By Zephyria 
“……Pardon?”
“We were, like, uh, quacking away like ducks. And then he came over after hearing that.”
“The General did?”
“Yep. He appeared just like a hero from a story, and he just started ripping the heads off those Eater Bugs with his bare hands… Whoa…”
Dong-ja marveled, her eyes half-closing as if the memory was still awe-inspiring. At that, Ho-eun clasped his hands tightly and let out a sigh of relief.
“Ah, thank goodness. Truly a relief. Heaven helped you.”
Ho-eun knew well how it felt to encounter Tae-muk just before the brink of death, to witness his strength. He had been saved by him more than ten times already; how could he not know?
“Then I followed the Captain to another town, and that’s where I Manifested as a God of War and became part of the Crimson Rain Brigade. I met Man-soo at the Fate Festival that year.”
“I see.”
Ho-eun nodded slightly. He felt bad for Dong-ja’s situation, but at the same time, something else worried him. He feared that the Japanese might still be remaining in this land, tormenting innocent people. That they might settle wherever they pleased and claim the land as their own. It was already overwhelming enough to fight Devouring Ghouls; to have to worry about such things as well…
It was while Ho-eun, his lips pressed firmly shut, was staring intently at the corner of the dining table. Dong-ja gulped down her soup as if it were water and smacked her lips.
“Oof, talking so much has made me parched, so parched.”
At those words, Ho-eun snapped back to his senses.
“Would you like more soup?”
As he tried to step down from the wooden porch, Dong-ja pulled his forearm.
“Goodness! How could I let a precious young master do such a thing? Stay seated, stay seated.”
Dong-ja rubbed her nose vigorously with the back of her hand and tried to head to the kitchen herself. This time, Ho-eun blocked her path.
“No. It is only right that I, as a junior, do it. Please stay seated.”
“Haha, a junior? You’re my junior, young master?”
“Of course. I am younger than you, and I joined the Crimson Rain Brigade much later. In truth, there are times I think it would be more appropriate for me to serve Chilbok.”
“You? Serving Chilbok?”
Dong-ja chuckled, finding the idea quite amusing. Ho-eun’s eyes curved into a smile as he naturally stepped down from the porch.
“What about the rice? You don’t need more rice?”
“Ah, that would be nice.”
“I’ll bring it right away.”
Picking up the empty rice and soup bowls, Ho-eun slipped his feet into his shoes neatly placed under the porch. As he did, he tidied the shoes Dong-ja had kicked off haphazardly. Thud. Something fell from her pocket.
It was the notebook that Ho-eun had kept by his side lately. He picked it up, placed it on the porch, and headed toward the kitchen.
“…….”
Dong-ja stared silently at Ho-eun’s retreating back. Then, her gaze inadvertently dropped to the notebook he had left behind. A drawing of a Devouring Ghoul’s tentacle was peeking out.
“…….”
Dong-ja tilted her head to the left, then to the right, while looking at it. Then, in an instant, her pupils turned as black as Go stones. She even dropped the spoon she was holding.
Clang— Startled by the loud sound of the spoon rolling across the table, Ho-eun whipped around to look at her.
“Sister?”
“Young master!”
Dong-ja shouted back at Ho-eun. At that, Ho-eun quickly returned to her.
“Yes. Do you need anything else?”
“I’ve seen that before.”
“Seen what?”
“That. The tentacle.”
Dong-ja spoke while pointing at the notebook. Ho-eun’s gaze shifted to the notebook and then back to Dong-ja.
“Ah, the Devouring Ghoul’s tentacle?”
“Yeah. That.”
“…….”
Ho-eun looked at Dong-ja with a look that asked why? It was strange that Dong-ja was suddenly talking about tentacles in the middle of a meal. Though she was prone to saying things that sounded like random bolts from the blue, this was exceptionally abrupt. Furthermore, wasn’t it natural for Dong-ja to have seen a Devouring Ghoul’s tentacle? How many Devouring Ghouls had she hunted down?
Ho-eun was puzzled, but he looked at Dong-ja without any particular rebuttal, trying to gauge what she wanted to say. However, her following words were completely unexpected.
“The hats those Japanese were wearing were exactly that shape.”
“Pardon?”
“The Japanese hats. Helmets. They looked exactly like those tentacles.”
“……Pardon?”
The expression slowly vanished from Ho-eun’s face.
* * *
“Could it be a coincidence?”
Ho-eun asked, staring blankly at the flickering lamp light.
“I wonder.”
Tae-muk answered, blotting the moisture from Ho-eun’s hair with firm presses. He wore an indifferent expression, but the space between his eyebrows was subtly furrowed. He, too, found Ho-eun’s words surprising—or rather, disconcerting.
A moment ago, Ho-eun had relayed the words he heard from Dong-ja during the day to Tae-muk, without missing a single syllable.
‘She said it was soldiers who invaded the town. Their uniforms were… very eerie. They wore black helmets on their heads, and they had flat, gold iron-like things attached to them. Just like stag beetles.’
‘But thinking about it, it sounds exactly like an Eater Bug’s tentacle. Some like deer antlers, some like half-moons.’
The more he repeated it, the stranger it sounded. They wore such things on their heads? Moreover, they were identical to a Devouring Ghoul’s tentacle? But those were humans, and Devouring Ghouls were Devouring Ghouls; how could they be the same?
Tae-muk, who had been gently combing through Ho-eun’s hair with his hand, clenched and then released his molars. Ho-eun spoke in his characteristic serene voice.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence. It’s strange enough to have such things on a helmet, but for the shapes to be identical… How could that be a coincidence? What do you think, General?”
“I think it’s worth looking into.”
“Right?”
Ho-eun looked back at Tae-muk, his eyes sparkling. He was slightly excited by the exhilaration that he might discover something. Perhaps this could be the starting point to finding a way to overcome the Devouring Ghouls.
Tae-muk found Ho-eun so lovely that he pressed his lips firmly against his forehead before pulling away. Then, as he finished drying his hair, he said,
“But it will be hard to get information within the unit. If it happened when Dong-ja was young, it would be roughly 20 years ago. I barely know anything regarding Japan either.”
“I suppose so. It’s already been decades since Japan fell.”
Ho-eun nodded in agreement. He didn’t know much about Japan either. Only that it was a country that had long cast its greedy eyes on Joseon and the Korean Empire, and that it was a country that no longer existed in the world.
After pondering for a while longer, Ho-eun habitually stroked Tae-muk’s knee beside him and murmured,
“If there is someone elderly, we might be able to get an expert opinion. Someone who is perhaps a white-haired old man…”
His voice trailed off, and he let out a humming sound from his throat. Then, suddenly, like a squirrel pricking up its ears, he straightened his back and turned his whole body to look at Tae-muk.
“How old is the old man at the Medical Station?”
“Are you asking if I know anything about the Japanese state?”
The old man, who was vigorously wiping blood off his hands with a cloth, asked back with a face that suggested this was a completely random question.
“Yes.”
Ho-eun, standing below the porch, gave a concise nod. His hair fluttered and swayed in the wind. He had rushed out so hurriedly that he hadn’t even braided his hair. He knew he should always maintain a proper appearance, but he didn’t have the luxury to care about that right now.
Tae-muk, however, seemed bothered by it; he gathered Ho-eun’s fluttering hair and tucked it inside his coat. The hair, not yet fully dry, had slightly frozen and felt crisp. How long had it been since the Fever Sickness was cured, and yet again… Tae-muk frowned in irritation.
“Well… just that it’s a country that collapsed long ago, I suppose?”
The old man spoke as he sat heavily on the edge of the porch. At such a useless answer, Tae-muk arched one eyebrow.
“Is that all?”
“Goodness, really. You have to tell me what you’re looking for for me to tell you.”
The old man looked up at Tae-muk with an expression that suggested he was not at fault. He also tapped his knee with his fist as if his legs were aching.
“Hmm….”
At that, Ho-eun’s eyes moved slowly from left to right. What was he looking for? In truth, he didn’t know either. He felt as if he were standing before something massive hidden by a thick fog, and he couldn’t gauge at all what lay within that fog. Whether it was a monster, a human, or something unknown…
The only certain thing was that something was there.
Ho-eun took a step closer to the old man and asked again.
“I heard that the Japanese soldiers wore helmets with shapes similar to the tentacles of a Devouring Ghoul. Have you ever seen such a thing?”
“Helmets, eh….”
The old man pondered, fiddling with his white eyebrows. Meanwhile, Tae-muk grabbed any nearby medic and ordered them to bring a blanket for Ho-eun to cover himself with. The medic quickly ran off somewhere.
Soon, the old man shook his head in the negative.
“I’m not sure. I have seen people from that country before it fell, but they weren’t soldiers. They were mostly merchants or businessmen.”
“Then what were the Japanese people you saw like?”
“They were just ordinary people. With two eyes, one nose, and one mouth, just like us….”
“Is that all?”
“Well, they didn’t look particularly friendly. It was around the time rumors were circulating that the Japanese living on the islands would invade our country to expand into the mainland.”
“I see….”
Ho-eun’s eyebrows drooped despondently.