Episode 7. Commencement
Dong Bong-su decided to start by learning the language of this place first.
But if he tried to get used to it only by thinking in his head and learning it only by listening, it would take at least a year.
That was plenty of time for him—still in a weak state like this—to die.
He could be beaten to death by Machil, die after catching an infection, or die because of some completely unforeseen variable—there were countless possibilities.
He had to learn it fast.
One month. At the latest, within two or three months.
Even if reaching native level was unrealistic, he had to at least get to the point where listening, writing, and speaking wouldn't be a problem.
Only then could he sharply raise his chances of survival.
But how, with no books and no teacher?
Swoosh.
He forced his somewhat recovered body to move and sat up.
Isn't it simple?
If you don't have it, you make it.
If you don't have a book, you write one, and if you don't have a teacher, you just become your own teacher.
'I'll make a language manual first.'
A manual is, of course, a book.
To make a book, he needed paper first.
There was no way something like paper would be in a stable.
He'd been looking around at this and that, and he'd found a suitable substitute.
By finding it, he secured not only a replacement for paper, but a replacement for ink as well.
Squeak squeak
The little bastards that had been disturbing his sleep every night.
They were rats.
They were what he'd been aiming for since his body hadn't even fully healed.
He put it into action right away.
The rat bastards were quick here too.
But the reflexes of Dong Bong-su—now that he'd recovered to some extent—were even quicker.
More than anything, the weapon of civilization called a rat trap, made using rotten wood, straw, and stones, was sharper still.
***
For several days, he caught rats.
Dong Bong-su skinned the rats he caught, removed the innards from the meat, dried it well in the sun, and ate it.
He dried the hides even more thoroughly and used them like paper.
He squeezed out the rats' blood without wasting a single drop, poured it into a pouch made from rat hide, and stored it in his inventory.
In the meantime, he also made something like a brush out of horsehair.
Because it was stiff, it wasn't ideal for writing, but it was enough.
At a time like this, wasn't even this much something to be grateful for?
In the course of all this, he also learned one new fact.
He'd killed dozens of rats, but the experience bar didn't change at all.
Rats were animals worth zero experience.
Even so, he didn't jump to the conclusion that all animals had no experience.
It could've been because rats were too weak.
He decided to put judgment on the 'animals give no experience' hypothesis on hold for now.
Now he had paper, ink, and a brush.
He carefully remembered what Machil grumbled and the conversations of the people who came to the stable, and when they were gone, he took out the rat hide, the horsehair brush, and the rats' blood, and wrote down in Hangul the pronunciations he'd heard and the meanings he inferred.
After about another month, an archaic-chinese-style language manual—filled with tiny, ant-sized letters across dozens of sheets of rat hide—was complete.
If someone in the modern era saw this book, they might even feel it was pretty convincing.
It was that neatly written, and that well organized.
Who was it that said handwriting is the window to the heart?
That must be a lie.
Look at Dong Bong-su's handwriting.
It's perfect.
His writing was more straight and proper than anyone else's in the world.
If you could judge a person by their handwriting, Dong Bong-su was a complete being.
No—maybe handwriting really is a reflection of the heart.
Because his heart would never waver, no matter when or where.
From the moment the manual was finished, Dong Bong-su began to let Machil see that his body had recovered.
Because by then, he could understand most of what was being said.
But he still pretended to be mute.
His pronunciation was still clumsy, and his ability to combine words was markedly inferior to the locals'.
Even if he became able to speak perfectly, this acting might continue.
If that was more suitable for hiding his true nature, then he should do it—no matter what.
"Ugh, you halfwit bastard. So you really did become a perfect mute."
When Dong Bong-su still couldn't speak even though he'd recovered, Machil started calling him Ma-a-sam.
Mabyeonsam had been an insult too, but Ma-a-sam was an even worse one.
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.
Aside from Dong Bong-su, the other three were all "aliases" that everyone in the Danri Family used however they pleased.
No one knew he was Dong Bong-su.
Behind the mask, the alias, and the perfect act of being mute—his real face and his real name, even now…
No one knew.
***
Around the time the seasons changed and a slightly chilly wind began to blow,
Dong Bong-su was finally able to leave the stable and wander around inside the Danri Family grounds as he'd long intended.
Of course, there were still many restrictions.
Clan warriors who picked fights with him at all hours, grooms who looked down on him for one reason alone—because he was a lowly stablehand—even though they held the same "groom" status, and servants.
Even when he walked the streets of Bongyang's castle city morning and evening to take the horses out for a stroll, people didn't leave him alone.
[That idiot bastard—now he can't even talk, they say?]
[Then he's a shit-smeared mute, huh? A shit-idiot mute. A shit-idiot mute.]
[Guess we should call him a shit-idiot-mute now! Hahaha.]
He endured all kinds of insults, but he didn't care.
The more they did it, the more he acted like an even bigger fool.
If they cursed him, "Hehe," if they hit him with stones, "Ow," if they ignored him, he lowered his head as if it were only natural.
The more nicknames they added—shit-smeared, mute, idiot, shit-idiot-mute, Ma-a-sam—the more, paradoxically, it proved how perfect his act was.
All those curses, abusive words, and violence would become a shield that hid his identity for a while.
And.
No one here—neither in the Danri Family nor, beyond that, in Bongyang—would know
that everything that had served as his shield would turn into a blade and swing back at them.
Dong Bong-su learned language through their insults, grasped Bongyang's geography while being beaten, and absorbed this place's culture while flattened to the ground.
Bit by bit, he naturally sank into the darkness.
He was a shadow.
A long, large shadow—but so damp and sinister that no one could recognize it.
No one noticed his exceptional ordinariness.
That shadow, unseen, was growing darker and darker in the back alleys.
Then one day, after several more months of keeping his head down, he finally began his hunt.
***
These days, Machil was starting to feel like life was worth living.
Was it "a blessing in disguise"?
He felt like the lofty elders' favorite saying existed precisely for moments like this.
When Ma-a-sam first got hurt, he'd been furious and dissatisfied.
Who would be happy to take on someone else's work—especially the work of someone far beneath them?
But after hardship comes joy, they say,
and now he was finally being repaid for all the suffering he'd endured while diligently wiping Ma-a-sam's ass and cleaning up after him.
Even if he'd gotten aphasia, the Ma-a-sam who got back up listened to him very well.
Without even being told, he took care of the sick-groom chores in advance, efficiently and neatly.
Maybe because he'd become mute, all the backtalk disappeared, and he worked very diligently.
The resentful look in his eyes was gone too.
Now, when Machil looked into Ma-a-sam's eyes, they were simply clear.
So clear and transparent that sometimes, he felt almost sorry for how much he'd bullied him.
Today too, Ma-a-sam had gotten up early and finished most of what Machil was supposed to do.
Thanks to that, Machil could comfortably sleep in longer in the clan's back garden.
"Yaaawn—."
Since he'd slept more deeply than usual, his whole body felt refreshed, and Machil felt his lower half surge with strength.
And because he'd gone back to sleep right after waking up, he hadn't been able to properly do his daily "hand exercise."
As if it were only natural, the thing that was standing stiff and proud was glaring at him from under his pants.
Cool me down.
Put me to sleep.
Hurry up and let me taste it.
Machil flicked his own grotesquely bulging "thing."
"You little shit, sniffing out the smell of money from who knows where. Yeah, yeah—just hold on a bit. I'll show you a hole to taste, plenty."
Yesterday, he'd gotten his wages.
Every time he got paid, he'd stick it into Aeng-aeng's ass and chest without fail.
That was his one and only joy in life.
In a life where he was constantly looked down on, wasn't the only time he felt alive when he held a woman—and when he bullied Sosam, someone even less than him?
That was why, from the first day of every month, he always counted the days until payday.
Of course, Aeng-aeng—who lived off squeezing him dry—was the same.
"My purse is fat too… so today, instead of Aeng-aeng, should I taste Choseon's soft flesh? Choseon's has gotten real nice and ripe, damn."
In an instant, the prey of Machil's grotesque "thing" changed.
"Yeah. How can a person live eating only rice every time? Sometimes you gotta eat meat too, and fish too, and young chicken too. Heh heh heh."
Machil laughed lewdly and stood up.
He headed straight for the Bongyang Inn.
The reason he changed prey was simple: today, his purse was even thicker than on a normal payday.
When Machil went to tidy up the weapons in the morning, Sosam had already finished all the work, and on top of that, there was a leather pouch sitting there.
Inside it was money, and he didn't even have to think about who'd left it.
"Bastard. Looks like you finally learned how the world works."
If you're weak, and you only bow your head every day, drop to your knees, beg, and plead—how can you properly live in this world?
If you don't have strength, you need to know how to be "flexible" like this.
Machil decided that from now on, he'd bully Sosam a little—just a little—less.
Of course, if the tribute money decreased, he might get even worse, but still.
As Machil headed for the Bongyang Inn, a tune naturally slipped from his mouth.