Chapter 38
A month had passed since Dongbaek had taken her post. Today again, the gang surrounded someone who looked like an easy target and demanded money.
The victim for the day was no stranger to having his money extorted. As one of the gang’s frequent marks, he often ended up handing over more than half his salary.
But today, he absolutely couldn’t give up the money in his pocket. It was the last yang he had, meant for his mother’s medicine. While he could survive on military rations, his mother was starving at home. His father had “sold” himself years ago when famine struck their family. As a sword practice partner for a noble family’s son—though “practice partner” really meant “human scarecrow.”
The money from his father’s life allowed the remaining family to survive that year. But after that year passed, the situation worsened. Though they had survived the immediate crisis, there was no proper way to earn money. So as the eldest son, he had no choice but to join the military. Emaciated from hunger, no amount of training could build up his physique.
Thus, he became an easy target for the gang’s bullying. Pleading desperately, he bowed his head before his fellow soldiers of the same rank.
“P-please, not today. Please understand my situation.”
“You little bastard, did you eat breakfast through your nose? What nonsense are you spouting?”
“Aagh!”
But all he got in return was a heavy fist and curses. Taking a direct hit to the face from the large fist, the man screamed and collapsed to the ground. For daring to raise his voice, the gang started kicking him as he lay on the ground. Thud, thud. Dull sounds echoed in the corner of the training ground.
“Isn’t that too much?”
“Indeed, it seems worse than usual.”
But they only whispered amongst themselves, no one stepping forward. There was usually someone who would sternly scold these thugs, but unfortunately, they were on leave today for their sister’s wedding.
The beating continued.
That’s when something black swooped down on them. Flustered by the sudden situation, they looked around and realized a crow had flown at them.
As far as they knew, there was only one crow that would threaten people by flying so close.
“This damn bird—!”
The gang leader swung his fist in annoyance, but the crow nimbly avoided him. After circling above their heads a few times, the crow gracefully flew to the top of the fortress wall.
Following the crow with their eyes, they discovered their young superior watching them intently from atop the wall.
The rising sun behind So Dongbaek blurred the boundary between her and the sky. The Commander, emanating a somehow unapproachable aura, silently descended the stairs along the wall. Though her steps were slow, people stood frozen, watching her come down in a daze. An inexplicable atmosphere enthralled them, and an unknown pressure weighed them down.
Dongbaek stood before them. Though tall for her age, the gang members were taller. Looking down at Dongbaek’s neat parting, they finally realized their superior was just a child.
The fact that they had been intimidated by this child wounded their pride. The leader, as if trying to shake off his unconscious fear, raised his nose even higher than usual.
“What brings our Commander to a place like this? Instead of coming to this dangerous training ground, why don’t you go review your paperwork?”
Though formally polite, the content was extremely rude and arrogant. Despite his words being full of contempt for a superior, Dongbaek remained expressionless and indifferent.
The gang members snickered, thinking Dongbaek was scared of them. The timid, cowardly 12-year-old who had been quiet as a mouse for a month—that was how they had long since labeled So Dongbaek.
But something strange was happening.
Shing. The sound of Dongbaek drawing her sword from its scabbard eerily rang in their ears. It was the definite sound of real “steel.” Unlike their assumptions that he carried only a decorative sword and mockery about whether her arms could even lift a sword, Dongbaek drew the blade too easily with one hand.
And then, she struck.
As soon as the sword left its sheath, it carved a flawless trajectory toward the leader in front of Dongbaek. That which cut forward in a beautiful and unwavering straight line returned to its scabbard as quickly as it had been drawn. It was an excellent swordsmanship.
Those who couldn’t grasp what Dongbaek had done could only look at each other in confusion. And a beat later, the leader’s body crumbled.
Blood gushed out from where Dongbaek’s blade had grazed, soaking the ground and seeping into the boots of the others.
By the time they realized he was dead, it was too late. The first to notice was the man closest to him, who had been rendered speechless by Dongbaek’s sudden draw. Only when he felt the damp warmth of blood pooling at his feet did he let out a horrified scream.
“AAAAHHH!”
The man stumbled backward in an undignified manner before falling hard onto his rear. Even after falling, he tried to scoot away on his backside from the corpse of someone he had been talking to just moments ago.
Dongbaek turned her gaze to the entire group. Her gray eyes were chillingly cold, devoid of any warmth. They all flinched at the dry coldness. Like frogs before a snake, they stood frozen, and through their midst rang out a clear, crisp voice.
“Discord among comrades leads to chaos within the army. Therefore, I have acted according to military law.”
Everyone was shocked by Dongbaek’s calm words. To casually kill someone and then claim it was ‘according to military law.’ It was too much. They knew that killing people wasn’t considered a great crime to noble lords, but they hadn’t expected him to so boldly cite military law.
Except for the one crawling on the ground, the other gang members began raising their voices one by one to protest the injustice.
“Th-this is too extreme!”
“…There was no need to kill! It was just a difference of opinion…”
“Add bribery among comrades to the charges of discord. And if you still think it’s unjustified, I can also include your month-long displays of insolence and misconduct toward your superior officers.”
Dongbaek recited the dead man’s crimes without batting an eye. The list of charges grew without hesitation. Everyone could only gape in amazement at this precise grasp of the situation, so unlike someone who had stayed holed up in his room observing passively.
Had someone planted a spy to monitor internal affairs? Or could that crow really…?
“Well, does this seem like justified action now?”
Dongbaek smiled gently at those who had lost their words. It was the first smile she had shown since taking office as the City Gate Commander and befitting her renowned beauty that had even enchanted the Emperor. It held an inexplicable charm.
But the gang members shuddered at that smile. The superior they had looked down on as merely a naive boy was a predator, a beast with hidden claws. Only then did they realize they were merely prey before a predator.
“It’s been the promised month. Now, I should start weeding out the bad seeds.”
Dongbaek’s gaze swept over the group, resting on each face as if branding them with her judgment. Dongbaek had just been waiting all this time. Rather than trying to nurture them with half-hearted reproaches, it was more efficient to remove the wrong sprouts from the beginning.
She had waited for the pus to swell. Now he only needed to remove that part. Dongbaek smiled with satisfaction.
-ˋˏ ༻❁✿❀༺ ˎˊ-
The crow named “Jao,” the young Commander’s beloved companion, had become both a harbinger of turmoil and a source of dread for the thousand soldiers under Dongbaek’s command.
It was just as Dongbaek had said—it was like her own eyes. It seemed to observe them like a person and report to her.
They knew full well that crows couldn’t actually talk. But they thought perhaps Dongbaek could understand the crow’s speech. The recent Dongbaek, after her month-long grace period ended, was strange and eerie enough that such thoughts no longer felt out of place.
The military gained some discipline after Dongbaek’s cruel, dictatorial nature was revealed. Even superiors who had disapproved of Dongbaek became cautious and tried to stay out of her way. It seemed she also knew about the bribes they had taken from the captains. Afraid of when those bribes might strangle their necks, they quickly returned the money to the captains. They weren’t particularly bold people to begin with.
Dongbaek wore a satisfied smile as everything went according to her wishes.
‘Now, this is how military life should be.’
Dongbaek turned away with light steps after looking down at the troops training in precise formations.
Though she had cut down and killed someone, she felt nothing particular about it. It wasn’t her first time, and even that first time hadn’t been much. Rather, the fact that her heart was so peaceful was more shocking.
The first person Dongbaek killed deserved to die, but the second one—while questioning if they really needed to die, perhaps not. Yet Dongbaek had killed him too easily. Just to establish military discipline.
Couldn’t there have been another way besides killing him? If she had thought more deeply, there surely would have been a strategy. But she hadn’t thought deeply about it. Why? Because killing him and controlling the army through fear was the simplest method, and she saw no reason to take a roundabout approach. In fact, her method had been effective…
Unlike in her previous world, something had changed. With each passing day in this world, she felt like she was increasingly deviating from the standards of civilized people. Was this some kind of adaptability? She wondered if survival instinct had completely stripped away her sense of guilt about killing humans in order to survive.
‘In an era where hesitation to kill might mean death.’
Perhaps all of this was just a psychopath’s self-justification. Dongbaek chuckled bitterly at such thought.
-ˋˏ ༻❁✿❀༺ ˎˊ-
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