Wheels and Charcoal
The village was growing bigger by the day.
Bigger — genuinely, absurdly bigger.
From what I understood, gathering lots of people required plenty of food, but all our village had was potatoes. Nothing but potatoes, as far as the eye could see.
"What gives? Potatoes shouldn't be that calorie-dense."
Yet these people were thriving on a potato-only diet.
Were they secretly eating something else behind my back?
Or maybe these were super-potatoes, better than anything I knew?
Come to think of it, the potatoes here were definitely not normal.
"Since when do potatoes sprout in winter?"
This thing. It grew just fine even in the cold.
Slowly, sure, but it was unmistakably growing.
"Shouldn't they freeze to death once it gets cold and stop growing altogether?"
Asking a potato for answers was never going to work.
It's not like they had mouths...
Still, having more people around was nice.
You could say jobs had appeared in the village — everyone now had their own designated work.
Farming, hunting, gathering, sewing — labor was divided up, and each person specialized in their own task.
And among them, one crafting workshop.
Here, all sorts of tools were made.
The first of them: the wheel.
Not the log wheels I'd made for them long ago — a real wheel.
"Whoa? Buddy, do you actually know how to make this?"
"Hm?"
"You know how to lay out a wheel's spokes?"
"Huh? No idea. I just do it."
Looking closer, he'd hollowed out the center of a log to make a frame, and was fitting the spokes in roughly by eye.
"Ah~ that's not how you do it."
I taught my friend the regular-hexagon construction method from elementary school textbooks.
It was so easy the kids would remember it for sure.
"Do it like this, and all six points come out exactly right!"
A perfect hexagon that appeared when you drew three circles side by side.
"OHHH!!!! AMAZING!!!!"
Apparently it wasn't even heavy for him — my friend rolled logs this way and that, drawing as he went, marveling at it all.
He was flabbergasted by the whole thing.
Watching him lug those logs around, I figured I might as well teach him one more trick.
"Hey, buddy, got any string?"
"String?"
"Something small, like a thin cord."
"This?"
Whoa. That looked about as thick as two of my fingers?
Wasn't there anything thinner?
It was a decent length, though — guess I'd have to pluck out some hair.
「POP」
GAH!
What was that sound? Ow, ow, ow...
Without thinking, I'd yanked a single strand of hair, and it felt like my whole scalp was coming off with it.
Whoa? What is this? It was just one strand?
I would have to handle my own hair with care from now on.
No wonder I'd never seen a single fallen hair on the floor of my house.
"Now hold it like this, and drawing is easy, right?"
Holding back my tears, I taught my friend the primitive compass.
And how to use a stick as one, too.
My friend was a quick learner.
"Gah! Incredible. To think it's this simple."
"Yup. Work hard."
"Also — you can bend wood by boiling it in water. Try that when you make wheels."
When they worked wood, I'd seen them bend it with steam, though I didn't really know the precise science behind it.
That one's on you, buddy — figure the tech out yourself.
"How does that work, exactly?"
"Beats me. I've just seen it done. Find a method that works."
"Got it! I'll try!"
"Oh! Then this is a gift."
A good gift had just come to mind, so I handed over the stone pot I'd carved back when we were making salt.
It worked great for boiling water.
"Oh, thanks."
"Keep it up."
"Will do. Working hard."
Then I found myself wondering about the world around me.
We had no maps, so I figured that if I looked down from high up in the sky, I might spot resource-rich areas or something useful.
I didn't think I'd die even in space, so I decided to climb endlessly toward the sky.
Only as far as I could still see the trees, though — losing my house would be a disaster.
"Whoa... the trees really are huge?"
No lie, it felt like I'd climbed almost all the way to space.
The shape of the land looked no different from the modern era, which meant the ice age must have fully ended.
A peninsula on the right, an island nation beyond it, and a vast expanse of land to the left and above.
The place I'd descended to was the coastline of the Manchurian Plains.
"Isn't this the land from the Dangun myth?"
Wasn't that a little exciting?
The Dangun myth, of all things. I could witness the age of myths itself.
"Or maybe not? Maybe they're just plain primitives?"
Harboring a small hope, I returned to the ground.
From today on, I'd watch carefully. Who knew — Dangun himself might be among them?
By now, the weather had become undeniably winter.
A wind that gnawed at the flesh, and thin sheets of ice glinting here and there.
Me, of course? I just went "brr, chilly," and wandered around barefoot in a dress.
If I dove into lava I'd probably go, "Ahh~ how refreshing."
The blacksmith workshop, quiet for a while, was noisy again.
Akta came back looking like a beggar, hauling a full load of baggage — who knew where he'd been and what he'd been doing.
He seemed to have his own sorting system, dividing the rocks by type and stoking a huge fire.
But shouldn't he be using charcoal or something for that?
"Hi, Akta."
"Hey. Hi, Haneul."
"By the way, aren't you going to use charcoal?"
Shouldn't you be burning charcoal or coal for this?
"What's charcoal?"
"It can make the fire hotter!"
"Where do you get it?"
"I've never made it myself, but... want to try?"
I vaguely remembered seeing something about piling up wood, setting it alight, then cutting off the air supply.
"Let's gather some wood first."
"Got it."
We gathered dry wood and stacked it up to about my height.
"And then we have to block the air."
"Let's use mud!"
"Great idea!"
We had ourselves a clay-crafting session. Slap, slap, smear it on nice and thorough — and the firewood pile turned into a mound of earth.
"Now light the fire!"
"Okay."
He lit it through a small hole at the bottom, and then...
Poof. Out it went.
"Huh?"
"What's wrong with it?"
"Yeah, why'd the fire go out?"
"Fires die without air."
Oh! Right. You're supposed to cut off the air after the wood is burning!
I remembered the theory, but trial and error kept sneaking up on me anyway.
That's the difference between knowledge sitting in your head and the real thing.
"Let's poke a few more holes, get the fire going, and then seal it."
"Got it."
I flinched, wondering if all this effort had been for nothing — a failure from the start.
We drilled a few more holes, lit the fire, then opened one at the top as well.
If flames came out of that, I figured the whole thing must be burning through.
The bone-dry wood caught quickly, and soon flames were leaping from the very top.
"Now let's seal it!"
Grabbing handfuls of earth, we busily plugged every crack where smoke leaked out.
Please, please turn out right.
"So this makes charcoal?"
"Probably?"
"You don't actually know?"
"Nope. I've never done it either. This is my first time. Hahaha!"
"Bwahahaha!"
Everything was fun, wasn't it? It felt like playing house.
"Let's open it tomorrow."
"Okay."
"So where did you get those rocks?"
"The mountains. Lots of them there."
Ah, so that's why we never saw them in the village — he'd been combing the mountains. Poor guy, working so hard.
Manchuria should be rich in iron, but with its high melting point, that would be an ordeal too.
The next day, we went to check on the charcoal.
A nerve-wracking moment. What if there was nothing but ash inside?
"Alright, let's open it."
Carefully, we peeled away the hardened crust of earth.
Ah! Thank goodness.
A whole heap of jet-black charcoal lay piled inside.
"So this is charchoal?"
"Yup. Burn this and it gets even hotter."
"Then we could try melting rocks that don't melt."
"Yeah — be careful with it, though."
And before that winter was out, the place truly became a blacksmith's workshop.
Akta was hammering away at a red-hot lump.
Sure, he used wooden tongs and swung a stone hammer over a stone slab — but there was no mistaking it. That was a blacksmith.
"Wait, where'd the Bronze Age go?"
Wasn't bronze supposed to come after the Stone Age?
"Ah! Maybe there's not much copper around here?"
I knew Manchuria was rich in iron, but copper — fuzzy on that one.
It couldn't be absent entirely, but maybe there just wasn't much?
Guess I'd have to let it slide.
「Pound. Pound. Pound.」
Akta truly hammered from morning to night.
Stone shatters after shatter — he'd broken countless stone hammers.
Akta's assistants scrambled busily too. With the hammers breaking so often, they had to keep running off to gather more rocks.
"Blacksmithing really is grueling work, huh..."
The hammering never stopped. And the lump, sadly, kept shrinking.
It was probably bloomery iron — sponge iron — with the impurities being knocked loose, blow by blow.
What remained at the end was a small lump about the length of one finger.
"Whew. Whew."
"You've worked so hard, Akta."
Who knew how much he'd sweated — the stuff was streaming down him in rivulets.
I gave him water and potatoes, and he devoured and gulped them down in a daze, looking utterly spent.
"What's that for?"
"No idea. It's so hard."
「Clang. Clang.」
He rapped it with his hammer, and it looked incredibly hard.
"Grind that down into a sharp edge and use it as a knife."
"A knife?"
"Yup. Wait and see."
Since Akta looked exhausted, I sprinkled a little water onto the flat stone they used as a grinding slab and rubbed the shard of iron against it myself.
It was so hard that after a long, long grind the stone had worn into a hollow before the metal finally showed the faintest edge.
"See? Like this — it'll cut wood and leather easily. This is what a knife is."
"Oh? Making weapons too would be great."
"Weapons? Hmm, yeah, weapons do get plenty of use."
"Gotta gather more people and collect more rocks, then."
The friends being dragged off by Akta were about to become mining slaves...
"Oh, right — also look for coal."
"Coal?"
"Yeah!"
Holding up a piece of charcoal next to a rock, I explained.
"There are black rocks out there, like this charcoal."
"Black rocks?"
"Yeah. Rocks that burn when you set fire to them."
"Black rocks that burn. Got it."
While you're out hunting for ore, grab that too — it's useful in all sorts of ways.
With coal around, heating homes would get much easier, right?
Though carbon monoxide worries me a bit...
But with how their houses are built now, it should be fine?
"Yeah. Gather lots of everything. What you're doing, Akta, is important work."
"Important?"
"Yup. The most important work in this whole village."
"Understood."
Somehow he took it in — though Akta was making a terrifyingly serious face.
He did understand, right?
I was thinking of things like axes and hoes...
He'll figure it out. Probably...
That winter, our village spent the season warm and well-fed.
Those potatoes were insane. Growing even in winter, of all things?
.
.
.
Before I knew it, winter had passed and spring was in the air.
Warm breezes were blowing, and flowers were blooming.
"Ahh~ so warm. Lovely."
"I like it too."
Today I was out enjoying the spring breeze with Agna.
Her belly had swelled to the size of a small mountain — the baby would be here any day now.
May this spring be full of good things.
Akta, who had roamed in every direction all winter, had apparently found coal and iron ore.
Trouble was, the deposits lay in another tribe's territory.
After mulling it over with Garungda for a while, they decided to trade with the other village.
From upstream, primitives in strange clothing would drift down on rafts loaded with coal, hand the whole lot over, collect baskets of fish or potatoes, and head back home.
Yes! That's it! When you have surplus goods, that's exactly how you trade them!
They were remarkably clever, honestly.
Although — those potatoes and fish never seemed to run out, did they?
And so, on a certain spring day when the warm wind was blowing,
people came flocking to Garungda's house.
"Waaah. Waaah."
Because Agna, who had been in labor all day long, had given birth.
And to twins, no less — one boy and one girl.
People crowded in to see the babies. Naturally, not a single one of them had washed today either.
"You have to be clean when you touch a baby! Everyone, go wash up first!"
They went and gave their hands and feet a cursory splash.
Well, it's something, I guess.
Good grief...
The babies were wrapped in the soft cloth I had given them.
Newborn as they were, they looked like wrinkly little aliens.
I felt too nervous to touch them, just in case.
"Haneul? You can touch them."
Had I been hesitating that obviously?
"Garungda, Agna — sorry, I don't have a gift."
Apparently people gave gifts when a baby was born.
Everyone had brought one, big or small — and I alone had come empty-handed.
"It would be wonderful if you named them."
"Me? Are you sure?"
"It's the finest gift of all."
The village's top influencer, indeed — my giving names alone counted as a gift.
Still, it was hard. Names, of all things.
Bestowing a name carries real weight, doesn't it?
...
...
"Let's call the girl Bomi."
"Bomi?"
"Yeah. This warm season we have right now — we call it spring."
"I love it."
It was a name wishing that she'd grow up loved, like spring itself. The parents seemed delighted too.
"And the boy — Cheol."
"Cheol?"
"Yeah. You know the metal Akta makes?"
"I do. The hard stuff."
"That's called iron."
May he grow hard and strong like iron. I hoped he'd follow in his father's footsteps and become a pillar of the village.
May the two children of spring never fall ill.
May they grow up healthy and strong — I prayed for it with all my heart.