WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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Chapter 138: Great Calamity 【Great Floo■ of the Gapsul Year】 (4)
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A little earlier, Gangwon.
Sebeom Valley, nestled along the foothills of Seorak.
Beside it, in Meokbawi Valley’s upper reaches, stood a small but sturdy guard post built atop a stone embankment.
Han San was there.
Alone.
He wore a raincoat over his hunting leather vest. The belt he had made with his father was around his waist. Hanging from it were the leaf spring blade and military binoculars he had left at the Middle Hamlet ancestral-rites altar, since he had not needed them during his business trip to Chuncheon.
A Type 38 infantry rifle lay beside him. Three Murata hunting guns leaned against the wall as though standing guard.
An ammunition crate sat at his feet. It was something he had acquired from the Inwang Gang. It was packed not only with shotgun shells for the Murata hunting guns, but also with 6.5 Arisaka cartridges for the Type 38 infantry rifle.
Rain drummed against the roof.
Rain that did not grow fiercer.
Rain that did not stop.
The regressor knew this rain well.
‘I’ve done all I can.’
He had gone around telling everyone until his mouth was dry to prepare themselves.
Those who believed him would have prepared. Those who laughed would have laughed. That was up to the people who had heard him, and there was nothing Han San could do about it.
‘I did what I could.’
He had made money.
A great deal of it. Then he had spent just as much.
He had built an embankment in Meokbawi Valley and worked his improved memory to the bone, redirecting the waterways throughout the village.
One year and three months.
Han San took pride in having done everything he could.
‘But...’
There would still be enormous damage.
Han San raised his head.
Beyond the costly glass windows he had specifically installed, he could see Meokbawi Valley and the raindrops falling across it.
Rain that did not stop. Rain that crept in like water slowly coming to a boil, leaving people too late to react by the time they came to their senses.
It was cunning enough on its own, but the regressor knew this was only the prelude.
‘The Great Flood of the Gapsul Year has claws and fangs.’
It was simply waiting.
‘When that time comes...’
In a peninsula whose roads had been cut off and thrown into chaos, those claws and fangs would strike a killing blow.
There was nothing he could do for the regions beyond the Three Southern Provinces[1], but even here in Gangwon...
The people he knew well in Inje, Chuncheon, and Mogok would all survive. Yet many of the faces he had merely passed by would be gone.
‘I’ve done all I can.’
Han San repeated it to himself.
From the moment he had regressed, Han San’s old heart had been firm.
He could not save the world. He was not made for that.
It would be enough if he could protect his family. He had been lucky enough to protect even more people than that, and he could ask for nothing more...
Just then, he sensed something move outside.
Han San moved like lightning. He grabbed the Type 38 and pressed himself against the wall, glancing out the window from the corner of his eye.
He froze.
A moment later, his brow furrowed.
Han San opened the door.
“Father?”
Han Man-seok stood beyond the guard post’s door. He wore the same kind of raincoat and leather gear as Han San, with a 22 Long Rifle in his right hand.
The old hunter planted the rifle like a cane and entered the shack.
“Father, what brings you here...?”
Han Man-seok glanced at his son.
“To help you.”
Han San paused, just for a moment.
“There isn’t really anything you need to help with...”
“You looked like you were hurting.”
“No, what are you talking about... I’m not, not at all...”
Han San stopped speaking and closed his mouth.
The guard post door shut.
The sound of the rain, which had not grown heavier, became noticeably fainter.
Han Man-seok sat across from his son. His body, as sturdy as a bear compared to last year, hit the floor with a thud and splashed rainwater around him.
Silence passed.
Han Man-seok waited as he wiped down the gun his son had bought him.
His son said nothing.
Then...
“Father.”
Han San spoke as though the words had suddenly come to him.
“I had a dream.”
Han Man-seok looked at his son, tilting his head as he listened.
“In the dream, there was a flood. The rain didn’t get heavier, and it didn’t let up either. It just kept falling like that, so people didn’t even realize what was happening.
By the time they noticed, every road had been cut off. Not just the road to town, but even the paths we usually took to gather namul[2].”
Han San looked up at the roof.
“Even after that, it kept raining for a long time. It just kept falling... and only then did it slowly begin to get heavier.”
Like a beast that leisurely began its hunt after cutting off every escape route.
“Then it became impossible to leave for real.”
As the rain grew fiercer, the washed-out sections of road grew wider and wider.
“There was no food in our house.
That dream... it was a dream of a world where I never made money. In that world, I was hungry. Bada was hungry too. But there was nothing to eat at home...”
“...”
“I threw a bit of a tantrum. I mean... I mean, I complained. I was much younger in the dream.”
“...”
“Father went out to find food.”
In his previous life, his father had gone out leaning on a cane.
[ Manbok is sick! Park Seo-bang! Please, help our family! ]
[ Get the hell out of here! What does it have to do with my family whether Choi Seo-bang’s brat is sick or not!? ]
As the sounds of Middle Hamlet residents grabbing each other by the collars and fighting rang through the downpour, the Baekdu Mountain hunter with the limp went into the mountains alone.
The mountains were rotting in places. Water was the greatest beast of all, treating every living thing like a dog. Some animals had thrashed in the mud with broken legs until they swallowed water and died.
His father returned at dawn, caked from head to toe in mud.
A swollen roe deer was slung across his back. Han San’s improved memory reminded him that exactly five of his father’s fingernails had been torn out.
Five fingernails.
Had he clung to something being swept away? Had he crawled up a muddy cliff?
Even at seventy-five, Han San still did not know.
His father dressed the animal with injured hands. His mother boiled it. There had been little edible meat on the drowned animal, so all of it went to Han San and his younger brother.
[ This mom ate in the kitchen. ]
Nineteen-year-old Han San believed her.
No. He had not.
That night, he saw his mother vomiting in the kitchen. He saw her trying somehow to eat meat so spoiled it could not be eaten. Because he had seen it, the regressor remembered.
His improved memory would not let him forget.
So Han San remembered everything that happened next too, and, um, back then he, he had simply gone back and lain down because it was easier. He was still not even twenty, because, because Taeyang had told him. They said that in Gyeongseong, they only considered you an adult after you turned twenty.
I’m not an adult, so I don’t need to think about such things.
I don’t need to.
The next day, Bada whined that he was hungry. Their mother silently gave him a portion of the food.
She gave him food that did not exist.
Bada accepted it without knowing.
Han San accepted his portion knowing full well. He was hungry. He wanted to eat.
So in his previous life, he had been a beast that devoured people.
“I...”
Han San’s voice had become very quiet.
“Last year’s typhoon... well, that happened in the dream too. I couldn’t do anything then either. I just thought Father would handle everything if I stayed still. Mother too. Because that was how things had always been. So I thought it would be the same this time.”
But it was not.
“That day... in the dream.”
Han San raised a hand to his eyes.
Within the darkness cast by his hand, he spoke.
“A tiger came.”
He could smell it.
The scent of a wet animal. Nutty like nurungji[3], yet also sharp and fishy enough to sting his nose.
The screams came next.
[ Save me! ]
[ Aaaah! ]
People who said tigers roared had probably never seen one. The Mountain Lord used the screams of its prey in place of its own roar.
“The tiger... went around hurting people...”
It leaped here, thud! Then over there, crash! Its weight landed on rooftops, and every time, another scream burst out.
The downpour grew heavier. With every hunt, it rose another note in pitch.
“Father picked up the Type 38 infantry rifle.”
Han San looked down at the rifle on his lap, now his own.
“That was when I first learned Father had a gun like this.”
Back then, he did not know where it had come from or what kind of gun it was.
“Father fired it. Five shots... bang, bang. Then the tiger, whether it had been hit or frightened, just backed away.”
That was why.
The day after inheriting the gun, he had thought he should always leave at least five Type 38 infantry rifle rounds untouched.
The five shots that had echoed through his previous life.
His father’s gunshots.
In reality, he had eventually gained access to many different firearms and could buy Type 38 ammunition in bulk through the Inwang Gang.
He no longer had to worry about bullets, but back then, when he had not known he would be able to make this much money, that was how he had thought.
That was how it had been.
“But at that moment... the moment the tiger backed away.”
Han San took a breath.
“The rain kept getting heavier... By the time the tiger retreated, it was pouring down like mad... Then I heard thunder, and Meokbawi Valley burst apart.”
First came light.
Then came sound, the sound of the lid over the abyss breaking open.
Then the earth shook, and only then did he see it.
Them. Earth, water, trees, rocks, and...
“Father... Father put Mother, Bada, and me on the roof.”
Bada first. Then their mother. Then he grabbed Han San and lifted him onto the roof.
Then time ran out.
His father. His father with the limp. The father who had always managed everything and made anything happen for them was swept away in the surge of mud and water.
[ Honey! ]
His mother screamed.
There was no answer.
She no longer had a husband. She turned to look at the children who no longer had a father.
Then she smiled.
Han San had never seen that kind of smile even once over the course of two lives.
[ Son. Take care of Bada for me! ]
[ What...? Mom, what are you... ]
[ I can’t live without that man. ]
His mother stopped for a moment, then rephrased it.
Smiling.
Crying.
[ I can’t go on. ]
She stood at the edge of the roof and threw herself toward the muddy water where his father had disappeared.
[ Mom! ]
Han San watched it while holding his younger brother tightly.
He watched the thing that swept away earth, water, and rocks, that took his father and then his mother.
The sound of the rain, which had reached its peak, gradually began to fade again until it returned to that same steady tone from when it had begun taking the roads away.
After that, every July, Han San heard rain beating against the roof.
Silence fell over the shack again.
Han Man-seok said nothing. He simply watched his son.
“I...”
Han San lowered his hand.
“I think that tiger is coming.”
He corrected himself.
“No. It is coming.”
He had to catch it.
He had to.
After meeting Old Woman Wangdae, it had become a certainty. No, perhaps he had known it from the moment he regressed.
The seventy-five-year-old Han San believed he had to bring his previous life to a close.
“Alright.”
Only after hearing it all did Han Man-seok finally speak.
“Let’s catch it together.”
Han San froze.
“Father.”
“We can catch it.”
“But... that thing...”
“Did the me in your dream lose to that tiger?”
His father’s question was quiet, and Han San wore a rare blank expression.
“No... you won.”
The corners of Han Man-seok’s mouth, hidden in fur, lifted slightly.
“Right. I won. The landslide was the problem, wasn’t it?”
“Yes...”
“You prepared for landslides and did the construction.”
“I did. But...”
“Was the construction done well?”
“It was... It was done well. I did the best I could. I did it well... But...”
But he could not believe it.
How?
How could his father trust someone like him?
Someone who was eighteen or nineteen and did nothing but stick out his lip and complain. Someone who strutted around full of hot air, then lost his head and could do nothing when trouble came.
How could he trust an idiot like that?
How could he trust a beast like this?
Han Man-seok reached out and placed a hand on his son’s shoulder as he clutched his head.
“I trust you.”
Han San opened his eyes.
His father was looking at him.
“You trust me too.”
“Father...”
“There will be no landslide. You made sure of that. Then all that remains is that one Mountain Lord.
The bastard I already beat in your dream. This time, the two of us will catch it before it can run away.”
Han Man-seok adjusted his grip on his gun. A bear-like smile appeared on his lips.
“Then Ssangsim won’t have any reason to come after me either, right?”
Han San stared blankly at Han Man-seok.
His father was not a man of many words. Yet he had sorted out the whole situation so simply in just a few sentences.
It was so simple that Han San could not answer for a long time. At last, he spoke.
“Father.”
When he called out and looked at him, his father was smiling back at him. Han San suddenly felt much lighter.
He wiped at his wet eyes, then grinned.
“Yes, Father. Let’s catch it together. That cocky mountain cat bastard. The two of us will join forces and catch it!”
Footnotes:
[1] The Three Southern Provinces, traditionally called samnam, were the collective name for Chungcheong, Jeolla, and Gyeongsang Provinces.
[2] Namul are edible wild greens, commonly gathered and prepared as side dishes.
[3] Nurungji is the crisp, browned rice crust left at the bottom of a cooking pot.
Footnotes:
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