I Became A Married Man in Another World
Chapter 35
035 Thank You
Gus paid an unexpected visit.
Usually, he arrived closer to dawn, but today he was quite late.
Judging by the position of the sun, it was likely around two in the afternoon.
Gus stood still at the edge of the clearing where the forest began, a short distance from the cabin.
Juhwan wondered if something had happened.
He stopped working on the fence that extended behind the house and approached Gus.
“…Building a fence, I see.”
“Yes. It’s the mountains, so wolves are dangerous. And people… strangers.”
Would it have been different if he had come when his mind was more flexible? It took a bit of time to think in Korean and then translate those thoughts into the local language.
Speaking and listening were the same, but expressing himself felt more difficult.
When listening, it was easy enough to grasp the meaning just by recognizing words, but speaking required him to construct every thought himself. He felt he might have been better off if he had studied languages harder back in school.
Regret came too late.
Gus thought for a moment, then looked at Juhwan.
“I’ll teach you how to make a bow.”
Normally, Gus would wait until Juhwan was ready. But today, there was no time for that. Gus simply pulled him along, saying it was fine.
“You can make a real one later, later. For now, just the basics.”
With only a hatchet tucked into his belt, Juhwan hurriedly followed Gus down the mountain.
Gus led him to the side of the shed behind his house.
Several long logs lay beside the shed.
Juhwan wasn’t sure if the wood had been cut and left to dry for bow-making, or if it had been discarded because it wasn’t suitable.
Gus stood before a log at the edge and gestured for Juhwan to watch closely.
Using the thin side of the hatchet, he scored a long line across the surface of the log.
After that, he showed Juhwan a wedge made of bamboo.
“First, make these.”
It was a piece of thick bamboo carved into a long, triangular prism.
The top retained the rounded shape of the bamboo, while it tapered into a narrow, flat point toward the bottom.
Gus placed the bamboo wedge vertically against the center of the log’s cross-section and tapped it gently with a blunt hammer.
Once the tip of the wedge was slightly embedded in the center of the wood, Gus placed another wedge on the top surface of the log. He positioned the wedge along the line he had drawn earlier and tapped it gently with the hammer again.
When that wedge went in a little, he placed another beside it and tapped again.
He didn’t try to split it all at once. Gus drove several wedges along the long line, gradually splitting the log. Occasionally, he used the hatchet to help the split along.
Once the log was split completely in half, he used the wedges to peel away the bark.
“Not too much. A little at a time.”
Gus demonstrated the peeling process carefully. It seemed the bark had to be removed gently. Gus mimicked carving too deeply with a steep angle on the wedge and said “no” several times.
After that, he began carving it into the shape of a bow. He hollowed out the center where the hand would grip and gradually refined the shape.
Gus set down the roughly outlined bow and held up one finger.
“Wait. One month.”
He thought for a moment and then wrote a number on the ground. 30. Then he spoke again.
“Wait. Drying the wood.”
After saying that, Gus took Juhwan inside the workshop. It was a space packed with bows and arrows.
An unfinished bow lay on the workbench.
Gus used that incomplete bow to demonstrate the rest of the process.
He also taught him how to make arrows using the bamboo in the workshop.
“Watch and remember.”
As he spoke, Gus attached feathers to an arrow and fixed a tip to it in front of Juhwan.
Since there seemed to be a little time left, Gus mimicked roasting a plain piece of bamboo over a fire. It seemed the arrows were a darker color than regular bamboo because they were heat-treated.
Juhwan felt something was strange. Gus had said he would teach him how to make a bow, but Juhwan had assumed that meant he would be allowed to watch the process when the time came. He hadn’t expected to be shown everything at once, like a rushed summary.
Juhwan watched Gus’s expression and asked, “Is something wrong? Is the mountain dangerous?”
“No.”
Gus shook his head.
“A bird flew over the mountain. Circling. High mountain, far away, far mountains.”
Juhwan looked at Gus, recalling the sight he had seen a few days ago. Perhaps Gus’s behavior now was related to what happened then.
Gus shrugged.
“There are wolves in the mountains. A wolf must have attacked a human.”
Lij had struggled immensely when trying to teach him verbs related to speculation.
Speculation isn’t something visible, making it notoriously difficult to explain.
Hearing Gus’s words, Juhwan thought, Ah, I see. He had been attacked by a wolf himself. If a pack attacked, an average person wouldn’t be able to handle them easily. The wolves here were quite large.
Recalling the bird circling in the sky, Juhwan felt a sudden sense of urgency. That bird back then must have been circling to scavenge human flesh. That meant several people had died.
Sensing Juhwan’s anxiety, Gus chuckled, dusted off his hands, and stood up.
“Go on home. I’ll teach you more later.”
“Thank you.”
Juhwan bowed in farewell and left the workshop. He began to run, heading quickly toward home. The sun was starting to set.
Suddenly, he remembered when his parents had passed away. His grandfather had died only a year after they had started living together.
His heart throbbed with an ominous rhythm.
A scene of a wolf pack descending upon the house flashed through his mind. No.
His heart was pounding so hard his entire body felt like it was throbbing.
He could only picture Lij and Dorothy soaked in blood. Please, let nothing happen.
The face of his father, horribly distorted from the car accident, suddenly flickered before his eyes.
Juhwan’s pace quickened.
By the time he reached the house, gasping for air, he saw Dorothy heading toward the rabbit hutch.
Hearing Juhwan’s footsteps, Dorothy turned around and gave him a bright smile. She was carrying a rabbit basket in her arms.
“Papa!”
Dorothy came pitter-pattering toward him.
Juhwan pulled the child and the basket into an embrace and closed his eyes. It’s okay. Nothing happened. The child is smiling. Nothing bad has occurred. No one is dead.
“Papa, Papa, look, rabbit dolls.”
Dorothy wiggled in Juhwan’s arms and held out the basket.
There were two rabbits inside. One was a real rabbit, and the other was a doll. It looked like Lij had made it from scrap fabric.
“It’s Dorothy’s doll! Papa, give the rabbit and the doll names.”
Dorothy insisted, pushing the basket toward Juhwan.
He hugged the child while catching his breath. She squirmed, trying to break free from his embrace.
“….”
Sorry, Dorothy. Let me breathe. He had run so frantically that he felt like he might die right then and there.
After Juhwan disappeared from sight, Gus returned to his workshop.
When he had reported discovering the goblins, the Village Chief had immediately sent his son to the village half a day’s journey away.
That village, where the regular carriage stopped, had a Guild branch. Though small, once notified, they would handle things quickly. He had heard the Guild intervened actively in such matters, so they would likely consult with suitable adventurers and send people right away.
‘They’ll probably arrive in a few days.’
However, the goblins were moving faster than expected.
The birds Juhwan had seen were likely scavengers looking for human corpses.
When Gus had found the goblin settlement, he had also discovered people living in hiding in the mountains.
It was a small group of only five or six people. Whether they were runaways struggling to survive or something else, their weapons and clothing were poor.
And among them was a man and woman who appeared to be a couple.
‘That woman must have caught the goblins’ eyes.’
When something long-suppressed finally erupts, the aftermath is significant.
A woman within a goblin pack belonged to the strongest. The weaker ones would have found it difficult to even get near her.
Once creatures like that get a taste of a woman, their already poor intellect ceases to function altogether.
There were no neighboring villages on the other side of the mountain. There was only a vast wasteland and a rarely traveled road. It was a path so deserted that even bandits would starve to death, as carriages almost never passed through.
This village was the closest settlement to where the goblins lived.
Gus shook his head vigorously, recalling Juhwan’s face as he thanked him. Sacrifice was necessary to achieve a goal. It couldn’t be helped.
Besides, even if he suffered a loss now, as long as he remained alive, a man like him could find another woman and start a family. That man was more than capable of surviving.
Gus began to check the bow and arrows he would use when he finally encountered the goblins.
At the end of the path of his life, he was meeting his most magnificent hunting ground. For Gus, who had lived his whole life as a hunter, there could be no greater happiness.
The night was exceptionally cold today. The sound of the wind blowing through the branches sounded like a ghost’s wail.
’On such a cold day.’
Lij wrapped herself in a cloak and went outside.
Juhwan was working on the fence so hard he didn’t even straighten his back. He sharpened the ends of the bamboo into spears and drove them into the ground. He repeated the process over and over. Since returning from his outing with Gus, he hadn’t rested for a moment.
Wild animals like wolves were dangerous, but they didn’t usually raid houses like this. Beasts rarely approached a human home where fire was used.
Furthermore, even though they were in the mountains, this house was situated at the edge.
To a human, it was a house in the mountains, but to a beast, it was likely considered outside the mountains.
The fact that this house had served as a hunter’s residence for so long proved it. It wasn’t that dangerous.
Even when she told him so, Juhwan only smiled. He didn’t stop. He worked so hard she worried he might hurt himself.
Fortunately, the fence seemed nearly complete. Except for the entrance, tall bamboo spears tightly surrounded the house.
Lij headed toward where Juhwan was working, cradling a bowl of stew to keep it from getting cold. With every breath, white mist drifted into the air along with the warm steam from the stew.
“Juhwan.”
When Lij called him, Juhwan turned around. Despite the cold, her husband had his shirt off. Beads of sweat were running down him like water. She wondered if cold water would have been better than warm stew.
But when Juhwan saw the bowl in her hands, he gave a bright, welcoming smile.
“Stew! Thank you, Lij. It’s delicious. I’m hungry.”
When he smiled, his fierce eyes softened into curves, making him look a bit like a child.
Strangely, he seemed to resemble Dorothy in those moments. Even though she wasn’t his child, why was that? It was truly odd.
Juhwan took the bowl of stew from Lij’s hands with a grin.
“Thank you, Lij. It’s cold. Go inside.”
“Just until you finish eating. I want to be with you for a little while.”
It was cold, but she didn’t want to go inside. She hadn’t had enough of him today. They had been in the same space, but they had talked and made eye contact less than usual. For some reason, that felt lonely and regrettable.
Juhwan told her several more times that it was cold, but every time Lij shook her head, he eventually smiled as if he couldn’t help it. She liked that about him. Juhwan never forced her to do anything.
When Lij leaned slightly against his arm like a spoiled child, Juhwan sniffed himself as if worried about the smell of sweat. She let out a laugh at the sight, and Juhwan made a slightly pouting face.
He was cute.
“Lij, come here.”
Outside, a bonfire was burning using wood scraps and bamboo offcuts. It served as a substitute for a torch to light the darkness. Juhwan placed a log in front of the fire and had her sit down.
As if shielding her from the wind, Juhwan stood behind her and ate the stew.
Lij turned slightly to look up at Juhwan’s face. Slurp—the large man blew on the warm stew and devoured it in an instant.
When their eyes met, Juhwan’s eyes curved into small crescents again as he smiled.
After finishing and setting the bowl down, Juhwan spoke in a soft voice.
“It was delicious, Lij. Thank you.”
No, I’m the one who should be thankful. Lij smiled brightly and took the bowl from his hands.
“Thank you, Juhwan.”
In the cold air, their hands briefly overlapped. Why did the simple touch of skin against skin make her so happy? Lij looked up at Juhwan once more and spoke.
“Thank you.”
It was a night that somehow made her want to say those words.
