Chapter 7 - The Beginning

Dong Bongsu decided to start by learning the local language.

But simply thinking things over and listening until he grew accustomed to it would take at least a year. In his current weakened state, that was more than enough time for him to die.

Machil might beat him to death. An infection might kill him. Or any number of entirely unforeseen factors could bring about his end.

He had to learn much faster.

One month. Two or three at the latest. Native fluency might be beyond him, but he needed to reach a point where he could listen, write, and speak without difficulty. Only then could he substantially improve his chances of survival.

But how, without books or a teacher?

He smoothly pushed his partially recovered body upright.

Wasn't it simple?

If he didn't have something, he could make it.

If there were no books, he could write one. If there were no teacher, he could teach himself.

'I'll start by making a language manual.'

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

There was no chance of finding anything like paper in this stable.

He had been examining various things and had found one suitable substitute. That discovery had secured him not only a replacement for paper, but one for ink as well.

SQUEAK, SQUEAK.

The little creatures that disturbed his sleep every night.

Rats. He had had his eye on them since before his body had properly healed.

He put his plan into action at once.

The little bastards were quick even in this world.

But now that Dong Bongsu had recovered somewhat, his reflexes were quicker. Above all, the rat traps he fashioned from rotten branches, rice straw, stones, and the like gave him an even sharper edge—one of civilization's useful inventions.

● ● ●

He spent several days catching rats.

Dong Bongsu skinned his catches, removed their entrails, and dried the meat thoroughly in the sun before eating it. He dried the skins even more completely to use as paper. He squeezed out every last drop of blood, collected it in pouches made of rat skin, and stored them in his Inventory.

Meanwhile, he also made something resembling a brush from horsehair. Its stiffness made it awkward to write with, but it would do. In his circumstances, even this was something to be grateful for.

In the process, he discovered something new. Despite killing dozens of rats, he saw no change in his experience bar. Rats were animals that yielded zero experience. Even so, he did not conclude that all animals gave no experience. Perhaps rats were simply too weak.

For now, he reserved judgment on the hypothesis that animals yielded no experience.

Now he had everything he needed: paper, ink, and a brush.

He carefully memorized Machil's grumbling and the conversations of people who visited the stable. Once they left, he took out his rat skins, horsehair brush, and rat blood, then used Hangul to record the sounds he had heard and their presumed meanings.

About another month later, he completed a manual of archaic Chinese, its tiny letters filling dozens of rat skins. Someone from the modern world might have found it quite convincing. That was how neat its handwriting was, and how well organized the book was.

Who had said handwriting was a window into the soul? Clearly, that was a lie. Just look at Dong Bongsu's handwriting. It was perfect.

His writing was straighter and neater than anyone else's in the world. If handwriting could reveal a person's character, Dong Bongsu was perfection itself. No, perhaps handwriting really did reflect the mind. After all, his mind would remain unshaken at any time, under any circumstances.

Once the manual was complete, Dong Bongsu began letting Machil see that his body had fully recovered. Compiling it had brought him to the point where he could understand most of what people said.

But he continued pretending to be mute. His pronunciation was still clumsy, and his ability to string words together fell far short of the locals'. He might keep up this act even after he could speak perfectly. If that served him better in concealing his true nature, he would gladly do so.

"Ugh, you half-witted little shit. You've gone completely mute after all."

When Dong Bongsu remained unable to speak despite his physical recovery, Machil began calling him Horse-Mute Sam. Horse-Shit Sam had been a derogatory nickname too, but Horse-Mute Sam was worse.

Horse-Mute Sam.

Dong Bongsu's new name, bestowed on him because he was mute.

He now had four names: Dong Bongsu, Sosam, Horse-Shit Sam, and Horse-Mute Sam. Apart from Dong Bongsu, the other three were his "aliases," used at whim by everyone in the Danri Family.

No one knew he was Dong Bongsu. His true face and true name, concealed behind his mask, his aliases, and his flawless performance as a mute—as yet...

No one knew.

● ● ●

Around the time the season changed and a faint chill crept into the wind, Dong Bongsu finally left the stable and was able to move around the Danri Family estate as he pleased. Of course, plenty of restrictions remained.

There were the family warriors who picked fights with him at all hours, the other hired servants who despised him solely for being a horse handler despite being hired servants themselves, and the household servants. Even when he walked the streets of Fengyang morning and evening to exercise the horses, people would not leave him alone.

["That moronic little shit can't even talk anymore, I hear?"]

["So he's a shit-covered mute? A shit-for-brains mute."]

["We'll have to call him Shitwit Mute now! Hahaha."]

He endured every kind of insult without concern. The more they abused him, the more foolishly he behaved. He chuckled when they cursed him, yelped when they hit him with stones, and bowed his head as though their contempt were only natural.

Shit-covered, mute, moron. Paradoxically, every new nickname—Shitwit Mute, Horse-Mute Sam—was further evidence of how flawless his performance was. For a time, all those curses, verbal abuse, and acts of violence would serve as a shield concealing his identity.

And...

No one here in the Danri Family, or anywhere in Fengyang, could know.

Everything that had served as Dong Bongsu's shield would return to them as a blade.

Dong Bongsu learned the language through curses, learned Fengyang's geography while being beaten, and learned its culture while lying flat on the ground. Little by little, he blended naturally into the darkness.

He was a shadow. A long, large shadow, yet so deeply shrouded in gloom that no one recognized him. No one noticed his exceptional ordinariness.

Unbeknownst to anyone, that shadow steadily deepened in the dark.

One day, after several more months of keeping his head down, he finally began his hunt.

● ● ●

Life had been good to Machil lately.

A blessing in disguise, was that the phrase?

He thought this must be exactly the sort of occasion those lofty gentlemen meant when they used it so often.

When Horse-Mute Sam first got hurt, Machil had been furious and resentful. Who would be happy taking on someone else's work—especially the work of someone so far beneath him?

But as they said, pleasure followed hardship. At last, he was being rewarded for all the trouble he had taken looking after Horse-Mute Sam.

Though he had lost his speech, the recovered Horse-Mute Sam obeyed Machil very well. He deftly took care of the armory servant's work in advance, without even being told. Perhaps it was because he had gone mute, but he no longer tacked on little remarks, and he worked very diligently. Even the deep resentment in his eyes had disappeared.

Now Horse-Mute Sam's eyes were simply clear. So pure and clear that Machil sometimes felt almost sorry for having tormented him.

Today, too, Horse-Mute Sam had risen early and finished most of Machil's work. Thanks to him, Machil had enjoyed another comfortable nap in the rear courtyard of the estate.

"Yaaawn."

Having slept more soundly than usual, Machil felt refreshed from head to toe, with a powerful surge of vigor between his legs. Besides, he had gone straight back to sleep after waking that morning and hadn't properly performed his daily hand exercises.

As though this were only natural, his cock stood stiffly erect, glaring at him from beneath his trousers.

Cool me down. Put me to rest. Give me a taste already.

Machil gave the grotesque bulge of his cock a tap.

"You little bastard, you can smell money, can't you? All right, all right, just hold on. I'll give you all the pussy you can handle right now."

He had been paid yesterday. Every time he received his wages, he sank every last coin into Aeng-Aeng's ass and tits. That was his only pleasure in life. In a life spent being looked down upon, the only times he felt alive were when he held a woman or tormented Sosam, someone even lower than himself.

That was why, from the first day of every month, he counted down to payday. Of course, Aeng-Aeng, who knew this and lived by bleeding him dry, probably did the same.

"My purse is nice and full. Maybe I'll sample Choseon's flesh today instead of Aeng-Aeng's. That Choseon's ripened up mighty nicely."

The prey of Machil's grotesque cock changed in an instant.

"Right, a man can't live on rice every day. Sometimes you need meat, sometimes fish, sometimes a tender young chick. Heh heh heh."

Laughing lewdly, Machil got to his feet.

He set off straight for the Bongyang Inn. The reason he had changed his prey was that his purse was even fuller today than on an ordinary payday.

When Machil had risen that morning and gone to organize the weapons, Sosam had already finished all the work. A leather pouch sat on top of them. There was money inside, and he did not need to think to know who had left it.

"Little bastard. You've finally learned how the world works."

How could anyone get by in this world if all they did was bow their head, fall to their knees, and beg and plead because they were powerless? If you had no strength, you needed to know how to be flexible like this.

Machil decided he would torment Sosam a little less from now on. Just a very little. Though he might get even worse if the tribute started shrinking.

As he headed toward the Bongyang Inn, Machil found himself humming.