The Green Forest (5)
The Green Forest (5)
"How long are you lot planning on staying here?"
I sprinkled powder over the tip of the long wooden tobacco pipe and lit it. A sharp aroma drifted subtly through the air. Tobacco circulated in the martial world. Even though it wasn't the straightforward stick-it-in-your-mouth-and-drag form I'd known in my old life, the sight of smoke pouring from a long pipe like a factory chimney was a familiar one.
"The chieftain drinks himself into a stupor and does nothing but guzzle booze all day. The Deputy Chieftain, that gentleman, is grinding his teeth trying to beat the chieftain. From what I see, the stronghold's got doom written all over it now."
In the out-of-the-way corners where neither the chieftain nor the Deputy Chieftain could hear, this kind of talk always went on. They kept giving me, the latest newcomer to crawl in here, the side-eye even as they carried on with their uncensored criticism, like men who'd already gambled their lives away.
"But where's there to go? Just gotta shut up and keep on living."
I wedged myself into their conversation and asked.
"If the Deputy Chieftain beats the chieftain, what happens then?"
One of the bandits with a pipe in his mouth spoke up.
"Then the Deputy Chieftain becomes the chieftain. What was it, ah, the sixty-eighth stone?"
"Was it the sixty-eighth stone? Our chieftain was ranked higher than I thought."
"Anyway, that. He eats that chieftain's seat. That's the law—the strongest bastard is the chieftain."
"So everyone here is eyeing the chieftain's seat?"
At my question, the gazes of the Green Forest men shifted. It wasn't so much wariness toward me as it was them checking each other's reactions the moment the question landed. As if someone among them might go at them with a blade, they all started eyeing each other first, then with sour expressions they bit down on their pipes or averted their eyes and said things like,
"Well, the world's crawling with bastards who think that way."
Their tone made it sound like they themselves didn't. But the man who said this was, naturally, also aiming for the chieftain's seat.
"The Green Forest has but one rule. The strongest man in the stronghold is the chieftain."
Another man said this, his mouth gaping like a carp. Smoke rose from it the way a pond fish blows bubbles. It seemed like a rather tangential remark, but the point it was making was clear. One of the men asked.
"Are you aiming for the chieftain's seat too?"
"No. I'm not interested."
I truly had no interest, but the look on their faces said they didn't believe it. Someone snorted, someone else openly smirked a greasy smile and crunched down on the tip of his pipe. The wooden pipe cracked easily from even the slightest movement.
The long pipe was belching smoke from two streams. A man who stood up, brazenly puffing out smoke, looked down at us and said,
"When you get down to it, isn't any of this talk between us ultimately pointless? You, supposed to have learned martial arts. And the rest of us. We can't beat the chieftain or the Deputy Chieftain, can we?"
Telling them you wanted to be the stronghold's chieftain seemed to be, for them, a way of expressing a kind of yearning. They knew the truth: no matter how hard any of them trained starting right now, they had no chance against the Deputy Chieftain—a naturally mighty man of prodigious strength—or the chieftain, who had at least clawed his way from third-rate to the very edge of second-rate.
And to be frank, I wasn't confident I could beat the chieftain or the Deputy Chieftain in a head-on fight right now either.
"Right. That."
But deep in their hearts, the lust to become chieftain and sweep up more riches and plunder was most definitely simmering.
******
"So, what are you going to do?"
Mealtime. I sat across from Sannyeo, eating meat soup from a bowl. There didn't seem to be a dedicated cook, but the meat soup, made by bleeding the surrounding commonfolk dry, tasted quite good. Because Sannyeo was wearing manacles, she was awkwardly wielding her spoon, taking tiny bits of meat piece by piece.
She seemed more curious about my escape plan than about her own discomfort.
I tore a hunk of meat off the bone with my hands, more or less, and said,
"I think I'm getting a picture of things. It is a bandit stronghold, after all—turns out every last one of them is stuffed to bursting with greed."
"Specifically, how are you going to do it?"
Sannyeo said this as she moved her spoon. The spoon she was bringing to her mouth tipped sideways and dropped the meat. Sannyeo quickly moved her spoon again to snatch the meat back up, but the broth on the spoon splattered in all directions.
"Ah, seriously."
The smell of the greasy meat soup spread through the warehouse for a moment, and I clicked my tongue.
Sannyeo put the meat into her mouth and said,
"I can't help it. The manacles are too big, so it's uncomfortable to eat."
I stared at Sannyeo's wrists. On her wrists rested square-shaped manacles that were clamped tight without a sliver of a gap. It looked like a prisoner in a historical drama wearing a cangue. I watched her hands for a moment, then set down my bowl and leaned forward.
Sannyeo lowered the hand holding the spoon as I drew closer and said,
"What?"
"Why are you eating so messily? Give it here."
And I snatched the spoon from her hand. Sannyeo was a master, but she made absolutely no reaction to the movement of me taking the spoon. She had the air of someone observing what I was doing. As she was staring down at me like a bird, blinking her eyes and tilting her head, I scooped up meat and broth from her bowl.
"Here."
And I thrust the spoon out toward her. She had been pulling her head back and frowning, but now she seemed to understand my action belatedly.
"......What?"
But Sannyeo asked a question that was at odds with her own comprehension. She wasn't asking a question about the situation.
"Are you not going to eat it?"
I asked her. Sannyeo looked at me with a strangely reluctant expression, then looked back down at her manacles. And she rolled her eyes, kept silent, then carefully—like a baby bird accepting food from its mother—opened her mouth toward the spoon I was holding.
I watched her lips touch the broth and become moistly steeped. I watched her look up at me with an oddly wary gaze, then take the whole spoon deeply into her mouth only for her lips to press gently against its smooth surface and slide slickly away.
Her lips moved, mumbling as she savored the taste, and still giving me that ambiguous look, she swallowed, blinked her eyes, and said,
".....It's good."
I scooped up more of the meat soup and said,
"You call yourself a master of the martial world, and you can't even undo some manacles?"
At my question, Sannyeo nodded and said,
"They're manacles made of an incredibly hard material. I can't undo them."
"Who locked them on you?"
"I don't know."
At Sannyeo's words, I couldn't help but tilt my head. As I frowned and stared at her, she took another bite of food from the spoon I was holding with a perfectly nonchalant expression.
She had been chewing her food, then shook her head as she savored the taste, smiled, and said,
"I lost consciousness while running away from a village, and when I came to my senses, I was wearing these. I can't unlock them, and they won't break. So I've just been going on like this ever since."
"So the chieftain here wasn't the one who locked them on you."
"How would a mere chieftain get his hands on an item like this?"
I nodded and silently ladled more soup with the spoon. Sannyeo accepted the food and continued talking.
"You could say I gained a great handicap through a moment of complacency, but didn't the sage also say as much? What is done should not be condemned; what is past should not be blamed. Let us not fuss over things already ended."
I let out a dumbfounded laugh.
"I didn't say a single word, though?"
Sannyeo gave no answer to my words and only took more food. But on her face there lingered a peculiar smile.
I looked at her like that and silently spooned up food for her, and that was how the days passed, one by one.
*****
The picture of the stronghold was gradually taking shape. I was learning the martial stances of the Mount Tai Axe Technique one by one, and also studying how to practically apply them against the Green Forest men of the stronghold.
On days with no raids, there was nothing to do in the stronghold, and since a handful of the Green Forest men had also learned the Mount Tai Axe Technique, they were more helpful than I'd expected.
"Footwork is the key. I decided on a method where I move my feet faster to exploit that brief opening when the attack is withdrawn."
"I think it's more important to land one hit as heavily as possible so the opponent can't move."
Even for a martial art that was nothing special and third-rate, the direction of its interpretation varied wildly from person to person. But out of all the directions they had each interpreted, not a single one accurately pierced the profound principle of the Mount Tai Axe Technique that I was truly curious about.
I still couldn't understand why the Mount Tai Axe Technique was called the Mount Tai Axe Technique. Why was a martial art where you charge forward, then slip back again and fight like a brambling called the Mount Tai Axe Technique?
"Isn't it just a name they gave it because it sounded cool?"
"Naming it something like 'Grandfather' would be weird, so they probably just named it something cool."
Their opinions had a point, too.
Perhaps I was wasting my time on pointless worries. But even as I thought that, thoughts about the name of the Mount Tai Axe Technique lingered oddly in a corner of my head like an echo.
When training ended, I collapsed onto the ground, drenched in sweat. On the opposite side, the Green Forest men who had helped me train also toppled over with refreshed expressions.
"You've worked hard."
And then, the Deputy Chieftain's wife would signal me with her eyes and bring me water.
From some point onward, the scene after my training had become a set routine.
The other members of the Green Forest, seeing the way her eyes crinkled into a smile, would exchange glances with each other or shoot me cheeky smirks.
It seemed she was always this way whenever a halfway decent or tall and strapping guy came in.
I matched their energy, put on a smile, and reached out my hand to the lady.
And I pretended to take the water cup while carefully caressing her fingers.
The lady made an expression that was not at all displeased,
and the picture of the stronghold was now just waiting for the moment the dot would be marked.
"Tomorrow. That person is heading out on a raid."