The Physiognomist
A rule you had to keep in mind at all times outside Headquarters, and beyond the walls of any settlement.
Survive.
And the iron law required to keep that rule.
Trust a man who talks about peace, and you die.
If I had to name a single reason I was still alive, it was that.
Peace?
I'd sooner trust a man who came right out and said he was a con artist. At least when that con artist added that he wouldn't stab you in the back—not while he still needed you—it actually sounded persuasive.
Unpack what a man really means when he calls himself a peaceful human being, and it comes out something like this.
I don't have any particular way to persuade you. I've got nothing to prove to you. I'm only that sort of man. So why don't you take the chance of being fooled, and just believe me blindly for once?
That was the gist of it.
Another line you heard all the time was let's settle this peacefully, which translated, more or less, to this.
Just show me one opening. Please.
And then there were the ones who said their settlement was a peaceful place, so you ought to come along. More often than not, those people had no settlement at all.
"One of you leaves and another shows up? What's with you civil-servant types today?"
A peaceful, tight-lipped bastard had spotted me. The way he talked grated, but I still preferred a man who showed his nature raw.
"Hello there, Postman. Where are you headed? Give us a little for our trouble and we can guide you. Care to make a deal?"
This long-winded one looked kind from the start, with clear, innocent eyes. Usually that type was the bigger piece of shit.
Either way, this was a nuisance. If I'd known they were this sort, I never would have shown myself. I'd drawn attention for nothing.
"I prefer delivering alone."
"Is that so? The way you came over, it certainly looked like you had business."
He had a point. Right now, the most suspicious person here was me. Time to bluff.
"My business isn't with you. It's with that postman over there. The one heading off alone? Excuse me?"
"Huh? Me?"
The postman who had been leaving on his own stopped at my call, turned, and looked back. His face was the face of a man chewing on something foul.
"How far are you going?"
"Hm?"
The postman, who looked to be in his forties, came over with his protruding belly swaying. Then a hand shot out without the slightest hesitation.
What is with this guy.
He started kneading my arm.
"Oh, nice muscle. Very nice."
Disgusting.
"Good! You pass. Follow me!"
He turned at once and walked about five steps. When I didn't follow, he stopped.
"What are you doing? You're not coming?"
"Where's your delivery headed?"
"Same place as you."
He had started talking nonsense.
"And where's that?"
"Where else? Right here. Bucheon!"
"I'm going to Incheon."
"Right. Incheon."
"Sorry?"
"I said I'm going to Incheon!"
For a moment Elder Heo's face rose in my mind—the old man searching for his daughter.
"So those two civil-servant gentlemen aren't doing business with us, then?"
"Postmen, we really aren't bad people—"
"Yeah, yeah, enough. No time. Tell them they can drop dead on the road or not, whatever they like. Die this way or that way, they're flies either way. They're postmen."
The short-spoken one took the lead, and the kind-looking one reluctantly turned to follow. The rest of the group trailed after them, and at the tail a postman named Kim—who had been squabbling with some lunatic of an uncle—tagged along with them.
Kim had taken the deal after all.
Speaking of which, who were those people, that they'd offer to guide the way?
"Mister."
"I said Incheon!"
"Forget that. What do those guys even do, offering to guide people?"
"Those bastards? Something about having a settlement around here. Claim they've got this whole area locked down…… Said they're doing some kind of communication with the other settlements. So if you follow them, you're safe—ha! Load of crap."
It was, without question, a load of crap. But how had this man seen through it?
"What made you decide it was crap?"
"Physiognomy!"
This one was full of it, too.
They had introduced themselves as men who owned a settlement. That would make them a search party out on a brief sweep—gathering resources, or checking the hazards around a settlement on a regular schedule. But the men just now had not been a search party. They were raiders, no question. The kind who drifted without a settlement and lived by robbery.
The decisive reason I thought so was the child in the group, maybe five years old. Judging by the child's condition, this was no kid they had picked up mid-search. The child had belonged to the group from the start. A search party would never bring a child that young outside the walls. A child was nothing but baggage and danger. If they had a settlement, the normal thing was to leave the kid behind.
It was also worth noting that their packs had looked far too heavy. When you found resources, you grabbed as much as you could and headed back—hauling that much weight around the whole time was nonsense. But if they were raiders, it made sense. No safe shelter, so they had to live on the move, and often enough that meant carrying everything they owned. Of course, it was possible a search had hit the jackpot and every one of them was heading home loaded down, but a thing like that was rare even once in a lifetime.
I couldn't fight them, either. There were too many for that, and every one of them was already watching me. Avoidance was the better play.
"Well then, Mister Physiognomist, you go on your way."
"I told you I'd go with you all the way to Incheon."
"I never asked you to—"
"Now hold on! Then let's do it this way. You come with me!"
Why would I.
"What's the young man's name~?"
A different flavor of creepy from Director Bae. If that man was a fat bear you wanted to punch, this one was a drunk chimpanzee. Come to think of it, he smelled like liquor.
"What's your name!"
Ignoring him and going my own way did no good. The physiognomist had started clinging to me, and he wasn't merely following. He kept up a steady noise pollution.
"Your naaame~ what's your naaame~"
The name Woo Jungkook was nothing but a paper alias I had made in order to work as a postman. I had used different names as a hunter and as a soldier. Only the surname stayed Woo. Anyway, it was a name I could give without much consequence. Even so, I didn't like people remembering me, so I rarely told anyone.
"Woo Jungkook."
I was going to have to surrender to this one. I had considered making something up, but I had an uneasy feeling that feeding this man bad information would only make my life harder.
"So now will you shut that mouth?"
"Woo Jungkook! Same Woo clan, little brother!"
Ominous. I had the feeling I had gotten tangled in a useless connection. Better to cut that sort of thing off early.
"What's a shared surname supposed to matter. I don't do the brother act."
"Is some other surname the same as Woo? Little brother, you don't know our family's history?"
Of course I didn't. Maybe I should have looked into it before settling on an alias.
"The Woos have a single ancestral seat—the Danyang Woo clan! There are records of other Woos, but every one of them traces back to Danyang. So you and I are the same blood!"
I could not begin to say how glad I was not to share blood with a man like that. My real surname was Son.
"I knew it the moment I laid eyes on you. Your features are pure family, I tell you!"
The first time this man saw me, his face had clearly been the look of someone chewing on something rotten.
"Then let's join forces and get going, little brother! Where in Bucheon did you say?"
"Not Bucheon. I'm going to Incheon."
"That's what I'm saying! Where in Incheon!"
There was a reason I had let him keep following me and making noise. It was still safer that way.
Almost like traveling alone.
The physiognomist was not following without a thought. He stepped only where I had stepped, exactly. And when some unidentified sound rose along the way and I went on alert, he shut the mouth he had been running, too. He had not closed it because he saw me take a guard stance. He had felt something at the same moment I did, and shifted posture with me.
You're going to trust people like that? Ha—has Kim's time come, too? I'm going. Do what you want!
Thinking back, he was a man who had refused company and insisted on crossing this rough stretch alone. He had seen clean through them: raiders. Probably, the way I had, he had found a group with a child suspicious. One thing was certain. He had not figured it out by reading faces. That much was obvious from him declaring my features pure Woo.
Good! You pass. Follow me!
Had that been his own way of trying to pull me clear of the raiders? Or had he needed company so that he himself could stay alive? No way to know.
And the smell of liquor. That was camouflage, too. It was different from the smell that comes out of a mouth after drinking. He hadn't drunk it. He had sprayed it on, or rubbed it in.
Put it all together, and this man was running a survival strategy of playing the weak.
"Incheon~ Incheon~ they got any local specialties there? Liquor, say!"
A thoroughly calculated carelessness, worn all the way into the body.
Playing the strong—well dressed, seamless, clean—was a strategy you mostly took when you had a lot of company. From a raider's point of view, attacking a group that showed finished organization and a tidy bearing, like an army, was a burden. When you were few, and especially when you were alone, it was better to play weak. No matter how tough you acted, alone was still alone. Look like you had something, and you only became a treasure goblin for no reason.
Anyway, if you knew how to play strong and play weak, you were already an upper-tier survivor. Most people only showed the situation they were in. They didn't know how to act. Acting took spare room, after all.
If I had been on a relatively safe delivery, the way I usually was, I wouldn't have needed company—upper-tier survivor or not. But right now, a companion like this might actually help.
"Mister."
"Call me big brother!"
"I won't complain about traveling together, so tell me properly where your delivery's going."
"Incheon!"
So he had no intention of sharing. Fine. Wherever he was headed, the road passed through Incheon. I only had to keep him company as far as my own destination.
Of course, you shouldn't fall in with just anyone. Trust? That was just death, misspelled. Trust was nothing but a mirage. So whenever I got the chance, I tested him. I deliberately showed openings along the way and checked his reaction. He didn't look like he meant to stab me in the back. From what I kept observing, he was clearly a real postman.
"And where is little brother headed?"
"AAA."
"A-yo! But they don't take mail there, do they? Tough luck, little brother."
"It's the job, so I have to try."
"Hah, look at that sense of duty. Still, keep your life while you're at it."
"Duty, my ass. They told me to deliver, so I'm delivering. Either way, my luck really is bad."
"No it isn't! You met me, so you ought to say your luck is good!"
"Sure, sure."
Even when delivery routes overlapped, postmen rarely traveled together, because everyone's survival strategy was different. Living on this land was a string of choices, every moment of it. Hide in this building, or that one. Sleep by day and move by night, or sleep at night. Take the long way and stay safe, or accept a little risk and cut the delivery time. Even a single delivery demanded dozens of choices like that. Two people choosing the same thing every time was next to impossible, so you would have to yield and compromise—and if that was the case, you were obviously better off alone.
Yielding and compromise. Death and death.
I found an abandoned building decent enough for a short rest.
"Oh, excellent choice, little brother!"
I went in without a word and started laying out my spot, and the physiognomist spread his without complaint. The sun would be down soon.
"I'm sleeping two hours."
"You'll wake me, right? Right?"
"Yes."
"Little brother, I really like you! Handsome!"
The latest map issued by Headquarters had multiple sniper sightings marked along the straight route from here toward Incheon. The right move was to detour around the snipers, but when the sun was about to set, as it was now, waiting for night was also a method. Hide in the dark, slip the sniper's eyes, and move fast along the straight route. When daytime travel was the better choice, the reverse applied: I had to move while I watched.
Khreung… phoo……
The physiognomist sat down in the spot facing me and fell asleep. I leaned against the left wall, and he against the right. The same wall, in other words. Set into it, exactly between us, was a single window. The glass had been broken long ago, of course. A flying insect that had come in from outside darted in a messy line between me and the physiognomist.
What bothered me was not the insect. It was his bag. He had set the mailbag down beside him and was holding a small secondary bag in his hand.
A bag with a weapon in it?
An uneasy situation. Blades were rarely kept in bags. A weapon bulkier than a knife, awkward to wear on the body—people often stored those that way. I had one of those myself.
Backscratcher.
Still, what mattered was that he and I were both postmen. We had left everything we owned back at Headquarters. How impressive could whatever was in those bags really be? It was hard to imagine the two of us pointing guns at each other over something ordinary. If we had decided to match our steps, the urgent thing for now was to cooperate and finish the delivery safely.
I pretended to sleep and watched him for a while. Saying I would sleep two hours had really meant I would sleep thirty minutes and spend an hour and a half watching the man. After about thirty minutes the physiognomist started snoring, and thirty minutes after that I fell into a shallow sleep myself.
How much time had passed.
Shff.
Cloth brushing cloth. Then a rattle after it. The feel of a firearm being moved.
When I snapped my eyes open, they met the physiognomist's—just as he was drawing a pistol from inside his clothes.