WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Incarnation of the Malevolent Star ◈

Chapter 14: Part 1 - Whispers of the Dark Brother (14)

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Having failed to get Onik onto his YouTube channel, the hunter decided to offer him a deal instead. He would buy honor, and Onik would receive the money.

"So, Onik, have you ever thought about catching wild boars?"

Lately, wild boars were what the frightening boy often caught and killed on his nightly walks.

But Onik pretended not to know what he meant.

"No!"

"Why? Does your grandfather dislike that too?"

"He doesn't dislike it. He worries about me!"

"Same thing, really. But honestly, you do want to catch them, don't you?"

"......"

"I just can't imagine you having trouble with a wild boar. You cracked the skull of a Tosa dog as big as a calf with a single shot from your sling, and now you've got such a fine bow."

Onik had faced a purebred Tosa dog only once.

A fully grown Tosa dog had burst from the bushes beside the village hall and attacked an elderly woman who had gone out to visit someone.

Had Onik not stepped in while passing by, someone would have died.

Whoever had abandoned such a vicious dog had to have been completely out of their mind.

Though he had been playing dumb, Onik was secretly proud of his ability, so he played the part of a child whose resolve was wavering.

"That's true! I can catch them! And I do want to!"

"Of course you do. That's the Onik I know. So, let's do this."

"How?"

"Keep it a secret from your grandfather for now and catch some wild boars. Then say I caught them, and I'll give you every bit of the reward money. How does that sound?"

"I'm not going to lie to Grandpa!"

"Hey, what lie? We're just not telling him right away. We won't keep it from him forever. I'll tell him everything later. Even if someone gets scolded, it'll be me, so don't worry. I'll say I talked you into it. All right? Our good Onik trusts this uncle, doesn't he?"

"Grandpa won't like it......"

"To be exact, what your grandfather dislikes isn't you catching wild boars. It's you doing something dangerous. Right?"

"Uh...... th-that's right?"

"Then if you catch a whole lot before telling him, won't things work out somehow? He'll be angry at first, sure. But he'll have no choice but to admit that wild boars aren't dangerous to you."

"Mmm......"

"You don't need to worry about it. This could actually be a way for you to show filial devotion to your grandfather."

"Filial devotion?"

"That's right! Just imagine it. You save up thiiis much money and give it to him. Not even most grown-ups can do that. You have a rough idea how much I make catching wild boars, don't you? You could make as much as I do, no problem!"

"But how could I take all that money? I'm still a child!"

"If you look for a way, one will turn up. Where there's a will, there's a way. So, are you interested?"

"Um, I'll think about it!"

"Oh, our Onik is playing hard to get. This uncle is hurt."

"Even if you're hurt, it can't be helped! But, mister."

"What is it?"

"Why are you going this far? If you give me all the money, there won't be anything left for you!"

Onik was a smart child who watched a lot of news and understood almost all of it.

This smart child had once heard the village's only licensed hunter complain over drinks to the Village Youth Association President that taxes were too high this year.

If he gave all the money to his young partner and paid taxes on top of that, the hunter would not merely be left with nothing. He would suffer a serious loss.

The adult grinned at the child's question.

"Why wouldn't I have anything left? I'd get to brand all the hunters from other villages as worthless punks. Didn't I tell you before? My goal is to line up every hunter in this area beneath me."

"Uh...... Is that really the reason?"

"You'll understand when you're older, but sometimes a man has pride that he must satisfy by any means necessary. For me, now is one of those times."

"Is...... is that so?"

"It is. I'll crush the spirits of the other hunters with rendering certificates showing the exact capture count and records of reward payments! And I'll brag to my channel viewers about what a successful hunter I am! That's what I get out of it."

He was teaching the child such fine things.

Had Elder Jo Jeong-ho seen it, he would have shouted, "You thoughtless fool! You're more dangerous to my grandson than any wild boar!"

Onik thought.

‘Isn't this a lot like that rank-boosting thing the kids at school talk about......?’

Onik could not understand it at all.

Why would someone give another person money just to raise something as trivial as a game rank?

He had heard that ranks were reset regularly too, so to maintain the same rank, players had to spend money again whenever a new season began.

He also could not see what meaning there was in a rank that did not reflect one's own skill.

Weren't games supposed to be fun? If someone forced their rank upward, they would only end up facing people far better at the game and having a miserable time.

That was why the boy was surprised.

A person who actually did something so strange was much closer than he had realized.

‘Sometimes grown-ups seem more childish than kids.’

That was as far as Onik's thoughts went.

But there was more to the adult's truth than mere childishness.

While the child was lost in his puzzled thoughts, the adult looked down at him with expectant eyes.

A truth he could not tell the child circled through the pitiful adult's mind.

‘Of course I'm getting something out of this! Do you know how much I could make just by selling the gallbladder separately?’

What this pitiful adult had offered the child was only the legal reward money. Any illegal extra income would all belong to the hunter.

Wild boar gallbladders were used as medicinal ingredients in traditional medicine.

They were listed in the Dongui Bogam and the Chinese Illustrated Materia Medica under the name wild boar gallbladder. If there happened to be a gallstone inside, it was called wild boar bezoar and sold for a far higher price.

Korean medicinal-herb dealers loved them, and so did Chinese itinerant traders.

‘They say there are too many fakes from their own country, or something?’

The testicles were the next most expensive part.

They were called wild boar external kidneys, supposedly good for virility.

Hunters did not handle these wild boar-part transactions directly.

Originally, rendering companies that specialized in processing wild boar carcasses had secretly established sales channels. When hunters learned about it, they threatened to report them to the authorities, and the arrangement became a mutually beneficial one in which they split the profits.

The rendering companies took a high brokerage fee along the way.

Even so, hunters involved in the illegal trade could earn an additional seven or eight hundred thousand won per wild boar.

That was because they created added value by making and selling liquor infused with wild boar bezoars.

There was a risk, of course. If caught in a crackdown, they could be banned from hunting for up to five years or fined up to two million won.

But......

‘It doesn't matter if I don't get caught!’

Only two hunters in the province had been caught in a crackdown over the past five years.

Hunters could learn about Ministry of Environment enforcement checks in advance by offering small tokens of appreciation to friendly public officials.

There was also a way to reduce the punishment if he was unlucky enough to be caught.

All he had to do was say, "I didn't sell the carcass anywhere. I ate it all myself."

The pitiful adult with the gun did not care that the illegal black-market trade he had joined increased the risk of swine fever spreading.

No, he thought it was better that way.

‘The wild boar population has been dropping lately, and the number of infected animals has fallen with it. It's been giving me a headache. The threat of swine fever needs to stay where it is for now. That way, I can keep doing this work, making money, and earning respect.’

His recent decline in performance was not simply because his eyesight was worsening and his stamina was failing.

At least, the hunter did not believe it was.

How could he maintain the same performance when wild boars themselves had become fewer?

That was why he needed Onik even more.

Finding prey was harder than catching it, but Onik had an uncanny knack for finding things he could catch and kill.

It was a peculiar instinct so sharp that anyone watching could only wonder how it could possibly be that good.

Unaware of what the adult before him was really thinking, the child spent a moment thinking about himself.

He was considering what he had just heard about pride that had to be satisfied by any means necessary.

‘Maybe I'm the strange one for not understanding feelings like that......? Honestly, I'm very different from other people. Maybe that's why I can't sympathize.’

Onik wanted to grow into an innocent, ordinary person like the adult before him someday.

What was so bad about being a little childish? Being childish was not always a bad thing.

If he had to choose between being abnormal but not childish and being childish but ordinary, Onik would choose the latter without hesitation.

It would be a hundred times better to live as an ordinary person, even a somewhat childish one, than as an extraordinary vampire.

People might think differently about that.

But at least the lonely boy who felt the absence of his parents believed it.

An ordinary, childish child would not have killed his mother and sibling at birth, and would not have been abandoned by his father because of it.

"......"

Onik cut off his lengthening thoughts and deepening sadness by force.

From what Onik had worked out on his own, despairing over himself and sinking endlessly into sadness was also a way of being defeated by his own abnormality.

It was a way of letting his dark impulses bind him and ruin all the time he still had left to live.

Had the old Master Bowyer not said that when one made something, one had to let it live properly?

The father who was a stranger to him seemed to have no interest in letting his child live properly. That was why Onik thought he had to live properly himself.

Then he could say his father was wrong.

Of course, he would probably never get the chance to see the father who had left him so coldly again.

Still, simply shouting in his heart that his father was wrong was meaningful enough for a boy who secretly suffered from loneliness.

Onik asked the licensed hunter a question. He wanted to force his thoughts in another direction.

"Everything else is fine, but what if we get caught later? You said you'd tell Grandpa. Then everyone in our village will hear about it. Later, people in other villages will hear too!"

The hunter shrugged.

"We'll ask your grandfather to keep it our secret!"

"Will that work?"

"It will, probably. Your grandfather knows how to keep his mouth shut, and if you save the money you make separately, it'll be a great help to you someday! You're such a clever child, speaking the language of those big-nosed foreigners so well at your age. You might even go abroad for university. To some super prestigious school like Har-vard over there."

"I'm going to live with Grandpa forever! I'm not going abroad!"

"Well, I don't think your grandfather would like that very much. Even if you come back home later, you should graduate from a good university. That would make him happy. He'd brag about you to other people too. That's real filial devotion."

"......"

"Hehe. Did you think this uncle said he'd tell your grandfather without thinking it through? I don't know if you've heard it, but there's an old saying: send people to Seoul and horses to Jeju. There isn't anyone in our village who thinks of that saying more often than your grandfather."

Onik knew it too. He knew that his grandfather wanted to send him somewhere with a better environment and better education.

Somewhat sulky, Onik bowed his head.

"I'll be going now."

"All right. You'll think about our deal, then?"

"Yeees."

Carrying nine pheasants threaded on one string, the boy ran down the mountain ridge, barely feeling the weight of his load.

When he returned to the village, the first place he went was the Master Bowyer's house.

Before sharing pheasants with anyone else, he had to show the old artisan how many he had caught.

The Master Bowyer happened to be sitting at the end of the wooden porch, enjoying the sunlight. He stared in disbelief at the bundle of pheasants his young pupil proudly held out beneath the chestnut tree's shade.

"You caught all those already? The first day you've ever handled a bow outside?"

"Yes! I caught them!"

"Are you really not a Lee? Looking at you today, you seem like a descendant of Lee Seong-gye."

"No! I'm definitely a Jo! I'm Grandpa's grandson!"

"Good grief. All right. In any case, my bow has found a very good owner. Perhaps you should have been born in the Joseon era."

"I think that sometimes too!"

It was not a joke. Onik truly indulged in that fantasy from time to time.

He had heard that the mountains in the Joseon era had been home to many striped cats that were rather too large.

To these big cats, villages where people lived had been like feeding stations. They carried off cattle and people alike, causing no end of trouble.

Had the frightening boy been born in the Joseon era, he might have caught those yellow-striped cats and received an official post.

If he kept building his achievements and rising in rank after that, eventually becoming a true military official, he might have lived a life where people loved and respected him while he killed people.

Onik's talent for killing seemed bound together with his dark, unwanted urges. Perhaps that ominous talent was not inherently bad. Perhaps it had simply been born in the wrong era.

But if he had been born in another era, would he have met Grandpa?

Onik's fantasies always ended when they reached that question.

He set five pheasants apart.

When he had hung them up earlier, the blood had drained as much as it was going to. The pheasants had stiffened in the winter mountain cold, and no more blood ran out.

"Please take these, sir! They're my Lunar New Year gift for you! It's a little early, though!"

The old teacher gave an incredulous chuckle.

"You rascal. How can you give me more than half? You and your grandfather should eat some too, and you need to share them fairly with others."

"Come on. I can catch more! Keep them, and eat them with your family when they come down!"

"All right. Come collect your New Year's money later. This year, I'll add the wages for making the bows."

"Please don't! You said there isn't any profit in making bows!"

"Even if there's no profit, I've got money to give you, you rascal. If I don't pay you, I'm a bad man."

"Still!"

"What do you mean, still? If I borrowed a child's labor and didn't pay wages for it, what kind of person would I be? Not even those rotten association bastards would do that."

"But I've already received three bows!"

"That's that. This is this."

The rotten association he meant was the Korea Traditional Archery Association, which the Master Bowyer deeply disliked. It was different from the Archery Association, so they should not be confused.

The Traditional Archery Association had the authority to certify equipment eligible for use in competitions.

Using that authority, it had fixed the price of horn bows.

The price first set twenty-four years ago was 650,000 won. It had even been lowered to 550,000 won and held there for a long time, and the association had only recently begun raising it again. It was now 730,000 won.

Considering the inflation of the past twenty-four years, it was an absurd price. Twenty-four years ago, a bowl of jajangmyeon in Seoul cost 2,500 won.

Naturally, bow quality could not be maintained under those conditions.

Bow makers had to give up either profit or quality.

The craftsmen carrying on the tradition protested, but the association responded by branding workshops that charged higher prices as uncertified bow workshops.

Their attitude could be summed up like this.

「Intangible cultural heritage, my ass. Our power is greater! Even without you, there are plenty of companies that can make bows!」

The old Master Bowyer complained that Jap collectors were more willing to pay a fair price.

Onik knew the situation well. He could not simply accept the wages his old teacher wanted to give him.

That was especially true because the old teacher was someone who would not compromise on quality.

‘But stubbornly refusing to take it feels a little rude too......’

As Onik fretted, unable to give either answer, the sound of a car stopping came from outside, followed by another person's approach to the gate.

"I'm here, sir. Oh, um, Onik is here too?"

The new visitor stopped briefly as he entered through the gate. It was none other than the President of the Village Youth Association. Outside stood the blue Porter truck he drove around.

The old Master Bowyer asked the newcomer, "What have you come here for, standing around like that? And what's that in your hand?"

"Oh, this is a holiday gift set. I got it to give to the elders."

"You got it on purpose? You didn't just receive it from some business connection?"

"Yes."

"Huh. Why have you suddenly started doing things you never used to do? That's unlike you."

"......"

"Anyway, come in."

Onik knew why the Village Youth Association President, who would turn sixty in only a few years, had recently started doing things he never used to do.

This elderly youth was working hard to win the favor of the villagers. While he was at it, he also went around speaking badly of Pastor Kim's second son.

The villagers did not know why someone who had never behaved this way was acting so strangely. But to Onik, who knew the circumstances, his true intentions were perfectly clear.

Even so, Onik could not show that he disliked him.

He bowed to the Village Youth Association President, who had crossed the yard.

"Hello, mister."

"Hello. You're as spirited as ever today, Onik. Did you catch those pheasants yourself?"

"Yes."

"Oh...... Very impressive. It is the season when pheasants taste best."

The Village Youth Association President looked back and forth between the gift set he had brought and the pheasants Onik had brought. Perhaps embarrassed, he gave a sheepish laugh and scratched his head with his free hand.

At moments like this, he looked so utterly simple and good-natured that the boy with many worries found his feelings growing complicated.

His beloved grandfather's teachings had always been right.

No matter who someone was, they possessed many different sides at once.

After hesitating, the Village Youth Association President asked Onik, "But, Onik."

"Yes?"

"You call Yo-han big brother, so why do you call me mister?"

"A big brother is a big brother, and a mister is a mister!"

"I'm not even married yet. I haven't turned sixty either."

"You're still a mister!"

"Oh, dear."

The fifty-six-year-old elderly youth, whose birthday had not yet passed despite the new year, had subtly tested the waters with a child. His shoulders sagged as he sighed.

Still, even this pitiful adult sincerely cherished the village's only child, so he never acted displeased with or resentful toward Onik.

The Master Bowyer clicked his tongue as he listened.

"Do you really want to say such pointless things to a child? Are you at an age where you should compare yourself to Pastor Kim's second son?"

"Honestly, sir. I'm still young."

"You're younger than old men like me. But that doesn't mean you should think you're truly young."

"Yes......"

Listening to this conversation, Onik thought that he ought to visit Mr. God's house next.

Footnotes:

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