Chapter 67 - Divine Metal

Lee Jasong had not been studying the register long when one entry caught his eye.

"Thirty-one expeditions in one year? Is this correct?"

His adjutant hesitated, then suddenly spread his fingers and began fiddling with them. He looked as clumsy as a child counting jacks on his fingers and toes.

"What are you doing? I asked whether this was correct."

"M-my apologies, sir! I don't know the exact number either!"

The sheer volume of his answer left Lee Jasong speechless. Then again, how could a man who could barely add a few numbers in succession know something like this without looking? Lee Jasong clicked his tongue.

Then the adjutant spoke up loudly again.

"I don't know whether it was thirty-one, sir, but I understand that Ear Ghost hasn't missed a single ear hunt all year!"

Tsk, tsk, tsk. He could have simply said that in the first place...

In any case, this Kang Dalhui fellow appeared to be far more impressive than Lee Jasong had expected. He knew very well what an achievement it was not to miss a single expedition for a year. Exceptional martial arts alone did not keep a man alive on the battlefield.

Mercenaries always fought at the very front. Among the barbarians, especially those of the north, there were sometimes martial experts. In the hands of such men, dozens of regular soldiers could be cut down with ease. Mercenaries fared little better. If he had fought without rest for a year, he must have encountered several such foes. Did that not mean he had survived every one of those dangers? Besides, unpredictable hazards always lurked on a battlefield. He had avoided all of those as well.

'Surviving a year as a mercenary in the north.'

Lee Jasong leaned back, raised his head, and smacked his lips. It was a habit of his whenever something piqued his interest.

"The number of ears collected..."

"... I-I don't know, sir!"

"Tsk, tsk. I wasn't speaking to you, Adjutant Dang. How would you know when I'm the one holding this?"

The adjutant had answered without even realizing whether he was being asked a question, but Lee Jasong merely gave him a mild reprimand. His eyes never left the register.

"Hmm. Excluding those he used to trade directly, he turned over a total of two thousand eight hundred and sixteen ears to the ear brokers. Remarkable. You said he's called Ear Ghost here?"

"Yes, General."

"He certainly deserves the name. To have cut down so many enemies in a mere year."

Two thousand eight hundred and sixteen. That figure would include ears taken from women, children, and old people in occupied territory. Perhaps even those of other mercenaries killed in battle. Even so, the number Ear Ghost had gathered in a year was staggering.

Lee Jasong also found it rather peculiar.

Each ear fetched two silver coins. Five ears, then, were worth one tael of silver. Two thousand eight hundred and sixteen ears came to five hundred and sixty-three taels, with one silver coin left over. That was a fortune of more than eleven ingots of silver (one ingot ≈ 2 kg). An ordinary family could live in comfort for generations on that sum. Why, then, was Kang Dalhui still working as a mercenary when his record already qualified him as top-tier?

Was it the money? Since he cut off a hundred or so ears on each expedition, he would earn more than most high-grade vagabonds did on escort assignments. Still, Lee Jasong was not satisfied with that simple explanation.

He gently stroked his sword hilt, then set his deliberations aside.

"Bring him here."

"Kang Dalhui, the fellow called Ear Ghost. Bring him before me. I need to see for myself whether he's fit to be mercenary captain."

Only then did the adjutant understand. He struck his left breast with his right fist as he answered.

THUMP!

The blow was impressively loud. The adjutant looked as loyal as he was ignorant.

"Loyalty!"

He left the commander's office.

Left alone, Lee Jasong leaned back and continued smacking his lips, lost in thought.

At that moment, Dong Bongsu had left his wooden house and was walking through Datong's bustling streets.

"Sweetheart, come have some fun. We've got some lovely girls today."

"Young master with your eyes covered! Come play for a little while! Let me peek at those eyes, just me. I'll lick your eyeballs nice and sweet!"

"Ahaha!"

"Handsome lad! Stop in for a drink. We've just received the finest wine from Nanjing!"

One could certainly say the city lived up to its reputation as the City of Debauchery.

An afternoon in central Datong was distinctly different from one in any other city. Courtesans from the pleasure houses and brothels openly solicited customers in broad daylight, while the taverns were already packed with thoroughly drunken vagabonds.

The courtesans and tavern touts vied to entice Dong Bongsu. Perhaps because most were aging courtesans far older than he was, he seemed uninterested and simply walked on past. Cries of "eunuch bastard" and "castrated attendant" followed him, but he paid them no mind and continued on his way.

Beyond the taverns lay a shopping district crowded with cloth shops, weapons dealers, and leather workshops. As befitted a city of vagabonds, almost everything on sale was weaponry or armor. Even the cloth shops were cloth shops in name only, their wares consisting mostly of auxiliary equipment not made of iron or leather: armor paper, cotton armor, war hats, and the like.

Without so much as glancing elsewhere, Dong Bongsu entered a weapons shop beneath a weathered sign reading Eight Directions Armory. The interior was as shabby as the sign, but the weapons inside looked excellent, their edges honed keen. Swords, spears, and other weapons hung along one wall, while iron and bronze armor sat on display stands along the other. Directly opposite the entrance was another doorway just like it. The loud hammering within suggested that it led to the owner's workshop.

CLANG! CLANG!

The hammering of metal was deafening.

Dong Bongsu entered the forge without hesitation.

The smith, who appeared to be the owner, continued hammering, unaware that he had a customer. Dong Bongsu quietly took a place behind him without interrupting.

The smith must have been working hard for a long time. His whole body was flushed crimson, and sweat poured off him like rain.

His hair was so long and shaggy that it was impossible to tell when he had last cut it, and his beard had grown into a filthy tangle. It was not merely dirty; left untrimmed, it had become downright unsightly. Though difficult to see beneath his flushed skin, his body was mottled with grime, as if he had not washed in a very long time. Naturally, the stench coming off him was appalling.

Dong Bongsu paid it no mind, however, and continued quietly watching him hammer.

What on earth was he making that he would hammer so zealously as to end up in such a state?

In fact, at first glance, his work appeared to be finished already. Before him stood an iron statue almost as tall as Dong Bongsu—no, exactly as tall. It was so exquisitely crafted that anyone encountering it on a road at night would have mistaken it for a person.

Why, then, was the smith still holding a chisel against the finished statue and bringing his hammer down on it?

Perhaps the statue was hollow inside, for a hollow metallic ringing echoed incessantly through the workshop. Veins bulged on the smith's red arms. The force of his hammer passed through the chisel into the statue. Yet not a single mark appeared on its surface.

Two hours passed after Dong Bongsu's arrival.

Despite thousands of hammer blows, the statue remained unchanged.

After four hours.

Two chisels had broken in the meantime, but the statue was still the same.

Six hours had passed since Dong Bongsu arrived.

The smith's hammer still rang out in a steady rhythm, but the statue looked just as it had that afternoon. Only the day had faded.

Dong Bongsu, too, remained exactly as he had been upon arriving that afternoon. The sunset had merely made his shadow fainter.

"I'll come again another time."

As the moon rose softly and gradually extended its dominion, Dong Bongsu spoke for the first time since arriving.

The smith's only answer was the continued ringing of his hammer.

Dong Bongsu turned and left Eight Directions Armory. His measured footsteps mingled with hammer blows as regular as his own stride.

The smith's hands never stopped.

The next time he came, that beard and hair would probably be much longer and filthier. Perhaps...

The iron statue might be shorter, too...

Dong Bongsu slowly retraced his steps. Only then did the Spirit Eye's warning, which had been clamoring in his head, fall silent. He was exactly twenty meters from Eight Directions Armory. No, more precisely, that was the exact distance between him and the smith.

21, 22, 23, ...

The distance between Dong Bongsu and Eight Directions Armory steadily increased, and just as the Spirit Eye had fallen silent, he too vanished from the street.

As in any shopping district, the stores here closed one by one as night fell. Yet the light in Eight Directions Armory showed no sign of going out.

Was it because the surroundings had grown quiet and dark? The candlelight inside the armory seemed brighter, and the hammering far louder than before.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

The smith's hands still moved powerfully. It seemed his arms would never stop unless his chisel or hammer broke, or the candle went out. Failing that, perhaps only utter exhaustion or a broken arm would bring him to a halt.

More time passed like that.

A gust of biting night wind slipped into Eight Directions Armory and set the candle flame trembling. Perhaps the cold wind had grown lonely traveling alone, for it arrived in the company of a middle-aged visitor with an icy expression.

"It has been a long time, sir."

Wrapped tightly in gray robes, the middle-aged man's voice was as bleak as his face.

Although the gray-robed man's voice was low, it was not too quiet to hear. Even so, the smith's arms continued moving without pause, just as before.

"The Alliance Leader wishes to see you."