Namwon Protectorate barracks.
A few days ago, the barracks had driven out Woo Hoe-jung and his group, who had been eating up stipends from an already empty household, so it was deserted.
To begin with, there was no way Namwon would have registered troops, and the Sogo Army, reorganized after the upheaval of the Imjin year, had become nominal thanks to our capable local clerk lords actively accepting substitute payments in the name of supplementing the finances.
As for why the substitute goods collected that way had not left even a trace in the public granary, they themselves surely knew that better than anyone.
Even the few public-slave troops that had remained had nearly been annihilated over the past few years while under the command of Woo Hoe-jung, who had been controlling Namwon’s barracks.
Because of that, the only people left in the barracks now were me standing here, the Military Clerk whose eyes were busily rolling even today as he watched my complexion after I had come here first thing in the morning for several days instead of going to the East Hall, that bastard Yu-bong leisurely waving his fan beside the Military Clerk as if watching some amusing spectacle, and those kids in front of me.
‘Well, I suppose this is better than having a long line of empty husks who do nothing but eat.’
I muttered inwardly as I looked over the empty barracks.
Everything depended on how one thought of it.
In any case, simple headcount was not important in managing Dire Gates. It was true that one ability user was absolutely better than a hundred non-ability users, so to be honest, I did not feel particularly regretful.
‘Though carving out the bellies of the local clerk bastards who had been thoroughly stuffing themselves all this time is a separate matter.’
As if he had read my thoughts, the Military Clerk, whose eyes had been rolling, happened to meet my gaze and trembled as if struck by lightning.
Well, just wait.
I will deal with you all in order.
In any case, that was not what was urgent right now.
I lifted my gaze from the Military Clerk, looked at the figure before me, and opened my mouth.
“Faster. Kill your presence.”
Before my eyes, a person and a Dire Species were in the middle of a fight.
The one flying through the air while her black military robe fluttered, dodging the sharp claws of the Dire Species, was the one and only Special Military Officer of this protectorate.
To be precise, it was Seong Chun-hyang, provisional Special Military Officer.
And the one Chun-hyang was facing was a Dire Species that spat out eardrum-tearing strange cries and charged savagely as if it would tear apart the prey before its eyes at any moment.
No, to be exact, it was a clay soldier created by Jeong and Dam that perfectly reproduced a lower-grade Dire Species.
After entrusting the processing of the Dire Species to the butcher caste people who had come down from the mountain and settled in the village abandoned between the local clerk office outside the Three Gates and the barracks, I called Jeong and Dam separately. Facing the two boys, whose round faces were full of curiosity, tension, and a trace of anxiety, I said exactly one word.
Clay soldiers.
And with that one word, the two boys fulfilled what I wanted splendidly.
‘To think real-combat training is possible without entering a Dire Gate. Where else would I find such sweet honey?’
It was practically a Joseon-style simulation room. Its reproduction and durability did not fall short of modern simulation centers, which were practically crystallizations of highly developed magical engineering. On top of that, thanks to the barrier Jeong had cleverly placed around us, nothing that happened in the training yard would leak outside.
I guarantee it: there would be no place in all Eight Provinces of Joseon with a better training environment than this.
‘They really are treasures.’
With a pleased heart, I looked at the round faces of the brothers watching the sparring between Chun-hyang and the clay soldier from a distance.
GROOOOOOOOAR—!!!
CRASH!
“Keuk.”
While I was briefly lost in thought, Chun-hyang was struck properly by the arm the Dire Species swung. She flew straight off and slammed into a corner of the training yard.
“Oh dear, tsk.”
“Oh nooo, Big Sis!!!”
Startled, Dam quickly withdrew the illusion art. At that, the Dire Species that had been charging at Chun-hyang vanished in an instant, and a clay doll that looked exactly like it rolled across the ground.
“Big Siiis—oh no, oh no, are you all right?”
Dam helped Chun-hyang, who had been stuck upside down against the wall, to her feet and asked with a friendly face.
“Haaah, hah. I am fine, fine—”
“Special Military Officer Seong.”
“Haaah, yes.”
I looked for a moment at Chun-hyang as she barely straightened herself and stood, then continued.
“If this had been real combat, you would have died.”
“......Yes.”
After glancing at Chun-hyang, who was still breathing hard through her shoulders, I called the kid standing beside her and watching my mood.
“Dam.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Dam, sensing that I was displeased, quickly bowed his head and answered.
“From now on, do not withdraw them on your own before I give a separate signal.”
“B-but Big Sis—”
I cut off the child and shook my head.
“If she cannot even handle an illusion, there is no point sending her into real combat.”
My gaze was already directed not at Dam, but at the person who needed to hear those words.
“......My apologies.”
“Do you not want to do this, or do you want to but cannot? If it is the former, well, there is nothing I can do either. If you intend to just fill out your contract period and leave, I may roll you even harder out of spite. Which is it?”
At my words, which clearly showed my displeasure, the air around us froze. Dam looked at my expression, then quietly retreated toward where his brother was.
Meanwhile, at the sight of Chun-hyang staring only at the tips of her feet with her mouth tightly shut, a sigh escaped me on its own.
I had spoken that way, but it was not that I doubted her skill now.
What displeased me was her attitude, having such an incredible ability yet failing to properly use the meal I had laid out for her—no, failing to properly use this situation. Perhaps because she already knew this was not a real combat situation, Chun-hyang’s concentration had been crawling along the floor these past few days.
“......”
At the sight of her still silently staring at the ground, I could not hold back any longer and began nagging.
“Speak. Use your words. No matter how omnipotent I look in your eyes, mind reading is not among my abilities.”
“Pfft.”
I faintly heard that bastard Yu-bong burst somewhere in the distance.
Tsk, you and I will have a separate talk later.
As I inwardly sharpened a blade for the innocent bastard Yu-bong, I heard the girl before me mumble.
“......some.”
“What? I cannot hear you.”
“It is cumbersome.”
“What is?”
Cumbersome? What was?
Her hair? Or her clothes?
I looked Chun-hyang up and down anew.
No, our circumstances were already poor, and I had even spent my own money to make a new Special Military Officer uniform. Saying she would not wear it because it was cumbersome would be a bit much, would it not?
Ah, did she perhaps mean she wanted to dress as a man from now on? I did not particularly care.
Well, it was not as if that beauty could be hidden by covering it. Whether a skirt or an overcoat, it would flutter all the same, would it not?
As I frowned and sank briefly into thought, Chun-hyang shook what she held in her hand and said,
“This. Somehow, it feels unfamiliar in my hand, and I keep feeling like it breaks my focus...... but I do not know what I should do.”
“Ah.”
A dumb sound slipped out of me before I knew it.
What Chun-hyang had shaken was a short blade about the length of a child’s forearm.
Ah, what.
She was talking about her weapon?
I stroked my chin and nodded.
“Hm, fair enough. A unique weapon will only appear at Fifth Bloom.”
A ‘unique weapon’ summoned along with ability manifestation was a kind of authority granted only to advanced users at Fifth Bloom or higher.
In other words, for Chun-hyang, who was only at First Bloom, it was still a pie in the sky. No matter if she was an ability user in the top 0.01 percent, until she achieved the ability of Fifth Bloom, she had no choice but to find and use the weapon that suited her hand best.
“Then until then, I suppose I have to just use this.”
With a sigh, Chun-hyang looked again at the short blade she held.
No, she had been cutting things just fine with that. What did she mean it felt unfamiliar? If it suited her hand twice over, she would practically fly—
Wait.
“Hmmm.”
At a sudden thought, I stroked my chin again and looked Chun-hyang up and down.
At my gaze, Chun-hyang raised one eyebrow. Pretending not to notice that insolent look, as if she were staring at a scoundrel trying to make a pass at her, I asked,
“Are you good at sewing?”
“......Why are you asking that now?”
“Ah, I do not mean anything else. I merely thought that if your sewing is better than your knife work, perhaps there is no need for you to hold a blade.”
As you said, until a few days ago, you were a lady of the inner quarters, so perhaps sewing is more familiar to you than blade work. That is what I mean.
At my words, the air around us froze.
Yu-bong, who had been watching our conversation from the side, cut in.
“Goodness, even for our magistrate, that is too much. After luring her in with all sorts of honeyed words and insisting, insisting on sitting her in the position of Special Military Officer, what are you displeased with now that you are already thinking of throwing her out?”
“Who is throwing whom out?”
When I asked back at the absurd misunderstanding, Yu-bong opened his mouth again as if frustrated.
“Right now, my lord—”
“Shut up. Dam, clay soldier.”
I cut off Yu-bong as he spat useless words and ordered Dam.
At my words, Dam startled, nodded, and poured his ability into the clay doll rolling on the ground.
GROOOOOOAR—
And in the next instant—
“!!!!!!”
“Huh, th-that!”
“How??”
The Dire Species that had been charging savagely toward us collapsed sideways without a sound. Then it returned to its original clay doll form.
The one standing motionless before it was Chun-hyang.
Yu-bong and the twins, who had been unable to see when she had moved or how she had dealt with the Dire Species despite having their eyes open, stared back and forth between Chun-hyang and the clay doll with their mouths hanging open.
‘A genius really is a genius. Teach her one thing, and she sees through ten.’
With a pleased heart, I nodded and spoke to Chun-hyang.
“So this is the true ‘rain of death.’”
At my words, Chun-hyang nodded shortly. Her face was slightly dazed, as if even after doing it with her own hands, she still could not believe it.
“What exactly...... happened? Hm? Do not just pretend to know. Please explain, my lord.”
That bastard Yu-bong fussed noisily and tugged at my sleeve. I was about to shake off the clinging nuisance, but when I saw the twins beside him looking at me with the exact same faces as Yu-bong, I changed my mind and opened my mouth.
“Until one becomes a Fifth Bloom ability user and receives a unique weapon, one has no choice but to build experience with a weapon familiar to the hand. And in her case, it seems the weapon familiar to her hand was not a short blade, but something else.”
As I spoke, I picked up the clay doll rolling on the ground and pulled out what was stuck in the back of its neck. After recognizing the identity of the glittering object, that bastard Yu-bong belatedly drew in a breath.
“Th-that is.”
“As expected, sewing over knife work?”
When I asked while shaking the needle I had picked up, Chun-hyang answered evenly without changing her expression at all.
“My education in the women’s quarters was strict.”
If it had been strict twice over, she would turn someone into a beehive.
As I muttered inwardly, Dam’s voice came from beside me.
“Wooow, Big Sis, you are so cool! You are the best!!! Can you do several at once?”
Dam, whose eyes were shining as he asked, was holding an armful of clay dolls in various shapes, though I had no idea when he had brought them.
“Here!! Try using these for now instead of needles!!!”
In Jeong’s hands, who had been quiet and seemed to be doing something, there was an armful of stone needles, though I did not know when he had made them.
I watched with satisfaction as Chun-hyang, slightly bewildered by the enthusiastic reaction of my treasures—ahem, no, the image-creator and illusionist—nodded and adjusted her stance again. Then I heard someone’s voice.
“My lord! My lord!! You must come out for a moment!!!”
It was the Personnel Clerk’s voice.
For a moment, I considered pretending I could not hear him, but his voice sounded rather urgent, so I changed my mind.
“I will be back for a moment, so keep going.”
After glancing at Chun-hyang and the children, I crossed the entrance of the barracks, where a barrier had been set, and stepped outside. The Personnel Clerk, who had been waiting with an anxious face, welcomed me with a brightened expression.
“My lord! Oh, my lord!!”
“What is this fuss about?”
When I asked with a frown, the Personnel Clerk flinched for a moment, swallowed, then opened his mouth again.
“Th-the Wansang Merchants have come.”
“The Wansang Merchants?”
“They said they came to compensate for the matter last time.”
By last time, did he mean the matter with that Kim nuisance—no, Scholar Kim or whatever his name was—and his group?
“Oh, did they bring everything I told them to bring?”
“Pardon? Ah, yes. Uh, that is, th-that is.”
“What are you stammering about? Did they uselessly come in a swarm?”
I glanced at the flustered Personnel Clerk as he stammered, then followed him as he led the way toward the East Hall.
And the moment I arrived at the East Hall, a word slipped out before I realized it.
“Interesting.”
As expected, the Chief Merchant of the Wansang Merchants had something different about him.
Looking over the scene spread before my eyes, the corner of my mouth curled up crookedly.