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◈ The Hunting Genius of the Japanese Colonial Era

Chapter 69

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The Gift

The next day, July 5th, 1933.

He'd have loved nothing more than to buy up goods at Inje, fly over to Sokcho and clean out the wares there, buy again on the spot, come back to Inje and resell, and run that loop forever—but, once again, the Sokcho market was a five-day market held on a three-and-eight cycle.

'No point going now.'

There'd be a scrap of a market, and consignment goods at the brokers' places, and whatever the fishing boats hauled in, sure, but none of it had the staying power to build a business around.

"Get some rest, all of you. Watch yourselves so the town police constables don't catch you. You lot are resourceful, so I don't need to pile on any more nagging, right?"

Han San said that to the Chuk Brothers and made to leave. Chuk Hong-cheol caught hold of him.

"Where's the boss off to?"

"Me? Just going to swing by home for a bit."

Drop off the things he'd bought, pick up whatever honey his father had made and whatever medicinal goods his mother had processed, and, while he was at it, gauge how Old Woman Wangdae was moving, and so on.

Chuk Hong-cheol made a complicated face.

"Boss ought to rest too. You'll wreck your body carrying on like that."

"I'm still full of pep, though."

"You look full of pep now, but wait till you're ten years older. It all comes back as a debt, I'm telling you. And besides, where's there a company where the boss alone works this hard?"

"Course the boss has to work the hardest. Why would somebody else look after what's mine?"

As tangled as his past life had been, the mindset of the old man living it over was simple.

Chuk Hong-cheol scratched hard at the back of his head. The late-blooming activist, outmatched at talk, just clicked his tongue, then said,

"Then before you go, at least leave us something to do. If it's something we're good at, we'll do it well; if it's something we're bad at, we'll learn from it."

"Ah. That works fine for me."

Han San grinned. Hired hands brimming with drive was a good thing, all in all.

Not that he worked them ragged over it. He tossed out a few tasks well within the line of manageable fatigue, then set off for home.

The moment he got back to Sebeom Valley, the first thing he felt was the thick smell of water.

Shhhhh.

The sound of running water clamored everywhere. He looked around, and a man swinging a pickaxe brightened at the sight of him.

"Hey there, San! Back from town?"

"Something like that. What are you up to, ajae?"

Choi Seo-bang, who lived in Middle Hamlet, wiped his brow once and grinned.

"What am I up to? Digging a waterway!

Didn't you take Meokbawi Valley back from that old geezer Deok-tae and return it to the hands of us Sebeom Valley folk? Now that it's come back into our arms, we've got to use it right—otherwise it'd be a sin, wouldn't it?"

True to his word, Choi Seo-bang was digging a channel that ran from Meokbawi Valley all the way to his own house.

It wasn't only Choi Seo-bang's household. The other homes had run waterways too, spread like a spiderweb from Meokbawi Valley right up to their own front doors.

'I thought about this before I set out to trade, but what is this, some slash-and-burn canal village...'

In truth, it was work they'd been doing quietly for a while, starting with the Han family's spring, but now that Deok-tae's gang's turf-holding was gone, an age of grand waterways had openly arrived.

Choi Seo-bang laughed heartily.

"Isn't this all thanks to you, San? Anyhow, I sized up your Han family as a gathering of hidden masters and remarkable men, then sized them up again, and then sized them up once more!"

Listening to that kind of talk as he came back to the house, his little brother Bada, who'd been tending the chickens, came scampering out.

"Hyung! Welcome back!"

"Yeah."

Han San popped a dried squid leg into the boy's mouth and gave his head a rub, and his mother came out of the kitchen.

"Son! Aigo, our son, you've gone all sooty and you're just soaked through with sweat! Go rinse your back off, quick. Once you're done with that, I'll boil up some hot water in that big pot you brought last time, so you can wash with that too..."

"Aw, why boil water? Waste of firewood."

"Waste, nothing! I went to all that trouble bearing you handsome. Wash off and scrub away the grime and you'll be a jade prince of a boy... and then, down the line, you'll catch some future bride's eye in a flash..."

"Your son's busy earning money. No time for romance."

Han San smiled easily and perched on the edge of the porch floor.

"More to the point, Mother. Anything happen while I was away? Did that Deok-tae fellow drag over some hired hands or..."

Ham Ssang-sim, who'd been sulking over her failed attempt to slip in talk of marriage, waved her hand.

"Aigo, what would happen. If they'd tried, they'd know full well what would befall them once our fine son came marching back.

And the neighbors too... Before, maybe, but everyone's set on hoisting you up as a proper general now. Those Deok-tae swine could come, but they'd only get mobbed and chased off, folks say."

"Hmm."

Winning goodwill by opening up Meokbawi Valley had been part of Han San's calculation. Cementing the family's standing that way, so it'd be too prickly to touch even when he and his hired hands were away, had been the aim.

At a glance the aim seemed well achieved, but the scenes he'd seen on the road home nagged at him.

"So the neighbors are hoisting me up, that's it..."

"That's right! Thanks to you they get to use water to their hearts' content, they say. Truth be told, how much trouble did the water cause us all this while? With that big gorge valley sitting right there, those Deok-tae louts made us make do with just a boogersworth, a dribble at a time."

Han San's eyes narrowed.

He rose from the porch floor and looked once more over the fence at Middle Hamlet, at the waterways dug up every which way.

His first impression—what Venice of Seorak is this?—was of course an overblown bit of joking, but in a situation like this, really nothing had happened?

'Deok-tae's lost his standing completely, so set him aside. But that even Old Woman Wangdae and Park Il are keeping silent...'

Because they were working out their next move?

Or... because they'd already worked it out?

'Hmm.'

The subtle needle lodged in Han San's heart started to sound an alarm.

Ham Ssang-sim, who'd been beaming a moment ago, soon caught that uneasy air about her son.

"Son... is something the matter?"

Ham Ssang-sim asked in an anxious tone. Just then Han Man-seok came out of the inner room, leaning on his staff.

Han San turned to face his parents and said,

"Mother, Father. There are a few very important things I absolutely need to ask of you while I'm away..."

All through Han San's [request], Ham Ssang-sim's expression rocked back and forth.

Han Man-seok's face didn't change, but the moment his son finished, he nodded at once.

"Understood. I'll get it ready."

"That's right! Your mother and father here will have it all ready, so don't you worry!"

Only then could Han San smile again.

"I'll be counting on you."

With his son's worries set down like that, warmth came back to the very floor stones of the house.

That evening, after the meal, Han San untied a bundle.

"Mother. I bought this for you."

"Aigo, why go buying things... Omama, heavens. Wh-what is all this? Isn't this a skirt?"

And going by the soft, supple feel of it, it was a skirt made of silk. Something he'd picked up at the Sokcho market.

"Wh-who is there for me to show something like this to, here of all places..."

"Aw, what do you mean, no one. Father over there has his eyes all lit up."

"That man? Aigo, that man's happy no matter how carelessly I throw something on, he says.

Back when your father and I first met in Wonsan, too, I got all tangled up while untying a net and made quite the embarrassing spectacle, and just then that man came by hauling a whole deer on his back..."

Han Man-seok cleared his throat. Ham Ssang-sim smiled shyly and lifted the thing lying beside the skirt.

"But what's this, now? The skirt aside—gloves?"

"Yes. One's a pair of rubber gloves. Dishwater's supposedly not good for the hands at all."

"So these are those rubber gloves... And this beside it? Gloves too? But why such thick gloves in the dead of summer..."

They were Western-style oven mitts.

Stroking his mother's hands, thick as oxhide—which had nagged at him from the very first day of his regression—Han San said,

"You handle hot things all the time doing kitchen work. Bought them so you can wear these while you do it."

Ham Ssang-sim stilled. She said nothing for a moment, then, gathering herself a little,

"No, really... What's all this, making a fuss over it... Hot things, well... You just wrap them up rough with your sleeve and that's that..."

Even as she said it, Ham Ssang-sim couldn't set the oven mitts down from her hands.

Han San gazed at her a long while, then turned his eyes to his father.

"There's one thing I got ready for Father, too."

"Hmm."

One of Han Man-seok's eyebrows rose slightly. A long, heavy thing wrapped in oiled cloth.

Its identity was revealed even before the cloth was undone, as Han San set a few documents down beside it.

"It's a firearm permit issued under your household register, Father."

From the moment he'd inherited the Type 38 infantry rifle, the thought of buying his father a new gun had lived in a corner of Han San's heart the whole time.

The problem was which gun to buy.

The first thing to come to mind was a Murata hunting gun, but that was a shotgun. Its range was laughably short, and anything it hit was left a rag. Call it a hunting gun all you liked, it was no gun for hunting at all.

So the firearm Han San had chosen was this one.

"It's called a 22 Long Rifle. It's been a good while since I put the order in at the Inje gunshop, and it only just came. It can take aimed shots out to a hundred meters."

Against the Type 38 infantry rifle its range and firepower were weak, of course, but this was something you could carry proudly out in the light of day.

Han Man-seok stroked the gun his son had bought, saying nothing.

Then, short and firm, he nodded once.

"Thank you."

Han San grinned.

"No need for thanks. It's only natural. A Baekdu Mountain hunter with no gun—how could that be?"

The corner of Han Man-seok's mouth rose slightly.

Han San kept smiling as he turned his head. He faced Bada, who'd been eyeing the gifts his mother and father received with envious eyes.

"Bada. This is for you."

"Huh?"

At that, Bada's face broke into a full grin—but once he saw that the gift his hyung pulled out was some kind of book, he made a yuck sound.

"Just give me something to eat..."

It didn't last long. The moment Han San grinned and opened the book, Han Bada's face lit up again.

"Huh? What's this? The book's got tons of pictures!"

Han San spoke as if showing off.

"This right here is what they call manga. It's the latest art form, all the rage over yonder."

"Wheeee...!!"

This too was something he'd gotten at the Sokcho market.

If you wanted to get your hands on cutting-edge goods like this, you normally had to go all the way to Chuncheon, but at a harbor five-day market where boats put in, things like this rolled in now and then, depending on your luck.

Bada's eyes went bright and sparkling—true to Teacher Han Bada of his past life, who'd never slacked on checking new manga even with a body past sixty.

But soon those eyes clouded with bewilderment.

"Hyung. Does this... mean these guys are saying something?"

"That's right. Sharp of you."

"Uh... but I can't tell what they're saying..."

That was because it was written in Japanese. Han San smiled and rubbed his brother's head.

"I'll read it to you in a bit."

"Really!?"

"Sure. Really. You've got all your Hangul down, haven't you? It's about time you learned Japanese and hanja too."

Kids are bound to hate studying, they say, but a lot of the time that's a matter of how they're first made to meet it.

And so after the sun set that day, under the oil lamp, the Han brothers lay side by side and read the manga together.

Honestly, there wasn't much to the story. Had Han San lived several decades more in his past life, it'd have carried a title like [I Was a Stray Black Mutt, and After Enlisting I Get Promoted Without Limit ~Is It So Hard to Go Berserk Against the Pig Corps and the Bear Army?~].

'What is this, some North Korean cartoon...'

That's how a militarist state goes. Ten more years down the line into the 1940s and the genetic match rate would hit 99%.

But even with a story like that, to Bada, a slash-and-burn village kid, this new marvel called manga was a lump of pure dopamine.

"This puppy's so cute!"

A reaction like that.

"But why does he walk on two legs, then go crawling on four again?"

Or a reaction like that.

"Huh? Did he just get hit by a bomb? Why? And if he got hit by a bomb, how come only his clothes are torn and he's fine?"

Or reactions like those.

No doubt the very spirit of Teacher Han Bada, six-term assemblyman—a proper feast of reactions. There was a reason Tono had set his sights on this kid in his past life.

Not to be outdone by such a little brother, Han San picked up a pencil and marked annotations into the manga book one by one.

—Ugh, that smarts.

—Hahahaha, most amusing it is, sir.

"Aha! So that's what it means!"

Han Bada repeated it, thrilled. Han San nodded and cleared his throat.

"Now, next. Hey! Have this fellow do something! That's the meaning..."

At the sight of his hyung changing his voice to match each character and acting it out so vividly, Bada kicked his feet and laughed himself silly.

The manga book was over in a flash. Rubbing the head of his disappointed brother, Han San asked,

"Was it fun?"

"Yeah! So much!"

Han Bada clenched both fists tight, eyes sparkling.

"When I grow up I'm gonna be a soldier for sure! I'll become a private, then a gunso[1], then a shosa[2], then a shosho[3] and...!"

"Uh... no no, that, let's think a little more about your future path..."

Bada, who'd been shrieking with delight, wore himself out and fell asleep, and Han San came out to the porch floor. He looked up at the night sky with his father, passing the time together disassembling and cleaning the 22 Long Rifle.

The date rolled over.

July 6th, 1933.

"Leaving already? Rest a while longer before you go..."

Ham Ssang-sim watched him worriedly, but Han San grinned as he bound leggings over his wool trousers.

"If I'm going, I've got to go at this hour. Head out after sunup and I'll steam to death on the way down—steam to death."

"Aigo... Well, the sun has been fierce these days... All right, take care. What you asked for yesterday, your father and I will have it good and ready."

"Yes! Your son's off!"

Loaded with honey, medicinal goods, and hides, Han San set out on the road.

[1] Gunso was a sergeant-level rank in the Imperial Japanese Army.

[2] Shosa was a field-grade officer rank equivalent to major in the Imperial Japanese Army.

[3] Shosho was a general officer rank equivalent to major general in the Imperial Japanese Army.

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