The Conscript Wants to Be Discharged!

It was another ordinary day.
I woke up, put on my shabby clothes, and slipped on my worn-out shoes to start the day.
Greeting my family who had woken up around the same time as me, we each took a cold potato that had been steamed the night before. Stuffing the dry potato into our mouths, we headed outside.
Opening the wooden door, I filled my lungs with the chilly morning air, stretched my arms high, and exhaled a slightly warmed breath as I took in the familiar scenery.
Stone walls of moderate size, with small wooden houses clustered within them – I gazed at the quiet village landscape. I grabbed my farming tools and headed to the wheat field, bringing along my younger siblings who followed behind me.

Holding the hands of my still small siblings in each of mine, we walked along the well-ripened wheat field that created golden waves swaying in the autumn breeze. Humming the same song I always sang, I walked with a sense of peace towards the wheat field where we always worked with bent backs.

“In the golden wheat field~ The wind comes to visit~
Gently tickling the farmer’s ear~
When the farmer turns his head in surprise~
It shyly smiles and runs far away~”

My siblings swung my hands and hummed along as we walked to the field. I matched their short strides, walking slowly. Our parents followed behind, smiling softly at the sight of us.

It truly was the most peaceful start to a day.
Until they came to the village.

A large cloud of dust rose at the outskirts of the quiet village.
“Clop-clop! Clop-clop!”
The heavy sound of horse hooves echoed through the quiet village, drawing the attention of the villagers as the peaceful atmosphere crumbled.
Outsiders rode around different parts of the village, shouting loudly. Chaos erupted in the village that had been quietly greeting a new morning.

“War! War has broken out!”
“Everyone living in the village, gather in the center!”

The identity of these sudden visitors was armored soldiers – messengers who had come to announce that war had broken out in the country where I and my family lived.

Villagers with pale faces gathered one by one in the village square at the soldiers’ cries of war.
My family and I were also led by the soldiers’ hands to the central square of the village.
When we arrived at the square, there was a platform usually used to recite the crimes of offenders. Mounted soldiers stood around it, and a well-dressed nobleman had climbed up onto it.

Wearing a hat adorned with the red tail feathers of an unknown bird, and dressed in blue clothes made of fabric that commoners like us would never dare to wear or touch, the noble man was an official who managed the royal family’s direct territories. This man, rarely seen in normal times, stood on the wooden platform looking down at the villagers gathered in the center of the village. He unfolded a paper handed to him by the mounted soldiers and began to read:

“Beloved subjects of the royal family, I am Robert of Flanders, the rightful heir to the proud House of Flanders with 400 years of history.

The official’s mouth uttered the name of the crown prince that anyone living in this country would have heard at least once. What followed from the official’s mouth was truly shocking.

“Now that chaos has descended upon the kingdom like a dark cloud, with His Majesty the King, who had been ruling the kingdom benevolently with the blessings of the gods in heaven, having fallen to an unknown illness, and His Majesty unable to easily shake off the illness and confined to his bed, many in the kingdom have rushed to His Majesty’s side in one step to pray for his recovery with utmost loyalty. However, Baudouin, His Majesty’s brother and my uncle, a proud royal bloodline who was granted the northern territory by His Majesty’s boundless grace, has forgotten the grace of being granted territory and dared not visit the court to see His Majesty. Unable to contain his wicked and gloomy desires, he has revealed his base greed for the sacred throne and raised an army. I cannot help but lament this situation.

The kingdom’s sovereign has fallen ill, and his brother has raised an army coveting the throne!
The expression of the official reading the paper grew darker and darker.
I, no, all the villagers listening to the official’s story, knew what was coming next.

“Therefore! I, Robert of Flanders, the only legitimate son of His Majesty the King and heir to the kingdom, hereby call for the mobilization of an army to confront the forces of the wicked villain Baudouin who challenges the sacred throne!”

The official neatly folded the paper with trembling hands and lifted his head towards the sky with closed eyes.

‘Please, please don’t say it!’

Like the official raising his head to the sky, I too prayed fervently to the gods in heaven, begging them not to let him open his mouth.

“The people who have enjoyed peace through the grace of the royal family! Deeply outraged by the current situation, they are ordered to serve as soldiers under the royal banner!”

Having read the contents of the paper with a trembling voice, the official brought his hands together near his chest and prayed, looking at the despairing villagers below the platform.

“Oh gods residing in the pantheon above, have mercy on these people.”

Watching him pray for us, I looked around at my family with shaking eyes.
My father stared into space with a shocked expression, while my mother covered her mouth with both hands and wept beside him.

“Brother, what’s war?”
“Stupid, since all the villagers have gathered like this, it must be a festival!”

The innocent appearance of my younger siblings who didn’t yet know what war meant.
I embraced them with both arms and looked up at the sky.

“You bastards, I finally got to live a new life, would it kill you to let me live happily?”

Though it wasn’t their fault, I spat out resentful words to the sky.

“Big brother? What’s wrong?”
“Brother?”

Instead of an answer from the gods, my siblings’ confused questions returned, and I hugged them tightly once more.

In my past life, my name was Yujin.
When I lived in 21st century South Korea, I lived for about 20 years under the name Park Yujin.
I lived each day in my own way, navigating through forests of buildings made of concrete and steel, where cars and buses ran on asphalt-paved roads, stopping and going according to systematic traffic signals.
It was a daily routine of being pushed around by superiors at work as usual, enduring the double combo of overtime and night shifts, working late, and always returning home exhausted.
Returning to a roughly 7-pyeong (about 23 square meters) studio apartment, dragging my tired body, taking a quick shower, briefly looking at my smartphone before falling asleep – that was the daily routine of the utterly ordinary me, that is, Park Yujin. But it ended in an absurdly sudden way.

As usual, after finishing overtime work and on my way home, the bus was delayed, so I decided to splurge on a taxi. Unable to fight the increasingly heavy weight of my eyelids, I briefly fell asleep, and…

‘Huh?’

I was reborn in another world.

Even thinking about it now, it’s an incredibly absurd situation.
While I was briefly asleep in the taxi, it might have collided head-on with a truck, sending me alone to another world, or perhaps the taxi driver was actually a professional human trafficker who had infiltrated Earth from another world to kidnap people to other worlds. I came up with numerous hypotheses, but the situation remained unchanged.
Having given up on all assumptions and hypotheses, I decided to just think of it as the gods’ prank and…
I became Yujin, the son of a farmer.

The world I live in seems to be a mix of medieval feudalism and absolute monarchy, what you might call a medieval fantasy world.
The reason it’s fantasy rather than a typical medieval era is that, regardless of the form of government, magic is real in this world, unlike my previous world, and so-called monsters exist.
As for magic, it’s very difficult for a farmer’s son who just plows fields to actually witness magic, but as for monsters, you can encounter them quite often when working in the fields outside the village. Of course, monsters that pose a significant threat to the village are dealt with by mercenaries called adventurers and knights leading soldiers, so the ones that approach the fields aren’t very threatening and can be driven away with ordinary farming tools, but still.

My daring one-line summary of this world is:
A romantic medieval era with a spoonful of fantasy.

And I, reborn in this medieval era with memories of my past life, had quite a difficult growth process.
In novels, protagonists who suddenly become babies manage to act like babies all too easily, but realistically, it’s not simple for a man in his mid-20s to suddenly become a baby who can’t even control his bowel movements at will and live while acting in a way that doesn’t make his parents suspect anything strange.

With the mind of a 20-something steeped in capitalism, I couldn’t get along with my peers in childhood and always stood out.
My way of thinking and behavior that didn’t match my age made many people around me label me as a ‘strange child’, and it’s natural that I, who seemed strange even to others who weren’t family, would look even stranger in the eyes of my parents who were family. However, my parents accepted my behavior not as ‘strangeness’ but as ‘uniqueness’, and thanks to their affection, I was able to adapt to this world as an ordinary farmer’s son.

My parents are not just my beloved family, but benefactors who made me, who was drifting in the world as ‘Park Yujin’, live as ‘Yujin’. That’s why I can give up many things for them… no, for my family.

“No! No! How can you go there of your own accord!”
“Yes, son, let’s just disappear from this village without anyone knowing, we’ll escape into the forest.”
“…You both know that’s difficult, no, impossible, right?”

The official managing the royal direct territories said that at least one man capable of fighting from each household must be drafted as a soldier. If they refuse conscription, the entire family will be executed for treason under royal law.

This is a world where it’s not the Military Manpower Administration sending draft notices by mail and email, but people directly coming to take you wearing swords and armor. If you refuse conscription during wartime, you won’t be legally prosecuted or imprisoned, but summarily executed on the spot without any say.

“It doesn’t have to be you!”

Father burst out in anger at the thought of his child leaving for a place where he might die at any time.

“Father, there’s no one else in our family who meets the conditions except me.”

Father injured his leg long ago falling on a mountain path and became lame, and my younger brother, our family’s youngest, is only 6 years old. On the other hand, I’m 15, just a year away from becoming an adult by this world’s standards, nearly a young man, with two healthy legs and a robust body with nothing wrong. If someone like me refuses conscription, it’s a foregone conclusion that our family will be ruined.

“It’s more likely that I’ll survive and return than if Father and the youngest go to the battlefield… you know that.”

“That’s, still…”

Father stumbled over his words, seemingly unable to come up with a proper rebuttal, while Mother covered her mouth with both hands and wept.

What parents in the world would willingly push their child onto the battlefield in their stead? But in the current situation where someone has to go, even if I didn’t have to go, I would volunteer for the sake of my family.

“I love you, both of you. You’re really, truly grateful and precious people to me. And please don’t worry too much, I’ll definitely survive and come back safely.”

Holding both parents in my arms, I whispered to them the words I had been thinking all along. I conveyed my sincere feelings to my family who had helped and protected me until I could grow enough to hold two people in my arms. Father, realizing he could no longer stop me, finally showed his tears.

“You two as well, make sure to listen well to your parents.”

“No! Don’t go!”
“Brother, don’t go!”

My young siblings, sensing something was wrong from the conversation between our parents and me, clung to my legs trying to hold me back, but I couldn’t grant their wish. Instead, I held my young siblings in my arms, hugged them tightly, and conveyed my sincere love to them just as I had to our parents, before letting them go.

“Big brother, can’t you not go?”
“No, I can’t.”
“Brother, will you come back soon?”
“…I don’t know, but I’ll try my best.”

It’s regrettable that I won’t be able to continue the daily routine of going to work in the fields holding the small, delicate hands of my siblings. But to protect that daily life, I have to leave, even though I’m sorry to my siblings.

The everyday life of feeling the gentle breeze and humming together.
Getting dirt on our faces and chasing small insects.
Washing our dirty bodies by the stream and catching fish as a bonus.
Cherishing the memories of those days when we all sat together at dusk to end the day.

For the future where we can all be together again, I sent my siblings, crying chicken-pea sized tears, to our parents, and bid a farewell without a set date to my family.

“Take care, and I’ll definitely come back.”

Seeing off my family drenched in tears, I left the house, signed the documents handed to me by the official, and enlisted in the royal army as a conscript.

‘No matter what, I will definitely be discharged safely.’

Following the official and regular royal soldiers who had put on their armor, I left the village. As the sight of my family disappeared from view, I made that promise to myself.

No matter what trials I face, I will not yield.
No matter what threats come my way, I will ultimately survive.
And return to my family’s side.

The military life of Park Yujin from the past South Korea,
and Yujin, the son of a farmer, thus began.
The goal is ‘discharge’.