WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: BerageeBomb
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◈ I Obtained the Martial God’s Book ◈
Chapter 17: Jangsam
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“Benefactor! Half the money from that hide rightfully belongs to you!”
“Half? What are you talking about! Who was it that drove a sword into the tiger’s mouth without fear? Even giving him all of it wouldn’t be enough.”
“We’ll sell it at the market and make sure you get a good, heavy purse of silver!”
The villagers clung to my sleeves, each pleading with me.
I waved my hands.
“I’ve already received more than enough.”
“Received? What in the world have you received from us?”
“I went on a tiger hunt that was practically a march to my death, yet I came back alive and in one piece. That alone makes it a profitable venture for me.”
“No, that’s... What kind of nonsense is that!”
“Besides, the money from that hide and those bones already has its rightful owners.”
My eyes moved toward the houses where the badly injured hunters would be lying on the warmest parts of their heated floors.
“Medicine to help broken ribs heal. Medicine to treat a shoulder torn by claws. Repairs for the collapsed wall of the main house. And enough food for the whole village to survive this winter. If anything remains after that, it belongs to the village as a whole. I’m only a traveler passing through. If a traveler takes away everything that would keep a village alive for three years, he’s no benefactor. He’s no different from a thief.”
Faced with my firm refusal, the villagers looked at one another, at a loss for words.
I was not merely being polite or modest.
For someone wandering the martial world, the more silver they had, the safer they felt.
But I had already gained the greatest reward from this hunt.
Dallae had returned alive to her mother’s arms.
The lord of Black Fang Mountain, which had blocked my path, was dead.
These people had gripped their spears, however much their hands trembled, and formed a defensive circle for me.
Without that, how could I possibly have killed a monster as huge as a mountain?
Now the fated opportunity beneath the cliffs of Black Fang Mountain was within reach.
There was no reason to explain all that to them.
“Being able to cross Black Fang Mountain safely, without the Mountain Lord threatening me, is already a great reward.”
With that calm remark, I brought the argument to an end.
Dallae’s father, Insu, and her mother, Jeomnye, treated me with particular affection.
Even while clutching his claw-torn shoulder, Insu walked out into the yard and insisted on kneeling before me.
I broke into a sweat holding up his heavy body and getting him to sit instead.
“Honored benefactor, how can our family ever repay this enormous debt...?”
“Please stop calling me your honored benefactor. It makes me uncomfortable.”
By now, merely hearing that title made my stomach twist.
I had seen all too clearly what the last person I’d heard addressed that way had done.
“Then what should we call you? Please, at least tell us your name.”
The noisy yard fell utterly silent.
It seemed everyone had been curious about my name.
I weighed my options in an instant.
I had buried the name Seo Jin-hyeok in the ashes of Blue Stone Valley.
Once spoken aloud, a name became a footprint that could never be taken back.
Right now, I was nothing but dregs at the bottom, beneath anyone’s notice.
But no one knew what the future held.
One day, the hunting dogs pursuing me might hurt these innocent people.
Still, I could not leave without giving them a name.
If these simple, honest people sent their benefactor away without even knowing who he was, they would carry that debt for the rest of their lives.
It did not have to be my real name.
If I gave them the most ordinary name, one found everywhere, anyone following the rumors would come up empty-handed.
“Please call me Jang Sam (張三).”
The name slipped out through my lips on its own.
“Jang Sam, is it?”
Elder Bae let out a short, amused chuckle.
“Jang Sam, as in ‘Jang Sam and Yi Sa (張三李四),’ the names people use for any ordinary fellow? You won’t find a more common, unremarkable name anywhere in the martial world.”
“A common name is easy to use.”
“Heh heh. Your name may be common, but your skill at shoving a sword into a tiger’s mouth certainly isn’t.”
The old man merely gave me a curious look and asked no further questions.
Only I needed to know why that particular name had come out.
Jang (張) came from Jang Pal, the squad leader who had silently stood in front of me.
Sam (三) came from Samdol, the young boy who had followed behind me.
Both had died in Blue Stone Valley, bearing the fate that should have been mine.
Of course, there was also Du Chil, who had pushed me aside before dying.
And there were others whose names I did not even know.
If I tried to account for their shares as well, these two syllables would never be enough.
Still, this was the only name resting on my tongue now.
“Benefactor Jang Sam!”
With tears in her eyes, Jeomnye changed what she called me that very day.
Everyone in the village began calling me by that name.
The children even made up a song.
‘Mister Jang Sam caught a tiger deep in the mountain.’
‘Into its great big mouth, he drove a pitch-black sword.’
The silly song, without any proper tune, traveled through the mountain village’s alleys.
Each time that borrowed name was called, something in my frozen chest grew a little warmer.
* * *
Dallae spent the first day in bed with a high fever.
They said it was the sickness that came after a terrible fright.
When she recovered enough to come outside the next morning, her eyes looked hollow.
She approached hesitantly and gently took hold of my hemp sleeve.
“Mister Jang Sam, what should I do if the scary monster keeps coming into my dreams?”
“If the monster appears in your dreams, remember how I killed it that night.”
“How you killed it?”
“If it’s dead in the real world, it’s already dead in your dreams too. If it comes out again, that just means it’ll die again anyway.”
I was not good at comforting children, so my words came out clumsily.
But she thought them over carefully, then nodded as if reassured.
“Then I don’t have to be scared at all anymore!”
She recovered faster than the adults had feared.
That evening, as the second day of celebrations reached its height, precious meat appeared on the dinner table.
It was meat from the great tiger of Black Fang Mountain.
Elder Bae had thoroughly boiled the hind-leg meat set aside for the fourteen hunters, then had it shared with the villagers.
The monster’s meat was as tough as beef tendon and had a strong, gamey smell.
Even so, the villagers passed it around with solemn care, as though they had received a blessing.
“Now, chewing and swallowing tiger meat makes our hearts as strong as a tiger’s.”
“If it’s meat from this monster, we won’t just get an ordinary tiger’s heart. We’ll have the heart of a demonic beast!”
Laughter broke out across the yard.
The hunters’ tales of their own bravery had swollen to the size of mountain peaks overnight.
“When my spear drove right into its enormous flank in the darkness...!”
“What are you saying? That was my spear!”
“Your spear snapped in half before it even touched the bridge of its nose!”
“Even if it broke, a thrust is still a thrust!”
Their argument brought another burst of laughter.
Deoksan limped over and filled my empty bowl with cloudy rice wine.
“Jang Sam, where in the world did you learn to notice things so sharply? How did you know the beast was right in front of us just because the night forest went quiet?”
“When you’ve been chased around desperately enough, your instincts learn on their own.”
“What on earth chased you so mercilessly?”
“All sorts of things. Dangerous things that wanted me dead.”
“Ha ha! Keeping your words to yourself instead of explaining every little thing is part of a mountain man’s lot in this harsh world.”
Deoksan laughed and emptied his bowl in one swallow.
Elder Bae poured wine into three rough cups, then picked up only his own.
He slowly poured the other two onto the dirt of the yard.
“It’s an old custom among tiger hunters. On the night of a successful tiger hunt, there must always be three cups. One for the living. One for those unfortunate souls killed in its jaws. And the last for the tiger we hunted.”
“You even offer wine to a vicious, man-eating tiger?”
“Though it became a monster, it once ruled this great mountain. We should pour it a drink to soothe it on its way to the next world. Only then will the mountain not grow angry.”
The dry earth silently drank in the cloudy wine.
The wine went around a few more times.
I, too, accepted a brimming bowl.
As the sour, rough wine burned its way down my throat, the fatigue of the past few days came flooding over me like water through a broken dam.
Dallae sat quietly in her father Insu’s lap.
Between her father, whose shoulder was wrapped in thick cloth, and her mother, whose eyes were swollen from crying all night, she had the most peaceful face of all.
She fumbled around in her little pouch, then took out three jujubes.
“The biggest one is for Daddy. The middle one is for Mommy. And the last one is for Dallae.”
Sitting side by side, the three of them put the jujubes in their mouths and chewed.
As he savored the sweetness, Insu seemed to choke up. He lowered his head and turned away.
Jeomnye hugged the child’s small back tightly and sobbed without a sound.
Whether or not she understood her parents’ tears, Dallae alone chewed steadily and swallowed.
“Wow. It’s yummy, right, Daddy?”
I drank the rest of my wine and took in the sight.
It was the peace of three jujubes.
If this was what I had protected, the exhaustion of walking more than two hundred li had been worth it.
* * *
I rested in the village for two full days.
While my body rested, my mind absorbed valuable lessons.
My teacher was Bae Noseok, an old man who had spent his whole life in the mountains.
Elder Bae spread the herbs he had gathered in the mountains across the yard and explained their uses one by one.
“Look closely. This is called bloodstop herb. Put these leaves in your mouth, chew them well, and apply them to a bleeding wound. They stop the bleeding remarkably well. People who travel through dangerous mountains owe half their chances of survival to this little plant.”
“Remember, only the ones with whitish undersides are the real medicine worth using. The ones with reddish undersides are their cousins, but those are deadly poison. Apply the wrong one, and your flesh will turn black and rot away.”
“And this is fever-reducing root. It mostly grows in the cool shade beneath rocks where sunlight doesn’t reach. This one is called bitter sophora. You boil it and drink the liquid for a severe stomachache. But it’s poisonous. Boil and drink three or more roots at once, and it’ll take your life.”
“This broad leaf is one you crush with a stone and apply to a venomous snakebite. Of course, first you must tightly bind the area above the bite.”
“Elder, are there any precious medicinal herbs, like wild ginseng?”
At my cautious question, Elder Bae gave a dry laugh.
“Don’t start dreaming such foolish dreams. Even ten ginseng hunters who’ve devoted their lives to the mountains might barely see one root of true wild ginseng in their lifetimes. Hundreds of times more people have wandered the mountains searching for it and ended up starving or feeding the beasts than have eaten it and gained eternal youth.”
I touched the leaves he showed me with my fingertips, smelled them, and lightly chewed the roots.
Once I had seen and experienced something, I did not forget it.
The branching patterns of the leaf veins and the colors of their undersides were written into my mind.
Even the fresh, green smell released when I snapped a stem was recorded in detail.
Records of the Martial God had never required the trouble of gathering herbs.
In the game, you could simply buy potions from a shop to restore health and heal internal injuries.
In this world, every little weed beneath my feet could be a potion that kept me alive longer.
“What sort of terrain does this herb usually grow in?”
“A sunny spot with plenty of water and a suitable amount of sunlight. You can only gather it before the cold frost settles.”
“And this one?”
“A damp, shady place around the base of an old, rotting tree... But, young man.”
The old man stopped trimming the herbs and stared at me.
“You never ask twice about anything I’ve explained once. You’ve already memorized the shapes and poisonous properties of all the dozens of herbs I showed you yesterday.”
“I do have a good eye for things.”
Footnotes:
“Jang Sam and Yi Sa” is an expression for ordinary people, similar to “Tom, Dick, and Harry.” Jang Sam combines the surname Jang with sam, meaning “three.”
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