Chapter 52
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: volt
Chapter: 52
Chapter Title: Side Story - Porter
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Back on Croatoan Island after so long. Aboard a barge, precariously hauling the Damas along.
The reason for bringing the Damas was obvious. There wasn't much else on the island for carting around cargo.
Sure, the Damas looked pretty pathetic, but that was just from our 21st-century perspective.
This tiny thing's engine put out a whopping 35 horsepower.
...Of course, it still looked utterly pathetic, but as I said before, that's by 21st-century standards. Let's think about what "horsepower" actually means.
Horse. Power.
From the viewpoint of this era, where horses pulled carts, wasn't the Damas equivalent to the immense power of a carriage drawn by thirty-five horses?
Thud!
"...Nope."
Anyway, after disembarking from the barge, we were bouncing along what passed for a well-paved road (by 16th-century standards), and every time we hit a rock, I thought I'd lose my mind from the anxiety. Was this thing going to flip over or something?
If I were driving it empty, that'd be one thing, but loaded up with all sorts of maintenance gear for the Chesapeake settlement, it was nerve-wracking...
Clunk! Bang!
"Wha—what... Wh-what...!"
Wait, hold on—why the hell was the wind blowing sideways right now?
Nah, no way.
It's a car, after all. Not made of cardboard or corrugated tin—it's metal. How could a metal car flip over from a little wind...
Crash!
...It can.
I thought I was dead.
Or, to be precise, I'd actually died once already. The rattling in my gut from my broken ribs told me as much.
In normal circumstances, this would've been 100% fatal. And I can say that with certainty.
Medicine in this era boiled down to nonsense like, "Too much blood in your body? Let's bleed it out," or "Blood... circulates around the heart? Eek! Never heard of it!" It was that underdeveloped.
A snapped rib piercing your organs? You'd be dead before anyone could do a thing. Just a painful death.
But I survived. I was surviving.
I could feel the bones in my body knitting back together, the wounds in my organs healing.
Yeah. Thanks to the immortal cheat, I'd dodged death a few times now. Gotta be grateful for that much.
'...If I hadn't fallen into the 16th century, I wouldn't even be in these near-death scrapes.'
Getting stabbed in the heart by a sudden Spanish soldier attack, or riddled with holes by some assassins, or flipping over defenselessly on a remote dirt road like this and dying in the Damas...
Ah, that last one could've totally happened in the 21st century too.
A cold sweat suddenly trickled down my back. Crawling out through the shattered window in blood-soaked clothes, it finally hit me.
If I'd kept driving this junk heap around, I probably would've ended up dead in the 21st century someday.
Maybe Hyundai Soft actually extended my life? Indeed... I'll bow toward the Hyundai Soft headquarters in Montreuil, France, three times a day.
No, I didn't originally drive around in trash like this.
In the city, maybe (though it's dangerous there too), but in the countryside with its narrow, rough, winding unpaved roads, hopping in a Damas was a one-way ticket to swimming naked in the Jordan River.
Do you think I'm insane enough to just ride in this thing? This coffin weighing just under a ton that tips over in a stiff breeze.
Whether there's a reason or not, anyone who rides a Damas is crazy? Why rub salt in my wounds like that? I did have something better, damn it.
A 2017 Kia Porter. Double cab, long wheelbase, four-wheel drive beast.
I'd haul grapes straight to the direct sales stand with it, strike a pose in the driver's seat, and fill a corner of the local paper with headlines like "Shine Muscat? Still kickin'! Cry of the young farmer."
Anyway, that's how it was.
Until the flood swept it off to the mountain behind the farm.
By then, my earnings had already plummeted, so there was no fixing it. Honestly, the cost to salvage and scrap it would've been more trouble, so I just left it.
Those bastards who sold water-tasting Shine Muscats and tanked the brand value deserve the hell reserved for grape farmers.
Anyway, after that, the 500,000-won used '92 Damas I picked up.
On the verge of the scrapyard, barely drivable—that Damas.
"Hah... huff... hah..."
The Damas that would be found good as new in the warehouse past midnight again.
This Damas had been my "temporary" ride, but now it was my life sentence (forced).
I headed to the rear of the overturned Damas and slung the assorted junk from the trunk onto my back.
Ugh, heavy. I'd been cursing the Damas just moments ago, but now that even it was gone, I was going insane.
The paint cans and other stuff we'd loaded from the coast were already spilled everywhere. Whatever—just call it trash and bye-bye. See you after midnight.
...
...
...
Ah, this is so heartbreaking.
I want to go back to the 21st century.
Even if I have to go into debt, I want my car back.
If I just had my Porter, hauling this junk would be a breeze. Porters are so tough they get used as weapons in civil wars abroad. What about the Damas? Scrap metal? Coffin?
Anyway, trudging away from the crumpled Damas like a piece of paper, my legs started shaking, my body trembling all over. Even after coming to the 16th century and gaining superhuman strength, here I was.
About an hour and a half later.
"Uwaaaah! I-I'm alive!"
I finally changed out of my blood-soaked clothes and collapsed into bed.
The folks left in the settlement came running when they saw me covered in blood, but since everyone knew I wouldn't die, I brushed them all off.
I just wanted to rest.
I clenched my shaking hands and let out a sigh.
Why, oh why, did Immortal Order: Origin have to launch right when I was driving the Damas?
Did I get the immortal cheat because of the Damas? Like, "That poor guy's ride is a Damas—let's give him a cheat so he doesn't die." Was that the consensus at Hyundai Soft's exec meeting?
Anyway.
Whoa, I'd seen isekai stories where traffic accidents send you to another world, reincarnate you, whatever—but isekai first, then traffic accident? That's refreshingly novel.
Now... I just want to quit.
Quit... everything.
...
I passed out into sleep like that.
And in my dream, I saw a scene from the past.
It was definitely that day the flood hit. My mom, a huge Anne of Green Gables fan, had built this house—fake-Green-Gables— with a high foundation suited to Korean conditions, so thankfully it didn't flood.
The problem was the fields.
"Th-this... fuck! The grapes are all ruined! They're all gonna taste like water!"
I was cursing the Korean climate for dumping rain right before harvest and Dan-gun grandpa's masochistic choice of starting location when I saw it from the second-floor window (casement style).
The Porter parked outside... uh...
Whoosh-crash-boom!
Was... floating... away...
You could tell from how late my parents started farming and how they were total city folk—we had no roots in the countryside.
So moving to a place with no connections meant all sorts of hardships, and this plot was part of that. That's why our farm was stuck in such a remote corner of the village.
Just look at how this 4,000-pyong lot included a chunk of hillside.
The car got wedged in there...
Eh?
"Wha?"
By the time I was sobbing over the Porter buried in chocolate-milk mud, I woke up. My mind started racing immediately.
Hold on.
Items in our house, no matter how wrecked, get perfectly restored past midnight.
So, what exactly does "perfectly restored" mean?
What is "restoration"? Just back to original condition?
Then what's the benchmark for "original"?
For example, my mower that rattled badly due to neglect—when it broke and came back, did it return to that same rattling state?
No.
It came back shiny and new, like freshly unpacked. That's why I've been abusing stuff more these past few years.
Better to let it get ambiguously scratched or glitchy until it fully breaks and gets perfectly fixed.
So then...
'The Porter that was flooded and wrecked—what about it?'
The Porter... in that case... what would happen?
I stepped outside in my pajamas; dawn was just breaking. Makes sense—I woke up thinking about the Porter in a dream.
Even if North Carolina's warmer than Korea, autumn dawn in PJs was chilly. But I didn't care.
Colds don't stick anyway. I jammed my feet into sneakers and headed out.
Grabbed a shovel from the shed, kicked the freshly returned damn Damas, and bolted toward the hillside.
Back then, in the dream and memory, I'd watched you in despair.
Watched you sink into the floodwaters and mud.
But...
Now I can save you, Porter!
I wiped tears blurring my vision and ran like mad. Running and running, the hillside with wild parsley and mugwort came into view.
I charged straight to the spot from the dream, shovel in hand.
And dug like a maniac!
Excavator? It's over in Chesapeake; can't use it. All I trust are my unbreakable arms and legs.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Digging at dawn—crazy, right? But thinking of what awaited after kept my shivering arms going.
It's coming soon.
Coming...! The thing I'd dreamed of!
And finally.
Clang!
When the shovel hit "something" in the dirt with a clear, metallic ring, I couldn't believe my ears.
Looking around, I was sunk into a pit as deep as my waist, with dirt piles matching that height everywhere.
And this wasn't the only pit...
"Wh-what? Who suddenly dug up the ground... Nemo?"
"What are you doing there!"
Villagers called out, but my chest was swelling so much I couldn't answer, just gritted my teeth. My legs buckled; I dropped the shovel and clawed at the dirt with both hands.
And then... it appeared.
The sea-deep, rich onyx blue color.
The beautiful curves and lines.
And beyond the window... the pristine driver's seat.
Ah.
Aah.
"A-are you okay?"
"..."
"You're okay, right?"
"...Everyone, bring shovels over here."
If an angel suddenly appeared in mud-caked pajamas ordering you to grab a shovel at dawn—what would you do?
You might think psycho, but our good settlers followed. They brought shovels and dug beside me.
And.
The shape emerged.
"Ah... ugh..."
Premium trim.
6-speed manual.
Front airbags.
Underbed toolbox and spare tire.
Even PTO (power take-off).
And finally.
133 horsepower.
About 3.8 times the Damas.
One of these could sustain a whole village in some backwater Third World spot.
Before the villagers got suspicious, I sent them off. Sorry for the early morning labor—I gave them the buttered potatoes I'd saved for snacks.
And.
I returned to the Porter.
"Ugh... uuh... uugh..."
Tears flowed.
Not when I first realized I'd fallen into the 16th century and panicked.
Not when the excavator smashed the fence and a sword pierced my heart, stopping it momentarily.
Not when assassins riddled me with dozens of holes.
Not when that bastard chainsawed my shoulder.
I never cried.
I shed those precious tears here.
"Hyundai... eternal gratitude...!"
That's how much I loved this one-ton truck.