I Became A Married Man in Another World
Chapter 77
077 Screaming Carrot
They say your breath can catch in your throat, and perhaps that isn’t just a figure of speech.
In an instant, Juhwan’s body bolted forward.
He scooped up Dorothy, who had been crouching down to peer into the hole, and pulled her into his arms.
He had her. He’d caught the child. Only then did he finally exhale. It had only been a moment, but it felt as if his breath had truly stopped.
He wrapped his arm around the child’s head to shield her ears. Only after he felt certain she was safe in his arms did he look down.
He saw Oz’s mottled body as the rabbit burrowed into the hole.
Kiee, kiee. The strange sound drifted up from below. It wasn’t like a human scream. It sounded more like a cheap monster from a children’s TV show.
Beneath Oz’s head, a carrot slightly larger than those on Earth came into view.
It was half-buried in the dirt. Green leaves were attached to the top, and thin, white, whisker-like roots sprouted from its body. There was no mistaking it; it was a carrot.
Kieeeee. The screaming grew slightly louder. The sound was vibrating from the body of the carrot itself.
Earth carrots are marked with many horizontal lines. This Screaming Carrot had similar gashes all over its body.
The difference was that these gashes were slightly parted, and the screams were leaking out from the gaps. Furthermore, its white whiskers trembled violently. It seemed they were making noise as well.
Juhwan lifted his foot high. He didn’t care about silver coins or anything else. He couldn’t just leave this. Dorothy was here, and so was Lij. He couldn’t tolerate anything that threatened them. He had to eliminate it immediately. He would stomp it to death before the thing in the ground could get any louder.
“Oz, move.”
It happened the moment he spoke.
Oz, who had been digging, lunged forward. His head dove toward the carrot, his round tail wiggling.
“Ah!”
Something unexpected happened.
Oz snapped his jaws open and pounced on the carrot.
He didn’t go for the body; he bit into the leaves and the stem at the top.
Munch, munch. Oz’s mouth moved at a frantic pace. In an instant, the stems and leaves vanished into the rabbit’s mouth.
“Kieeeeeeee… uuuugh….”
The carrot’s scream trailed off and sagged, like a broken record slowing down.
Oz, you eat the stems too? Because the rabbit begged for meat every time Dorothy ate, Juhwan had only ever thought of him as a Magical Beast that happened to look like a rabbit. But…
He really was a rabbit, it seemed. But why the stems instead of the carrot? It felt strange. Did rabbits prefer stems over carrots?
No, that wasn’t what he should be thinking about right now.
‘What was that just now?’
Just as the leaves and stems were finished, Oz’s horn glowed faintly red.
Then, a small pattern appeared on the body of the carrot. It was a circle made of red light—a slightly distorted circle, as if drawn by a child’s hand. It appeared almost simultaneously with the fading of the scream.
However, the red circle vanished in an instant. By the time Juhwan blinked and looked again, there wasn’t even a trace of it left.
“…”
Dorothy squirmed in his arms. She pushed Juhwan’s arm away with her small hands and poked her face out.
“Papa, I want to see too. What is it? What did Oz find? I heard a noise. Is that a Screaming Carrot?”
The child’s eyes were sparkling.
Marie and Jessie of the Red Sword party, who had been a short distance away, came running over with Lij.
“Juhwan! Dorothy! Are you okay?”
Lij’s eyes were wide with concern. She was asking if they were alright, but her eyes were smiling. Her face was full of joy.
Marie peered into the small pit and gasped.
“Oh my god! It really is a Screaming Carrot!”
After stopping Dorothy from wriggling down to the ground for a moment, Juhwan inspected the carrot in the hole.
There seemed to be no danger. The carrot’s tiny mouths—if they even were mouths—hung limp and slack. The corners of the slits were turned down in the opposite of a smile. The thin white whiskers were the same. Everything hung loose as if the thing had fainted.
Lij crouched down and poked the Screaming Carrot with her finger.
Karin muttered as she watched.
“I’ve only seen one once before. And even then, I didn’t dig it up; someone else found it and brought it to the Guild.”
“Me too. I saw one screaming when the Guild staff were verifying it.”
“We were all together then.”
“Actually, I thought Screaming Carrots were just a legend. People talk about them, but I’d never seen one. I wondered if they even existed. But it really does look like just a carrot.”
The members of Red Sword and Lij were as excited as children, crouching down to poke and press the carrot. Everyone seemed fascinated and happy.
Oz, however, seemed to have lost interest. He hopped up and began shaking the dirt off himself.
Dorothy pointed at another spot on the ground and shouted to Oz.
“Oz! I didn’t see it, so do one more!”
“…”
Oz groomed his face with his paws, tadadada. It might have been an exaggeration to say he looked like he was pretending not to hear, but that’s how it seemed. An adult might have let it slide, but a child is different. Children can be surprisingly shameless.
Dorothy stepped closer to Oz, looming over his face, and pointed to another spot again.
“Oz! I didn’t see. You have to go find it quick. Mommy likes them. She says lots of silver coins come out.”
A snicker broke out among the Red Sword members. Lij’s face turned slightly red. She seemed a bit embarrassed. It was fine, though. Loving money was a universal trait of humanity. Between this world and the other, there wasn’t a soul who hated money.
Oz’s ears flattened back slightly. He really did find it bothersome. Dorothy tilted her head.
“Should I help? Should we dig together? Should I find the carrot?”
“…”
Dorothy trotted over and stood at a certain spot. Her nose twitched as she sniffed the surroundings. She was mimicking exactly what Oz had done. Wrinkling her small nose as she sniffed, she suddenly stood tall and pointed at the ground.
“Here, Oz. I think it’s here.”
Lij and the Red Sword party laughed at Dorothy’s antics.
As if he had no choice, Oz stood up and hopped over.
He sniffed around, heading in a different direction from where Dorothy had pointed.
“Oh my goodness,” Jessie muttered.
Oz began to dig again. His small body vanished into the dirt in an instant, and a moment later, a strange scream was heard. But the sound was cut short almost immediately. Had he eaten the leaves again?
Dorothy clapped her hands as Oz popped back out.
“…”
Oz was young too, after all. Whether emboldened by Dorothy’s praise, or the sparkle in Lij’s eyes, or perhaps the wide-eyed wonder of the Red Sword party, he suddenly bolted as if he had rockets on his feet and started digging again.
“No way! My god.”
“He found another one!”
“What is this, a Screaming Carrot patch?”
“The silver…!”
The women’s delighted cries rang out here and there. Dorothy, Lij, and the Red Sword members were all frantic, chasing after the carrots Oz discovered.
“…”
There didn’t seem to be any major danger. Oz ate the leaves every time before the screams could get too loud. Still, just in case, Juhwan called out a warning to the rowdy group.
“Yes!”
“We understand!”
The women and Dorothy answered in unison.
Juhwan kept a lookout on their surroundings, wary of any beasts or monsters that might appear. The forest was always dangerous. He kept track of the rustling leaves and checked for tracks. A single fox was hiding among the dry grass, quietly watching them. Other than that, there were only a few birds. At least within his range of vision, there were no dangerous animals.
Dorothy was running alongside Oz. She would chase after him, arrive just as he finished, check the Screaming Carrot, and then run again. They looked like they were just playing. It was like watching a puppy and a child who couldn’t contain their bursting energy.
However, after digging up about ten Screaming Carrots, both Dorothy and Oz seemed to lose interest. They stopped paying attention to the carrots and began rolling around on the cold ground together. The women’s voices sounded a bit disappointed.
‘By the way, what should I do with these carrots?’
Could he just put them in a bag? They seemed unconscious now, but they might wake up. Actually, he wasn’t even sure if “unconscious” was the right word. They had no eyes or ears. There was only something that looked like a mouth. Regardless, if it regained its senses, it would scream again… Juhwan approached Karin and asked in a low voice.
“Do you know how to handle these?”
“Well…”
Karin frowned, looking troubled. She had never actually harvested a Screaming Carrot herself before. She looked stumped and shrugged her shoulders.
“Normally, when you harvest a Screaming Carrot, you completely plug your ears before putting it in a bag or box. You’re supposed to fill the bag with dirt and bury the carrot completely to transport it. Usually, you’re lucky to even find one, so it’s not a big deal, but since there are over ten now…”
“The way they’ve fainted like this…”
“I’ve never even heard of such a thing.”
“And the idea of a Horned Rabbit hunting Screaming Carrots…?”
“I haven’t heard of that either.”
“…”
Juhwan looked at Oz, who was playing in a heap with Dorothy. He looked so innocent. Looking at him like this, he just seemed like a young rabbit with a horn.
The red pattern that had appeared on the carrot earlier was strange too. That had definitely been Oz’s doing. Perhaps Oz wasn’t an ordinary Horned Rabbit. He’d had the thought from time to time, but today’s events confirmed it.
When they returned to the Guild, he decided he would ask them to find someone who knew a lot about Horned Rabbits. He wondered if that could be made into a formal request.
Suddenly, his eyes were drawn to Oz’s forehead. Until recently, there had only been a few strands of white fur, but now it had spread to about the size of a palm. The area around the small white horn was now completely white.
‘I’ll have to ask about that too.’
Juhwan began filling the herb sacks he’d received from the Guild staff with the soil Oz had dug up. He divided it into two sacks.
Dorothy and the women brought the carrots over. They tossed them into the sacks with a thump. After splitting the Screaming Carrots between the two bags, he covered them with more soil. Since there wasn’t enough, he used his axe to dig up a bit more earth to top them off.
After tying the mouths of the bags tightly, he held one out to the Red Sword party.
“This is your share.”
“Huh?”
The women of Red Sword were startled.
“This herb patch was your secret spot. It’s only fair we split it in half.”
“But that’s…”
“Still…”
“We weren’t looking for a reward. This was meant to be a gesture of thanks for your help, Juhwan.”
Juhwan shrugged.
“It’s too early for thanks. This might not be worth as much as you think. Since Oz ate all the leaves of the Screaming Carrots, they might not be as effective. Even if they are, they might only be worth half, so you might only get half the money.”
The Red Sword members looked at each other. They had been too excited to think that far ahead.
“But even if that’s the case… thank you so much.”
Karin bowed her head. The other women followed suit.
Lij was looking at Juhwan with sparkling eyes. She seemed happy too. He felt a bit bashful.
Dorothy ran over holding Oz and asked with a slightly disappointed look.
“Papa, where is Dorothy’s carrot? Isn’t there one for Dorothy? Carrot-y is the younger sibling of Dorothy and Oz and Toto.”
As if to emphasize her point, Dorothy pulled the doll Toto out of her skirt pocket and hugged it. But Dorothy, when did the carrot become a sibling? I had no idea.
At a glance, the Screaming Carrot might seem alive because it screamed, but in reality, it wasn’t. He’d realized it by watching closely.
For whatever reason, these Screaming Carrots vibrated. Their entire bodies shook. And for some reason, that vibration resonated in all directions like a scream. It didn’t scream because it was alive.
But how was he supposed to explain that? While Juhwan was lost in thought for a moment, Lij leaned down toward Dorothy.
“Dorothy, you can’t have this. It’s dangerous.”
“Really?”
“Yes. It screams, remember?”
“But Oz made it stop?”
“It just fainted. It might scream again when it wakes up.”
“Ah! You’re right!”
Dorothy nodded vigorously. Perhaps there was no need for deep explanations. The child gave up on her ‘sibling’ quite simply.
Since there were only three herb sacks, there was nowhere to put the Cheonma.
In the end, the Cheonma was placed in the pouch Juhwan usually used for carrying rabbits when hunting. Unlike the Mistletoe, Cheonma was sturdy, so it would be fine.
They had originally intended to harvest more, but because of the carrots, there was no need. The women were all in a much more excited mood than when they’d arrived as they headed back to the Guild.
