WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Hunting Genius of the Japanese Colonial Era

Chapter 42

──────

The Accountant (2)

It was a night when the rush of the gorge valley's water rang out especially loud.

Han San held a stick he'd picked up off the ground, something like a back-scratcher. Look closely, and the back-scratcher-like part was a hook, shaped so something could be caught on it.

He pulled the spear out of Ginsei's body and set the butt of its shaft onto that hook.

"Where should I hit?" Han San asked.

Baron Kannoizuna Toono pressed a gloved index finger to his lips as he watched, then pointed at a tree off in the distance.

"Can you hit that tree?"

"Nothing to it."

He said it boldly and reset his stance.

He gripped the spear-thrower rather than the spear itself, drew it back, and gauged the distance.

"Haaht!"

He whipped it forward.

His arm, lengthened by the span of a single joint, snapped like a lash, and with a sharp shriek the air tore open. The shaft, fletched with pheasant feathers, bent supple as it swam through the dark.

Thunk!!

Dozens of meters out, exactly at the tree Toono had pointed to, exactly at the spot he'd indicated, the spear blade buried itself. The whole tree shuddered, and the leaves on its branches screamed.

"Oho!"

Toono let out a cry of admiration.

"As I thought! An atlatl[1]! Such astonishing accuracy!"

Han San played dumb about the foreign word, scratching his head with the face of an innocent mountain youth.

"Atl... um, I wouldn't know what you high-up folks call this. People like us just call it a spear-thrower."

"Ahah, convergent evolution of technique, perhaps? The wisdom of ancient man, lengthening the arm to widen the radius of rotation and lending that centrifugal force to the projectile! It's how they hunted mammoths back in those days too... that is, giant elephants covered in fur."

Toono seemed genuinely impressed, even clapping his hands.

Han San rubbed his nose as if embarrassed, then went on as though caught up in the moment. "This shaft is no ordinary wood either. I picked through the choicest trees and then picked again. Roasted it over fire and fed it oil to give it spring. The spearhead, I made from scraps of iron I got off the hunter hyungs who've grown thick around here lately, ground them down. Iron's scarce in these parts, you see..."

On and on Han San rambled, stretching out his words on purpose. How much care he'd put into making this weapon, how much he'd practiced, and so on.

It might look like idle chatter, but this too was one of the stones he laid for survival. To shift how he was seen, from a pebble that could be killed to a human you could talk to.

'Toono. On this fellow it works like a charm.'

A monster of curiosity. The kind who couldn't tear his eyes from anything interesting. Toono was that sort of man, and Han San knew it well.

'Whether it works on that viper too, though...'

Han San's gaze grazed past Sawada. The eye-patched viper rolled his walnuts, his thoughts unreadable on his face.

Toono's face had gone past interest into excitement.

"How amusing! Ah, I am Baron Kannoizuna Toono of the Empire!"

Han San scratched the back of his head, feigning surprise.

"Ah... a baron... so you're a man of high standing."

"Yes! Look up to me all you like!"

"My name is Han San."

"Oho! Say it plainly and it becomes Han-san! What an amusing name!"

Han San only smiled awkwardly.

Toono, beaming as he adjusted his monocle, tilted his head.

"Ahah, so then, Han-san! This spear and this thrower, where did you learn them?"

"I learned from my father," Han San answered, as if he'd been waiting for it. His face was full of pride.

"My father was a Baekdu Mountain hunter from Hamgyeong Province. A man who took tigers and bears. His leg got hurt, but his hands are as skilled as can be. The way to make a spear, the knack for throwing it, I inherited all of it from him."

A lie, of course.

How to make a spear-thrower and how to throw it, he'd taught himself in his past life, and at that in his old age, when the economy had developed and information had grown plentiful across the land.

But the respect for his father, his father's craftsmanship, his father's lineage, all of that was true. The art of a lie is laying five percent falsehood on top of ninety-five percent truth.

"A descendant of a Baekdu Mountain hunter! Wonderful, Han-san! Truly fascinating!"

Toono laughed. His smile was bright and clear.

And in that instant, Han San felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

'Uh-oh.'

Had he overdone it?

'Not good.'

It wasn't only that the smile Toono now wore overlapped with the one the man had once aimed at Han Bada in his past life.

It was because he knew all too well the twisted disposition of the ninth-rank[2] lord standing right beside him, Sawada Kazuo.

'You praise me like that, and that bastard's gut is going to...'

Sure enough, Sawada took a step forward. Trudge. The crunch of a military boot kicking gravel was harsh.

"Baron. Enjoy your amusements later."

Toono turned toward him with a what's-this look. His right eyebrow rose a touch.

"Kazuo-kun, this is a pillar of the Empire. Think carefully, won't you?"

"I am not thinking anything at all."

The voice he said it in was like paint dry only on the surface.

Sawada Kazuo looked at Han San.

This young, savage-to-the-core slash-and-burn settler, this Joseon dog.

'Fine, let's say you caught Ginsei.'

Let's say you caught Ginsei with that primitive, savage weapon. Let's say you'd been acquainted with the dead surveyor Hajama. Let's say you'd even won the favor of his lordship the baron here.

'And so?'

What of it?

Reward and punishment, due as they fall, were the foundation of rule, yes. To boil the dog once the hunt was over was to whittle away your own footing. Sawada, who styled himself a lord, knew that well.

But that was only the story in a world where the sun shone.

Here and now, in this pitch-dark gorge, where was the ascending rising sun shining?

Only lamplight. And even that was held in the hands of his hand-picked confidants.

In a situation like this.

'What if I simply want to shoot this fellow dead?'

So that he could carry off this wolf's corpse whole as his own trophy? So that he wouldn't have to press a fortune of three hundred won into the hands of some ignorant Joseon bumpkin?

'Toono. Will the Imperial baron stop me?'

Of course his refined lordship would glare at him with displeasure. Might even click his tongue and say, "How inelegant."

'But what if it's after I've already fired?'

If the trigger's already been pulled and the man is dead, what then?

'Will he have me arrested?'

Hardly.

Wouldn't he sooner help? Bury this matter so the situation closed out quietly? However bitterly Toono regarded Sawada, however much he pitied this Joseon dog, he would do exactly that.

Because he, Kannoizuna Toono, was a noble of the Empire, and he, Sawada Kazuo, was a soldier of the Empire.

He wouldn't want to scuff the face of the Imperial army over one already-dead Joseon man.

'I think that likelihood is overwhelmingly high!'

Before he knew it, Sawada's hand had stopped rolling the walnuts. Throb, throb! The left eyeball wrapped under the patch went numb, this, this feeling. His hand settled on his Type 38 infantry rifle.

"Kazuo-kun—"

The instant Toono knit his brow—

Ahead of even that, there was one more person in this place who'd caught the scent of blood first, with the very marrow of his bones.

Han San.

The instinct of a hunter who'd faced down countless beasts on the mountain for seventy-four years exploded.

His body moved before his thoughts.

"—That's it!"

Han San shouted. At the same moment he bent at the waist and grabbed Ginsei by the scruff.

"You need this head, don't you!?"

In his right hand, somewhere in the blur, the leaf-spring blade had appeared. Its edge stopped right up close against the spot between Ginsei's eyes, as though it meant to shave him clean.

So fast and so natural that by the time the military police noticed, it had already happened.

The one being who might have noticed and stopped it, the Imperial baron with that body so quick and light, did not restrain Han San, for the same reason he had not gripped Sawada's wrist.

So Han San was able to raise his head, unhindered, with a smile.

"This head! For you, commander!"

Han San met Sawada Kazuo's single eye. Piercing that gaze, he spoke with his eyes.

'Go on, shoot.'

The moment he did, the moment he so much as flinched, Han San would lift this wolf's corpse and use it as a shield. At the same time, with this knife in his hand, this leaf-spring blade that broke through bone like frozen radish, he would slash Ginsei's skull to ribbons.

Down to the last second given to him!

'Could you prove anything with that head?'

That this was the famed Ginsei. Carry off a pulped lump of meat and report, "This is the head of the legendary man-eating wolf with the extraordinary bounty on it." Would the higher-ups believe him? Praise him?

'Would your record really come through unscathed?'

Wouldn't he get a sheaf of papers slapped across that eye-patched face, get asked how he could handle a job so shoddily?

Of course, by then Han San would already be dead, but the price of that pettiness, would you, Sawada, pay it?

Take on the risk of muck splashing across your own record?

To win, as you said, one worthless Joseon corpse?

'I think that likelihood is overwhelmingly low!'

The silence sharpened to a blade.

Even the sound of the gorge water flowed on with its breath held.

Sawada's single eye trembled. Han San's two eyes did not waver in the slightest.

"I," Han San said, spacing each word out clearly. With a smiling face. In a voice with no smile in it.

"Just need to get paid."

The glory of having caught this silver wolf?

The record?

The commendation?

Take it all.

Whether you report that you caught it, or your subordinates did, he didn't care.

'I only want the three hundred won.'

The [standing]?

For that, a quiet rumor spreading from below was enough. The whispers, "Truth is, it was some young Joseon man who caught it," "the military police snatched the credit," would do fine.

Wasn't it, if anything, more mysterious, more steeped in seasoned weight?

'But if you try to overturn the board.'

There would not be the slightest hesitation in his own action.

Again, because the crucial moment must never, ever be left to another!

This world.

This place called the world, ah, how good it would be if it could be persuaded with words and reason. How good it would have been.

Sadly, this world was a shitty place, the same back then as now, the same even in the future he'd lived through in his past life, and there was simply nothing that words alone could solve.

Action. Always, only action could move the world.

And so that action had to be no one else's, only his own.

So he wouldn't wear out his mouth begging, "Please spare me." He wouldn't appeal, "Will this not stain a soldier's honor?" He wouldn't whimper at his lordship the baron's face, please, please stop him.

With his own blade's edge alone, Han San held his own life as collateral.

Holding it as collateral, time passed.

Time where one second felt like a minute and one minute like an hour, only time, on and on, riding the current.

'Madman.'

Sawada's eye patch twitched. Anger. Disgust.

And interest.

'I took him for a fellow with no guts.'

Had the way he'd carried himself at the tavern been mere mimicry? If so, then this too was interesting. Ah, damn it, interest, interest, the feeling that he'd caught it from that pervert baron beside him made him uneasy, but interest, yes, an interesting thing.

If even Sawada felt interest to that degree, what of the pervert baron himself?

"Ahahahah!"

Toono laughed, clutching his belly. His laugh was clear and bright.

"Now, let's stop here! The night's grown deep!"

So, only after both sides had laid their cards down, a lifeline dropped from the baron's mouth.

Sawada took the rope.

"Mm."

A short grunt. His hand left the gun and rolled the walnuts. Crrk.

"Come to the substation. ...Tendo."

"Yes, sir!"

The aide-de-camp, who'd been watching on edge, snapped a salute to Sawada with a relieved face. Then he drew a calling card from his breast and handed it to Han San.

"The settlement is made at the substation."

Only then did Han San lower the knife. Taking the card the aide handed over, he said to Sawada, "Thank you, commander."

Toono came up too.

"My card, then! Receive it by the day after tomorrow if you can! After that I return to Gyeongseong!"

That card too Han San received politely.

"Thank you."

So two cards now sat in his breast.

One the viper's promise, one the Silver Fox's guarantee.

And with that, the three hundred won prize was confirmed.

"Take it back."

At Sawada's order, the military police rushed in and hoisted Ginsei's carcass up onto their shoulders.

Han San watched in silence. It hadn't been taken from him. He'd sold it. For two cards and three hundred won.

"We withdraw."

Sawada turned away. Crrk! The walnuts scraped against each other, and the military police followed behind him. Bounding along, Toono waved an arm at Han San, and with that last gesture they vanished into the mountain shadows of Seorak.

The lamplight receded, the crunch of military boots faded, and the gorge was left again with only darkness and the sound of water.

"Hoo..."

Only then did Han San let out the long breath he'd been holding. With a thud, he plopped down at his ease.

"Damn it all... there's never anyone who'll just let it go and leave it at that."

Well... it was fine.

Both in the sense of being all right and in the sense of being all done, yes, it was fine.

'I made it across.'

A perilous bridge, with dangerous moments along the way, but somehow he'd managed to cross it.

'And I earned money.'

One step closer to the breakwater that would hold off next year's tragedy.

Relief surged in, and at once the pain he'd forgotten lifted its head.

"Urk."

A dry heave, pain. A heavy lump of something foreign lodged deep in his belly.

'The bullet...'

That lead slug he'd swallowed was reacting now with his stomach acid.

"Damn it, really..."

Han San rubbed his belly and grimaced.

"I'm not going to get lead poisoning from this, am I... Got to get it out fast."

Fiber. Only abundant fiber could solve this...

"Let's eat. Once I'm home. Make plenty of wild-greens side dishes..."

Swaying, Han San pushed himself up.

He trudged off along the moonlit path.

* * *

Behind the military police carrying off the silver wolf, two officers walked side by side.

"As I thought, this place is fun! Inje!"

Toono spoke first. Gazing up at the night sky, he said it cheerfully.

"At that age, a pillar like that. The son of a Baekdu Mountain hunter? Hmm, is that all there is to it?"

Even as he walked, the toes of his shoes tapped, tap, tap, at the ground. Like a snow-mountain fox checking the firmness of the earth with its toes.

"Something more? A little more? Hmm! But his age, he didn't look even twenty! To build up a scheme takes time, especially then, hmm? Hmmmm. As I'd expect, then, devoted solely to honing his hunting skills? That's the only logically possible answer, though."

Sawada gave no reply. He only rolled the walnuts in his hand.

Toono cut a sideways glance at him.

"It's interesting, isn't it? You think so too, Kazuo-kun."

"He is nothing but an ignorant bumpkin. The kind littered all over this dung-heap of a land..."

Sawada said it without expression.

Toono smiled as he adjusted the set of his monocle.

"Liar! Right now you do think it, don't you, that it was a good thing you didn't shoot?"

"I was not thinking anything, and I did not."

"Ahah! That's a lie too."

Toono clasped his hands behind his back.

"Kazuo-kun. I rate that ambition-filled side of you highly, but every so often I have a thought!"

"What sort of thought do you mean?"

"The thought that if we cut off Kazuo-kun's balls, the Empire might be able to put him to better use."

The footsteps stopped. And the sound of rolling walnuts.

"Wouldn't you say your male hormones run a touch too high?"

Sawada started to say something, then decided he simply wouldn't.

"But, hmm!"

Fortunately, Toono went on.

"When you think of the bottomless lust for power of the eunuchs of history, perhaps the ferocity of ambition has little to do with the concentration of male hormones after all!"

So I'd best set this thought aside, said Baron Kannoizuna Toono.

Only then could Sawada speak.

"...I will keep it in mind and act accordingly."

"Yes, please do!"

Toono began walking on, bright as ever.

Sawada ground his teeth.

But whether that anger pointed at the Imperial baron walking ahead, or at the Joseon slash-and-burn settler he'd left behind, even Sawada himself could not tell.

'Damn them all.'

A premonition that this would turn into a stubborn, lasting tie pricked at the inside of the eye wrapped under the patch.

[1] An atlatl is a spear-throwing tool—a handheld shaft with a hook or socket that cradles the butt of a dart, extending the thrower's arm to launch it with far greater speed and force; it was used by prehistoric hunters worldwide.

[2] "Ninth-rank" (9두품) borrows the language of the dupum head-rank system of ancient Silla, a hereditary scheme of social grades; here it is used loosely to mark Sawada's standing within the colonial hierarchy.

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