Chapter 7 : Commencement

Chapter 7: Commencement

Dong Bong-su decided to first learn the language of this place.

However, if he tried to become familiar with it only by thinking and listening in his head, it would take at least a year. That was more than enough time for him, in his current frail condition, to die.

He could be beaten to death by Machil, die from an infection, or easily die due to some completely unforeseen variable.

He had to acquire it much faster.

One month. At the latest, within two or three months. Even if native-level fluency was impossible, he needed to reach a level where listening, writing, and speaking posed no problem. Only then could he significantly increase his chances of survival.

But how, without books or a teacher?

Swoosh.

He moved his partially recovered body and sat up.

Wasn’t it simple?

If it didn’t exist, he would make it.

If there were no books, he would write them. If there were no teachers, he would become his own teacher.

‘First, I’ll make a language manual.’

A manual was, naturally, a book. To make a book, he first needed paper.

There was no way something like paper existed in this stable.

He had examined various things in the meantime and found one suitable substitute. By discovering it, he secured not only a paper substitute, but also an ink substitute.

Squeak, squeak.

The fellows that disturbed his sleep every night.

They were rats. He had been eyeing them ever since his body had started recovering.

He immediately put his plan into action.

The rats were nimble even here.

But Dong Bong-su’s reflexes, now somewhat recovered, were even nimbler. Above all, the sharpness of civilization’s weapon—the rat trap made using rotten wooden logs, rice straw, and stones—was even greater.

● ● ●

For several days, he caught rats.

Dong Bong-su skinned the captured rats, removed the entrails from the meat, dried it well in the sunlight, and ate it. He dried the hides even more thoroughly and used them like paper. He squeezed every last drop of the rats’ blood, stored it in a pouch made of rat hide, and kept it in his inventory.

In the meantime, he also made something resembling a brush using horsehair. Because it was stiff, it wasn’t ideal for writing, but it was sufficient. In his current situation, wasn’t even this something to be grateful for?

During this entire process, he learned one new fact as well. Although he had killed dozens of rats, there was no change whatsoever in the experience bar. Rats were animals with zero experience value. Even so, he didn’t conclude that all animals lacked experience. It could simply be because rats were too weak.

He decided to put the ‘no experience from animals’ hypothesis on hold for now.

Now, paper, ink, and a brush were all prepared.

He carefully memorized Machil’s grumbling and the conversations of people who came to the stable, and when they disappeared, he took out the rat hide, the horsehair brush, and the rats’ blood, and wrote down in Hangul the pronunciations he had heard and their presumed meanings.

About another month passed, and a manual written in archaic Chinese was completed, its dozens of pages made from rat hide and filled with tiny, densely packed characters. If someone from the modern era had seen this book, they might have thought it quite convincing. That was how neat the handwriting was, and how well organized the book had become.

Who was it that said handwriting was a window into the heart? That was clearly a lie. Just look at Dong Bong-su’s handwriting. It was perfect.

His writing was straighter and more proper than anyone else’s in the world. If a person could be judged by their handwriting, then Dong Bong-su was complete. No, perhaps it really was true that handwriting reflected the heart. After all, his heart would never waver, at any moment.

From the time the manual was completed, Dong Bong-su began to let Machil notice that his body had fully recovered. That was because, through making the manual, he could now understand most ordinary speech.

Even so, he continued to pretend to be mute. His pronunciation was still clumsy, and his ability to combine words was markedly inferior compared to the locals. This act might well continue even if he became perfectly fluent. If that was more suitable for hiding his true nature, then he should do exactly that.

“Ah, this worthless bastard. Looks like he’s become a perfect mute in the end.”

When Dong Bong-su still couldn’t speak even after fully recovering, Machil started calling him Ma-a-sam[a]. Mabyeonsam had already been a derogatory name, but Ma-a-sam was an even worse insult.

Ma-a-sam.

A new name given to Dong Bong-su because he was mute.

He now had four names. Dong Bong-su, Sosam, Mabyeonsam, and Ma-a-sam. The latter three, excluding Dong Bong-su, were all ‘aliases’ that everyone in the Danri Family used for him as they pleased.

No one knew that he was Dong Bong-su. Behind the mask, the false names, and the perfect act of a mute, his true face and his true name remained hidden, even now…….

No one knew.

● ● ●

Around the time the season changed and a slightly chilly wind began to blow.

Dong Bong-su was finally able to leave the stable and wander around the Danri Family grounds as he wished. Of course, many restrictions still existed.

Family warriors who picked fights with him at all hours, fellow hirelings who looked down on him for the sole reason that he was a stable hireling, and even servants. Even when he walked through the fortress city of Bongyang morning and evening to take the horses out for exercise, people didn’t leave him alone.

[That idiot, they say he can’t even talk now?]

[Then he’s a shit-covered mute? A shit-idiot mute, huh.]

[Guess we should call him shit-idiot-mute now! Hahaha.]

He suffered all kinds of humiliation, but he didn’t care. The more it happened, the more he acted like a fool. When he was cursed at, he went “hehe.” When stones hit him, he cried “ow.” When he was ignored, he lowered his head as if it were only natural.

The more nicknames like shit-smeared bastard, mute, idiot, shit-idiot-mute, and Ma-a-sam were added, the more paradoxically it proved how perfect his act was. All of this slander, abuse, and violence would serve as a shield that concealed his identity for a while.

And.

No one here—neither in the Danri Family, nor further out in Bongyang—would know.

That all those things which had become a shield for Dong Bong-su would eventually turn into blades and return to strike them.

Dong Bong-su learned language through insults, grasped the geography of Bongyang while being beaten, and absorbed the culture of this place while lying flat on the ground. In that way, he gradually blended naturally into the darkness.

He was a shadow. A long, large shadow, yet so dank and murky that no one recognized it. No one noticed his outstanding ordinariness.

The shadow, unseen by anyone, was steadily growing darker in the shadows.

Several more months passed with him keeping his head lowered, and one day, he finally began the hunt.

● ● ●

These days, Machil felt like life was worth living.

Should one call it a blessing in disguise?

Wasn’t that phrase the elders loved to use meant for moments just like this?

When that Ma-a-sam fellow had first gotten hurt, he had been irritated and dissatisfied. Who would feel good about taking on someone else’s work—especially the work of someone far inferior to himself?

But as the saying went, after hardship came pleasure, and he was finally being rewarded for all the trouble he had gone through taking care of Ma-a-sam.

Though Ma-a-sam had developed aphasia, once he got back on his feet, he listened extremely well. Even without being told, he took care of the military hireling duties in advance, smoothly and efficiently. Perhaps because he had become mute, he no longer talked back, and he worked with great diligence. The resentful look that used to fill his eyes had vanished as well.

Now, when one looked into Ma-a-sam’s eyes, they were simply transparent. So clear and pure that sometimes Machil almost felt sorry for having tormented him all this time.

Today as well, Ma-a-sam had woken up early in the morning and finished most of the tasks Machil was supposed to do. Thanks to that, Machil was able to sleep comfortably a bit longer in the family’s backyard.

“Yaaawn—.”

Having slept more deeply than usual, his whole body felt refreshed, and strength surged stiffly into his lower half. On top of that, since he had gone back to sleep right after waking up, he hadn’t even managed to do his daily hand exercise.

As if it were only natural, the thing below, standing rigidly upright, glared at him through his trousers.

Cool me down quickly. Put me to rest already. Hurry up and let me have a taste.

Machil lightly flicked his grotesquely bulging lower member.

“You little bastard, you’ve got a nose for money, huh. Alright, alright, just hold on a bit. I’ll let you have your fill of some holes real soon, hehe.”

He had received his wages yesterday. Every time he got paid, he always spent it by burying it in a courtesan’s hips and breasts. That was his only joy in life. In a life lived being looked down on, weren’t the only times he truly felt alive when he held a woman, or when he tormented Sosam, someone even lower than himself?

Because of that, from the first day of every month, he always counted down the days until payday. Of course, Aeng-aeng, the courtesan who lived off bleeding Machil dry, was surely the same.

“With my purse this fat, should I skip Aeng-aeng today and taste Choseon’s bare flesh instead? Choseon’s thing was just perfectly ripe, I tell you.”

The target of Machil’s grotesque lower member shifted in an instant.

“Right, right. How can a man live eating the same thing every day? Sometimes you’ve got to eat meat, sometimes fish, sometimes a spring chicken, too. Hehehe.”

Machil laughed lewdly as he stood up.

He immediately set out for the Bongyang Inn. The reason he changed his prey today was simple—his purse was thicker than on a usual payday.

When Machil had gone in the morning to organize the weapons, Sosam had already finished all the work, and a leather pouch had been placed on top. There was money inside it, and he didn’t even need to think about who had left it there.

“You little bastard. You’ve finally learned how the world works.”

If you just bowed your head every day, knelt down, begged, and pleaded because you were weak, how could you ever live properly in this world? If you had no strength, then you needed to know how to be flexible like this.

Machil decided that from now on, he should torment Sosam a little—just a little—less. Of course, if the tribute ever decreased, it might become even worse.

A tune naturally flowed from Machil’s lips as he headed toward the Bongyang Inn.

[a][TL/N: Ma-a-sam (馬啞三) Ma (馬) horse and A (啞) means “mute”. Together, it means “the mute horse-boy Sam”.