Translator: Nox

Chapter 11

013 Flint

Juhwan intended to simply hang the wolf pelt in the storehouse. Before he could, however, Lij spread it out neatly inside the house. It seemed she planned to dry it indoors.

He wondered if the smell would be too much, but he understood the moment he saw Lij touching the fur as if she were stroking a treasure.

Ah, this is a significant asset to her.

To her, this wolf pelt was something precious that must not be lost. Even though they were deep in the mountains without a single neighbor in sight, she cherished it too much to leave it in the storehouse.

He didn’t know much about the life she had led. However, it seemed to have been one of great hardship. Seeing her expression as she repeatedly and gently brushed the fur, he felt he could understand a little of what her life had been like until now.

Occasionally, Dorothy would go to Lij’s side and peer at the pelt with her.

Perhaps finding the hollow, wrinkled face of the wolf curious, Dorothy kept poking the wolf’s nose with her finger.

When she did, Lij would join in and poke the wolf too. Juhwan didn’t see what was so amusing about it, but they both looked happy.

At times, Lij would lift the hide with a look of deep concentration or groan to herself. It seemed she was worried because she didn’t know how to properly cure the leather.

‘It can’t be helped.’

They could figure those things out in time. Even if they couldn’t sell it, they could use it at home. Just because it wasn’t professionally cured didn’t mean it would be unusable.

After setting the pelt out, Lij began to salt the wolf meat.

As she pickled the meat, her gaze occasionally drifted to the fat. For some reason, she looked delighted whenever she saw it. Juhwan had set it aside thinking it might be useful for something, and it seemed he had made the right choice.

There wasn’t much salt in their bundles. After salting the meat, there likely wouldn’t be much left. It might be fine now because it was the cold season, but it would have been a problem if it were warm.

‘There’s so much I need to know and do.’

He wanted to learn as soon as possible what constituted wealth here and how goods were purchased and exchanged.

While Lij salted the meat, Dorothy moved busily around the house on her small legs, putting items from the bundles in their proper places.

Every time she finished a task, she made sure to go to Lij to receive praise. Juhwan watched them for a moment, finding the sight adorable, before standing up.

Seeing him rise, Lij rushed over in surprise.

“## ####.”

With a worried expression, she pointed at his left arm and shook her head.

She seemed to be saying he should rest because of his injury. But there was a mountain of work to do. He had no time to idle.

“It’s okay. I rested for a bit, so it doesn’t hurt much now.”

When he spoke and lightly touched his cheek, Lij shook her head vigorously, signaling a firm no. Even though they didn’t speak the same language, she seemed to understand the gist of his words.

But he really was fine. While it was a lie to say it didn’t hurt, the wound had healed enough to stop bleeding from the moment the magical flames had died down. The surface of the ragged wound was already dry and leathery; there was little risk of it festering.

Leaving the worried Lij behind, Juhwan stepped outside.

The inside of the house was currently ice-cold. Even with layers of clothing, it was freezing; if they stayed like this until nightfall, they would literally freeze to death inside.

Juhwan searched the forest near the house for thick, dry-looking branches and brought them back.

A flat log sat outside the house. He placed a branch on it and struck down with his axe. The branches snapped apart easily.

He had wondered if people would have gathered all the fallen branches in a mountain like this, but in reality, there were plenty scattered everywhere.

The very edge of the mountain might be different, but it seemed the village people rarely ventured this far in.

It was strange, considering how in Korea, mountains across the country had once been stripped bare because people cut down trees for firewood.

However, seeing the log meant for chopping wood by the house, it was certain the Forester had used the mountain’s trees for fuel.

Perhaps the reason the villagers had stolen all the firewood from the storehouse was that they weren’t allowed to log for themselves.

Maybe logging this mountain was a taboo for the villagers, permitted only to the Forester.

‘I feel like there’s a catch.’

They gave him a house, a woman, and the supplies needed to survive. They even provided a teacher to train him in hunting. Even to Juhwan, who knew nothing of this world, the treatment seemed far too generous.

At the very least, it wasn’t the kind of thing a rural village—where people were desperate enough to steal even the household goods of others—would do.

There had to be a reason they were making an outsider, someone who came with a slave, the Forester by giving him such things. No, there definitely was. Nothing in this world was free.

Juhwan gave a short, cynical snort.

Even if that were the case, it didn’t matter. If Lij and Dorothy were given to him because he was the Forester, he didn’t care if it was a trap. Whatever came his way, he would simply solve it and break through.

“….”

Of course, if things looked truly dangerous, he intended to drop everything and run away with his family.

As he gathered branches, Juhwan kept an eye out for trees suitable for firewood.

He ruled out the massive ones. He had no confidence in felling a giant tree with an axe when he had never done it before. Until he gained experience, something moderately thick but not too large would be best.

It wasn’t easy. Not only was it hard to find a tree of that size, but he also didn’t know which wood produced less smoke and better heat.

He had heard somewhere that oak was good for firewood, but frankly, he didn’t know which one was an oak.

He vaguely remembered hearing that if it had acorns, it was an oak. But what good did that do? It was mid-winter, and there were no trees with acorns hanging from them.

The trees of the winter mountain, stripped of their leaves, all looked more or less the same.

Juhwan wandered around, the fallen leaves crunching under his feet, before finally giving up on finding an oak and picking a tree of a suitable size.

It was a tree about as thick as four logs put together. It stood about three times his height, with branches spreading out from the thick base that were themselves thicker than his forearm.

It was tall, but compared to the other trees, it was quite short. The others were truly massive, soaring into the sky like something out of a land of giants. He had never seen such trees on Earth.

He untied the axe from his waist and began to strike the base of the tree. He thought it would be a piece of cake given his strength, but he struggled unexpectedly.

The wood was hard, but the main issue seemed to be his technique. It was harder than in the movies to strike, pull back, and strike again.

When he hit it, the axe would just get stuck in the wood. When he tried to pull it out, his heart raced with the fear that the blade might fly off the handle.

He went through several misses and a period of trial and error. As he gradually adjusted the way he swung and applied force, he learned how to strike properly so the axe wouldn’t get stuck.

Countless axe marks were carved into the tree like missing teeth. When he felt he had done enough, he gave it a powerful shove, and the tree tilted to the side with a loud crack.

But it didn’t fall completely. It seemed he had chopped too much from only one direction. Only after he added a few more swings from the opposite side did the tree finally go down.

Juhwan felled one more tree nearby. This time, having done it once, it was a little easier.

Instead of swinging from only one side, he struck all the way around.

The first tree had a messy, splintered break at the stump, but this one was cut cleanly.

Juhwan chopped the fallen trees into sections and moved them to the house in several trips.

After moving them all, he placed the wood on the log in front of the house and began the work of splitting them into usable firewood.

Every time he struck down with the axe, the pieces of wood would fly off in all directions.

It was different from cutting branches. It was harder.

He had thought this kind of manual labor would be easy, but it was several times more difficult than fighting.

His left arm, bitten by the wolf, throbbed painfully. Perhaps because he was using muscles he didn’t normally use, his waist, neck, and shoulders felt stiff. He began to think he might not be able to sleep tonight.

When he went inside, Lij was finishing the wolf meat and organizing the rest of their belongings. There were several items he was seeing for the first time.

“### ##.”

Seeing him, Lij rushed over. Looking at the wound on his left arm, she looked slightly relieved, then scurried off again to bring back a wet cloth.

“Thank you.”

He used the word he had learned earlier and reached out to take it, but Lij pulled the wet cloth back and gestured. She seemed to be telling him to lower himself.

When Juhwan sat on the floor, Lij wiped his face, neck, and arms with the wet cloth. Then, she spoke in a small, shy voice.

“#### Thank you#, ##.”

Dorothy, who had been organizing things with Lij, came running over as well. She got a little water on her hands and began splashing and rubbing Juhwan’s face. It seemed Dorothy was trying to wipe him down too. In reality, she was mostly just making him messier with the dirty water.

Lij giggled and wiped Juhwan’s face again. Dorothy looked at Juhwan as if waiting for something.

“Dorothy, thank you.”

When Juhwan spoke, looking into the child’s sparkling eyes, Dorothy smeared her dirty hands on his face once more.

Lij laughed. Drawn by the sound of her laughter, Juhwan laughed too, and then even Dorothy burst into giggles.

After laughing like that for a while, Juhwan brought the firewood he had left on the floor to the center of the house.

He wasn’t sure if all medieval heating was like this or if it was just this cabin. This house didn’t have a fireplace; instead, it had a hearth in the center.

The floor was thickened to create a spot for a fire, which was then surrounded by bricks to keep the flames contained.

Above the hearth, a thick iron bar with a hook was installed across the open space. It seemed meant for hanging a pot or something similar.

There was no flue or chimney. There was simply a hole in the middle of the high ceiling. It seemed smoke was meant to be drawn up through it. But if that were the case, wouldn’t they be unable to light a fire on rainy days?

Juhwan brought the shovel from the hunter’s workshop, cleared out the ashes from the hearth, and set several logs in place.

Only then did Juhwan realize he didn’t have a way to start the fire. He had the wood, but nothing to ignite it. He had taken it so much for granted that he hadn’t even worried about it until now.

Matches wouldn’t exist in an era like this. Just as he was starting to panic, Lij brought over a leather pouch from somewhere.

From the pouch, Lij pulled out a C-shaped piece of iron, a stone that looked like marble, and a bundle of what looked like finely shredded tree bark.

Lij held them out to Juhwan, but he had no idea what they were. Seeing Juhwan’s reaction, Lij seemed a little surprised.

She said something to him, but since it didn’t get through, she seemed to decide to do it herself.

Lij placed the tree bark on the floor and began to lightly strike the iron against the stone. Small sparks flew and fell onto the bark.

After striking sparks for a moment, a small wisp of smoke rose from the bark.

Only then did Juhwan realize it was a flint. He had thought a flint was just striking two stones together. He never imagined a piece of iron would be involved.

He carefully fanned the air with his hands to grow the fire in the bark.

After that, he transferred the fire to some straw left in the house. It was quite a while later before the logs finally caught fire.