Chapter 25
The man looked around with a curious face before narrowing his eyes. Then he wiggled his fingers and smiled as if amused. Though it was the first time I’d seen him, he felt strangely familiar. As I struggled to figure out why he seemed familiar, the man lowered himself to meet my gaze.
“You have a bruise.”
I reflexively touched my temple, then lowered my hand in embarrassment. The man made a sound—”Hmm”—that could have been either a laugh or disapproval.
“I’m counting on you, newbie.”
Then he tapped my temple with his finger. Suddenly, my head throbbed with pain, making me step back. Unlike before, the man didn’t follow me but rather stepped back himself. His appraising gaze was somehow different from when he first looked at me.
Suddenly, I realized why he seemed familiar. Somehow, I could see Han Jong-wook in the man’s behavior. Though his personality and mannerisms were subtly different, they resembled each other. Rather than the man imitating Han Jong-wook… the man seemed more like his authentic self. The man faintly smiled, then waved his hand gently as he walked away.
“Don’t die and live a long life.”
The man’s parting words sounded like both encouragement and mockery.
I rubbed my aching shoulder. Even without the man saying so, I was planning to live well. Somehow, I would recover conspicuously and escape this village.
As I walked toward the building assigned to me, I suddenly looked in the direction where the man had disappeared. Something felt off. If Han Jong-wook disliked the man so much, why did they behave so similarly? Curiosity surged, but I brushed away the thoughts that arose. They were useless thoughts. Instead of focusing on them, I determined what I needed and organized it neatly.
Throughout my walk, people’s gazes followed me. Although this village was relatively spacious, there weren’t many people, yet the gazes following me from behind wouldn’t disappear.
I pretended not to notice while observing the village from the corner of my eye. From behind doors, while trimming wood, while cleaning guns. As I passed by, people would stop what they were doing and look at me. Their gazes were diverse and complex, but if I had to summarize, they conveyed curiosity, suspicion, vigilance, and something close to anger.
Even though I was the one forcibly brought here and should be the one giving such looks, the exchanged gazes were the opposite. What stories did these villagers have to act this way?
I stopped briefly, lost in thought. In this state, it seemed difficult to obtain supplies. Most gazes were so venomous that I trembled whenever I felt them intensify. But wouldn’t there be at least one or two people who, if not friendly, at least weren’t hostile? I decided to find such a person first.
There was no use pondering unknown things alone; I needed information, whether much or little.
* * *
About four or five days had passed since I arrived here. The first few days were spent sleeping due to fever and wounds, and only today could I finally pull myself together. And with each passing day, the chances of meeting Kim Doyun had diminished. He probably wouldn’t stay in one place for long. He might search for me, but likely not for more than two or three days.
The more I thought about it, the more anxious I became, and my actions grew more hasty. I wondered if I could get help from the people, but it was difficult to ask the wary, disgusted villagers to share their goods. Should I leave even empty-handed? As I was about to give up on goodwill, seeing the sun setting, a middle-aged woman stopped me.
“Everyone feels uncomfortable when you wander around like that, so just stay put quietly.”
Her words were thorny. With a gaunt face and a scarred forehead, she looked at me with sharp eyes, her short hair deliberately pressed down. Though her words weren’t welcoming, I placed hope in the fact that she had stopped me. Drawing strength from her furtive glances at me, I smiled as gently as possible.
“I’m feeling stiff, so I thought I might do some work… Is there anything I could do?”
The woman, who had been incredibly fierce, softened her gaze slightly when I offered to help with work. After cautiously approaching her for a while:
“A person who supposedly fought well but trembles at the sight of monsters. It’s quite a comedy.”
“I’m scared when I see monsters too.”
“Oh, that’s different. You’d have to see it yourself!”
This is how I ended up hearing all sorts of stories. The relief of finally finding someone to talk to was short-lived; constantly hearing gossip was quite painful. I hunched over and rested my chin on my hand, having straightened my back to gain her favor. Absorbed in her own stories, she didn’t notice my posture. The woman poured out stories with remarkable persistence. I filtered out only what I needed from those stories.
There are thirty people in this village: twenty-three men and six women. Among them are three young women who rarely leave their homes, so few have seen them. The place she pointed to while grumbling about gender discrimination despite being a woman herself was one of the intact houses in the center.
Looking around the house, I asked if only those women lived there. She shook her head. She said not just anyone could enter that place, and only one person had access. From this “one person,” I recalled a question I had while listening to her.
There was a discrepancy between the thirty people she mentioned and the members she described; one person was missing. When I asked about this, the woman clamped her mouth shut. As if her previous animated chatter had been a lie, she stopped talking and did something else. She spoke about the good weather, or how there would be good news from those who had gone out today.
Seeing such obvious suspicious behavior, I realized there was something more to this village. But whenever I tried to dig deeper, wariness flashed in the woman’s eyes. Sensing that direct questioning wouldn’t work, I carefully considered what to say. Who could this person be that she was trying to hide?
Despite being relatively new, this place felt like an extremely closed-off rural village. I found this situation both curious and somewhat frightening. Is this how people change when faced with extreme situations? Trying to calm my desire to leave the village as soon as possible, I spoke softly to her.
“I saw a strange man in the village…”
“A strange person?”
Even the woman who had turned her head away, seemingly unwilling to talk with me, promptly responded to this question. I continued with a smile.
“I was surprised because he quarreled with the person who brought me here. Suddenly taking out a gun…”
I wasn’t really surprised, but to capture her interest, I acted like someone frightened and scared. And to make sure it was enough, I even added some naive arm gestures mimicking a fight. My efforts weren’t in vain as she sympathized and tried to comfort me.
“That must be Jong-wook’s doing.”
“You know him?”
“Of course I do. There’s only one person here who fights like that.”
The woman sighed, looking like she had a lot to say.
“Usually he’s a slick guy, but when he gets involved with that man, he goes berserk!”
“Then you must also know who he was fighting with?”
“That’s…”
The woman hesitated for a moment. Seeing this reaction, I wondered if the man she hadn’t mentioned was this person. But the words I thought wouldn’t continue started to emerge bit by bit from her lips. I realized her hesitation was to choose her words. The woman spoke with a cautious face.
“I don’t really know either.”
I felt a bit deflated after having such high expectations. I thought there would be something extraordinary given how long she took to choose her words… But the woman’s words didn’t end there.
“He came to this village before me, so I don’t know how he got here. It’s probably similar to others. But…”
“But?”
“He’s a problematic person in many ways.”
The woman made a displeased face. I thought it might be because he often fought with Han Jong-wook, but what she said was slightly different.
“That man… he knows something important but doesn’t share even a tiny bit of information.”
“Something important?”
She glanced at me with a frustrated face.
“What’s important now? Food and supplies, of course. But that man, you saw him, right? With knives and a pistol… He even smokes, and seeing what he occasionally brings in, he must have a hidden stash of goodies somewhere, but he doesn’t say a word. Seeing him hold out despite knowing people are struggling is really… Would it hurt to share? But no matter how much people press him, he never talks!”
Seeming angry even thinking about it now, the woman stomped her foot and vented her frustration.
“Not an ounce of compassion in that bastard.”
I thought it was funny that such words came from her mouth, but I tried not to show it in my expression. I had somewhat believed that not all villagers would be like Han Jong-wook, but now I’m seeing them with clearer eyes. Seeing Han Jong-wook openly carrying a gun suggests that the majority supports him, doesn’t it? They wouldn’t give a gun to someone they considered dangerous. Or did he settle in the village with a gun from the beginning, so they couldn’t think of taking it away?
“Didn’t people do anything about it?”
I asked after thinking for a moment. The woman heard my question and snorted.
“As if they’d just sit still. Of course they fought. But even several men fighting together was useless.”
“Why?”
“Weapons aside, his fighting style… he seems like some kind of martial arts expert. The men were knocked down instantly! Han Jong-wook really got it bad then. He almost broke his leg, but the man said he was letting him off and just let him go. Before that, Han Jong-wook didn’t hate the man that much, you know? That’s when he really got furious.”
“It’s surprising that it ended there.”
Even if shelter was resolved among basic necessities, the rest wouldn’t have diminished in importance, so it was strange that there weren’t any further issues. The woman waved her hand dismissively and laughed.
“It couldn’t have ended with just one incident. Everyone was so furious that there was a time they fought with everything they had. The man also said he wouldn’t let it slide this time. He even said he’d leave after the fight ended. That’s when the rest of the people got scared.”
“Scared?”
“Even though he didn’t tell us the location or position, whenever the man felt like it, he’d bring useful things. Food and various items… But what if he died in this fight? Even if by luck the man survived, he said he’d leave. How do you think people would feel?”
I could easily imagine the confusion everyone would face without the essential items that, while not abundant, were occasionally provided. It wasn’t hard to guess, but it left a bitter taste in my mouth.
“So did the fight end?”
“It didn’t end. I don’t know why men can’t think things through. When they get heated, they can’t see anything else! Despite people’s protests, they eventually drew their guns… In the end, even that person had to step in.”
“That person?”
The woman, who had been shaking her head, turned to look at me with a startled face.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
