I Became A Married Man in Another World
Chapter 45
045 Why is Santa here?!
A horse is different from a car. It is a living animal. Of course, Juhwan knew this, but he hadn’t truly understood it. Horses had to eat, defecate, and rest. They ate significantly more than he expected, and they did their business while walking—large, round clumps of it.
“….”
Juhwan looked away. Mountains were visible in the distance. While mountains in Korea were typically triangular, the ones before him now looked more like a series of massive, rolling hills. They were gentle slopes.
“Daddy, why are you looking somewhere else?”
“….”
Dorothy’s eyes were sparkling. A horse was defecating right in front of her as it walked, yet she didn’t seem to care at all.
“Juhwan, you really are strange.”
Lij let out a small laugh. It seemed she found Juhwan’s awkwardness around a living horse amusing.
Juhwan narrowed his eyes and looked at Lij.
She was far more vibrant now than when they lived in the mountains. Since leaving the village, she was like a little bird fluttering its wings. Even though the same scenery kept passing by, she found it new and marveled at it every time.
The village and the mountain cabin weren’t all that different from this road. It was just nature stretching from one side of the horizon to the other. Yet, what was so novel and delightful to her?
It wasn’t just Lij; Dorothy was equally excited.
The two of them chattered incessantly, pointing out birds over there, trees over that way, and snow right here.
Suddenly, Lij looked at him. She beamed. Exhaling a warm breath into the cold air, Lij spoke.
“I’m so happy. Aside from when I was sold here, this is my first time leaving the village.”
“….”
I see. These two had been tied to one place their whole lives. Even if it was the same kind of scenery, the world reflected in their eyes right now was like a first-time picnic.
They had left a home that had finally begun to stabilize, embarking on a life where not even the next step was guaranteed. He had worried they might be anxious, but a corner of his heart felt grateful. He was glad they could find joy and something to look forward to in their current situation.
Juhwan reached out and pulled Lij’s shoulder into an embrace. Dorothy, tucked between them, wiggled and giggled. Oz, sitting on the girl’s lap, and her doll Toto looked a bit squished.
I’ll make you happy. Let’s be happy. With that thought, he squeezed them both tightly.
And through this opportunity, Juhwan realized he was worse at handling animals than he had thought.
He hadn’t noticed back in the village because he never had to drive the wagon for long, but Lij was actually better at handling the horse than he was. Perhaps it was because of her soft voice; horses were said to be very timid creatures.
Lij and Juhwan took turns driving, but eventually, the time Lij spent holding the reins gradually increased. Seeing her secretly grinning with joy while driving was adorable.
Juhwan wanted to reduce her workload so she wouldn’t get tired, but her feelings seemed a bit different. She appeared happy whenever her responsibilities increased.
Juhwan watched Lij shake the reins before shifting his gaze to the sky.
He inferred meanings from words and situations he had heard from the villagers, constantly turning the language of this world over in his head. Once he mastered the basic sentence structures and frequently used vocabulary, there was almost nothing in daily life he couldn’t understand.
A sudden laugh escaped him. He had worked so hard. He had been so diligent that his brain felt like it had turned to ash. If he told his past self that he would end up studying a language this frantically, he would never have believed it.
Now, he felt like he could easily learn the language of any country or any world. He felt like he had become a genius.
After traveling for a while, Lij stopped the wagon. She looked a bit flustered.
“…Uh.”
“Lij, what’s wrong?”
At Juhwan’s question, Lij looked around in all directions before answering with a distressed expression.
“I think… we’re lost. I feel like we should have arrived a long time ago.”
“Mom! Really? This is bad!”
Dorothy shouted, her eyes wide.
They were heading toward a city that was said to be half a day’s journey from the village.
He had heard it was a town a bit small to be called a city, but with regular carriages and several shops, it seemed quite large.
Their destination was a branch of the Guild located there.
Lij had relayed what an adventurer in the village had said: if a Magician caught the eye of the nobility, there could be trouble. Apparently, they were sometimes forcibly detained. If he registered as a member of the Guild before that happened, even nobles wouldn’t be able to touch him easily, so it was advised he register immediately.
Thus, Lij—the only one in the family who knew the way—had taken the lead. However, the roads in this world were not asphalt. They sometimes broke off or split, and sometimes the wheel ruts simply vanished. They must have taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way.
The sight of Lij and Dorothy, their faces pale with worry, was amusing. It was almost cute.
No, no, it’s fine. Even if we took a wrong turn, it’s not like we’re stuck in a swamp or can never go back.
He must have been smiling without realizing it. Lij and Dorothy spoke in unison.
“That’s mean.”
“Daddy, this is serious! We’re lost. We’re lost!”
To the two of them, whose eyes were welling up with tears, Juhwan said while still smiling:
“It’s okay. There’s no rush. Let’s go slowly. It’s not like anyone is watching us. No one is giving us orders or bullying us. We can do whatever we want.”
They just had to travel as if they were on a trip. If they took the wrong road, they could turn back, and if they didn’t reach the town by nightfall, they could spend the night in front of a campfire.
When he said that, Lij blinked as if surprised.
For someone who had lived a life of bondage, Juhwan’s words seemed completely unexpected.
They decided to spend the night there.
The sky was already beginning to glow with a red sunset. Even if they looked for the path while heading back, night would fall soon. Since they couldn’t drive the wagon in total darkness without knowing the way, they would have to stay on the road somewhere. He figured it was better to just relax and recover from their fatigue.
Even if it wasn’t a mountain, most of this world consisted of fields, wilderness, and trees. Near the village—or at least, once one went a little ways out where there were no people—firewood was everywhere.
Juhwan walked around the area and cut down two small trees. The trunks of the young trees were thin enough to fit perfectly in his grip.
Still, it would be enough to keep a fire going for one night.
Thud, thud. Juhwan cut the wood, gathered it, and started a fire. His magic was convenient at times like this. He didn’t have to struggle to kindle a flame. Furthermore, even green wood caught fire instantly. From the campfire that flared up in an instant, pale gray smoke danced and billowed up into the sky.
He parked the wagon near the fire and placed a pot on a hearth made of gathered stones. Lij had brought it along.
Plop, plop. Meat and salt went into the pot, followed by a bit of flour. Occasionally, Lij stirred it with a large ladle. As it bubbled and the aroma spread, the stomachs of everyone in the family began to growl in succession.
Dorothy sat glued to the campfire, staring only at the pot. She must have been quite hungry, as a trail of drool ran down the corner of her mouth.
After eating dinner while sitting around the fire, he dug a shallow pit behind the wagon. It was a toilet.
It didn’t matter for Juhwan, who could go anywhere far away, but Lij couldn’t do that.
However, she didn’t use the toilet even once until night fell. Only Dorothy had gone a few times.
Even after that, it seemed Lij had been holding it in for a while. When it finally became urgent, Lij approached Juhwan with a face that looked like she was about to cry.
“Um, please… could you go just a little further away?”
Hmm, she could have just said so earlier. Juhwan moved away to a spot where he couldn’t hear anything. Of course, it was still within a distance where he could see the two of them.
Afterward, the whole family sat before the campfire.
Dorothy dozed off on Juhwan’s lap, and Oz lay facedown on top of her. The rabbit doll, Toto, had fallen to the ground at some point and was now on Lij’s lap.
Juhwan and Lij sat side by side, sharing a single piece of fabric over their shoulders.
He was happy. Just the slight contact of their bodies filled his heart with warmth.
Suddenly, Lij whispered.
“I’m happy.”
From far beyond the darkened space, the cry of a nocturnal bird drifted in. And from very far away, a wolf let out a long howl, as if searching for someone.
For some reason, the image of Gus’s eyes at the very end came to mind. It would have been nice if he wasn’t an enemy. Though it was only for a short time, he had liked the man.
He had felt a connection. He had thought Gus was a bit like his late grandfather.
Juhwan tilted his head. He gently pressed his lips to Lij’s hair. Then, he said in a small voice:
“I’m happy, too.”
Lij quietly leaned her head against his arm.
The image of Gus’s eyes, which had slowly lost their light, stared back at him in his mind.
Dorothy, who was sitting in the middle of the driver’s seat, jumped up when she saw the outer walls of the town.
“A wall!”
“Dorothy, you have to stay seated!”
Lij grabbed the child’s arm in a panic.
But the child’s excitement was understandable. Unlike the flimsy wooden fence of the village where they had lived, this town was surrounded by a sturdy wall made of stone. Perhaps there was a place nearby to source stone, for the wall was quite high.
Beyond the town, a gently sloping forest was visible in the distance. It seemed part of the town touched the forest.
The large gate at the entrance was made of thick timber reinforced with iron.
While it lacked any particular decoration, it looked solid.
A single gatekeeper stood at the entrance. His attire was no different from a commoner’s. He didn’t look like a regular soldier, but he carried a sword at his waist.
It was different from the very beginning compared to the village, which hadn’t even had a person at the entrance.
Dorothy, seeing such a large town for the first time, bounced with excitement.
“Look at that! The wall is so high. Oz! Can you jump over it? Dorothy can. Dorothy is brave.”
For some reason, Dorothy was competing with Oz to see who could jump over the wall.
Though, she was the one doing all the talking for Oz.
A part of Juhwan’s heart also fluttered slightly. It felt like he had finally encountered a real fantasy setting. The fact that he had become a Magician finally felt real. My god, I really did fall into a fantasy world, he thought.
Just then, three men who appeared to be adventurers were entering the gate.
When they showed something hanging around their necks, the gatekeeper nodded.
The adventurers walked into the town in a boisterous group, chatting loudly.
Juhwan moved to the edge of the driver’s seat and looked at Lij. Until a moment ago, Juhwan had been driving the wagon. But if they were entering the town, it would be better for Lij to do it. It would be a disaster if he clumsily drove the wagon and hit someone passing by.
As Juhwan handed over the reins, Lij took them with a slightly stiff expression. She seemed nervous about being in an unfamiliar place.
The wagon slowly approached the gate. When they reached the gatekeeper, Juhwan hopped down. The gatekeeper scanned Juhwan and the wagon.
“Is this your first time in this town?”
“Yes. It’s our first time.”
“Do you have anything to ## ##?”
When Juhwan looked at Lij in the driver’s seat because he didn’t understand, she explained in a low voice. It seemed he wanted proof of identity.
When Juhwan shook his head in confusion, indicating he had none, the gatekeeper told him to show the back of his hand.
After Juhwan held out his hand, the gatekeeper nodded and checked the hands of Lij and Dorothy as well.
Ah, I see. He’s checking for slave brands.
Lij had said that slave brands never disappear.
Realizing that slaves wouldn’t be able to go anywhere if every town and city checked like this, a late chill ran through his chest.
He began to doubt if that guy—Santa—really wanted to grant his wish. Was meeting Lij and Dorothy just a coincidence, and had he just sent Juhwan somewhere at random?
The gatekeeper looked at Juhwan with a slightly suspicious gaze and spoke again.
“If you haven’t paid the ### yet, you should do so quickly or join the Guild. It’ll be a headache if you get caught when the ### comes. Our town has many traveling merchants, so the ## ### comes occasionally.”
Lij explained what the gatekeeper had said. Listening closely, it was about a poll tax. This town was the largest in the vicinity, so there were many people and merchants coming and going. Therefore, it seemed tax investigators sent by the lord visited frequently.
“I understand. Thank you.”
Juhwan asked the gatekeeper for the direction of the Guild and climbed back onto the wagon. As Lij drove, she explained the poll tax to him.
Not just in this town, but everyone living in the fief had to pay a poll tax every year once they turned sixteen.
In remote places like the village where they had lived, the village chief would collect it in advance and pay it when the investigator arrived.
There was no particular need to carry a certificate when traveling to nearby villages, but when moving to distant places, people sometimes received a certificate written by the village chief.
There was no fixed format; it just listed the village of residence, the person who issued it, whether the poll tax had been paid, age, and physical description.
However, almost no one actually got those. If someone was caught by a tax investigator within the same fief, it just took time to prove their identity, and it seemed they weren’t often caught anyway.
“I think the gatekeeper said that because Juhwan’s face looks a bit unfamiliar.”
Lij tilted her head and stared at his face. Being East Asian, his facial features were quite different. Was that why he had worried for them?
As the wagon entered the town, the number of buildings gradually increased.
It was certainly different from the village. There were quite a lot of people.
Dorothy leaned her head far out from the driver’s seat to look at the ground.
“Mom, Dad! There are stones on the ground. It’s a stone floor! It’s amazing!”
The center of the town was beautifully paved with small stones.
That seemed incredibly fascinating to Dorothy. She was leaning over so far to look at the ground that her bottom was halfway in the air.
A child’s head is large compared to their body. He worried she might fall because of the weight of her head.
Juhwan reached out an arm and placed it across the child’s torso.
But children really never stay still. This time, she jerked her head up and stood up on the seat.
On the rattling driver’s seat, the child’s body swayed to and fro. If he hadn’t been holding her, she would have fallen ten times already.
Really, he was worried about the future. He felt like something bad would happen the moment he took his eyes off her.
Dorothy’s eyes suddenly went wide. She opened them large and pointed a finger ahead.
“Daddy! There’s a red grandpa over there.”
Yes, yes, a grandpa is red. Juhwan chuckled at the child’s words and turned his head. Had she seen a drunkard with a red face?
Juhwan’s face stiffened as he looked where the child was pointing. What the child had pointed to was not a person. It was a sign attached to a two-story building.
The sign said “Adventurer’s Guild.”
And next to it, there was a large painting of a grandfather’s face with red clothes and a white beard.
