WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: HidingTurtle

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Raised by a Ruthless Swordsman ◈

Chapter 7: Traveling Together

──────

I woke to the sound of mountain birds at dawn.

Last night, I had walked through the darkness for a long while. At the end of the earthen wall was a narrow path, and I followed it for some time. Only when even the moonlight was hidden by the leaves did I finally lie down in the grass beside the mountain trail.

I had not even had the strength to gather fallen leaves beneath me. I could not remember when I had fallen asleep.

As I rose, my entire body was stiff.

Thinking it was because I had been soaked in dawn dew, I was about to stretch and loosen myself when a dry rustling accompanied every movement. A terrible fishy stench struck my nose.

I looked down at myself, and only then saw the state I was in.

My clothes over my arms, legs, and chest were stiff with dried blood, as though I wore a layer of armor. Dark red blood had caked and dried on the backs of my hands and arms as well.

When I clenched and opened my fingers, hardened blood flaked away with a dry rustle. My face was no different when I wiped it.

My stomach was unsettled from the very start of the morning. I desperately wanted to wash.

I rose and headed down the mountain trail again. There was surely a stream somewhere nearby.

Mountain paths always ran near water. It was one of the things I had learned while crossing dozens of mountains with Hyeonam over the past ten years.

Sure enough, after walking for about half an hour, I heard the faint sound of water in the distance.

I followed the sound and stepped slightly off the path. Pushing through the dry leaves, I found a small stream. Clear water flowing down from the mountain formed a shallow channel about two steps wide.

I loosened my sword sheath and set it aside, then quickly took off my clothes.

Cold seeped through my body with every step into the water. Once it reached my knees, I crouched down.

I splashed cold water over my face. Each time I scrubbed my skin, dark red streaks ran over my palms and drifted downstream.

After washing myself well enough, I brought over the clothes I had taken off. I soaked and scrubbed them in the water as well, and the traces of last night slipped away one by one.

I remained crouched there for a long time, rubbing the cloth until every last trace had been washed out.

* * *

By the time I finished washing my clothes, the sun had risen quite high. I wrung out the water, but the chill remained. Drying them in the sunlight would have been best, but there was no broad rock suitable for laying them out.

With no other choice, I twisted them again to squeeze out as much water as possible, then put on the damp clothes and fastened my sword sheath at my waist.

They would dry after I walked for a while.

I retraced my steps to the trail and continued down the mountain. After walking for some time, the trees gradually thinned out, and soon an official road came into view.

It was wide enough for two carts to pass side by side with room to spare. The dirt was packed hard, while dry grasslands and empty harvested rice fields stretched far into the distance on either side.

For a moment, my mind went blank.

I had no idea whether Geonnyeong lay up the road or down it.

There was not a single person on the road. I looked in both directions for a long time, but nothing changed. There was no one to ask, so I had no choice but to sit down beside the road.

All I could do was wait for someone to pass by.

The wind swept over the dry grass now and then. In the empty fields, only the stubble left after the rice harvest stood in neat rows.

With nothing else to do, I sat with one knee raised and stared blankly up at the sky. Clouds drifted slowly through the clear blue above.

I had seen the sky countless times in the mountains, but it looked entirely different above the open fields.

A little while after my damp clothes had dried completely, someone appeared at the far end of the lower road.

I stood and brushed the dirt from myself. I watched him as he drew closer.

The closer he came, the clearer his figure became. Perhaps he had just passed twenty. Tall, with broad shoulders and a broad chest, he was clearly no ordinary person at a glance.

He carried nothing but a bundle on his back and a sword at his waist.

A martial artist. The first true martial artist I had met.

My body tensed instinctively. Just in case, I examined the Inner Energy remaining in my dantian.

A little less than eighty percent.

Despite having worked so hard to recover it last night, I had spent some of it capturing that bandit leader, leaving me with slightly less than before.

Before long, our eyes met.

His eyes were large and clear. Beneath thick brows, his gaze swept over my face, then my sword at my waist.

That was all.

He did not hesitate or try to keep his distance.

He stopped naturally just beyond the reach of my sword. The distance was so natural that I could not tell whether it was by chance or deliberate.

“What are you doing sitting in a place like this?”

There was no wariness in his voice either. Rather, it carried a light curiosity.

I told him I was waiting for someone because I did not know the road. I was headed for Geonnyeong, but did not know which way to go.

He raised one eyebrow and gave a faint laugh.

“You’re fortunate. I happen to be headed that way myself.”

He pointed with his chin in the direction he had come from. He said Geonnyeong was about half a day farther along this road.

I got to my feet. I gave a brief word of thanks and was about to head in that direction when he came to stand beside me.

“I had been finding the road lonely by myself, so this works out well.”

He did not sound as though he were asking or making a request. He stepped forward as though we had already decided to travel together.

The sight caught me slightly off guard, but I did not find it especially unpleasant.

“Let’s do that.”

He gave another faint laugh.

* * *

The man was quite talkative.

Not long after we began walking, he readily started telling me about himself. His name was Munhwi. He said he was two years older than me. It was not far from what I had first guessed.

He often went on about things I had not even asked. His hometown had an inn that had been run by his family for generations, and its steamed mandarin fish was the finest under heaven. Once I tried it, he said, I would never even put fish from anywhere else in my mouth again.

He even lifted his top to show me the bites from the place he had stayed three days ago, where the bedding had been crawling with bedbugs. There were quite a few marks. They must have been painful.

None of his stories were anything special, yet they were strangely not boring to listen to.

Jang Sam suddenly came to mind.

If Jang Sam had been younger, carried a sword, and had not been afraid of me, perhaps he would have been like this.

As talkative as he was, Munhwi was also curious about me.

Where I had come from, where I was going, where I had learned that swordsmanship.

They were difficult questions to answer. I only said that I had trained in the mountains for ten years.

It was not a lie.

I simply did not tell him what had come before or after that.

Ten years in the mountains. He raised one eyebrow. He looked as though he wished to ask more, but after studying my expression once, he closed his mouth.

When the sun began to dip beyond the mountains, he pointed to one side of the road. By then, we had grown somewhat more comfortable speaking with each other.

“How about we stay here tonight and set out early tomorrow morning?”

He said there would be neither an inn nor a village even if we went farther. He seemed to know this road quite well.

He walked around the area, gathering an armful of dry branches and fallen leaves. Then he took something from his bundle.

It was a palm-sized piece of metal and a small stone. He placed a handful of dry, cotton-like material on the fallen leaves and struck the stone at an angle with the metal.

Tap. Tap.

Tiny sparks flew with every strike. After several attempts, an ember caught in the cotton. He bent down and blew on it. Thin smoke rose, then flames soon followed.

I stared at the sight quietly. It was quite fascinating.

In the mountains, Hyeonam had always made fire by rubbing dry wood together. It took a long time before smoke appeared, and more often than not, it did not work at all. That was why we never let a fire go out easily once it was lit.

It was my first time seeing someone make fire by striking metal against stone.

“Brother Mun, what is that?”

At my question, he held up the piece of metal and stone in his hand.

“A fire striker. You spent ten years in the mountains without even one of these?”

I had no suitable reply, so I said nothing.

He gave a faint laugh and tossed the metal and stone to me.

“Keep one. I have several more.”

I stared at the metal and stone resting in my palm for a long time.

If I had had something like this, perhaps those countless nights in the mountains would have been a little less cold.

Once the fire had settled, he took a small cloth pouch from his bundle.

Inside was yellowish powder. He scooped a handful into a wooden bowl, poured in stream water, stirred it around, then divided it in half and held one portion out to me.

He said it was ground roasted grain. Since all it took was water, there was nothing better for traveling.

I took a spoonful. It was dry and nutty. It had little taste, but it was better than the millet porridge I had eaten in the mountains.

Neither of us spoke as we emptied our bowls.

The fire crackled.

For once, he had closed his mouth and was only staring into the fire.

I looked at his profile in the firelight, then suddenly asked, “Where are you headed, Brother Mun?”

“Geonnyeong.”

“What business do you have in Geonnyeong?”

He paused briefly while continuing to gaze into the fire.

“I need to return to my hometown. Something has come up.”

Hometown.

At that word, I thought of my mother, father, and Yeona. Without meaning to, I asked another question.

“Do you have family?”

“I do. An entire, tiresome lot of them.”

He laughed briefly.

But that was all.

Given his nature, I expected him to go on and on about how many family members he had and where they lived and what they did. Yet he said nothing more. He seemed about to add something, then stopped.

Instead, he asked me, “Apyeong, do you have family?”

This time, it was my turn to remain silent.

Should I say I did, or that I did not? Ten years had passed. I did not even know whether they were still there.

I only said they were far away.

He looked at me once and did not ask more.

It was the same for both of us. Though we had never agreed not to ask, that was somehow how it had become.

He quietly changed the subject.

“Let’s decide the watch and lie down. We can’t both sleep soundly on an unfamiliar road.”

Then he told me to take the first watch. He would stay awake for the latter half of the night, while I took the first half.

I agreed.

He cleared a place to lie down. He swept together some dry leaves, used his bundle as a pillow, and lay on his side with his back to the fire.

As I watched him, his breathing soon settled into a steady rhythm.

Could he fall asleep so easily before someone he had just met? Was he that confident in his own ability, or did he simply not consider me much of a threat?

Either way, he was no ordinary man.

I turned my eyes away and watched the fire. The flames flickered. I passed the time by breaking dry branches and feeding them into it.

The stars slowly turned overhead.

For ten years in the mountains, I had judged the passing of dawn and dusk by the stars and my own body.

When the handle of the Northern Dipper had tilted far enough to one side, I knew half the night had passed.

I woke him.

The moment I touched his shoulder, his eyes opened. There was none of the haze of someone who had only just awoken. He said I had worked hard, stretched once, and moved to sit by the fire.

It was my turn to lie down.

I roughly cleared a place as he had done, rested my head on my arm, and lay on my side. My sword was within reach, placed so I could draw it at once.

I lay with my back to him, but focused my senses behind me. I tried not to miss where he sat, the rhythm of his breathing, or even the sound of his clothes brushing together.

Thinking back, there was more than one thing about him that troubled me.

He had not even blinked at the sight of my sword. He had stopped as though he had drawn a line just beyond its reach. He had woken without the slightest sign of disarray.

None of it was ordinary.

Munhwi did not seem like someone who would suddenly make a move with his sword, but one could never know.

I stayed prepared to deflect anything that might fly at me from behind. Time passed slowly.

Yet until the night was over, he only remained seated there.

The sound of branches breaking and being placed into the fire. The sound of him shifting his posture now and then.

That was all.

Not a trace of killing intent reached me from behind.

Before I knew it, the east was beginning to pale.

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried