Toenail Farm
His men were all dead, but Mother had come back alive.
"Whew. You made it back. That's enough."
For Father, it was nothing short of a miracle.
"A very narrow escape..."
They called themselves co-leaders, but Mother—the brain of the crew—was a resource that could not be replaced. Father knew perfectly well that the gang had only come this far because of him. Even a dullard like Father understood that his own seat could be filled by anyone.
"If something like that happens again, dump the cargo and run. Get greedy like that and you'll end up in the ground."
Monsters had been cutting his men down, and still Mother had hauled every last piece of baggage home alive. Remarkable—but to Father, Mother's life mattered more than a handful of coins.
"I couldn't bring back so much as a finger from the men... If I at least have their belongings, I can hold a modest memorial."
"Don't make me laugh. They died because they weren't good enough to live. Memorial, my ass."
"Shh. The men outside will hear you."
"Let them hear! Maybe then they'll thrash a little harder to stay alive."
In truth, Father was quietly pleased that their numbers had thinned. If they followed the plan the mercenary had drawn up, this raid would succeed as surely as fire burns. Soon they would have a settlement of their own. Until now they had swollen their ranks just to survive, but that need was gone. From here on, only the ones who were actually useful. Feeding idiots precious rations just to keep the headcount up was a waste. He didn't need to kill them—just scare them off. That had been the plan. But Mother doted on the men, and Father knew he would never agree, so the thought had stayed behind his teeth.
"Hmph. The ones who deserved to die, died. Nothing to fuss over."
They had gone and died on their own. Things were going so well he could barely swallow the laugh trying to escape.
"Even so..."
"Ah, shut up. Toss whatever we don't need and sort out what we're keeping. Oh—and the mercenary stopped by earlier."
"The mercenary? How did he know this place?"
"Huh? Didn't you tell him where the hideout was? They said the guy had some tracking ability. Did he find it on his own?"
For an instant Mother's face went rigid. Then it smoothed back into calm.
"Ah. I forgot. I did tell him."
"Well, well. Live long enough and even you start forgetting things."
"What happened earlier was such a shock... The blood just pouring from their throats—"
"How have you watched that many people die and still not gotten used to it? At that point it isn't nerves. It's a condition. Stop just carving meat for the pot and actually fight this time."
"Watching the rear is important work too."
"Excuses. Anyway, the mercenary came, told one of the men about a change in the plan, and left."
"You're certain it was the mercenary I contracted?"
"He said you'd know if you saw this."
A note the mercenary had left behind. It held information only Mother and the mercenary would recognize. So he had definitely been here.
"That's right. So how does he want to change the operation?"
"Said to move the raid up by a day."
An abrupt change of plan. This time, though, he kept his poker face.
"Move it up a day—you mean we go today?"
"Yeah. Tonight. It's not like we need some grand preparation, so don't worry about it. I already told the boys."
"And the reason for moving it up?"
"We were going to hit them while the search party was out, right? Turns out those bastards moved their search up a day. They leave this evening. So we follow."
At that, Mother smiled with only one corner of his mouth.
"I see. Simple enough."
"Then the ones staying behind to guard the hideout while we're out, same as usual—"
"This time, I think I should stay at the hideout too."
"Huh?"
"What happened earlier keeps circling in my head..."
Mother pressed his fingers hard into his forehead, face twisting.
"I must have seen too much blood. I should stay here and rest for a while."
"And that bit a minute ago about watching the rear?"
"Did I say that? My head's all over the place. It really is too much blood..."
Father clicked his tongue.
In truth, it wasn't a problem. Mother's contribution in a fight always converged on zero anyway. What bothered him was that Mother wasn't himself.
"Seemed like your head was all over the place yesterday, too."
"What do you mean?"
"You grilled the boys, didn't you? Demanded they tell you everything they knew about some handsome postman or whatever. Why torment the ones who said they didn't know?"
"Hm..."
"You doing something you never do—the mood among the boys turned to shit."
Tormenting the men was, of course, Father's everyday routine. Mother was the one who always cherished them, always soothed them. But when someone who did it right every single day slipped once, it showed all the more.
"I see."
"That's all you've got? 'I see'?"
"Hearing that only makes me more certain I need to rest. I think it's from seeing too much blood, raid after raid."
"How much blood do you even see watching the rear... Ah, forget it. Rest, then. Rest."
Father, who would soon have a settlement of his own. One more step, and he would be there.
But—
He drew a sharp breath through his teeth.
Unlike usual, the raid had been moved up, and unlike usual, Mother was staying behind. It snagged at him, just a little. After turning it over for a long while, he decided to prepare for the worst.
"It's the postman."
Toenail Farm had the same air as the other settlements in Geumcheon District, in that the sentries on the wall didn't point their guns at me.
"Hey there, Mr. Postman. What's got that bag so stuffed?"
"Twenty-four Cores in here."
"What kind of joyless joke is that?"
"It means mind your own business and open the gate."
The latch gave with a clunk.
I'd arrived a little earlier than the time I'd set to meet Clock-out Man. I'd come ahead to deliver the mail. The moment I showed up, settlers poured into the square. Plenty of children with no mail of their own had come along too, trailing their parents for the spectacle. Toenail Farm was a settlement unusually full of children, and that alone told you how well-off the place was.
"Thanks for the trouble again, Postman!"
"You that busy? Stay a day and rest?"
The mail vanished in the blink of an eye. Even so, one or two pieces always remained.
"Mr. Jeong! Little Jeong! You've got a letter!"
"Me? For me?"
"Not Big Jeong. Little Jeong."
"Tsk. That guy sprained his ankle and he's laid up."
"Then pass this letter along, would you?"
"Aigoo, what a pain."
Once the sun went down, raiders would come crashing into this settlement. Only a few peaceful hours left.
"I'll collect outgoing mail here in two hours."
As the settlers scattered, a tower built from clipped toenails caught my eye. Toenails: not precious in the slightest, and yet a filthy pain to collect. Anyone visiting for the first time was expected to offer a prayer to that tower.
Ugly every time I look at it.
A grotesque thing, but it was this place's totem all the same. Tending it with care didn't actually do anything. If it put people's minds at ease, that was enough. There was a reason, of sorts, that the material happened to be toenails. It wasn't unrelated to the enormous farm this settlement kept.
"Hey, Postman. Not buying seeds today?"
"Look at my bag. You see room for anything else?"
A settler, striking up conversation as if it were the most natural thing in the world—the farmer who always tried to sell me seeds whenever I came through. What people commonly called alien seeds. Take them to a barren settlement and you could sell them for a decent price. Seeds that held a crop the old world had never known. This settlement was famous for farms of them on a massive scale.
They really ought to harvest soon, though.
"Half of it's already ripe. When are you planning to pick it?"
"What's the rush? The settlement's doing pretty well these days."
"Complacency as a way of life."
"Didn't they say that troublesome raider gang got wiped out? This isn't complacency. It's what you call peace."
There wasn't much time left to harvest. Well. Even if they started after Clock-out Man arrived, a bit of hustle would still get some of it in.
Of every change since the end began, the appearance of the alien seeds was the only one that actually did people any good. They manifested from somewhere in that sky the way an air raid did, rode the wind like dandelion fluff, and settled softly on the ground. Dig a shallow hole, plant them, give them the barest splash of water, and within a few days they shot up and bore fruit. They didn't even need photosynthesis, so they grew without trouble under a steel roof.
Every neighborhood had its own name for them, but say alien plant and you were understood anywhere. The fruit looked like a potato—no taste at all, and dense with calories. It was the main ingredient in compressed powder rations. Eat it, and a strange thing happened: your toenails grew fast. An occasional serving didn't show. Eat it three meals a day, every day, the way the people here did, and that was another matter.
A tower raised from toenails. A symbol of plenty, in a sense.
In truth, the real peculiarity of the alien fruit lay elsewhere. There were no seeds inside it. You could not get seeds back from the plant. An alien plant bore fruit about ten times and then withered, and after that you had to obtain seeds and plant again. It was one of the reasons a settlement had no choice but to send search parties out on a regular schedule.
Whatever the case, in an outside world desperately short of food, people's lives held together this well largely thanks to these seeds. And because growing them required a settled life, you needed a settlement.
The reason Geumcheon District is so much safer than other regions has to do with the alien seeds, too.
Seedfall was unusually frequent here. Food was decent enough that people had nothing to fight over. They could fill a vast farm with alien plants and still have seeds left over to sell to a postman. That said everything.
"Bro, you're here early."
"The early bird catches the worm."
"Then what about the bird that stays up all night?"
"Catches even more, I'd say."
Clock-out Man had been up the entire night, and the skin under his eyes had gone black.
"So the all-nighter was worth it, then."
"Thing is, there are worms to spare. Sleep in, sprawl out all day—doesn't matter. Worms everywhere. Just grab one when you're hungry."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Means if you're well-fed, you can afford a little slack."
Like the enormous farm spread out in front of us. In the beginning they must have worked hard to tend it. But once the operation stabilized and plenty set in, the settlers found room to breathe—like those birds, convinced the worms would never suddenly go extinct one day. Slack and laziness weren't the same thing, of course. The settlers at least did their work, and only then took their ease.
So they haven't exactly done anything wrong.
The problem was that disaster didn't bother sorting the righteous from the guilty before it arrived.
"What, they haven't started the harvest? Bro, you didn't say anything?"
"You paid these people off and spread the word that the raiders were wiped out. They're all believing it. You think they'll listen if I suddenly say it's an emergency?"
"So then?"
"We use the ones you bought to spread a new story."
"So that's my job too?"
"Obviously."
"How come I'm the only one busy?"
"No pain, no gain."
"Yeah, right. Years of pain and I still haven't caught so much as a glimpse of the gain. Where is it?"
"Life's long. Look farther ahead. See far."
"Sure, whatever. Live first. I'll be back."
I was going to pay Clock-out Man anyway. The success fee he'd been promised from the raiders after the raid had gone up in smoke. It had happened because he was helping with my work, so it was only right to compensate him enough that he wouldn't feel shorted.
A short while later, the settlers were gathered in the square and told what was coming. As expected, two minutes was plenty. The ones who heard it didn't look back. They started packing, and the alien fruit filling the farm went quickly into baskets.
Once the harvest was finished, the real business of welcoming their guests began.
The sun went down.
Now it was the raiders' hour. Dozens of fighters under Father pulled the deep dark over themselves and headed for Toenail Farm. Everyone unfit for combat had been left behind—the wounded, the children, and Mother, whose condition happened to be poor today. The rest had all come out.
"Um, Father? Shouldn't we send a scout first and get a read on things? Isn't that the proper order?"
"What, scared? About to piss yourself?"
"S-sir? I mean, I do have to pee, but it's not because I'm scared..."
"This is already the third time we're hitting a settlement. Do it the same way. What's with the gutless talk? You want to hole up in the hideout too?"
"No, no, absolutely not. It's just, in case something unexpected—"
"That's what we pay the mercenary for."
The mercenary was supposedly eating and sleeping somewhere near Toenail Farm, and scouting was his job. If something went wrong at the settlement, he would tell them. Nothing to worry about. He'd done well so far; believing he'd do well again wasn't unreasonable. And in Father's mind, the mercenary was far more trustworthy than his own half-wit men.
"We move exactly as agreed. Everyone's got the order straight, yeah? I'm not giving extra orders, so look sharp on your own."
"Yes, sir!"
"Hey. You. The one about to piss himself."
"Y-yes?"
"Why didn't you answer?"
"Ah—yes, sir! Understood!"
"You sure you know the order?"
"Of course!"
"Recite it."
His bladder might have been ready to burst, but his memory was fine.
"The signal is the north wall gate exploding! The traps are all cleared, so we just charge straight in!"
"And their defense?"
"The veterans left with the search party, so the defense is nothing! The ones left will be too busy running, same as last time!"
That part was maddening. The contract with the mercenary had clearly included blocking the escape routes in advance—not because they were mad for slaughter, but because they wanted every last bit of property the settlers would try to carry off when they fled. Of course, the trustworthy mercenary had boasted every time that he'd sealed the routes for certain. But the moment a raid began, the settlers vanished at the speed of light. Even that capable mercenary had clicked his tongue and sworn he'd never seen settlers this quick. And it hadn't been once. Twice in a row. Of course it was strange.
"The bastard does everything else right, and the escape routes fail both times. Tsk."
The contract hadn't been fulfilled perfectly. He could have made an issue of it. But poke the mercenary's mood for no reason and a new contract might get difficult, so he'd let it go. Next to what the mercenary had accomplished, a flaw like that was trivial.
"This time we take every last thing. Don't let a single one get away! You hear me?"
"Yes, sir!"
Far off, Toenail Farm came into view.