Etranger - Chapter 122

The fresh breeze of an early summer evening swirled around an evergreen tree. The trees seemed to sing as the wind rustled through their leaves.

In a small garden courtyard covered in the twilight’s darkness, a small group of people sat around two small bonfires. Two guitars were belting out their music cheerfully. The bards were singing songs that they’d written following a new musical format. Soon, the others joined in.

A beautiful harmony of men’s and women’s voices spread out. Many of the inn’s guests were sticking their heads out of their room’s windows to get a better look…

There were people sticking their heads above the brick-walled fence on the 1st floor, standing on the terraces on the inn’s 2nd floor, people standing on their tippytoes, others placing their faces forward, lovers gently holding hands… in this way, people started gathering.

In the spacious courtyard with light hearts…

“Huh- This is awkward.”

The mayor’s administrative butler shook his head.

The butler had come to invite the esteemed guests to a dinner at the Kurant market. It seemed that the butler would soon become the only heartbroken person in the courtyard…

(e09_03)

Episode 3. Book 2: Search – Chapter 7

The caravan stayed in Kurant for five more days. It had taken the Essen convoy 30 days to get to Kurant, the first midsize city on their path to the capital.

In the relatively bustling city, the caravan had many items to maintain and repair, such as broken wheels and axels. Furthermore, the main group had to establish a new atmosphere with the various new parties that had joined their caravan.

Also, since there were many more people in their group, they had to replenish their supplies and plan ahead with extra supplies.

Above all, San and Biyeon needed time. Although the others took this as a casual journey, San and Biyeon couldn’t let down their guard. Before they embarked on this new adventure, the two felt a need to reexamine their goals and reorganize their strategies.

From the two’s point of view, the other people’s thoughts or plans were insignificant. If they wanted to follow, they could follow, and if they wanted to leave, they could leave. San and Biyeon never forgot their priorities.

They would always be alert and never in a hurry. Step by step, they moved forward with their own will. On the other hand, Rain was constantly in a state of tension. She felt that the degree of tension she was feeling was the most serious and uncomfortable she’d felt since the time she directly assisted the emperor.

“I think it’s time we prepare the work we need to do together…”

It was the first words San said to Rain after breakfast on the first day of their stay.

“What kind of preparation?” Rain asked calmly. What preparation could they do here?

“I think we’ll need to study the situation first,” Biyeon said.

“Study?”

“You have to tell us about the situation you’re in and what we need to know beforehand so we can solve the crucial problem, right?”

Rain stared at Biyeon. She then slightly turned her head.

“Do you two know of the gravity and scope of what you’re asking of me right now?”

“To some extent,” Biyeon answered flatly.

Wrinkles appeared around Rain’s mouth for a moment before they disappeared.

“Any information regarding the imperial family is taken very seriously. So, I cannot just inform you and openly discuss all imperial matters. I don’t know everything either. The things I know have not been confirmed yet. They’re just guesses. The help I seek is checking out and verifying my hunches and letting me know whether they’re true or not. Going beyond that is dangerous, for both of you and me. However…”

While speaking, Rain glanced at Biyeon’s expression. Biyeon was looking elsewhere.

She then glanced at the San. He was nodding his head. San and Biyeon then looked at each other and smiled.

“See. It’s not a big deal. What made you think it was such a big deal?” San said to Biyeon.

“It will be a fruitful trip to play and eat. That old fogey, Hanyoung, sure kicked up a fuss about nothing. He seemed so gentlemanly and wise…”

“What…?” Rain stuttered.

“Oh! I disturbed your long-coming break. Please continue to take a comfortable break!” San said to rain with a bright voice before turning around. Biyeon waved her hand and then left Rain’s room without looking back.

Rain stared blankly at where the two had just stood a moment ago before disappearing.

It was customary for her to present the weightiness of an issue before getting into the heart of a subject. However, before she even introduced the main issue, they had gracefully squashed her face and left. She had been left out to dry before even having the chance to voice her concerns.

This was the first instance where the genius Rain was roundly embarrassed. She quickly learned her lesson.

‘These two will treat me with as much respect as I treat them. If I explain things in a roundabout manner, they’ll surmise that I don’t want them to know about something and quickly exit discussions.’

Later that afternoon, Rain found where they were and quickly asked, “What do you want to know?”

“Let’s fill in the blanks first.”

The two replied while busily moving around. Rain again couldn’t help but open her eyes wide in surprise. Their workspace was filled with things she’d never seen before.

Large maps, workbenches, drawings, weird tools, and instruments… in the center was a model of an area that was built with wood, sand, dirt, and clay.

There were also stacks of papers and calculation tools piled up in one corner…

“What are these things?”

“Are you seeing these things for the first time? These are tools that help one make effective judgments. The blackboard here is called the ‘Situation Board’, and the three-dimensional model in the center is called the ‘Tactical Board’. The tactical board is used to understand the actual features of the land and the distances between strategic points. It’s pretty useful.”

“Did you both know that I would be coming by this afternoon?”

Instead of answering immediately, Biyeon tilted her head and stared at Rain.

“Why do you ask? And what answer do you want to hear? What value can my answer give you?”

“…”

Rain felt a sense of breathlessness. ‘Yes… of course, they knew.’

She asked herself why she asked such a stupid, obvious question. Would anything change if she got an answer from them? Would she have expressed being a little offended? Rain’s face turned beet red again.

Through this train of thought, Rain realized something. Her brutal, condescending expressions were ever-present in her speech, something she had developed and naturally used to survive in the royal courts. She felt that San and Biyeon saw through her petty, confrontational manner of speaking and were not willing to put up with it.

‘Come to think of it, their speech is really concise and straight to the point.’

Furthermore, their preparation was thorough, and their actions were decisive.

Rain felt that she’d gone through another setback, her second for the day. She was dealing with experts. They were true ‘professionals’ who seemed above the pettiness of her world.

“Let’s sit down first,” San said as he brought over some chairs.

“…”

Rain sat down. Just like that, three days rushed by like a storm.

***

Rain was taking a break. She glanced at the mirror they had given her as a gift. She couldn’t say much about their other tools, but she really liked this mirror.

It was not a mirror made of copper plates, which was traditionally used by the nobles of this era. She wondered how it was made. Unlike her own artisan mirrors, it was clear and clean without any yellowish tint.

A familiar-looking woman looked back at her. There were black circles around the woman’s eyes.

‘The past three days went by without a moment to think.’

Rain suddenly trembled as she recollected the past few days. However, she felt full. She balled her hand and cracked her fingers. The cracking sound rang out pleasantly.

“I can trust them.”

As she worked together with them, she could see how they worked. Contrary to her predictions, they weren’t warriors who moved with only their intuition and battle sense. In fact, she learned that it was completely the opposite. They thoroughly planned their movements and made contingency plans on every critical decision point. Their plans seemed so logical and appropriate that she couldn’t help but think that their plans just needed to be executed to become reality.

They defined the problem first. Almost half of the time they spent was on figuring out what the problem was. No information was ignored, and no passing thoughts or guesses were overlooked. Putting it all together, they made a hypothesis, created various procedures and courses of action, and persisted in checking for errors and other variables. They exhaustively discussed all the possibilities for each expected course of action. For Rain, the process initially seemed overly precise and tedious, and it was boring answering questions over and over regarding the possible cause and effect of certain actions. However, she soon discovered that many details and realizations that she’d overlooked came to the fore during this review process.

No hypotheses and possibilities were discounted. Even seemingly trivial matters were brought up and discussed thoroughly until they were convinced of their value. They discussed the history and power structure of the imperial family, internal politics, state economy, society, education, art, culture, decision-making system, judicial system, and even the lifestyles of those who worked in the royal kitchen…

“Is there any need in discussing the help staff’s lifestyle?” Rain had asked carefully. For her, it was incredibly annoying to discuss matters that seemed to be unrelated to the central issue. At one point, she even suspected that the two persistently asked about these seemingly unrelated matters to toy with her. However, she couldn’t rid herself of the thought that everything they asked seemed to have a larger purpose…

“Need? What needs are you talking about?” San asked with a solemn expression.

Rain thought for a moment before answering, “Isn’t it a waste of time to check on something that is insignificant and distant from the royal court? I was just wondering if there was a “need” to waste time on the help staff…”

“Insignificant…?”

San took a coin out of his pocket.

“What is this?”

“It’s a coin.”

“What is it used for?”

“We use it to make a deal, as a medium of exchange.”

San threw the coin up and down with his hands before throwing it onto a wooden wall. The coin gave off a low whistle before it embedded itself into the wall. The surroundings trembled. If San had thrown the coin at a person, that person would have died instantly.

“Did I just make a deal with the wooden wall?”

“…”

“I’ll ask you again. What do you think this is?”

San pulled out another coin and asked. Rain bit her lips firmly.

“I-I… don’t know.”

“Even if it’s called a coin, its use isn’t obvious.”

“…”

“Please take note. ‘Necessary’ is defined by the person who uses the term. No thing or person inherently possesses a predetermined purpose. We are not asking you questions to interpret things we already know and can easily learn with some studying in front of our desks. And, if what we do can save one more person and if it can increase my chances of surviving at least a little longer, I find it more than useful to ‘waste more time’.”

The man was determined. Rain could not refute his words. Instead, something seemed to be cracking in her head. Clear images that were stubbornly settled in her head as unchangeable ‘fact’ suddenly became blurred and broken. Indeed, there was no choice but for her to agree with the saying, ‘The necessity of something is made by the people using it.’

Depending on a person’s intentions, anything can take a different purpose, and any action can be interpreted differently. Of course, that natural and common acceptance of predetermined thoughts and interpretations would be used as the decisive gap to attack their enemies in the future. ‘Predictability’ presented them with opportunities…