The God of Normalization

"First Lieutenant Tanaka appears to have deserted."

"Tch. An officer of the Imperial Army — instead of facing his end with dignity, he crawls off to become some ragtag Manchurian bandit to save his own skin."

"For the honor of the Imperial Army, let us simply record that he committed seppuku."

"Agreed."

The Japanese army, deciding it was better not to stir the hornet's nest, swept the matter of Tanaka under the rug. Finding a single man across the 2.5 million square kilometers of Manchuria was all but impossible — and even if they had wanted to search, his corpse had long since made its way into the bellies of vultures and wild dogs.

"We have no further business here either. We withdraw."

"Yes, sir."

The Russian forces likewise pulled back north of Harbin.

"—Therefore, the Fengtian Local Brigade will return to its original garrison, and the joint operation is hereby concluded as of today."

"Hurraaah!!"

"Let's go home!"

And so we were finally able to leave Harbin and make our way back to Fengtian.

"So... what happens to Deok-sun and me now?"

"What do you mean, what happens? Do I look like a great man worth the likes of Mr. Ahn opening his mouth over?"

"Well, no, but."

"Then you must hide yourselves. Those devils won't be certain whether you had accomplices as long as Mr. Ahn keeps his mouth shut — but they won't let their guard down either."

I handed the roster I had entrusted to Jeom-san over to Jo Do-seon and Woo Deok-sun.

"And this would be...?"

"Your new identities. Until things settle down, the two of you will simply serve as officers in our Fengtian Army."

"...Is that really all right?"

"Don't worry about it."

Scattering rank insignia around is even easier than Nexon handing out free acorns.

Leaning back against the polished seat of the train car, I spoke up.

"As it happens, our Local Brigade is in the middle of steady expansion — recruiting soldiers and commissioning officers on a regular basis. A couple of second lieutenants won't even register."

"Well, in that case..."

"Wait! Wait a moment! Do we have to wear the queue too?"

I shook my head at Woo Deok-sun's question.

"That's the Green Standard Army. We're the New Army — short hair is perfectly acceptable."

"Phew. What a relief. This handsome face nearly lost its shine to a braided queue."

"...You ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠idiot."

"Well, I suppose if I were born with a face like yours, Do-seon, I wouldn't understand the need for upkeep either."

"Ha, haha. Well then, enjoy your chat, gentlemen. I'll take my leave."

Leaving the two of them to their bickering, I hurried off to the next car.

"Just what kind of all-night ruckus did you get up to?"

"I made it by the appointed time, didn't I? What's the problem now."

"You said you'd be back before dawn, and now the sun's at high noon before you finally show your face—"

"Kieeeek!"

Ugh, Jeom-san. My ears are bleeding.

This was the kind of moment to let it go in one ear and out the other.

Resting my chin on my hand, I pushed the present aside and thought about what was coming. The turbulent 1910s were approaching.

The annexation of Korea.

The Xinhai Revolution.

The fall of the Qing.

All the way to the First World War.

Damn it.

They want me to clear this as a no-deaths, one-coin run? Is this difficulty for real? This isn't just a bad game — this is a legendary trash-fire of a game. Whoever sent me to this era clearly has zero talent for balance patching. Utterly incompetent bastard.

Whew.

One thing at a time.

The annexation of Korea? There's nothing I can do about it. Even if I hypnotized this entire Local Brigade into becoming my personal limbs and marched across the Yalu River, the Japanese Army stationed on the peninsula numbered well over tens of thousands.

Skip.

After the annexation came the Xinhai Revolution of 1911. Sun Yat-sen in Guangzhou would launch a monstrous strike, the Qing would collapse, and in the ruins two regimes would rise — Sun Yat-sen's idealist Kuomintang government and Yuan Shikai's Beiyang government, the product of a maxed-out corrupt-bureaucrat build — splitting the nation in half.

Political scheming and thrillers fought south of Shanhaiguan over the Mandate of Heaven, where a turn of luck meant assassins sent to turn you into a noodle-slicing, gun-ballet display piece — a dark neo-noir for the ages.

Just thinking about it made my head split. Step into that arena in earnest, and the only endings were getting shot down in a hail of bullets, or going bald from stress and dying of pancreatic cancer.

So if I wanted a seat at that table, I had to become someone so monumental that no one would even dream of assassinating me — or build a power base too enormous to touch.

And by "monumental," I meant at minimum the kind of figure whose death would send shockwaves through the West, plastering front pages of papers like The Times or The Washington Post the moment anything happened to me. For eighty years, "the alarm of the West" had been nothing more than a righteous pretext for plunder in the minds ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of a people who'd been beaten bloody that entire time.

— What? A figure of such stature has DIED?! Oh, the horror! How barbaric this land of the Chinkies must be!

— Why, it seems we must take up the 'White Man's Burden' once more!

— Take this! Civilization Punch! Yee-haw!

Oh, I'm shaking. No wonder they've got a persecution complex.

So what would it take to become a titan even to those West-worshipping white supremacists? What would make them look up at me with reverence and bow their heads? What would make them yearn for my visits like Hans at the Deutsche Bank Kiautschou Bay branch, buy and sell my signature at a premium, and hang on my every move?

Easy.

Something overwhelming. Something dazzling. Something unprecedented — something so far beyond reach that no one would even dare to conceive of laying a hand on me.

And scrapping over turf with a bunch of bungs in Manchuria would never earn me that kind of title or prestige.

Which meant—

"...So it comes down to the World War after all."

"I'm sorry, what? Where did that come from? Have you been listening to a single word I've said?"

"Of course. You were saying I should watch myself from now on."

"Hoo, fine then."

Jeom-san returned to his own seat, and before long was fast asleep. Inside the car where everyone had drifted off to dreamland, I turned my gaze to the window.

Small clouds drifted lazily across the vast, empty sky.

The First World War.

The war in which everyone who charged in dreaming of romance and chivalry would die equally in the trenches. Trapped in a space a meter wide and a meter deep, carved into the earth, with nothing to see but the sky above their heads.

Just as prisoners locked in a bell tower sometimes envied the birds flying past, the soldiers trapped in the trenches would sometimes cheer at the sight of a fighter plane overhead.

Because it was the last place where the dreams and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠romance they'd carried in their hearts on the way to the front still survived.

A fighter plane instead of horse and lance. Dazzling ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠paint instead of dazzling uniform. Chivalry and mercy instead of cruelty. Fierce dogfights waged in the heavens as duels once were fought on horseback.

And the swelling awe and envy those knights of the sky inspired — that was proof, in itself, that the men living lives beneath even the rats of a gutter had once been people who dreamed of ideals. The knights of the sky were their other selves, their dreams, the utopia they had wanted to become.

René Fonck, the "Ace of Aces." Georges Guynemer, the "Legend." Oswald Boelcke, of the "Dicta Boelcke." And Manfred von Richthofen, the "Red Baron."

Aces of the heavens, holding ranks of no more than captain or major, became idols showered with praise by countless souls. So complete was their deification that the red-painted ace inspired by the Red Baron became an almost mandatory cliché in fiction, right up through the twenty-first century.

I raised my hand above the window and tapped, one by one, at the little clouds floating high in the sky — as though they were a formation flying together.

Suddenly, I missed it.

An engine of 1,600 horsepower. Gravity crushing down on my body. The patch sewn smartly onto my sleeve. The sense of omnipotence that came from taking in the whole wide world at a glance from the lofty heavens.

"......"

When the young men of every empire in this world lay trapped in trenches with dead eyes, staring up at the sky —

I would simply show them. The idol to be revered.

From the heavens.

Because up there, I had no intention of losing to anyone.

Fengtian, Manchuria. The 1st Local Brigade garrison.

"Hmm. So, what now?"

Taking a sip of deeply steeped tea, I studied the world map spread before me.

Joining the Great War itself wasn't what occupied my mind. In the original history, after the war broke out, the Entente of 1915 — having buried four million casualties in trenches and mud in a single year — had wept for China and Japan to send combat troops.

Needless to say, the complete dumpster fire that was China hemmed and hawed and refused, while Japan, having swallowed German Kiautschou whole and slurped it down, did nothing but spout excuses about the front being "too far away" while endlessly selling munitions.

I didn't yet know who would hold power at that moment — but whispering in the ear of whoever sat on that throne while they agonized over it, as they famously agonized for three days and nights, would be easy enough.

And as far as I knew, that power would not be Sun Yat-sen or the Kuomintang in Guangzhou or Nanjing. It would be someone in the Beiyang government in Beijing.

And when that time came — to seize the opportunity — our Fengtian Army could not be left as it was.

I set down my empty teacup and rose from my seat.

"Let's give this thing a spin."

Man, I miss the days of jigging on the back of a construction excavator.

The operations room of the 1st Battalion, 1st Regiment, Fengtian Army 1st Local Brigade was abuzz.

Beyond Ma Jeom-san and Du Lisan, newcomers like Woo Deok-sun and Jo Do-seon had gathered as well — it was only natural.

"Is everyone here? Then let's begin."

Entering the room, I set my cap down on the table.

"The reason I've gathered you all in one place today is that the current qualitative state of our army is very, very dire."

Every officer except the freshly arrived Jo Do-seon and Woo Deok-sun nodded in agreement. I had said it many times, but in this Manchuria, the ability to read the written word marked you as a towering intellectual. Why else would I have snatched Jeom-san out from under Zhang Baochen's command and dragged him under my own?

And the men assembled here in this operations room were among the rare few in Manchuria who could read and write. Because they had lived the lives closest to human beings in this inhuman wasteland, they understood better than anyone just how feral and beast-like the existence of the soldiers now in the Local Brigade had been.

"Second Lieutenant Ma Jeom-san."

"Yes, Major."

"How is conscription currently being conducted?"

"Patrol squads sweep through Fengtian and the surrounding villages, and any vagrant lousing about like a penniless bum gets dragged off and forced to enlist."

"That's garbage. Anyone agree?"

When I raised my hand first, every hand in the room went up in one smooth motion.

"Good. Since we're all in agreement, we're changing the conscription method."

"M-Major, if we do that, won't the other regimental and battalion commanders be extremely... displeased?"

"I'm aware."

In Manchuria, headcount was power. Not one of them knew the first thing about strategy or tactics. Truly. Among those in positions of rank in this Manchuria, I was the only one who had come out of a military academy or any modern military institution. Even Xu Shichang, the "Bible of Generals," was a civil official. A graduate of civil service exams, mind you.

"Therefore, the reform of conscription will proceed within our 1st Battalion only. The 2nd and 3rd Battalions stay as they are."

"That much, the other commanders should accept and move past."

"Furthermore, the 1st Battalion's recruitment will shift to voluntary enlistment for the time being."

"I— Major, but if our numbers run short, there will be trouble!"

"Hm. A large headcount doesn't make an army anything more than a disorderly mob. Xiang Yu defeating Liu Bang's army of several hundred thousand with a mere five thousand cavalry shows precisely how decisive the qualitative gap in troops can be."

I swept my gaze across the assembled officers.

"And modern warfare cares far less about headcount than the wars of old. If numbers mattered so much, would the Qing have lost the Opium War to Britain?"

"Hmm."

"Fair points, Major, but will people actually volunteer to enlist?"

"Oh? Why wouldn't they?"

"Well... the treatment is abysmal, isn't it?"

"Not anymore. We're the New Army now — we draw our pay from the central government."

"Major, but that pay—"

I raised a hand, cutting the officer off mid-sentence.

"From now on, every last coin of the 1st Battalion's enlisted pay that comes down from the central government will be disbursed in full. Not one soul skims it in between."

I looked around the room once more.

Hmm. Why is everyone looking at me like I've lost my mind?

I'm telling you, this Manchuria is a dumpster. Again.

"I will normalize all of it."