I Became A Married Man in Another World
Chapter 78
078 It Was Korean
Children never seem to tire when they play. It’s almost impossible to fathom where all that energy is stored in such tiny bodies. Yet, perhaps because they burn through their fuel without a thought for the consequences, children are also prone to collapsing like toys with dead batteries once the fun is over.
Dorothy was no different. On the way back to the Guild, her pace gradually slowed, her steps heavy as Oz rode in her front skirt pocket.
If one watched closely, her eyes would flutter shut every now and then. It was a mystery how she managed to walk while half-asleep.
Her fluffy curls bobbed with every nod of her head, and her shoulders slumped forward under Oz’s weight. Oz was still young and small, but Dorothy was a small child herself. Naturally, the rabbit was too heavy for her.
At first, she made some nonsensical claim that she had to walk because she was the adventurer who discovered the Screaming Carrots, but after only a few steps, she reached out her arms, asking to be carried.
Juhwan walked on in silence, cradling the child in his arms while the sack of carrots and soil was strapped to his back. Dorothy fell asleep instantly.
Lij and the Red Sword party were in high spirits, their laughter and conversation never ceasing throughout the journey back.
Lij laughed brightly at something the women of the Red Sword said. She glanced back at Juhwan, her eyes curving into crescents as she smiled again. Perhaps they were talking about him.
“….”
He hoped it was something good. The judgment of a group of women was a bit intimidating. He felt a prickle of nervousness for no reason. Still, seeing Lij smile made him think it must have been something positive. Back on Earth, he had received a dismal score in life; he wondered if he was now being evaluated as a good husband, a good man.
Lij’s hair shimmered as it caught the sunlight. His eyes narrowed instinctively.
‘She’s beautiful.’
Lij had grown even more beautiful than when they first met. Her pale face, which had no room for improvement, had filled out slightly, and her skin held a soft glow.
He wondered if she might have foreign blood in her.
She looked a bit different from the people around her. Her fair skin and slender face were exceptionally lovely compared to those nearby. Perhaps it was only because he was biased, but no matter how many times he looked, she was truly beautiful.
As she walked ahead with the other women, Lij reached her hand behind her back, opening and closing her fingers. Hello? Hello? she seemed to say. Was she being playful? Her childlike gesture brought an involuntary smile to his face.
He found himself offering a silent prayer to the heavens that this simple, peaceful daily life would continue.
*
It was late afternoon by the time they reached the Guild. He hadn’t visited at this hour before, and there seemed to be twice as many adventurers as there were in the morning. The Guild was bustling, overflowing with noise and people.
The crowd gathered in front of the reception desk was larger than usual. Many of those standing in the long line held wooden plaques for their requests.
It seemed this was the time of day when people wrapped up their commissions.
Juhwan and the Red Sword party headed toward the appraisal counter. This area was also crowded. Since there was only one appraisal window, the line was longer than anywhere else.
It seemed the rule about 2nd Grade adventurers not having to wait in line held true for all Guilds. The Red Sword party, with Lij in tow, bypassed the queue and moved to the front. Lij looked around self-consciously, but the Red Sword members remained nonchalant.
“Hey, you! Where do you think you’re cutting in?”
“Get to the back! You hear me?”
A few male adventurers standing in the middle of the line stepped out and roughly blocked their path.
Lij’s pale face turned white as a sheet.
Juhwan started to step forward, but then he noticed the women of the Red Sword all had their hands on their waists. They were gripping their nails.
He thought using nails for such a minor confrontation was a bit much, but he understood once he saw the faces of the men picking the fight. One of the five was the 4th Grade adventurer who had slammed Karin’s face into the desk. The group was likely his party.
Should I just watch? The Red Sword party seemed to have a lot of pent-up resentment. Their eyes were murderous. He felt it wasn’t a matter he should meddle in lightly.
Juhwan prepared himself to intervene at any moment and signaled for Lij to come to him. After casting a worried glance at the Red Sword party, Lij turned around. She sighed and walked toward Juhwan.
At that moment, one of the men harassing the Red Sword party surreptitiously reached out his hand. He likely thought no one was watching, or perhaps he thought such a thing was permissible. His hand was reaching for Lij’s leg.
Juhwan’s foot shot up. He had no intention of being lenient. He kicked the man squarely in the head.
With a strange, choked grunt, the man’s head snapped back. His body followed. In an instant, the man was sent flying out of the line and slammed into a table. He collapsed to the floor along with the table in a loud crash.
Bleeding from his head, the man twitched and staggered to his feet. He looked up in the completely wrong direction. He spoke to the wall instead of a person.
“You… what did you…”
Before he could finish, he crumpled forward as if all strength had left him. He appeared to have lost consciousness.
Lij, the Red Sword party, and everyone else stared at Juhwan with wide eyes.
The fallen man’s companions drew their weapons.
“You want a piece of us?”
“What, you bastard, are you the pimp for these wenches?”
“Damn it! Are you some newcomer trying to kick out the veterans and take over?”
“You think being 3rd Grade is everything? Do all these women belong to you? If you’re a rookie, act like one and get in line!”
They seemed to have misunderstood something. He was happy to fight if they challenged him, but this kind of misunderstanding was troublesome. He had acted because someone tried to molest his wife, not because he was some womanizer.
Besides, the Red Sword party didn’t “belong” to them. Were these men out of their minds? Everything about this was wrong.
Glancing over, he saw the Red Sword party was also furious. Karin had already drawn her nails. Regardless, they wouldn’t stand a chance if the Red Sword party decided to fight.
Just as the air turned thick with the scent of impending violence, a voice rang out from the entrance.
“Stop it. That man just now tried to touch a member of that Magician’s party. Furthermore, that Magician has already reached 2nd Grade in the city. He doesn’t have to wait in line.”
It was the Guild Master. He frowned as he addressed the men.
“Look, you lot really ought to stop while you’re ahead. With a Magician of his caliber, you’d all be roasted to a crisp in an instant. I’m not exaggerating. You must have heard the rumors about what happened to me. If you thought they were exaggerated, I’m telling you as the one who lived through it: they weren’t exaggerated at all.”
The Guild Master sighed as he looked at the broken table and the unconscious man.
“How many times did I warn you that you’d get into real trouble one day? You can’t go around doing that to just any woman.”
The Guild Master clicked his tongue and walked up to Juhwan. For some reason, he looked a bit exhausted. Behind him was a teenage girl.
“Juhwan-ssi, if you have a moment, I’d like to have a word.”
The Guild Master said this while looking at the sacks of herbs.
“Ho, did you gather herbs today? The shape of those sacks looks a bit odd for that, though.”
Dorothy, who had been dazed after waking up, seemed to snap to attention at those words and sat up in Juhwan’s arms.
“They’re carrots! Dorothy found them. They scream.”
“Huh?”
The Guild Master looked startled. Several adventurers nearby turned their heads, drawn by the words “scream” and “carrot.”
While everyone’s attention was diverted, the men who had started the trouble slunk back to their place in line. Their anger had cooled, and after hearing the Guild Master’s words, it seemed to have finally dawned on them that Juhwan was a Fire Magician.
“Screaming Carrots? It’s been a while. They’ve been so scarce lately that people have been making a fuss. Congratulations.”
The Guild Master grinned and led the way to the counter.
“Let’s be quick. Once Screaming Carrots are touched by human hands, their mana depletes over time. The faster they’re processed, the higher their value.”
The Guild Master shouted to the crowd.
“Since we have Screaming Carrots, anyone who hasn’t seen them should come over. Especially the rookies, drop what you’re doing and come here. These are high-risk items, so you need to take a good look.”
Ah, it seemed that when something rare was harvested, it was shown to everyone for educational purposes. People murmured and gathered around the appraisal counter.
When Juhwan set down the two sacks, the Guild Master muttered in surprise.
“What, you harvested two?”
“No! This many!”
Dorothy held up ten fingers. She puffed out her chest and tilted her nose up proudly.
“Ho.”
The Master laughed. He likely took it as a child’s exaggeration. A few chuckles broke out from the surrounding crowd as well.
Juhwan didn’t deny it. They were about to open the sacks anyway. There was no need for long explanations when they could see for themselves.
An appraisal clerk brought out a box about 30cm square from the back. The box was fitted with a sturdy-looking lock.
“It’s a mana box. Putting them in there prevents the mana of the Screaming Carrots from leaking out.”
The Master explained, seemingly for the benefit of the others as much as for Juhwan.
“Do Screaming Carrots possess mana?”
“Yes. They are used as ingredients for potions that Magicians use to recover mana. However, from the moment they are touched by human hands, the mana depletes rapidly. What actually reaches our hands is a very small amount compared to what they originally held. It’s a pity.”
The Guild Master let out a loud laugh, showing his yellowed teeth, as he added that if the carrots held even a little more mana than they usually did, the price would double.
Meanwhile, the appraisal clerk opened the box and began carefully digging through the soil in the sack. Just before the Screaming Carrots were revealed, the clerk stopped and warned the crowd.
“The sound will be weak, but everyone should cover their ears for now.”
After saying so, the clerk plugged his own ears with small pieces of fabric.
Had the fainted carrots woken up yet? Juhwan watched Lij and the Red Sword party cover their ears, then pressed Dorothy’s face to his chest and covered her ears with his palms. As for his own ears—well, it was fine. He hadn’t felt anything special when Oz dug them up, so it would be okay.
The clerk cleared away the soil with practiced hands. Seeing the carrots, Juhwan removed his hands from the child’s ears. The Screaming Carrots were still unconscious. Their root-hairs and the scratches on their bodies were limp.
“Wait!”
The clerk’s eyes went wide. He hurriedly dug through the soil to pull out the other carrots. All of them were equally limp.
“What, there wasn’t just one?”
The Guild Master looked shocked.
The crowd gathered around also began to buzz.
“What, there are that many?”
“But why are they so limp? Aren’t they supposed to scream?”
“Are they dead?”
“The mana must have all leaked out. Look how wilted they are.”
“What a waste. They won’t get any money for those.”
Ignoring the voices, the appraisal clerk picked up a Screaming Carrot, closed his eyes for a moment, and then picked up another. After doing this a few times, he snapped his head up to look at the Guild Master.
“Master! The mana is intact! It seems like almost none has leaked out. The mana preservation is incomparable to any other Screaming Carrots! I’ve appraised many things, but I’ve never seen anything like this. Truly, never.”
His voice was absurdly loud. It was the clerk’s shouting, not the carrots, that made people want to cover their ears.
“How did you do it? What method did you use?”
The clerk’s voice was now directed at Juhwan.
Dorothy muttered as she covered her ears with both hands.
“That mister is a Screaming Carrot.”
“It’s because his ears are plugged, Dorothy. When you can’t hear others, you don’t realize how loud you’re being.”
Juhwan said this while pointing to his own ears. Only then did the clerk realize he still had the fabric in his ears and pulled it out. He then shouted to another staff member in the back.
“Run to the apothecary and check! How much will they pay for Screaming Carrots with their mana perfectly preserved? If they try to offer the standard price, we’ll have to look elsewhere. The situation has changed from the original request.”
The clerk hurriedly explained as he opened the boxes and placed the carrots inside.
“Everyone, Screaming Carrots are naturally filled with mana. It’s believed they absorb it from the soil. The scream is the sound of that mana escaping when it comes into contact with air and human hands.”
They wouldn’t all fit in one box. The clerk brought another box from the back and continued as he packed them.
“No one knows why it happens yet. No one has discovered a way to seal mana like this either. My goodness, what on earth did you do?”
The clerk looked at Juhwan.
But Juhwan didn’t know either. Oz was the one who caught them. He wondered if this was possible because a horned rabbit was a natural predator of the carrots.
‘But if that were the case, someone would have figured it out by now.’
The image of Oz finding the carrots flashed through his mind. His horn had glowed red, and a small circle had appeared on the carrot’s body. Perhaps it was because of that, or perhaps it was because he had eaten the carrot tops.
“Wh-wh-wh… huff, huff… what… huff… did you say?”
A man who looked remarkably like a toad ran in with a guild staff member. It seemed the toad-like man was the apothecary. He looked as though he might collapse from exhaustion right then and there.
The toad apothecary’s eyes widened as he listened to the clerk’s explanation and examined the Screaming Carrots. His jaw dropped, and while still panting as if his breath might fail him, he cried out:
“One gold coin! I’ll buy them all!”
Ho. One gold coin for twelve Screaming Carrots seemed like a decent price. The people around them made sounds of awe and looked on with envy.
The appraisal clerk smiled happily and asked the apothecary.
“One gold coin per carrot. Are you sure?”
“Of course! I’ll buy every single one.”
It wasn’t twelve carrots for one gold coin; it was one gold coin per Screaming Carrot.
“Gasp!”
“Wh-what?! A gold coin?”
“That’s impossible.”
“Th-then that’s twelve gold coins.”
The murmuring of the crowd grew louder.
This time, even Juhwan was a bit surprised.
A thud sounded beside him, and he looked over to see Lij and Karin slumped on the floor.
“One gold coin. My goodness,” Lij muttered.
Dorothy tilted her nose high into the air and said, “Dorothy found them.”
No, Oz found them.
“Dorothy found them with Oz,” she added.
As Dorothy spoke again, Oz, who had been peeking out from her pocket, flattened his ears back. He seemed a little annoyed.
In any case, since Oz had earned so much all at once, he would have to treat the little guy to some meat today.
Just then, the teenage girl who had entered with the Guild Master tilted her head and asked Juhwan:
[Christmas Eve, make a wish? Santa, you jerk?]
It was Korean.
