Flame

It was two months after Gusan's death when the Celestial Emperor's envoy arrived. It was spring, when the seasons were beginning to change.

Pamagok witnessed a rare sight. Crowds gathering was nothing unusual; it often happened when a wagon transporting new prisoners arrived at the relay station. But never in the history of the state had people arrived dressed in finery instead of shabby rags.

Rare foods and raucous music. All kinds of tribute goods came along as well.

Most important of all, there was a letter bearing the Imperial Seal. It was an imperial edict personally bestowed upon me by the Celestial Emperor.

"Yoo Hyun, the sole younger brother of Jang Mu, the former Border Guard commander who died a heroic death in battle against the Yashin, and the Border Guard commander of Pamagok, the Third Fort on the frontier of the Cheonyu Empire."

"You preserved your army and nurtured your troops in a barren land without harming the people. At last, you alone struck down Kuchar, the Great Chief of the Siseum, and presented his severed head to the Celestial Emperor."

Through my series of actions, the Celestial Emperor was able to claim the achievement of subduing the barbarians as soon as he ascended the throne. The ministers and warlords, meanwhile, no longer had to push through a reckless expedition they had unanimously opposed.

"While the court was debating an expedition, you had already completed one. This is not the achievement of a single fort, but of the entire nation."

"Therefore, Yoo Hyun is appointed Grand Marshal of Military Forces and shall oversee the military affairs of the thirteen forts."

"When dealing with the barbarians beyond the Central Plains, allow him to make decisions according to his own judgment, as he has until now."

As a reward, I, who had once gripped a spear beneath a fort gate as a mere penal soldier, was somehow appointed the Great General of the Cheonyu Empire.

It was my fifteenth year since possessing this body.

To be honest, I didn't think I'd done anything quite so impressive. My subordinates deserved a tenth of the credit. Roughly eighty percent was solely thanks to my own skill.

I decided to give the remaining ten percent to my senior, Jang Mu, who had set all this in motion. Without his sacrifice, I wouldn't be where I was now. Probably.

"I, Yoo Hyun, humbly receive your command."

"Ohhh……!"

Refusing would have made me insane. I accepted it with a deep bow.

Thunderous applause rang in my ears. I waved during the small procession held after the enthronement ceremony, but entirely different thoughts were drifting through my mind.

'I thought I'd at least get a status window saying I'd reached another ending.'

Naturally. I had seen proof with my own eyes that another dimension truly existed.

It wasn't as though I had been completely unable to anticipate it, not after magical beasts had suddenly burst out of thin air—but I had never imagined that it would be directly connected to Earth.

The homeland I knew, at any rate, was not this place. I'd encountered orcs, goblins, and basilisks only in works of fiction. They didn't exist in reality.

Even so, what mattered was the possibility—or, put another way, hope. If they had crossed over from there to here, might it not be possible to go the other way as well?

Even if it was another world without my family or friends, if I, a modern person, returned to the modern era, I'd be happier than I could ever have been when I received the Great General's position, which I hadn't even wanted that badly.

There was just one problem……

'What would happen to this place if I went back?'

For a long time, Pamagok had been a land steeped in despair. Abnormally powerful magical beasts teemed between sheer cliffs, while barbarians would come down whenever they pleased and take the people as slaves.

Most of its residents were criminals forcibly relocated there, and even the soldiers with enough strength to wield a spear were dying practically every other day. Of all the walls stretched along the vast frontier, it was the most shunned.

I had changed that. I taught battle aura to prisoners who had been called penal soldiers and treated as arrow fodder, and turned them into a proper imperial army that could even wear golden uniforms at the enthronement ceremony.

Though threats still lurked in every direction, hope had finally begun to sprout. But if I, the person at its center, disappeared, they would eventually return to their former lives—lives worse than those of slaves.

"Enough. I shouldn't count my chickens before they're hatched."

I decided to look on the bright side. It wasn't as though I'd found anything more than a possibility; I had no idea how to make it happen anyway.

Was this another effect of Adaptation? Whenever my worries grew excessive enough to swallow me whole, my battle aura apparently judged them a threat, because the moment they crossed some threshold, I calmed down in an instant.

For now, fulfilling my duties as Great General came first. I was in the middle of shaking off those troubled thoughts and making my rounds as usual when it happened.

My latest responsibility came rushing toward me.

"Aaaah! Great General!!"

It was Bunhui, the Border Guard commander of the Eleventh Fort.

Now that I was Great General, managing the Border Guard commanders under me was an important duty. Naturally, I hadn't simply left Gusan's associates alone after his death.

Leaving as many as five commander positions vacant would create a major gap in maintaining public order, so I removed roughly half of them. I sifted through the additional crimes they had committed in their jurisdictions and exiled the worst offenders to minor posts.

Of those who remained, I beat two of them up under the pretext of teaching them battle aura, then had Yeon-ri monitor them through crows. But there was one last person. I imposed no particular punishment on her.

The reason was that, unlike Gusan's other associates, Bunhui hadn't come to warn us or trample our farmland. Her purpose in coming to Pamagok had been……

"The weeds have already grown quite a bit in the fields."

"I know."

"I want to burn them, heehee."

In operating penal units, the Empire's Border Guard made no distinction between crimes. Murderers and thieves alike were put in the same unit and made to fight magical beasts and barbarians.

Yet there was one exception: arsonists. Murder and theft occurred frequently within the units and were not a major problem even when repeated, but fire was a grave matter. The moment something caught fire—property, provisions, or the land's vegetation—the damage spread like mad.

That was why the Eleventh Fort was a special place to which only those convicted of arson or accidentally starting fires were transferred. All around it was a desolate desert where fierce sandstorms stung the eyes. The walls and military camp, too, were built solely of stone and earth. It was a measure meant to eliminate the danger of fire at its source.

"When I came during the last harvest season, it was only a small field, but it was so beautiful. The crops were ripening in plump little clusters at the end of every stalk……"

"You wanted to set it on fire?"

"Mmm, yes! But Lord Gusan and his friends stopped me, saying that if the wind blew the wrong way, they'd be putting themselves in danger too……"

Bunhui was thoroughly obsessed with fire, just as one would expect from the leader of those arsonists. You could tell simply by the way she stood proudly before me and chattered about how disappointed she was that she hadn't been able to set the farmland ablaze.

I had received reports that Gusan had been beheaded and Nochil was still trembling inside his tent even today. There was a reason I let Bunhui behave similarly without much restraint and allowed her to come visit Pamagok—not because she was a beautiful arsonist, but because I needed at least one Border Guard commander who was favorably disposed toward me.

Even as Great General, I needed the support of my subordinates. I had temporarily installed Park Gyu as commander of the Fourth Fort, but most of the others still couldn't be called my supporters, so I needed to increase the number of allies.

Bunhui hadn't visited Pamagok then, nor did she now, with any particular intention of bringing about my downfall. She had simply come to play because there looked to be more things to burn here than where she was stationed.

More importantly, there was one other thing: she knew how to use battle aura.

"My people need to work in the fields, so…… I'll give you this instead."

"Oh my, it's a flower?"

"I still had some left in my office from the enthronement ceremony. It's a little wilted, but do whatever you like with it."

"Eek! Thank you! You're the best, Great General!"

Fwoosh! Flames rose from her fingertips. Feeding on the petals, the fire grew larger, soon blazing into a great inferno bright enough to illuminate the surrounding area.

The amount of battle aura released in response to her emotions was considerable. I had never taught her. It was simply a power she had awakened while serving as a Border Guard commander. With nothing to burn, she must have wanted to set even the sand alight.

'She'd be a valuable asset if only she could control it……'

It wasn't difficult. No, the problem was that it was actually rather easy.

Was she genuinely innocent, or just a little dim? Because she had no malice herself, she trusted other people far too easily.

"Commander Bunhui, we were looking for you. As it happens, a sack of oil burst in our pack, and we have some unusable cotton cloth."

"Really? Is that true!?"

"I'll give you the entire bolt if you'll do me one small favor in return."

"Of course! Anything!"

"Then, just over here for a moment…… Gasp, L-Lord Yoo Hyun!"

"What favor is it? Tell me. I'll do it myself."

"N-no favor at all! My apologies!"

A peddler who had come to trade tried to lure Bunhui, but the moment he met my eyes, he jumped in fright and fled. I had sternly warned my unit members not to ask her for anything, but policing outsiders was beyond me.

To be honest, I wanted to leave Bunhui in Yeon-ri's care, since Yeon-ri was as sharp as a blade when it came to dealing with men.

— If Lord Yoo Hyun commands it, I will obey, but I am not inclined to. I dislike her.

— Dislike her? Why? Give me a specific reason.

— I dislike her because she laughs too freely. I dislike her because her expressions are lascivious. I dislike her because she screeches like a little girl. I dislike her because she dresses immodestly. I dislike her because she moves so flightily. I dislike her because too many parts of her body are overly ample. I dislike her because she stands too close to other people. In conclusion, although she does not seem aware of it herself, I dislike her because she appears to go around acting coy with men.

— ……

She possessed all the traits Yeon-ri disliked. If I had forced the matter on her, she probably would have died of pent-up rage.

— If you wish to make it so that only Lord Yoo Hyun can control Commander Bunhui, I believe it would be best for you to teach her proper conduct yourself.

So in the end, I became responsible for her.

I decided to think of it as keeping a single retriever. She was energetic and would probably leap into a blazing pit instead of a puddle, but she was similar in that she listened well.

I guided Bunhui, who kept wavering whenever she spotted the temptations scattered all around her. On the surface, she had come to Pamagok on official business, so as long as she was with me, she couldn't be free from her duties either.

"I'm going out on patrol, so you come along too, Bunhui. Don't let yourself get distracted."

"Where are we going?"

"You know the Petrifying Serpent that went on a rampage at the Fourth Fort not long ago?"

"Yes! I heard it was the one that kept us from burning the reed fields! Are we going there?"

"No."

I'd shaken off my lingering desire to return home. But that was a separate matter.

"We're going to where we first found that thing."

For now, we had to investigate.