WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: BerageeBomb
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◈ I Obtained the Martial God’s Book ◈
Chapter 16: Dallae
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It came.
It charged hard enough to make the ground thud, thud.
I could see its path, scraping low across the ground before twisting its head half a chi to the left at the last moment as it pounced.
I could see exactly when and where I needed to dodge to survive.
Three steps behind the large rock to my right.
But my exhausted body only managed half a step.
That was my present state. My limit.
‘Am I really going to meet such a pointless end here?’
The thought flashed through my mind.
“Now! Surround it from both sides! Archers, fire!”
Elder Bae’s command split the forest.
Spearpoints that had been waiting silently on either side stabbed into the beast’s flanks all at once.
Two arrows tore through the darkness from Beomsu’s bow after the archer rose despite the injury.
The beast hastily twisted its body.
It was only half a step from my throat.
Kraaaang!
It went berserk.
Its massive forepaw swept through the air in a wide arc.
Two approaching spears snapped.
One man was flung away like a leaf.
Its tail lashed out like a whip and swept another spearman’s legs out from under him.
One arrow bounced off its tough hide and broke.
Only the other lodged about half a chi into the outer hide of its shoulder.
The old tiger hunter had been right. Its hide was practically iron.
Still, the coordinated attack from every side made its body hesitate for the first time.
That half-beat opening was mine alone to seize.
I slipped through the gap in the encircling formation it had shattered, like a beast myself.
Driving from my waist, I thrust my spear straight ahead.
I put the simple, unadorned principle I had learned in the marketplace into that single thrust.
The spearhead tore into its thick flank.
Thrust!
Then it stopped.
Only half a handspan.
Tough hide and muscle clamped down hard on the blade that had pierced its flesh.
It was a shallow wound that had not even reached halfway to its heart.
Grrr!
The enraged beast whipped its head around.
At the same time, its forepaw struck the spear shaft in my hands.
Crack!
The ashwood shaft split in two inside my grip.
Both palms throbbed as if they had been torn apart.
Yellow fangs spread two handspans wide descended to bite off my head and throat together.
The world slowed again.
I could clearly see the inside of its open mouth.
A bright red throat, drenched in saliva and blood.
The one blind spot its iron hide could not protect.
I had been waiting for this moment.
That spear had never been meant to pierce its heart.
It was bait, thrust out knowing it would only go in half a handspan.
A wounded, enraged tiger would not bite the spear shaft.
It would first tear out the throat of the person who had caused it pain.
And to bite off someone’s head, it had no choice but to open its jaws wide.
I threw away the broken shaft and drew the sword at my waist.
It was the crude iron sword I had secretly taken from the coarse mat and tucked into my belt before climbing the mountain, just in case.
My sword was a moment faster than its jaws closing.
The blade was sucked into its open mouth, pierced the roof of its mouth from inside its throat, and drove diagonally upward toward the crown of its head.
Stab!
The blade buried itself from its throat to its brain, all the way to the hilt.
There was no ring of steel, no dying cry.
Instead, hot blood poured down and soaked my right arm.
Its huge body convulsed in midair like a live fish.
I let go of the embedded hilt and rolled across the ground.
Razor-sharp claws ripped three deep furrows into the frozen earth half a handspan behind my heel.
Even as its brain shattered and it died, this monster was still a weapon.
Rumble!
A sound like a rocky mountain collapsing echoed through the forest.
Its massive body crashed into the dirt.
Its forepaw scraped the ground twice in a final struggle.
Then the light of demonic qi in its red eyes faded like a candle before the wind.
Its wailing breath leaked out in a long exhale, then stopped completely.
I sat down, gasping for breath, drenched from head to chest in the blood it had sprayed.
The blood clinging to my body was scalding hot and suffocatingly foul.
It was a smell only someone who survived to the end could know.
Silence settled over the mountain.
For a while, no one could bring themselves to cheer.
The men stood frozen where they were, each gripping a weapon.
They could only stare in silence at the mountain-like corpse bleeding before them.
“W-we got it…”
At someone’s trembling words, restrained cheers and anguished sobs burst out together and rang through the forest.
Elder Bae approached, leaning on his spear, and crouched in front of the beast’s head.
Only the black sword hilt remained in the middle of its open mouth.
The elder stared for a long time at the blade driven into its brain.
“In the fifty years I’ve spent rolling around on these harsh mountain slopes…”
The elder gave an incredulous, hollow laugh and muttered,
“This is the first time I’ve seen someone drive a sword into the mouth of a rampaging tiger. And you aimed straight for the softest part, inside its jaws. I’ve never seen anyone so fierce in all my life.”
“It was only possible because you gave the order at the right time, Elder. You scattered its attention and bought us time.”
“What are you talking about? Distracting a wild beast is simply the foundation of any hunt done by a group.”
Groaning, the elder slapped his knee and stood.
“Still, that tenth beast ruined this arm, and I’ve carried that debt my whole life. Thanks to you, I collected every bit of it tonight.”
He stroked the tattered sleeve over his left arm with a bitter smile.
Deoksan, limping over after his leg had been swept by the tail, grabbed both my hands.
“Good heavens. My whole head nearly got bitten off by those jaws by a moment! How could I ever repay the great debt of saving my life?”
“Repay me for what? Let’s call it payment for the dinner I had in the village. The millet rice at Dallae’s house was excellent.”
“Come now. That is far too much to stake on a mere bowl of millet rice!”
Deoksan laughed foolishly, then immediately grimaced and bent at the waist.
His scraped leg must have been aching.
Elder Bae tapped the dead great tiger with his spear shaft.
“We’ll take that tough hide and bone powder as the village’s shared portion. There’ll be more than enough to cover the injured men’s medicine and repair Dallae’s smashed mud wall.”
“Elder, the traveler here is the one who actually ended the beast. It would not be right for the village to take everything.”
“You fool. It won’t be too late to decide the young man’s share after we all return to the village alive.”
The elder was right.
There was no time to rest here and divide the spoils.
“All injured men will stay here, stop the bleeding properly, and wait! Everyone with sound limbs, follow me at once! We must find and search the Mountain Lord’s lair, the Tiger’s Den!”
They left three men and one torch with the three seriously wounded.
Elder Bae, six men, and I set out to search.
We climbed deeper into the dark mountain.
The Tiger’s Den was not as far away as expected.
Following the beast’s bloodstains and scent past a scree slope, we reached the foot of a sheer cliff.
A cave gaped blackly between the rocks.
The stench of beast and blood rolled out from its entrance.
“Dallae! Dallae!”
The men raised their torches and called the child’s name at the cave entrance as though coughing up blood.
There was no answer from the dark cave.
Not even the sound of a beast.
I took a torch from one of the men and crawled in first.
Beyond the narrow entrance, the cave widened into a round chamber.
It went deeper than I had expected.
Piles of white things lay in the darkness farther inside.
I did not look for long.
They had to be piles of bones from people it had torn apart and eaten.
Before I reached those bones, I saw it.
In a corner covered with dry grass, a small bundle was curled up like a shrimp.
“…Dallae.”
The child sat rigid with her pale face buried between her knees.
The collar of her thick cotton clothes was torn to rags where fangs had bitten it.
There were no bite marks or scratches on her body.
I approached and held a finger under her nose.
She was breathing.
Her small chest rose and fell faintly.
I let out a breath of relief and placed a hand on her shoulder. She flinched violently.
“Dallae. It’s all right. It’s me.”
The face she had hidden slowly lifted.
It was covered in dirt and tears.
Her lips quivered through the gap left by her missing front tooth.
“M-Mister…”
“That’s right. The mister who said his tools were how he made a living.”
“Th-there’s something scary… There’s a really scary monster outside…”
“It’s over. The scary monster is dead now. I caught it.”
It took time for the terrified child to understand those words.
Then, as if she finally realized she was alive, sorrowful sobs burst from her mouth like a flood.
The men outside heard her crying and shouted with joy as they wept.
I gathered the crying child into my arms and carried her out of the cave.
She was as light as a feather, and that made my arms tremble all the more.
“Mister. The jujubes…”
The child in my arms stopped crying and stammered in a hiccupping voice.
“One jujube for Dallae. I still thought they were too precious to eat, so I hid them really tight in my pocket…”
She rummaged through her padded trousers and held out her small hand.
The three dried jujubes I had given her were still there, soaked with sweat.
Apparently, even while being seized and dragged into the darkness by a man-eating beast, she had not let go of those three jujubes.
“I’m not taking them from you. Let’s eat them after we get home safely. One for your father. One for your mother. And one for Dallae.”
“Okay…”
The child answered briefly, wrapped both arms around my neck, and held on tight.
Her small warmth seeped into the nape of my chilled neck.
It was an unfamiliar warmth to someone who had only learned how to roll among corpses.
All the way down the mountain, the child rode on my back.
With the tension gone, she drifted half asleep.
Murmuring like sleep talk reached my ears.
“Mister.”
“What is it? Why aren’t you asleep?”
“Did you catch it with that grass-cutting sickle you mentioned earlier? That really scary Mountain Lord tiger monster?”
“I caught it.”
“Was the sickle big?”
“The beast was big. Go to sleep now.”
“See? I told you it was a really big sickle…”
As if satisfied with her own words, the child nodded, then soon fell asleep with soft, even breaths.
The eastern sky was breaking, its grayness peeling away.
On the way down to the village, I stopped one last time and looked back at Black Fang Mountain.
The mountain range, now rid of its lord of terror, stood in the dawn light as if nothing had happened.
* * *
The village was in a festive mood for two days.
No one had died.
Three people were seriously injured, with broken ribs, torn shoulders, and bruised spines.
The beast’s huge carcass lay in the middle of the village yard.
It had taken eight strong men, levers, and even oxen to drag down the great tiger.
In daylight, its size was even harder to believe than it had been at night.
The children watched from afar, then repeatedly frightened themselves and hid.
Elder Bae personally directed the work of skinning it.
“Keep the knife edge flat and peel it carefully. If you put even one scratch in that precious hide, its price will drop by half.”
“Elder, is tiger hide really worth that much?”
“Even an ordinary tiger hide is worth more than ten oxen. Now look at the thickness of this one.”
The elder struck the inner side of the thick hide that had been peeled away with his fist.
Thunk. Thunk.
Though it was hide, it sounded like he was striking an iron shield.
“Tough tendons are packed through it like a net. Demonic qi has seeped deep into this hide. Whether it’s an escort agency or a respectable sect, it will fetch whatever asking price one names. And that’s not all. The bones will make valuable medicinal ingredients too.”
“Th-then, how much silver would all of it be worth…?”
“Enough to feed the dozen or so households in this village well for three full years.”
The yard stirred loudly at those words.
Some people threw both arms into the air and cheered.
Others wiped away tears as they looked at their injured husbands who had returned alive.
The children counted the beast’s claws.
“Wow! One claw is as big as the sickle at my house!”
“It really is! We could plow our fields with its teeth and claws!”
I pulled the iron sword that had saved my life from the beast’s mouth myself.
The blade that had pierced its throat and lodged deep in its skull had somehow not suffered a single chip.
The ominous sword that was said to have killed three owners had ended the Mountain Lord’s life.
It seemed the sword’s fortunes had improved as well.
The elder pulled a large molar from the beast’s jaw and held it out to me.
The tooth was thicker than an adult’s thumb.
“Keep it on you. Since ancient times, tiger teeth have been said to ward off evil as protective charms. It will only work if carried by the person who personally ended the beast’s life.”
“Isn’t that superstition?”
“For mountain folk, half of these superstitions are truths that decide life and death.”
I nodded and accepted the tooth, placing it deep inside my clothes.
It rested right beside the red sash I had brought from Blue Stone Valley.
The elder raised his heavy voice over the noisy yard.
“But all of you must understand this clearly. What happened this time was Heaven-sent fortune. Had we been even a little later, our village would have suffered a terrible calamity.”
“What do you mean by such frightening words, Elder?”
“When we cut open that thing’s belly, bones and flesh from several people poured out. If it had chewed and swallowed the flesh of a few more strong men, it would have transformed into a complete demonic beast.”
As the elder lowered his voice, the excited yard also fell cold and quiet.
“Do you know what happens when a tiger becomes a demonic beast? Its mind grows cunning, and it starts to imitate human voices. Even an ordinary clever tiger can imitate them a little. Would a complete demonic beast fail to do so?”
“H-human voices?”
“Yes. Imagine hearing a sound outside your tightly shut gate on a pitch-black night. The desperate crying of your own lost child. What mother in the world would not open the door? That is how beasts seize and shake the human heart until people open the door themselves. Then they devour households one by one, starting with the one that opened its gate.”
Cold sweat ran down my back just listening to it.
“Once it has changed that far, even a hundred old tiger hunters like me could never catch it. It would sweep through one valley after another like a ghost and wipe out every last person.”
At the end of his words, the elder lightly jerked his chin toward me.
“So this young traveler saved not only our village, but the lifeblood of this entire mountain range.”
At those words, every eye in the yard turned toward me.
After that, the ordeal truly began.
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