WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ Incarnation of the Malevolent Star ◈

Chapter 13: Part 1 - Whispers of the Dark Brother (13)

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The first thing Onik did after entering the mountains was carefully zero his bow.

The old Master Bowyer had taught the young apprentice a traditional method imbued with his own stubbornness.

"If the nocking-point knot is low, the arrow will fly higher than where you aimed. If the knot is high, the opposite happens."

"First, string the bow and find its center of balance. Then lay it down and spread your hand over that point like this."

"Then tie a temporary knot where your little finger touches and practice shooting. Once you're more used to archery, watch where the arrows land and move the knot up or down as needed."

"You haven't finished growing yet. You'll get taller, your hands will grow bigger, and your arms will grow longer."

"So don't be foolish enough to keep using the same knot just because retying it is a bother. If you want the bow to serve you properly, you'll have to retie it a few more times."

Onik had already tied the temporary knot and practiced shooting in the Master Bowyer's yard.

After passing on the old-fashioned method by word of mouth, the old master had looked deeply suspicious when the apprentice began striking the bullseye shot after shot from the very first practice session, even if it was a close target.

"Boy. Are you really shooting for the first time? You haven't been secretly learning somewhere, have you?"

The apprentice played dumb.

"Oh, come on. Where would I have learned it? I did search for it online a few times, though."

"Good grief... This is utterly baffling."

To the boy, a bow was a tool for killing something.

And the strange talent the frightening boy had been born with was exceptionally good at drawing out the potential for slaughter inherent in such tools.

It was a talent so extraordinary that others might find it unreal.

The praise he received for that talent left the boy with mixed feelings.

Of course, he was happy to be praised by the stubborn Master Bowyer. Yet another part of him wondered if it was really all right to simply be happy about it.

This dark talent that might have been granted to him alone in the whole world.

He suspected it might be tied together with the sick urges clinging to his heart.

But what could he do?

A suspicion with no way to test it only grew larger the more he thought about it.

The boy had suffered greatly from such thoughts lately. Before he could add any more needless pain to himself, he cut off that train of dark thoughts.

Then he tried hard to turn his mind in a better direction.

'If you're given one bad thing, you should be given one good thing too. That's only fair.'

What if they came together in one bundle?

It would have been best if he could have refused them from the start.

But had he ever been given that choice?

He had received them without wanting them. Thinking of it as one good thing attached to one bad thing was the only way he could feel a little better.

For a child growing up without parents, the bad still seemed far too great no matter how many times he thought it over. Still, it couldn't be helped. It was better than having nothing good at all.

In the end, the mixed feelings struggling inside him tipped toward the brighter side.

That was why the song he hummed as he set out hunting carried an extra spoonful of cheer.

Much of that cheer was the result of conscious effort.

The boy, burdened with worries, had to comfort himself somehow.

"Thunk!"

An arrow lodged in the thick trunk of a Mongolian oak, its fletching trembling.

The hard sound of it striking home sent a small echo through the empty mountain.

The boy holding the bow set another arrow to the string.

The bamboo arrow's nock, reinforced with bush clover wood, fitted snugly against the nocking-point knot.

"Draw. Raise your hands high and draw, rotate your elbows and come to full draw. Aim. Press forward and draw back, bring your body into the target."

The Master Bowyer's voice, explaining the ancient method, returned to the boy's mind.

"It means that when you draw, raise both hands high, lower and rotate your elbows, and draw to full tension. When you examine and aim at the target, push with your bow hand and draw back with your string hand, letting your body naturally face the target."

The boy's raised arms lowered along with the bow.

His bow hand held the bow. His string hand held the bowstring.

As his hands separated while lowering, they never left the centerline between his body and the target.

Twisting the bowstring and drawing out the bow's tension, Onik forcefully loosed the bowstring as he inhaled.

When the bowstring slipped free of his thumb ring, it gave a sharp cry.

"Twung!"

With a sharp pull of the bow, he sent the arrow flying. It struck right beside the first.

Then again, thunk! Thunk!

Arrows sprouted from the tree trunk at an ever-faster pace. It was also the pace at which the boy became more familiar with the bow he had made with his own hands.

There was almost no wind.

The weather was good to begin with, and he had carefully chosen the location.

From a point much farther away than during his first practice, he fired fifteen arrows in three rounds. The resulting arrow group was very tight.

After checking the difference between the center of the group and his point of aim, Onik sat on a suitable rock and retied the nocking-point knot.

A smile crossed his lips.

He knew without shooting again. The potential for slaughter within this bow had gained a little more precision.

New possibilities had blossomed, possibilities to kill something from farther away and with greater accuracy than before.

It was the whisper of his dark talent.

After retrieving his arrows, Onik began moving briskly through the rough terrain.

Today's target was pheasants. He intended to avoid other prey as much as possible.

His keen senses detected everything he could kill. The writhing desire tempted him to slaughter it all, urging him to kill whatever he found. It whispered that killing each one would be fun. It urged him to imagine the pretty streams of blood flowing from different animals...

Yet the boy, having hardened his resolve, did not give in to the temptation, even if he wavered from moment to moment.

He thought:

'I have to be able to control this.'

He had confirmed through an experience terrible enough to make him shudder that this was a desire that would turn calamitous if suppressed, one he could not tear away from himself.

If he couldn't tear it away, then at least he needed to control it within reasonable limits.

Otherwise, how could he even pretend to be an ordinary person? At least until he found a way to become one for real.

Perhaps he would never find that way and would have to pretend until the day he died.

Onik had thought a great deal about the future because he had suffered so much lately.

As long as he could not shake off the ominous urges inside him, he would ultimately have to live while continuing to kill things.

If that was so, he needed to build the self-control to decide for himself when, where, what, how, and how much he killed.

Only then could he avoid disappointing the people precious to him, including his grandfather.

It was a firm resolve he had built while crushed beneath the weight of his worries, spending one winter as though it were ten full years.

"Twung!"

A male pheasant that had been crying as it left a long trail of footprints in the snow was struck by an arrow with an edged head and rolled over and over. Red stains scattered across the snow that had not yet melted.

Onik pulled the arrow that had pierced through the pheasant's neck, threaded the bird onto a cord, and hung it from a high branch of a nearby tree. Carrying each one around would be troublesome.

The problem was not their weight, but their bulk.

Though he was better developed than most boys his age, Onik was only just about to enter middle school.

Afterward, he took out his smartphone and recorded the coordinates. Even in the mountains, where his phone showed he was out of service range, the GPS receiver worked normally.

His hunter's talent let him memorize the terrain, but one never knew.

This way, he would not forget the locations. He could also claim ownership if he happened to run into another hunter.

The same process repeated eight more times in just over an hour.

It was a pace that would leave ordinary hunters aghast if they knew of it.

Considering the density of the pheasant population, covering enough distance over rugged mountains to catch nine in an hour was an utterly exhausting feat.

Finding the birds and hitting them with a bow was another matter.

'Enough. This is it.'

His dark instinct, fully roused, pestered him to kill more. Onik severed the temptation with the blade he had sharpened through self-loathing and worry.

It was still difficult, but not impossible.

He would have to sharpen the blade of self-restraint even more in the future.

Onik recovered the pheasants he had hung up, taking the shortest route between them. He did not need to check the coordinates he had recorded.

When it came time to retrieve the first pheasant he had caught, Onik realized a pack of dogs was barking at that location.

'Hm, these dogs...'

They were not feral dogs. They were hunting dogs raised by one of the villagers.

Onik could normally recognize which household a dog belonged to just by its bark. There was no chance he had heard wrong.

The pack of feral dogs he had felt certain he would see again someday had not appeared since that day.

It seemed they did not even come near the village anymore. He had smelled no trace of them while going around the area.

Onik reached his destination in a light run, skimming over the ground like a skipping stone.

"Bark! Bark!"

"Woof! Woof!"

Excited by the smell of blood, the hunting dogs kept leaping beneath the high-hung pheasant and failing again and again.

Then the frightening boy appeared out of nowhere, and they tucked their tails and backed away as if their excitement had all been a lie.

"Whine, whine..."

The restless dogs lay on their backs on the cold ground and exposed their bellies as he approached.

Not one dared meet the frightening boy's eyes. Every ear was pressed flat. All of it spoke of fear and submission.

The boy recalled something the pastor's son had asked after seeing a similar scene.

"Onik, are you learning Conqueror's Haki or something? Huh? You're asking what that is? You don't know? Could this be a generation gap too...? No, that can't be it. Kids these days should know this... You're not pretending not to know just to tease me, right? Right?"

Onik had been an unusual elementary school student with no interest in comics, leaving the pastor's son flustered.

Now he knew. Yo-han had called him to the church and shown him the comic books he collected.

Like computer games, Onik found comics fun once he started reading them.

He simply did not go looking for them, because there were other things he found more fun.

Remembering that time, Onik smiled faintly.

Thinking of Yo-han's flustered face seemed to bring a little warmth to one corner of his heart.

The lonely boy hoped his precious hyung would soon regain the brightness he once had.

Far down the slope, bushes shook in the distance. They were in the direction from which the dogs had come, leaving their tracks.

The movement did not match the wind, and it stood out sharply in the boy's sight because it came from something he could kill.

Judging by the direction and speed, it was the owner of the hunting dogs.

He was the village's only legal hunter, a good adult who came with the Village Youth Association President whenever Onik killed a dog and showered him with praise. He held a Class 1 hunting license and a firearms possession permit.

After retrieving the last pheasant, Onik cupped his hands around his mouth and raised his voice.

"I'm here!"

It was a warning meant to prevent anything unfortunate.

Every year, hunters kept shooting people dead after mistaking them for wild boars.

Onik believed the risk could only grow greater with time. The hunters were developing presbyopia.

The village's only legal gun hunter was no exception.

The man was the same age as the Village Youth Association President. Only a few years ago, he had been an excellent marksman, but his results had sharply declined as age made his eyes grow dim.

Even so, he had developed a habit of shooting prey from farther and farther away.

It was not because he enjoyed wasting ammunition. Nor was he deliberately increasing the risk of accidents.

It was simply that the loss of strength from aging had made it harder for him to chase prey as he once had.

No matter how diligently he managed his health, a hunter past his mid-fifties could not play tag with wild boars every day.

Either way, aging was the problem.

Returning his license was difficult too. If no one hunted the wild boars, farming and pig farming in the area would be ruined.

Barbed-wire fences and trapping cages alone could not handle it.

"Goodness..."

The hunter looked up from far below and wiped away sweat. Frowning and panting, he climbed the slope. Then he wiped his forehead again and looked down at Onik.

"Good heavens, this is hard work... Onik, every time I see you, your stamina is unbelievable. Unlike me, you ran all the way here on your own feet, but you don't look tired at all."

It was praise. Onik felt good.

At the same time, the shotgun in the hunter's hands caught his eye.

It was usually kept at the police station, but for a boy living in the countryside, it was still the most fascinating weapon he could see in person.

The frightening boy barely tore his gaze away by cutting at his insides with the blade of restraint.

"One, two, three, four... Wow. Nine male pheasants? I heard you ran off as soon as you got your bow, but how did you catch so many already? Huh? You incredible kid."

More praise. Feeling a little better still, Onik looked elsewhere and idly shuffled his feet.

The hunter continued marveling, then tilted his head.

"But why aren't there any hen pheasants? If you caught nine males, you'd expect at least one female among them."

"Oh, Grandpa told me not to catch hen pheasants."

"Your grandfather did? Then it can't be helped."

The hunter quickly accepted it.

It was not because of Elder Jo Jeong-ho's authority, but because it was Onik saying it. Everyone in the village knew how devoted Onik was to his grandfather.

Whether hunting hen pheasants was illegal did not concern the hunter.

Most of the other villagers likely felt the same. Old Jo Jeong-ho was about the only exception.

Still, Onik would have cared even without his grandfather's request.

Maintaining the population was necessary for sustainable hunting. It was also connected to controlling his dark desires by his own will.

"Still, that's a shame. Hen pheasants caught at this time of year taste the best. Put one in rice-cake soup and the rich aroma..."

The hunter smacked his lips. Then, setting aside his regret, he tapped his body camera and made Onik an offer.

"Onik. Now that you've got a nice bow, how about appearing on my YouTube channel? I think you've got star quality. If you appear, you'll definitely become famous. I guarantee it."

"You're going to upload videos of a child with no hunting license hunting?"

"That makes it even better! Do you know what controversy marketing is?"

"I do!"

"Then this will be quick. You know that saying, don't you? Get famous first. Then even if you take a dump, people will applaud. Internet broadcasting fits that perfectly. You haven't yet reached the age of criminal responsibility, so even if you get caught, you won't be punished. You won't be able to get away with it once you're older, you know?"

"But Grandpa wouldn't like it."

"Tsk..."

The hunter looked even more regretful than before.

Onik knew that the hunter cared greatly about making a name for himself.

This hunter had not started hunting only to make money in the first place.

Once, Onik had asked the village's only legal gun hunter why he had started hunting.

It was a question from a lonely child with a secret he could tell no one, hoping to find someone like himself.

He innocently hoped that perhaps this adult also killed living things for the same reason he did.

The sight of a hunter taking joy and pride in killing something had been enough to give the lonely child that hope.

But the answer he received was different from what he had hoped.

For this man, killing something was only a means to achieve another purpose.

"Onik. Shouldn't our village have at least one gun hunter? And it would be even better if that hunter were a great shot. That's why I started doing this."

From the adult who said such things, the child caught a glimpse of an old sense of belonging mixed with a desire for recognition.

"Honestly, it's embarrassing to keep having to ask hunters from other villages for favors whenever the fields are damaged and the pig farms are in danger...

"When I was young, our village was known around here as the place that produced the most capable people. How can we not even protect our own fields?"

If the surrounding villages had been complete strangers, it would have been better.

They could simply pay money and hire someone.

The problem was that, through one connection or another, everyone was either family or an acquaintance. If they kept receiving help from people they knew, wouldn't that be embarrassing?

Since ancient times, their village had been the eldest among those nearby. If the eldest brother kept bowing to the younger brothers, the younger brothers would come to look down on him. How could that be allowed...?

That was what the village's only legal gun hunter argued.

"If I make a name for myself as the greatest marksman, huh? If I put all the hunters in this region beneath me in the pecking order, that would raise our village's standing."

"Our village's standing?"

"That's right. And while I'm at it, maybe I can become famous nationwide and turn into a huge YouTuber with over a million subscribers. I could create a new opportunity for our village. What do you think? Isn't it great just imagining it?"

The lonely boy had nodded, but he had also felt disappointed. The hunter was not one of his kind.

Unaware of that feeling, the hunter whispered in a friendly manner to the village's most promising young hunter.

"We're comrades, understand? I have high hopes for you. We're protecting the village together. If you ever succeed me, I'll give you this gun too. You really like it, don't you?"

The lonely boy had nodded once again in disappointment.

Footnotes:

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