222.
〈The Stillness Above the Stench of Blood, the Morning After〉
At dawn the next day, before the mist had fully lifted, Song Yi-sul and the elders of the warrior band climbed up to Hwaju Sochuk.
Along the road lay shattered weapons and scorched marks, and the smell of things burned through the night still lingered in the wind.
"…What in the world is all this."
Song Yi-sul was the first to lose his words.
The roof had collapsed halfway, and the walls were blackened with soot.
From charred wooden pillars, thin wisps of smoke were still rising.
He stood there for a long while, then looked at the bodies strewn about the courtyard and along the walls.
Twelve.
Twenty.
Thirty.
His counting stopped.
One body lying face-down inside the wall caught his eye.
The frame was not large, but the hands were unusually hardened.
Between fingers clenched around a sword, dried blood had crusted.
Song Yi-sul did not count any further.
Numbers had already lost their meaning.
"…Did the company commander really stop all of this—alone?"
Someone muttered, unable to believe it.
Broken arrowheads, bent bolts, and half-thrown powder canisters were scattered across the ground.
Iron cables and ladders still hung from the roof.
More than half of the original traps had been triggered, and bodies lay at each point.
Some corpses were wedged between walls; others had died with their heads smashed by falling ceiling weights.
The scene was horrific—
yet not chaotic.
This was not the aftermath of a brawl, but a place where defense had been carried through to the end.
"This is a battlefield," Song Yi-sul said quietly.
The words were short, and nothing followed them.
The blood soaking the yard and the broken weapons answered in their stead.
"In the middle of the night… you did all this alone?"
At his words, Park Seong-jin, seated at the edge of the veranda, lifted his head.
Dark hollows lay beneath his eyes, and several shallow cuts ran across the backs of his hands.
His body clearly bore the passage of a sleepless night, yet the lines of his face remained composed.
"Yes," he answered briefly.
"What do you think, seeing it yourselves?"
"What do I think—this isn't a house."
"This wasn't an assassination. It was a full-scale frontal battle."
"It was a frontal battle," Park Seong-jin said evenly.
"Last night, they came in from four directions.
Bows and powder, blades and chains.
A simultaneous deployment."
"And you stopped that alone?"
"There were traps."
"And… two uncles helped me."
He said this and slowly rose.
He was not holding his sword, yet the blood beneath his feet reflected the dawn light in a dark crimson sheen.
Song Yi-sul could say nothing.
One of the elders picked up an arrowhead from the ground.
The metallic sheen was still sharp.
"A Liaodong make."
"A steel head used for heavy crossbows."
Another elder nodded, lifting a bolt and checking its angle.
"A repeating crossbow."
"At close range, it's difficult to counter."
The words were brief, and no further explanation was needed.
For those gathered here, it was enough.
Song Yi-sul gave a short, dry laugh, as if finishing the thought for them.
"They came a long way—just to die by their own feet."
He stepped up onto the veranda and gave Park Seong-jin's shoulder a light tap.
"Impressive, Commander Park. Surviving at all is a miracle."
Park Seong-jin bowed his head.
"To survive, that was the only way."
"Yeah. Now I understand, at least a little."
"Understand what?"
"That survival is half of all study," Song Yi-sul said.
"Living on lasts longer than cutting people down."
A brief silence followed.
Song Yi-sul glanced around, then let out a crooked smile.
"But listen—because you stopped them this noisily, the warrior band's going to get restless again."
"You're going to talk about traps again, aren't you."
"Of course. This time it's no joke. This goes beyond simple defense—this is an institution built for assassins."
The veteran warriors around them snickered.
"We should add another trap to the roof."
"Let's rework the waterways too."
"Powder's the real problem. If they just blow things apart, what then? Our countermeasures against explosives are still thin."
While they talked, Park Seong-jin turned his head and looked toward the distant mountain ridge.
The night before, the moonlight there had wavered strangely.
The sense that someone's gaze still lingered had not yet settled.
"This isn't over yet."
The wind passed, mixing the smell of blood with the scent of the mountains.
Then Song Yi-sul asked casually,
"So—what will you do now?"
Park Seong-jin answered without hesitation.
"I'll follow the path they came by."
His gaze sank low and steady.
"Now, it's my turn."