"Hey, Kook, wake up!" Doyun ordered eagerly, shaking him by the arm.

"No..." Jungkook muttered as he rolled on the floor to get away from Doyun. But the man did not leave him alone. He grabbed him and forced him back onto his legs as if the boy weighed nothing, making him open his eyes.

"We are not playing anymore now, Jungkook, I need you to do something, it's urgent!"

Around him, the sailors were busy and armed themselves, but they seemed too drunk to do it effectively, some even staggered. On the docks, the sound of a bell began to ring out, like an emergency call.

"Wh-what's going on?" Jungkook stuttered, alarmed.

"A pirate ship is quietly docking at Eobu and no warship is on patrol to stop them."

"The pirates?" Jungkook repeated as he looked around trying to catch a glimpse of them. But in the darkness of the night, it was difficult to recognize one boat among others.

"Wakos," Doyun said, without any doubt, which made Jungkook's wide eyes open completely. "Their boat moved away from here to approach the fishing port."

"Towards Saengson?!"

"Exactly," the captain agreed.

The situation was very bad. Jungkook look feverishly around him, worried:

"Where is Jin?!"

"Don't worry about him, he's gone home and will be safe there with his family, but you and the people of Saengson aren't and I need you to sound the alarm immediately there."

"But you have already sounded the alarm, I can hear the bell!" protested Jungkook who would have preferred to join Seokjin to check that he had returned home safe. "The soldiers will warn the people there themselves."

"Kook, even if the alarm has been given, the soldiers of Eobu will have to crisscross the whole city and what is the last place they will go, in your opinion?"

Jungkook didn't take long to think.

"Saengson..." he breathed.

"Exactly. If the pirates infiltrate the city, the soldiers will first go to protect the rest of Eobu before going to Saengson and people will be attacked by surprise. You have to go sound the alarm over there or a lot of people will die."

"But what about you? What are you going to do?" Jungkook wondered, "Can't you come to Saengson too to help people?"

"My men are drunk and they're not soldiers but we're going to join the pirate's ship to try to hold them back or put as many of them out of harm's way as possible before they scattered around the city," Doyun explained. "But if you don't feel able to do it, you can stay here and hide on the Leviathan, I'll send Byungho to Saengson, it's fine."

"Nope!" Jungkook refused firmly. "I'll do it."

"I knew you weren't afraid of anything, you're a brave boy," Doyun appreciated, patting his cheek affectionately, "that's what I was telling Jin: you'll make a great sailor, fearless like you are. You already have the soul of a warrior and I know that I will not regret taking you on my crew."

"Eh?" Jungkook said without understanding.

"You'll talk to Jin about it when you see him, he has an interesting proposition for you," Doyun smiled, winking at him. Now go, Kook, and don't get caught! And if it becomes too dangerous for you, it is better to flee, there will be another moment to play the heroes: it is not the petty criminals of Saengson that you risk crossing this night but wakos who will not hesitate a second to kill you."

"I know," Jungkook said gravely before stepping off the ship. "Stay safe!"

"That, little warrior, is what adults tell kids and not the other way around," Doyun sighed as he loaded his pistol, and saw Jungkook running at a run towards Saengson.

He ran at full speed on the docks until he reached a dark street that allowed him to rush into the Saengson district. While the whole town was barricading themselves or evacuating their house too close to the docks, in Saengson, people wandered the streets as if nothing had happened despite the late hour, unaware of the presence of the pirates in the city. Doyun was right, Saengson's people were completely on their own.

He started running, screaming everywhere he went:

"Flee, everyone, the wakos are coming!!"

Unfortunately, he wasn't the most reliable child on the area. Despite the delinquency that reigned there, in a few months, he had made a reputation for troublemaking and hearing him shout at the pirates – which no one had seen in the East Sea for at least a generation - did not help him to be taken seriously.

The old alcoholics began to laugh in his face while the mothers, poking their heads through the windows, yelled at him:

"Shut up Jungkook! It's too late to come and make trouble here, you're waking up the brats!"

Behind her, baby's cries were heard and she lavished terrible curses on Jungkook. Obviously, women and children were in the majority in the houses at this hour of the night, most of the men being at the tavern.

Jungkook continued to uselessly shout at the pirates to those people who were yelling at him to shut up and threatening him. When he finally came across Kyunghong half asleep on his doorstep, he stopped. If there was one man who would have everyone agreeing, it was him. If he could convince them to believe him, then people would be more inclined to do so.

"You all have to flee Saengson, we all have to evacuate, the wakos are coming!" he told him hurriedly despite his throat burning from running too much.

"Jungkook, there are times when your games are no longer tolerated," the man sighed in annoyance.

"I'm not playing," the boy snapped. "I'm trying to save your life and you have to help me!"

The man shook his head, much to Jungkook's dismay.

"Go back to sleep, and-"

He suddenly stopped, and Jungkook heard the same thing he did. Screams. It was coming from the other side of the neighborhood, but it was clearly audible. Kyunghong then began to hear the bell blaring in the distance. Jungkook saw his face contort with fear and knew he believed him.

"Keep warning everyone, I'll help you," the man said.

Overwhelmed with relief, the boy nodded. He resumed his running until that, out of breath, he ended up reaching the street of pleasure. This street wasn't really sleeping, as evidenced by the dim lights coming from the windows and all kinds of noises escaping from them.

He found himself thinking it was a good thing Seokjin had discovered this place during the day, when its inhabitants were less active. The problem now was that it was going to be difficult to dislodge all these busy people, half of whom had paid for a service for the night, the other half being women who received that money.

"Should I save them?" he growled, remembering that the women had no qualms about luring Seokjin into their clutches.

He sighed and entered the buildings from where he escaped with Seokjin. Stopping as soon as he crossed the threshold of the door, and quickly pulling back the red curtain that hid the corridor, he started to shout:

"Run, the pirates are coming! They will kill you all if you stay!!"

He even had the conviction that pirates were going to look for this place.

"Damn, there's Jungkook again, and now he's screaming for change, someone get him out!" a woman's voice called from one of the bedrooms.

Jungkook heard a door open upstairs and footsteps coming down to join him.

"Jungkook, what a displeasure!" Youngim exclaimed with a grimace. "Your little friend is not here, although I would have liked him to come back to see me."

"He won't come back to see you again so there's no need to hope," Jungkook grumbled.

The woman gave him an annoyed look.

"What do you want, screaming like this instead of sneaking in? There is no free bed for you, go back outside."

"Now is not the time to sleep nor to have fun, the pirates are here, you must flee, all of of you!"

"Jungkook, aren't you a little old for making up pirate stories and crying wolf all over town? You better grow up a bit and stop bothering people by listening to the nonsense of old sailors at the tavern," Youngim retorted with pity, hands on the sides.

"But I am not making this up!" Jungkook fumed. "I swear, I'm not lying! You must leave quickly, or they will come here to harm you and the other girls, be sure of that!"

"Okay, okay, thank you for warning us Jungkook, I will warn the others," she said waving his hand to tell Jungkook to leave.

"You promise? I know I always bother you a lot but I don't want anything bad to happen to you," he confessed, looking away.

"Oh, that's cute. Would you finally come to declare your love to me after all this time, my little man?" Youngim scoffed, gently grabbing her chin to look deep into his eyes.

"It's not funny," Jungkook replied, by moving her hand away. "Warn the others and run as far away from Saegson as possible, okay?"

Surprised by the child's sudden serious tone, she finally sighed.

"Okay, we will do that."

"Thanks," Jungkook said, relieved. "I'll keep warning people, so go this way."

He pointed to the end of the street that led to a major thoroughfare in Eobu and allowed them to leave Saegson. The woman watched him run toward the other side of the street that led him deeper into the neighborhood instead of out of it. She shook her head and giggled.

"Pffff,come back to me when you're really ready instead of coming up with talltales."

Seokjin had almost reached the neighborhood where he lived when he heard the bells ringing and reverberating through the different neighborhoods of the city. He had already heard this bell for having attended exercises to alert to enemy intrusions by land and by sea, but he had never faced a real alert.

And at each alert exercise, only one district did not respect the instructions and did not evacuate, as if people didn't see the point of these exercise or as if the bells were not heard from this district: Saengson.

He was pretty sure no drill could take place at such an hour, and the bells weren't coming from the hinterland but from the docks. Could the attack come from the sea? If so, there were only two possibilities: either an enemy nation had just declared war on Joseon, or pirates had just landed. Both possibilities were terrifying to him because in both cases the stories were about suffering and death.

He was starting to see people leaving their houses with a few belongings to go to the protected assembly points and panic began to overtake him. His legs began to shake and his whole being urged him to run to evacuate with his mother while his father, having probably already joined his unit as a marine, went to defend the city with the rest of the forces of ground order. But one thing stopped him.

"Oh no, Jungkook is over there..." he muttered, losing all the color in his face.

He was even on the docks, as close as possible to the mooring place of the enemy ships. What if Doyun's crew gets attacked and Jungkook with them? He had to go find Jungkook and have him evacuate with him. Even though Jungkook was a reckless boy who didn't hesitate to fight, he was just a child, he couldn't fight against armed enemies who came to kill.

So, against what his trembling legs were telling him, he turned back, running as fast as he could to the docks where the Leviathan was moored. But when he arrived at the ship, he realized that it was empty, from the hold to the crow's nest, no present from Jungkook or the crew. Consumed with worry, Seokjin quickly climbed down and pondered.

Could they have evacuated with the other inhabitants? No, in that case, they would have sailed with their boat to take shelter. And knowing Doyun like Seokjin knew him, he wouldn't have let people of Eobu down. The sailor was certainly defending the city somewhere with his crew. Probably towards the mooring place of the enemy boat.

Straining his ears past the screams of the people and the frantic ringing of bells, he did hear the sound of clashing swords. He swallowed with difficulty. If he wanted to find Jungkook, this was the direction he had to go. But it terrified him. His breathing was ragged and he placed a hand on his racing heart.

"I-I'll be fine," he stammered, "I'll just find Jungkook and we'll run off, like usual."

Finding Jungkook. That was all that mattered. That's what made him start running again along the docks and he finally saw, by torchlight, the immense black three-masted ship whose black sails, when furled, appeared crimson when observed closely.

Seokjin had never seen such a large ship in his life, not even at the Eobu Naval Base, and he wondered how powerful the crew of such a ship must be. Above the three masts fluttered a flag of the same color, surmounted by a white dragon's head. He had never seen one in real life, as they were only represented in his history books, but he knew very well that it was a wako pavilion. These demons from another time had returned to attack them...

Suddenly, he saw the shadows of two man pass along the rail, he immediately crouched and froze, hoping to become invisible in the dark. His teeth began to chatter in terror, and he clamped a hand over his mouth for fear that the man, several meters higher, would hear him. This was no longer a made-up story. This was reality. He stifled a moan of anguish, wanting more than anything to be safe in his mother's arms.

The two men started to speak and Seokjin was relieved to realize they hadn't seen him. He focused on what they were saying and frowned. He spoke and understood the Joseon language and also the Ming language that his parents had forced him to learn with a tutor. However, the language of these pirates - which he decided to recognize as Japanese - was completely foreign to him, although the sounds were familiar. He wondered what they could possibly be talking about. Killing us all? Seokjin wondered in dread. He held his breath until the men moved away from the railing and that their voices become inaudible.

He then breathed a deep sigh of relief and noticed that his whole body was trembling. He silently got back on his feet and on tiptoe, walked away, guided by the sound of swords continuing to clash.

A few steps away, he saw the staggering crew of Doyun who tried to push back a handful of men that this time, he could observe by torchlight. They were short men, most of them dressed in a kind of hanbok and armed with short, thin, single-edged swords. Most of them had long black hair tied in buns on their heads, like Joseon men, except that much of the back of their heads was shaved. Others had completely shaved heads. He saw that the visible skin of some was completely covered in colorful designs. Even though he found them weird, they didn't look like monsters to Seokjin, more like fierce warriors from an imaginary land, and he surprised himself by finding them rather cool.

"You see me sorry, little man, but I would have preferred to see your dad the admiral come to the rescue rather than you!" Byungho exclaimed upon seeing him and fending off his assailant. Seokjin jumped when he realized how close he was to them. "Where's your dad, little guy? Tell him to hurry, we won't last long and most of the pirates are already in town but the best way to confuse them would be to sink their boat and trap them here."

Seokjin opened his mouth to answer but his attention quickly shifted to the wakos who were approaching them. He was captivated by their way of spinning, of parrying the clumsy attacks of the merchants. He felt as if he had stepped into the previous century and his wonder did not subside when he met the dark gaze of one of them and saw him approaching him. But a massive man suddenly blocked his view and Doyun's voice pulled him from his torpor:

"Jin, shake it off, you stupid fool, they're wakos!!"

Behind him, the approaching wako was stopped by Byungho.

"D-Doyun!" Seokjin stammered. "I can see they are wakos."

"Then go away! Why did you have to come back?!"

The boy caught an alarmed look and noticed that Doyun hadn't snubbed him for not calling him captain. Then, when he heard Byungho scream in pain, he remembered brutally that there was a real danger and that he had only come back here for one person.

"J-Jungkook... where is he?"

Doyun cursed and moved Seokjin away from the place of confrontation to take shelter in an alley and discuss without risking being killed from behind.

"The two of you are really the same! Jungkook wanted to join you to find out if you were safe, but I told him that you were fine and that he had to return to Saengson."

Stunned, Seokjin quickly felt anger rising in him.

"Why would you do that?!"

"Don't get mad at me, if your dad was doing his job properly and hadn't completely abandoned the Saengson people, I wouldn't have needed to send a kid there to warn people, or send my men defend this dock at the risk of their lives while the soldiers evacuate the wealthy neighborhoods before the others!" Doyun said coldly.

Hit by Doyun's animosity towards him and his father, Seokjin continued anyway:

"You just had to send one of your men to Saengson instead of sending Jungkook there!"

"He was the one who insisted on going!" the angry captain replied, "that boy is brave, he is not a coward unlike you, and he is ready to risk his life for others!"

Seokjin's eyes widened as he heard those words that felt like a harsh slap in the face. Everyone took him for a coward, but not Doyun. Doyun had encouraging words about him and he ended up convincing himself that there was more to him than cowardice and that his friendship with Jungkook made him braver. He suddenly felt like he had become less than nothing: was he really capable of nothing without Jungkook? Couldn't he save his only friend? Shame washed over him.

Realizing what he had just said, Doyun cursed himself.

"I'm sorry, Jin, I didn't mean it, I'm just on edge tonight, when we all risk dying. Let's talk about it later. For now, you have to go to safety, okay?"

"No," Seokjin refused as he began to back away from him down the dark alley without taking his moist eyes off Doyun.

"Come on Jin, now is not the time to sulk," the man said, stepping forward as Seokjin backed away.

"I'm not a coward," the boy asserted.

"I know Jin, I told you I didn't mean it."

"And I will prove it to you. I'm going to look for Jungkook!"

No sooner had he said that than he turned on his heels and ran away.

"NO, JIN COME BACK IT'S TOO DANGEROUS, THE WAKOS ARE ALREADY IN SAENGSON!!" Doyun yelled as he chased him. "You don't have to prove anything to me..."

However, he quickly stopped his race when he saw that Seokjin did not stop and had lost him: the child knew these labyrinthine alleys much better than him. He knew he wouldn't find him again and that he had better return to the docks with his men to lend a hand. He would redirect the admiral to Saengson to fetch Seokjin and Jungkook as soon as he saw him or his soldiers.

"Come back to us alive, boys," he said.

But what could two reckless and playful little boys do against cruel pirates?