Let's Build a New House! (feat. Ondol)
With salt secured from the saltern, life for the people changed in a big way.
They'd discovered how to preserve fish.
"Hey guys, what are you doing?"
"Salting sea fish."
"Is that how you do it?"
"Lasts longer. Good."
They lined the fish up in a basket, sprinkled salt over them, added more fish, sprinkled more salt, and repeated the process.
"Um... shouldn't you take the guts out first?"
Wait, no—did they even need to keep the guts in? What about fermented seafood?
Ah... this is getting a little confusing.
Maybe I should just let them figure it out.
"Guts?"
"Mm. Not sure, but I think taking that stuff out of the fish makes it last longer."
"Oh! Got it!"
Now my friends were cleaning the fish before salting them.
But the smell over here was absolutely brutal.
Sorry, guys—I'm gonna head out.
"Good work."
"Yeah. Thanks."
"Don't mention it. See you next time."
Then one day, as I was passing by, I saw them laying fish out to dry in the shade.
"Ah~ right. Drying them makes them last even longer, huh?"
It was fascinating, watching my friends evolve all on their own.
No need for me to meddle so much, I guess.
Come to think of it, if I just left them alone, they'd probably reach modern-day living eventually anyway.
"Yeesh... but do these guys have no sense of smell?"
The fish storage shed reeked so badly of brine I couldn't get anywhere near it.
The saltern was by the sea anyway, so I should tell them to build the storage shed down on the coast.
And when they salted the meat of animals they occasionally hunted, it seemed to vanish so quickly that it was clearly a hit.
"Guys, aren't you catching a little too much?"
"It's fine. We go far away and trade for things."
Hold on—is this... trading?
So they're exchanging with other tribes!
"Oh? You do bartering too?"
"Bartering?"
"Trading goods for goods."
First with the potatoes, and now I was starting to wonder if they were catching too many fish—until one day I saw them shouldering huge loads and setting out from the village.
A few days later, they came back leading all kinds of animals. Confirmed: they had trading partners.
Just another busy day in prehistoric times.
"Brrr... something's getting cold and damp..."
Winter was coming, I could feel the chill creeping in. And with the sea not far away, the dampness was a bonus feature.
Thanks to my immortality perk, I probably wouldn't freeze to death, but that didn't mean I could live inside a freezer.
"I need to prepare for winter."
My village friends had been getting ready for quite a while already, hadn't they?
They were gathering the pelts of furry animals like rabbits and foxes and making clothes out of them.
I figured I should do something too.
"I'm building a new house!"
The start of a major project.
Naturally, since it would have ondol heating, I planned to seal out the wind by coating the walls with clay. Or mud, rather.
"Ufufu. The very first ondol house, am I right?"
I'd carve a line into history.
The house I lived in now had been thrown together far too sloppily.
Might as well build a brand-new one from scratch while I was at it.
I was pacing around near the village scouting out a homesite when some of my friends came over to greet me.
As the resident celebrity of this village, I couldn't just brush them off.
"Hi, Haneul~"
"Hey. Hi, everyone~"
One of them even trailed after me, copying everything I did?
Today, my friends, you're about to witness something new.
First came the foundation work—I started tamping down the ground, mixing in rocks and stones and pounding them until I had a nice solid surface.
"Is this wavy pattern about right?"
Next, I stacked stones gathered from the river to form the channel the heat from the firebox would travel through, then slopped clay over everything to seal it up.
Bricks would've made this so much easier. I really should try making bricks someday.
This much should hold without collapsing even when I climb on it, right?
"Am I cutting corners too much?"
"Haneul, what are you doing?"
Garungda, curious as ever, sidled up and asked.
"This? I'm building a house."
"House? Isn't it warmer if you dig into the ground?"
My primitive friends dug pits in the earth and built their homes in them.
Underground is warm in winter and cool in summer, true enough.
But this is a house with ondol, my friend.
"I'm making ondol."
"Ondol?"
"Yeah! Do you know what heating is?"
"No."
"Then just watch."
I hurried to get the house built.
I laid broad, flat stones over the heat channel, then meticulously filled every gap with clay.
"Okay, like this—you have to seal up all the cracks really well with clay."
"Why?"
"Because scary smoke comes from the fire, and it can cause big trouble."
"Oh."
My friends' knowledge was still far too limited for a lecture on the dangers of carbon monoxide, so explaining the immediate danger would have to do for now.
The floor was done, so that was the end of the hard part.
Up top, I put together a simple frame of logs.
"Haneul, wind comes in! Not cold?"
"Great observation! That's what I'm blocking next!"
"Huh?"
"Clay, of course."
For the grand finale, I slapped clay onto the exterior walls with wild abandon.
THWUMP.
"Huh?"
"PWAHAHA!"
Did I really just slip and fall?
Garungda, aren't you enjoying this a bit too much?
"Kheheh. Haneul, mix in grass. Stick better then."
Unable to hold back his laughter, Garungda shared a bit of primitive wisdom. Dammit.
I am definitely making bricks next time.
"Ah... right, they used to mix straw into mud before plastering walls, didn't they?"
So I mixed in reeds and kept building up the wall.
"Hmm, the reed bits poke through, so it's not exactly pretty..."
Squish, squish.
"Haneul, do it like this."
I looked over to see Garungda picking up clay and smoothing it on in a thin layer.
It was turning out sleek and actually respectable.
Today's record: a two-loss streak against primitive wisdom...
"Alright, now for the firebox and the chimney."
"Firebox? Chimney?"
"Yeah! The firebox is where you build the fire! The chimney is where the smoke goes out!"
"Mm... don't get it."
On one end of the floor channel I'd made at the start, I built a mud firebox, and on the opposite end I ran a chimney up along the wall of the house.
"Now, this side here is the firebox. You build the fire in it."
"Ah~ firebox, got it."
"And that tall thing over there is the chimney. The smoke is going to escape out of it."
Since I couldn't exactly explain how pressure differences pull smoke up through a chimney, I wrapped the lesson up with good old-fashioned rote education.
"Now we wait for the clay to dry."
"Ah, I know that one. Clay bowl cracks right away if you put it straight in the fire."
"Oh~ you know your stuff! Let's build a fire in it in a few days."
"Okay. We watch together."
And so I left the new house standing there and spent about another week in the old one.
I had no idea how many days the clay needed to dry, so I gave it a generous waiting period.
It would be a disaster if I cut it short and the whole thing failed, after all.
Murmur murmur.
Today was the day to test-fire the house, and a big crowd of primitive friends had gathered.
This was a little much for something that might end in catastrophic failure.
Please, let it work...
"I'm... I'm going to light the fire now."
Ah, what if it fails? My confidence was draining fast.
There it sat, the humble little firebox, all alone outside the house.
'Please be good to me, dear firebox!'
I stuffed dry kindling into the firebox and lit it with my bow drill.
See, I don't have flint stones, alright?
Lower on the totem pole than actual primitive people.
"Haneul, you no have fire stone?"
"U-uh, well, I'm perfectly capable like this!"
"Want me give you one?"
"No thanks, this is plenty for me!"
Garungda's pitying gaze...
What? What is it, man? I'm really fine!
The kindling caught nicely, and wisps of smoke began to curl up from the firebox.
The smoke and flames were being drawn inward—the chimney was working, apparently.
"Amazing. No smoke comes out?"
"Right? When you build it like this, the smoke goes out through the chimney."
"This good."
These friends could really use fireboxes and chimneys of their own.
They built fires indoors, and every so often the whole house would fill with smoke and everyone would go scrambling outside.
But no smoke seemed to be leaking into the house...
The carbon monoxide is the problem, people.
"Haneul, why do you do that face?"
I was frowning and peering into the house when one of my friends asked.
"Well, I can't tell whether any dangerous gas is coming off the inside of this."
"Very dangerous?"
"Yeah... you could die."
I'd be fine myself, but I worried my friends might have an accident if they tried to copy this.
"You wait."
The friend hurried off to the fence, fetched a rabbit, and set it loose inside the house.
Ah... in modern times, that would get you arrested for animal cruelty...
My friends were sneakily clever.
After a long while of watching, the rabbit was still hopping around, hale and hearty.
It seemed to like the warmth so much that it flopped right down on its side.
"Oh? Looks like it's fine!"
"Did it work?"
"Everyone come in! This is what you call ondol."
I couldn't swear I'd built it properly, but I should give the assembled friends a house tour, no?
"WOW!!!"
"What is this!!"
"Hot!"
The friends' reactions were positively scorching.
Toasty-warm floorboards, aren't they lovely?
I hadn't asked for any housewarming gifts, but the floor was getting dirtier and dirtier by the minute.
Ah... guys, please, wash yourselves once in a while...
It seemed like the cold weather had made them stop bathing altogether.
"Haneul, can we do it too?"
"Of course. But you have to be careful of the dangerous air."
"Yes! Check with animal."
"That earlier was a rabbit."
"Ah! Rabbit! Got it."
Hold on, where did that rabbit even come from? I've never seen any around here?
A construction boom swept through the village.
My friends were building ondol floors, but they just couldn't let go of their pit houses.
They'd build the ondol into the ground and then stick the pit house right back on top of it.
Frankly, that part was a bit of a relief, honestly.
With the wind whistling through every crack, there was no chance of a carbon monoxide accident.
"Wow... seriously..."
Rumble. Rumble.
Then I witnessed something absurd—some of them were coming back rolling boulders along the ground.
"Guys! That's dangerous! Why are you doing it like that?"
"Ah, hi Haneul? Floor stones."
"No, why are you rolling them over? Why don't you use a cart?"
"Cart?"
I rushed off, carved wheels out of wood, bored an axle through a log, slapped a board on top, and produced a simple cart.
"There, this is a cart. Try loading a stone on the end of the board."
"Okay."
It was a two-wheeled thing of truly primitive design, but it beat rolling stones across the ground like they'd been doing.
One of the cleverer friends would surely build it up into something good, right?
"Better than before, right?"
"Oh. Good."
"Try making an even better one later."
"Will do."
Creeeak, creeeak—it didn't balance well and looked dangerously wobbly, but they pushed it along far more easily than before.
Just as I was starting to relax—
CRACK.
Huh?
Barely any distance in, and the wheel began splitting apart.
Dammit, already breaking down?
From far off, my friends turned to look back at me.
I gave them a wave and beat a hasty retreat. Beyond that, it was all yours, guys. I haven't got a clue either.
"Professor, how on earth did people start heating their homes this modernly four to five thousand years ago?"
"Hmm..."
"There's hardly anything to improve on, is there?"
"Mmm..."
"Professor?"
"I don't know, dammit!"
The artifacts of this country were preserved so absurdly well...
No matter how he looked at them, there was absolutely no trace of forgery or fraud.
While examining yet another Daehan artifact today, Dr. Hamilton ended up snapping at his assistant.
'Honestly, I ought to just tell this whole mess to go to hell and quit.'
Two items were under his charge today: the ondol and the cart.
'And this blasted cart is a problem in its own right.'
The cause of his furrowed brow sat on display right before his eyes: a wheel.
A spoked wheel—still in use in the modern era.
And it was preserved so flawlessly that it was a problem in itself.
"Um, Professor? What on earth is this?"
"Can't you see? It's a wheel."
"Wouldn't a wheel from this period normally be a solid slice of log?"
"Correct."
"Then how did they build it so precisely? Could they have had the concept of mathematics?"
Unlike comparable artifacts from around the world, which were crudely approximated, this one was exactly standardized.
That was precisely the problem. It meant these people had a concept of exact design specifications and measurements.
Prehistoric humans with no written language, understanding mathematics?
"Haah..."
The doctor let out another sigh.
As a child, he'd discovered the joy of uncovering history through museum artifacts. Now, as a grown man, he wanted to strangle the younger version of himself who had set foot in a history department.
"I-I'm so sorry!"
The innocent assistant was already scurrying away, sensing he was about to be on the receiving end of things this time.
And the culprit behind this entire affair, Haneul, was at that very moment lounging at home, munching on snacks and watching TV.
Well, she probably had her own defense to make, of course.
"Come on. How was I supposed to know it would turn out like this? And you have no idea how hard it was just to survive back then!"