271.
The waters of the Yangtze were still turbid.
Shouts of unknown origin drifted in with the wind.
Park Seongjin listened for a long moment, then spoke quietly.
"Train.
Fight as if it were training, and train as if it were a fight."
As the words left his mouth, the scene before him overlapped with an old memory.
Years ago—when he first wrapped his hands around a spear.
Back then, Park Seongjin was still unskilled.
The training ground at dusk came back to him.
Young soldiers rolled in the mud until their bodies were caked with earth.
When spearpoints struck and sparks flew, they shut their eyes by reflex.
Seongjin staggered among them.
His heart hammered loudly beside his ears.
Fear comes from the head.
The words echoed in his ears for a long time.
Even after night fell and he returned to camp, the trembling in his hands did not stop.
Yet by the time dawn broke, he felt it clearly:
training stays in the body, and fear slowly fades.
When the body moves first, the mind follows naturally.
The wind brushed the hillside, and below it the river heaved, muddy and brown.
Shouts erupted in the distance, but neither of them moved.
Once, a shooter had taught; now, the student was the one reminding.
The shape of war had changed, but what kept them alive had not.
Training—and those words—continued to bind their lives together.
Osun-gun and Dohyeon climbed the hill carrying food.
Dried meat from the supply store, millet rice, and a single old bottle of liquor.
Both were still under Oh Jincheol's command.
The scene felt familiar.
River wind swept over the hill, and the evening sun dimly lit the tents.
Someone's laughter drifted by on the breeze.
Everything felt like a certain day long ago.
Dohyeon spoke first.
"It's strange.
We're in the middle of a war, yet there's time like this."
Oh Jincheol gave a bitter smile.
"That's the problem.
Nothing to do, so you end up thinking too much.
And then you eat for no reason."
Osun-gun stuffed a rice ball into his mouth.
"Better to eat.
If you don't, there are too many thoughts to bear."
Park Seongjin smiled.
That smile carried old memories.
Even in their youth, they had spent time in the same place, breathing in the same smells.
Those moments had become the strength that held them up.
"Still, it's good that we're together like this."
At Dohyeon's words, Oh Jincheol lifted the bottle and took a swig.
"Yeah.
As long as you're alive, you eat, laugh, curse, and endure."
The wind blew softly.
Below the hill, the river remained turbid, and distant drums sounded.
For a while, that sound faded away.
The four sat facing one another, talking as they once had.
The light spread a little farther.
A modest table took shape on the hilltop:
millet rice, dried meat, and a bottle of rough liquor.
As Osun-gun and Dohyeon poured the drinks, Oh Jincheol grinned at Seongjin.
"So you're a Jungnangjang now."
Dohyeon raised his cup.
"The kid who just swung a spear around."
Park Seongjin smiled awkwardly.
"I was lucky."
"Lucky?"
Osun-gun snorted.
"Someone who got up at dawn every day to train and picked up fallen arrows to shoot them again shouldn't talk about luck."
Oh Jincheol swirled his cup.
"That's right.
That's grit.
Everyone remembers the blood ground into your hands back then.
People naturally said you were one who'd last.
Impressive, Park Seongjin."
Seongjin lowered his head for a moment.
The laughter of his comrades, the smell of liquor, the flickering light seeped into his chest.
Dohyeon spoke softly.
"Watching you rise made us feel like we endured together."
Seongjin remained silent for a while.
He lifted his cup and drank slowly.
The warm liquor slid down his throat, warming old memories.
"I reached this place because you were beside me.
Thank you. Truly."
Oh Jincheol clinked his cup against his.
"Save talk like that for after the war.
If we meet again alive, I'll listen to it all then.
After the war, let's meet at a soup shop."
The four laughed.
Behind that laughter was a feeling conveyed without words.
In a war not yet finished, a night almost like peace passed by.
The laughter slowly died down.
The light dimmed, and the wind brushed the remaining embers.
Dust settled over half-empty cups.
Park Seongjin lowered his head.
The light illuminated the back of his hand.
Calluses and scars overlapped in layers.
The hand that once gripped a spear now bore the lives and deaths of his men.
He looked at his comrades' faces—
Oh Jincheol, Osun-gun, Dohyeon.
They were the same people, only time had added weight to their eyes.
He had not come this far by luck alone.
He had learned how to endure, grown used to pressing fear down.
Covering the dead and holding on to the living had become second nature.
All of it had shaped the man he was now.
A thought crossed his mind.
Was this the path I chose?
War had given him rank—and taken much away.
What he had wanted was not a sword, but a world where a sword was unnecessary.
The light flickered, and the wind blew.
A dog barked somewhere below the hill.
Seongjin lifted his cup and drank what remained.
A bitter taste lingered in his mouth.
I must return alive.
It was an old resolve, and a prayer.
That was why he had worked so hard.
Far away, war drums sounded again.
Soon, a new order would come.
The light went out, and stars appeared.
Park Seongjin closed his eyes for a moment.
In that brief stillness, he quietly accepted how far he had come.