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◈ The Hunting Genius of the Japanese Colonial Era

Chapter 24

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Crafting (1)

The next day, Monday, April 10th.

"Hngggh!"

Han San stretched in the yard until his whole body felt like it might pull apart. From fingertips to toes, every vein went taut, and the clotted stiffness in his body burst loose and scattered.

The memory of yesterday came back to him.

The Type 38 infantry rifle his father had cleaned up by hand.

'Good.'

Just thinking about it made him feel secure.

Effective range of three hundred meters. In skilled hands, a fine piece that could pick off an enemy four hundred meters out.

A deer or a wolf went down with one shot, no trouble. Even a thick-hided boar dropped with a single round to a vital spot, two at most on a sloppy hit. Even a bear, the king of the mountain, could be sent to the next world if you kept your distance and calmly put three or four rounds into it.

'A whole different class from a glorified shell like that Murata hunting gun.'

The Murata hunting guns sold off to civilians in this era had been converted to fire shot. Their effective range was thirty meters at best.

The Type 38 infantry rifle, by contrast, reached ten times that distance.

'A shotgun might have it beat on raw stopping power, sure.'

But the tactical edge of overwhelming range couldn't be made up by that alone. Han San's mouth curved with satisfaction.

Sadly, the smile didn't last long.

'The problem is ammunition...'

He thought back on the rounds his father had handed over yesterday and clicked his tongue.

[Seven rounds left.]

Just seven rounds.

The Type 38 infantry rifle was an active-service military rifle. It only spat fire when fed its dedicated round, the 6.5mm Arisaka.

Make that dedicated round yourself?

Lead shot for a hunting gun, maybe, but hand-make military ordnance? It was close to impossible, technically and socially both. He had never managed it himself across seventy-four years of living.

'Fire one shot and you're down one shot.'

A demon sword with a fixed number of swings. That was the Type 38 infantry rifle Han San now held.

Come to think of it, the fact that every Japanese soldier carried such a demon sword as standard kit and could swing it without limit was exactly what made the Imperial Japanese Army a true demon king's army. The Korean peninsula of this era was that kind of dark fantasy world, where greenwood outlaws, guilds, and a demon king's army all really existed.

'How in the world did those idiots manage to lose a country with that kind of military strength?'

The Empire of Japan's idiocy really was the stuff of legend. Han San's chest swelled all over again.

'Anyway, seven rounds.'

Han San did the math in his head.

'Five rounds, minimum. Until I get through next year's Great Flood of the Gap-sul Year, I have to keep at least five in reserve.'

The Han San who had lived through a regression had his reasons for it.

'Which means I've only got two shots I can fire before that day comes?'

Han San had handled a Type 38 infantry rifle in his past life. After the regression, his memory had sharpened too, and this rifle had even been tuned to fit him exactly.

'Still, I'll need to pull the trigger a few times before it sits right in my hands...'

The security he'd felt drained out of him like an ebbing tide.

'I need to find more ammunition.'

As said before, hand-making military ammunition was all but impossible. But that didn't mean you couldn't get it on the civilian side.

'The black market.'

There were no fewer army-base scamps playing hide-and-seek with their stores than there were worksite rascals playing the same game with their materials.

'The problem is you can't get it in Inje town.'

Inje town was just too small, no two ways about it.

A small market meant a thin selection. And even if it turned up in that thin selection, word spread fast. It was only a matter of time before it reached the ears of the military police.

'Chuncheon at the least, Gyeongseong if I can manage it—that's how far I'd have to go to even dream of restocking ammunition.'

And there lay another wall.

Han San scratched the back of his head. Someone might say, can't you just catch a horse cart from Inje town to Chuncheon, and a scheduled coach from Chuncheon to Gyeongseong? But it wasn't that simple.

In this era, going somewhere did not simply mean covering that much physical distance.

A kind of [standing] was required.

How much money you had was a given, but you also needed the status, the rank, or the back-alley seasoning that let you spend that much in that city without drawing suspicion.

Han San recalled his own visit to Inje town.

The way most slash-and-burn settlers handed their goods to the forestry cooperative at rock-bottom prices—was that really because they happened to be standing in Inje at the time?

Even Ma Jong-sung, the herb dealer in tiny Inje town, had told Han San to get lost the first time he laid eyes on him. Because he'd judged him a fellow who didn't measure up.

Same principle. To go to Chuncheon, you needed the standing to roam Chuncheon. To go to Gyeongseong, the standing to rub shoulders in Gyeongseong.

And for contraband like military ammunition, the bar rose higher still. Some nobody slash-and-burn youth who walked into a Gyeongseong black market and said, "Gimme a box of 6.5mm rounds," would have everyone applauding as they escorted him to the torture cellar under the Jongno police station[1].

This dark fantasy peninsula really did pull every trick in the book, you'd think—but this was reality. Overwhelming reality.

Han San let out a sigh.

'Once I've got some breathing room, let me try cracking the Chuncheon route. How long is that going to take.'

Until then, this rifle was literally a [decisive-battle weapon]. Not something he could run as a hunting tool.

'I need a ranged weapon I can use without worrying about it.'

And he needed it badly.

Close combat with a beast put the human at a disadvantage. There was a reason mankind learned to throw stones first.

Man's strength lay in the choices that came from intelligence. And the longer the effective range, the more the available choices multiplied, exponentially.

'If I'd been holding a bow instead of a club when I faced down that badger yesterday...'

He could have finished it the instant it crawled out of the den, and when it bolted off, he could have put an arrow in its back.

He had to extend his reach.

'A bow, or a crossbow... they'd be fine too, but it's too early.'

No materials, anyway.

A crudely made wooden bow would struggle to bag a rabbit. Better to wait until he could gather proper materials.

'Something else.'

That something else, Han San already had in mind.

'About time it showed up.'

That was when a sound carried in from outside the brushwood gate.

"Hey! Han San!"

It was Kim Tae-yang.

He came waddling up with a black rubber tire in his arms, a big sack hanging off his shoulder.

"Brought it, brought it! Ugh, damn it, this thing's heavy as hell!"

Groaning, Kim Tae-yang dropped his load in the yard with a thud. Dust kicked up, and—"Cluck-cluck!"—the hen in one corner of the yard nearly had a fit at the sudden shock.

"Hey, you're really giving me badger oil for this, right? I went through all this suffering, so if you're lying I'll kill—" A day apart and his mouth had started getting loose again, but it found its weight back the moment he saw Han San's face. "—I'll be so sad I'll want to kill myself, my friend."

Han San jerked his chin at the tire.

"Let me see the goods first."

"Ah, come on. This is a bicycle tire! It's totally from that... where was it? Anyway, there's some country across that ocean, and it's off a bicycle from there."

Han San lifted the tire without a word. It was so worn out you couldn't even patch it for use anymore, but what he wanted was on the inside.

"This thing, the outside's like this, but, uh, something like... pine resin? Anyway, if you seal it up tight with that kind of stuff, maybe you could fit it on a cart or something and use it? There's no spokes, but you could whittle some out of wood somehow and..."

While Kim Tae-yang rambled in a voice he himself clearly didn't trust, Han San fetched a sickle and split the tire open.

"Whoa, why are you suddenly going at it with a sickle!?"

Kim Tae-yang jumped. Han San silently pulled at the inner tube and tested it.

The taut tension ran up through his fingertips.

Only then did Han San relax his face and nod.

"This'll do."

"Do? For what? No, I'm asking why you're going at it with a sickle."

"Seeing once beats hearing a hundred times."

Han San brought out a Y-shaped ash branch from under the kitchen eaves. It was one of the ones he'd gathered around the badger den yesterday. Scorched over fire to draw out the moisture, oiled, and dried in the shade, the branch was tough and hard.

"What's that branch for?"

"Watch."

Han San said it as his deft hands cut the bicycle tube into long strips.

Next was the female badger hide from the catch at Go Tae-chon's house. Han Man-seok had worked on it in his spare moments, and three days on, it was dry enough to use now. Han San cut an oval out of the soft part of it.

He tied the rubber tubing to both ends of the branch and laced the badger hide into the middle.

By that point, even Kim Tae-yang figured out what it was.

"Whoa, damn, isn't this a pachinko?"

Han San looked up. That was a little unexpected.

"You recognize it?"

Kim Tae-yang gazed at it with shining eyes.

"Course I do. Hah! Brings back memories. I went around smashing every window in Gyeongseong with one of those."

Oh right, this guy lived in Gyeongseong—Han San's face said it for a second, then turned to disbelief.

"You lunatic, why smash windows? Out of nowhere."

"No, there were only a few windows I broke 'cause I wanted to break 'em... There'd be a bird, so I'd shoot at it, and the bird would dodge and throw a whole fit. What can you do, damn it. The window's gotta break."

"What do you mean, what can you do. Do you even hear the things you're saying... no, seriously, how the hell do you think any of that connects???"

The Gyeongseong hooligan put on a sheepish face. Sick of it, Han San finished the crafting.

Like the hooligan said, what Han San had made was a slingshot.

Pachinko was what the Japanese of this time called a slingshot. The name came from the way it went pachin and sent a stone flying when you drew it back and let go.

'Later on some gambling machine with the same name gets more famous, though.'

As for where that gambling machine's name came from, Han San didn't really know either. Maybe Teacher Han Bada, who'd had a foot in that business, would know.

"But what's this for? Catching birds?"

Having quickly shaken off the awkwardness, Kim Tae-yang eyed the slingshot with sparkling eyes.

Han San nodded.

"Birds, rabbits. And something like a badger, if you hit it right in the eye, you could take it down too."

"Oh, for real? Well... yeah, it's got a bit of force to it. Hitting's the hard part, though."

"What about hitting?"

Han San took out a stone—one of the pebbles he'd picked up at Meokbawi Valley yesterday. A natural bullet, rounded smooth over tens of thousands of years by water running down the mountain's joints of bone, settled onto the badger-hide pouch.

Kim Tae-yang cackled.

"Hey, damn, you think that's as easy as it sounds? Birds have sharp instincts. The second you aim, they've already flown off. I know 'cause I've tried..."

Han San answered by raising both arms.

The hand gripping the fork went forward, the hand holding the pouch and the pebble went back, drawing apart all at once, long and steady.

He let go.

The pebble in the pouch went pang, bursting the air as it flew.

"Cheep!"

A wood pigeon perched on a pine branch fifteen-odd paces out was knocked clean off. It hit the ground almost the same moment as the pebble-bullet, and with a thunk it died without a single twitch.

Thud.

The slingshot came down from Han San's hand. He sat down on the edge of the porch, pressing at his temple.

"You just hit it, see."

Kim Tae-yang looked back and forth between the bird that had fallen dead and Han San sitting there at a tilt. His mouth gaped open and shut like a carp's.

[1] The Jongno Police Station (종로 경찰서) in Keijō/Gyeongseong was a notorious colonial-era station whose basement cells were infamous for the torture of Korean independence activists and ordinary suspects alike.

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