The Regressed Gangwon Hunter Makes a Fortune in 1933 - Chapter 163

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Chapter 163: In 1934, the Regressed Gangwon Hunter (4) - Complete

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Lady Wangdae, the young shaman of Upper Hamlet, flailed her arms when her cheek was pulled.

“Don’t pull Lady Wangdae’s cheek!!

A king isn’t supposed to be this violent!!”

Han San let go.

Smack.

Lady Wangdae’s cheek shrank back into place.

“What king?”

“Ow, ow...”

While Han San suppressed the spinal reflex to say, “Hyung, hyung...” which took considerable effort, the young shaman rubbed her cheeks with both hands. Then she said,

“The hunter who killed the king’s beast has earned the right to become the new king!”

When the Three Majesties fell, a king would appear.

Of course Han San remembered the exorcism rite he had seen in his dream on the first night after regressing, where he had been transformed into a chicken and beheaded.

He also remembered what Deok-tae had told him last Chuseok about the Mountain Lord and Star King Painting.

“Another candidate for king! You can guess who killed the king’s beast earlier, can’t you!?”

Han San silently raised his head.

He looked at the stars glittering in the night sky.

There was a star there, blazing with killing intent.

Ever since he had awakened, no, ever since the night he defeated the Water Tiger and broke the [tribulation], that single star had watched him from the north of this land.

Lady Wangdae cleared her throat, hands clasped behind her back.

“Hunter, you are fated to enter the war of succession that begins now! A grand and glorious epic awaits you!”

Yet Han San only scratched his cheek as he looked up at that star.

“Do I really have to?”

“D, do you really have to!?”

“I mean... if we fight, we fight. If there’s killing, there’s killing.

But can the reason be that some young shaman told us it was fate, so now we have to kill each other?”

Han San said it without taking his eyes from the star.

The young shaman bounced in place.

“It’s fate! You two must bite and tear at each other! Only one person can sit on the throne!!”

Squoish.

“Eek!”

Lady Wangdae, her cheek pulled again, smacked Han San’s arm.

“L, let go! You irreverent man!”

“Hey. Don’t go around saying people should kill or fight each other, kid. That’s a grim thing to say.”

After releasing her cheek, Han San gave the young shaman’s head a few light pats.

“You should get ready to go to school.”

“S, school!? What school!? Lady Wangdae has no need for such things!!”

“Sure, sure. It’s late, so go home.”

“What do you mean, sure!?”

Huffing indignantly, Lady Wangdae returned to her tiny palanquin. The curtains closed.

Of course, the palanquin was not going to fly back to the shamanic shrine all by itself with a whoosh, so the little palanquin simply remained there with Lady Wangdae inside.

Han San stared at it briefly, then cupped his hands around his mouth.

“Baechil hyung! Uncle Baek! Please come here!”

The two soon arrived.

“Hyung, please look after this kid until we can send her to Mogok School. And the palanquin, um... Right. Please put it in front of the Middle Hamlet sacrificial altar.”

“Sure! Got it, San!”

Im Baechil pulled back the palanquin curtain and hauled out the young shaman. Like a cat being carried by the scruff, she flailed all four limbs.

“Let me go! Let me go, I said!”

“There, there. Be good...”

“Ahhh! You irreverent people!

Your irreverence spreads through the world like a plague, so how can this not be a sign of the final kalpa[1]!”

Im Baechil carried the young shaman on his back, while Mr. Baek tucked the empty palanquin beneath one arm. The tiny palanquin beneath the blacksmith’s arm looked just like a toy.

“Please take care of her, both of you.”

Han San grinned, and Im Baechil grinned back. Mr. Baek merely cleared his throat.

“Let me go!!”

Only Lady Wangdae continued shouting, but even her cries gradually faded into the distance.

Watching them leave, Han San crossed his arms, the Seonangdang shrine tree at his back.

“Once she goes to Mogok School, I’ll leave her with Bada.”

Kids should be with kids. Wasn’t that reasonable?

That was when an incredulous voice came from behind him.

“Come on, hyung. What am I, some kind of dumping ground?”

Silence fell.

Han San did not turn around.

With the Seonangdang shrine tree still at his back, he simply drew in a breath before replying.

“You caused me that much grief. I want you to know how it feels.”

“Um... hyung, I’ve actually felt that plenty of times.”

“Really? Good. Feel it some more.”

He heard laughter.

Han San sat down, still gazing at the star in the north.

Then he spoke.

“You know.”

Han San sighed.

“I never thought I was such a great man. The idea of an ordinary man like me changing great history seemed absurd.”

It was a belief he had held ever since the moment he regressed.

His younger brother clicked his tongue.

“You still think you’re ordinary.”

“Even if I’m not.”

Sighing again, Han San swept back his hair.

“I thought about something once.”

“What?”

“If that man in sunglasses had not existed, would there have been no Yushin[2] in this land?”

If someone other than you had stood beside that man, would it not have happened?

By the same logic.

“If something happened to that Soviet flunky, would this land’s waist remain unbroken?”

Han San murmured as he looked at the northern star.

“If this world is a play, as you say, maybe the role remains even if the actor changes.”

Whether one was small or great, before the vast current that was the world and history, would they not all be swept away without recourse? A man who had lived through a turbulent age until the age of seventy-five could not help but entertain the thought.

“That does sound like you, hyung.”

His younger brother seemed inclined to agree.

“That’s right. What can one person do? Letting go of everything and pursuing happiness might be the only way to win.”

“Mm.”

Han San smiled faintly.

“But.”

With a much clearer smile, Han San leaned back.

Instead of the hard texture of the Seonangdang shrine tree, something like the feel of a human back supported him.

Sitting back-to-back with his younger brother, the older brother said,

“After more than a year since regressing, that thought has changed a little too.”

“How?”

“Maybe changing history is not such a grand thing after all.”

Just one step at a time.

If you cared for what was within reach instead of leaving it alone, shoots were bound to sprout. When enough of those shoots gathered, the wilderness would eventually become a field.

Han San had learned this not from someone else’s words, but through his own actions and their results.

“The Cross Society, Mogok School, those Red gentlemen, those ghost-pale bastards from Baekbaekgyo[3], even this flood...”

If this world was a play.

If the role remained even when the actor changed.

Then the role did not have to be performed in the same way.

Therefore.

“I decide what I do.”

Han San had no intention of reading from a script someone else had written.

He thought of the Chuk Brothers, and of Lee Jae-yu, who was working hard in Primorye.

“Who knows? Maybe even the king of the North Korean communist regime will have some use. In a way that helps the world a little.”

Han San had plenty of ideas.

For example, he could seize the man early and stick him under General Cheongcheon.

“Or I could catch him and bring him back, then make him hang dried pollack for fifty years.”

“Good grief.”

“If none of that works, hmm. It won’t be too late to consider killing him then.”

Han San left his thoughts on the king of the North Korean communist regime at that.

What he needed to consider more was not one person, but the essence of the situation.

Preventing the division of the country.

Perhaps he could help with what Shin Cheol-min had sought to accomplish by following Teacher Baekbeom in his previous life. By then, he would surely be in a position to do so, whether through money or power.

“I should do what I can for those around me.”

Thus, the old man finally made a resolution one step beyond the belief he had held ever since he regressed.

“That sounds like you too, hyung.”

His younger brother said with a smile.

The older brother smiled a little at that, then clenched his fist.

“But there is something I’m worried about.”

“What is it now?”

“Even if I become happy, and make you here happy too...”

You are still there, are you not?

The regressor did not say those words aloud. Yet his younger brother answered as though he had heard them.

“You remember.”

People forgot. Everything they had said, everything they had done.

But Han San would not forget.

Because that was the promise.

“And.”

His younger brother continued with a smile.

“You’ll see again.”

The older brother paused.

“When time passes. When you grow older. When you see, hear, and remember more, and live to seventy-four again, perhaps even longer.”

His younger brother’s voice changed slightly.

“If you meet someone precious and have a child together.”

Even the older brother had not known his younger brother could speak in such a tone.

“Please meet someone, and please have one. After coming here, I learned that the chance of you having children is really...”

“Well... shouldn’t we ask what the children think too...?”

“How? You just have them and make them happy, hyung. Honestly.”

Han San cleared his throat. Then he smiled a little.

“All right.”

He smiled more.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Yes, hyung.”

The back behind him shifted slightly, as though in exasperation.

“I’ll wait.”

Silence followed.

Han San looked up at the sky. Perhaps the blazing star had read the mood, because it had gone dark in the distance. After the flood, Seorak’s night sky was clearer and cleaner than ever.

Soon, his vision blurred.

Han San wiped his cheek. His lips were still smiling. These were not tears of sadness, after all.

“It might take a while.”

Han San rose to his feet.

He turned around.

That spot was empty.

He had known that already, so it did not bother him. He only looked at that empty place, at the Seonangdang shrine tree.

A tattered 1 won note was pinned beneath the starlight.

He reached out and touched the bill.

“Thank you.”

The old man still did not know much about religion or faith, but he had learned one thing.

If there was a heaven in this world, if there was some great being above that heaven, it would not force people to be a certain way or demand that the world become a certain way.

It would simply exist there.

Surely that was the essence of faith.

“Mm.”

Han San removed his hand from the bill.

As if it had been waiting, the empty space was filled.

“Hyung!”

“San-gun!”

“Everyone, the path is dark, so please slow down a little...”

He heard calls and soothing voices.

July 1934, Gangwon.

On a ridge of Mount Seorak rising from Inje, there was a slash-and-burn settlers’ village called Sebeom Valley.

There were several origins for the village’s name. The most obvious was that it was divided into three tiers: Upper Hamlet, Middle Hamlet, and Lower Hamlet.

The Seonangdang shrine tree stood on the boundary between Middle Hamlet and Upper Hamlet, so one had to climb up from Middle Hamlet to see it.

A single portable lantern was coming up the path. Three backlit shadows followed it.

The shadow holding the lantern stopped first. Chief Secretary Chuk Jae-seok was also someone worried about the boss’s marriage, and he had enough tact not to come any closer.

The middle figure walked slowly, carefully avoiding the mud. Long hair swayed like a bell rope behind the round outline of a head beneath a newsboy cap.

The figure in front held that person’s hand, then immediately let go upon recognizing the person beneath the Seonangdang shrine tree and ran forward.

Small feet splashed through the mud as though it meant nothing.

“Hyung!”

That was the word.

The word he had last heard on a snowy day came running toward him on the night after the flood.

“Bada!”

Han San broke into a broad smile. His younger brother crashed into his arms with all the momentum of his run.

The solid, warm weight of his nine-year-old brother.

“Hyung! Did you catch the tiger? Uncle Hong-cheol said you did!”

Han San smiled and ruffled the head turned toward him with sparkling eyes.

“Of course. It’s true.”

“Can I see it!? Can I see it!?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Why tomorrow!? I want to see it now.”

“It’s nighttime, you brat.”

“But a tiger is still a tiger at night!”

His younger brother wriggled in his arms.

Han San snorted and took out a brush to clean the mud off his shoes. Then he saw another pair of mud-caked boots stop in front of him.

“Miss, you looked like you were coming so carefully.”

“When I saw San-gun, I wanted to run too!”

Hajama Ayame smiled brightly.

Han San took the brush he had been using on his brother’s shoes and vigorously cleaned Ayame’s boots.

“You’ve had a hard time.”

Ayame paused and instinctively tried to pull her foot away, but soon only cleared her throat softly and stayed still.

“You were safe. What a relief.”

“Yes. You too, Miss.”

Scrub, scrub.

Beneath the Seonangdang shrine tree, the sound of a shoe brush against boots rang out.

Ayame slightly lifted the hem of her trousers. Han San was able to brush the mud from her boots more comfortably.

The mud of the Gap-sul Year was terribly stubborn. Even when scraped with a brush, it only smeared on thicker. But that was a problem for shoe-shining commoners.

In his youth in his previous life, Han San had shined military police boots. After liberation, he had shined his own. Before the touch of shoe-shine master Han San, Ayame’s boots began to gleam brightly enough to reflect starlight.

“San-gun, you’re... very good at this...”

“Haha.”

Han San laughed, but his younger brother Bada’s eyes sparkled beside him.

“You really are! They got so clean!

From now on, hyung can keep polishing noona’s shoes!”

“Uh, uh.”

Han San scratched the back of his head. Ayame, meanwhile, began ruffling Bada’s hair with astonishing speed. Soon, his hair gleamed brightly enough to reflect starlight as well.

“N, noona! My head’s getting hot from all the rubbing...”

“Mm!”

Ayame did not slow her hands.

Just as steam was about to rise from Bada’s head from friction, Han San cleared his throat.

“Miss Aya.”

“Yes, San-gun?”

“Would you, um, become family with me...”

Would you become his family?

The king of Sebeom Valley was about to say it.

About to say it, but not yet.

Not yet. Not quite yet.

Instead.