Black Company Joseon - ⓒ Gukbong
A miscellaneous otaku, mad about every kind of obsession—military, steampunk, and more—has been reincarnated.
But his father is King Sejong the Great?
A monarch skilled at indulging his passions, a son driven mad by them.
And the ministers being worked to death, along with countless humans.
Tonight again, the night of Joseon is filled with the lights of overtime work.
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< Prologue. >
Prologue.
"...And so, this matter shall be handled as just decided."
"Understood, Your Majesty."
"I'm getting hungry. Let's have a simple meal and reconvene in one gak (a two-hour period) from now."
"...Understood, Your Majesty."
[The Historian speaks.]
Ching! Chwak!
[His Majesty's love for the people is the greatest in history.]
Ching! Chwak!
[He takes care that even a mere slave does not perform excessive labor—His Majesty's virtue is like the spring sun.]
Ching! Chwak!
[But the ministers do not receive such spring sun, so how tragic is this...]
"Historian? Are you badmouthing me right now?"
"Absolutely not, Your Majesty!"
"Then why are you writing so slowly?"
"Your servant's hands are still slow, you see..."
"Is that so? Shall I send you back to the Administrative Training Academy?"
"I will do my utmost to write quickly!"
"You. I'll be watching you."
"I am overwhelmed with gratitude..."
< Prologue. > End
ⓒ Gukbong
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< Episode 1: He is Gwangdeok. >
Episode 1: He is Gwangdeok.
They commonly say:
The greatest among the obsessed is Yangdeok.
But there is one level above Yangdeok—he is Gwangdeok.
* * *
Outskirts of Gasan-ri, Yangsan-si, Gyeongnam.
Tang tang tang! Chik!
Jinho plunged the iron he had been hammering with a spring hammer into the water. Along with the loud noise, steam rose up.
Jinho took the cooled iron from the water, examined its condition, and nodded.
"Well made."
Having confirmed its condition, Jinho put the iron in his hand back into the furnace.
* * *
"Hey! Little brother! What are you making this time?"
"Huh? Hyung-nim! You came?"
Jinho, who had been moving busily between the furnace and machine tools, brightened upon seeing the visitor.
"What are you making?"
"I was making some sashimi knives I got an order for."
"Sashimi?"
When his cousin made a strange expression, Jinho quickly added an explanation.
"Sashimi knife! Someone running a Japanese restaurant in Seoul ordered it! I told you not to go all professional on me whenever!"
His cousin Kim Byungho's profession was a detective.
At Jinho's explanation, Byungho's expression relaxed.
"Is that so? Taking orders and making decent money, I see?"
In response to Byungho's question, he wiped his nose with his finger and grinned.
"Making enough for a living, more or less."
"Is that so... Let me look around a bit."
"I've only just shaped it."
"Hmm..."
Byungho, who had been examining the sashimi knife-shaped piece of iron still glowing red, raised his head and looked around.
"Clean up a bit and live properly."
"Sure thing."
"Your manners are good. At least your manners..."
Giving Jinho a light scolding while looking around at various things, Byungho's eyes lit up when he saw a knife in a wooden box lined with soft cloth.
"Hey. This half-moon blade, looks like the blade is mounted backward?"
Seeing a kukri for the first time, Byungho pointed out that Jinho had mounted the blade incorrectly. At Byungho's words, Jinho's expression changed strangely.
"What? What's with that face?"
"...That's called a kukri. It's supposed to look like that."
"Is that so? What a peculiar shape. Which country's knife is it?"
"Nepal."
"People in that country must have peculiar personalities."
Jinho, who pondered for a moment what Byungho's words meant, shook his head.
"Say that in front of Nepali people. They'll roll you right down from the top of Everest."
"I'm saying it because they're not here. Anyway, did you call me because of that kukri or whatever knife?"
"Yes. Could you get me a sword possession permit?"
At Jinho's words, Byungho, who had been gauging the kukri's size, nodded.
"Looking at the size, you'd need one. But why do you need a sword?"
"I'm thinking of entering a competition being held in America."
"Competition?"
At Byungho's short question, Jinho manipulated a tablet he had set aside and showed him a video. After watching the video, Byungho clicked his tongue softly.
"Tsk. Would have been nice if you made a Joseon sword or traditional blade to enter..."
"Do you know there was a gentleman who brought a katana and got eliminated when it bent, and more than one or two people dropped out because their swords broke in the middle? Whether it's a Joseon sword or Japanese sword, they may be sharp but they're not tough. For competitions like that, heavy and tough swords are the best."
"Is that so? Got it. I'll bring the documents."
* * *
A few days later.
"Here are the documents and the card."
"Thank you kindly."
Handing Jinho the documents and IC card while looking around, Byungho's gaze fixed on one spot.
"What is that?"
"What?"
"That thing. That!"
Where Byungho pointed, a flintlock rifle was standing upright.
"Ah! That? I got an order from abroad asking if I could make one, so I made it. Reenactors—people who cosplay the American Revolutionary War era and hold mock battles—ordered it."
"Hmm..."
Byungho half-listened to Jinho's explanation while picking up the rifle and examining it carefully.
Looking at the firing mechanism, Byungho turned to Jinho.
"This is that gun, right? The one used in the American Revolutionary War that Mel Gibson was in?"
"Yes. It's a Kentucky Rifle."
"Why are you making American guns?"
"Seems like the number of craftsmen over there has decreased quite a bit too. And the guns they have are becoming collector's items..."
"So you made it?"
At Byungho's question, Jinho nodded.
"First, I made just one, but if the evaluation is good, I think I can export 5 to 10 annually. Meaning if it goes well, I could make about 2 to 3 thousand dollars."
"Hmm..."
Watching Byungho's reaction, Jinho added more words.
"So starting with this project, I need some documents..."
"I have to do it again?"
"Please help me out. If it goes well, I'll treat you to a big meal later..."
"You talk well."
Unlike his languid voice, Byungho examined the Kentucky Rifle with a serious face. After pulling the hammer, which had no flint attached, Byungho pulled the trigger.
Click!
"Oh? It works properly, huh? Hmm... Is the muzzle supposed to be this small?"
"No. It's blocked so gunpowder can enter but bullets can't."
"Hmm..."
While listening to the explanation and examining the barrel, Byungho discovered a small fissure about 1 cm from the muzzle.
Examining the fissure carefully, Byungho firmly grabbed the barrel and pulled the part above the fissure.
Pop!
With a small sound, the muzzle portion separated from the barrel, and Byungho examined the inside of the muzzle.
Six rifling grooves were alluringly twisted.
After confirming the rifling, Byungho grabbed Jinho by the collar.
"You fucking bastard! You said it was a prop! Why would you cut rifling into a prop!"
"If I'm going to make it, I need to make it properly to meet the customer's..."
"What kind of customers are these, making snuff films or something! You bastard! You came here to use me this time too! Treating me like a fool!"
"It's not like that..."
"Bastard!"
"It was in the requirements! To be usable in case of unexpected situations..."
"What kind of bullshit is that from people living in a country where even worse things overflow once you cross the threshold!"
After a long struggle, Byungho and Jinho reached an agreement to firmly attach a plug to the rifle's barrel using electric welding, and add the following phrase to the product description posted on Amazon:
-In accordance with the laws of the country of manufacture, the muzzle has been modified to prevent the use of live ammunition.
"What a shame..."
"Shit!"
Jinho, unable to hide his disappointment, shrank his neck when Byungho glared at him. Byungho, reading through the advertisement Jinho had posted on Amazon, asked a question.
"You said you'd make it according to historical authenticity, but are you making the materials the same too?"
"No way. If I made the barrel, the most important material, using traditional methods from scratch, I'd need to add another zero to the price."
"I suppose so."
While they were having this conversation, an old woman entered Jinho's smithy.
"Is the blacksmith young man here?"
"Welcome!"
"This is seed potatoes, could you store them in the warehouse?"
"Yes, I understand."
After receiving the box of seed potatoes from the old woman, Jinho placed it in a separate warehouse built behind the smithy.
After the old woman left, Byungho looked at Jinho with a new expression.
"You seem close with the village elders?"
"Well, we help each other out with this and that."
"But why do they use your warehouse?"
"There are some sensitive chemicals I use at the smithy, so I put some thought into building the warehouse. Thanks to that, it's good for storing seeds and fertilizer, so many people use it."
"Is that so? Let me take a look."
"Why do you want to look around again?"
"Tch..."
When Byungho's expression sharpened, Jinho, who had been shrinking his neck, guided Byungho to the separate warehouses built behind the smithy.
Seeing the iron plates piled high in the first warehouse, Byungho turned to Jinho.
"Quite a lot of scrap metal?"
"Spring steel is the best for making knives and such things. Thanks to that, I've become a regular at the junkyard."
"Is that so? Open the other warehouses too."
"...Alright."
At Byungho's urging, Jinho opened the second warehouse.
Entering the warehouse where a cool atmosphere lingered and examining the items inside, Byungho glared at Jinho.
"Why does a smithy need such chemicals?"
"For etching decorations and such, they're needed when doing additional work."
"Did you purchase them normally?"
"Want me to show you the receipts? Really... acting like a detective just because your job is one."
Despite Jinho's protest, Byungho's eyes remained sharp.
"If you cause an accident, you'll die by my hand."
"Ah, I won't cause an accident!"
"A guy who makes homemade guns won't?"
"..."
After warning Jinho and turning away, Byungho sniffed and grumbled.
"Which house is this? How much fertilizer did they spread to have this smell..."
"It's my field."
"Huh? Now you're doing farm work too?"
"Hahaha..."
At Jinho's strange laugh, Byungho's expression sharpened again as he examined the field. About 500 pyeong in size, half of the field was occupied by solar panels, and the other half was covered with fertilizer.
Observing the composition, Byungho looked straight at Jinho's face.
"The one useful thing about your personality is that you can't lie. This definitely isn't a field for farming—what's this field for?"
"Well... it's a saltpeter field..."
"Saltpeter field?"
"I was thinking of making some potassium nitrate..."
"Why potassium nitrate?"
"To check if the Kentucky Rifle was made properly, I need some black powder, but getting black powder is a bit difficult..."
"Bastard! This is beyond the realm of covering for you!"
At Jinho's answer that went beyond expected range, Byungho, whose face turned pale white, grabbed Jinho by the collar and screamed at the top of his lungs.
Byungho's face turned pale white not simply because Jinho had made gunpowder.
* * *
Three days before Byungho came to find Jinho, someone from the National Intelligence Service came to visit Byungho and his colleagues.
The NIS agent's visit was regarding 'Islamic terrorist organizations' activities within the country.'
"After Osama was eliminated, Islamic fundamentalist terrorist organizations have been operating independently. Currently, no such organizations have been discovered in our country, but the situation can be considered very dangerous. The reason is that a significant number of illegal workers from Pakistan and Southeast Asian Islamic countries are working illegally."
According to the NIS explanation, the situation was truly dire.
Most of the workers employed illegally faced excessive overtime as a basic condition, with frequent wage arrears and even assaults.
As things developed this way, illegal immigrant workers harboring hostility toward Koreans and Korea were increasing, and the possibility of homegrown terrorist organizations forming around them was growing higher and higher.
"...Thanks to that, these days I can't tell if I belong to the NIS or if I'm an investigator from the Ministry of Employment and Labor. A day passes just getting unpaid wages for illegal workers and getting compensation for those injured in industrial accidents. Even when deporting them, we need to eliminate ill will, you see."
After briefly complaining, the NIS agent got to the main point.
"The reason I'm meeting with all of you is because of Yangsan's特殊性."
"There are almost no factories where illegal residents can work in Yangsan, though?"
When one of the detectives participating in the meeting pointed this out, the NIS agent nodded.
"Correct. But there are many farms in the surrounding area, aren't there? These days, another source of demand for illegal immigrant workers is these farming and livestock complexes."
At the NIS agent's answer, the detectives nodded. Farming was hard work, but livestock farming was truly difficult labor.
After wetting his throat, the NIS agent displayed several slides on the screen.
"What you're seeing now are photos from several bomb terror sites, including the Oklahoma bombing. What's important here is the materials for the explosives, the main tool of terrorism. While there are cases of using actual military or civilian explosives, there are also not a few cases of gathering materials available in the market. In such cases, the most useful material is nitrogen fertilizer. Nitrogen fertilizer mixed properly with diesel, kerosene, or lubricant makes an excellent explosive."
"Hmm..."
At the NIS agent's explanation, the faces of the detectives seated around became serious. What the farms around Yangsan City overflowed with was nitrogen fertilizer.
"Of course, nitrogen fertilizer isn't only available in Yangsan. However, to the east of Yangsan is Busan, and to the west is Changwon. If you obtain detonators from the Russian mafia in Busan or make them yourself, then drive a truck loaded with explosives to the Changwon defense industry complex and detonate it, a fatal situation would unfold."
At the NIS agent's explanation, the detectives nodded with serious faces.
What overflowed in farms and agricultural supply stores on the outskirts of Yangsan was fertilizer. Fuel tanks full of fuels for use in greenhouses and other agricultural facilities, and lubricants for use in agricultural machinery were also commonly found. Not only that, 1-ton trucks were also common.
Finally, there were quite a few people who brought Pakistanis or other Southeast Asians to farm or raise livestock, and they had heard rumors that they were working them quite harshly.
Sensing that the detectives recognized the seriousness, the NIS agent moved to wrap up.
"What the NIS has asked for your cooperation with is not only regarding illegal foreign workers, but also surveillance of organized crime groups in Yangsan City. According to our investigation, the brokers who find work for illegal residents are connected to organized crime groups, and these groups are also involved in managing and preventing the escape of foreigners employed that way. We ask you to focus your management on this area. This is a very important matter for national security."
< Episode 1: He is Gwangdeok. > End
ⓒ Gukbong
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