I Became A Married Man in Another World
Chapter 92
092 A Small House in the Forest
After the carriage traveled for a short while, a small village came into view. Juhwan slowed the pace and gradually approached the settlement.
He planned to ask the first village he encountered to take care of the bandits’ corpses.
When he had gathered the weapons, he had left behind those that were chipped or looked cheap. Since there were also clothes and shoes to be had, he figured they wouldn’t refuse a request to dispose of the bodies.
Furthermore, he had heard that bounties were occasionally placed on bandits.
‘I hope those bandits have bounties on them.’
If they did, he would feel much less burdened about making the request.
There was no one at the village entrance, but as Juhwan drew closer, several men came running out from within. It seemed someone had spotted the unicorn and alerted the rest of the village.
Whether it was because unicorns were so rare, or because Juhwan’s own appearance looked as intimidating as a bandit or a thug, the villagers seemed terrified.
They appeared flustered, caught in a state of indecision over whether to shut the gates, flee, or offer a welcome.
The village was so small that Juhwan wondered if adventurers rarely visited.
Juhwan stopped the carriage at the entrance instead of heading inside. He had no desire to unnecessarily alarm the people.
After catching a glimpse of Lij sitting beside him on the driver’s seat, the village men seemed to relax slightly.
Among the men, one who looked the most robust and senior stepped forward and asked politely. He appeared to be the Village Chief.
“Excuse me, milord, what brings you to a place as small and humble as our village?”
“I have a favor to ask.”
Juhwan explained that the bodies of some bandits, who appeared to be looters from the enemy nation, were lying on the mountain path and needed to be cleared. He added that if there were any bounties on them, the villagers could keep the reward. The Village Chief blinked in surprise.
“There was a raid by enemy looters last autumn. There are quite large bounties on those scoundrels. It’s the same even if you just bring the bodies. You can collect all the money. But, excuse me, can we really keep the bounty for ourselves?”
The Village Chief asked with a look of concern.
When Juhwan gave his word, the men standing beside the chief scrambled back into the village before he even finished speaking.
They seemed to be preparing to head for the mountains immediately, perhaps worried that someone else might snatch the reward.
As a token of gratitude, the chief gave Juhwan some woolen fabric made in the village.
It wasn’t high-quality material. It was a rough, undyed cloth.
However, Lij seemed deeply moved as she took the fabric. She offered the chief her polite thanks in return.
Just as they were leaving the village entrance with the cloth, the village men emerged pulling several carts.
The men bowed deeply to Juhwan and hurried off in the opposite direction. The rattling of the empty carts sounded exceptionally loud.
As they drove slowly, Lij sat on the driver’s seat, staring blankly into the air.
She had been acting a bit strange since receiving the fabric.
“What’s wrong, Lij?”
“….”
Lij gave a bittersweet smile as she leaned into the swaying carriage.
“I was just remembering the past.”
Among the peasants of this world, many made their own thread from sheep’s wool or wove their own fabric on looms.
Lij mentioned that in her hometown, several households produced thread or cloth.
“My older sister was very good at it. Word got around, and she even traveled to the neighboring village for work. I was slow with my hands, so I couldn’t do much, but it was always so hard… Haha. She would collapse from exhaustion after a day’s work. I used to get scolded so much for being useless.”
Lij laughed, but the sight was so sorrowful that Juhwan pulled her close, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
“Making fabric involves so, so much work.”
Lij leaned against him and chuckled softly. She began to recount her past in fragments, tracing her memories.
There were many steps required to turn wool into yarn.
The sheep had to be sheared, then the wool had to be washed in lye and rinsed multiple times to remove grease and debris before being dried and beaten.
Then came the dyeing, the application of olive oil… there were a mountain of things to attend to and do.
Once the preparations were finally finished, the actual spinning of the thread began, and every bit of that process had to be done by hand.
While pulling the fibers thin and twisting them onto bobbins with her fingers, her skin would often crack and go numb, leaving her hands bloodied every night.
Lij’s sister always had cracked, bleeding fingers, so Lij would massage them for her every night.
“My heart ached every time I saw my sister cry.”
Lij occasionally paused, lost in silent thought. Juhwan couldn’t tell if she was thinking of her sister or if the hardships of the past were weighing on her.
“This fabric is cheap compared to what peddlers sell, but the effort put in by the maker is exactly the same. It must have been a very precious item to the village that made it. In a poor village, everything is precious.”
Lij looked up at Juhwan with a smile on her pale face.
“Juhwan, you really are a kind and gentle person. I hope those villagers are able to collect the bounty properly.”
“….”
He hadn’t really done it out of kindness.
To collect the bounty, he would have had to either haul all the corpses or cut off their heads and take them, and he simply wasn’t in a position to do that.
If the situation had allowed, he likely would have claimed the bounty himself.
Juhwan smiled quietly. She was the one who was truly kind. Despite living in such a world, Lij was occasionally surprisingly pure. It wasn’t just that she was simple; she had a clean, untainted side, like an innocent child. He truly didn’t know how she had survived until now with such a personality.
Dorothy, who had been playing with Oz inside the carriage, suddenly poked her head through the gap to the driver’s seat.
“Mama, Papa! We have a problem.”
She seemed a bit flustered.
“What is it?”
When he asked, Dorothy started to answer but then closed her mouth. After a moment of hesitation, she whispered.
“Mama, you won’t be mad?”
“Let me hear what happened first.”
“Um…”
Dorothy groaned and then said in a tiny voice.
“The spoon broke.”
“The wooden spoon?”
“Yes.”
Lij was slightly surprised. Even if a spoon seemed small and insignificant, it wasn’t something a child’s strength should be able to break.
Thinking she might have stepped on it or hit it while playing, Lij checked the child’s body through the gap.
“Are you hurt?”
“…No.”
“How did it happen?”
“….”
Dorothy glanced at Lij and Juhwan and clamped her mouth shut.
Wondering if Oz was responsible, Juhwan asked, and Dorothy nodded.
“What did Oz do?”
When Lij asked, Dorothy hesitated before answering.
“Light shot right out of his horn. Then it just broke.”
Lij tilted her head.
“Oz did?”
Dorothy nodded vigorously. It was a bit strange. If Oz had broken the spoon, why was Dorothy worried about getting in trouble?
Juhwan glanced at the child and, sensing something, asked further.
“Was it just the spoon?”
“….”
“Dorothy.”
“The iron fire poker broke too.”
“And?”
“Some of Papa’s arrows.”
“…And?”
“The broom.”
“….”
Hmm, more things had broken than he thought.
This time, Lij stared silently at Dorothy’s face. As Lij watched her without a word, Dorothy’s head sank lower and lower.
Lij asked in a slightly low voice.
“Oz wouldn’t have done that on his own. Dorothy, did you tell him to do it?”
“…Yes.”
“…But Mama, it’s just so, so amazing…”
Oz’s ears poked up near Dorothy’s chin. His ears twitched as if he also realized he had done something wrong.
Lij let out a long sigh.
“I’ll have to take a look when the carriage stops. Dorothy, I know it’s exciting because it’s the first time you’ve seen it, but you mustn’t do that anymore. It costs a lot of money to buy all those things again. Do you understand?”
“…Yes.”
Neigh! The unicorn pulling the carriage let out a cry. It sounded as if he were saying the children’s antics were absurd.
Juhwan and Lij looked at each other and couldn’t help but laugh.
With two magical beasts that were more human than humans, it felt like they were raising three children. It was a strange feeling.
Before the sun set that day, they prepared to camp in a spot where a wide field stretched out. It was a place dotted with sparse, short trees.
The wind whistled and it was a bit chilly, but being far from the forest reduced the risk of encountering magical beasts or wild animals. They would be able to sleep in peace.
The items Dorothy and Oz had broken together were quite numerous.
Perhaps he had been happy about snapping the bandit’s arrowheads; Oz seemed to have triumphantly tested his power on various things at Dorothy’s encouragement. Juhwan realized Oz was still just a child too.
Once they settled in and lit a campfire, Dorothy and Oz brought over some fallen twigs from nearby.
He thought they were bringing them to add to the fire, but that wasn’t it. They seemed to have decided to sacrifice twigs instead of their belongings.
Dorothy held up a twig and shouted.
“I have finally found the wicked Orthos! You have transformed. But you cannot deceive the eyes of Dorothy and Oz. Two yet one! One yet two! We are the Magicians Dorothy and Oz! Wicked demon, reveal yourself!”
“Pee-ee!”
As Oz let out a small cry and tensed his body, the twig snapped with a crack.
“Ha! That was a real tree. Fine, this time for sure I’ve found the real Orthos. Oz, give me strength!”
“Pee-ee!”
They seemed to be having fun. Bathed in the light of the campfire, Oz and Dorothy went on breaking twigs—two, three, and more. It was pure child’s play.
“It’s truly fascinating. How can he break things like that?”
As Lij watched Oz in wonder, the unicorn, who had been unharnessed and was standing nearby, lightly pawed the ground.
He moved his head this way and that, looking down at the ground as if searching for a bug or a mouse. Perhaps he wanted to show that he, too, could paralyze or kill something.
‘Stop it. That would look more scary than fascinating.’
Juhwan gave a wry smile. Judging by his abilities and appearance, the unicorn seemed to be quite old, but surprisingly, he might be young as well.
Dorothy was put to bed early, and Juhwan spent time with Lij in front of the campfire late into the night.
While the carriage blocked the wind and they basked in the warmth of the fire, the occasional howl of a wolf could be heard in the distance.
There were no other people around. Just the two of them in the vast field, in a space open from one end to the other. Only the stars, peeking out from the velvet-glimmering night sky, watched over Juhwan and Lij. A night like this was the very essence of romance.
“Lij.”
When he called his wife’s name in a slightly thick voice, she seemed to understand his meaning immediately. Blushing, Lij climbed onto his lap.
They kissed in their usual position.
Under the consideration of the unicorn, who turned his head to gaze into the distant darkness, the two of them spent their adult time, only slightly adjusting their clothes.
That night, unlike other times, Juhwan was able to fall into a fairly deep sleep.
With the unicorn and Oz present, he wasn’t worried about anything attacking them. With those two around, whether it was hunting magical beasts or anything else, Juhwan probably wouldn’t even get a turn to step in.
The next morning, they set off again.
The unicorn was faster than a normal horse. Even though they took many more breaks, they had already covered more than half the distance by afternoon. At this rate, they would likely reach the Guild by tomorrow evening even with plenty of rest.
However, around that time, the unicorn’s behavior began to grow inexplicably anxious.
He grew restless, constantly staring into the empty air in the distance.
During their occasional breaks, he would nudge Juhwan’s body with his head as if he had something to say.
“What’s the matter?”
When Juhwan asked, he would snort and let out high-pitched neighs. He was clearly trying to communicate, but unfortunately, there was no one in this world who could understand the language of horses.
Even as a contractor for Rudolph and Santa, it was impossible. Since the vocal organs were fundamentally different to begin with, not even Santa Claus himself could help.
And then, they reached a point where a strange mountain could be seen in the distance.
The unicorn let out several mournful cries and stamped his hooves before suddenly bolting in an unexpected direction.
“Ortho!”
Juhwan called his name, but it was no use. He wouldn’t listen.
Damn it.
Juhwan tried to calm the unicorn by pulling the reins while shouting toward the carriage.
“Lock the carriage so the door doesn’t fly open, Lij! Ortho has suddenly started running in a strange direction.”
“I’ve got it!”
Fortunately, Lij had been inside the carriage trying to get Dorothy to sleep quietly. Dorothy, who had become engrossed in playing with Oz, had been nodding off but trying her best to stay awake.
Perhaps the unicorn had waited for Lij to go inside the carriage.
‘If that’s the case, he hasn’t gone mad.’
Furthermore, he seemed to be controlling his speed to some extent. The carriage rattled, but it wasn’t too severe.
Juhwan stole a glance inside the carriage.
In the dark interior, he could see Lij sitting while holding Dorothy.
She was swaying a bit, but she seemed alright. There were thick ropes attached here and there inside for them to hold onto when the carriage shook, and those seemed to be helping.
He wondered if Oz would try to stop the unicorn, but for some reason, he didn’t do anything.
Every time Juhwan called out, the unicorn turned his head to the side and let out a mournful cry.
Tears welled in his beautiful eyes. It looked as though tears might roll down from those large eyes at any moment.
Juhwan began to think that perhaps there was a reason behind the unicorn’s sudden behavior.
He gave up on trying to stop him and left the carriage to the unicorn’s lead.
The unicorn ran for a long time.
The mountain that had been far off grew closer.
The wide road gave way to a bumpy path rarely traveled by people, which then turned into a narrow mountain trail.
The unicorn walked with familiarity along a path so narrow a single carriage could barely fit. As they entered the mountain, the unicorn’s pace, which had slowed, began to quicken again.
After passing a sharp bend in the road, a house nestled at the edge finally came into view.
It was certain that the house was the unicorn’s destination. Upon seeing the house, the unicorn let out a cry. It sounded like he was saying, I missed you, I missed you.
Hearing that sound made Juhwan’s heart ache for some reason. It held a deeply sorrowful resonance.
Juhwan narrowed his eyes and looked at the house.
It was a small shack.
It wasn’t a house made by a carpenter.
Even from a distance, it was clear that the builder’s skill was amateur.
The door was slightly crooked, and the roof was unsightly. If it rained, water would surely leak inside. He would probably need a bucket or two to catch the rain.
Whoever built it was clearly someone with very little manual dexterity.
The unicorn’s busy legs finally came to a halt.
Standing before the shack, the unicorn let out several cries, more sorrowful than anything Juhwan had ever heard in this world.
Juhwan stared blankly at the house before him.
“What…”
The sound escaped his lips without him even realizing he was speaking.
“No way, oh my god… No, that can’t be right.”
Juhwan stumbled down from the carriage and approached the shack.
