The news of victory rode the wind.
They said the enemy's main force had suffered a blow it could not recover from and had withdrawn. Word spread that more than two thousand enemy horsemen were dead, and that hundreds of horses had been taken as spoils.
No one knew who had counted them.
Numbers always swell when they travel on the wind.
What mattered was something else.
Blood was still flowing across this field.
The air was pressed down by mingled smells—burned flesh, roasted horse meat, and the countless breaths cooling into stillness. The foot archers left the camp and scattered across the plain. Orders were given to retrieve the arrows that had been fired.
"The arrow I shot is mine to recover."
No one questioned it.
This was possible only because they had won. Had they fled, there would have been no leisure even to clear the battlefield.
Seongjin moved out as well.
He walked slowly over ground matted with dust and blood. Broken spears and shattered blades lay underfoot. Among the bodies, black feathers jutted from flesh.
They were his arrows.
Seongjin bent down.
He gripped an arrow sunk deep in an enemy's chest and pulled it free, slowly.
Blood and torn flesh came with it.
As the arrowhead slid out, the wound gaped, then gradually closed.
He wiped the arrow with a filthy cloth.
A slick sensation clung to his fingertips. Soon it dried, turning rough and sticky. His stomach twisted.
Still, he slid the arrow back into his quiver.
Another arrow lay buried deep in the soil.
The fletching wasn't visible; he dug it out by hand. The earth was still warm.
When he lifted the arrow free, several crows took flight in the distance.
Someone said quietly,
"There are many dead."
No one answered.
Those recording the results sat with ledgers open. Brushes moved quickly and precisely, noting the numbers read aloud—how many had died, how many survived, how many horses were taken—everything fitting neatly into lines and boxes.
Passing by, Seongjin paused.
Off to one side sat Oh Jinchul.
A bandage was wrapped around his flank. His face was expressionless as he stared out across the plain. He had been wounded, but he was alive.
At the end of his gaze, an arrow Seongjin had just pulled free caught the light.
Seongjin slowly lifted his head.
The sky was red. The wind was bitter.
In that wind, he understood.
Not as a number,but through the memory in his fingertips—
how many lives his arrows had stopped.
They buried their own dead.
Inside the camp, where the burned remains of wagons had been cleared away. When they dug, layers of blood-soaked earth appeared. Each thrust of the shovel released a damp stench—the smell of blood and soil mixed together.
One body, then another.
Monks moved among them, chanting softly.
"Namu Amitābul…"
Thin, quiet, unbroken. Each time the chant settled onto the earth, both wind and people seemed to pause. It took less than a fraction of a watch to bury a body. One breath, another shovel, and a life disappeared underground.
The sound of digging went on like drums.
Whenever an iron shovel struck a broken blade, sparks flew. The traces of those who had lived and those who had fought were buried together beneath a single handful of soil.
One monk rang a small bronze bell.
The gentle tone spread to the far edge of the field. It was neither the sound of this world nor the next—only the sound of wind passing through.
Seongjin stood there.
He knew what the earth before him covered. There were names in it. And those names were vanishing, one by one.
He said nothing.
He only laid his hand on the soil. It was warm—but the warmth faded quickly.
From afar, the chanting resumed.
"Namu Amitābul Gwaneum Bosal…"
Seongjin closed his eyes and pressed his palms together briefly.
After blunting the enemy's spearhead, the Goryeo army pitched camp near the battlefield and stayed a day. The busiest were the scouts. They spread out in all directions, tracking the routed enemy, and reports returned to the main force without pause.
Seongjin asked Oh Jinchul,
"Why don't we pursue them immediately?"
Oh Jinchul nodded toward the north, where smoke still lingered.
"We need to know where they went. This is when the scouts run."
His voice was low, unhurried.
"Finding local manpower is the command's job too. Some locals, some scouts. The best are informants—but there are never enough. A few of the enemy stragglers have probably already been turned loose."
Seongjin asked in surprise,
"How do you know all that?"
Oh Jinchul gave a crooked smile.
"When you've been on the battlefield long enough, you see even without looking. Especially when an idiot is in charge."
Seongjin asked carefully,
"And now? Is the commander… an idiot?"
Oh Jinchul's expression hardened for a moment.
"No. That's the problem."
"Why?"
"For grunts like us, a moderately stupid general is best. He fights just enough, then pulls back. No great victories, no great defeats."
He paused, then continued.
"But this one offered his waist. Used it as bait—and bit down hard. At this point, the enemy has noticed too."
Seongjin's voice rose.
"Then we were the bait?"
Oh Jinchul laughed hollowly.
"Why so surprised? We're always someone's bait. We just don't know who threw us. Or whose bad intention it was."
"Who…?"
Oh Jinchul shrugged.
"There are all kinds of bait in this world. Men who can't move because they're afraid of their wives. Men shackled by a single child. Some even watch their kid burn the house down and say, 'How clever of him.' All bait."
He shook his head.
"Is that the child's problem, or the father's?"
After that, Seongjin had no words. The structure of survival—offering someone else up—and the fact that its balance was never equal, struck him with a chill.
Oh Jinchul added,
"A general who pushes battles like this can win. But he'll see his men's lives as numbers on a ledger."
"Isn't that… a commander's duty?"
At Seongjin's question, Oh Jinchul shook his head.
"What matters more than winning is keeping soldiers alive. We have to live for there to be a next fight. If we win and all die, who stops the next one? Red Turbans, Northern Yuan, Jurchens, Japanese pirates—everyone comes, sooner or later."
Seongjin swallowed quietly.
The news of victory spread on the wind—but that wind carried calculations and bargains along with it.
"…I see."
It was the sound of understanding.
And the low, solid acceptance of a boy seeing the adult world clearly for the first time.
He knew.
His father hadn't been ignorant of this.
He had simply never said it aloud.