WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 141: Great Calamity 【Great Floo■ of the Gap■■】 (7)
──────
From that moment on, everyone at the relief center was assigned work.
That was the second step in the plan.
There was plenty to do, weaving gamani sacks, chopping firewood, digging drainage channels around the area. Honestly, it did not matter what the work itself was.
As long as they could see a better future ahead, people could endure the present.
As long as their hands were moving, they could forget their anxiety. And if they did not feel like they were eating free food, they did not have to feel so miserable.
Naturally, there were always people who dug in their heels.
“You gave me porridge, did you not? Yeah, thanks to that, I’m full now.”
“You gave me a place to sleep, did you not? Yeah, but I’m not sleepy now.”
Unless someone was seriously insane, people tended to follow those who seemed to have a plan. Sadly, this was an age where seriously insane people could be found anywhere.
Still, Han San was the man who had trained the Middle Hamlet locals into employees of Han’s Myriad Commerce and put the little beggars through a one-stop course in becoming decent people.
Chuk Jae-seok had become vice president because he could learn and put Han San’s methods into practice.
There were two main approaches they could use in this situation.
The first was getting people fired up.
“Come on! Let’s open up this drainage channel first! Wow, look at you go with that shovel! Sir, your experience really shows. The water’s getting out of your way on its own!”
“Heh heh, is that so?”
True to Koreans’ reputation as a people who got swept up in excitement, once they were fired up, they got moving.
The other was authority.
“DO IT!!!”
Kim Gang-cheol, the craziest police constable in Inje, roared with his arms folded.
A line of constable assistants stood behind him, while township office officials watched with furrowed brows.
Even the seriously insane pulled themselves together in a situation like that.
“Yes, we’ll do it...”
Of course they would.
Police constables were one thing, but civil servants had a different kind of power in this era.
Civil servants trembling before abusive petitioners? What sort of topsy-turvy world was that supposed to be? How could some insignificant civilian dare talk back to officials from the government office?
With spirits raised through enthusiasm and hammered into place by authority, the shelter began running like a set of well-fitted gears.
That was when Kim Gang-cheol, who had been watching, called out to Chuk Jae-seok.
“You there!! Come here for a moment!!”
“Yes, Constable?”
Jae-seok hurried over and looked at Kim Gang-cheol.
The sajang had told him about this man too.
[He’s a crazy person. Try not to talk to him if you can. He’s not capable of a normal conversation...]
The man the sajang had described that way, the lunatic constable everyone in Inje knew, spoke.
“You people!!
Why!!
Are you spending your own money to do this!?
Why!! Why on earth!! Why!! Why, I ask!!!! Why!!!! Why!!!!!”
Grinding his teeth as though he were shouting at a murderer, Kim Gang-cheol demanded an answer. Though Jae-seok could hardly believe he was being shouted at like this, he remembered a conversation with Han San.
He had asked the same thing just before they left.
[Why are you going this far, Sajang?]
Han San had scratched his head and replied,
[Why? I’m doing it for the reputation, obviously.
Think about it, Mr. Jae-seok. Could someone who got a bowl of porridge from us really act big in front of a Han’s Myriad Commerce sign? This saves us advertising money.
And is that all it saves us? As our company grows, we’ll need more low-level employees, won’t we? We’ve already got Inje firmly in hand, so would it not be nice to have an even tighter grip?
It’s the same as when we rebuilt Middle Hamlet. All those men became our loyal workers, did they not? I’m doing all this to satisfy my own selfishness...]
Jae-seok let out a quiet laugh.
He had felt the same way when he met Sawada.
Perhaps the sajang did not understand people very well, and understood himself even less.
That was why Jae-seok could answer sincerely.
“Because we can save them.”
“What did you say!!”
“We’re doing it because we can. Do we need some grand reason?”
Kim Gang-cheol fell silent for a moment.
“Is that so.”
After another silence.
“I see.”
With his arms still folded, Kim Gang-cheol sank into thought.
Then, after a while, Inje’s proud lunatic constable nodded as though he had come to an understanding.
“I understand!! Young man!!”
Jae-seok quietly watched Kim Gang-cheol shout with all his might.
‘He said this man wasn’t capable of a normal conversation.’
The sajang really did not understand people, Jae-seok thought with a bitter smile.
‘No. Maybe he understands them too well...’
Either way.
The relief center was running smoothly, like water, and there seemed to be nothing to worry about.
Of course, Jae-seok knew that was not true.
Which was why his answer to Kim Gang-cheol had not been entirely accurate.
‘There’s one more reason we came to Inje in the first place.’
The person behind that reason appeared at just the right moment.
“Hello. I heard you were looking for me?”
She was a woman with languid, striking eyes.
Oh Anna, or Anna Ogai Sokolova. In ordinary times, though, she was simply called [Mrs. Go], the person in charge of setting the tables at Han’s Myriad Commerce’s Inje set-meal restaurant.
Jae-seok immediately spoke to that inscrutable woman.
“It’s something the sajang asked for. Please deliver these to Sokcho.”
One was an iron token, the other a sealed envelope. The Inwang Gang’s token of identification and a handwritten letter from Han San.
Anna raised one eyebrow.
“Huh. In this weather?”
“Yes. If it had been possible, Chief Hong-cheol or I would have gone to Sokcho before coming here...”
[It’ll probably be difficult.]
Just as Han San had said while scratching his head, it was impossible.
The moment Jae-seok left the village and stepped onto the new road, he knew it. Even with their skills as wanted fugitives, there was no way they could reach Sokcho.
[Ask that lady when the time comes.]
That lady stared at the horse pass and letter with a sullen look. Soon, she sighed and accepted them.
“Well. I did say I’d help if there was something I could do.”
Jae-seok smiled.
“Thank you.”
“It’s fine. So what’s in this letter?”
[Are you curious?]
Han San had asked him that. Jae-seok had intended not to cross the line and ask.
But the line Han San had drawn was further inward than the line Jae-seok had tried to keep. Looking as though he had wanted to tell him anyway, Han San had explained.
[I originally thought I had to handle it alone. But after talking with my father, and sorting out my thoughts a little... I changed my mind. I figured, ah, yes. Sending this would be better.
As for what it says...]
Jae-seok gave a small smile.
“You can open it.”
“Huh? Really?”
“Yes. The sajang said it was all right.”
“Hm...”
Anna tilted her head, then took out the letter and unfolded it without hesitation.
Only one sentence was written inside.
Anna’s brows drooped into a worried arch.
“What does this mean?”
“I don’t know about that much... The Inwang Gang people will probably understand, won’t they?”
That much was obvious, but what did it mean?
Her superior’s words flashed through Anna’s mind.
[Comrade Krasnaya Vdova. What we feared has happened. I hear Lee Jae-yu was finally found in Primorye. It seems he’s traveling with Hong Beom-do. I have a feeling something big is coming...]
‘That does not seem likely...’
Still, to send such a cryptic letter to the Inwang Gang.
Could it really be as her superior feared?
Thinking of Red Mask, the suspected Anglo-American spy whose identity now seemed far more credible, Anna’s imagination ran wild.
Then Jae-seok grinned.
“Isn’t it asking them to help him?”
Help with what? Anna did not ask.
What would Jae-seok know about the world spies operated in? She set aside her complicated thoughts and answered casually.
“Hm. So even that kid needs help sometimes.”
“Our sajang is only nineteen. He isn’t even twenty yet.”
“Hm-m-m...”
Anna tucked the horse pass and letter into her clothes.
More thoughts kept crossing her mind, but one thing was certain.
Whether she delivered them or not, that brat would have preparations in place for either outcome.
That particular air of his, as though whatever anyone tried, he would have some way of dealing with it, whether it was composure or simply a lack of expectation, rubbed Anna the wrong way.
In fact, many people around Han San, including the military police detachment commander in Inje, felt the same way. Red Widow, a spy for the Soviet Union, had become one of them as well.
“Well, fine... I should do the job I’ve been given properly.”
Anna let out a deep sigh. She shook off her thoughts and shifted into work mode.
“May I attach one condition, Vice President?”
Jae-seok’s eyes went round.
“A condition?”
Anna did not answer. The answer came from elsewhere.
More specifically, from the entrance to the shelter.
“Oh, goodness! Director Hong-cheol! Director Hyeong-don! If you were here, you should’ve said so!
I, you see, I was going to take this Noah’s Flood as an opportunity to make a little money, but...”
It was Go Tae-chon. A glance showed him on all fours, tears dripping down as he whined away, like a man who had tried to become a budding peddler during a flood and lost everything.
Anna smacked her lips with the look of someone settling in with premium popcorn and whispered,
“Take good care of my brother. If he gets into any more trouble while I’m gone, remember it and tell me when I get back. Don’t leave anything out. Every detail, completely and thoroughly.”
“...That’s the condition?”
“Yep.”
Anna picked up a towel, covered the lower half of her face, and left through the back door. It took only three steps for her back to melt into the rain.
Jae-seok slowly shook his head.
“Is the sajang attracting strange people, or are strange people orbiting around him...?”
Either way.
The rain outside was finally beginning to intensify.
The seasoned spy for the Soviet Union, Anna, cut through the rain like a ghost and made it straight to Sokcho.
Sokcho was a coastal village. Along the way, all sorts of marsh-like areas and things resembling raging currents had appeared, but Anna and those obstacles somehow worked things out among themselves.
Even so, by the time she arrived, Anna had evolved from the Red Widow into the Mud Widow.
“Here.”
Brimming with irritation, Anna handed over the horse pass and Han San’s letter. Sang-jun, an executive of the Inwang Gang, accepted them.
“You’ve had a hard journey. Go to Broker Jang. He’ll provide food and a place for you to rest.”
“Hm.”
Sang-jun was staying at Broker Jang’s residence at the time. It was a solid building on high ground, sturdy enough to easily repel the strengthening rain.
All the way there, Anna had wondered, ‘But will I even be able to contact the Inwang Gang in this weather?’ Now, she could not help thinking of Han San.
‘Did that kid know the Inwang Gang would be here?’
Apparently, he had. They were usually in Wonsan or at the Inwang Gang’s secret harbor.
‘So he’s that deeply connected to the Inwang Gang.’
Since beginning her work as a proper spy, Anna had been considered an [unfathomable person]. Thinking of Red Mask, who was even more unfathomable than she was, nearly made hives break out across her body.
“Anyway, I’m going to rest.”
Anna left. Sang-jun saw her off with a smile, then immediately took the letter to the room next door.
Before the gathered Inwang Gang executives, Imok, leader of the Inwang Gang, personally opened and read the letter.
Only one sentence was written inside.
< Uncles. Please come a day early. >
Imok covered the lower half of his face with his fan. His sharply defined eyes gleamed.
“One day.”
Imok focused on the letter’s contents, but Sang-jun and the other executives could not help being startled.
“Wait. We were just thinking we ought to stop by. How did our nephew know?”
“Just as Broker Jang said, maybe our nephew really does have a shamanic gift.”
“Huh. Wasn’t Man-seok hyung’s paternal family made up of mountain folk through and through? Is it from his mother’s side?”
“I feel like I’ve heard something about there being someone like that in the Ham family...”
As the executives murmured among themselves, Imok’s eyes swept over the scene outside the window.
The rain was becoming increasingly fierce. If they set out now, they would literally have to cross Mount Seorak in a torrential downpour.
Imok spoke.
“Let’s go.”
“Yes, Elder.”
The Inwang Gang executives packed without another word.
Originally, Han Man-seok’s former boss and comrades had only set foot in Sebeom Valley after the debris flow had swept through. Their arriving a day too late was what left them carrying that debt in their hearts for the rest of their lives.
One day.
Because of a delay of just one day, the reinforcements had missed their chance to be with Han Man-seok. In this life, they received his son’s letter and could gather their equipment before setting out early.
It was raining.
Footnotes:
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
