Seongjin grabbed Oh Jinchul by the shoulder and pulled him back with everything he had.
His breath caught. The ground still seemed to be shaking. Behind them, the sounds tangled together—burning wagons bursting apart, horses collapsing with wounded cries.
After that, he couldn't tell what happened.
Who shouted, who fell, who won—none of it was clear. When the cheer of victory finally came, it arrived late, like an echo lagging behind reality.
"Let go! Enough—let go, you bastard!"
At Oh Jinchul's shout, Seongjin finally loosened his grip.
"Hey… you idiot."
Oh Jinchul said it between breaths.
"It's over."
"…What?"
"It's over."
The words hung in the dust.
Seongjin fell backward.
All his strength drained at once. His hands didn't feel like his own—trembling, cold.
Oh Jinchul reached out and took his hand.
"It's all right now."
The injured man was the one offering comfort.
Even soaked in blood and smoke, his voice was strangely warm.
Blood was seeping from a gap in the armor at his side. When Seongjin hurried to remove it, Oh Jinchul raised a hand to stop him.
"It's fine."
"It didn't go all the way through."
"…Thank God."
After those brief words, neither of them spoke for a long while.
The wind blew.
The smell of burning wagons, boiling blood, and scorched leather drifted together. Far off, soldiers were gathering equipment, collecting the dead.
But here, there were only the two of them—only their breathing.
Then something ran down from Oh Jinchul's eyes.
It was neither blood nor sweat.
He didn't wipe it away with his bloodied hand.
"Your father… and your brother."
He paused, choosing his words.
"They smiled at moments like this."
Seongjin lifted his head.
A faint smile rested at the corner of Oh Jinchul's mouth.
"You lived, you bastard."
That single sentence rang louderthan all the battlefield's shouts combined.
The enemy force that had broken through the flank of the formation was utterly crushed by the iron cavalry's charge.
Where hooves had passed, enemy bodies lay piled in layers. Inside the camp, between burned wagons and collapsed barricades, dark shapes were scattered across the ground.
For a moment, silence fell.
Then someone shouted,
"Victory!"
At first it was small.
Then it burst from all sides.
"Victory! We won!""Victory!"
Seongjin shouted with them.
His throat was raw; his chest felt as if it would split. He spread his arms and howled up at the sky.
"Victory…"
That cry ran deeper than the cheers.
What streamed down his face—tears or blood—he couldn't tell.
Oh Jinchul shouted beside him.
A faint smile clung to his blood-smeared face.
"We won, you bastards!"
The shouts shattered into the air and scattered on the wind.
Hwang Hyeon-pil was already looking elsewhere.
Standing amid the aftermath, he did not search for emotion—only for numbers.
"Killed in action: seven."
The words sank into the air.
To Seongjin's ears, they sounded unbearably loud.
There had been forty-six.
Seven were dead.
Thirty-nine remained.
They removed the dead men's identification tags.
A shallow pit was dug at the edge of the camp, and the palm-sized wooden plates were set into the soil one by one.
Seongjin murmured quietly,
"Someday… will we be able to come back and find them?"
There was no answer.
There is no death you can return to.
By then, nothing would remain on this land.
Someone covered the pit with earth. Someone else splashed a few drops of rice wine.
Nearby, laughter still rang out.
The survivors were sharing victory.
On one side, there were roars. On the other, silent prayer.
That was the battlefield—
a place where victory and death scatter together on the same wind.
And at its center, Seongjin stood for a long time.
The sky was already burning red.
The sunset spread across the field like flame.
That red light fell—
without distinction—
on the graves of the deadand on the faces of the living.