BSA Ch 21

From the altar, Lee Hwanmae looked down upon the slaughterers. Beneath the feet of the slaughterers, a hundred and fifty snakes captured last night were drooling. To their eyes, saturated with hypnosis and drugs, the blue screens surrounding them must have looked like a magnificent temple surpassing the pyramids of Giza. Deep within their hearts, burning love for Lee Hwa would be filling them, plunging them into a state of ecstasy.

“Are you sick of it?”

Lee Hwanmae said. Not that it wasn’t true—the sense of ennui exuding from the slaughterers was unusually thick.

“Even if you’re sick of it, bear with it. The snakes are plunderers who kill our parents, rape our sisters, and steal our land. We are patriots. This is an order commanded by God. With His great foresight, God has protected this country from the snakes for seven years and worked the miracle of raising a million-strong army. All of that is thanks to the patriotic acts to which we abandoned being human and devoted our bodies. Our slaughter is patriotism.”

Lee Hwanmae’s voice was soft and gentle. His smooth voice, characteristic of a high priest inciting religious fanatics, was notorious among the snakes.

The traitor had said that Lee Hwanmae was one of the very few who had direct contact with Lee Hwa. He was a figure who had been sensationally selected by Lee Hwa right upon graduation and had undergone rapid promotions. The one who received Lee Hwa’s foresight and commands to establish and execute strategies, wielding influence more powerful than military marshal Yu Changgyeong, was Lee Hwanmae. The one who had judged that brutality was the only answer to counter overwhelming numbers, founding Mae-Ran-Guk-Juk and gathering talented individuals of Hwado in droves, was also Lee Hwanmae.

Lee Hwa really has an eye for people.

Gwanchang evaluated Lee Hwanmae highly. Told to do something, he actually does it. And he does it for a full seven years, at that. Although the notion of Lee Hwa turning this frantic ritual into a border defense tactic was astonishing, Lee Hwanmae, who faithfully followed the orders and served as high priest for seven years, was also formidable. No matter how much of a show it might be, doing something like this for seven years was bound to cause cracks in one’s psyche, yet Lee Hwanmae was maintaining thorough composure. He was no ordinary hardcase.

“God has sent down foresight. Listen well, everyone.”

At Lee Hwanmae’s words, Gwanchang paid attention.

“It was spoken from the heavens that to block the snakes who have swallowed ‘Ilhwawolguk’, we must help the head of ‘Saengmyeongmokguk’, Joby, until the very end. The question is how much Joby will actually pay attention to God’s foresight, though.”

Suddenly, a sneer flashed in Lee Hwanmae’s pupils.

“If Wang Hui, the head of ‘Ilhwawolguk’, had also trusted and followed God’s foretold words to the end, he wouldn’t have watched his great-granddaughter be beheaded right before his eyes.”

At those words, Gwanchang fell into deep thought. Every time Mukso set his mind on full-scale peninsula liberation (?) work, as if waiting for it, ‘Ilhwawolguk’ and ‘Saengmyeongmokguk’ would invade the snakes’ land and stir up trouble.

Could that be because of colluding secretly with Lee Hwa?

To be fair, it was natural. In war, one must thoroughly guard against fighting a lonely battle. No matter how strong a military force one possessed, one must definitely secure allied forces, and eliminating the enemy by borrowing someone else’s sword was the best approach. It was the basics of military strategy.

If that’s true, it’s a bit troublesome.

Gwanchang groaned silently. The total number of the peninsula liberation army mobilized by Mukso this time was one million, concentrating the military power of the snakes. Even if Gwanchang did not deliver Deng Li’s report, Mukso was scheduled to march unconditionally. However, if by any chance the information provided by the traitor was true, Lee Hwa’s military force was also one million. As if that wasn’t enough, she even joined hands with ‘Saengmyeongmokguk’?

“Now, brothers.”

Lee Hwanmae slowly raised both arms. Nudged in the flank by a pretty private soldier, Gwanchang snapped back to his senses. The camera light turned on.

“It is time to offer a meal to God.”

As soon as Lee Hwanmae’s words finished, the temple was engulfed in screams and shouts. The icy, silent, cold men were instantly plunged into frenzy and let out screams. They cut off the ears and noses of the captives and gouged out their eyeballs. The temple floor was covered with blood and flesh, and screams, cries, and laughter soared.

Men waiting in places untouched by the camera’s gaze watched the slaughter without the slightest twitch. After about two hours, they took over the baton from their comrades and rushed into the slaughter scene. The moment they jumped in, as if nothing had ever happened, they wailed, prayed, and hacked people up piece by piece.

Gwanchang had a personality that rarely batted an eye at anything, but this sight surprised him. He was amazed by the slaughterers’ expertise, concentration, and thorough obedience. Even the snakes who had risen to the strongest position on the Western Continent were not as expert and loyal as them.

Gwanchang interpreted Lee Hwanmae’s soft voice without missing a word. Make the captives bleed as much as possible. Do your utmost so that God can have a hearty meal. Rituals are about sincerity. If God starves, His foresight will suffer damage. We bear the obligation to satisfy God’s hunger by offering the snakes. The snakes are plentiful in number, so offer them without stint. If you run out, you can just hunt more and offer them.

Lee Hwanmae must have been a Mayan priest in a past life, Gwanchang thought. A sadistic pleasure oozed from his soft, gentle voice. Indeed, he was no ordinary hardcase. He was befitting of the leader of an elite unit who wrote the pledge of slaughter abandoning humanity and joined. They say if you cannot avoid it, enjoy it. Lee Hwanmae was someone who enjoyed what could not be avoided.

Anyone who genuinely enjoys the unavoidable is worth fearing. All the more so if that “unavoidable thing” is slaughter.

For a long time, Gwanchang had suspected this frantic ritual of being propaganda that slyly plagiarized and adapted the Mayans’ human sacrifice customs. Even if Mukso were to shout himself hoarse now that Lee Hwa does not eat people and the people of the “Country of God” are not fanatics but farmers, the snakes would never believe it. The incitement directed by the slaughterers over seven years had perfectly remodeled the snakes’ ideology. To the snakes, the “Country of God” was a nation of cannibals. The snakes firmly believed that the moment they set foot in the “Country of God,” they would turn into a single meal and enter the mouths of the religious fanatics.

After a filming session lasting a full six hours, the slaughter came to an end.

“Thanks for your hard work doing such difficult things.”

Once the camera was turned off, the wicked priest took off his hood and praised the slaughterers. Military officers belonging to Yun (侖) cleared away the bodies of the snakes.

“The disciple will guard the snakes until the successor interpreter arrives.”

Lee Hwanmae said as he slipped out of the temple. Gwanchang was dragged out all the way outside the temple. The scale of the barracks spread outside was cramped. Some fifty makeshift buildings made of containers. Even at the most generous estimate, it was on a scale where around a thousand people could eat and sleep. This seemed to be the vanguard unit where only the worst hardcases among the Mae-Ran-Guk-Juk divisions were gathered. Starting with this vanguard unit consisting only of hardcases, the barracks of the “million-strong army” claimed by the traitor would stretch out endlessly, so to speak. Gwanchang let out a cynical chuckle.

Does that make sense? The snakes number a million. They are saying the number of snakes boasting the best military power on the continent is a million!

Leaving all that aside, military expenses were the problem to begin with. The decisive reason Mukso planned the peninsula liberation (?) was to ease the burden of military expenses. Even Usaguk, boasting a population of one hundred and forty million, was on the verge of running out of breath procuring military expenses, yet God and Yun (侖)—whose total populations combined barely amounted to eighteen million-some—are raising a million-strong army? Considering both countries’ total populations and economic scales, it was out of the question.

Nonsense, nonsense, utterly absurd nonsense. At the absolute most, it’s two hundred thousand. I guarantee it!

In any case, Lee Hwa was finished. Mukso would never kill Lee Hwa nicely after being mocked for seven years. Keeping Lee Hwa alive and removing organs one by one, he would torture him every single day for a year to kill him slowly. In truth, even this was a merciful disposal, given that the Western Continent was a place where various brutal tortures were highly developed, commensurate with its vast land and numerous population.

In truth, Gwanchang liked Lee Hwa. Military strategy defines warfare as the art of deception. It proclaims that strategy is a battle of wisdom, and its execution is a competition of deceit. Lee Hwa was a wise swindler. Religious fanatics, ritual ceremonies, inciting speeches, inciting propaganda films, inciting leaflets—everything was a meticulously calculated scam. Just looking at Lee Hwanmae revealed Lee Hwa’s vessel. A subordinate is the mirror of their monarch.