“Behave well. Don’t go too deep,” Hendrick said as he watched Belter head for the mountain with his brothers.
Hendrick rushed to the hut. It felt so good to be able to run with so much vigor and energy. Although he didn’t think they could have left anything valuable in the hut, he went anyway. One could never be too careful.
On his arrival, he started searching through carefully. Inside the piles of grass, he found a smoked egg under Tian’s futon. The egg would not have proved too much of a problem, but he quickly hid it in his bag and left in a hurry.
Suddenly, he felt his hand being grabbed. Before he could react, he was pushed aside and ended up falling onto the ground. “Ouch!” he screamed.
He could see that they were two adults. They had a larger frame than most of the adults found in the village. However, they didn’t look like bandits. They had tough-looking leather clothes. Hendrick recalled having seen such clothing elsewhere and figured out that they must be the soldiers.
“Hmm. Isn’t this one too small? He looks so thin and weak.”
“He looks like a grain of rice. Should we take him?”
“I think we should.”
“Anyway, I was instructed not to leave any of them.”
“Alright. Let’s not leave without him. This should be our last house, anyhow, so let’s take him.”
“Kid, don’t rebel and just come with us. That is, if you want to live.”
“Y-Yeah… Okay,” Hendrick innocently and quickly arose, cooperating with the soldiers.
“It’s nice to be compliant,” he thought, “everyone would be comfortable in this way.”
Hendrick complied because they had said that his house would be the last of the search. He supposed that doing so would prevent them from finding their brothers who went up the mountain. Hendrick restrained himself from looking the mountain’s direction, lest they suspected something. Of course, he had considered running away, but dismissed the idea right away. Even with a metallic tool, he did not think that he could deal with an adult soldier.
The noise had subsided. All captives were being dragged to the center of the village. On one side, vigilantes had knelt; they seemed to have failed to rebel. But a corpse lay a little distance away. It seemed to confirm the result of the rebellion. It was the body of the vigilante leader, commander Fuval. A soldier had confronted him and slayed him.
“There is no village head?”
“No, there is none.”
“How is that so?”
“This is a refugee village, so the system has not yet been established.”
“But the vigilantes must have been chosen well. Thankfully, that has made our work easier,” it was an interrogation between a soldier and a man. The former was seated while the latter knelt.
“This way,” one of the soldiers said, directing the way to Hendrick.
“Yeah.”
In response, Hendrick headed towards the soldiers who had brought him back toward the village center. One of the soldiers looked at him from head to toe and frowned with dissatisfaction.
“How old are you?”
“I am fourteen.”
“But you are too small. Don’t you have anything to eat?”
Hendrick bowed down in shame, but did not respond.
All the little children had been gathered by the side. It seemed that people were being grouped by their age.
“How many are you? Let’s start with the vigilantes.”
“Excluding the dead, there should be forty-five. There are three more, but we have not seen them around.”
“Go and find them.”
“Yes, sir!”
The two soldiers conversed. One soldier summoned several of the adults to join the group of vigilantes. It scared Hendrick that everyone had started praying. It looked like they were being taken for execution.
“Ooh, not my child’s father!”
“No, my son! Take me instead!”
“Let go!”
They all pleaded for their freedom. But when the unrelenting soldiers pulled out their knives, everyone shut their mouths or closed them with their hands, and wept, trembling all over.
“They are not enough. Where are we going to get more people?”
“There is another village to the west.”
“What type of village?”
“It’s similar to this one.”
“So, from what age are we taking?”
“Cut mark is at the age of fifteen.”
“Even 14-year-olds will do fine.”
“Yeah.”
As Hendrick listened to their conversation, it dawned on him that they were under compulsory recruitment.
“Excuse me! Hendrick over there is also 14 years old like me!” someone from among of those who were being dragged shouted
It was from Mark. Hendrick could tell from the voice. He screamed so loudly that everyone heard him.
“Who are you talking about?”
“Ah. He’s over there, the very thin one.”
“Where? Oh, that guy? That’s fourteen years old?”
Hendrick trembled as the soldiers headed for him. However, the high-ranking one sneered at him and looked the other way. The rejection hurt his ego badly.
“From now on, you will be the proud soldiers of Baron Hoilason. Be happy,” a high-ranking soldier announced.
Immediately the other soldiers overpowered the conscripts and began to bind them. Some rebelled fiercely in the process, but not too much for the soldiers to handle.
Hendrick identified unforgettable faces among them. They were the thieves who killed two vigilantes on the mountain. In a way, it was absurd. They came in to take over the village but were instead taken to conscription. It seems that there were other thieves that came with them.
“The rest are dissolved.”
“Dissolution!”
So the siege was released. However, family members of those captured could not leave the place. They tried to stop it, but it was useless.
The soldiers wanted a few more vigilantes, but they couldn’t be found. Hendrick presumed that they were looking for the men who were killed on the mountain.
Hendrick quickly left the scene. He rushed to the hut, but confirmed that his younger siblings were not back yet. He headed for the mountain. It wasn’t hard to try and track because, despite the dark, the scent of soap lingered.
At some point, he could not smell the soap. He stopped in front of a large tree. The roots under it were split from one side to another, so there was a space to go inside. But the younger siblings were not hiding in it. There was something else inside. Two soft eyes flashed in the dark.
―It was a forest leopard.
Helper kindly informed him
The leopard sounded to be chewing something. Hendrick slowly stepped back to check what it was eating. The forest leopard knew about his existence but didn’t come out because Hendrick was careful not to get too close. The leopard seemed relaxed because it was already predating.
Hendrick retreated so as not to bother the forest leopard, and then turned away.
The soap scent was gone, and it worried him. He continued looking for the younger ones until he crossed the stream
“Here it is.”
“Surprise!” he was startled by a voice that came from what he thought was a pile of mud. Hendrick confirmed that his younger siblings were there and quickly approached.
Everyone looked like they had covered their bodies with mud.
“It smells like soap.”
“It was.”
“There was someone following me.”
Belter had noted that they were being followed. He suspected the adult to be a vigilante.
“I think I was a thief.”
“You can be caught in a place like this!”
“We came all the way and hid, till we were sure that we were alone.”
“What happened to the village?” Dorothy asked.
In response to Dorothy’s persistent question, Hendrick opened up.
Everyone hastily went down the mountain. Hendrick ensured that they used a different route from that which he had encountered a forest leopard.
Everyone was muddy, so Hendrick, who had to wash in the stream again, decided to move quietly and check the village situation.
As it turned out, the villagers were already listening to music in the village.
“Did the soldiers leave?” Hendrick asked Grandpa Jonas, who nodded with a helpless expression.
“You seemed busy. I went right away without thinking of staying overnight. It would be good for us. Bad things happen if you let soldiers stay.”
“Is that bad?”
“You don’t know well even if you say it.”
Grandpa Jonas said he was fortunate that the young women were safe. He said he wouldn’t know, but he could understand what Hendrick meant.
“I don’t know how the war works. The lack of young men would mean that those before them have died.”
“I am also worried about this village. The number of adults has decreased a lot.”
“Surely. Older people like me have a few days left to live, but since they have scraped all the boys of their age, what will happen in the future? Still, since there is a mayor, should I look forward to it?
“Huh. Isn’t that Mark over there?”
An unmistakable character was running around. It was Mark.
According to Grandpa Jonas, it seemed that Mark’s parents had given money to the soldier instead of their son. While Mark might have been lucky, it might be uncomfortable for the siblings in the future.
Hendrick felt lucky too. Besides him and Mark, they have dragged anyone who had hit 14 years.
Most of Mark’s gang had gone, and they had thought that he might be quiet for the time being. However, they were mistaken. From what Hendrick gathered, it seemed that his father had not only paid money and saved only his son but also had officially registered the village as a Baron-Ryeong and obtained the position of the village chief.
“Is Mr. Jacob the village chief?”
“He became the chief,” Grandpa Jonas confirmed with bitterness.
Hendrick looked at the village with a grim face and headed home. The village was in such a sorry state he couldn’t stop wondering, “What will happen in the future?”
The bandits disappeared.
But even so, this village did not become safe. Everyone was afraid that stronger adults would suddenly appear, aside from the thieves.
Fortunately, it had been confirmed that there wouldn’t be any conscription for the next three years. Thus, it became the official village of Baronjakryeong.
Finally, the village had the formal title that it had long since longed for.