I'll Hold Them Off Here, So...
I'll Hold Them Off Here, So...
"Waaaaah! Waaaaah!!!"
In the dead of night.
The cry of a newborn, rising from within a crumbling, abandoned building, shattered the silence and set everyone on edge.
"P... please... calm down..."
"Waaaaah! Waaaaah!"
"Please, don't cry... they'll yell at us again..."
A young girl with green hair, struggling to soothe the baby with a trembling voice.
She looked no more than four years old, a mere child herself, yet she was doing her utmost to calm the tiny infant in front of her.
A violent crash cut through the quiet.
-BAM!!
"Quiet!"
A huge man burst through the rotting door, nearly tearing it from its hinges.
Dressed in shabby clothes, gripping a large sword, a yellow turban—the symbol of the Yellow Turbans—wrapped around his head. He glared at them savagely and shouted.
"I gave you a warning! I said if that brat cried one more time, I'd carve out her voice box!"
"N... no! It... it was my... my fault, so... please... please, just not my little sister!"
The child begged in a desperate voice.
But despite the frantic pleas of one too young to know the world, the Yellow Turban had made up his mind. He raised his sword.
"You think ripping out your voice box will silence this racket? I held back on the chief's orders, but tonight I'm finishing this for goo—guhk!"
In that instant.
The Yellow Turban's face contorted in agony as his breath was suddenly choked off.
A piece of metal, no bigger than a finger, had embedded itself in his throat, severing his vocal cords and carotid artery.
"Gah... gh..."
Unable to even scream properly, the Yellow Turban collapsed to the floor, dead.
Watching the scene, the one who had snuffed out his life spoke.
A small boy of about ten, with green hair. A cold expression on his face, he uttered a single sentence laced with fury.
"If you wanted to pluck something out, you should've started with your own."
With that, the boy looked at the child who, moments ago, had been frozen in terror.
There stood the young girl, a happy expression on her face as if the fear had never happened, and the baby, who had stopped crying as if by magic, staring this way with wide, sparkling eyes.
"Brother."
"You did well. Is Hyang-i okay?"
"Not a problem. Right?"
"Ooh!"
The baby babbled, waving her stubby little arms as if she understood her sister and brother perfectly.
The boy smiled happily at the sight, then picked up the sword the dead man had carried.
"Let's go. Hyang-i, can you carry her on your back for me?"
"Yeah, okay, Brother."
With his tiny youngest sister strapped to his other sister's back, the boy and girl carefully slipped out through the door the Yellow Turban had left open.
*
"What did you say? They escaped?"
"I'm... my apologies, Chief. I explicitly ordered the men not to let their guard down and to keep a strict watch, yet..."
-BAM!
Zhao Hong, the Yellow Turban chief, slammed his fist onto the table in front of his stammering subordinate with enough force to shatter it.
Radiating seething anger, he bellowed at the vice-chief kneeling before him, Byeon Toe.
"Is that supposed to be an excuse? Three little brats—one of them a newborn who can't even talk yet! You're telling me you let them slip right under your noses?"
"I... I am without shame. I will find them right now and...!"
At that, Zhao Hong stood up abruptly.
A flicker of bewilderment crossed Byeon Toe's face.
"C... Chief? Where are you..."
"Must I spell it out for you? I'm going to catch those little rats myself. How far could a pack of worthless kids have possibly run?"
"That's... not necessary. I will take the men here and..."
"Silence! Those brats are vital bait to lure out the beast. Rather than leave it to the likes of you, I'll go myself and drag them back!"
"Th... then I shall accompany you. Since this was my failure, please give me a chance to rectify it personally."
"Haa..."
Byeon Toe requested this earnestly.
Zhao Hong let out an irritated sigh and spoke.
"We reach the main camp where Zhang Jiao resides in two days. There's no time to stand around gaping, so hurry up and follow! If you lose them this time, I'll have your head!"
"U... understood, Chief."
At Zhao Hong's words, Byeon Toe scrambled to his feet and began mustering the soldiers.
The faces of the subordinates were uniformly filled with fatigue and irritation from being roused in the middle of the night.
But Zhao Hong had no leisure to care about such things right now.
"Find those damned little brats immediately! There will be no rest until we have them. Is that clear?"
"Understood, Chief."
The men began their pursuit at once.
Meanwhile,
the face of Byeon Toe, watching this from behind, began to cloud with deep irritation...
but it wasn't simply because of the escape.
'Things have gotten troublesome... Of all people, Zhao Hong decided to move personally... Does this mean I have no choice but to wait for another opportunity?'
*
"Huff... huff... huff..."
The boy, the girl, and the baby pushed roughly through the undergrowth.
Their bodies were covered in scrapes from branches and brambles,
yet they had no time to even wince at the pain.
"There! They went that way!"
"After them, now! Don't let them get away!"
The shouts of the Yellow Turbans came from behind.
The boy tightened his grip on the sword in one hand and his sister's hand in the other.
"B... Brother... I'm tired..."
"Keep your spirits up. If they catch us now, it's all over. We have to get out of here somehow... Nngh!"
"B... Brother!"
A sudden, heavy pain.
An agonizing ache shot up from his toes, and the boy collapsed face-first onto the ground.
"A... are you okay, Brother? Are you hurt..."
"I'm fine... Nngh!"
"!"
He'd kicked a rock and twisted his ankle badly.
He tried to get up anyway, but the unbearable pain that followed forced him right back down.
"Damn it... of all times..."
A bad situation had just turned into a worst-case scenario. In this body, neither running nor fighting was possible.
In this situation,
the boy quickly made the only decision he could.
"Brother?"
"Take Hyang-i and go on ahead. I'll catch up in a minute."
"N... no, I'm scared. I want to stay with you..."
"I said go! If we stay like this... ngh..."
Swallowing his pain, the boy tied the youngest child onto the back of his tiny sister.
He knew perfectly well that she couldn't run far in this state.
Yet...
to wring out even the smallest hope, to create even a sliver of a chance.
The boy spoke to his hesitating, terrified sister in the calmest voice he could manage.
"Mother... don't you want to see her?"
"M... Mother?"
At his words, a spark of expectation replaced the fear on his sister's face.
Seeing her reaction, still so childlike despite her intelligence, he felt his heart ache even more, and he forced a smile.
"Listen closely... if we get out of this mountain, we can meet Mother. I hurt my leg and can't go fast, so... you go and bring Mother back here. You can do that, right?"
"... U... uh. O... okay! I'll go fast and bring her!"
He had managed to send his sister on her way.
Watching her disappear completely into the darkness, the boy whispered a small apology.
"I'm sorry... this was the only way..."
The lie about meeting their mother.
She had left without knowing, filled with hope and forgetting even her fear. As her older brother, that only made him feel deeply sorry.
He had always told her to live honestly, and yet the last thing he'd said to his sister was a lie.
Feeling the irony of that fact, and praying more than anything that this lie would save his sisters' lives...
The boy struggled to his feet, leaning on his sword.
Torches were starting to appear ahead of him.
Staring coldly at the figures approaching this way...
*
"Huff... huff... huff..."
The little girl gasped for air.
She had practically tumbled down the mountain with her baby sister on her back, and could no longer hold back her ragged breathing. She had to stop and rest.
'So tired... how much farther? ...'
Sweat poured off her whole body like rain, and the hunger pangs from days without a proper meal were almost too painful to bear.
Still, the child gritted her teeth and stood back up.
She could feel her baby sister's warmth against her back.
Now that she was separated from her older brother, she was the only one who could protect this tiny baby who had, of all things, fallen peacefully asleep in the midst of this.
Feeling a small but strong sense of responsibility, she painfully forced her body to move, intent on getting down the mountain.
At that moment.
-Thwip!!
"Ah!"
An arrow struck the ground at her feet.
A chilling sensation washed over her, and she whipped her head around in deep fear.
And there... stood someone.
"Heh heh, honestly, I'd half given up. To think an opportunity would come my way like this. It seems the heavens have not abandoned this Byeon Toe after all."
"Uh... uh..."
The man approached, an unpleasant smile on his face.
He was one of the bandit captains, and had often looked at her with a strange smile. The moment she saw him, instinctive terror froze her in place, and she began stepping backward.
Then.
-Schwing.
"Hik!..."
A blade pressed directly against the nape of her neck.
Holding the freshly sharpened sword against her, the bandit spoke with a terrifying grin.
"Heh heh heh... be quiet and stay still... If you cooperate, I won't kill you. Or your little sister on your back, either... slrrp."
"U... urgh..."
The bandit spoke, licking his lips in a disgusting way.
Then, slowly, he began lowering the sword from her neck down her body.
-Snip.
The ties of her clothes were cut in one stroke.
As her bare skin began to show, she was seized by a confusion of fear and incomprehension.
"... What... what are you... doing?"
"Heh heh... you'll find out soon. I'm going to show you a real good time..."
She couldn't understand exactly what he meant, but it was clearly something terrifying.
As he slowly reached his hand toward her, a primal fear and revulsion overwhelmed her. The terror was so profound she couldn't even cry out properly, and all she could do was mutter desperately in a trembling voice.
"Mom... my... mom... my..."
The child spoke, tears streaming down her face, as if begging.
But seeing this, the bandit didn't hesitate. Instead, an even more excited expression appeared on his face as he lunged toward her body.
"Now then... let's have a taste for the first time in a while... ghnngh!"
"!"
A sudden cry of pain rang out.
Then, the bandit who had been advancing on her crumpled to the ground as if all his strength had left him.
"Huh?"
The child felt confusion at the sudden reversal.
Immediately, a human figure emerged from the darkness into her sight.
Someone holding a large sword in one hand.
And the familiar shape of the person's hair, dimly visible in the dark. Long hair tied back.
The moment she spotted it,
the child rushed over, flooded with deep relief and joy.
"M... Mother!"
Paying no attention to the sound of agitated voices around her, she threw herself into the person's arms.
But. Right after...
Her eyes, which had begun to fill with relief, were instead flooded with bewilderment and unease.
She finally registered the color of the person's hair.
Visible in the torchlight that was beginning to blaze from all around them, it was...
not her mother's green, but a bright gold.
"... Mother? ... No... it's not?"