WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ The Hunting Genius of the Japanese Colonial Era

Chapter 2

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Foraging for Food

Outside Sebeom Valley, Han San pushed through the brush with practiced ease. He kept his little brother close at his side, like a hen guarding her chick.

His brother’s eyes sparkled.

"Hyung, where are we going? Are we going to pick honey or something?"

Han San chuckled and ruffled his hair. Honey in April? Not a chance.

"If we go now, there won’t be any honey yet. Later, when the first autumn leaves hit Daecheong Peak, hyung will get you some."

"Where’s Daecheong?"

Just then the ground rose a little and the view opened up. Han San pointed to a peak wrapped in cloud.

"That tall one over there."

"Hee..."

Han Bada stood on tiptoe to look where Han San pointed, then tilted his head.

"Then where are we going now?"

"You’ll see when we get there."

Han San quickened his pace.

Now that he was back in a young man’s body, he was bursting with strength.

In his last life, Han San had suffered a lot.

The shoulder he injured in the flood used to throb whenever it rained, and the stomach he wrecked during the Great Famine, when requisitioning and drought hit together, had burned no matter how many wild ginseng roots he dug up and ate in old age.

Now everything was sound.

He could leap over a boulder in one bound and his knees would not ache. He could bend down, hoist his brother up in one motion, and his lower back stayed fine.

"The birch grove was this way."

People said even mountains and rivers changed in ten years, but in truth, unless people pushed it, the land did not rush either.

On top of that, his memory was strangely clear.

"My head is... sharp."

Han San suddenly remembered the time he had faced his father.

It was honestly a little surprising that he could still picture his father walking ahead of him, after roughly wrapping his bleeding knee.

And not just because it had happened decades ago.

"When Father hurt his knee, I was only three or four."

Had living a second life sharpened his memory without him realizing it?

Come to think of it, even the way he had snapped at his father came back to him down to every last detail. It was too vivid to explain away as simple regret.

"If my memory got better, I couldn’t ask for more."

A young body, decades of experience, and clearer memory had all come together in one person. Even climbing the mountain with an eight-year-old in tow was easy as eating porridge.

"Hyung, do we have to go farther?"

At Bada’s whining, Han San grinned and stopped.

"We’re here."

Ahead of them stretched a stand of birches wrapped in white bark.

Han Bada tilted his little head.

"Huh? Why here?"

"Watch."

Han San adjusted his grip on the sickle. Then he struck the birch bark with controlled force, careful not to damage the blade.

Clear sap began to bead inside the gouged wood.

"Hyung, what are you doing?"

"This is called grain-rain sap."

If he had returned just one month earlier, he could have collected gorosoe sap, but birch sap was not bad either.

Han San struck two more trees. He carved a little deeper on purpose, twisted vines, and tied baskets to the trunks. Without a drill or tubes, he had no choice but to use a rough method like this.

Normally this kind of method drained a tree’s vitality, so mountain people treated it as taboo. Han San knew that rule and had always followed it.

But now, with his family hungry, what good was nature protection?

That was something the lone mountain man from his past life could keep, the one who had lost his parents and fallen out with his brother. In this life, he had a family, and of course their next meal came first.

"Still, I can’t keep doing this forever. If I want this to last, the trees need to rest too. Maybe I should at least make a hand drill."

He finished hanging the three baskets securely and stepped back.

"Hyung, do we drink it now?"

"No. We have to wait until they fill. It’ll take a few hours."

"Ah..."

Han San patted Bada’s disappointed head once more.

"While we wait, let’s go gather something tastier down in the stream."

"Huh? We’re going to the stream?"

Bada’s eyes lit up. For mountain kids, streams were absolutely off-limits unless they were with an adult.

But the head of the Han household limped and had trouble going up and down valleys, and the eldest brother was full of hot air and only looked for chances to go down to town, so when would the youngest ever have gotten a chance to visit the stream?

Seeing his excited little brother made Han San feel guilty.

"Let’s go."

Han San moved lightly down toward the stream. Every so often he reached back to help his brother down.

The rush of water filled the air.

The stream was so clear it looked cold enough to sting.

"We’re catching fish, right!"

Han Bada’s eyes gleamed. At that innocent question, Han San felt guilty again, and laughed too.

"Hey, wait. You can’t catch fish with your bare hands."

Disappointment showed on Han Bada’s face. Then he caught the odd part and tilted his head.

"You can catch them, hyung?"

Han San smiled.

"Who knows. Anyway, not fish right now... watch."

Han San took off his shoes. He did not just roll up his pants, he stripped them off and stepped into the stream in only his underwear.

"Whoa, that’s cool!"

April stream water on Mount Seorak in this era felt like scattered razor blades. But a young man in his prime took even that as refreshing.

Han San spread his soles wide to keep from slipping and read the current with his ankles.

He avoided fast water. He looked for spots where the flow hit rocks, curled, and slowed.

After picking the spot, he stepped back out, brought over Bada, who had been hopping nervously a little ways away and did not dare enter, and sat him on a rock so he could protect him immediately if anything happened.

"Hyung, what are you catching?"

Bada asked, kicking his feet on the rock. Han San raised one finger to his lips.

"Shh."

Han San carefully lifted the underside of a flat stone in the water. As it rose, a mud-brown creature hidden beneath wriggled in surprise.

Han San’s hand shot down like lightning.

Water splashed up with a smack.

"Hup!"

Between Han San’s fingers, a thick crayfish waved its claws in the air.

Han Bada’s mouth dropped open.

"Wow! Is that a crayfish? It’s huge!"

"This time of year, the water’s still cold, so they’re sluggish. You just pick them up."

Han San preened a little as he tossed the crayfish into the carrying sack he had brought.

After that, things moved fast.

Han San picked only rocks with crayfish under them, almost like magic. Startled crayfish snapped their tails and sprang away, but Han San’s hand was already there along their path.

"Got another one!"

"Hyung! Me too! Me too, I want to do it!"

Bada could not hold back, hopped off the rock, and splashed into the water. He wobbled with a startled yelp, and Han San caught him with one hand, steadying him easily, then put on a stern face.

"You’ll get your fingers pinched, punk."

"But!"

"But what. Do you know how much that hurts? Look at this claw. This one, look."

He clicked a crayfish claw right in front of Bada’s nose, and Bada shrank back in fear. It definitely looked painful.

Still, he wanted to catch one, but still... his face was turning tearful, so Han San stopped teasing him and laughed.

"Come here instead. I’ll show you something more fun than crayfish."

"Hmm...?"

"Over here."

Han San led Bada to a pool where the current was almost still. Several small rocks were clustered there.

Han San lifted one. Bada thought he was catching another crayfish, then his eyes went round.

"Whoa, what’s this? There are so many frogs!"

Just as he said, frogs that looked freshly awake from hibernation were huddled together under the rock.

"Mountain frogs. They gather like this when it’s time to lay eggs."

"How do you know all this, hyung?"

"That’s why I’m the hyung."

Han San puffed out his chest on purpose. Getting that admiring look from his brother, hmm, even with a mental age of seventy-four, it still felt good.

"Try catching one. Be careful not to slip."

"Okay!"

Han San stepped aside. That was why he had brought him in the first place.

It was not only because, in mountain villages in this era, eight was old enough to pull your weight. It was not mainly because he wanted to fix the relationship with the brother he had fallen out with in his last life either.

What mattered was that all of this was experience.

"See a lot, go through a lot."

Wouldn’t that help with anything later on?

"Hyung, I got one!"

"Oh, not bad. There’s another one there. That one, that one, the one trying to run, th-"

"Got it!"

"You’re doing great, Bada."

"Hehe."

Bada beamed with pride. While that happened, Han San kept scanning the stream’s terrain in between.

"If I set a fish trap in that bend, I’d catch quite a bit. A scoop net would work in that deep pool over there. Fish traps I can make, but for a scoop net, I need mesh... hmm. If I cross Misiryeong Pass it’s Sokcho, but the problem is, in this era..."

Han San was running numbers in his head when he looked up. Bada was holding up a frog in both hands.

"Hyung, this frog is really fat!"

A smile spread across Han San’s face.

"Oh, full of eggs. Nice catch, that’s a good one... hey, don’t squeeze too hard! If you do it wrong, it’ll burst."

"Can’t I burst it?"

"First, your hands will get filthy, right? And hey, this isn’t your toy. We’re taking all of these home to eat, so why would you do that?"

Unlike weak modern city people, Bada did not feel any disgust at eating frogs. He was only curious about one thing.

"Is it tasty?"

"I’ll make it tasty."

"Okay!"

Bada gave a little grin and carefully put the egg-filled frog in the carrying sack.

Watching him, Han San suddenly asked,

"Bada, do you want to go to school?"

"Yeah!"

Bada scooped up another frog and answered without hesitation.

"Why? Is there something you want to study?"

"Going to school is cool! And if I become a police constable later, I can beat up Jin-dong from Lower Hamlet! If I become a count or whatever, they say you get to eat honey every day!"

Ah, this little collaborator. Han San swallowed a bitter laugh.

Bada, still grinning, tilted his head.

"But hyung, why school?"

"So I can send you someday."

"Really? Which school!?"

"That depends on where you want to go."

"I want to go to the same school as you, hyung!"

Seeing his brother’s bright smile made something in Han San’s chest throb.

How had a kid like this turned out that way?

No, why ask? It had all been his fault.

"Hyung?"

Bada tilted his head.

Han San took a breath.

"What school, and when... we’ll think about it."

The timing was bad anyway.

Right now the Japanese Empire looked unstoppable, but Han San knew that in just a few more years even the islands themselves would become a sea of fire.

Student in Gyeongseong? Study abroad in Japan?

All nonsense. All traps.

How could he let his own family go through stories like this: sent there to do well, then caught in air raids, and they could not even find the body?

He would never let that happen.

Han San hardened his resolve. As Bada’s splashing grew less frequent while he caught frogs, Han San’s gaze watching him sank deeper and deeper.

There were quite a lot of frogs hiding under those rocks.

"Ten... eleven!"

Bada counted on his tiny fern-like fingers.

Twelve crayfish and eleven mountain frogs. Three were female, and two had bellies packed with eggs.

That much would make for a rich dinner table.

Han San clapped lightly.

"Let’s head back. We need to collect what we set up earlier."

The brothers dried their feet, put their pants and shoes back on, and climbed up to the birch grove again.

They checked the baskets, but without proper gear, the amount of sap they could collect was always limited. At best, just enough to barely ripple across the bottom of a dipper.

Two sips, maybe three.

"So little..."

Bada looked disappointed, but Han San chuckled. For him, it was actually a bit more than expected.

In the end, it was all about where you set your mind.

"Here."

Han San handed him a dipper, and Bada took it with both hands and gulped it down.

"Wow, sweet!"

In an era when sweetness was hard to come by, even the mild sweetness of grain-rain sap would feel vivid.

Bada emptied his share in no time and glanced at the two remaining dippers.

Han San cut him off cleanly.

"Those are for Mother and Father."

"Mmm..."

Bada smacked his lips, still wanting more. Then, as if he had just thought of it, he looked up at his brother.

"What about you, hyung?"

Han San shook out the empty dipper and gave a crooked smile.

"I’m good. If I fill up on water, dinner won’t taste good."

Hesitation and realization crossed Bada’s face. Only then did he give up on the other dippers.

"Mmm... okay."

Han San slung the now-heavy carrying sack over his shoulder. He had Bada carry the empty dippers, while he carefully carried the dipper with grain-rain sap for their parents himself.

"Let’s go. Time to eat."

"Okay!"

Han San headed home along the same path they had taken.

The weight of the crayfish and frogs dragging down his carrying sack, and his little brother’s light footsteps beside him, moved together.

In April on Mount Seorak, the sun moved fast. By the time the brothers returned, it was already dusk.

Ham Ssang-sim, who had been boiling potatoes in the kitchen, rushed out in a panic.

"Oh, you little brats! Where have you been running around till this hour? What if the sun had gone down, huh? What if wild animals came out!"

Behind the fierce scolding was relief.

Something deep in Han San warmed. It had been so long since he felt that someone was waiting for him.

He set the heavy carrying sack down in the yard. And the dippers too.

"Mother, look at this."

"What is this now... oh my! Did you boys go to the stream!? The water must’ve been icy, what if you caught a cold... oh my, these crayfish and frogs are nice and plump! You even got egg-filled ones..."

"Yeah! Hyung is amazing!"

Bada giggled. As Ham Ssang-sim kept saying "oh dear, oh dear" while checking the carrying sack, satisfaction she could not hide touched her face.

"Get inside, quick. Your mother’s going to make dinner real... huh? Why are you coming in?"

Ham Ssang-sim looked startled. Han San had rolled up his sleeves and stepped into the kitchen.

"I’ll help you."

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