650.Abandon this fortress. Disband your warriors. And leave.
Ōmura's coastal fortress was low and rough.
It sat atop a knoll hacked out of rock, encircled by crude wooden palisades.
Below, the harbor lay fully exposed.
Above, forest pressed in around the walls.
Park Seong-jin did not look for the gate.
He stamped once—and in the next instant, he was standing on the stone steps inside the fortress.
Startled by the sudden presence, armed men rushed in.
A dozen or so.
Their swords came free too slowly.
Park Seong-jin's hand arrived first.
The first man's wrist folded, the sound choking in his throat.
The second's shoulder collapsed, and he was driven face-first into the ground.
The third and fourth froze mid-draw, then were hurled against the wall like sacks of grain.
Little blood was spilled.
Park Seong-jin's movements were not fast so much as short.
A grain stripped of all excess motion.
Those who remained froze in place.
The will to fight sank away.
So did the courage to flee.
One man collapsed where he stood.
Another wet himself.
Park Seong-jin passed through them and walked inward.
Only when he reached a shabby building that could barely be called a main hall did the man who might be called the lord appear.
He wore silk robes, though they were grimy.
Two daggers were tucked into his belt.
His eyes were sly, his bearing closer to a bandit chief than a ruler.
"…Who are you?"
Park Seong-jin looked down at him and asked,
"How long have you been preying on the sea?"
The lord stammered, then nodded quickly.
"I—I've stopped. I've been keeping quiet lately."
The grain of his words was thin.
Park Seong-jin shifted his gaze to one of the retainers standing behind him.
The man's face was gaunt and shriveled, his eyes still carrying the look of someone forcing himself to endure.
"When did you return?"
The man glanced at his master, then at Park Seong-jin, then lowered his head.
"A month ago."
The lord's face stiffened.
"Where did you go?"
The retainer counted on his fingers as he spoke.
"To the west, Jinhaepo. To the south, small harbors near Gokseong. To the east…"
"…the coast of Goryeo. I don't know the exact name. I never learned the place-names."
Park Seong-jin's eyes narrowed.
The lord hurriedly cut in.
"We only went at night. We slipped in, landed briefly, took grain and supplies, and left right away. No blood was shed."
Excuses piled up.
His voice rose with each sentence.
The desperation tightened around his own throat.
Park Seong-jin had struck Karatsu and Hirado.
Few had imagined his blade would reach even a place this small.
He spoke quietly.
"Does not killing people make the crime lighter?"
The air in the hall sank.
"You steal by plunder.
With that grain you raise soldiers.
With those soldiers you plunder again.
The cycle continues."
The lord shut his mouth.
His answer lost its way.
Park Seong-jin studied him for a long moment, then nodded.
It was a poor, wretched place.
"I understand."
Relief flickered across the lord's face.
Park Seong-jin turned his gaze toward the harbor outside the walls.
"Abandon this fortress. Disband your warriors. And leave.
If a human shadow ever falls here again, I will cut you all down that very day."
"We will do so."
Park Seong-jin turned toward the harbor.
Sea wind slipped through the palisades, setting the wet ropes humming once more.
As he combed through the areas around Ōmura, Park Seong-jin kept encountering similar faces.
Sword scabbards worn smooth.
Armor half dismantled.
People who could not bring themselves to discard their weapons.
Just when he thought one might be the same man, another group appeared.
There were no real villages, no real troops—only awkward clusters of people who looked fit to beg.
It was strange.
There were too many of them, and they looked too alike.
He went down to a village and asked a farmer who was hoeing a field.
The man glanced at Park Seong-jin once, then lowered his voice.
"They're… rōnin."
It was a word Park Seong-jin had never heard.
When he asked its meaning, the farmer explained slowly, choosing his words.
Warriors who had left their lords.
Whose masters had died.
Who had lost their stipends after defeat in war.
In Goryeo terms, the closest word would be nangin—wanderers.
A warrior class cut loose from its lord, effectively unemployed.
They had not thrown away their swords, and they still possessed skills that could be hired again.
Masterless low-ranking warriors—that would be about right.
The farmer cautiously pointed toward the mountains.
Above the trees, collapsed stonework and ruins shimmered into view.
"They gather up there."
"So they're men who once handled weapons and armor."
"Yes."
"There have been many wars."
"If you lose, you become rōnin."
"If your lord dies, or if you're dismissed after defeat, it's the same."
Park Seong-jin nodded.
The desperate way those men had hurled themselves at him in Karatsu and Hirado came back to him.
Fear of unemployment must have mixed into the grain of that ferocity.
"Has there been much fighting here as well?"
The farmer smiled bitterly.
"Too much."
"And even now, somewhere, there's a war going on."
After a moment's pause, the farmer added with a sigh,
"The problem is… they have force."
"So the flow turns toward crime."
"It's everyday life."
"They join rebellions, and if they throw in with peasant uprisings, it gets worse."
"They're men who understand warfare."
Park Seong-jin's gaze drifted back to the mountains.
"So they become pirates as well."
"Yes."
Silence fell for a moment.
Park Seong-jin murmured without thinking,
"If they can't be warriors… what do they live on?"
Instead of answering, the farmer raised his hands.
Thin, wasted hands.
Palms split with cracks of earth.
His frame was small, his eyes deeply sunken.
A face dried out by life itself.
"This is what living looks like."
"This is the treatment."
"Do you think anyone wants this?"
Park Seong-jin could not answer.
"The families suffer more."
"With no income, living like that—what do you think happens to wives and children?"
Park Seong-jin exhaled softly.
"…I see."
"It seems that, past or present, having nowhere to beg is the same everywhere."
The farmer looked Park Seong-jin over once more and asked,
"You look like a rōnin yourself."
Park Seong-jin smiled faintly and nodded.
He had long stopped caring about his appearance.
It wasn't necessary—but at some point, clothes and outward form had lost their meaning.
Listening to the sounds resonating inside, sinking into that constant ringing, he had lost the leisure to tend the exterior.
Edges had softened.
His step had grown light.
He had not undergone some dramatic transformation, but his skin was clear, his features balanced.
Washing his face once or twice a day was all.
The farmer gave a wry smile.
"If you're going to beg, at least dress well."
"You'll be misunderstood."
"I see."
"You look like a foreigner. In a place like this, even more so."
"You'll be looked down on constantly."
Park Seong-jin took the words to heart.
To be looked down on meant this:
that he was being seen as the same kind as the countless rōnin filling this land.
"Thank you for your words."
It suddenly occurred to him that the place he had dealt with earlier might not have been Matsura men at all—but rōnin.
Here, hiring samurai with money was a common practice.
Fighting to the death was less about loyalty than about clinging to an unbroken livelihood.
If one had to name the reason for their loyalty, perhaps that was it.