I Became A Married Man in Another World
Chapter 72
072 What Comes Easily, Leaves Easily
When Juhwan first met the child, he could neither understand nor speak the language. Consequently, he knew nothing of how Dorothy had lived or what she had experienced.
It was only after the child had grown deeply attached to him that he finally heard of her past.
He had felt pity for her. He resolved to love her even more. Seeing Dorothy burst into laughter, he simply thought the once-miserable child had found happiness through him. He believed that was why she smiled so brightly.
“….”
As he traced the sleeping child’s eyes with his hand, he found them slightly damp with tears. She was crying. The child who always did nothing but smile was weeping. It felt as if ice water had been poured over his heart.
Juhwan drew the child—who was using his arm as a pillow—and Riji closer into his embrace.
The events they had shared since they began living together passed through his mind one by one.
Fighting the Goblins at the cabin, the day the merchant caravan was ambushed by bandits, people falling from arrow wounds, the attempted kidnapping by the drifters….
All of those must have been terrifying experiences. Yet, the child hadn’t changed much because of them. She had cried a little and been scared, but she was fine. If anything, she seemed proud that her daddy was strong.
The only time Dorothy had shown a different side was during the last incident, when she was nearly kidnapped. She said she had seen a child. A girl with a red pomegranate.
‘I see.’
He couldn’t understand every corner of the child’s heart. But he thought he knew what Dorothy was afraid of.
“….”
His thoughts turned to how Dorothy had grown up without even a name, isolated in the mountains far from any village.
She had been alone with a violent biological father. The child had watched her stepmother being beaten to death by him. Among all the miserable children in this world, Dorothy had lived in the darkest depths.
There was no one nearby to help. He had heard there were only the sounds of birds and beasts; the villagers rarely ventured into the mountains. In that silent mountain, a two-year-old, a four-year-old Dorothy must have cried all alone.
A child cannot survive abandoned in the mountains. When her hunter father was away from home, how had the child spent her time? He didn’t think the biological father, who hadn’t even given her a name, would have left plenty of food or prepared anything for her.
The violence must have been terrifying. But even if he was a violent father, she would die without him. The child must have waited every single day for his return.
The child’s words—that she hated being alone—lingered in his ears. What he had dismissed as a typical child’s whim might have been a silent scream she didn’t even recognize herself.
“…Mm…”
The child burrowed into his arms in her sleep. Her thin arms and legs were the same as ever.
It had only been about two months since they met. Though he didn’t know the exact date, it was around then, considering they had arrived on Christmas Eve and were now enduring the tail end of the cold. The child was eating heartily, but she was still far from becoming plump.
‘It’s only been that long.’
They had become a family too quickly. There had been no process of getting to know each other or any legal formalities. He hadn’t given the child the certainty that this relationship would continue. Just one day, quite suddenly, Dorothy gained a father who would protect her.
What comes easily, leaves easily.
Perhaps Dorothy was afraid that if a “better” girl appeared, she might be discarded. Perhaps she thought that just as Juhwan had become her father, he might leave her for another child if he met one.
Perhaps the girl who supposedly tempted her with a pomegranate looked pretty to Dorothy. Or maybe she was fast, or spoke well—regardless, she must have seemed better than her in some way. When a competitor appeared—something that never happened when they lived as a family in the mountains—she became terrified. Terrified that her father might leave.
He didn’t know if the child was consciously aware of it. Perhaps she was thinking it subconsciously.
Don’t throw me away, the child murmured again. Her pronunciation was slurred by sleep.
‘I won’t, Dorothy.’
Juhwan propped himself up slightly and leaned down. He whispered into the child’s ear. If she was having a sad dream, he wanted to enter it and tell her.
’No matter what happens in this world, I will never leave you. Because I am your father. Because I came from a very far place just for that. I will always stay by your side.’
He hoped his voice would reach deep into the child’s dreams.
“Piii.”
Oz approached with a small sound and pressed its face against the child’s forehead. The warm heat of the rabbit traveled through.
“Oz, stay with Dorothy. Be her friend. Make sure she’s never lonely.”
When he touched Oz’s forehead and channeled mana, the horn began to glow faintly. The horn, originally white, turned red like Santa’s clothes. The small red horn blinked as if in response.
The morning sun was high when the child woke up. From behind the driver’s seat of the rattling carriage, the child’s voice suddenly popped out.
“Mom! Dorothy’s tummy is growling. Oz says he’s hungry.”
“It’s not Oz, it’s you who’s hungry, Dorothy.”
Riji chuckled.
The child had woken up at a good time. It was before their meal.
Riji skillfully steered the horses to pull up close to the Red Sword’s wagon ahead of them.
“Riji, you’re really good with horses.”
At Juhwan’s words, Riji’s shoulders squared slightly. Though she didn’t say it, she seemed proud.
“….”
At times like this, he realized how young she really was. Twenty-one—yes, to a thirty-year-old man like him, she was still so young. He felt like a thief.
Riji held the reins with one hand and moved her fingers as if suggesting they eat. Having grown close in the meantime, the women had begun communicating more frequently with their own set of signals.
Jessie, who was swaying up, down, and sideways with the movement of the wagon, noticed and raised her hand. Immediately, Marie, who was driving the wagon, slowed down.
Sometimes Juhwan couldn’t keep up with their movements. They would send signals with pinky fingers and glances, and he couldn’t understand for the life of him why they meant what they did.
The system was so different from the signals men used—typically involving middle fingers and fists—that it felt like watching the languages of Mars and Venus.
Riji shifted her weight. Her waist tilted slightly.
She must have been sore on one side of her bottom from the floor of the carriage.
Because carriages in this world rattled violently, sitting for a long time made one’s backside ache. This was especially true for the driver’s seat, which was made of hard wood. It might be time to think about padding a leather seat with something soft like a cushion.
As time passed, the list of things to do was growing. From modifying the carriage to preparing preserved food, this and that required a lot of work to make life comfortable.
He hoped that as such moments accumulated, he could give Dorothy certainty. The meaning of becoming a family—that even if she wasn’t a “good” girl, even if she wasn’t pretty or fast, this relationship would never be broken.
“….”
Don’t be impatient. It was something that took time. It wasn’t something that could be solved by making her understand with words. He had to build it up step by step.
They seemed to hit a stone. The carriage jolted violently. Juhwan quickly wrapped his arm around Riji.
She seemed to have bumped her bottom hard as they bounced. Riji let out a groan of pain. Carriage cushions were truly urgent. He felt he should make something out of straw immediately.
However, inside the carriage behind the driver’s seat, it seemed fun. He could hear Dorothy’s peals of laughter.
Lowering his gaze slightly to look inside the carriage, he saw Dorothy rolling around on the straw bed. Because it was narrow, the child rolled a few times from one side to the other and then back again.
Yes, keep laughing. A smiling face suits you best. A small smile finally touched Juhwan’s heavy heart.
After driving a bit further, they found a suitable spot and stopped the carriages. While Riji and the Red Sword party prepared the meal, Juhwan took a look around. There were no places for anyone to hide, but one never knew.
After confirming the surroundings were safe, he noticed the ice in a sunny spot had melted slightly as he walked back to the carriage. The seasons here weren’t much different from Korea. Spring was just around the corner.
They had a simple meal of meat and pre-sautéed vegetables. Since they weren’t staying long, they didn’t light a fire.
Though Dorothy had been clinging to Juhwan just yesterday, she seemed fine now. She sat on the edge of the open carriage door, eating meat with Riji. Juhwan sat on a small rock opposite them.
When Riji nagged her to eat her vegetables, she hopped down from the carriage and ran to Juhwan.
“Daddy! Mommy says to eat vegetables.”
Dorothy smiled brightly, her mouth and hands smeared with meat grease.
Sitting on the edge of the carriage, Riji laughed as if she found it absurd.
Yes, he had decided.
Juhwan looked at Riji’s face.
“Riji, I have something to say.”
“What is it?”
Riji tilted her head.
“During the month we travel with the Red Sword, I’m thinking of focusing primarily on hunting Magical Beasts.”
“Magical Beast hunting?”
“Yes. I worried it might be dangerous, but I thought it might be better for us to live quietly on our own for a while. The owner of the Miller Merchant Company told me it wouldn’t be dangerous for me, so I want to give it a try.”
Riji chuckled.
“Juhwan, do whatever you want. As long as we can be together, I don’t care what it is.”
“Don’t you want to be in a city?”
“It’s nice to visit occasionally. But I like being with you and Dorothy more.”
“Daddy! Are we going to live in the mountains? Again? Just us?”
Dorothy’s face suddenly brightened even more. She looked like a flower in full bloom.
‘I knew it.’
The child still needed time. Dorothy didn’t yet have the certainty that they had become a family and that the bond would never be severed no matter what. Juhwan hadn’t yet given her the faith that it was okay even if she caused trouble, even if she wasn’t pretty, even if she was slow or dull, or even if she got scolded for doing something bad.
“We aren’t living in the mountains, Dorothy.”
At Juhwan’s words, the child’s shoulders slumped slightly.
“But we’ll travel in the carriage together, hunting Magical Beasts and animals, and occasionally stop by an Adventurer Village to sell them.”
“Just us?”
“Yes. Just us.”
“Does Dorothy go too when you catch Magical Beasts?”
“I don’t know how it will work yet. I’ve never hunted a Magical Beast either. But we’ll always be together.”
Riji looked at Juhwan’s face as if she had realized something.
Dorothy seemed happy after hearing Juhwan’s words. She went inside the carriage and began explaining to Oz what Magical Beast hunting was like.
The “Magical Beast hunting” the child described was preposterous, but Dorothy was earnest in her own way. She devised a strategy using the full extent of her imagination.
The stars of that hunt were Dorothy and Oz. Dorothy would go thwack, and then Oz would bite the Magical Beast to death.
Mommy was in charge of cooking, and Daddy was the worker who made traps. But the Magical Beast would either run away right before becoming a meal or just as it was about to fall into a trap, so in the end, Dorothy caught them all.
Riji climbed down from the carriage and approached Juhwan. She quietly leaned her head against his chest.
“I didn’t know.”
With those words, Juhwan realized Riji had also understood Dorothy’s heart. The two of them stood there for a while, watching Dorothy.
As an all-female party, they had often been ignored or mistreated by men. Consequently, the members of the Red Sword didn’t have very fond feelings toward the male gender.
While chewing on hard bread and salty jerky soaked in cold stew to soften them, Marie suddenly muttered.
“I wish I’d had a dad like that.”
Jessie, sitting next to her, chuckled.
Watching Juhwan’s family from a short distance, Jessie murmured.
“He’d be hard to find. At least, I’ve never seen a man like that. Whether it’s fathers or brothers, men are all rotten bastards.”
“Still, don’t you think there’s one out there somewhere? Maybe we’ve just been moving in too narrow a world.”
Karin, who always intentionally wore a fierce expression, glanced at Juhwan and grumbled.
“Wouldn’t it be faster for you to become a husband yourself, Marie?”
Is it that much? Is there that little hope?
“Dammit! I’ll do it then. I’ll be the husband. I can just get a husband like that man to be my wife.”
When Marie pumped her fist, her companions burst out laughing. Marie laughed along. It felt like the first time in a very long while that they had laughed without a care.
Though they had some money now thanks to the merchant escort job, the Red Sword party was still poor. They remained the poorest and weakest female party.
However, touching the nails tucked into her waist made her feel somehow reassured. It felt like things would be different from now on.
“Let’s wrap some leather around the nails. We’ll be able to handle them better.”
Karin said abruptly.
“True, we can use them as they are, but they do slip.”
“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.”
As Jessie and Marie nodded, Karin rummaged through the wagon and pulled out a piece of old leather. It was cheap pigskin.
This pigskin was used for many purposes—cutting it into thin strips to re-wrap sword hilts when the leather wore out, or repairing torn shoes.
While wrapping a bit of pigskin around the head of a nail, Marie glanced at Karin and Jessie. Both of them were smiling slightly.
‘I’m glad.’
Others might laugh if they saw. If someone saw them wrapping leather around nails to use as weapons, yes, it would surely look incredibly ridiculous.
Before, she would have cared about those stares. It was embarrassing that all three of them carried old swords and couldn’t even afford to have them all maintained at once, having to take turns one by one.
Perhaps that was why she had insisted on using men’s swords and their movements even more. Because they were ignored for being women, she might have wanted to use men’s weapons at the very least.
But now, the tension seemed to have left her waist. So what if people laughed? Even if they looked ridiculous, Marie and her companions were standing and walking firmly on their own two feet. That was enough. It was good that they could walk together like this. This was who they were.
Marie looked at Karin and Jessie, who had already finished wrapping their leather, and spoke.
“Hey, Karin, Jessie. Do you two want to be my brides?”
The two stared at Marie with blank faces.
“What are you talking about?”
“Marie, if anyone’s the bride, it’s you. Why are we the brides?”
Saying such silly things, the three of them laughed for a while.
Ah, this is nice. Marie closed her eyes in the cool air. The soft sunlight touched her face. It was truly nice.
“Marie, stop playing and wrap it quickly. How long are you going to hold onto one nail?”
Karin’s nagging flew at her, and when she opened her eyes, Jessie was looking at her with an exasperated expression.
