By Zephyria 
Tae-muk’s training was less like training and more like meaningless gestures. What could be systematic or effective about a ten-year-old who had learned nothing, training all by himself?
However, if there was one silver lining, it was that Tae-muk could put what he practiced into actual combat every day. Whether he wanted to or not, he had to.
He would slice at a Devouring Ghoul’s arm with a sword as large as his own body, only to have his ribs crushed by a blow to the back of his hand. He would plunge his sword into a knee, only to have his neck snapped by a kick. He would swing his sword aiming for the roof of a mouth, only to have his shoulder chewed through.
Still, Tae-muk did not stop training. Even after returning from the battlefield drenched in blood, he swung his sword again and again.
The soldiers looked at Tae-muk as if he were strange.
“Look at him go again, driving me crazy… Hey, don’t you ever get tired?”
“Just try asking for food because your stomach is empty. I’ll rip your nose right off.”
It was indeed a strange sight. Not a single person in the unit engaged in something called ‘training.’ Everyone was a soldier, but none had ever received systematic training, nor was such a schedule ever prepared.
It was a world where thousands, or even tens of thousands, died every day because of the Devouring Ghouls. There was a shortage of soldiers, and the state conscripted men daily; they had to head straight to the battlefield without time for training or anything else.
Those currently on the battlefield were people who had ‘unluckily’ been born as God of War and were forced to become soldiers. Everyone naturally assumed they would die; they had no will to fight and were lethargic. If they went to the battlefield and died, they died; if they were lucky enough to return alive, they spent their time in a daze, waiting only for mealtime.
Naturally, to them, Tae-muk was strange and irritating. They frequently expressed their annoyance at Tae-muk for acting so cumbersome, but they never laid a hand on him. It was because they lacked even the energy to do so.
And then, after a year of Tae-muk swinging his sword in the air, he killed a Devouring Ghoul for the first time on the battlefield.
He thrust his sword into the jaw of a creature with jagged teeth, piercing through to its brain. The dark red blood of the Devouring Ghoul flowed down the blade, soaking Tae-muk’s hand.
The excitement of that moment. The sense of achievement.
Intoxicated by the thrill, Tae-muk spent the entire night staring at his trembling hand.
* * *
Tae-muk turned seventeen. He had spent a staggering nine years on the battlefield.
During that time, Tae-muk grew in many ways. First, he grew taller, and his frame grew larger. He also learned how to handle his strength and adapted to the battlefield. In a way, it was inevitable. He had now spent more days on the battlefield than he had living with his parents in the village.
And accordingly, he became proficient at killing Devouring Ghouls. Now, Tae-muk did not die even when participating in combat. While getting injured was still commonplace, the number of times he was hurt enough to lose consciousness had dwindled to a handful.
Backed by Tae-muk’s strength, the unit grew larger and stronger. Their fame spread, and Major Pig, the head of the unit, became a Colonel.
Of course, even after becoming a Colonel, the Major was still a pig. A pig whose only skill was sitting around and eating.
Still, he had intuition. He was dull, lazy, and selfish, but he knew that Tae-muk had contributed significantly to the growth of his unit. He knew that the reason he had survived ten long years on the battlefield without being eaten by a Devouring Ghoul was thanks to Tae-muk.
Therefore, from time to time, at appropriate intervals, he would raise Tae-muk’s rank. It was no different from throwing scraps of food to a dog, but well, food was food. There was nothing bad about it.
Tae-muk climbed the ranks one by one, and by the time he was seventeen, he became a Cham-wi, in other words, a Second Lieutenant.
The Second Lieutenant’s shoulder strap he received from the Colonel was faded and slightly worn, but the Taegeuk pattern was densely and tightly embroidered in the center. It felt strange when he touched it with his fingertips.
A Taegeuk pattern. While killing Devouring Ghouls, he had never particularly thought about the country, the fatherland, or the people. To think he was receiving such a thing.
Regardless, Tae-muk became a Second Lieutenant. Consequently, even those older than him stopped treating him carelessly, and some began to attend to him without being asked. Of course, it wasn’t just because of his rank. It was because Tae-muk had saved them.
In truth, Tae-muk often, frequently, perhaps daily, saved soldiers on the battlefield. It wasn’t for some noble and disgusting reason, such as the preciousness of human life or the belief that the strong must protect the weak, but rather… yes.
Because he was resentful. He did it out of resentment.
Tae-muk realized at the age of twelve that there were no nobles in this unit, except for Colonel Pig.
Tae-muk had the ability to recognize a noble at a glance. They emitted a stench. A very, very foul stench.
However, in this unit, while there were those who smelled because they couldn’t wash or weren’t clean, there was no one who emitted the characteristic stench of a noble.
That made him resentful. The noble bastards were likely living in luxury within the safety of the villages. It felt unfair that only he, only they, only the Lowborn were dying out here. That was why he saved them. There was no other reason.
Occasionally, he saved people who weren’t soldiers—people stranded while evacuating, or when Devouring Ghouls invaded a village. That wasn’t out of a surge of justice either. He did it because he was told to.
He heard that was also a soldier’s job. That protecting the citizens was a duty… He didn’t understand what that meant at all, but since he was told to do it, he did.
That day was the same.
Because Devouring Ghouls had stormed a village, several hundred soldiers, including Tae-muk, had stopped by.
Tae-muk used his keen hearing to track the presence of the Devouring Ghouls. He killed ghouls on the streets and saved people in the alleys, and then he entered a house with an impressive tiled roof.
“….”
A single Devouring Ghoul had forced its way into the inner quarters and was running rampant. Beneath it, he saw people dressed in silk clothes and wearing gat hats, screaming and squawking like chickens. And in the front yard of the inner quarters, dozens of corpses lay scattered without order.
Tae-muk recognized it at a glance. All the corpses rolling around the yard were servants—in other words, Lowborn. He let out a short, mocking sneer.
“Seriously…”
How were nobles all exactly the same? If being this identical regardless of the time or region was a talent, it was certainly a talent.
Living in the garrison, Tae-muk didn’t encounter nobles often, but whenever he happened to run into them, he was seized by an intense feeling of loathing.
Even when the shelters were empty, they were crawling with nobles; it was always the lower-class people who died; they pushed the lower-class people into the mouths of Devouring Ghouls just to survive, exploited them, tormented them…
Furthermore, when Tae-muk occasionally saved them, some nobles would get angry, asking why he arrived so late, if he knew who they were, or threatening to punish him. Looking at them, the ones in the inner quarters seemed likely to be the same.
Tae-muk crossed the wide yard with an expressionless face. Regardless, killing the Devouring Ghoul was his job, so he had to kill it. Yes. He wasn’t saving nobles; he was killing a Devouring Ghoul. Thinking of it that way made him slightly less annoyed.
However, it was when he had crossed halfway through the yard. He felt something squelchy hit his foot, and then it wrapped around his ankle. As Tae-muk looked down instinctively, his breath hitched.
“….”
It was a skirt. An old skirt that had turned crimson, soaked in blood.
The expression slowly vanished from Tae-muk’s face. Suddenly, a metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. He felt nauseous, and a headache flared. He stood there frozen, clutching his forehead.
“You there, you! What are you doing!”
“You rascal! Why are you just standing there! Quickly, quickly do something about this creature!”
“Aaaah! Save me! Save me!”
The nobles who spotted Tae-muk screamed and struggled. Their piercing shouts made his ears sting. But Tae-muk’s desire to save them had already completely vanished. Rather, he thought it would be better if they just died. After a moment of contemplation, Tae-muk tugged at his earlobe and turned around. However.
“….”
“….”
At the main gate, a Lieutenant Colonel stood with a cigarette in his mouth, holding a blood-stained sword. He had aged considerably over the past eight years. His eyebrows had turned grey, and his beard had faded in color.
Even after seeing him, Tae-muk continued to cross the yard as if nothing had happened, intending to leave the tiled house. But the moment he brushed past the Lieutenant Colonel.
“Why aren’t you saving the nobles?”
He asked.
“Why should I save them?”
Tae-muk asked back, stopping his feet but without looking at the Lieutenant Colonel.
“Do you hate nobles?”
“Do you like them?”
At Tae-muk’s immediate counter-question, the Lieutenant Colonel let out a short, airy laugh.
“…Even with ten mouths, I couldn’t say I like them.”
He stared blankly at the inner quarters where blood began to overflow. Then he turned his head toward Tae-muk and looked at his shoulder—specifically, at the Second Lieutenant’s strap attached to his shoulder.
“You’ll be overtaking me soon, won’t you?”
Unlike Tae-muk, who had been promoted continuously, the Lieutenant Colonel was still a Lieutenant Colonel. It was because he hadn’t achieved any great feats. In truth, no one in the unit except Tae-muk had achieved any feats. Since it was difficult to kill even one Devouring Ghoul even if ten people jumped on it, it was inevitable in a way. Perhaps it was more correct to view Tae-muk as an anomaly.