Yi Jung-dal, Military Clerk of Namwon Protectorate, looked up at the sky.
The clear autumn sky was cruelly bright and blue.
‘Wow, what perfect weather. On a day like this, it’d be just right to go on an outing and pour down bamboo-tube wine—’
Whenever a reality he wanted to run from unfolded before his eyes, Yi Jung-dal would calm his dizzy mind by imagining something beautiful like this.
However, Yi Jung-dal’s escape from reality did not last long.
Because someone’s ringing voice echoed high into the clear sky.
“See here, Military Clerk! Ah, do not just stand there. Say something! Am I wrong about anything I have said?”
Yi Jung-dal turned his eyes away from the clear and beautiful autumn sky and smiled obsequiously at the damned old man—no, at Scholar Kim, the local notable who was staring at him with cold, fierce eyes.
“No, not at all. Haha. Elder Scholar Kim is correct. Yes, yes.”
As if pleased with the Military Clerk’s attitude as he bowed so deeply his head seemed about to touch the ground, Scholar Kim lifted his chin and stroked his finely trimmed beard.
‘Damn it. His great-grandfather passed the licentiate exam once, and he has been milking that for generations while acting like a nobleman.’
Yi Jung-dal ground his teeth inwardly.
Scholar Kim only looked plausible on the outside.In truth, his status was no different from that of the middle-status class.
It was true that Scholar Kim’s great-grandfather had passed the lower state examination, but Scholar Kim himself and his father were not merely nowhere near passing it; they were closer to marketplace thugs without any scholarly refinement whatsoever.
And yet the reason Scholar Kim could hold his neck so stiffly and act like a local notable was because the Wansang Merchants stood behind him.
Originally, the Wansang Merchants were a merchant group of no great size, trading mostly in grain and cotton cloth collected from this region.
However, after Dire Gates began to open, the state of the board changed drastically as they quickly secured distribution rights for by-products. At first, they traded small quantities of only the items they had fairly obtained through contracts with the government office. But after the Jeongyu and Byeongja years, taking advantage of the central government’s loosened control, they began employing professional ruffians to handle Dire Gates directly, then started distributing the by-products obtained there on a large scale.
As a result, they were now swelling in size to the point of standing shoulder to shoulder with the Naesang Merchants of Dongnae Prefecture.
Moreover, there was a rumor that the ruffians standing behind Scholar Kim were originally Special Military Officers brought in from Hamgil Province for a large sum of money.
The northern region had always been said to be unfit for human habitation because of its barren climate and barbarians. Once Dire Gates, more frightening than those barbarians, began springing up all over the place, its circumstances grew even more difficult. In the end, there was a rumor that unless the Special Military Officers there had a considerable sense of duty, ten out of ten would be seduced if promised a hefty sum and a foundation for living elsewhere.
And the ruffians Scholar Kim kept at his side were said to be one such group.
Given the circumstances, Yi Jung-dal, the administrator of the Namwon Protectorate barracks, had no way to assert authority against Scholar Kim when the only thing he had to rely on was a single third-grade Special Military Officer—no, now even that was gone.
In any case, it was an obvious fact that if even they had not been here, this entire region would already have been reduced to a wasteland by Dire Species overflowing from Dire Gates......
What could he do? However displeased he was, he had to endure it.
However, it seemed not everyone thought the same way Yi Jung-dal did.
“Is the Military Clerk saying he will refuse the Lord Magistrate’s order?”
Another ringing voice echoed out. When he whipped his head around to look, Seong Chun-hyang—no, Seong ‘temporary’ Special Military Officer was staring this way with a displeased face.
......The Lord Magistrate’s order?
In Yi Jung-dal’s mind, the image he had seen yesterday of the demon—no, the new Magistrate—rose up.
The man who had torn off the Chief’s arm with his bare hands while the hems of his robe were soaked in the black blood of Dire Species.
‘Eighty strokes of heavy flogging.’
When the trembling voice of the Justice Clerk overlapped with that memory, Yi Jung-dal startled, jumped, and shouted.
“What? No, how does it become that? Wh-when did I ever!!!”
“If I clear the way here as Elder Scholar Kim says, and let those he brought search through the by-products and take them as they please, would that not mean violating the Lord Magistrate’s order to ‘not neglect the perimeter until I personally confirm it’?”
Chun-hyang was right.
The demon...... no, the Magistrate had certainly ordered that no one be allowed to touch them.
B-but that is not just anyone.
While Yi Jung-dal hesitated, Scholar Kim opened his eyes wide and roared.
“Silence! You are only a woman. How dare you open your eyes wide and answer back word for word!”
“Temporary Special Military Officer.”
“What?”
“I said I am a temporary Special Military Officer, not a woman.”
At Chun-hyang’s bold answer, Scholar Kim’s beard trembled with rage as he lost his words.
“Ha, the world truly is ending. I heard rumors that the newly arrived Magistrate was so mad for women he could not tell right from wrong, but to think he would truly grant an official post paid by the state to the likes of a gisaeng.”
“I am not a gisaeng.”
At Chun-hyang’s calm rebuttal, Scholar Kim snorted and sneered.
“Is there anyone in this land of Namwon who does not know your mother was once a government gisaeng?”
“She was already manumitted. And I am the child of a nobleman.”
“A child born from a slave’s belly acting like a noble? Just what country’s law permits such a thing?”
“And what country’s law allows a man grand enough to be called a scholar to slander someone whose name is not even in the gisaeng registry as a gisaeng?”
At Chun-hyang’s words, which struck the mark, Yi Jung-dal swallowed dryly.
To think she could say everything she had to say to Scholar Kim like that......
It seemed that when one Awakened as a Special Military Officer, one’s guts grew thicker along with it.
“Ha! The arrogance of this bitch pierces the heavens. After seducing the former magistrate’s young master and playing at love, you made all kinds of X-shit about keeping yourself chaste or getting married. Why, does the newly arrived Magistrate look useful enough that you already feel like switching over? Go on, tell me. Is it his authority you like, his face you like, or if not that, is it what is between his legs?”
At Scholar Kim’s vulgar words, Yi Jung-dal frowned. To think even someone like that was called a scholar and a nobleman. The world truly seemed to be in its end times.
“Seeing as she cannot answer, it must be all three.”
“So it seems.”
“Wahaha.”
Scholar Kim and the ruffians he had brought laughed noisily.
Around the time their laughter subsided, Chun-hyang opened her mouth.
“Are you finished speaking?”
“Why, what? Are you going to hit me?”
The ruffian standing beside Scholar Kim jeered and stepped one pace forward. Chun-hyang looked him up and down, then gestured at the Chief’s corpse with her chin and asked,
“You are truly trying to take this, correct?”
“Ah, did I not already say so, you bitch? Things that come out of Dire Gates are originally supposed to be checked and handled by us. So stop talking nonsense and move asi—”
CRACK!
At the sound that should not have been heard, Yi Jung-dal doubted his own ears.
“!!!!”
He had not heard wrong.
Nor had he seen wrong.
Before his eyes, the ruffian struck by Chun-hyang’s roundhouse kick lay sprawled on the ground, clutching one cheek.
Even if it had been an unexpected blow, to knock down that former Special Military Officer with a single roundhouse kick......!
Scholar Kim, who looked as dazed as Yi Jung-dal, shouted as if having a fit, the veins in his neck standing out.
“Y-y-y-you bitch!!! Wh-what do you think you are doing!!”
“I am merely carrying out the order given by the Lord Magistrate.”
“Wh-what?”
“He said he would personally confirm and handle it, so I was to guard the area until he arrived.”
After calmly saying what she had to say, Chun-hyang swept her gaze around and spoke.
“Until the Lord Magistrate arrives, no one may privately take those things. If anyone comes any closer than that, I will strike them down.”
At her firm tone, as if she would accept no objections, Yi Jung-dal and everyone gathered there swallowed dryly.
The pressure radiating from the slender woman was so heavy it was hard to believe, pressing down on the surroundings with enough force to make it difficult to breathe.
“Ha, it seems your arrogance pierces the heavens just because you trust your new lover. Leader Gwak, teach that bitch some manners.”
“Yes, Scholar Kim.”
When another ruffian standing beside Scholar Kim strode forward, the man sprawled on the ground also stood up and immediately blocked Chun-hyang from the side.
Yi Jung-dal rolled his eyes with an anxious face.
If he sided with Scholar Kim, the demon-like Magistrate bothered him, and if he sided with Chun-hyang, the ruffians before his eyes bothered him.
‘Heuheuheu, I want to run away......’
The moment Yi Jung-dal once again habitually raised his head and looked up at the blue sky, the two-against-one fight began.
***
“You rat-like bitch—!!!”
As I neared the barracks, the first thing I heard was some bastard’s shout.
Running behind the personal attendant, I drew up my speed sharply. When I passed him and moved ahead, I heard the attendant’s flustered voice from behind.
“M-my lord?”
“Bring the Personnel Clerk behind me properly.”
Without waiting to hear his answer, I ran straight toward the barracks.
The inside was already full of onlookers who had gathered after hearing the commotion. Thanks to the people who recognized me and opened a path one by one while drawing in their breath, I entered without difficulty. On one side of the training yard where the Chief’s corpse had been moved, a brawl was taking place.
‘Two grown men and one child.’
Two large men were pushing Chun-hyang, whose small frame did not even reach their shoulders, into a corner. The fight seemed to have already gone on for quite some time, because both sides looked awful.
THWACK-THWACK!
Chun-hyang’s foot smashed into the head of one of the grown men.
‘As expected, her movements are light. That’s not so much an ability as something she was born with in the first place.’
To think those reflexes had been left to rot.
A loss for the country, truly.
While I was admiring her, the other bastard reached out, grabbed Chun-hyang by the ankle, and slammed her straight to the ground. Unable to shake off his hand in time, Chun-hyang could not overcome the man’s physical strength and rolled across the ground.
CRASH-ROLL!
“Good!! Grab her! Grab her!!”
The one shrieking was a middle-aged man watching the fight from one side.
‘What is that now?’
He was dressed like a nobleman, but the atmosphere around him had not a trace of dignity. My eyes narrowed on their own.
THWACK!
THWACK-THWACK!
Chun-hyang, who had rolled on the ground, kicked the shins of the two men charging at her in turn.
“Aaagh! X-fuck!!!”
One of the men reached out and grabbed Chun-hyang by the hair.
“Ugh!”
“Kill her! Kill her!!!”
While the noisy middle-aged man shouted in great excitement, another bastard smiled nastily and grabbed Chun-hyang’s collar.
“Oh-ho, this will not do.”
What were they doing in front of children, of all people?
I muttered low and threw the folding fan in my hand as hard as I could.
THWACK!
The folding fan flew with force and struck the back of the head of the man who had been about to tear Chun-hyang’s jeogori.
“Keugh!!”
“Wh-who are you!!”
Instead of the man who crouched down clutching the back of his head, the other bastard sprang up and shouted.
“Me.”
When I answered, stepping forward, the onlookers standing around me stirred.
“Oh my.”
“Who is that gentleman?”
“Ah, can’t you tell by looking? That’s our new magistrate.”
“Goodness, that perfectly normal-looking gentleman is our magistrate, that lecher and piece of human garbage?”
......I can hear you.
I can hear everything, people.
Just as I was struggling to manage my expression and move forward, I heard more voices.
“They say that lecher and piece of human garbage closed the Dire Gate that opened yesterday all by himself.”
“Is that all? They say he had that sly bastard Woo Hoe-jung flogged so hard he could not even walk.”
“You call that all? They say he tore off one arm of that Chief over there with his bare hands.”
“Hiiik! Is that true? He looks like just a desk-bound scholar......?”
“Do not even ask. After seeing that, I trembled all night and could not sleep properly.”
Sorry about that.
But the heavy flogging rod made from that Chief bastard’s forearm was quite effective.
Literally, Woo Hoe-jung, who had taken eighty strokes from the Chief-brand flogging rod yesterday, had been turned into a bloody pulp and carried back on servants’ backs.
‘It looks a bit unpleasant, but in terms of durability, wooden rods cannot even compare.’
I was considering whether I should take this chance to replace all the cudgels kept by the Justice Office when someone’s voice came.
“Kim Man-saeng, eldest grandson of Scholar Kim Jang-hong, seventeenth-generation descendant of the Namwon Kim clan, greets the Magistrate of Namwon.”
It was the middle-aged man who had been running wild in excitement earlier.
I did not know about scholar, but he certainly looked like a nuisance. After briefly looking over that face, I turned to the two men still surrounding Chun-hyang and spoke.
“You lot there. Are you still doing that? With instincts like that, how do you expect to live long?”
“Th-they are my—”
I blocked the Kim family nuisance as he tried to cut in and continued.
“You dared to intrude into the barracks, cause a disturbance, and try to harm a Special Military Officer carrying out the state’s work. You had better have a reason worthy of that.”
“See here, Magistrate! Can you not hear me—”
“Military Clerk.”
I called the Military Clerk, who was secretly doing nothing but breathing in a corner.
“Yes! Yes! Military Clerk Yi Jung-dal is here, yes, my lord.”
“How is one who breaks into the barracks and disrupts military discipline handled?”
“Th-that is......”
“I doubt our Military Clerk could have forgotten, but since the Imjin year, this country has remained under a wartime system, has it not?”
“Pardon? Yes! Yes, that is correct.”
“So, how is one who causes a disturbance in barracks under a wartime system supposed to be dealt with?”
When I stared and urged him on, the Military Clerk reluctantly opened his mouth.
“It is entrusted to the commander holding the military tally. In emergencies, the commander’s summary judgment is permitted.”
“!!!!”
At the Military Clerk’s answer, the surrounding people drew in their breath.
Good.
If you had not answered properly there, I was going to deal with you first.
I turned my eyes away from the Military Clerk and looked over the two ruffians, the Kim family nuisance, and the humans who were soldiers in appearance only as they surrounded them, watching helplessly without knowing what to do. Then I opened my mouth.
“So—”
What do you think I will do?
When I asked with a grin, a cold silence settled over the surroundings.