Chapter 3: Death and Life (2)

Most guns in this era had bayonets, and my rifle likewise had a long bayonet.

Attaching a bayonet to a rifle reduces accuracy, but since the distance between me and the bandits was so close, I fired with the bayonet still attached.

I was confident I could hit them anyway.

The rifle I held was a long gun, measuring 140cm even without the bayonet.

And when the spike-style bayonet, shaped like a skewer, was attached, the length exceeded 180cm.

That fellow might have raised his sword, certain of victory because he saw I was just a child, but I was the one truly certain of victory.

In a fight like this, the one with the longer reach has an absolute advantage.

Although my arms were shorter than his, the length of my bayonet was much longer than his sword.

Furthermore, since I was a person who had also received the Large Mammal Command for swordsmanship and martial arts, I was at an even greater advantage in this regard.

I raised my rifle and stabbed the fellow’s right forearm with the spike-style bayonet.

“Agh!”

He let out a sharp scream from the sudden pain and simultaneously dropped the broad Chinese-style sword he was holding.

As soon as he dropped the sword, I stabbed him once more in the thigh.

Of course, I avoided the artery.

I had no intention of gifting him a comfortable death, such as dying from excessive bleeding.

The fellow screamed sharply once more and collapsed to the ground.

I quickly checked on the other one who had fallen from his horse.

That fellow was clutching his leg, perhaps because it broke when he fell, and was looking this way while continuously groaning.

His eyes widened in shock as he watched me finish off his companion with the bayonet.

When I approached the fellow sitting there clutching his leg, he looked around as if searching for something that could be used as a weapon.

The sword he had dropped while falling from the horse was too far away.

The bandit had just seen the fastest and best fighter among his companions get taken down by a kid.

He realized that even if he were uninjured, he could never defeat that child, so instead of resisting, he pleaded.

“Spare me. I have an old mother at home.”

Among Chinese people, there was a perception that the excuse of an old mother worked best on Koreans.

Regardless of whether the child listening understood Chinese or not, he had to try and grab at any straw.

Naturally, I understood Chinese, and I didn’t care whether he had an old mother or not.

Actually, was it better if he did?

I struck the fellow’s shoulder with the rifle stock.

“Aaaaaagh!”

The scream of the fellow whose shoulder was shattered echoed out.

After incapacitating both of them, I looked around at the ones who had been shot.

When I fired the gun, I deliberately avoided the heart or vital spots and hit everyone in the right shoulder.

The 50-70 Ammunition used in my rifle might be slow, but its power is enough to take down a bear or a tiger in one shot.

Even though they were hit in the shoulder, the ones who were shot could not move properly.

However, two of them, the leader and another fellow, were moving and trying to do something.

Since the leader couldn’t move his right hand, he was trying to pull out a pistol from his waist with his left hand to do something.

The distance between him and me was not a distance where a pistol, especially one fired with the left hand, would hit.

However, because I didn’t want to give him any hope, I used my rifle to blow away the leader’s left shoulder as well.

“Euaaaaaagh.”

The leader, whose both shoulders were blown away, collapsed on the spot and could only scream.

The other fellow tried to push himself up halfway and use only his left hand to light the fuse of the Matchlock he held.

I blew away his left shoulder as well.

“Aaaaagh!”

With his scream, there was now not a single person left who could resist.

I gathered the horses to handle what remained.

I intended to euthanize the horses that had tripped on the rope if their legs were broken, but fortunately, their legs weren’t injured; they only had some scrapes.

The other horses whose masters had fallen off did not run far, and they all followed my commands well.

The fact that the horses followed my orders well was also a type of Large Mammal Command.

While it didn’t work on poultry like chickens or ducks, it was a Large Mammal Command that worked well on large mammal livestock such as cows, horses, and dogs.

It wasn’t to the extent of communicating with each other, but simply that my commands were obeyed well, which still made handling horses much more convenient.

I used a rope to tie the legs of the four fellows collapsed nearby to a horse and moved them to where the leader and the other fellows had fallen.

“Please spare me. I have an old mother.”

“Please forgive me just once. If I die, my children will all starve to death.”

The fellows babbled nonsense about sparing them, but I struck their shins with the rifle stock and broke them all so they couldn’t move anymore.

I loaded all the rifles, pistols, and Matchlock guns that the leader and the other fellows had possessed onto the ten horses total, which included my horse and the ones the bandits had been riding.

Then, I used a knife to cut through all the clothes of the fellows who were screaming and pleading.

They might have been poor when they left their village to go banditry, but by now, they would likely have at least some wealth on their person.

Sure enough, 26 Mexican Silver Coins and 34 Rubles in Russian banknotes came out from their bodies.

I loaded all the luggage and, leaving the fellows pleading to be spared behind, I went to find my father’s body.

My father’s body was found quickly, and I shed tears as I looked at it.

I knew very well that the father before my eyes was not my real father.

However, the memories of my physical body were telling me that the father before me was my father.

I wiped my tears with my sleeve, wrapped my father’s body in a straw mat, and loaded it onto a horse.

Since bandits often slept outdoors for days when they went out, the horses were loaded with straw mats for making outdoor bedding.

I led the horse carrying my father’s body and the other horses toward the place where my father had encountered the thieves and abandoned the luggage.

Then, I found all the goods scattered on the ground there and loaded them onto the horses’ backs.

Starting with the Calico, which was the most popular item to sell in Joseon, there was also Russian-made vodka and cigarettes, which were types of luxury goods, as well as various Western items like needles and scissors.

These could be sold in Joseon for several times the profit.

Among those goods, I discovered chocolate and candy.

These were things my father had bought for me, and he was likely hiding them to surprise me.

Seeing them made my tears flow again, and my chest felt tight and stifled.

When I returned after loading the luggage, the bandits lying sprawled on the ground pleaded once more for their lives.

Of course, I had no intention of sparing them and headed toward Joseon, leaving them as they were.

Since I had broken the legs of everyone sprawled on the ground, they wouldn’t be able to escape, and since they were giving off the scent of blood everywhere, they would be eaten to death by beasts within a few hours at the earliest, or by tonight at the latest.

If they were lucky, they would be eaten by predators like tigers or wolves that bite the neck to end the breath first; if they were unlucky, they would be eaten alive by small animals like field mice or foxes.

***

After I returned to my village, I became quite famous.

Everyone in the village knew the fact that my father was a smuggler, but since I, who had followed him, appeared leading my father’s body and a total of ten horses, the villagers couldn’t help but be shocked.

And seeing the Matchlock guns and Chinese-style swords taken from the bandits on the horses, they roughly guessed what had happened to me.

Looking at the father’s body, it was clear he was killed by bandits.

They didn’t know how an 11-year-old kid had managed it, but since I came back with my father’s body and all the bandits’ horses and weapons, even those who guessed the situation wondered if I really defeated all the bandits and brought their weapons and horses myself, or if I had received help from someone else.

Without bother to explain the situation to people, I held a funeral for my deceased father.

Even in a remote mountain village of Hamgyeong Province, an 11-year-old kid wouldn’t have to hold a funeral entirely alone.

Naturally, influential elders of the village stepped forward to help with the funeral, and since I had quite a bit of money, there were no particular problems.

Especially in Joseon’s values, bringing back one’s father’s body at such a young age was a great act of filial piety, and rumors about me spread to other neighboring villages, bringing mourners from quite far away.

As an 11-year-old child acting as the chief mourner, I attended to the guests who came to offer their condolences.

The village women all gathered and made the necessary food, and because I had quite a bit of money, I slaughtered a cow to treat them.

And while holding my father’s funeral like this, my heart began to find stability.

Once the funeral was roughly finished, Taeseok, a man from the same neighborhood, came to me and said.

“Myeong-jin, you said you could speak some Arasa and Chinese, right?”

“Yes, I can speak a little.”

“Then wouldn’t you like to cross the border and go to Arasa with us? Honestly, it’ll be difficult for you to live here alone.”

Taeseok is my neighbor and, at the same time, the person I’m closest to in this village.

Sensing that what was bound to come had arrived, I asked.

My father and I lived off smuggling, and now that this was known to other villages, the government office could find fault with it whenever they wanted.

“Did you perhaps hear something?”

“Yes, it seems Ibang Jeong is targeting you.”

“Is Ibang Jeong that local official who came to offer condolences a few days ago?”

“Yes, that fellow. He’s the most wicked among the officials in Gyeongheung-bu. It’s already well-known in Gyeongheung-bu that your father lived off smuggling, and they think your father must have left behind a fair amount of wealth. Even without that, just the ten horses you have are quite something. They’re staying quiet for now because they’re conscious of what others think while you’re in mourning, but that Ibang Jeong is a truly persistent fellow. If you stay like this, in a few days he’ll drag you to Gyeongheung-bu and beat you to steal every bit of wealth your father left behind.”

This is exactly the reason why I can’t use the gold and white silver I’ve piled up in my sub-space.

Even for a household that barely scraped by on smuggling, as soon as I became an orphan, the world started eyeing me to see if there was anything to scavenge.

If I were to use gold or silver carelessly, would my life remain intact?

I would likely be dragged away immediately and subjected to harsh torture until I vomited out the gold and silver.

If I were to even pull gold and silver out in front of them, they would likely feel as if they had discovered a mountain of treasure and would surely cut my ankles so I couldn’t run away, then make me keep pulling out gold and silver.

So, even after falling into this era, I haven’t been able to pull out even a single silver coin and have been conducting the funeral only with the assets my father left behind, yet it is said that someone is targeting even my father’s remaining wealth.

I sighed and asked.

“Is Cheonjin-daek going as well?”

“Ever since her child died last time, she’s been the one more frantic about crossing the border.”

Cheonjin-daek had two children since she married Taeseok, but both died. In this era, that was a common occurrence, and while child survival rates in Russia might not be particularly high either, the medical situation would still be better than in Joseon.

So, it was fully understandable why Cheonjin-daek wanted to cross the border.

She must have thought that Russia would be better than Joseon if she wanted to keep even the next child she had alive.

“You know it’s hard for just the three of us to cross, right?”

“Yeah, since we don’t know where predators like tigers, wolves, or bears might pop out from, it would be impossible for just my wife and the three of us to cross the border. So I’ve picked a few people to cross with us. Gwi-hwan and his sister Seon-hui, as well as Jeong-sun, Jae-ho, and Hong-i said they would cross too.”

“Since no one is going to feed or clothe us just because we cross the border, we have to bring a month’s worth of food and some things that can be turned into money.”

Even if one crosses the Tumen River border into Russia, no one provides food for free.

Although quite a few Koreans who crossed over before are living there, they won’t feed a Korean who crossed the border for free just because they are fellow Koreans.

One might be able to rely on them for a few days, but after that, they must live entirely on their own.

Taeseok nodded, pulled a pouch from his chest to show me, and said.

“I’ve already collected a few silver coins for this time.”

The pouch Taeseok held out contained about a dozen Mexican Silver Coins.

One might wonder why there are Mexican Silver Coins in Joseon, but this end of Hamgyeong Province is an area where illicit trade with China and Russia flourishes.

Naturally, along with foreign smuggled goods coming in from China and Russia, Mexican Silver Coins also come in quite a bit and are used as high-value currency in this region.

There was no one even in the mountain villages of Hamgyeong Province who didn’t know that currency was convenient, and among the currencies circulating in this area, the Mexican Silver Coin is the currency most preferred by the Chinese.

As it is the most preferred currency in China, the largest consumer in this region, the Mexican Silver Coin is the currency with the most guaranteed value in Russia as well as Joseon.

Thus, even here in Hamgyeong Province, Mexican Silver Coins are not impossible items to obtain.

“With this much, it should be enough for you and Cheonjin-daek to get by for the time being, but what about the others?”

“Gwi-hwan and Seon-hui have collected over ten fox pelts. Moreover, the other kids who want to go are prepared to that extent. If you say you’re going, counting you, there are 8 people in total.”

Fox pelts are one of the items Russians like most.

It depends on the condition, but if it’s a proper item, one can even get 5 Rubles per pelt.

That should be enough to endure the initial hardships.

I nodded.

I had been wondering how to get out of Joseon myself, so there was no reason to refuse.

“Then let’s cross the border together. I guess I can’t keep living in Joseon either.”

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