WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Hunting Genius of the Japanese Colonial Era

Chapter 32

──────

The Viper and the Silver Fox

Han San's jaw dropped.

'A bounty of three hundred won?'

That was roughly fifty times the money he had on him right now.

In badgers, you'd have to catch about a hundred. In banded kraits, about four hundred and thirty, to earn that much.

It was enough to buy a decent house in Inje town and still have plenty left over for a few more plots of field and paddy, and, if you were feeling festive, a cow on top.

'Crazy bastards, all that money on one wolf?'

And the wolf's name was Ginsei.

'So this is the Silver Star the Go Tae-chon of my past life talked about, no doubt about that... but already?'

It was still only April eighteenth. Close to two weeks left before May.

Han San soon realized it made sense. This was that kind of era, after all. You couldn't measure how fast news spread here against later generations.

'That Go Tae-chon, in the end.'

For all his talk of being the town's information man and whatnot, this was about the limit of it.

Clicking his tongue, Han San looked the wanted notice over once more, carefully.

[Notice No. 74

In the mountainous region of Inje County, Gangwon Province, a wolf pack attacked an Imperial survey team, causing a catastrophe with numerous casualties, including a gisu, a technical officer.

Accordingly, the authorities hereby post a special bounty, as set out below, on the leader of the wolf pack that obstructed a national project and took human life.

Target: known as 'Ginsei' (a giant male covered in silver fur with scars on both cheeks)

Reward: gold, three hundred won

Condition of receipt: delivery of its corpse to the jurisdiction's substation

Showa 8, April, Government-General of Korea]

Han San's eyes narrowed.

'Gisu? They killed the surveyor?'

It didn't say who had been killed, but the calling card tucked away in his coat suddenly came to mind.

'It can't be...'

The surveyor who'd used a tone so irritating it was hard to put into words, yet who had also offered him advice the way a grown man would.

'Hajama.'

He'd said he was from a powerful businessman's clan.

Was this absurd bounty connected to that?

Han San shook his head. There was still too little to go on for any firm conclusion.

'Information.'

Han San stood in front of the notice board and brooded for a while.

Should he take the risk here?

'Information. Information, information...'

His own past self, his brother's face, the backs of his father and mother as the flood swept them away, flickered past one after another.

"..."

But.

If anyone had been watching Han San just then, they would never have guessed that this man, somewhere between boy and youth, had sunk into deep deliberation.

Measured objectively, Han San had only loitered in front of the notice board for a little over thirty seconds.

Even an Imperial police constable, had he seen it, would have shrugged it off: some backwoods bumpkin who couldn't even read, pretending to look something up, gawking around and then clearing off.

And so, having drawn no one's attention at all——

Han San slipped into an alley set a short way off from the substation.

The alley was dark even at midday. The young hunter's nimble frame melted into the shadows with ease.

A moment later, Han San swept his surroundings once to seize the timing, then scaled the wall like a lightning bolt and rose onto the roof of a tiled house.

His elevation had risen only a few meters, yet the view changed beyond comparison. The substation yards, partitioned by walls into a grid like a go board, came clearly into view.

"..."

Han San held his breath. He lowered his body.

Not the eye that observes people, but the posture of a hunter spying on a herd of beasts.

'A military police detachment.'

At the innermost spot, in a facility set up by requisitioning the single best substation building outright, military police came and went.

To an ordinary slash-and-burn settler, this was a crowd to be thought of as nothing more than "sons of bitches" or "reapers you mustn't get tangled with," but to Han San it was different.

Just as a hunter naturally tells a badger from a wolf, this young man who had lived through the twists of more than seventy years could, for the most part, gauge the rank and affiliation of the people moving in and out of the substation.

'A few faces are familiar. But there's a fortune of three hundred won at stake. No way those ones are running this.'

Information clicked into place in his head in an instant.

In a situation where being caught meant being treated as a seditious Korean and having his head taken off at any moment, the hunter swept the scene quickly with his eyes for whatever he could glean.

Information he could get nowhere else, at no other time, if not here and now.

'That one's probably here around this time too... over there.'

Han San's gaze locked onto its target.

In the middle of the yard, a one-eyed man stood wearing a crisply squared military cap, an eyepatch over his left eye. His jaw, his shoulders, even the gray strands of hair that poked out here and there beneath the cap, all of it was angular, a figure who looked like he'd shave his own shadow down to a square edge if he could.

He was also the largest beast in that pack, and one whose name as well as face Han San remembered.

'Sawada Kazuo!'

Commander of the military police detachment stationed in Inje County. Rank, sergeant major. Currently thirty-two years old.

The bitter karma above all bitter karma, the man who, parked in this region right up until liberation, had ground Han San's life under his jackboots at every crucial moment.

[I need results.]

[Korean dog or Japanese dog, as long as it's useful.]

[Your teeth are useless.]

He was a mad viper. He'd bite into anything to claim a result, and held nothing back to do it.

The fury seething in his heart gave off an acrid stink. He wanted nothing more than to wait for a chance and hand the man the result of dying for his country, then and there.

But Han San suppressed the feeling.

'Not yet.'

He needed the man.

'I know how he'll move, how it all turns out.'

If so, he could use him.

The same way he'd grasped Kim Tae-yang's reasoning when he caught the badgers and turned it to use in the hunt.

That military police detachment commander, too, belonged to a domain Han San could calculate.

Steadying himself, he shifted his gaze a little further inward.

'So the man in charge of this bounty operation is him? But for a fellow like Sawada to have that kind of authority...'

Han San's eyes flew wide.

Behind where Sawada Kazuo stood, someone was seated demurely, drinking tea.

In contrast to Sawada in his military uniform, this one wore an ink-dark suit and a black tie, a monocle set in the right eye, with a neat, striking smile.

A nobleman who looked as if he'd stepped out of a painting.

'Kannoizuna Toono!'

Attached to the Military Police Headquarters. Rank, probably lieutenant. Age, probably twenty-three right now.

A man of the nobility[1], one of the Imperial barons[2], of whom only four hundred and thirteen existed in all of Japan.

[Ahat! Isn't it obvious?]

[That is what an Imperial soldier is for!]

[And so the one to receive this is not you. It's your younger brother!]

The very man who had decisively twisted the course of his brother Bada's life!

At a glance he looked like a courteous, cheerful young nobleman, but inside him lurked an abyss of a different order from a man like Sawada.

'Why is he... here?'

The first time Han San had ever seen Toono in his past life was after the National Mobilization Order had begun, more than five years on from now. And that had been in Chuncheon, not Inje.

That was also why, unlike Sawada Kazuo, whom he'd had to rub up against the whole time, he couldn't pin down Toono's current affiliation and rank for certain.

The man was an elite. Not someone who belonged in a backwater like this right now.

Whatever could bring him to Inje at this time...

'It's him.'

A realization swept over him without warning. Pure instinct.

'The man in charge of this bounty operation.'

Han San swallowed dryly.

'This is huge!'

If he'd missed this and gone on thinking Sawada was the one in charge...

'No.'

Thinking came later.

'This is dangerous.'

Cold sweat ran down his spine.

That one was not just a high-ranking young master. He was a fiend with an inborn nose for things, the [Silver Fox] the Government-General prided itself on.

He had to pull out at once——

Before he could even finish the thought,

Han San's gaze rested on Toono for just an instant, a fraction of a second, not even one—

and Toono's head, as he sat in his chair lifting his teacup, snapped up.

'...!'

With no time to think, Han San pulled himself back.

The moment he hid behind the ridge of the tiles, he felt the Imperial baron's gaze drive in like a throwing star.

Kannoizuna Toono, having lifted his head, saw the empty tiled roof sitting there in its place.

He tilted his head.

He smiled. Brightly. Beyond the monocle, his eye curved like a crescent moon.

"Ahat! How interesting. I just felt a rather thick gaze!"

Sawada Kazuo, his chin tilted back, rolled a walnut in one hand. Crrk! The grinding of the shell against itself rattled down the spine.

"What a coincidence, Baron. I felt it too."

"Oh? Shall we go look together?"

"By all means."

The two Imperial officers shot up from their seats.

"Commander?"

"Your Excellency the Baron?"

The military police under them and their auxiliaries were thrown when the pair suddenly bolted off. Sawada began issuing instructions in a low voice as he ran.

"Kobayashi. Block the right alley. Kato, block the one beyond it. Nakamura, the left alley. Tendo, take the constables and ring the substation's perimeter. Shin Yeong-ho, Kim Gang-cheol. Take every auxiliary out and drag in anyone who looks suspicious. Those I haven't named, each pick a building and get up onto the roof."

"Hm!" Toono raised the index finger sheathed in a black glove. "What about just the two of us going? If the commotion grows, gaps open up too!"

"I wish to be more certain of it."

At the answer, courteous yet leaving no room, Toono smiled with his eyes.

"Ahat, yes! This is Kazuo-kun's domain!" He folded the finger he'd raised. "Understood!"

"My thanks for your understanding. All units, proceed."

The sounds of acknowledgment rang out loud.

Like a kicked beehive, military police, constables, and auxiliaries poured out of the substation. "Wha—what is it?" "What's going on?!" The people who'd been clustered about jolted in fright and scattered every which way. Nimble Korean auxiliaries gave chase and seized them, Japanese and Korean alike, hauling them inside the substation.

In the midst of that uproar, Han San, hidden behind the eaves, was wringing his brain dry.

'Damn it.'

He couldn't just bolt. One was a viper, the other a silver fox. The instant he turned his back, they'd drive down onto the nape of his neck.

He needed [bait].

In that extreme situation Han San swept his surroundings like a hawk. It was the eye of an old hunter.

In one corner of the roof, a few piles of broken roof tiles caught his eye. And beside them, an old bamboo gutter that drained the rainwater.

'That's it!'

Han San did not rise. Even as he listened to the commotion drawing nearer, he held himself back with everything he had. He crawled. Using only the strength of his gut, like the banded krait he'd caught today.

'This one, and this!'

He picked up the single largest concave tile. Then he set it, ever so slightly, "leaning" against the head of the bamboo gutter, on its incline.

At the same time he took two very small tile fragments, slipped one into his coat, and propped the other beneath the concave tile he'd just leaned in place.

Gently, drawing out every last bit of feeling in his fingertips, ever so very gently.

'A sound trap.'

It was a kind of timed device.

The fragment held the tile back from sliding. But the gutter was slick with moss, and the slope was steep. The fragment would not hold out against the tile's weight and gravity. As for exactly how long...

'Ten seconds?'

The mountain man's instinct gave the answer.

Ten seconds. Probably. No, surely ten seconds.

Those ten seconds were Han San's lifeline.

The moment the sound trap was set, Han San crawled again right away. Toward the edge of the roof, and then he threw his body out.

He did not jump down.

He gripped the edge of the eaves, whipped his body around in a full rotation, and tucked himself in beneath the roof.

Thock!

And so Han San hung upside down beneath the eaves. Like a sloth. He wedged the tips of his feet into the gap between the old rafters, gripped the edge of the eaves with both hands, and held his breath.

Almost at the same moment, a thud rang above his head.

They had come up.

"It should be this roof."

Sawada's voice came, like a brick scraped hard. It drew closer. Tromp, tromp. Jackboots trampled the tiles, and crrk!—the friction of the walnut in his hand raked at the nerves as he drew nearer.

It stopped.

Han San, hanging beneath the roof, could tell the man was right above him.

"Where did he go?"

Creak, screech—the heavy weight shifted while staying in place. He was looking out, down over this whole area. To snatch with his eyes the back of anyone fleeing.

In that very moment.

Tang.

The fragment that had held out ten seconds on the gutter finally sprang loose. The concave tile, robbed of its support, slid down the steep bamboo gutter.

It rolled down.

It fell.

Crash!

The concave tile that dropped into the middle of the alley shattered to pieces on the spot. The clamor tore the silence apart.

"There!"

Sawada reflexively bolted toward where the tile had fallen. A sprint with no glance back, no, more like a wild charge.

Success?

No.

The fine hairs on the nape of Han San's neck stood on end.

One.

The weight of one man was still here, beyond this.

Sawada had run, but Toono had not moved.

One beast had growled as it climbed onto the roof, but the other beast had hidden its sound instead.

He was still up on the roof. Right above the very eaves Han San hung from. Without moving. No, without a single breath, just sitting still, waiting!

'Right, you won't be fooled.'

Too contrived, isn't it? When you ask "where" and a sound suddenly answers "here I am," something about it, instinctively, feels off.

So that is bait. He'll judge it so. The real one is still here. He'll think it so. Where could it be? He doesn't know, but he knows it's close. So he waits. For the other to move.

Like a silver fox sitting on a snow-covered rock, ready to pounce the instant the rabbit relaxes and turns its body!

'A fiend of a man!'

He had no choice but to admit it. That choice of his was damnably effective.

Drip, drip.

It had been an impossible posture from the start.

Sweat poured from his brow and stung his eyes, but he couldn't wipe it. His heart pounded fit to burst, but he couldn't so much as let out a breath as he pleased.

And from the edges, one by one, the feeling in his fingers slipped away.

But.

'That you're that kind of man... fortunately... I knew it.'

Han San knew the beast named Toono. And he knew the Toono of years later, the man of his past life who'd grown more and held a finer rank than now.

It was the same as how he dared to treat Sawada Kazuo as a chess piece.

Han San knew Toono, and so he could predict him, and so he could deal with him in advance.

'A man fifty years younger than me!'

Han San lifted one of the hands hanging from the eaves away.

Crk! At once a load fit to snap them bore down on his remaining hand and arm. The sweat-soaked fingers had no feeling, and felt about to slip any second.

He forced himself to endure, and with the free hand drew out the small tile fragment he'd tucked into his coat.

He calculated.

The direction of the wind, its speed, the distance, the angle of the sound's reflection.

The exact opposite of the direction Sawada had run, a tin-roofed building at the far end of that alley.

Using only his wrist, he flicked it—whip.

Tang...

The moment that very faint sound rang out.

"Ahat!"

Beyond the roof, Toono's presence, ghost-quiet, reacted.

It whipped around.

It ran.

It grew distant.

It grew distant...

Silence.

Han San, though, waited ten seconds. After those ten seconds he waited another ten. Then ten more, then ten more, forty seconds in all.

'Damned two-legged beasts...'

Only then did Han San let out the breath he'd held, very thinly.

There was no room to feel relief. He moved at once. His arms trembled and he wanted to sink down then and there, but if he were found doing that, he'd die without even being able to close his eyes.

Moving with care, he rolled down to the shaded far side of the roof as if tumbling, and looked for a place to hide.

Time passed.

How long it was, he didn't know, but he heard Sawada Kazuo come trudging along.

"My apologies, Baron. It seems we were fooled."

That voice held a rare note of despondency. By contrast, Kannoizuna Toono, approaching from the other side, was smiling broadly.

"Ahat! So was I! Completely taken in!"

There was no chagrin in Toono's voice. If anything he seemed to have grown more delighted.

"An interesting place, this! Inje!"

"It's nothing but a backwater with nothing in it. Crawling with rats and nothing more..."

Sawada's voice was gloomy. Like scraping off half-dried paint.

"Hmm, Kazuo-kun! Don't be so impatient! When the time comes that Gyeongseong needs you, the Empire will call for you on its own!"

"...I do hope so."

"Yes! Let's head back about now. There'll be plenty of guests gathered inside the substation by now! To hear what those guests have to say, hmm—Kazuo-kun, you have a talent for finding the work yourself."

"Ah... my apologies, Baron. As you said, we should have moved with just the two of us."

"Oh dear, I meant no jab by it! What's done is done!"

Responsibility exists not to be pinned on someone but to be resolved, Toono added, adjusting his monocle.

"In any case, a place with an interesting spy like that. That wolf called Ginsei won't be long for this world! Old man Hajama down in Busan will rest easier too."

"A single wolf like that, I can handle on my own."

Sawada left a long crrk of the walnut grinding and trudged off after the Imperial baron.

The footsteps of the two Imperial officers grew distant into the depths of the substation.

Until that sound vanished completely, Han San stayed crouched among the crocks of the storage terrace.

Only then did he breathe.

His lungs ached. The taste of iron caught at the back of his throat.

'Shit, I thought I was going to die.'

Han San stroked his chest with a trembling hand.

His breathing slowly settled. His head, which had been running only to solve the problem right in front of him, here and now, gradually widened its view.

Toono was here.

To catch the wolf. Ginsei. To soothe Hajama in Busan.

This was...

'An opportunity.'

Han San's eyes sank deep.

The Type 38 Arisaka infantry rifle. Only seven rounds of ammunition. A wolf pack leader with a vast bounty on its head. A viper mad for results. The Empire's silver fox. A big-shot businessman in Busan.

The ingredients were gathered.

The rest was a matter of how to cook them.

And Han San was rather confident when it came to cooking.

"Ugh, my whole body."

Han San braced his trembling legs and rose.

With steady steps, he headed for the marketplace.

[1] The nobility here is the kazoku (화족, 華族), the hereditary peerage of the Empire of Japan created in 1884, into which a number of pro-Japanese Korean aristocrats were also enrolled under colonial rule.

[2] Baron (남작) was the lowest of the five kazoku ranks; an Imperial baron held a hereditary seat among Japan's titled nobility.

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried