“Huh!! I-Il-gu! Il-gu!”
When Beard lifted the axe in his hand, pointed it at me, and shouted with grim resolve, Ju-hwan, who had been getting to his feet with the support of the other men behind him, cried out in shock.
“Do not worry, Brother! When we heard Brother was in danger, we all came running prepared to die, so you can rest easy now. If we just deal with that desk-bound scholar, no one will ever kno—mmph, mmph.”
Ju-hwan, now frantic, clapped a hand over the mouth of Beard, the man called Il-gu, and shouted toward me.
“M-my lord, these ignorant fools know nothing and are just spouting whatever comes to mind, so please—”
“Why? It is entertaining. Why not let him continue?”
At my words, Ju-hwan turned blue and hurriedly waved both hands.
“No, no. These bastards have nothing but muscle in their skulls, so they do not even know what their own mouths are spitting out. So please—”
Perhaps deciding this would not do, the bastard, who had been spilling out words, dropped back to his knees on the dirt.
“What are you all doing! Kneel already, now!”
“B-Brother?”
At Ju-hwan’s urging, the men who had been listening to our conversation with dazed faces began awkwardly kneeling one by one.
“Judging by the look of them, they seem to be ruffians.”
At my words, Ju-hwan jumped and waved both hands.
“Ruffians? What ruffians! They are only bastards who wandered here and there because they had no way to make a living. They barely keep themselves fed by going wherever there is heavy work and lending a hand. These bastards do not even have enough ability to be called ruffians. Just, well, just. Ah, that is it. A beggar mob! These bastards are just a beggar mob, a beggar mob.”
“B-Brotheeer......”
The men, who had suddenly become a beggar mob, turned back toward Ju-hwan with blank faces.
“Hmmm......”
I lightly stroked my chin and looked them over.
Even though Ju-hwan had slapped them mercilessly right to their faces, not one of them talked back. Seeing them obediently kneel as he ordered, they seemed to trust him quite a bit.
‘Ruffians, hm......’
Something unexpected had rolled in.
Ruffians.
In other words, hoodlums, petty thugs. Or, well, gangsters?
In any case, they were the trash of the era, people who did not engage in proper work, gathered in groups, and started fights whenever things went wrong.
In the days when royal authority was stable and public order was maintained, these pieces of trash lay flat, living as if they existed and did not exist, breathing quietly. They began crawling out one by one and swelling in size only after Dire Gates began to erupt.
As the country’s order collapsed through the three upheavals, the ruffians built independent power by colluding with local merchant groups and the government offices those merchants had connections to.
Their main source of income was the management of Dire Gates and the processing of Dire Species. When a Dire Gate erupted, they extorted protection money from nearby residents, threw people they disliked inside the Dire Gate under the pretense of offerings, and sometimes entered Dire Gates with Special Military Officers or former Special Military Officers hired by merchant groups to help transport Dire Species.
And with the wages they received that way, they formed gangs and made a daily habit of roaming gambling dens and marketplaces while throwing their weight around.
Then what did the government office, which should have controlled these ruffians, do?
It merely stood by and watched.
Partly because it had no capacity to arrest the swollen number of ruffians, and partly because without them, there was almost no way to stop a Dire Gate when one erupted.
In other words, those who had thrown Chun-hyang into the Dire Gate and those wandering the streets like this lot were the same kind of ruffians.
After sinking into thought for a moment, I opened my mouth again.
“So. You are saying those bastards ended up like this because they had no way to make a living?”
“That is right. It is no lie. Most of these bastards are from Imsil. If Imsil had not gone to shit, and if after that, they had not carried out that damned land reallocation or whatever the hell it was and started carving up land among themselves again, these men would still be carrying plows and tilling fields.”
Anger seeped into Ju-hwan’s voice, and the faces of the men kneeling after him stiffened as well.
Judging by the look of things, those ruffians—no, that beggar mob that served Ju-hwan as Brother—seemed to be displaced people who had flowed in from Imsil.
A few years ago, Imsil, where a mid-grade Dire Gate had erupted, had quite literally been devastated.
It had taken nearly three years for the Royal Guard Special Military Unit dispatched urgently from the central government to deal with all the Dire Species that had begun settling there.
In the meantime, the people who had barely survived but lost the foundation of their lives were scattered separately into mountains and fields. Even after three years passed and the threat of established species was completely removed, most of those scattered people could not return.
The Equal-Field Officer dispatched by the central government for farmland reallocation had pushed through equal land distribution in a rushed, railroaded manner, eliminating the places to which the displaced people could return.
‘He was a bastard even Byeon Hak-do clicked his tongue at.’
In any case, there was no place for commoners to stand in a place where packs of jackals, from local magnates to local clerks, had gathered as if this were their chance, torn everything apart, filled their bellies, and vanished.
The people who had barely kept themselves fed through tenant farming had ended up in a position where they had to do the same work for even lower wages.
In the end, they could not endure it and took to wandering the streets.
‘It is only natural resentment would build toward the government office.’
I stroked my chin and sank into thought for a moment.
‘Just when I was wondering what to do with that bastard’s “leash,” perhaps I can kill two birds with one stone here?’
I looked over the pheasant—no, Ju-hwan, and opened my mouth.
“So what you are saying is, if they had proper work, they would live quietly without causing trouble?”
At my words, the bastard shrugged and answered as if it were obvious.
“They say a human being stops thinking of other things once his belly is full and his back is warm.”
“What if I gave them work?”
“......You, my lord? How? Does Namwon Protectorate have that much extra land?”
His round-eyed question made me flinch.
No, but what did that bastard’s mouth eat to be that sharp? For a moment, I was startled because I thought he was Yu-bong.
When I glanced over, Clerk Jeong seemed to have thought the same thing, because he smiled with an annoying face and shrugged.
Every one of these bastards had not so much respect for their superior as the amount of athlete’s foot on the sole of a foot.
I took a deep breath to spread out the pettiness creeping into my heart, then opened my mouth again.
“Has the world not already moved past living only by digging in the soil?”
“That means......?”
Ju-hwan narrowed his eyes and urged me on.
I looked once over the bastard and the men kneeling around him, then opened my mouth again.
“I hear Dire Gate business makes some money.”
“!!!!!”
At my words, Ju-hwan startled and his face stiffened. The ruffians’ reactions were not much different from his.
Of course they would react that way.
To begin with, even a three-year-old child knew that Dire Gate business made money.
It was not only the Mana Crystals harvested from Dire Gates. Dire Species hide, meat, and bones too. Every part, with nothing to throw away, fetched whatever price one named.
There was a reason large and small merchant groups across the country were jumping into the Dire Gate business, even while prepared to antagonize the government office.
And as everyone knew, in this area around Wansan, the one holding everything related to Dire Gates was not the government office.
In other words, saying I would do Dire Gate business was no different from saying I would set myself against the Wansang Merchants, who held the economy and distribution of the entire Jeolla region in an iron grip.
“My lord, those words just now......”
Ju-hwan opened his mouth while staring at me, as if trying to gauge my true intention, and I met his gaze straight on as I said,
“There is an easy road to profit right before my eyes, so why take a detour?”
At my words, Ju-hwan’s eyes widened in surprise, and then he let out a small laugh. He muttered something briefly, then looked at me and spoke again.
“The Wansang Merchants will not stay still.”
“If someone heard you, they would think the Magistrate of this place was the Wansang Merchants.”
“Are you truly confident......?”
Ju-hwan’s eyes looked straight up at me.
“I am the sort of person who absolutely hates sharing my portion with anyone.”
It seems you have not heard, but despite how I look, I am fairly famous up in the northern regions.
When I added that with a crooked smile, I heard Clerk Jeong cough from a distance.
“B-Brother.”
Il-gu, who had been kneeling as Ju-hwan told him to without knowing what was going on, called the silent bastard who seemed lost in thought.
I looked over them and opened my mouth again.
“In any case, it does not look as if you have anything to do right now. Is there any need to refuse when I say I will give you work?”
Unless you truly only want to go around stirring up trouble and tormenting people.
At my added words, the men’s eyes shone fiercely.
Before Ju-hwan could open his mouth to say anything, Beard—no, Il-gu opened his mouth first.
“We are men who lived by digging dirt, so we do not know much else. If someone feeds us even one meal a day and lets us sleep out of the wind and rain, we just do as that person tells us.”
“Good. Then I will give you work that lets you eat meals and sleep in proper houses.”
Il-gu and the other men all looked at me at once. I nodded to them as they looked at me with eyes full of disbelief, then opened my mouth again.
“What you must do is simple. Every month on the Dark Moon, when a Dire Gate opens, you will be the first to run over and inform the government office. Until the government office’s Special Military Officer arrives, you will guard it so no one can enter. Those who carry out the duty properly will be rewarded. However—”
When I paused, the gazes of the murmuring ruffians gathered on me. In the quiet stillness, I met each pair of eyes looking at me with weight and continued.
“If you report the location of a Dire Gate to somewhere other than the government office, or if you allow someone other than a government office Special Military Officer to enter a Dire Gate, I will personally hold you accountable for that crime.”
I withdrew my gaze and turned my head toward one side of the East Hall.
There stood the Chief’s bone that had turned Woo Hoe-jung into a half-corpse a few days ago—no, the heavy flogging rod made by refining that Chief’s bone. Even though the surroundings had been wrecked by Ju-hwan’s thunderbolts earlier and had collapsed into a mess, the heavy flogging rod alone stood intact, as if nothing had happened. Its pitch-black surface gleamed ominously.
“Hiiik. That is the Ghost Cudgel!!”
“Is th-that the thing that turned Woo Hoe-jung into a bloody pulp?”
“Oh my, Mother......”
I heard the ruffians stirring.
What, it already has a name?
Ghost Cudgel. It sounds rather plausible.
Because half the building had collapsed under Ju-hwan’s thunderbolts, it was a little disappointing that the government office’s dignity was not being properly preserved. But simply seeing the rumored heavy flogging rod in person was enough to suppress the ruffians’ spirit for the most part.
I cleared my throat and took out the carrot again.
“Those who wish to help this protectorate’s work should go speak to the Revenue Clerk. He will arrange work, food, and sleeping quarters for you.”
Even without Dire Gates, there was work overflowing. I had already wanted to repair the outer palisades and watchtowers first, and now these sturdy men with all their limbs intact had gathered here on their own feet.
I really was lucky.
As I muttered inwardly, someone asked from behind,
“Th-that, uh, but is there really food? They say there ain’t a single rat in the public granary of Namwon Protectorate, since they all starved to death.”
“That’s right. If we’re going to work our asses off all day and get one bowl of watery gruel, we’d rather go out and beg.”
At those words, several nearby men nodded, then flinched and shrank their necks when their eyes met mine.
“Are you curious?”
At my words, everyone’s attention snapped toward me.
“You will go mad once you taste it.”
Muttering quietly, I raised the corner of my mouth in a crooked smile.