A Master by Accident
I ended up with a master old enough to be my grandfather. Against my will.
When I came to, I was staring at an unfamiliar ceiling.
Naturally, I thought I'd been reborn.
I figured my last words had been heard, and that was the start of God's Life Diary, Volume 1 — "Alright. Let's see how prettily you live this time."
But no.
The ceiling wasn't made of fluffy white clouds — it was rough timber. And the one who'd hit me wasn't a benevolent deity, but a crotchety-looking old man.
"Oh? Awake, are you?"
Two words.
Too short a sentence to extract proper information, but the situation and environment were enough.
I shot upright, then — as if the momentum had never been — immediately prostrated myself and bowed deeply to the old man.
"Thank you, sir! You saved my life!"
"What nonsense is this?"
But the old man just snorted and tried to walk past me.
"Heh heh, why try to hide your good deed, sir? I may be an uneducated street orphan, but I know to repay a debt of gratitude. Please don't make me into a scoundrel who forgets a favor."
That's a lie.
I am a scoundrel who forgets favors and ignores debts.
Who fully deserves the title of 'utter bastard.'
The reason I spoke like that was simple — I was hoping there might be something more to leech off him.
If he'd bother to pick up a dying man with no family off the street and save his life, he must be a hell of a pushover.
Maybe I could squeeze even a single coin out of him.
That was my thinking.
"Is that so? Good, you understand. Come do the laundry, then."
...Uh. That's not how this was supposed to go.
"Sir. Dinner's ready."
"Is that so? Let's see... Ptoo! You little bastard! You've finally done it — you've turned my rice into a biological weapon! A precious talent who should've been born in 21st-century South Korea, wasted on a medieval fantasy world! Heaven truly has no heart!"
"...Yes, sir."
Biological weapon. Chemical engineering. 21st-century South Korea.
I couldn't understand a word he was saying, but I just let it slide.
In exchange for room and board at the old man's house, I'd already done laundry, drawn water, adjusted the water level for the submerged weeds (he called them 'rice,' apparently), fed the cat, and prepared the meal.
It hadn't even been half a day, but I was already getting used to his curses laced with incomprehensible vocabulary.
"Tch. No fun. The punchline's already dead. But I meant what I said about the taste — that part's sincere."
"Thank you for showing me your sincerity, sir."
"Annoying as it is, eating this garbage must be even more of a hardship. Once we're done, I'll teach you how to cook rice."
"Please eat bread like normal people, sir."
"Bah! A Korean lives on bap — rice! Don't tell me you're one of those heretics who eats bread for breakfast!"
"I skip breakfast. I'd be lucky to eat anything at all in a day — what's this 'breakfast' you speak of?"
My groveling tone had already reverted to my usual one.
At some point, I'd realized it.
What kind of people we both were.
From what I'd gathered, the old man had a foul mouth, didn't care about disrespectful speech,
"Earn some money."
"Where, sir?"
"Do I have to teach you that too?"
And was completely immune to the 'poor orphan, have some pity' routine.
To the point where I wondered why he'd even picked me up in the first place.
He wouldn't treat another orphan like this.
"Why'd I pick you up? A while back, my damn disciple ran away, so I needed someone to do the laundry. Tch. That brat's swordsmanship was garbage, but at least he could cook."
"I can see that. The laundry's in tatters."
I sighed and took a spoonful of the soup I'd ladled out for myself —
"Ptoo! The fuck is this?!"
"Are you an idiot? You saw me eating it and still took a spoonful?"
"I thought you were being dramatic. Ugh. How do you eat this? The soup tastes like dishwater, and the chunks are the size of gravel but hard as rocks."
"That's because it's not soup."
"Huh?"
"'Rice' is a dish where you add water to these grains, then steam them with pressure and heat. You don't just boil them until they bubble."
Wait.
"Then why didn't you tell me?"
"I thought you knew a secret recipe for delicious food that I didn't."
"Where would an orphan learn that? Default setting is — toss in whatever's edible, bread or rat or anything, add water, and boil it until it's digestible."
"Ugh. Disgusting."
...
"Anyway. You cook the rice until it's done, then eat it with side dishes. Luckily, my disciple left some side dishes behind before he ran off, but I'm worried about the future."
...I'll bear with it.
Despite the old geezer, this place had a ceiling and a floor.
I remembered the face he'd made when I asked if the roof leaked — like I was some kind of retard.
So I guess I didn't need to worry about that.
And more than that.
Even if the taste was secondary, there was food to keep me from starving.
And room for improvement. Couldn't ask for more.
If I told the beggars in the clan about this, they'd either punch me in the gut for lying or cry their eyes out begging me to take them with me.
"Time to sleep. Wake up early tomorrow. At the very least, I want to eat dinner that I didn't cook."
"Huh? You're going to bed already?"
"Go home and ask your grandfather. Old people need their sleep... Ah, shit! You don't have either of those!"
With that, the old geezer vanished into his shack.
...That son of a bitch. I swear.
The next morning.
"What's this? Why are you still all grimy?"
"It'd be stranger if I were clean, sir."
"Ugh. Disgusting."
...
"Go to the bathroom and wash up. The water's running, so use soap too."
"...Sir?"
"Get to it."
I was shoved toward the bathroom, bewildered.
Wait, hold on.
Running water? Soap?
What was he talking about?
Soap was a luxury item — only nobles or merchants could afford to use it.
And even they only washed every few days.
What could a bathroom in the middle of nowhere possibly have...
...Clang!
"Hmm. Much better."
"Hoooooh. My body feels like it's melting."
"Heh heh. You've turned into a total country bumpkin."
"Yeeeees. I'm a country bumpkin."
"...Tch. You've broken. Snap out of it. Let's cook. If you want to wash again today, you have to earn your keep."
"Yeeeees. Coo... wait. Again today? What do you mean, sir? Are you saying... you enjoy bathing every day?"
"Don't act surprised over something so obvious."
The old man... no, sir answered as if it were nothing, but his shoulders were raised high. That was the posture of a great man trying to hide his joy, I decided.
"You said 'cook,' sir? How do I do it! Please teach me!"
"Hmph. You've finally fallen to the temptations of bathing."
When I'd asked, during my bath, "If the water source — groundwater, lake, or river — is within the lord's territory, what if the lord says, 'That's mine, why are you using it?'" he'd replied, "I'd tell him to go fuck himself." That was the coolest thing I'd ever heard.
It was a week later that the rose-colored glasses for bathing finally fell off — after I'd learned how to cook rice, simple meals, and housekeeping.
So, a week later.
"Catch me. Land one clean hit, and you win."
"Yes, sir."
The promised training day had arrived.
"You're not hesitating? This blade is dulled, but it's still sharpened."
"Everyone who hesitated has returned to their parents' warm embrace."
"How fortunate. But hold it like that, and you'll be asking your grandfather whether old people sleep a lot at night."
The old man clearly didn't like what he saw.
Well, that was only natural.
How often had I ever held a weapon?
My fingers twitched nervously, the dagger's angle shifting slightly with each movement.
My anxious eyes reflected in the thirty-centimeter blade — not short, not long.
But.
This was a body that had already died once from a gut punch and come back to life.
I'd lived too rough a life to be scared of a little blade this size — well, not exactly little, but you get the point.
Anyway.
I'd lived too rough a life to be scared of a blade.
"..."
The trembling tip of the knife steadied.
My hands instinctively found the correct grip.
My right arm extended, opening my shoulder. My right foot moved forward.
My breathing calmed. My gaze sharpened.
It was Jeden's fighting stance.
"Ho."
The old man's sour face twisted into a savage smile.
But I didn't care.
The old man's body was packed with muscle. His footsteps made no sound. His arms, hung loosely, were always ready to react to an attack — a living shield.
A fortress, in every sense.
Still, I didn't give up.
I kept searching for a gap in the fortress.
Heat gathered at my eyelids.
Blood vessels burst, tinting my vision red.
Still, my wide-open eyes didn't waver.
I kept searching for a gap in the fortress.
Any wall.
A single brick, even a crack in a pebble smaller than that — if I could find it...!
"!"
I saw it.
In that instant, a small point shimmered gold in my vision, an illusion, and my body shot forward.
Straight for the old man's flank —
THWACK —!!
The old man, Luke, watched the kid tumbling in the distance and scratched his head.
"Did I hit him too hard?"
His previous disciple had been a madman who poured everything into defense.
His standards had gotten too high, and he'd misjudged his strength.
Well, the kid didn't look dead, at least.
No. That wasn't the important thing.
The gap in his left flank was a weakness Luke had deliberately exposed.
A trap, in other words.
No eight-year-old kid should have been able to target it.
But.
Even if he'd revealed it, a normal person wouldn't have been able to find it. And even if they did find it, they wouldn't have had the guts to go for it.
Yet this brat had charged in.
At eight years old, he'd found my weakness and thrown himself at it.
If this kid had been targeting a street thug instead of me — or even a guard, if I raised the bar a little — would they have been able to stop him?
A kid who barely reached my waist, finding an exposed weakness in an instant and striking at that speed?
"...Heh."
Well, I didn't know about that. But I did know one thing for sure.
A pretty interesting kid had stumbled into my life.
Though if the kid had heard him, he would've whined that Luke hadn't found him, but had picked him up. But that didn't matter.