WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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Chapter 145: Great Calamity 【■ Floo■ of the ■■■】 (11)
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Meokbawi Valley no longer looked like a valley.
It was 1933. The regressed hunter of Gangwon had made a great deal of money.
Most of it had gone into this valley.
The stream where he had once washed with his father now had sharply squared banks. Concrete had been poured over the carved-out bedrock, and stone-filled gabions were piled at every bend in the watercourse to keep the current from building speed unchecked.
Rain poured down over it.
It was sharp.
Whooosh!!
The falling rain seemed to carry killing intent of its own. Gravel overturned, and droplets burst upward.
In a world dark as ink, the only white left was the outline of rainwater rebounding.
Thud.
Thud.
An outline moving on four legs came down through the valley.
It was enormous.
Each time it moved a paw, spray erupted as though a boulder had fallen. Its strides were wide. With every step, it seemed to cut away one piece of the world and graft on another far beyond it.
The smell thickened.
Han San stood atop the weir, watching it approach.
He held a Type 38 rifle in his hand. A leaf-spring knife and ammunition pouch were beneath his raincoat. And yet...
Han San did not give a damn about any of it.
He fired.
Bang!!
The instant Han San pulled the trigger, color returned to the muzzle and the small world around it.
“Missed.”
The first shot tore through empty air. Han San lifted his head. He judged that it had leaped, but Han Man-seok, who had been lying prone, swung his muzzle to the right.
“Over there.”
Bang!
The 22 Long Rifle spat fire. Something truly did seem to move over there, only to vanish again into the sound of rain and darkness.
Lightning struck.
Color flooded the world from the edge of the sky to the foot of the valley.
In that brief gap, they saw it.
In the middle of the waterway.
Wet fur ran down its back. Its size could not be measured. Everything around it was too small in comparison.
It was looking at them.
Kraaaash!!
Thunder arrived a moment later. The world that had regained color was preserved in white and black, then returned once more to darkness and the outlines of water.
The world turned black again.
Han San and Han Man-seok fired at once.
Bang!!
Han San fired the Type 38. Han Man-seok fired the 22 Long Rifle. Color flashed around their muzzles for an instant, but this time too, there was no sense of impact.
Instead, the world shook.
It had launched itself into the air. Crossing two rapids in a single bound, the Mountain Lord charged in!
The air darkened.
That patch of black rapidly grew larger.
“Urgh...!”
Han San rolled aside, clutching his rifle.
Bang!
The spot where he had just been standing exploded.
Water, rainwater, the pouring rain drew the huge outline in black and white. The stabbing stench piled over it in layers.
Han Man-seok switched guns and fired at that layered outline.
The Murata hunting gun.
A shotgun.
Bang!!
At close range, the shot did not miss. Smack! A corner of the void buckled inward, and fur and blood sprayed out.
But the wound was small.
‘It endured that.’
Han San clenched his teeth.
‘Damn it. It took shotgun fire? At this range?’
It was a shotgun! A shotgun was supposed to be a shotgun!
Han San cursed inwardly, but he knew better.
Close-range shotgun fire could dominate only against people. Even a thick-skinned male boar could endure it, much less the Mountain Lord.
And with a Murata hunting gun from this era, it was even less surprising. Everything from the powder to the shot was terribly poor.
That was why the hunter from Baekdu Mountain knew they needed different ammunition.
Click!
Han Man-seok worked the bolt and took out another round.
A slug round.
A large shotgun shell containing a single solid lump of lead, what the Western world called a slug.
But...
“...!!”
Han Man-seok's hand suddenly stopped. It trembled violently.
The Mountain Lord, the tiger that had been struck by the buckshot, lowered its head and released a sound. It was not loud. In fact, human ears could barely hear it.
Yet it made the body of anyone caught in it tremble.
The king's fetters.
Han Man-seok froze after taking the full force of a giant predator's infrasound. The moment the tiger's outline shifted its stance, Han San raised the Type 38 and fired.
This shot did not miss.
‘A mark.’
His father's buckshot had not dealt the Mountain Lord much damage, but it had left a dent in that body which had been nothing but an outline.
It was the skill that had let Han San snipe Ginsei from hundreds of meters away. At this distance, that mark was no different from a target.
The 6.5 mm Arisaka bullet from the Type 38 tore through the air.
Smack...!
It passed through the Mountain Lord's body.
The Type 38 rifle's strength was penetration.
The Mountain Lord convulsed.
The infrasound stopped, and Han Man-seok regained control of his body.
But the Mountain Lord's convulsion lasted only a moment.
The Type 38 rifle's weakness was also penetration.
There was a reason Han San had been horrified when he found bullets embedded in Ginsei's bones after killing him. Arisaka rounds passed through hide, fat, and muscle like water. They could steadily drive something toward death, step by certain step, but they could not paralyze it.
The Mountain Lord turned its head.
It looked at Han San.
Lightning struck.
The world regained its color.
A tiger.
A tiger glaring at him with its jaws wide open. Its chest was slightly dented, and blood ran from the penetrating wound beside it.
The pattern on its forehead burned itself into Han San's mind.
King (王).
Han San thought the ancient peoples of the continent must surely have drawn that character from this pattern.
The world flickered, then was swallowed by darkness. Only the dent in the air and the stream of blood remained, floating toward Han San.
“You...”
Bang! Bang!
Two more holes appeared in the outline, and two more streams of blood burst forth. At the same time, the five-round clip was emptied.
It staggered once, then staggered again before kicking off the ground.
The storm, carrying the stench of a beast within it, crashed over Han San.
“Urgh...!”
Bang.
A small, dry sound. Small enough to be buried beneath the rain.
Han Man-seok had briefly stopped loading a slug into the Murata hunting gun and raised the 22 Long Rifle to make an opening.
That opening was enough.
The moment Han San dodged, the gabions behind him burst apart.
Countless pebbles and raindrops the size of pebbles shot impossibly high into the air.
Then...
Han San bared his teeth and smiled.
【 Grrrrr... 】
For the first time, the Mountain Lord made a sound audible to human ears.
The reason was obvious.
A specially made bear trap had clamped deep at the base of the forepaw it had struck with.
“You...”
After deciding to hunt it together, the Han father and son had set traps throughout the entire area.
Han San had been a mountain hunter who lived in Seorak for more than seventy years. He did not consider it particularly important, but during the National War, he had also been a field-commissioned combat officer.
And his father, Han Man-seok, had originally been a trap hunter from Baekdu Mountain.
“This place...”
Just as Han San was about to shout that this could only become its grave, the Mountain Lord opened its mouth.
And roared.
【 Awoooooong!! 】
The mountain rang out.
Han San's vision shattered for an instant. Entirely different from the infrasound, the king's roar, which he had never heard in his previous life, bound his body in place.
He was dizzy.
His father's shout broke through it.
“San!!”
His father had never raised his voice. He spoke only what was necessary.
But the instant his father bellowed, Han San reflexively twisted his body.
He was thrown upward.
With an explosive crash, the ground beneath Han San and Han Man-seok burst apart like an overturned dining table.
The water that had erupted into the air became a tidal wave and swept both men away.
“Gah!”
“Urgh!”
Their raincoats repelled rain. That was precisely why, once water gained enough mass, a person wearing waterproof clothing was battered black and blue as though struck by a hammer.
The world flipped over.
Bang!
Father and son were hurled into the middle of the current. The guns in their hands flew far away.
The moment Han San clenched his teeth, the tiger smiled in outline.
Then...
“Make some noise!!”
Han Man-seok shouted.
Sang-jun was heading toward Meokbawi Valley with half of Inwang Gang.
Everyone carried a gun and wore a hwando sword[1] at their waist.
“Brother Man-seok! Nephew! Hold on a little longer!”
Tigers, Mountain Lords that had become difficult to find even in Manchuria and Hamgyeong Province, might truly be in the waist of this peninsula. But even if one was, Sang-jun firmly believed it would be no match for them...
Just as that thought crossed his mind, gunshots rang through the torrential rain.
Several of them.
“Move faster!”
Sang-jun urged them on. The men of Inwang Gang, who had been struggling through the downpour, quickened their pace to the point of neglecting themselves.
It was proof that Sang-jun was not the only one growing anxious.
“Brother Man-seok...”
Man-seok. Han Man-seok.
A man born into a family of Baekdu Mountain hunters. A friend Sang-jun had played with as a child.
The family of Imok, the Lord of Inwang Gang, had been local magnates around Baekdu Mountain. Much like the reputation Nephew Han San was now earning at the foot of Mount Seorak, they were a household known by the saying, [If trouble comes up, go find that family first.]
Imok's family had already been like that before Joseon fell. After Joseon fell, they took responsibility for the people of that region.
Half willingly, half unwillingly.
Sang-jun believed the unwilling half had been greater.
After all, Sang-jun had grown up in the same village as the eldest young master of the Yi household. He knew that Imok had loved reading books and painting pictures.
Naturally, Brother Man-seok knew it too.
Without a word, Brother Man-seok joined beneath the banner Imok raised. Even after marrying the daughter of a Wonsan fisherman and having a child, he never stopped running to the most dangerous places.
Not until he injured his leg in that battle of 1918.
But how could Sang-jun not know that the leg was merely an excuse?
Han Man-seok, that Baekdu Mountain hunter, was ultimately a warrior. Hunting beasts and fighting enemies were what he wanted. He could even willingly raid merchant caravans to feed the people around him.
But selling opium poppies?
When his childhood friends, including Imok, crossed that line, the Baekdu Mountain hunter with a wife and child parted ways with them. He blamed that parting on his own leg, claiming that he simply could not cross the line with them.
That was the kind of man he was.
Han San was that man's son.
Nephew to them all.
They could never let anything happen to him...
【 Awoooooong!! 】
The roar that shook the world brought Inwang Gang, running along the mountain road, to a halt.
“Urgh.”
Sang-jun froze. He recovered quickly, but the others stumbled, flinched, fell, and sprawled as their running momentum carried them forward.
“A-A real tiger...”
Sang-jun seized the trembling newcomer, dragging him upright.
“So what if it is? Tigers die when they're shot too!”
“Y-Yes... General...”
At that moment, another shout came from the valley.
【 San!! 】
The frozen men of Inwang Gang snapped awake.
Sang-jun especially.
He knew that voice.
“Brother Man-seok...”
Damn it. Brother Man-seok was shouting? Things were bad. They needed to hurry. Hurry, hurry, but now, right now...
Then another sound pierced Sang-jun's ears.
【 Make some noise!! 】
The Inwang Gang officer took it as an order directed at him.
Sang-jun looked around. In his mind, he reviewed the locations of the traps they had set throughout these mountains on the day they arrived in Sebeom Valley.
Then, all at once...
“Noise.”
The newcomer made a bewildered sound.
“Y-Yes...?”
“Noise! Make a lot of noise. Draw its attention! Even if it's only enough to distract that tiger over there for a moment...”
Then Sang-jun's eyes stopped at one spot.
It was right beside them.
High atop a towering old tree.
A massive boulder hung in a wooden cage, bound by layers of rope. It swayed back and forth like a pendulum with a creak, creak.
The moment a single rope was cut, it would hurl an unimaginable mass downward.
Because it made a sound like thunder, the Tiger-Hunting Guards[2] called it a Thunderclap Trap.
Sang-jun drew his hwando sword.
Han San barely regained his footing.
He could not make out where his father was or where the tiger was.
Then he did.
“Father.”
It was moving toward his father. His injured father lay prone, facing the outline of the tiger as it approached. His gun had fallen out of reach.
Father.
What had his father said a moment ago?
“Noise.”
Noise. Right. Make noise. Of course. He needed to draw its attention.
Han San drew a breath and was about to force air from his lungs in a shout.
Rumble!!
The sound of a mountain collapsing erupted from the mouth of the valley.
The tiger, about to pounce on Han Man-seok, hesitated and turned toward it.
Han San kept the breath he had drawn in. Instead of shouting, he threw himself forward with that strength.
When he got back to his feet, one of the guns that had been flung away was in the seventy-five-year-old man's hands.
Footnotes:
[1] A hwando was a single-edged Korean sword, commonly worn at the waist.
[2] Tiger-Hunting Guards were Joseon-era soldiers assigned to hunt tigers and other dangerous predators.
Footnotes:
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