"He's a formidable commander."
Oh Jinchul said it quietly.
"There's no doubt—we'll win. But… I don't know if we'll make it back alive."
Park Seongjin felt relief even as he heard those words.
We will win.
That single sentence covered every anxiety. He was still young—young enough to believe that winning meant surviving, that winning meant the end. Oh Jinchul's concern sounded like nothing more than an old soldier's unease.
Needless worry, he thought.
Only a day ago, several men had died, and already the fact had begun to fade. They had been faces, not numbers—yet even those faces seemed to sink back into the dust.
Then Seongjin's gaze reached the fire-control officer in the distance. Mounted, caked in dust, sweat shining between his brows—the man who had not allowed a single shot until the enemy was within fifty paces.
They had called him a coward.
But that day, he was not afraid.
He held. Even as arrows flew, even as horses fell, he never loosened the string. His voice rang like iron, and that iron held the line together.
Suddenly, Seongjin understood.
Oh Jinchul's words, and the officer's bearing—they were telling the same story.
All of them—including himself—were pieces placed on someone else's board.
How those pieces were moved, he still did not know. For now, it was enough that he could still move at all.
Seongjin closed his mouth.
The wind came. The smell of soil mixed with blood stung his nose. In that smell, he realized something unsettling:
he was not yet afraid of the scent of war.
That frightened him more.
Oh Jinchul went on.
"And when things get tangled up, none of that matters. Just scrape it out with a small blade."
His eyes were still on the battlefield.
"Think about yesterday. You choked him—held on until he died, didn't you?"
Seongjin nodded.
"Yes."
"And if another one jumps you then?"
"I die."
Oh Jinchul let out a short laugh.
"Exactly. That's why you keep a small knife hidden. When bodies stick together, the little blade is best."
His voice was heavy, like blood-stained steel.
Seongjin asked carefully,
"…I understand."
"Listen."
Oh Jinchul drew a small knife from his belt. The blade was shorter than his palm.
"If you're careless, you can cut yourself—or lose it. So grip it in reverse. Like this."
He flipped his hand, holding the blade downward, then twisted his wrist through the air.
"This angle. When you're tangled up, even this much is enough to drain them."
Seongjin swallowed.
Yesterday's scene came back—horses screaming, men crying out, the short moment when he had crushed a throat. The sensation of cooling flesh still clung to his hands.
Oh Jinchul sheathed the knife.
"When you're locked together, skill, weapons, orders—none of it matters."
He rose slowly. The wound in his side had not yet closed, but his steps did not falter.
"Then it's simple."
"The one still breathing wins."
Seongjin remained there for a long while.
Striking and blocking, dodging and thrusting—that was what you did playing in alleyways. Real fighting wasn't like that.
Oh Jinchul's words circled his ears like wind.
Hide the small blade.When you're tangled, the little knife.
Seongjin reached beneath his saber and found the short sheath. Cold iron met his fingertips. That chill, strangely, calmed him.
Now I've learned, he thought.
He lifted his eyes to the sky. Smoke still lingered over the battlefield, carrying soil, blood, and ash.
Within it, he still did not know
how deep this learning would pull him.
Night fell.
Traces of fire still marked the field. A half-burned wagon wheel caught the moonlight and glimmered faintly.
Seongjin sat at the edge of the forest.
Cuts overlapped across his palms; the blood had already dried.
He scraped the dirt with his fingers.
The sensation was strange—not hot, not cold. Only the feeling that he was still alive remained.
The wind blew.
It carried the smell of blood, earth, and burned horseflesh.
Seongjin breathed it in.
Strangely, it did not make him retch.
Instead, his mind settled.
Is this… killing intent?
Killing intent was not simply the desire to kill.
It was the resolve to endure death.
Within it, there was life-force—the will to survive, itself.
Images from the day flickered past.
Bodies locked together. Breath crushed out.
And the cold of the small blade in his hand.
When its tip tore into flesh, he had felt it clearly:
I am alive.
That heat and smell still clung to his fingertips.
He slowly opened his hand.
At the center of his palm, dried blood had cracked.
Perhaps this was killing intent.
Not the fact that he had killed someone, but that he could still breathe with this blood on his hands.
I lived.
The words echoed inside him.
Whether they were comfort or terror, he could not tell.
One thing alone was certain.
There was no going back.
The wind passed through the leaves.
The sound came like waves.
Seongjin closed his eyes.
His breathing was short, steady.
Killing intent and vitality,death and life,were mixed as one.
Between them, he felt for the first time another battlefield inside himself—
a battlefield fought not with blades, but with the mind.
And there, he took his first step.
His body was empty.
After rolling through death, not even the strength to move a finger remained. Even breathing felt heavy.
He did not know where that strength had come from.
He could not explain why, in that moment, his hands had moved.
Eyes closed, he retraced the fight.
If it happens again—
Break the arm.Twist the neck.Cut the center.Drive the blade into the opening.
The sequence of movements rose clearly in his mind.
Then he understood.
Practice was only practice.
The motions mimicked through subak and taekkyeon were useless before death thrown without warning.
Techniques never tested with one's life had no power in the field.
That truth lodged in him like bone, amid exhaustion and trembling.
Seongjin stood and walked into the forest.
The smell of horse breath and burning still clung to his clothes, but gripping the cold bark of a tree calmed him.
He held the small blade in reverse.
Set the tip lightly into the wood.Changed the angle of his wrist.Shifted his weight.
He carved the sensations into his body—
thrusting inward,clinging and twisting,ducking and cutting.
He rose and thrust again, repeating the motion of severing the carotid with his hand.
This practice no longer ended as practice.
The fear and heat of real combat remained fully present.
Even when all strength drained away, he kept moving.
He searched for ways to break balance with a single small joint.
Short sequences—
thrust,cut,stab,drive.
He wove the footwork of taekkyeon and the balance of wrestling into the knife's motion.
With one hand holding the blade, he practiced collapsing an opponent by pressing body to body.
Sweat ran down his neck.
His palms were mottled with cuts.
Still, Seongjin did not stop.
This training was no longer preparation for some future day.
He was building a way to survive the next night—
the one already standing before him.