The Red Grandfather
A horse was not a car. It was a living animal. He had known that, of course, but he had not truly understood it. A horse had to eat, relieve itself, and rest. It ate far more than he had expected, and it dropped its dung as it walked—great round lumps of the stuff.
"…."
Juhwan looked away. Mountains showed in the distance. The mountains of Korea came close to triangles, but what met his eyes now was more like a chain of enormous hills, one after another. Gentle. Rolling.
"Daddy, why are you looking somewhere else?"
"…."
Dorothy's eyes sparkled. Right in front of them the horse was walking along while it did its business, and she did not seem to care in the least.
"Juhwan, you really are strange."
Lizzie laughed under her breath. His clumsiness around a living horse must have looked odd to her.
Juhwan narrowed his eyes and looked at her.
She had far more life in her than when they had lived in the mountains. Since leaving the village she was like a little bird, wings beating and beating. The same scenery kept sliding past, and still she found it new every time, and marveled.
The village, and the Parents' Cabin too, had not been so different from the road they were on now. Nature simply lay open from one edge of the view to the other. What about it was so new, so delightful?
It was not only Lizzie. Dorothy was worked up right along with her.
The two of them chattered without a pause—a bird over there, a tree that way, snow right here.
All at once Lizzie looked at him. She smiled. Warm breath spilled into the cold air as she spoke.
"I'm so happy. Except for when I was sold and brought this way, this is the first time I've ever left the village."
"…."
Of course. The two of them had lived tied to a single place. Even if the scenery was the kind one saw every day, the world in their eyes now was a picnic road they were seeing for the first time in their lives.
They had left a home that had only just begun to feel steady, and a life in which they could not promise the next step was starting. He had worried they would be anxious about that. Instead a corner of his heart grew grateful. If the two of them could find something joyful in this, something to look forward to, then that was fortune enough.
Juhwan opened his arms and drew Lizzie's shoulders in. Dorothy, squeezed between them, squirmed and laughed. Oz, set on the child's lap, and the doll Toto looked a little squashed.
I'll make you happy. Let's be happy. Holding that feeling, he gathered both of them tight at once.
And on this journey he learned that he was worse with animals than he had thought.
In the village there had been no need to drive a wagon for long, so he had not noticed, but Lizzie handled the horse better than he did. Perhaps it was her soft voice. Horses, he had heard, were very easily frightened.
He and Lizzie took turns at the reins, but little by little the time she held them grew longer. The way she secretly grinned about it, pleased with herself, was adorable.
He wanted to lighten her work so she would not tire, but her own heart seemed to want something else. When the things she ought to do increased, she seemed glad of it.
Juhwan watched her shake the reins, then lifted his gaze to the sky.
He turned over the words and the situations he had heard from the villagers, and kept spinning this world's language through his head. Once he had the basic shape of a sentence and the words people used most often, there was almost nothing in daily life he failed to catch.
A laugh escaped him. He really had worked hard. Hard enough that his brain might have burned down to ash. If he told his old self that he would one day study a language this frantically, that man would never have believed it. Now he felt he could pick up the speech of any country, any world, with ease. He felt like a genius.
Lizzie brought the wagon they had been driving to a stop. She looked a little flustered.
"…Ah."
"Lizzie, what's wrong?"
At his question she glanced all around, then answered with a face about to crumple.
"I think… we've lost the road. It feels like we're long past the time we should have arrived."
"Mom! Really? This is bad!"
Dorothy's eyes went round as she shouted.
They had been heading for a city said to lie half a day's journey from the village.
He had heard it was a little small to be called a city—more of a town—but it had a regular wagon service and several shops, and it was fairly large.
Their destination was the branch of the Adventurer's Guild said to be there.
Lizzie had passed on something an Adventurer in the village had told her. If a mage caught a noble's eye, there could be trouble. Sometimes they were seized by force. Register with the guild as an adventurer before that happened, and even a noble could not lay hands on you lightly, so it was best to register at once.
So Lizzie, the only one in the family who knew the way, had been their guide. But the roads of this world were not asphalt. They broke off, or split, and sometimes the wheel ruts simply vanished. Somewhere along the way they must have turned onto the wrong one.
Lizzie and Dorothy, gone white in the face, were almost funny. They looked as if the world had ended.
No, no. It was all right. Taking a wrong road for a little while did not mean they would sink into a swamp, or never find their way back.
He must have been smiling without knowing it. Lizzie and Dorothy spoke at the same time.
"That's too much."
"Daddy, I said it's a big deal! We're lost. We lost the road!"
To the two of them, eyes brimming, Juhwan said, still smiling:
"It's all right. There's no need to rush. Go slowly. No one's watching us. There's no one to give orders, no one to make trouble. We can do whatever we want."
They could travel as if they were on a trip. If they had taken a wrong road, they could turn back. If night happened to fall before they reached a village, they could spend it in front of a campfire.
When he said so, Lizzie blinked as if startled. To her, who had lived her whole life bound fast, his words seemed deeply unexpected.
They decided to spend the night where they were.
Already a red sunset was settling over the sky. Even if they turned back and searched for the road, night would be on them soon. They could not drive a wagon through the dark without knowing the way, so they would have to stay somewhere along the roadside anyway. Better, then, to ease their tiredness at their leisure.
Even away from the mountains, this world was mostly fields, wasteland, and trees. Near a village, at least, step a little way from people and firewood was there for the taking.
Juhwan walked the ground nearby and cut down two short trees. The trunks of the young trees were thin enough to fit in his grip. Even so, they would do for a night's fire.
Tap, tap. He cut the wood, gathered it, and lit a fire. His magic was convenient at times like this. There was no need to nurse a spark. Even green wood caught at once. From the campfire that flared up in an instant, pale smoke rose toward the sky, swaying as if it were dancing.
They drew the wagon close to the fire, gathered stones into a hearth, and set a pot on it. Lizzie had brought the pot.
Meat and salt went in with a plop, and a little flour as well. Now and then she stirred with a big spoon. As it bubbled and the smell spread, a rumble rose, one after another, from every belly in the family.
Dorothy stuck herself right up against the fire and stared at nothing but the pot. She must have been terribly hungry. Saliva trailed from the corner of her mouth.
After they had sat around the fire and eaten supper, they dug a shallow pit behind the wagon. A toilet.
Juhwan could go off and relieve himself anywhere. Lizzie could not.
Even so, she did not go once before nightfall. Only Dorothy went, a few times.
After that, too, Lizzie seemed to have been holding it. When at last it became truly urgent, she spoke to him with a face that looked ready to cry.
"Please. I'm asking you. Go a little farther away."
Hm. She could have said so sooner. Juhwan stepped off for a while, far enough that he would not hear. He stayed, of course, where he could still see the two of them.
After that the whole family sat before the campfire.
Dorothy dozed on his lap, nodding, and Oz lay sprawled on top of her. The rabbit doll Toto had fallen to the ground at some point, then climbed up onto Lizzie's knees.
Juhwan and Lizzie sat side by side and drew one length of cloth over both their shoulders. He was happy. Their bodies were only barely touching, and yet the inside of him filled with warmth.
Suddenly Lizzie murmured.
"I'm happy."
From far beyond the darkened air came the cry of a night bird. And from farther still, a wolf howled long, as if it were searching for someone.
For some reason Gus's eyes, as he had last seen them, rose in his mind. He wished the man had not been an enemy. The time had been short, but he had liked him. Gus had been in his heart. He had thought him a little like his late grandfather.
Juhwan tilted his head. He set his lips quietly against Lizzie's hair, low beside him, and said in a small voice:
"I'm happy too."
Lizzie quietly leaned her head against his arm.
Gus's eyes, the light slowly leaving them, looked at him from inside his mind, and did not look away.
They reached the village they had been aiming for around noon the next day.
Dorothy, sitting in the middle of the driver's bench, shot to her feet at the sight of the outer wall.
"A wall!"
"Dorothy, you have to stay sitting!"
Flustered, Lizzie caught the child's arm.
But the child had reason to be excited. Unlike the flimsy wooden wall of the village where they had lived before, this one was ringed by a solid wall of stone. There must have been a place nearby to get the stone. The wall was quite high.
Beyond the village, far off, a gently rising forest could be seen. Part of the village seemed to touch the woods.
The great gate at the entrance was thick timber, cut and banded with iron. There was no particular ornament, but it looked sturdy.
One gatekeeper stood at the gate. His clothes were no different from a commoner's. He did not seem to be a regular soldier, but a sword hung at his waist.
From the very start it was different from the last village, where not a single person had stood at the entrance.
Dorothy, seeing a village this large for the first time, wriggled with excitement.
"Look! The wall's incredibly high. Oz! Think you can jump it? Dorothy can. Dorothy's brave."
For some reason she was competing with Oz over clearing the wall. Even so, she was speaking his part all by herself.
One side of Juhwan's chest stirred as well. It felt as if he had met real fantasy at last. Only now did it sink in that he had become a mage. Good God. I really did fall into a fantasy world. That was the feeling.
Just then three men who looked like adventurers were going in through the entrance.
When they showed something hanging at their necks, the gatekeeper nodded. The adventurers walked into the village in a noisy cluster, all talking at once.
Juhwan shifted to the edge of the driver's bench and looked at Lizzie. Until a moment ago he had been driving. But once they went inside, it would be better if she did it. If he drove clumsily and struck someone passing by, it would be serious.
When he handed over the reins, she took them with a slightly stiff face. A strange place. She was tense.
The wagon drew slowly toward the gate. When they reached the gatekeeper, Juhwan hopped down. The man ran his eyes over Juhwan and the wagon.
"First time in this village?"
"Yes. The first."
"You wouldn't happen to have anything that could ## your ##?"
He did not understand, and looked to Lizzie on the bench. In a small voice she explained. The man wanted proof of who they were.
Flustered, Juhwan shook his head. He had nothing of the sort. The gatekeeper told him to show the back of his hand.
Juhwan held his hand out. The gatekeeper nodded, then checked Lizzie's hand, and Dorothy's as well.
Ah. So that was it. He's checking for a Slave Brand.
Lizzie had said a Slave Brand could never be erased.
If every village and every city checked like this, a slave could go nowhere at all.
Knowing, too late, how dangerous his position had been when he first came to this world, a chill ran through his chest.
That Santa bastard. Did he really want to grant a wish? Meeting Lizzie and Dorothy was chance. Did he just send me off somewhere at random?
The gatekeeper looked at Juhwan as if something were slightly suspicious, then spoke again.
"If you haven't paid the ### yet, you'd best pay it soon, or join the guild. Get caught when the ### come through and it's a headache. Plenty of merchants pass our village, so the ## ### turn up now and then."
Beside him, Lizzie explained what the gatekeeper had said. Listening quietly, he realized it was about the poll tax. This was the largest village in the area, so there were many people coming and going, and many merchants. That was why the tax inspectors sent by the lord seemed to come often.
"I understand. Thank you."
Juhwan asked the gatekeeper which way the guild lay, and climbed back onto the wagon. As Lizzie drove, she explained the Poll Tax.
It was not only this village. Everyone living in a domain had to pay the Poll Tax every year once they turned sixteen. In an out-of-the-way place like the village where they had lived first, the Village Chief collected it ahead of time and handed it over when an inspector came.
Travel to a nearby village needed no special certificate, but when people moved a long way, they sometimes carried a note written by the Village Chief. There was no fixed form. It simply set down the village where you lived, the person who issued it, whether the Poll Tax had been paid, and things like your age and your looks. Hardly anyone ever received one. Inside the same domain, even if a tax inspector caught you, you could still prove yourself. It only took time. And it seemed they did not catch people very often.
"I think the gatekeeper said that because your face is a little unfamiliar."
Lizzie tilted her head, then quietly studied his face. He was East Asian, so the set of his features was plainly different. Was that why the man had worried for him?
As the wagon went into the village, the buildings gradually increased. It was clearly different from the last village. There were quite a lot of people.
Dorothy craned her neck from the driver's bench and stared at the ground.
"Mom, Daddy! There are stones on the ground. A stone floor! It's amazing! It's the end!"
The center of the village had been prettily paved with small stones.
To Dorothy's eyes it seemed terribly wondrous. She was looking down at the ground with her backside half hanging in empty air.
The child's head was large for her body. If she was not careful, he worried the weight of that head would pull her right off.
Juhwan put out an arm and set it across the middle of her, between belly and chest.
But a child truly cannot stay still. This time she jerked her head up and stood on the seat.
On the driver's bench, jolting and shaking, her body swayed this way and that. If he had not been holding her, she would already have fallen ten times. Really, he worried for her future. Take his eyes off her, and disaster seemed certain.
Dorothy's eyes suddenly went round. She opened them wide and pointed ahead.
"Daddy! There's a red grandpa over there."
Yes, yes. A grandpa, and red. Juhwan let out a short laugh at the child's words and turned his head. Had she seen some drunk with a flushed face?
His face went stiff when he looked where her finger pointed. What the child had spoken of was not a person. It was a sign fixed to a two-story building.