I Became A Married Man in Another World
Chapter 89
089 Bandits
Jack’s master, Gwen, was lying in a house provided by the village. There was no straw on the bed. Instead, a single pelt had been spread over a flat wooden board. It seemed the straw had been removed to keep the fleas away.
Whether Jack had been tending to him alone, the area around the bed was cluttered with blood-stained clothes, rags, and wooden buckets filled with water.
“Master! The healer is here. Mr. Juhwan is an incredible healing Magician. He’s going to fix you right up.”
Jack rushed to Gwen’s side and whispered urgently into his ear. His hands were trembling violently, showing just how terrified he had been.
Lij stood quietly in a corner of the room with Dorothy to stay out of the way.
Juhwan approached Gwen and checked the left shoulder, which was wrapped thick with cloth. A deep, long gouge—likely from the claws of the Orthos—marred the shoulder.
It was a wound that would have left an ordinary person unable to move; it was a marvel he had managed to walk to the village on his own. Perhaps it was only possible because he, too, possessed mana.
As Juhwan placed his hand on Gwen’s shoulder, a searing heat transferred through his palm. The man’s body felt like a ball of fire.
When treating a mana user, the process must be gradual. If done incorrectly, Juhwan’s mana could clash with the patient’s, potentially worsening the injury. This was something he had learned during his time with the merchant troupe.
Juhwan monitored Gwen’s expression as he slowly infused his mana. Thread-like strands of energy began to seep into Gwen’s wound.
He could now sense the flow of mana—something he hadn’t been able to do before. It was the result of his practice.
However, fine control remained a challenge. It was easier to fight and trade blows without worrying about output, but handling mana with delicate precision felt difficult. It was likely because Juhwan’s power was too vast. It felt as difficult as trying to pour the contents of a lake into a tiny cup.
“….”
Beside him, he could hear the sound of Jack gulping repeatedly. The boy was clearly tense.
Without rushing, Juhwan patiently and persistently channeled the minute threads of mana into Gwen’s body.
Gwen’s body remained feverish, but Juhwan could feel the heat subsiding through his palm.
‘It’s working. The effect is showing.’
He hadn’t expected to fail, but seeing the results with his own eyes brought a sense of relief.
“Oh! Master’s wound is closing!”
Jack shouted, thrusting his face close to Gwen’s shoulder. It was perfectly visible even without leaning in that far. Seeing Jack’s behavior overlap with Dorothy’s, Juhwan couldn’t help but let out a small smile.
‘I see. Now that I know his age, his childish side is becoming more apparent.’
Gradually, Gwen’s breathing steadied. The scorching air he exhaled with every breath had cooled significantly. Now, he was only slightly warmer than a normal person.
Seeing that the wound was almost entirely closed, Juhwan pulled his hand away from Gwen’s shoulder.
Jack’s lips trembled as he looked down at Gwen’s face before turning away. He threw himself onto the floor, prostrating before Juhwan.
“Thank you. Thank you so much. I will never forget this debt. No matter what becomes of me, no matter what happens, my life belongs to you, sir. Thank you… thank you so much.”
“Jack, you don’t need to think of it that way. This was a fair trade. Your master helped me, and I helped your master. It was simply an exchange of equal weight, with no debt remaining.”
Jack shook his head at Juhwan’s words.
“I might be slow and stupid, but I know what a kindness is.”
“….”
Juhwan didn’t say anything more and simply patted Jack on the shoulder.
After tucking Gwen in properly, Jack sat there with a tear-streaked face, grinning foolishly.
Juhwan spoke to Jack with a slightly troubled expression. It wasn’t exactly the right thing to say to a boy who had just been crying over his injured master, but he had no one else to ask.
“By the way, Jack, do you know what we should do with the Orthos carcass?”
Juhwan hadn’t taken the quest alone. He wouldn’t have been able to kill the Orthos if he had been by himself. He would have to receive the reward for the subjugation alongside Gwen.
But since Gwen was unconscious, he didn’t know the procedure. Seeing Juhwan’s perplexed look, Jack let out a laugh.
“You can just take it as it is. I heard the hide of an Orthos is too tough to process normally. If you take it to the Guild, they’ll take care of it for you.”
Is that so? He glanced at Lij and saw a look of slight disappointment on her face. She had probably wanted to process the hide herself. She was always looking for ways to be helpful. Juhwan wished she knew that her mere presence was enough.
Juhwan checked Gwen’s condition one last time. His body temperature had returned to normal. A few days of rest should see him through.
“Even when your master wakes up, tell him not to push himself. He needs to rest for a few days.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jack nodded obediently, then suddenly looked as if he remembered something.
“Ah, there was something my master told me to tell you before he collapsed. I forgot. I was on my way to tell you earlier.”
“….”
“He said there might be remnant looters nearby. He thought the reason the Orthos suddenly attacked the village might be because it developed a taste for humans after eating a magician among the looters.”
Even if the Magical Beast had started eating humans after consuming a mana user, there was a gap in time between when the looters arrived and when the beast attacked.
Gwen seemed to think that during that interval, the Orthos had been busy eating the remnants of the looters, which kept its eyes off the village.
But for some reason, it could no longer feed on the remnants. That was why it had come down to the village….
Magical Beasts are territorial animals. They hunt within their own domain. Perhaps the looters had exerted every effort to escape the Orthos’s territory.
“So he said to be careful. If there are remnants left, there’s a high chance they’ve become bandits. A carriage with a woman and a child is an easy target for an ambush.”
Juhwan nodded. Had Jack been acting grown-up because he was in front of Lij? The boy’s speech, which had broken down when Juhwan was treating Gwen, had returned to that of an ordinary boy.
“Right, thank you. It seems I only have things to be grateful to your master for.”
Juhwan told Jack that he would take the Orthos carcass to the Guild first and that Jack should come by later. Then, he turned away.
‘Looters, huh.’
People driven to a corner are the most dangerous. You can’t predict what they’ll do. They become blind to things that would be obvious to anyone else.
Lij looked up at Juhwan with wide eyes. She seemed startled by the mention of looters. A hint of fear flickered in her gaze.
‘Ah, I see.’
To those living in a frontier village, looters might be one of the most terrifying things imaginable. Juhwan put his arm around Lij’s shoulder and gave her a gentle smile.
“It’s okay, Lij.”
It wasn’t that Juhwan was without anxiety. He was much stronger now than he had been during the goblin raid. However, human cunning was incomparable to that of a goblin. Humans were far more difficult to deal with.
Hiding his unease, Juhwan tightened his hold on Lij.
Dorothy tilted her head and suddenly asked.
“Mom, what’s a looter?”
As they walked outside listening to the explanation, the Unicorn was waiting for them. Against the backdrop of the shabby house, the trees, and the blue sky, the white Unicorn stood still. It looked like a scene from a lyrical film.
But the reality was a gutter. He felt a bit bitter.
The villagers were watching the Unicorn from a distance. They looked somewhat frightened. Perhaps someone had tried to get close and been taught a lesson. Had they wanted to steal it if they could?
Seeing Juhwan, the Unicorn approached, its mane swaying gently as if it were happy.
The behavior was like that of a long-time pet.
“Why are you following me like this?”
When he spoke, the creature looked at him reproachfully again.
‘Strange.’
He had never seen or even imagined a Unicorn like this, yet it felt strangely familiar. When he stroked its mane, the Unicorn narrowed its double-lidded eyes. It seemed to be enjoying itself.
Anyway, both Oz and this Unicorn seemed to understand human speech. Ordinary Magical Beasts didn’t do that. Could this one also be a Rudolph?
‘But I heard there’s only one Rudolph per person.’
Thinking that something was off, Juhwan suddenly muttered.
“Come to think of it, I should give this guy a name.”
At Juhwan’s words, the Unicorn tossed its mane and pushed its head forward. It rubbed its long, white horn against Juhwan’s cheek as if trying to say something. It blew air into Juhwan’s ear and let out a strange, whinnying sound.
However, there was no way a human could understand the sounds of a horse. He was sorry, but he had no idea what it was saying.
As Juhwan gave a wry smile, Dorothy, who was holding Lij’s hand, raised her arm and waved it frantically. She was trying to get his attention. When Juhwan looked at her, Dorothy shouted with sparkling eyes.
“Daddy, can Dorothy name him? Dorothy wants to make the name this time. Because Dorothy is the oldest sister now.”
Juhwan wasn’t sure what being an older sister had to do with naming rights. But Dorothy looked up at him seriously, her eyes still swollen like a panda’s. She seemed to have thought of an incredible name.
“Alright, then will Dorothy give him a pretty name?”
At Juhwan’s words, Dorothy smiled brightly and looked at the Unicorn.
“Ortho! Your name is Ortho now. Ortho, do you like it?”
“…Dorothy, did you just take the ‘s’ off of ’Orthos’?”
When he asked, Dorothy’s eyes darted back and forth. After a moment, she looked at Lij with a serious face.
“No, Mom. I made it from Oz and Toto’s names.”
No, it’s painfully obvious that you just made that up after the fact.
The Unicorn seemed angry. It snorted and pawed at the ground. It clearly didn’t like the name Ortho at all.
However, in Dorothy’s mind, the name Ortho was final.
“Ortho,” she called out, nodding to herself, and then called “Ortho” again. She probably thought it sounded cool. Well, it couldn’t be helped. In both human life and horse life, the law of the world is that fewer things go your way than not.
“Ortho, I’ll be in your care.”
When Juhwan spoke, Lij giggled.
Dorothy looked triumphant. She didn’t seem to think for a second that the name she had chosen was strange.
The Unicorn let out a loud, protesting neigh.
*
After folding the Orthos carcass and binding it tightly with rope, they loaded it onto the roof of the carriage.
To absorb the shock of the jolting ride, they used the existing hay as padding.
The hay placed close to the Orthos’s body would likely be unusable due to the smell and blood. It was a waste, but it couldn’t be helped. They had removed as much of the blood and organs as possible and stuffed the body with straw to absorb moisture, but it wasn’t perfect.
The carriage sat a bit higher because of the carcass. Juhwan worried the weight might cause it to tip over, but the carriage itself was so large that the balance didn’t shift awkwardly. It was a relief.
He also worried if one horse could pull the heavy carriage, but the Unicorn was remarkably strong. It pulled the carriage effortlessly, showing no signs of strain. An ordinary horse wouldn’t have stood a chance alone.
“Alright, let’s go, Ortho.”
When Juhwan spoke, the Unicorn turned its head away in clear distaste and began to trot along. Did it really hate the name Ortho that much? Juhwan let out a small laugh.
In a poor land, both the victim and the thief are ragged and hungry. The bandits, who had to be selective about their targets to keep their identity hidden, were hungrier still.
The Baron clutched his starving stomach and gulped down water. He couldn’t remember how many days it had been since he’d started filling his belly with water because there was nothing to eat.
As the water went down, his stomach let out a bizarre, gurgling growl.
It was likely because he’d had diarrhea for days. The sounds echoing from his gut grew more grotesque by the day.
‘Damn it.’
He felt a bit of moisture in his trousers. The Baron hurriedly looked around to see if anyone was nearby. Fortunately, his subordinates were some distance away. All of them looked exhausted, their faces worn thin by hunger and cold.
“….”
A musty stench wafted from his entire body. Having lived in a single set of clothes for months, combined with the days of diarrhea, his scent already rivaled a cesspool. Adding a drop more wouldn’t make much of a difference. He had only checked his surroundings out of a lingering sense of shame and self-loathing.
‘How did it come to this?’
The Baron let out a long sigh.
Tairon and the Simoni Kingdom had been enemies for a long time. It wasn’t that they were constantly at war. They had truces, and at times, they even engaged in trade and diplomacy. No country in the world can sustain a war every month for decades.
However, minor skirmishes and raids at the border continued without end. They would call a truce, fight over a border skirmish, and then go back to war. When both sides were too exhausted to fight, they would call another truce. This cycle had repeated for a long time.
According to rumors, there were even armies that disguised themselves as bandits to infiltrate deep into enemy territory and pillage. It wasn’t just the enemy, Simoni.
He had heard that his own motherland, Tairon, was committing banditry in other countries—even those they were friendly with—under the King’s orders. That was how dire the situation was.
Last autumn, the Baron had also raided several small villages near the border of this country. As the number of men available for farming dwindled and the tax revenue from the Barony decreased, he had turned to raiding the enemy nation.
He didn’t think it would bring in a massive profit, but he had no choice; they wouldn’t have survived the winter otherwise.
When you have nothing to eat, you take from those in a similar plight—it was the same for Tairon and Simoni. This side steals today, that side steals tomorrow. There was no room for guilt.
The one who survives until the end is the winner.
However, he hadn’t been able to return to his territory after the raid. On the way back, he had encountered soldiers of the Simoni Kingdom.
They were likely the troops of the local Margrave. They must have rushed out as soon as they realized a raid had occurred. Though not many, they still outnumbered his men.
Ultimately, they fled into the forest to avoid the enemy, choosing a detour to return to their territory. He later regretted that decision, thinking it would have been better to fight the soldiers.
In the forest, the Baron and his men had encountered a two-headed Magical Beast.
“….”
The memory of that moment made his skin crawl.
The two-headed monster, the Orthos, had devoured his son right before his eyes. His son was a fire Magician with considerable power, but his attacks had been completely ineffective. It was like throwing eggs at a boulder.
In the end, his son had been bitten and killed with absurd ease. The sound of the beast crunching his son’s bones still echoed in his ears.
Since then, the Baron’s forces had continued to dwindle. It wasn’t just the Magical Beast chasing them. At night, wolves would approach silently and pick off one or two soldiers at a time.
They had fled desperately from the Orthos’s territory, and the force that had once numbered nearly two hundred had plummeted to barely thirty.
The Margrave’s soldiers had pursued them at first, but they stopped once the Baron entered the forest. They likely knew the Orthos was there.
The Margrave’s men probably anticipated that he would end up starving and reduced to petty banditry. It was pathetic. He knew he shouldn’t enter unfamiliar forests and mountains recklessly, but he had made a momentary lapse in judgment.
As the Baron was lost in thought, his adjutant came running frantically from a distance. He was the subordinate tasked with monitoring the mountain pass where carriages and travelers passed through.
“My Lord! My Lord!”
The adjutant ran up, struggling to breathe, and forced his mouth open.
“A carriage… a carriage… is coming.”
