Chương 40: Did I Leave for Nothing?

Kichan could not leave immediately the next day. The problem was that he walked to the village entrance, then looked back. Inside the fence stood the villagers. They did not hold him back. Their faces knew they should not. Even so, every one of them looked like they wanted to. The village head was wrapping the document stamped with the lord's seal in cloth. The elder kept pressing the corners of the document. Ren started to explain the road, then shut his mouth after seeing Kichan's face.

The child's mother silently held out a bowl of soup. Kichan looked at the bowl.

"I was just about to leave." The words did not get through. So, in the end, he ate. The soup was bland, the meat was tough, and the root vegetables were a little undercooked. Still, it was warm. Kichan put down the spoon and sighed.

"I'm not leaving right away." The villagers did not understand. Kichan explained with gestures. He pointed at himself, pointed at the road, then pointed back at the village. Then he raised one finger. One day. Only then did Ren translate briefly. The villagers' shoulders lowered a little. Kichan spent that day on the village. He divided the herbs into three piles. Ones that could be eaten. Ones that could be placed on wounds. Ones that absolutely should not be touched. He drew pictures too.

They were lines that made him feel a little sorry to call them pictures, but Ren understood them well enough.

"This. Eat. Okay." He pointed to the green leaves.

"This. Wound." He set aside the grass with the red stem.

"This. Tana." He pushed away the root with black spots. The children laughed at that word. Don't. It had already become one of the village's Kichan-words. He also showed them how to bind wounds. If the cloth was tied too tight, the fingertips went cold. If it was too loose, the bleeding would not stop. Kichan wrapped cloth around Ren's arm, untied it, then wrapped it again.

"Here. Not too tight." Ren nodded with a serious face. In the middle of choosing a branch for a splint, his fingertips became strange again. The grain inside the wood spread open. Where it would break easily, where it would hold longer if tied, wet places and dry places split apart inside his palm. Kichan looked down at the branch and grimaced. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Damn it, I'm not a carpenter." Dust flicked its legs beside him.

"Don't you laugh either." Dust flicked one leg again. Whether it meant it understood, or whether it was teasing him, was unclear. Kichan pressed Dust lightly with the wake-up rod. Even while being pressed down, Dust flicked its legs. In the afternoon, an unfamiliar merchant passed by. He spread rumors from the lord's manor among the villagers. Mana-less one. Lord's seal. Wings. Kichan did not understand the word wings. But he did notice that people kept looking at his back.

"Why do you keep looking behind me?" Dust flicked its legs twice. No.

"What do you mean no? They looked." Dust did not answer. At night, Ren brought an old cloth map. The road split in three directions. A nearby temple branch. A large market city. A monastery village said to have an old record archive. Kichan reacted to the word records. The fragment inside his clothes grew very faintly hot. He touched his throat.

"Not yet." Ren did not understand the words. But when he saw Kichan pressing his throat, he did not ask further. Kichan pointed on the map to the large market city. He had to go to a larger city. He had to meet someone higher than the lord, and he had to make sure they could not touch the village again. He also had to find a way back. The villagers stood for a long time. Kichan was uncomfortable with their eyes, so he spoke first.

"I paid for my meal, didn't I?" Ren started to translate, then stopped. The child's mother put another ladle of soup into Kichan's empty bowl. In the end, Kichan ate it.

The road was harder than the village. In the village, even when words did not get through, there were hand gestures and bowls of food. On the road, there were signboards, price tags, and merchants who spoke quickly. Before Kichan could understand one word, they attached three more. Kichan's face hardened when he heard the price of bread in a small roadside market.

"Why does the cost of living feel higher than Seoul?" Ren smiled awkwardly.

"Expensive?" Ren nodded.

"Right. Expensive." Dust stayed still on his shoulder. Whenever money came up, it became strangely quiet. Kichan tried to sell several bundles of dried meat and herbs. The villagers had packed them for him. The merchant took out an old scale and placed a weight on it. The moment Kichan saw the weight, his expression went cold. His fingertips reacted first. The inside of the metal was hollow. A very thin space had been carved out. The outside had been sealed to look heavy, but the center was strangely light.

Kichan picked up the weight. The merchant's face stiffened.

"This." Kichan tapped the weight with his finger.

"Tana." Don't. Ren translated to the merchant. At first, the merchant tried to get angry. Then Kichan pressed the weight once with the end of the wake-up rod, and a hollow sound came from inside. Tung. People in the market turned their heads. The merchant lost his smile. Kichan set the weight down.

"Why can I see this too?" He was not pleased at all. Thanks to that, they received a little more than a fair price for the dried meat. But the money units were still confusing, and without Ren, he would have been cheated immediately.

"Interpreter." Kichan pointed at Ren.

"Ren." Ren lifted his head when he heard his name.

"Yeah. Ren interpreter." Ren smiled a little. At the end of the small roadside market, there was a temple assistant priest. He was handing water to travelers when he saw Kichan. Dust on Kichan's shoulder, the wake-up rod, the hand that gave no light on a measuring stone. And the eyes that had just looked through the scale weight. The small sacred object hanging at the priest's neck died very briefly, then came back. Kichan did not see it. The priest did. That night, a note entered a small temple sealed box.

`A presumed mana-less foreigner passed the south road market. ` Kichan did not know that. He was chewing the hard bread Ren had bought, grimacing.

"Damn... did I leave for nothing?" Dust struck its legs once. It sounded like yes.