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The peddler’s wagon looked nothing like a regular carriage.
It wasn’t built to carry passengers. Instead, it was a large cart fitted with walls and a roof, its interior packed wall-to-wall with goods and no seats in sight.
The merchants pulled wooden planks from the roof and set them beside the wagon. The tables snapped together without a single nail—just clever interlocking joints—and soon their wares were neatly displayed.
There was an impressive variety: farming tools, iron pots, round wooden barrels, sacks of seeds and grains, bolts of fabric, spools of thread, and even toothbrushes made by fixing stiff bristles into wooden handles.
It seemed to hold nearly everything a person might need for daily life.
So this world has toothbrushes too. I had assumed they didn’t exist because no one used them.
The moment I snatched one up, the villagers stared at me with blank, baffled expressions.
“Chief, that’s not exactly an urgent item…”
“If you need one, I can make it for you. We still have plenty of boar bristles left from last time.”
I had seen them carefully trimming and bundling bristles into brushes for cleaning. So that was how they made toothbrushes here.
“Make some for everyone, not just me. The children need them too.”
The villagers exchanged uneasy glances.
“Do we really need those?”
“Wouldn’t it be better to save the bristles for more important things?”
It looked like many of them still didn’t understand how vital brushing your teeth actually was. Then again, when people were poor enough to worry about their next meal, dental hygiene probably seemed like a luxury.
But the poorer you were, the more precious strong teeth became. Thinking of jerky and rock-hard bread, I spoke firmly.
“Brushing every day is genuinely important. If your teeth aren’t strong, you won’t be able to chew properly even when food is available. Your body will weaken over time.”
One man subtly pressed a hand to his cheek. He must have been suffering from a toothache.
“Chief, does brushing with that make your teeth stronger?”
These people had zero understanding of dental care.
“It may not improve your current condition, but it can prevent things from getting worse. That’s why we need to start while your teeth are still relatively healthy.”
I spent a while explaining why food particles left between teeth were harmful and how simply removing them could keep teeth strong for much longer.
Even Kenson and the merchants listened intently, nodding along.
“I sell them, but hardly anyone actually buys them,” the merchant said, turning the toothbrush over in his palm. “I only carry them because fallen nobles or wealthy merchants sometimes settle in frontier lands like this. Still… I should try one myself. My teeth have been aching lately.”
“Don’t use it dry. Dampen it with a little salt first.”
The merchant tilted his head. “Does that help?”
“It cleans away the invisible causes of illness.”
They probably had no concept of bacteria or germs. I tried to explain it simply, but the children looked at each other and immediately asked,
“But mister, we eat salt with our meals. Doesn’t that kill all the sickness? So we don’t need to brush, right?”
“Wait, if salt is strong enough to kill germs, wouldn’t it kill everything in our stomachs too?”
“Am I going to die?”
The children burst into a panicked uproar. One boy clutched his belly and made a dying face.
“My stomach hurts… The salt killed it…”
Popcorn tilted its head, then pressed itself against the boy’s belly as if trying to listen. After a moment it touched its own round stomach and copied the exact same despairing expression.
It was clearly imitating the child. The little spirit wobbled through the air like a tragic heroine, then flopped onto its back in midair, pretending to cry.
Where do I even start with this?
A man gave the dramatic boy a light smack on the head.
“You little rascal. That’s because you secretly stole meat earlier.”
Another man laughed heartily. “We saw all of you sneaking food together. If salt could kill you, you’d have died a long time ago.”
“Oh… yeah, that’s true.”
The boy who had claimed he was dying stuck out his tongue and ran off, the other children chasing after him in a noisy pack.
In the end, no one bought the toothbrushes. The villagers had passed them around, studied them carefully, and declared they could make the same thing themselves.
“I’ve traveled through many frontier settlements, but I’ve never seen a village or a chief like yours,” Kenson said with a gentle smile. “From the very beginning, everything feels different here.”
He lowered his voice so only I could hear. “This isn’t something I’d say publicly, but… you can register additional farmland later. It’s better to declare a smaller amount at first, just like you planned.”
“There are people who couldn’t pay their taxes and essentially became slaves to the land. The conditions for cultivating frontier territory are unusually generous at the start. Even though I don’t know this world well, it struck me as strange for a medieval society to offer such favorable terms.”
Kenson didn’t say more, but it seemed the kingdom might be using taxes as a way to create serfs—or something close to slaves. People would be bound to the land, unable to leave no matter what, forced to obey the crown. Perhaps that had been the plan from the beginning.
“…Thank you.”
When I bowed my head, Kenson pressed a finger to his lips.
“Don’t tell the others.”
His gaze suddenly drifted toward Popcorn, who was fluttering between the villagers. He quickly looked away, but I wondered if he could see spirits. Maybe that was why he was so kind to our village.
“We leave at noon tomorrow, so decide what you want to buy before then. Look carefully and think it over.”
Once the merchants finished setting up their stalls and called out, the villagers hurried over.
“Oh, these seeds can be planted in spring.”
“I’ve never seen this kind before. What is it?”
The sacks of seeds drew the most attention. People kept asking about new varieties while the merchants explained.
I wandered around browsing. The children who had run off earlier returned and stared at the goods with wide-eyed fascination. Popcorn rolled across the merchandise like a fluffy snowball.
What on earth is that little guy doing?
Before long, the day’s cooking crew announced that dinner was ready. The menu was the same as yesterday—roasted boar, organ stew, and hard bread. They simply added more ingredients to yesterday’s leftover stew and kept it simmering. The broth had grown incredibly rich and savory.
Popcorn occasionally dove in for a swim, which somehow made it taste even better.
“Wait, this isn’t jerky. This is proper meat!”
Kenson and the merchants stared with round eyes.
“Where did you get this? It doesn’t look like rabbit or rat.”
Do people eat rats in this world? I thought, startled. The villagers burst into loud laughter.
“Looks like the mage has never tried it.”
“We eat it sometimes, but they’re hard to catch.”
“No, please don’t eat rats.”
The villagers called me both chief and mage now. At some point, the casual “mister” had slipped back into their speech.
“Mister used wind magic and went whoosh! and knocked down a huge boar!” Ji-geu exclaimed, thrusting his hands out. Another child immediately corrected him and demonstrated the proper pose.
“You lift your hand like this, keep your wrist here, and your feet go like…”
Honestly, that stance looked like it would make it hard to even stand, let alone cast wind magic.
“How big was the boar?” Kenson asked.
The children answered eagerly, voices overlapping.
“Bigger than ten people put together!”
“No, a hundred! I’ve never seen one that big before.”
“It was bigger than a mountain!”
“Bigger than that tree over there!”
One child pointed toward the distant forest, indicating the tallest tree stretching toward the sky.
“If it was that big, you wouldn’t call it a boar. You’d call it a monster,” Kenson said, laughing.
When the children insisted it was true, he simply shrugged and said he understood.
Kids, if you exaggerate too much, no one will believe you.
The adults seemed a little worried.
“Um… Steward, the kingdom really won’t take our chief away, right?”
“Well, if the children’s story is true, I’m not sure. But a boar that large couldn’t possibly exist, so there’s no need to worry. Besides, I won’t mention it elsewhere.”
Kenson’s eyes widened after he took a bite of meat. The merchants noticed and tried some themselves. Their eyes grew just as large.
“Ohhh, this is truly delicious.”
“Is this really boar?”
“The flavor is exceptional.”
Is it that good? Maybe it was because Popcorn had been dancing and rolling all over it. The children had also hung from the wooden spatula while stirring the sausage filling.
We had grown used to it and simply enjoyed the taste, but Kenson and the merchants were losing their minds over how incredible it was. The children puffed out their chests proudly.
“It’s an amazing boar, that’s why.”
“It really was enormous.”
“Dad and all the uncles said they’d never seen one like it.”
Kenson nodded. “It’s definitely something worth bragging about. It would be a shame not to have alcohol with meat this fine.”
He muttered to himself, then turned to the merchant beside him. “I’ll buy a barrel of liquor. Give me the best you have.”
The villagers erupted in cheers. While everyone happily shared drinks, I caught Popcorn as it wobbled through the air.
If that little rascal jumped into the liquor barrel and changed the flavor, there would be chaos.
Don’t go inside the barrel until these people leave. I thought the words clearly, but of course Popcorn couldn’t hear my inner voice.
It flapped around making pipipi sounds, eager to escape. Meanwhile, Kenson and the merchants silently alternated between meat, stew, and liquor.
The villagers watched them with mild concern, wondering if their stomachs might burst.
After the meal, Kenson wrote on a sheet of paper and taught me the characters one by one. This kingdom’s alphabet resembled the English one yet looked completely different. The pronunciation was strange too. Memorizing it from scratch seemed difficult.
Every time Kenson pronounced a character, I added Korean annotations beside it.
“You use quite unusual writing,” Kenson said, studying the Hangul quietly. Without further comment, he continued teaching the rest of the alphabet and wrote down dozens of basic words. I added Korean readings to those as well.
“Is there a particular word you want to know?”
I quickly brought out the contract.
“I’d like to understand the meaning of the words in this sentence.”
Kenson looked at me. “You really are unusual. You’re the first person I’ve met who wants to know the exact contents of a contract. Most people just accept it and move on.”
He pointed at each word, pronouncing them slowly and explaining their meanings. As I listened and rolled the words on my tongue, something strange happened.
Huh…?
Every time Kenson read a word slowly and I repeated it under my breath, I somehow understood its meaning instinctively. The context became clear, just like reading a book in Korean. I couldn’t grasp it by sight alone, but pronouncing the words made the meaning click.
Was this Popcorn’s power too?
The little spirit was running around with the children. When I looked at it, Popcorn seemed to sense my gaze. It spun in a circle, tilted its head, and asked, “Pipipi?”
It tilted its head again, then threw both arms into the air. Its bottom stuck out at a slight angle. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but it was a pose Popcorn had been striking often lately.
I laughed without thinking. Popcorn seemed delighted and flew toward me making happy pipipi sounds.
“This village is rather nice,” Kenson suddenly murmured.
He narrowed his eyes, watching the villagers with a gentle smile.
After spending the night by the campfire, Kenson and the merchants departed at noon the next day. Before they left, the merchants offered to buy the boar meat at a good price.
I asked the villagers if we should sell a little to help the village, but they all shook their heads. A few whispered so Kenson and the merchants wouldn’t hear.
“If you want us to, Chief, we will… but that meat was blessed by the spirit.”
They seemed to believe the exceptional taste came from Popcorn’s blessing. Though watching the little spirit’s antics, it was hard to imagine it possessed any great power.
In the end, we didn’t sell the meat.
Popcorn must have found the merchants fascinating. It followed them until they disappeared from sight, then returned. The children, of course, went right along with it.