I Became A Married Man in Another World
Chapter 18
18: The Fist is Closer Than the Law
The moment Dorothy scrambled under the bed, the door burst open with a violent crash. Startled, Dorothy jerked upward and slammed her head against the bed frame. The door seemed to have hit the wall just as hard; another loud bang echoed through the room, just like when it had been thrown open.
‘Lij.’
What had happened to Lij? Dorothy had seen her fall, but she didn’t know what happened after that because she had fled through the window. What if Lij was hurt?
Lij was all Dorothy had now. If Lij was gone, Juhwan would leave too. No one would be left in this house. Tears streamed down her face, blurring her vision. It felt as though she were underwater, looking out at the world.
Thump, thump. The heavy footsteps of men drew closer. Dorothy pressed her hands tightly over her mouth to stifle her sobs.
“Hey, look at this.”
“It’s a wolf pelt.”
“I thought there’d be a rabbit at best, but did they really steal this from somewhere?”
“Where would they steal it in just a day? The village doesn’t have anything like this, and there’s nothing but mountains around here.”
“But it’s strange.”
The men whispered in low voices as they passed the bed. They seemed to be heading toward the wolf pelt. Dorothy’s heart hammered wildly against her ribs.
Rustle, rustle. She heard them fumbling with something where the pelt lay.
After a brief silence, the men’s voices rose again.
“This thing is huge. It’ll fetch a good price.”
“Talk about a windfall.”
“Don’t dawdle. We need to get out of here before the Forester returns.”
Hearing them speak made Dorothy’s heart race even faster.
‘Juhwan brought that.’
Juhwan had given it to Lij. Lij had been so happy. Dorothy was happy, too. The scary wolf wasn’t scary at all anymore.
Besides, Lij had said it would be worth a lot of money later. She said they could buy many nice things when the peddler came. If these men took it away…
She was so terrified that tears and snot were running down her face, but she had to protect the pelt. Dorothy propped her elbows on the floor and crawled forward a little.
The sound of objects clattering followed. The men seemed to be rummaging through everything. Someone shouted gleefully.
“Hey! There’s meat here!”
“Huh, did he really hunt a wolf?”
“You idiot, no way. A wolf isn’t some neighborhood dog. Some stray must have been attacked by a pack and was left for dead.”
One man spoke dismissively, and another laughed.
“Haha, I bet that’s it. Look closely at the pelt, there’s a wound on the front leg.”
“See? Hunting a wolf, my ass. I guess he wanted to act like a big shot in front of his woman just because he’s a man.”
The men were laughing. They thought Juhwan was a fool.
But Juhwan really had caught it. He fought it and won. He even had a big wound on his arm. Lij had said so. She said Juhwan was a man so, so, so incredibly strong that he could catch a wolf with his bare hands.
It made her angry! Dorothy clenched her fists. Her lips quivered, and the snot trailing down her face reached her mouth.
Footsteps sounded at the door. Turning her head and pressing her cheek to the floor, she saw Lij’s feet. She must be hurt; she was limping. Lij’s small, worn-out shoes made a tap-tap sound as she passed the bed.
Lij cried out in a strange, strained voice.
“No! Don’t touch that. That’s ours!”
She sounded terrified. Her voice was trembling violently. The men bellowed back.
“Who do you think you’re shouting at, huh?”
“Eek!”
Lij let out a sharp cry. The men snickered and spoke again.
“Look at this bitch. She couldn’t even squeak not too long ago, and now she’s screaming just because she got a husband.”
“She’s actually talking back.”
“Where do you get off glaring at us like that!”
With a dull thud, Lij collapsed to the floor. Through the gap under the bed, Dorothy saw Lij’s face. Blood was trickling from Lij’s nose. What should she do? The image of her stepmother being beaten by her father suddenly flashed through her mind. She was scared. She wanted to help Lij, but she was too paralyzed with fear to move.
Her body shook so hard she felt a sob coming on. As Dorothy covered her mouth with her hands, her eyes met Lij’s. But Lij immediately looked away. It was as if she hadn’t seen Dorothy at all—as if the child wasn’t there—just like her second mother used to look at her.
“….”
She was hidden all alone while Lij took the brunt of it. Lij pretended not to know her because Dorothy was a bad girl. What should she do? Tears gushed from her eyes.
The men stood over Lij and laughed loudly.
Lij was clearly terrified. She was surely much, much more scared than Dorothy. Through her blurred vision, Dorothy could see Lij’s body shaking uncontrollably.
She had to help, but she couldn’t. Dorothy’s own body was trembling too much from fear.
The men spoke right beside the bed.
“Hey, look how pale her skin is. I couldn’t tell because she’s so skinny, but she’s actually quite appetizing.”
“What if the Forester finds out?”
“Find out how? He doesn’t even know the language. As long as we keep our mouths shut, that’s it.”
Dorothy didn’t understand exactly what they meant, but she knew it was something bad. She curled herself into a ball, shivering.
What could she do? Lij still wouldn’t look at her, and the scary men were right there. She wished Juhwan were here. If he were, he would beat these men down just like he did the wolf.
“But it’ll be trouble if the Forester shows up while we’re at it. It’ll be a headache if the Village Chief finds out, too. You know how hard it is to get a Forester. It’d be bad if he left.”
At those words, another man grumbled.
“Then let’s go to the forest.”
“Ah, it’s freezing out there.”
One man grabbed Lij by the arm and pulled her up.
The other men went back to where the wolf pelt and meat were.
Loud clattering followed. It sounded like they were kicking things. She heard objects rolling across the floor.
The men’s feet gathered by the bed and then moved toward the door.
Lij was being dragged away. She didn’t say another word now. Only small whimpers could be heard. It seemed her legs wouldn’t work properly. When she stumbled while being dragged, a man yanked her back up.
“Can’t you walk right!”
“You know what’ll happen if you tell your husband! I’ll come back in the middle of the night and burn this whole shack down.”
The men threatened her as they led Lij out of the house. As they passed the threshold, Lij’s voice could be heard faintly. Please don’t, don’t do this.
Even after the men left and silence fell, Dorothy couldn’t move for a while. Then, the men’s laughter echoed from outside again.
‘Lij!’
Lij was being taken away. Something bad was going to happen to her. She might never come back.
Dorothy crawled out from under the bed and ran to the wooden window. Sobbing, she hid behind the frame and peeked out. She saw the men dragging Lij away while carrying the wolf pelt and the meat tub.
The men were terrifying, but the thought of Lij being taken was even scarier.
Sobs leaked through the fingers covering her mouth. No matter how hard she tried to hold it in, the sound kept escaping.
She couldn’t hide it anymore. The tears she had been forcibly suppressing finally burst forth.
“Waaaaaaaah!”
Dorothy’s wailing filled the house.
‘Juhwan, Juhwan, where are you?’
Please come quickly. Lij is being taken away. Come quickly and drive those men away. Please help Lij.
As the sound of her crying drifted through the window, the men stopped and looked back. Their eyes were terrifying.
He was almost home. A little further, and the house would be visible through the trees.
As Juhwan hurried his pace, Gus stopped. Gus pointed to himself and then toward the forest. He seemed to be signaling that he was heading back.
Juhwan was about to nod and express his thanks for the day. But suddenly, the sound of a child’s crying drifted from the distance.
‘Dorothy!’
He had heard her cry before, but this time was different. It was louder, more desperate. It sounded like a scream.
Something was wrong. Something had happened at the house.
Juhwan’s massive frame kicked off the ground, and he began to sprint through the trees.
The house was close. Once the clearing appeared through the trees, the house would be just beyond it.
He was running so fast the skin on his face felt pulled back. But it was too slow. He had to go faster. The child’s wailing felt like it was pulling him in.
In an instant, he cleared the forest and reached the distance where the house was visible.
Strangers were dragging Lij by the arm.
Seeing that single scene was enough to know exactly what was happening. In this godforsaken world, there was only one reason men would drag away a woman who couldn’t fight back.
He saw blood on Lij’s face in the distance.
It felt like a lightbulb had shattered in his brain. The lights went out. His mind went pitch black.
‘I’ll kill them!’
Juhwan’s large body lunged toward the men in an instant. The men’s eyes widened as they noticed him too late.
But before they could react, Juhwan was already in the air.
His fist slammed into the face of the man dragging Lij, sending him crashing to the ground as if the earth had swallowed him.
Juhwan felt the sensation of bone breaking against his knuckles. The man’s face was instantly covered in blood. His nose was twisted into an unnatural shape. A small fragment of a tooth was embedded in Juhwan’s fist.
The men couldn’t say a word. There wasn’t even a scream.
While the others were still paralyzed, Juhwan grabbed the fallen man by the collar and hauled him up. His eyes were open, but he was already limp.
He seemed to be unconscious.
But no. He couldn’t forgive this. He shouldn’t.
Human nature was filthy and ugly; if you were looked down upon once, it was bad enough in modern society, but in an era like this, it was far worse.
There was no place where the saying “the fist is closer than the law” applied better than here. He had to drive the point home so deeply that these bastards would never dare come here again—so they would never even dream of it.
A dark shadow burned like fire within his heart. No one must be allowed to set foot here. This must never happen again. He had to completely crush them.
Juhwan slammed his fist into the man’s face once more. The man’s bloody face collapsed. It looked as if it had been caved in.
Just as he was about to strike again, the man holding a sickle finally moved.
“Ugh… ah…”
He heard the rustle of the man with the sickle moving behind him. A long shadow stretched across the ground. The shadow showed the man raising his arm high, lifting the sickle into the air.
Juhwan let go of the man’s collar and turned as he stood up.
Simultaneously, his right hand shot out.
Juhwan’s large frame towered over the man as his right hand clamped onto the arm holding the sickle.
As he applied pressure, the sickle fell powerlessly to the ground.
Keeping a firm grip on the man’s shoulder with his left hand, Juhwan twisted the arm that had held the sickle in the opposite direction.
“Aaaaaaaagh!”
With a sickening crack, the man screamed. The arm was broken, and the shoulder appeared dislocated. The man’s arm hung limp and swaying.
Holding the man so he couldn’t flee, Juhwan brought his fist down with all his might. The man spat blood from his face as he collapsed to the ground.
“Ugh, uuuuh.”
The man holding the axe made a strange sound and turned to run.
Juhwan grabbed the fleeing man by the head. He dug his fingers into the greasy hair and grabbed one of the man’s legs.
As he hoisted him up, the startled man dropped his axe.
“Agh! Agh!”
Lifted into the air by his hair, the man shrieked in pain. His hair pulled taut under his body weight as if it were about to be ripped out by the roots.
Juhwan held the man with both hands and raised him high into the air.
The man hunched his shoulders like a turtle and tensed his neck. If done wrong, his neck and back would be ruined. He would be paralyzed for life. The man thrashed his limbs and screamed, trying to avoid that fate. His fingers clawed fruitlessly at Juhwan’s hands before falling away.
Ignoring the man’s struggles, Juhwan threw him with all his strength.
The man hit the ground with a sound like a bursting frog.
Unable to withstand the force of the throw, he tumbled across the dirt. The man curled up like a caterpillar, weeping.
It wasn’t enough. His rage would not subside. Juhwan ran to the man and kicked him in the stomach. The man doubled over like a shrimp. Blood gushed from his mouth. Again.
And again, Juhwan kicked the man.
“Juhwan! ##! ####.”
Gus shouted something and threw his arms around Juhwan. Gus forced himself between Juhwan and the man, his wrinkled hands pounding firmly on Juhwan’s arm. Then, he pointed toward the house.
Turning his head, Juhwan saw Lij, her eyes wide with shock.
“….”
He heard crying from the window. He shifted his gaze to see Dorothy, sobbing softly and looking at him with eyes full of terror.
He had done it. He knew how he appeared to women and children, yet he had shown such a terrifying side of himself in front of Lij and Dorothy. No matter if it was to protect them, a terrifying sight was still terrifying.
The rage that had been blazing until a moment ago died out with a hiss. Like a red-hot ember turning into black charcoal in an instant, only a thick cloud of smoke remained.
