it, and so did the soldier Ma Jeom-san.
Zhang Baochen is Zhang Zuolin's sworn younger brother, and Ma Jeom-san is a soldier under Zhang Baochen's command.
Run off with it myself? No matter how I plotted the escape route, every scenario ended the same way: a corpse in the wasteland, served up as a happy meal for bald vultures.
So the play is simple—hand the whole lot straight to Zhang Zuolin and collect my cut.
Lowest risk, guaranteed return. Bearer bonds or bearer gold bars are about the only things you could fence without leaving a trail anyway.
A brief silence settled over the three of us, and Zhang Baochen, a fresh cigarette in his mouth, nodded slowly.
"That's right. Yes. When you don't know what to do, the proper course is the answer. ...Damn it. I've lived over ten years longer than this Staff Major, so how on earth is he so detached from all this?"
Well, because I'm playing this cursed timeline-rewrite on a no-death permadeath run, that's why. You try it sometime, sir.
If I'd had spare lives, spare coins, or a save file, I'd have made a run for it at least once myself.
"I merely try to think big, and to see the bigger picture."
"God damn it. If even one in ten people in this world were like you, it wouldn't be in the sorry state it's in."
Leaving Zhang Baochen behind—chewing his cigarette like cud and puffing smoke like a human chimney—I looked into the eyes of Ma Jeom-san, who had been quietly listening to our conversation.
"S-sir? Is something the matter?"
The words 'is this where I get killed to bury the secret?' flashed across his eyes, so I waved my hands quickly.
"Whoa, no! Nothing like that."
"Then...?"
"Captain."
"Hm?"
"You and I may not care, but wouldn't it be proper to give this soldier a silver ingot?"
"...Fair enough. Do as you please, Staff Major."
If this secret is going to stay buried, we need every mouth sealed tight—and would anyone actually keep quiet if we just said, 'right, everyone forget what you just saw'?
Unless he goes blabbing his story around or turnscoat, it won't happen.
I reopened the crate and picked up a silver ingot—
Ah, damn it.
"Sir? What's wrong?"
"Hah."
A groan escaped me before I could stop it.
Instead of the silver ingot I'd been reaching for, my eyes had locked onto the tiny little silver spoon sitting beside it.
A silver spoon far smaller than what an ordinary adult would use.
As I sat there staring in silence, Ma Jeom-san also came closer, puzzled.
"Sir?"
"This. Its owners are dead now, I take it?"
"...Life in Manchuria is like drifting duckweed, sir. So yes. I would think so."
Suddenly I remembered the old man, gripping his own trembling hand to steady it.
Could a village that had lost more than half its able-bodied men ever truly rise again?
"Captain."
"What is it?"
"Let's do one more thing."
***
"Village head."
"Yes, y-yes. Do you have questions for me?"
The village head, seated on a tree stump with his cane across his knees, scrambled to rise with his cane's support.
But Zhang Baochen gently patted the old man's shoulder, as if to say stay seated.
"No need. My education ended with a few lines read in a village school, but even I learned to respect one's elders. Please, stay seated."
"Th-thank you."
"There is something I wish to ask of you."
And here it comes.
In this train-wreck of a Manchuria, when had soldiers in boots ever once turned their noses up at civilian property?
Though they had saved his life, the village head dreaded what price they might demand.
As if sensing his fear and not sensing it all at once, Zhang Baochen gave a faint smile and put a cigarette between his lips.
He never lit it, yet in the crimson wash of the setting sun, the tip glowed red as if already burning.
"Nothing much. Until we withdraw our forces, do not go anywhere near that warehouse. Once the withdrawal is complete, you may enter it then."
"...Is that all?"
"Ha ha, that's all."
"Yes, y-yes. Understood."
"Then excuse us."
Zhang Baochen tipped his cap slightly and turned to walk away from the village head—
"Ah. Nearly forgot. Village head?"
—then glanced back over his shoulder.
"Yes, officer. What brings you to call for me again?"
"I know full well why your idea of soldierly conduct became what it is. This Manchuria of ours is harsh enough as it is. But sometimes, even in a brutal world like this, it seems there are those who truly do their proper share."
With one hand jammed into the pocket of his officer's coat and a cigarette in his lips, he grinned crookedly.
"Live well—for the sake of those who could not."
"Th-thank you."
"Ha ha, if you're grateful, then just remember three syllables."
Lee Tae-oh.
"May I ask your name, my lord?"
"No. A friend's name—rare enough to see in all of Manchuria!"
From far off, Ma Jeom-san came leading his horse at those words, and Zhang Baochen mounted up and spoke his final words.
"Then may you live a long and healthy life."
***
"WAHAHAHA! Well done! You're a true warrior now, through and through. That's more like it! That's the bare minimum! No one's going to say the men living under my roof are soft, eh?"
Zhang Zuolin, wrapping me in a crushing embrace, laughed heartily and looked thoroughly proud.
Isn't this a bit much, though?
Air. Air!
Kh-hegh, my vision's going dark...
Just before I was crushed flat, he released me and rapped his knuckles briskly against that—what was it—that wooden box I'd brought back.
"So this is that bastard Jeon Ok-bon's noggin."
"Yes, sir. By the prisoners' accounts, he was roughly their third-in-command."
"Good. Very good! Salt it down and send it to the Shengjing General—he'll be delighted."
"Th-that's, um, yes."
"What? Something bothering you?"
Yes. That wooden box... would you mind not drumming on it in a jaunty celebration rhythm?
It's just—it's a bit much. Like a vengeful ghost on a rampage!
You've got a treasure chest sitting right there—minus the one scoop I took—so beat a rhythm on that instead. Why on earth are you laying down beats on a box with a man's head in it?
"Money? Money isn't so hard to come by here in Manchuria."
"Then what is hard to acquire?"
"Finding good men is the hardest thing of all! You can spend any amount of money, but if you find one good man, the rest takes care of itself."
And that's why you're drumming on a man's severed head like that?
That's really kind of unsettling.
But seasoned by years of office politics, all that came out of my mouth was "I see."
This is why freeloading at someone else's house is so dispiriting. Somehow, whether before or after my regression, I remain a man without property of his own.
"Manage the money as you see fit."
"You're not worried I'll skim off the top?"
"Ha! I don't think your bowl is anywhere near that small, you rascal. Wealth on that scale will be pocket change compared to what comes into our hands from here on."
"That's... enormous."
"This Zhang Zuolin, stripped of his ambitions, would be nothing but a corpse!"
Zhang Zuolin settled comfortably into his chair and put a cigarette in his mouth.
"The other men all pulled out two hundred cavalry each, but you came back with barely a hundred and your ranks stuffed with infantry—I'd been worried sick. Coming back in one piece is a relief."
"The soldiers followed orders well, so it went smoothly."
"Bullshit. I heard you personally led the vanguard with a pistol in hand? How badly were they disobeying, that Lee Tae-oh himself had to step in?"
He made a finger-gun at me with both hands and went rat-tat-tat-tat.
Ha. Truly, the man's situational awareness is world-class.
"Well. I suppose a man's true worth—whether he's made of steel or just gilt-painted straw—only shows when you stand shoulder to shoulder with him and charge through a wall of guns and blades. Speaking of which, I took a look at your men just now. The way they look at you has changed somewhat, hasn't it?"
"Pardon? Has it?"
"How can you be so oblivious? Sharpen your instincts, boy. Stay this careless and who knows when you'll take a lead slug in the back of the head out here in Manchuria?"
No. I literally just finished a battle and sprinted over here?
Can't you see my uniform's hanging in tatters?
I'm not some glory hound—where would I find the spare brainpower to monitor how everyone else perceives me?
"Right. Good work. Once Zhang Jinghui and the other captains return, we'll hold a council. Rest until then."
"Yes, sir."
***
By convention, any unit committed to a suppression operation could expect one man in ten to die or be crippled—it was simply a given.
And since this operation pitted us against an enemy of roughly equal strength, the veterans who had weathered plenty of such sweeps used to joke bitterly that once the Jeon Ok-bon hunt began, half the infantry would end up sprawled somewhere along the banks of the Black Dragon River.
But look at them now.
Forget half—they'd all come back whole, save a handful of the terribly unlucky!
Loosened up at last, the soldiers flopped their collars open and gathered here and there in twos and threes, trading gossip.
"The Staff Major is quite a man."
"Is it any wonder the battalion commander keeps him at his side? It's, uh, it's like that story—Liu Bei keeping Zhuge Liang close, you know?"
"A while back you were calling him 'Teacher' and cursing him blue. Now he's Zhuge Liang?"
"We didn't know better then! And you all mocked him just the same!"
The infantrymen of the company that had just fought its battle, and the cavalrymen under Zhang Baochen, lay sprawled on the dry grass, whispering among themselves.
"'Teacher,' my ass. Who spread that crap anyway? He was nothing short of a war demon."
"A boy in the neighboring platoon saw it—he shot the enemy commander dead with a pistol from beyond a hundred paces."
"That's nothing. He nailed a headshot with a rifle from over five hundred paces, I heard? I was shoving the cart like a madman, and beside me the Staff Major just raised his rifle, and some bastard way off in the distance had his head burst open like a watermelon."
"Insane. Hey, at that level, wouldn't he even beat Du Lisan of Liaozhong?"
"Nah, come on—Du Lisan fights with twin pistols."
"Please. He's stronger because he's got two guns? What is he, a schoolboy?"
"Idiots, all of you. A rifle outranges a pistol by a country mile. If Lee Tae-oh goes bang from way out there, what's Du Lisan going to do about it with pistols? Absolutely nothing, that's what."
"No, no, that's not a fair matchup! It's got to be pistol against pistol, man to man!"
"If you want it fair, why's he carrying two?"
Such was the golden age of Manchuria-Western.
There were no martial heroes like the Plum Blossom Sword Sovereign or the Heavenly Horse, but there was the Horse Emperor, unleashing twin pistols with unerring accuracy from horseback, and the legendary Assembly of One Hundred and Eight Generals, forged from hundreds of peerless masters gathered together.
Fiction has always been brewed from the dregs of reality, after all.
Why else would wuxia novels emerge in the future?
And so, just as the frontiersmen of old America pitted wanted outlaws against one another in hypothetical versus battles, the Manchurians who had witnessed such terrifying skill likewise dug up every capable fighter they knew of.
"But why on earth was he hiding his skill all this time?"
"True heroes never stir for petty squabbles, or so they say."
"Honestly, could he have been using some dark sorcery?"
"Ah, for God's sake. Don't tell me you're a Taiping Heavenly Kingdom believer?"
"GYAAH, no!"
After milking the speculation for a good long while, they caught sight of another company returning in the distance and, one by one, changed the subject.
"Ha. Cavalry, my foot—why are they so damn slow?"
"Bastards. They just stopped off for a drink, plain and simple."
To the infantry, who had marched scores of kilometers from Fengtian all the way to the Black Dragon River on their own two feet, those smug bastards riding horses were insufferable.
But as the returning column drew closer, they found themselves swallowing every jeer that had risen to their lips.
"Hey."
"What."
"Were they always that... torn up?"
"Shut it. Read the room."
The resting soldiers scrambled to their feet one after another, and with grim faces hurried toward the column to lend a hand.
"Move the wounded!"
"Water! Get water over here!"
"AAAAAAGH!"
It was the unit's first taste of large-scale combat since its founding.
Until now, the Patrol Guerrilla Battalion had faced nothing worse than ragtag bands of bandits—thirty at most, a hundred on a generous day.
The crude arithmetic of Lanchester's laws—pure numerical violence—had handed this unit victories easier than eating cold porridge.
But this was different: a thousand hardened criminals who had peeled three magistrate-level officials in Liaoxi and scorched the earth wherever they went.
"Kill every last one of those bandit dogs!"
"Pah! Loud words from men who lick the boots of the pigs in Beijing!"
Two cavalry forces, meeting on the open plain with sabers drawn and pistols blazing, in a brutal close-quarters melee.
In that blood-soaked fight where men threw their lives away and blood and flesh sprayed through the air, the battalion lost fully three hundred men.
As noted time and again, the rank and file of the Patrol Guerrilla Battalion were former criminals, bandits, or vigilantes.
Strip out the vigilante-origin men, and what remained were what you'd call walking disaster zones—lives gone completely off the rails.
Do you remember why these men put on uniforms in the first place?
'Would you rather die, or wear the uniform?'
'I'll wear the uniform!'
The ranks of the Patrol Guerrilla Battalion were filled with captured bandits who had written letters of repentance declaring 'I have truly seen the error of my ways and will atone for my crimes with my own body' before enlisting.
Loyalty? As if.
A sense of duty? As if.
Patriotism? What's that, some kind of food?
It wasn't for nothing that Lee Tae-oh snatched the reins, bawled "eyes forward!" from the side, and drove them mercilessly.
And so, if these men shared exactly one thing in common—
"How many of us died?"
"Uh, five?"
"No, one of them was just playing dead, they say."
"So only four died?"
—it was that every last one of them guarded his own neck the way a zealot tends a shrine.
Of course, every human being treasures his own life, but these men had enlisted in the first place for the sole purpose of staying alive, and so they clung to their own skins with singular devotion.
And because the lives they cherished so dearly were still with them, they lay there working their mouths, endlessly chattering about one man in particular.
"...Stick close behind Lee Tae-oh, and maybe we don't die after all."